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CNN Live Sunday

Could Terrorists Pose a Biochemical Threat?

Aired September 23, 2001 - 18:41   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.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Could Osama bin Laden and his followers actually pull off some type of chemical or biological warfare on U.S. soil? According to the latest CNN/"USA TODAY"/Gallup Poll, three-quarters of the American population believe there won't be any more attacks on American terrain.

Joining me now is Peter Bergen, CNN's Terrorism Analyst. I take it you're not one of those three-quarters. You think that Osama bin Laden and his supporters probably could pull off some more terrorist attacks in the United States.

PETER BERGEN, CNN TERRORISM ANALYST: Well, let me say on the chemical and biological weapons thing, Wolf, we know that the group has experimented with cyanide gas, injecting cyanide into dogs, gassing dogs, only they've kind of experimented in a kind of low-tech, amateur way with these agents. So -- and bin Laden himself is on the records saying that he's prepared to use these, and people should acquire these to attack America.

On the other hand, it's actually very hard to weaponize these things. It's one thing to acquire a chemical or biological agent, it's quite another thing to turn into an effective weapon. So I doubt that they're at a stage when they can do that yet.

BLITZER: So why do you think, if these reports are true, and we've confirmed them, Mohammed Atta, one of these hijackers killed in the crash, why do you think they were experimenting with crop dusting equipment and having manuals on crop dusting equipment? What possibly, other than perhaps chemical or biological warfare, could they be interested in?

BERGEN: Well certainly, the -- if you were going to, let's say, attack an American city with some kind of agent, using a crop dusting plane would be the way to do it. That's the kind of conventional wisdom. I do think that no one's tried it. It probably wouldn't necessarily work, because the level of technical expertise is pretty high. So certainly, they -- it's part of a pattern of looking into these things rather than necessarily being able to implement them, I think.

BLITZER: And I know that U.S. law enforcement sources that I've spoken to are taking these reports very, very seriously. What do you know about Osama bin Laden and his plans for a crude nuclear device, if you will? BERGEN: We know that in the mid-90s the group tried to purchase Uranium, missile material, in fact, was prepared to pay $1.5 million for a shipment of Uranium. It's not clear if that ever happened, it looks like it didn't happen. But bin Laden himself has said, we should acquire a nuclear weapon. Afghanistan is in an area where there's some Uranium floating around from the former Soviet Union.

Again, it's one thing to get some Uranium. It's quite another to turn it into an effective weapon. But I do think you could use it as a weapon, really, to terrorize, rather than to kill. If, for instance, a group of Americans were deployed somewhere near Afghanistan, and some low-level nuclear waste was put in the water supply, that's the kind of thing you could anticipate much more likely than a real weapon.

BLITZER: Peter Bergen, our CNN terrorism expert, writing a book on Osama bin Laden. You're just crashing to get it done, I know you are. You'd better get back to work.

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