Franks says evidence showed bin Laden tried to ‘get his hands on’ anthrax

? U.S. forces recently found evidence in Afghanistan that Osama bin Laden was trying to “get his hands on” anthrax or other biological weapons, the commander of the war effort said Saturday.

American troops have found nothing so far to show that bin Laden’s al-Qaida network had succeeded in obtaining anthrax or making germ weapons, said Gen. Tommy Franks, head of U.S. Central Command.

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U.S. forces recently discovered a site near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar that appeared to be an al-Qaida biological weapons lab under construction.

At the lab, “there was evidence of the attempt, by bin Laden, to get his hands on weapons of mass destruction, anthrax, or a variety of others,” Franks said in an NBC interview taped Saturday and airing Sunday on “Meet the Press.” The network provided an excerpt Saturday.

The site near Kandahar was one of 50 to 60 possible al-Qaida weapons sites in Afghanistan examined by U.S. forces, Franks and Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Saturday. Those searches found extensive evidence that al-Qaida wanted to develop biological weapons, but came up with no evidence the terrorist group actually had anthrax or other deadly germs, they said.

“We have not found an indication that anything ever got mixed in the right way to create a weapon of mass destruction,” Franks said.

Searchers at the site near Kandahar found medical supplies, laboratory equipment and “a variety of associated supplies” that could be used to make germ weapons, Whitman said. The lab apparently was still under construction when al-Qaida abandoned it, Whitman said.

Military officials are not sure when al-Qaida deserted the site, Central Command spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Matt Klee said.