Question:
The FBI investigation of the anthrax attacks is now
entering its sixth month. Has it identified the source
of the anthrax spores found in the letters and bodies
of the 5 victims, the equipment used to weaponize the
anthrax, the copier used to copy the warning letters
or any of the perpetrators?
Answer:
The FBI investigation so far has not come close to
solving the anthrax mystery. It has not scientifically
narrowed down the source of the anthrax used in the
attacks. It has not located the equipment used to prepare
the weaponized anthrax. It has not found the copier.
It has not found the perpetrators. It has not pinpointed
the country of origin of the attack.
Despite press reports to the contrary, the FBI Director,
Robert Mueller, flatly stated on March 1st that the
FBI has not "identified which of the nation's research
laboratories may have been the source of the anthrax
," adding "We are not focused on one facility
or a series of facilities." The efforts by scientists
at TIGR to find "genetic fingerprints," or
unique markers, for the anthrax has not yet succeeded
in tracing the samples to a single facility. The FBI
investigation has not even succeeded in narrowing it
to a single country. The virulent Ames strain used in
the attacks is held by laboratories in three countries:
United States, Canada and Britain. Moreover, the non-virulent
strain, which, as scientists at Rockefeller University
demonstrated, can be converted to the virulent strain,
is available in many other countries.
Nor is only one strain involved. In December, The Center
for Disease Control in Atlanta determined that a letter
to Dr. Antonio Banfi in Santiago, Chile, which may have
been contaminated by mail in the U.S. postal system,
contained 5 colonies of anthrax bacteria that were not
from the Ames strain used in the other known attacks.
So either two different parties had sent anthrax through
the mail or one party was using, or testing, different
types of anthrax bacteria.
Despite a massive search, the FBI also acknowledged
that it had not found a copying machine that matched
the one used to photo-copy letters accompanying the
anthrax. A report on the CBS Evening News that such
a copier had been found was false.*
The investigation has also not determined where, or
how, the aerosolized anthrax in the letters sent to
Senators Patrick Leahy and Tom Daschle was weaponized.
Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, among others, had suggested
to the FBI that the anthrax used in the attacks matched
anthrax used by the US military. But while the U.S.
military has used a similar size anthrax spores in testing
biological warfare defenses in Utah, it is not similar
in other respects. The US weaponized anthrax had its
electrostatic property removed, for example, so the
tiny spores would not stick together. The anthrax used
in the attacks lacked this property, so it had not been
part of US weaponized anthrax.
The FBI also failed to find the means of delivery or
motive, in the three murder cases proceeding from the
anthrax attacks. No letter, or other clues were found,
In the cases of Kathy T. Nyguyen in New York City and
Ottilie Lundgren in Oxford, Connecticut. Nor was any
anthrax found in their homes or mail boxes. In the case
of Robert Stevens in Florida, anthrax spores were found
in his office at American Media where he worked as a
photo editor. Since the anthrax was also found throughout
the entire building, any one else in the building, or
even the printing plants which employees of American
Media worked with, could have been the target. As in
the cases of Nyguyen and Lundgren, it was not determined
how the anthrax was delivered to the building. Not do
we know that it came by letter. The microscopic traces
found at local post office in Florida could have come
as easily from cross- contamination of out-going mail
as ingoing mail. It could have come by any parcel
letter, Fedex or been brought there, wittingly
or unwittingly, by a person from another location (including
another facility of American Media.) So all the murder
cases remain unsolved dead-ends.
Although FBI Director Mueller bravely indicated to
the Associated Press that he was "satisfied with
the pace of the anthrax investigation," it has
not been highly productive in finding a source, means
or motive for the attack. Such a failure after five
months suggests that the hypothesis upon which the investigation
is based the lone American malcontent is
flawed.
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