WASHINGTON, August 22 (RIA Novosti correspondent Arkady Orlov) - Washington has underestimated Osama bin Laden, according to the chief of the former CIA unit established nine years ago to capture the world's most wanted man.

Michael Scheuer told U.S. television channel CBS Sunday that U.S. authorities had harmed Americans by continually portraying bin Laden as a gangster and the degenerate type of a bandit, and an altogether disgusting person in the last 10 years. Scheuer said bin Laden was not insane, but a worthy adversary.

He called bin Laden a great man for having influenced the march of history.

The CIA officer warned that bin Laden could stage an attack on the United States using weapons of mass destruction and said Bin Laden had been given a fatwa, a kind of Muslim blessing, for the attack back in 2003.

Scheuer said bin Laden had received a detailed treatise from Saudi Sheikh Hamid bin Fahda on the possibility of using nuclear weapons against Americans.