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CNN Saturday Morning News
Pakistani Newspaper Reports bin Laden Possesses Nuclear Weapons
Aired November 10, 2001 - 07:07 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.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN ANCHOR: An interesting development overnight coming to us from Islamabad, Pakistan. A Pakistani journalist says that he has gotten the first interview with Osama bin Laden since the September 11 attacks.
Two different versions of that interview were published this morning, one in the English-language newspaper "Dawn," the other in a local Urdu-language paper, and they contain some important differences. You see, in the English version, bin Laden says that if the U.S. uses chemical or nuclear weapons against him, he will respond in kind, and says he possesses chemical and nuclear weapons as a, quote, "deterrent," unquote.
But the Urdu version eliminates any reference to bin Laden's claim of nuclear and chemical capability.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to bring in -- or for more perspective, rather, on Osama bin Laden and the man who conducted the interview, we go now to CNN terrorism analyst Peter Bergen. He joins us live on the phone from New York.
Good morning, Peter.
PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Good morning, how are you?
PHILLIPS: Good, good. I'm glad you joined us this morning.
First of all, your overall reaction to this statement.
BERGEN: Well, let me say that, you know, that the fact there was a conflict between the English version of this and the Urdu version of this does raise a lot of questions about the veracity of the claim that he has nuclear and chemical weapons. I'm not saying that he doesn't, it just -- it seems like a rather muddy situation here.
Let me review for you briefly the -- what bin Laden has said in the past about nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. In -- he has said it is basically not a crime for Muslims to try and acquire these weapons. When India exploded a few nuclear devices in early 1998, bin Laden released a letter saying that Pakistan and Muslims in general should try and acquire nuclear weapons to kind of, you know, to even the battlefield. So he has made a number of claims, saying that Muslims and his organization, it's not a crime for them to try and acquire these things. We also know that they have made efforts to acquire bomb- grade uranium in Sudan in 1993. They also experimented, in kind of an amateur way, with chemical weapons in -- as recently as two or three years ago, injecting cyanide into dogs.
So this group has sought to acquire nuclear material, it has also experimented in an amateur way with chemical weapons. It's not clear about any biological capability.
However, and this is a big however, this conflict between the English version and the Urdu version does call into question the veracity of the alleged statements that he has acquired these things definitively.
PHILLIPS: So you're saying we should be very careful on how we interpret this and report this.
BERGEN: I think so. Although it, you know, it -- he has indeed said, he has the money and the motivation, to acquire these weapons, and they have made efforts to acquire them, and they have even experimented with chemical weapons. Nonetheless, I'm a little leery of giving this, you know, 100 percent credibility because of the conflict between the English-language version and the Urdu-language version, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: And you interviewed him before in the past, Peter. Has he ever made threats like this before?
BERGEN: Well, just to be accurate, I was a producer of CNN's -- the first television interview with him in 1997. He didn't make any kind of references at that time to the nuclear or chemical or biological aspect of the story. That was in 1997.
It was in 1998 that he first began calling for nuclear capabilities, and it was in subsequent interviews that he said that it's not a crime for Muslims to try and acquire these weapons as an effort to kind of even the battlefield, if you will, Kyra.
PHILLIPS: Peter Bergen, our expert on terrorism. Thanks so much for sorting that out for us this morning. I'm sure we'll talk to you again later in the day. Thanks, Peter.
BERGEN: Thank you.
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