One of the more interesting parts of George Tenet’s new book is his discussion of al Qaeda’s attempts to acquire a nuclear weapon and other weapons of mass destruction. It has long been known that al Qaeda seeks the capability to inflict mass casualties with a WMD attack. But Tenet offers new details that are disconcerting, to say the least. For example, consider this passage:
Tenet repeats a common explanation offered for al Qaeda’s presence in Iran: the terrorists are supposedly under a “loose form of house arrest.” But how meaningful is this “detention” if they are openly discussing the acquisition of nuclear weapons? Obviously, it is not very meaningful at all. This should raise a host of questions about the relationship between the Iranian regime and al Qaeda, but Tenet is uninterested. Tenet does not mention that Sayf al-Adl–one of the terrorists pursuing a nuke while under “house arrest”–has been working with the Iranians and Hezbollah since the early 1990’s. Al-Adl was even trained in a Hezbollah camp in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, where, along with other al Qaeda terrorists, he was taught how to blow up big buildings like American embassies. Al-Adl and his comrades found a use for the skills Hezbollah gave them by blowing up the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7, 1998. Tenet also neglects to mention that al-Adl and his comrades have reportedly ordered attacks in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and elsewhere from Iranian soil. There’s much more Tenet does not mention, including evidence that al Qaeda has been openly operating out of Tehran for years. Shouldn’t Tenet, the CIA, and the rest of us be a little more worried that al Qaeda’s “nuclear chief” and al-Adl are freely working to acquire nuclear weapons from their safe haven in Iran?
