Pew International Journalism Program

Osama bin Laden 'Experimenting' with Chemical Weapons and Nuclear Waste, Biographer Says

WASHINGTON, September 20, 2001 - Osama bin Laden may have several "surprises up his sleeve," including the use of "terror weapons" made with cyanide gas or uranium waste, a leading expert on the suspected terrorist leader told the Pew Fellows in International Journalism today.

Peter Bergen, author of "Holy War, Inc.," a forthcoming book on bin Laden, said the exiled Saudi dissident whom U.S. authorities suspect as the mastermind of last week's terrorist attacks has been trying to fashion weapons made from chemical or nuclear materials.

"He has been experimenting, in a kind of amateurish way, with chemical weapons," Bergen, a CNN consultant on terrorism who interviewed bin Laden in 1997 and has reported extensively on Islamic jihad groups, said at a seminar for Pew Fellows at The Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS)

"Bin Laden has been experimenting with cyanide, cyanide gas. He's also made efforts to buy uranium," Bergen said, most likely low-grade fissile material from former Soviet nuclear reactors. "None of these things, I think, are yet serious weapons. They are 'terror weapons,' [that] you could imagine him putting in water supplies in America."

Bergen, a former Pew Journalist in Residence at SAIS whose book is scheduled for November publication, said another "surprise" bin Laden has is a supply of Stinger anti-aircraft weapons to use against possible U.S. retaliation against bin Laden's base in Afghanistan.

"Bin Laden certainly has some of them, from my own research," Bergen said of the U.S.-made Stingers shoulder-fired missiles that were originally used by Afghan mujahideen soldiers fighting against Russian troops.

Also speaking at the seminar was Stephen Glain, the current Pew Journalist in Residence, who spent the last three years as Amman bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal and is writing a book about the economic decline in the Arab world. Glain described much of the Arab world as in a "pre-revolutionary state" after years of economic stagnation.

"When you see the degree of hopelessness and despair that pervade in the region, it is not surprising that a lot of these emotions are expressed with violence," Glain said, noting that virtually all economic indicators for the Arab world have worsened in the past decade.

Bergen said there "was an indication this summer" that bin Laden was planning an imminent attack against the United States. A videotape of bin Laden circulated throughout the Middle East, a copy of which Bergen obtained in Washington, that showed the Saudi exile claiming credit for previous attacks against U.S. targets and hinting at new ones.

"But everyone was looking the other way," Bergen said, citing U.S. security alerts that were issued in Yemen and New Delhi rather than inside U.S. borders.

Bergen said the U.S. failure to anticipate the attack on New York and Washington - which he said was likely many years in preparation - amounted to " the most catastrophic failure of intelligence in U.S. history." He said he was "outraged that no one is taking any responsibility" for the intelligence failure.

According to Bergen, bin Laden has built an organization of participants from several countries who have "incredible levels of discipline," including people for whom a suicide attack is regarded as an "act of worship." Even if bin Laden is eliminated, Bergen said, "there are people in his organization who are far more virulently anti-American than he is."

Bergen said bin Laden's hatred of the U.S. began during the Gulf War when U.S. troops entered Saudi Arabia, an act bin Laden viewed as sacrilegious. In the past decade, bin Laden's "set of political demands" have included a cessation of U.S. support for Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and the end of U.S. bombing missions against Iraq.