“The fear inside the West Wing grew on October 23 [2001], when [President] Bush and [Vice President Dick] Cheney were told that Pakistan had arrested two nuclear scientists who had been in contact with Osama bin Laden, possibly to help al-Qaeda build a bomb. …The Pakistanis had picked up the two scientists in response to a tip from American intelligence agencies. When Bush and Cheney sat down with the rest of the National Security Council in the Situation Room that morning, they presented the most alarming variant of what they had been told. Bin Laden ‘may have a nuclear device’ that could destroy half of Washington, Bush told the team, and there was enough unaccounted-for Russian-made weapons-grade fissile material to produce a bomb.”
– Peter Baker, Days of Fire, Page 169