To: Bilow who wrote (20662 ) 11/25/2001 5:41:32 PM From: KLP Respond to Bin Laden’s Nuclear Ambitions—And Fears“I think we have to take the nuclear threat seriously.” His inspectors are on what he calls “Level One” alert. Within the last month, they got a tip that a sea container was headed into a U.S. port carrying weapons of mass destruction. Inspectors descended on the container, Geiger counters at the ready, but came up empty. They are, however, worried that Al Qaeda operatives could build a “dirty bomb,” in which they would try to contaminate a wide area by blowing up a cache of chemical, biological or even nuclear materials with conventional explosives, spreading radioactive fallout, germs or nerve gas to the four winds. During the 1990s, quantities of “weapons usable” nuclear materials sufficient to irradiate a significant area (but too small to make a bomb) were seized from would-be smugglers in Russia and other European countries including Germany, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, U.S. intelligence officials say. Among the materials targeted by smugglers are various grades of uranium, including bomb-grade material, and small quantities of deadly plutonium. German intelligence officials have told the United States that right before September 11, bin Laden ordered 200 gas masks and another 200 spacesuits designed to protect against attacks with chemical or biological weapons. The suits were supposedly delivered to bin Laden by one of his sons-in-law about a week before the 11th at a hideout near Milava, Afghanistan.
