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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview With Michael Weisskopf

Aired June 16, 2002 - 08:01   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.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now, to our top story -- fascinating and frightening -- details on an alleged terrorist plot against the U.S. has come to light in an exclusive "TIME" magazine report. It involves Jose Padilla, the man accused of plotting to build and blow up a dirty bomb in the U.S.

Michael Weisskopf is a senior correspondent for "TIME", he joins us from Washington with this is new information.

Good morning, Michael. I'm interviewing you a lot on these exclusive stories.

MICHAEL WEISSKOPF, SENIOR TIME MAGAZINE CORRESPONDENT: Let's have more of them.

PHILLIPS: Absolutely. I know that mentality. All right, let's talk about this proposal that Jose Padilla presented to Abu Zubaydah.

WEISSKOPF: It was about six months after the 9/11 attacks, in March of this year, and Padilla had found himself in Pakistan, after a great deal of Islamic training, and started scanning Web sites, looking for ways of proving himself to the al Qaeda leadership. And stumbled upon an Internet site on the construction, how to build and how to detonate a nuclear weapon. One official we've talked to, and this all -- this comes from three different U.S. officials, says it was an H-bomb.

He brought the information to a man by the name of Abu Zubaydah, who is now in U.S. custody. He was a -- the operations chief for bin Laden, and a very, very important aide. And he presented the idea to Zubaydah and said that we would like to build and detonate this nuclear weapon in the United States. Zubaydah, looking at his earnest recruit, we believe decided to tell him to just think of something smaller, a little bit less ambitious, and he came up with the idea of the dirty -- of a dirty bomb, which is, of course, a conventional device with much less payload than a nuclear device. And it is a conventional, like the TNT, and releases radioactive materials along with it.

PHILLIPS: So, Michael, this shows two -- I don't mean to cut you off, but I definitely want to delve into why we're looking at this. Number one, it's proving that the core group is still around, al Qaeda's still around -- correct? WEISSKOPF: Yes, and even more importantly, that this is an example of how an attack can come from just about anyone at any time. Instead of a disciplined Middle Easterner with a tremendous background in Islamic studies, for instance, and history, here you have a guy from the streets of Chicago who decides he's going to -- first become Islamic, and then he's going to become an al Qaeda fighter. So, this kind of -- the point we are trying to make here is how this sort of expands our imagination and as to what kind of risks we face.

PHILLIPS: And also taking a look at the exchange between these two, the proposal and Abu Zubadydah saying, "Think smaller" ...

WEISSKOPF: That's right.

PHILLIPS: ... you have to kind of laugh in a way too, but anyway, this really shows how unsophisticated these operatives are -- correct?

WEISSKOPF: It certainly does, and to some extent that's reassuring. To the an extent that he had taken a much bigger project than he expected, it shows his level of naivete. At the same time, it shows that even an unsophisticated man can wreak havoc.

PHILLIPS: Less sophisticated though, does that mean less lethal?

WEISSKOPF: No, certainly not. Anyone can strap a device on themselves or detonate something like a dirty bomb. Certainly producing an H-bomb takes a great deal more scientific background.

PHILLIPS: What did you find out just about the communication and the money? I understand that you learned a lot about that also in talking about al Qaeda.

WEISSKOPF: In terms of how much money he received -- all we know really is what the FBI is saying, that he received about $10,000, and traveled around Europe and the Middle East before landing in the United States. And communications were pretty sketchy also -- we don't know as much about it.

PHILLIPS: Michael, when it comes down to it, Padilla could not have pulled this off?

WEISSKOPF: That's right, no question. However, it's interesting that even at the levels he was talking that they'd be discussing something like a nuclear device. But certainly this was a guy, not only was he unable to pull it off, but he was looking at a Web site which was not considered to be credible, as a U.S. official put it.

PHILLIPS: Michael Weisskopf, I'm sure I'll be talking to you again, always breaking a story, "TIME" magazine, you don't want to miss this piece. Michael, thanks so much.

WEISSKOPF: Pleasure.

PHILLIPS: Well, we want to turn now to our CNN law enforcement analyst Mike Brooks to talk a little more in depth about this. First of all, H-bomb, pretty, pretty crazy. MIKE BROOKS, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: No way, no way that someone like Padilla is going to make a hydrogen bomb, there's -- there's no way that that's going to happen.

