Weblog
10/29/01 11:28 PM: bin Laden Nukes?
Bush: fear of bin Laden nukes
By RICHARD SALE, UPI Terrorism Correspondent
The Bush administration is concerned that the al Qaida network of accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden might try to use a small nuclear weapon in a super-spectacular strike to decapitate the U.S. political leadership, according to a half dozen serving and former U.S. government and intelligence officials.
“They believe it’s a real possibility,” said one former senior U.S. government official, adding that secret plans for protecting the U.S. president and his successors in the event of a nuclear attack were in place.
The Bush administration believes that bin Laden—the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks—may be in possession of one or more small, portable nuclear weapons, according to one former senior U.S. intelligence official. Other experts agree that the danger is real. “We’re not at all discounting that possibility,” agreed Rose Gottemoeller, senior associate and Russian weapons expert at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
