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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
A growing number of scientific experts have come to this conclusion. But the FBI seems strangely reluctant to zero in on the most likely suspects.
Feb 8, 2002 | When Arthur O. Anderson, chief of clinical pathology at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), saw the anthrax sent to Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., last October, he was amazed.
"There was nothing there except spores," he told Salon. "Normally, if you take a crude preparation of anthrax spores, you see parts of degenerated bacteria. But this stuff was highly refined."
Another former Army lab scientist characterized the sample as "very, very good."
"Only a very small group of people could have made this," said David Franz, a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq and biodefense scientist at USAMRIID, who now works for the Southern Research Institute, a defense contractor. "If you look at the sample from the standpoint of biology, it tells me this person [who made the anthrax] was very good at what they do. And this wasn't the first batch they've made. They've done this for years. The concentration was a trillion spores [on anthrax] per gram. That's incredibly concentrated."
Anderson and Franz aren't drawing conclusions about where the anthrax came from -- perhaps in part because the subject is deeply sensitive at the U.S. Army's own biodefense lab, which could find itself at the center of the investigation. But conversations with dozens of scientists and experienced biodefense hands reveal a growing belief that last fall's anthrax letter culprit is most likely an experienced bioweapons scientist. And while Franz and others note that there are Iraqi and Russian scientists with the skills to pull off the complex anthrax-mail attack, many experts now believe the culprit worked at a U.S. bioweapons facility.
Only a few dozen individuals in the U.S. possess the expertise to produce the sophisticated anthrax specimen sent to Daschle, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy and at least three media outlets last fall. There may be as many as 200 Russian scientists capable of such work, and perhaps 10 Iraqis. But certain clues have convinced many -- though not all -- bioweapons experts who've followed the FBI investigation closely that the anthrax in the letters most likely came from a U.S. lab. That's chiefly because Ames strain anthrax, the type used in the letters, has been distributed by USAMRIID to about 20 U.S labs since 1981. Of those, only four facilities are believed to have the ability to produce the highly lethal, dry powder form of the Ames strain anthrax the lethal letters contained.
But despite signs that this should narrow the list of anthrax suspects to a few dozen people, the FBI appears to be casting a wider net in its investigation, which seems to have made fairly limited progress since the first victim, American Media Inc. photo editor Bob Stevens, died of anthrax inhalation four months ago.
Just two weeks ago, for instance, the FBI blanketed New Jersey, where at least four of the anthrax letters were mailed from, with fliers asking anyone who might have any knowledge of the culprit to contact the Bureau. This week, a University of Illinois law professor said that his university was one of dozens that recently received FBI subpoenas demanding that they turn over all documents relating to anthrax. And last week, the American Society for Microbiology in Washington announced that, at the request of the FBI, it had e-mailed its 40,000 members asking for possible clues.
A spokesman for the group said that while they happily complied, they found the FBI request a bit perplexing. "As we understand, it's not just microbiology needed to create [the anthrax that was in the letters]," said the microbiology society's spokesman, who asked not to be named. "You need the microbiology skills to grow it, but to process it, you need a totally different set of skills," such as advanced chemical engineering training, he said.
The wide net cast by the FBI also baffles many scientists and other weapons nonproliferation experts familiar with the anthrax investigation, who think federal authorities could make more progress identifying the anthrax attacker by focusing on a much narrower group.
"If you want to see the intersection of the two talents -- the microbiologic ability to obtain and safely grow lots of anthrax, and the industrial ability to turn it into a dry powder -- then that would suggest to me that the person did indeed have some experience with the biological warfare program," says C.J. Peters, who, as a doctor specializing in hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola, worked at USAMRIID from 1977 to 1990, and later at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He now heads a new center for biodefense at the University of Texas at Galveston.
"Frankly, I find it puzzling," says Elisa D. Harris, who served as director of nonproliferation issues at the National Security Council from 1993 until 2001, and is currently a resident scholar at the University of Maryland. "Given what's been reported about the nature and quality of the anthrax material in the Daschle and Leahy letters, that the material itself almost certainly originated in the U.S. biological weapons program, they ought to be able to narrow the investigation to a fairly limited number of facilities. That number is certainly less than 20. So I find it puzzling that the FBI has approached all 40,000 members of the American Society of Microbiologists. I don't understand why they seem to be casting the net so widely."
The FBI says it is pursuing all avenues.
"We are continuing to investigate the source of the anthrax, and who might be responsible for sending it," an FBI spokesman told Salon. "That investigation is very thorough and very exhaustive and we have not ruled anything out. We have pursued thousands of leads."
Perhaps responding to a growing chorus of criticism, on Thursday unnamed FBI sources were quoted telling the Wall Street Journal that they are in fact zeroing in on U.S. weapons labs in their anthrax investigation. But the article also revealed a startling fact: The FBI has not yet subpoenaed employee records of the labs where Ames strain anthrax is worked with.
Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a biological arms control expert at the State University of New York at Purchase and chair of a bioweapons working group at the independent Federation of American Scientists, believes the FBI has intentionally dragged its heels on the weapons-lab angle, most likely for political reasons.
"For more than three months now the FBI has known that the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks is American," Rosenberg wrote to Salon on Tuesday. "This conclusion must have been based on the perpetrator's evident connection to the U.S. biodefense program."
Rosenberg has become convinced that the FBI knows who sent out the anthrax letters, but isn't arresting him, because he has been involved in secret biological weapons research that the U.S. does not want revealed.
"This guy knows too much, and knows things the U.S. isn't very anxious to publicize," Rosenberg said in an interview. "Therefore, they don't want to get too close."
Other experts aren't ready to make that leap. Some suggest that the FBI may just be moving slowly and carefully to gather incriminating evidence that can stand up in court. Some blame simple incompetence.
"Barbara says the FBI's been told to look for things, and they haven't," says Milton Leitenberg, a biological arms control expert at the University of Maryland. "I don't know. I think they [the FBI] are doing a half-assed job of it myself. But maybe other people would have done as bad a job, who knows."
But Jonathan A. King, a professor of microbiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says he, too, is suspicious of the government's handling of the investigation.
"The first place one would have looked for the anthrax perpetrator is at the U.S. facilities where people have grants from the government to do biological defense research," King said in an interview. "But for months, there was no statement from any federal authorities naming these laboratories as under suspicion. It's extraordinary."
