[iwar] [fc:U.S..Recently.Produced.Anthrax.In.A.Highly.Lethal.Powder.Form]

From: Fred Cohen (fc@all.net)
Date: 2001-12-13 06:41:16
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From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net>
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Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 06:41:16 -0800 (PST)
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New York Times
December 13, 2001
U.S. Recently Produced Anthrax In A Highly Lethal Powder Form
By William J. Broad and Judith Miller
As the investigation into the anthrax attacks widens to include federal
laboratories and contractors, government officials have acknowledged that
Army scientists in recent years have made anthrax in a powdered form that
could be used as a weapon.
Experts said this appeared to be the first disclosure of government
production of anthrax in its most lethal form since the United States
renounced biological weapons in 1969 and began destroying its germ arsenal.
Officials at the Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah said that in 1998
scientists there turned small quantities of wet anthrax into powder to test
ways to defend against biowarfare attacks.
A spokeswoman at Dugway, Paula Nicholson, said the powdered anthrax produced
that year was a different strain from the one used in the recent mail
attacks that have killed five people. Dugway officials said powdered anthrax
was also produced in other years but declined to say whether any of it was
the Ames strain, the type found in the letters sent to two senators and news
organizations.
Government records show that Dugway has had the Ames strain since 1992.
Dugway officials said in a statement that the Federal Bureau of
Investigation was looking into "the work at Dugway Proving Ground," along
with that of other medical facilities, universities and laboratories. "The
Army is cooperating with and assisting the F.B.I.'s efforts," the officials
said.
The disclosure at Dugway comes as federal agents, as part of a vast
investigation of the anthrax attacks that has made little apparent headway,
are trying to figure out where stores of anthrax are housed around the
nation and who has the skill to create the powdered form - a major technical
step needed to make the anthrax used in the terror attacks.
The F.B.I. declined to detail its strategy other than to say its agents have
visited some laboratories and are identifying new ones that may have
handled, or had access to, the Ames strain.
"We're following every logical lead," said one law enforcement official who
spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The F.B.I has subpoenaed records from dozens of laboratories that do
pathogen research, drawing up a list of places that possess the Ames strain.
The bureau, citing the criminal investigation, will not release the list or
identify the labs being scrutinized. But private experts say the list is
most likely short.
Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a biological arms control expert at the State
University of New York at Purchase and chairwoman of a bioweapons panel at
the Federation of American Scientists, a private group in Washington,
concluded that at least 15 institutions had worked recently with the Ames
strain. Dr. Rosenberg, who has argued that the likeliest suspect in the
anthrax attacks is a government insider or someone in contact with an
insider, drew up her list after surveying scientific publications about
anthrax and consulting private and federal experts.
Of the 15, Dr. Rosenberg said, four are "probably more likely than the
others to have weaponization capabilities" - the ability to turn wet anthrax
spores into a fine powder that could be used as a weapon.
Army researchers have previously acknowledged making wet anthrax, but Dr.
Rosenberg said the acknowledgment yesterday by Dugway officials that they
had produced dried anthrax was the government's only such disclosure. "I
know of no case of the United States saying that it has made anthrax
powder," she said.
Some details of Dugway's anthrax work were reported yesterday by The
Baltimore Sun.
Dugway's disclosure was so sketchy that it was impossible to determine how
similar the powdered anthrax produced there was to that sent in the anthrax
attacks. In addition to drying, other steps involved in producing the most
lethal powders include making the particles uniformly small and processing
them so they float freely.
Private and federal experts are clashing over how much powdered anthrax
Dugway has made. The issue is politically sensitive since some experts say
producing large quantities could be seen as violating the global treaty
banning germ weapons.
William C. Patrick III, a scientist who made germ weapons for the United
States and now consults widely on biological defenses, told a group of
American military officers in February 1999 that he taught Dugway personnel
the previous spring how to turn wet anthrax into powders, according to a
transcript of the session.
The process, Mr. Patrick told officers at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama,
was not as refined as the one used in the heyday of the government's germ
warfare program, but it worked. "We made about a pound of material in little
less than a day," he told the officers. "It's a good product."
He did not say what strain of anthrax was used in this work.
But Ms. Nicholson, the Dugway spokeswoman, said workers there "never
produced more than a few grams" of powdered anthrax in any given year. There
are 454 grams in a pound.
Experts have said the letter sent to Senator Tom Daschle contained about two
grams of anthrax spores - a small amount, but enough, if distributed with
high efficiency, to infect millions of people.
Ms. Nicholson said the dry anthrax made in 1998 was of the strain known as
Vollum 1B, which the Army used to make anthrax weapons before the United
States renounced biological arms in 1969. She said it was used for
decontamination studies.
"You have to use live spores because you are determining the rates of
inactivation or kill," she said.
She said Dugway did make one- pound quantities of Bacillus subtilis, a
benign germ sometimes used to simulate anthrax. Mr. Patrick could not be
reached for comment on this point.
Elisa D. Harris, who handled biological defense issues on the National
Security Council for the Clinton administration, said she knew nothing about
a pound of dried anthrax being made at Dugway. She added that after
President Richard M. Nixon unilaterally ended America's germ weapons
program, the United States destroyed about 220 pounds of anthrax.
Dugway's production of dried anthrax is part of the government's secret
research program on how to defend against germ weapons, which gained
momentum in the late 1990's. The Clinton administration began a series of
projects aimed at understanding the nation's vulnerabilities to biowarfare
and devising ways combat the threats.
Experts like Dr. Rosenberg have argued that some of these programs violate
the 1972 global treaty banning germ weapons. Others say these projects,
including making small amounts of the germs, are permitted by the treaty and
are vital to defense research.
It is uncertain how the disclosure by Dugway will be perceived abroad, where
some European countries have recently accused the United States of turning
its back on the germ treaty, charges that the Bush administration denies.
It is not known whether Dugway has shared its skills in making biological
powders with other institutions, but it has shared its supply of the Ames
strain.
In 1997, it sent germs to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in
Washington, said Christopher C. Kelly, a spokesman there. He added that the
institute, a sister lab to the Naval Medical Research Center, uses Ames to
develop research assays for biological defense.
F.B.I. agents have interviewed staff members there, he said.
Intelligence officials say that Battelle Memorial Institute, a military
contractor in Ohio, has experience making powdered germs. They say the
contractor participated in a secret Central Intelligence Agency program,
code-named Clear Vision and begun in 1997, that used benign substances
similar to anthrax to mimic Soviet efforts to create small bombs that could
emit clouds of lethal germs.
Katy Delaney, a Battelle spokeswoman, would not comment on the laboratory's
anthrax work except to say that the lab had always cooperated "with any and
all legitimate inquiries from law enforcement." 

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