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American Morning

Gas Could Be Used as Weapon of Mass Disruption

Aired August 19, 2002 - 07:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: What we have seen of the al Qaeda terror tapes this morning suggests strongly that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were testing deadly gas. But what are the wider implications?

CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen has also seen the tapes. He's with us now to talk about what he thinks they mean.

Good morning, Peter.

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Good morning, Paula.

ZAHN: We talked a little bit with Nic in the last half hour about this being the first real direct evidence about the level of sophistication of al Qaeda when it comes to experimentation with what we believe were gases potentially. What struck you about these tapes?

BERGEN: Well, a few things struck me. First of all, I mean this is, will be the first, you know, it's really the first direct evidence of them experimenting with these kinds of agents. I mean we've heard, there's been documents that have referred to these things that have been discovered since the fall of the Taliban. U.S. officials have said that they were experimenting with these kinds of materials. But I mean here we've got visual evidence of the fact.

It's not clear what the agent was exactly, but it's clearly not good for your health.

The second thing that struck me about watching these tapes, we had heard from the testimony of Ahmed Ressam, who is linked to al Qaeda, a terrorist who testified last year, that this group had experimented with cyanide. And in February of this year, a group of Moroccans were arrested in Rome with a cyanide like compound planning, it looked like, to introduce the cyanide like compound into the water supply of the U.S. Embassy in Rome.

So not only was there actual experimentation with these kinds of compounds, it seems that al Qaeda was actually trying to put this into practice.

ZAHN: Let's talk about what else they'd have to be capable of doing to so-called weaponize these agents. What do the tapes reveal about their level of sophistication about using some sort of delivery system to sicken a whole lot of people or kill a whole lot of people? BERGEN: You know, it's one thing to experiment with these kinds of agents. It's quite another thing to turn them into an effective weapon. Aum Shinrikyo, which was a Japanese terrorist group, in 1995 introduced sarin gas into the Tokyo subway, killing five people. They had a very sophisticated chemical weapons program.

Even if you develop these kinds of things, it's quite another thing to actually turn it into a weapon that would kill a lot of people. But we saw with the anthrax attacks last year, which only killed five people, after all, that a relatively small number of deaths from these kinds of agents cause a large amount of disruption. I mean they're not weapons of mass destruction, they're weapons of mass disruption, in a sense.

So if, indeed, al Qaeda was able to introduce chemical weapons, let's say, into this country, although it would be unlikely that they would kill very many people, probably very few people, it would cause, obviously, a huge amount of panic. So that's really why these weapons are a worry.

ZAHN: To put this in perspective, we should make it clear that it is believed that this library housed some 251 tapes. Nic Robertson obtained 64 of them. I know you've seen a lot of the tape. What else have you learned? You're a guy that's been studying this stuff around the clock for many, many years now. What else did you learn?

BERGEN: Well, the thing that struck me about watching a lot of these tapes is I'd seen other videotapes that they'd made which were really for propaganda purposes, kind of recruiting people, showing how great we are, etc. These groups, these tapes are really how to tapes, how to build bombs, how to launch SAM 7 rockets, how to look -- create ambushes, how to kidnap people, these kinds of things.

So they're really, they're kind of Terrorism 101, as it were, tapes, instructional tapes. That was really the thing that struck me. The worrisome fact is that a lot of people probably have seen these tapes and will maybe put some of the things they've learned into practice.

ZAHN: So how should the average American react to this information? Does it, based on what you've seen on these tapes, indicate that they're even a greater threat than was believed previously?

BERGEN: I mean I think they're, you know, al Qaeda obviously represented a big threat, you know, anyway, with or without these tapes. I think these tapes are further reinforcement that al Qaeda really had -- the reason al Qaeda is a big threat is not that they are anti-American or all the obvious things that we can say about them. It's that they actually trained a lot of people and they trained them in quite a sophisticated way. And I think these tapes are a further demonstration of that fact.

You know, people that can manufacture their own high tech explosives, that represents a real threat. It's one thing to dislike the United States. It's quite another to have learned how to manufacture your own explosives.

So I think that's why these tapes are worrisome.

ZAHN: Well, we'll be relying on your expertise in the days to come, as Nic Robertson continues his series throughout the week.

Peter Bergen, nice to see you in person for a change.

BERGEN: Thank you, Paula.

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