PHILLIPS: Is it just because of intelligence, of resources?

BROOKS: Resources, getting the material to make a bomb that would have that much in nuclear yield. It was -- it's very difficult. There, you know, you talk about Iran, Iraq having the capability of doing this, and we're talking about Jose Padilla, a common street thug from Chicago? I don't think so.

PHILLIPS: Dirty bomb?

BROOKS: Dirty bomb, possibly. If you look at a dirty bomb, first of all -- what is a dirty bomb? It's a radiological disperser device. And what does that mean? That means that it's a bomb that someone can make, that if it goes off, even with nuclear material, or I just want to say radiological waste, let's say cesium that's used in medical X-ray equipment -- if it was strapped to that bomb, and it went off, more people would be killed by the bomb itself, more people would be killed by the explosion -- killed and injured.

Now, it depends how fine of material they were able to grind it down and to mill that nuclear waste. Then you may have some problems. But the bigger problem is going to be the clean-up. Let's say someone had -- there was a dirty bomb on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, for instance. Would it have caused any more deaths, injuries? Probably not, but it would have taken the clean-up a lot longer. The nuclear radiological material sticks to asphalt, concrete, and it can get into the soil, so we're talking more of a problem with clean-up.

Now, if it was fine, then we'd be talking about a little more down range, as we call it, problems -- but, for the most part, more people would be killed by the bomb.

But Jose Padilla -- he's a common street thug from Chicago who got into Islam, gloomed onto Islam, because he apparently didn't have anything else in his life, if you look at his history, looked at Abu Zubaydah as the Obi-wan Kanobi, went to him and he basically said ...

PHILLIPS: He had big dreams.

BROOKS: ... big dreams -- he basically said, instead of snatching the stone out of my hand, he said, "Hey, go back and just see what you can find." It was more or less like they would kind of dismissing him -- go back and do a survey. He gets back, he gets back to -- he gets back to the United States, and he gets snatched up by law enforcement.

So, he's not very sophisticated. But we -- then again, we look at some of the people who are involved in 9/11, they weren't very sophisticated either. Some of the ones that went to the flight schools ...

PHILLIPS: Sure, there's gaps in our -- in the United States.

BROOKS: Right, and they go back and they talk to some of the flight instructors and they said, "How are these people ...," you know, they were buffoons basically, and they weren't very good flyers either.

PHILLIPS: All right. So, the good news here is that it shows how unsophisticated -- like I addressed with Michael -- how unsophisticated this network is, the -- and so, what else, what else does it tell us? -- I mean, is there anymore good news in this, I guess I should say.

BROOKS: Well, the good news is, I think it shows a good, we just talked about yesterday, about the working relationship between the FBI and the CIA.

PHILLIPS: Sure, homeland security coming up.

BROOKS: Exactly. This I think was a great job by the FBI. The followed him, they knew, they picked him up over seas, they followed him back. It was a tough decision by Director Mueller to say, "Should we follow him a little bit longer to see if we do get some more people that he's associated with?" I think it would have taken you right back to some of his street thug buddies and some other -- maybe some other converts to Islam, but they didn't want to loose him, so they went ahead and picked him up, which I think was the right thing.

PHILLIPS: Did we have any indication this whole scenario, on how active al Qaeda is? I mean, does this prove anything, it is very active, trying to be active -- there's a few thugs here and there that are kind of trying to keep it alive?

BROOKS: I think it shows that al Qaeda is actively recruiting in the United States.

PHILLIPS: Still.

BROOKS: Right. You got to some of these (UNINTELLIGIBLE) in Sunrise, Florida, for instance, where Padilla was going, and they can -- they know who the weak people are. They know who the weak ones are. They are looking for some direction in their life. They take them, kind of mold them, shape them, form them, and then send them off to hopefully do some evil against the United States.

We looked at Padilla; when he got to Egypt, he didn't like the structure, he didn't like the structure of Islam, and that goes right back to his old days of not liking authority. He didn't like the structure, the authority, the way that Islam actually does and goes by the Koran. So he tried to look for another way to go, and they said, well, maybe you can go toward the radical side, you know, that is a little less structured. So they pushed him in that way, and he still didn't do very well.

PHILLIPS: Mike Brooks, thank you very much.

BROOKS: Thank you, Kyra. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com