- US investigators searching for the source of the East
Coast anthrax attacks are increasingly entertaining the theory that the
culprit is a former member of the US biological weapons programme.
-
- Federal agents have begun interrogating military
officials
linked to the old programme, which was phased out after 1969, and a number
of government experts have been quoted in the media saying an "inside
job" is a plausible, if explosive, explanation for the anthrax-laced
letters that were sent to politicians and journalists in September and
October.
-
- "It's frightening to think that one of our own
scientists
could have done something like this, but it's definitely possible,"
one unnamed federal science adviser said in yesterday's New York Times.
A source close to the investigation said it was "the most likely
hypothesis".
-
- This theory, echoed by a handful of academics attending
the United Nations biological weapons conference in Geneva last week, has
bitterly divided experts in the narrow fields of anthrax research and
biological
weapons inspection, however. Dr Richard Spertzl, a former weapons inspector
in Iraq, said yesterday the insider job theory was scientifically dubious,
unsupported by any evidence made public so far, and "terribly
irresponsible".
-
- "I think this is pure garbage," said the germ
warfare specialist. "They're speaking out of ignorance, out of
stupidity.
They don't know anything about biological weapons or about the past US
programme."
-
- The US insider theory starts with the unanimously held
premise that whoever sent the letters had access to a high-grade weapons
laboratory and was familiar with techniques for weaponising deadly
bacteria.
According to military experts and government scientists cited by the New
York Times, the letter sent to the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle,
contained an extraordinarily high concentration of anthrax - around one
trillion spores per gram.
-
- That is a far purer concentration than anything known
to have been developed by a foreign government and is certainly out of
the reach of an individual or individuals working alone. But it may,
according
to at least some experts, be consistent with weapons research conducted
by the US more than 30 years ago.
-
- One molecular biologist who attended the Geneva
conference,
Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, wrote a paper describing the letter-sender as
"an American microbiologist who had, or once had, access to weaponised
anthrax in a US government lab, or had been taught by a US defence expert
how to make it". "Perhaps," she speculated in her paper,
distributed by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute,
"he
had a vial or two in his basement as a keepsake."
-
- Dr Spertzl denounced this line as uninformed nonsense.
The anthrax sent to Senator Daschle, he argued, had to come from either
an active or recently active government laboratory. The US programme, he
added, has been defunct for too long to be a plausible source. He is
increasingly
convinced the anthrax came from Iraq.
-
- Dr Spertzl's rebuttal was partly substantiated by the
senior research scientist at the army's biodefence laboratory in Fort
Detrick,
Maryland. Colonel Arthur Friedlander said the FBI had been asking questions
about possible insider suspects but he said he thought this was unlikely.
"We haven't had an offensive programme for a long time," he told
the New York Times. "Nobody [at the army laboratory] has that kind
of expertise."
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-
- Link
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- ___________________
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Patricia Doyle
- PhD dr_p_doyle@hotmail.com
- 12-4-1
-
- Hello Jeff - I believe the FBI should investigate how
and IF the bioweapons from Ft. Detrick were destroyed. An outside
contractor,
Becton Dickinson Co. was hired to destroy weaponized anthrax as well as
other US fabricated bioweapons then held at Ft. Detrick.
-
- We really need to know if all of the bioweapons were
destroyed or if some were diverted to other agencies. If the anthrax was
from the so-called destroyed weapons stock, we will need to know what other
bioweapons "survived" destruction.
-
- Patricia Doyle
-
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