THE BIOTERROR CASE

In anthrax puzzle, some see evidence pointing within US

By Kevin Cullen, Globe Staff, 10/21/2001

While the panic over anthrax appears to be based largely on a presumption it is linked to the Sept. 11 attacks by Islamic extremists, a growing number of analysts say the letters containing anthrax sent to news organizations and the US Senate are as likely a case of domestic terrorism.

The FBI has yet to point a finger at a suspect in the letters sent to American Media Inc. in South Florida, three major American television networks in New York, and the office of US Senate majority leader Tom Daschle. On Friday, Tom Ridge, director of the Office of Homeland Security, said the anthrax in the three cases appeared to be from the same source.

Some specialists, including Richard Butler, the former UN chief weapons inspector, say evidence points to the anthrax being supplied to Islamic terrorists in the United States by a hostile government such as Iraq. Others insist there is not enough evidence yet to say whether the source of the anthrax attacks is foreign or domestic.

But a significant group of specialists on bioweapons - including Scott Ritter, a UN weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998 - say they believe it is likely that domestic antiestablishment, anti-US government, or extreme right-wing groups are involved in the anthrax attacks. Among the points raised by Ritter or others who hold this view:

The crude, relatively ineffective delivery system of the anthrax, which has killed just one person and has infected only a half dozen others, seems amateur in comparison with the planning, precision, and sheer audacity of the extremists who plotted for years to collapse the World Trade Center towers by crashing commercial airliners into them.

Neo-Nazi groups have long coveted anthrax as a weapon to use against their perceived enemies. Antiabortion extremists have for years threatened abortion clinics with anthrax.

The news organizations attacked constitute the heart of the ''liberal media'' often demonized by antigovernment and right-wing extremists.

Daschle is the highest-ranking member of the Democratic Party in Washington, a whipping boy for antigovernment and right-wing extremists.

The type of anthrax used in the letters sent to Florida, Washington, and New York was not genetically modified to withstand antibiotic treatment, as might be the anthrax created by Iraqi and Russian biological weapons programs.

The United States and Britain are isolated internationally in their desire to continue sanctions against Iraq, and Iraq would risk squandering the international momentum in its favor if it got involved in biological warfare against the United States.

L. Paul Bremer, a former US ambassador to the Netherlands who was in charge of counterterrorism in the Reagan administration, subscribes to the domestic theory, but he warns that it is too early to rule out Iraq or some other rogue nation as the source of the anthrax.

''This could be a false flag operation,'' said Bremer, who is now chairman and CEO of Marsh Crisis Consulting, a Washington-based firm. His reference is to a deed by one group disguised to appear to have been carried out by another.

Analysts acknowledge that another scenario is that the same network of terrorists who used the United States as a base to obtain flight training so they could commandeer commercial airliners on Sept. 11 could have spent the last few years obtaining the know-how to acquire and cultivate anthrax. But they say there is so far no evidence that would support that theory.

Ritter said he sees nothing yet that would point the finger at Iraq as the source of the anthrax in the United States. He said that the evidence points to someone who was more likely influenced by the likes of Timothy McVeigh than Osama bin Laden, and that the anthrax probably was obtained in the United States.

''The anthrax that Iraq manufactured was weapons grade, and the anthrax that's been mailed around is not,'' said Ritter. ''The evidence I've seen suggests someone has gained access to a strain'' of anthrax that has been traced to Iowa in the 1950s.

''You can't discount Iraqi involvement,'' Ritter said, ''but it doesn't make sense. We disarmed them. It wasn't perfect, but we destroyed a lot of their biological capabilities. And on a political level, there is a lot of international momentum in Iraq's favor right now, about ending sanctions, about ending US-British patrols in the no-fly zones. Why risk that?''

But Butler, who as the UN's chief of weapons inspections was Ritter's boss, has pointed a finger at Iraq. Butler could not be reached for comment, but in an op-ed piece in Thursday's New York Times, Butler hinted at Iraqi involvement. Citing US intelligence reports that Mohamed Atta, the reputed leader of the 19 suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks, had met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in September 2000, Butler speculated that the meeting ''may have been an occasion on which anthrax was provided to Mr. Atta.''

Ritter, who has clashed regularly with Butler over Iraq and US policy in the Middle East, called Butler's speculation ''irresponsible'' and said it was based on Butler's animosity toward Iraq more than probability.

Edith Flynn, a longtime researcher and specialist on terrorism at Northeastern University, said she was reluctant to rule out Iraq but ''nearly all of the evidence that we have now points to this being a case of domestic terrorism.''

''There is a prior history in which right-wing crazies and neo-Nazis have dabbled in biological'' weapons, said Flynn, who has written extensively on terrorism. ''My thesis is that 80 to 90 percent of the anthrax stuff we've seen is homegrown because these extremist groups are using the cover of a national calamity to advance their own agendas.''

Jessica Stern, a lecturer on terrorism at Harvard University who has interviewed right-wing extremists for her research, said antigovernment groups have been trying to perfect the use of anthrax for years.

''Right-wing extremists are obsessed with anthrax,'' said Stern.

But wanting to use anthrax as a weapon and having the technology and know-how needed to obtain a culture, process it into spores, then mill it so it can be distributed to maximum deadly effect are two different matters. The latter requires a lot of money and knowledge.

Rodney Tweten, a professor of microbiology at the University of Oklahoma's Health Sciences Center, said he was chastened to read a federal report that concluded that someone with ''$15,000 and the right equipment'' could create the sort of anthrax that was sent to the news organizations and the Senate.

''If somebody's smart enough, they can get it from an infected animal. But then you have to ask who has the technology to develop it into spores so that it can be distributed. Then you have to scale up,'' he said.

Tweten, who is heading a research project aimed at developing a toxin that could combat anthrax that is resistant to antibiotics, said he is not yet convinced of either scenario, homegrown or foreign.

''There's just not enough information known yet,'' he said. Tracing the anthrax to a particular strain ''doesn't get you closer to the specific source,'' he added.

Flynn, Stern, and Ritter said the targets chosen so far would be those who would be seen as enemies by right-wing groups.

''Daschle has been in the vanguard of liberal positions,'' said Flynn. ''It is interesting that nothing was sent to the Republican side in Congress.''

Brian Houghton, director of research at the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City, said the target argument is inconclusive. ''I'm not ready to buy into it because Daschle is a Democrat,'' said Houghton.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001