Rep: Weldon: 'Dirty Nuke' Already Inside
U.S., Experts Assume

April 23, 2002

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., said Tuesday he believes that Osama bin Laden not only has the capacity to produce a "dirty nuke" radiation bomb, but that national security experts are operating on the assumption that he's already smuggled one inside the U.S.

"We are taking every possible precaution, both from the intelligence standpoint and the physical protection standpoint," Weldon told Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes."

"The question is: is it here? I don't know that answer," said Weldon, who serves as Military Procurement Subcommittee Chairman and sits on the House Armed Services Committee.

"But I think we have to assume it's here because we have to take every possible precaution to try to find it and locate where it would be so we can defuse it," he added.

Weldon's warning was prompted by reports that captured al-Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubaydah, who was chief of operations for bin Laden’s terror network, has told probers that bin Laden had developed a radiation bomb with an eye towards smuggling it into the U.S.

Weldon said the U.S. doesn't have enough radiation detection equipment to monitor every possible point of entry for a smuggled al-Qaeda dirty nuke.

http://www.newsmax.com/showinsidecover.shtml?a=2002/4/23/211518