Anthrax
attacks could have been secret CIA-backed project that went awry…
Last
year’s anthrax attacks which killed five US citizens could
have been the climax of a secret, CIA-funded project which went
disastrously wrong. This is the astonishing suggestion raised in
an investigation by tonight’s Newsnight (10.30pm, BBC TWO,
14 March).
In
an exclusive interview, Dr Barbara Rosenberg, a former biological
warfare advisor to president Clinton and chair of the bio-weapons
panel at the Federation of American Scientists, tells Newsnight
there could have been a secret CIA field project to test the practicalities
of sending anthrax through the mail - whose top scientist went badly
off the rails. She suggests the project leader could have carried
out the attack to convince sceptics to take the threat of biological
attack more seriously.
Three
weeks ago Dr Rosenberg claimed the FBI is dragging its feet over
the anthrax investigation because an arrest would be embarrassing
to the US authorities. The claim was denied by the FBI and dismissed
by the White House. On Newsnight tonight she goes further, because,
she says, she’s afraid of what might happen next.
She
suggests that an expert from the US military bio-defence establishment
could have built on a paper study from 1998 - setting out the likely
impact of anthrax being sent through the mail.
"Some
very expert field person would have been given this job and it would
have been left to him to decide exactly how to carry it out. The
result might have been project gone badly awry if he decided to
use it for his own purposes and target the media and the senate
for his own motives as not intended by the government project…"
she tells Newsnight’s Science Editor Susan Watts.
"This
person... knows a lot about forensic matters, knows exactly what
he can be prosecuted for and what he can get away with and I think
he had some personal matters that he might have wanted to settle
but I think in addition that he felt that bio-defence was being
under-emphasised for some time in the past."
According
to the New York Times, the original 1998 paper study was carried
out by William Capers Patrick III, for a federal contractor advising
the government. Bill Patrick is the grandfather of the US bio-defence
programme. He holds secret patents to the US process of "weaponising"
anthrax - and is the expert’s expert. He says the FBI told
him they have considered him a suspect, but it is understood that
he is now considered to be in the clear.
In
another exclusive interview, Dr Patrick admits that as central figure
in the field he could have met or come across the person behind
the attack: "Possibly, possibly, I could have talked to these
people. But it would have been within the context of their having
a need to know."
Newsnight
asks Dr Patrick for his reaction to the suggestion that he might
have been involved in the attack himself. He replies: "My goodness
I did not... I did not... I’m an American patriot…"
He
goes on to say: "I would hate to think that anyone in our country...
that would do this to our own people, if we ever find whoever does
this I hope it comes from overseas, because that way I would...
well I don’t want... I want someone to be caught, I want the
perpetrator to be caught, but I would rather think that it came
from our enemies outside of our own country as opposed to our own
people perpetrating this crime against our own."
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