We had my diary
Nuclear Destruction of Washington and New York.
We had yesterday's diary Al Qaeda Claims to Have Nukes.
We have today's fright wig on Drudge FORMER HEAD OF CIA'S OSAMA BIN LADEN UNIT SAYS THE QAEDA LEADER HAS SECURED RELIGIOUS APPROVAL TO USE A NUCLEAR BOMB AGAINST AMERICANS.
More . . .
Drudge's story today says in part:
"Osama bin Laden now has religious approval to use a nuclear device against Americans, says the former head of the CIA unit charged with tracking down the Saudi terrorist. The former agent, Michael Scheuer, speaks to Steve Kroft in his first television interview without disguise to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Nov. 14 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.
Scheuer was until recently known as the "anonymous" author of two books critical of the West's response to bin Laden and al Qaeda, the most recent of which is titled Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. No one in the West knows more about the Qaeda leader than Scheuer, who has tracked him since the mid-1980s. The CIA allowed him to write the books provided he remain anonymous, but now is allowing him to reveal himself for the first time on Sunday's broadcast; he formally leaves the Agency today (12).
Even if bin Laden had a nuclear weapon, he probably wouldn't have used it for a lack of proper religious authority - authority he has now. "[Bin Laden] secured from a Saudi sheik...a rather long treatise on the possibility of using nuclear weapons against the Americans," says Scheuer. "[The treatise] found that he was perfectly within his rights to use them. Muslims argue that the United States is responsible for millions of dead Muslims around the world, so reciprocity would mean you could kill millions of Americans," Scheuer tells Kroft." . . .
"And the threat posed by bin Laden is also underestimated, says Scheuer. "I think our leaders over the last decade have done the American people a disservice...continuing to characterize Osama bin Laden as a thug, as a gangster," he says. "Until we respect him, sir, we are going to die in numbers that are probably unnecessary, yes. He's a very, very talented man and a very worthy opponent," he tells Kroft.
Until today (12), Scheuer was a senior official in the CIA's counter terrorism unit and a special advisor to the head of the agency's bin Laden unit."
We had Bin Laden's recent video message, which threatened Americans with great retribution if they reelected Bush. Some claimed that Bin Laden's message included the message that, if Bush were reelected, Bin Laden would wreak great destruction on the "American states" that supported him. I was skeptical about that at first, but I spoke this week with a very scholarly immigration lawyer, who is now studying Arabic, and he confirmed that.
Washington and New York, of course, are deep blue. So maybe the threat in these key cities is not as high as I'd feared. God I hope so.
This topic has come up many other times.
What are others thinking? This has got to be the number one threat facing all of us. Look at what 9/11 did to us. One nuke in one American city, and all bets are off about EVERYTHING. I don't want to live through the aftermath.