The plot outlined in this lurid exposé is a frightening one: Osama bin Laden has nuclear weapons—lots of them—and is preparing to use them to create “an American Hiroshima.” Williams, a journalist, former FBI consultant and author of The Vatican Exposed: Money, Murder and the Mafia, contends that bin Laden has purchased of dozens low-yield Russian “suitcase” atomic bombs and gotten his hands on enough weapons-grade uranium to build Hiroshima-sized 10-kiloton devices, and that one nuclear device may already have been smuggled into America. Contrary to the subtitle, Williams relies heavily on media reports to flesh out the arch-terrorist’s nuclear intrigues, detailing bin Laden’s lucrative heroin trafficking operations, his ties to the Chechen mafia and to Pakistani nuclear scientists, and his network of thousands of sleeper agents in the United States. He criticizes the Clinton and Bush administrations for inept attempts to apprehend bin Laden, but offers little advice on what to do. As if to heighten readers’ anxiety, Clark reprints several al-Qaeda manifestoes calling down destruction on America and includes a lengthy treatise on the devastation an atom bomb would wreak on lower Manhattan. He doesn’t tie up all the loose ends in this hasty treatment; on the question of why, if it has nukes, al-Qaeda hasn’t yet used them, he can only assume that bin Laden is patiently awaiting the perfect moment for a multiple-target strike. But after 9/11, alarmist scenarios have to be taken seriously, and the disquieting evidence Clark has amassed provides a useful reminder of the gravest threat in the war on terror.
ISBN: 8130900599
Publisher: VIVA BOOKS
Subtitle: WHAT THE MEDIA AND THE GOVERNMENT HAVEN’T TOLD YOU
Author: PAUL L. WILLIAM