Corporate Terrorism?  I've been following this on a couple of
websites for a few months.  The mainstream media has now picked
up on it.

http://www.mapcruzin.com/news/rtk122301b.htm

FBI Investigates Possible Financial Motive in Anthrax Attacks

By Susan Schmidt and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, December 21, 2001; Page A21

The FBI is pursuing the possibility that financial gain was the
motive behind the mailing of letters containing deadly anthrax
bacteria and has conducted extensive interviews of personnel at
two laboratories and possibly more, according to government
officials.

Although investigators have not ruled out other possible motives,
they have conducted dozens of interviews in at least two labs to
determine whether potential profit from the sale of anthrax
medications or cleanup efforts may have motivated the bioterrorist
believed responsible for the attacks, the officials said.

The current line of inquiry represents a deepening interest in one
possible motive for investigators, who have examined a range of
scenarios since the anthrax attacks on media and government
representatives began this fall. Authorities have probed whether
foreign terrorists or homegrown extremists are responsible for the
attacks but have come to favor the theory that the bioterrorism is
likely the work of an individual operating in this country.

Investigators are still looking at a wide range of possible motives,
including revenge and an attempt to implicate Iraq. Although
authorities believe the person who mailed the anthrax spores may
have some scientific expertise, they are not convinced the person
necessarily produced it. The material could have been stolen,
officials have said.

The focus on a profit motive may help explain why the FBI has yet
to seek samples of anthrax spores from two foreign laboratories
known to possess Ames-strain anthrax microbes that genetically
match the material sent to Sens. Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) and
Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). Those labs are the Canadian armed
forces' Defence Research Establishment Suffield (DRES) and
Britain's Defence Science and Technology Laboratories at Porton
Down.

Spokesmen for the two foreign laboratories said they have not been
contacted by the FBI or asked for samples of their germ stocks.
Neither lab ever processed the Ames strain of anthrax in the
powdered form found in the two letters, which readily becomes
airborne and is easily inhaled.

"Porton Down has received no request from the FBI for information
on its security arrangements, but if we were contacted, we would
cooperate fully," said Sue Ellison, spokeswoman for the British lab.


Kent Harding, chief scientist for DRES, said the institute has "only
been contacted by media at this point."

But a senior law enforcement official, speaking on the condition of
anonymity, said there are reasons the FBI has not yet asked those
labs for the samples. He said the bureau is looking at its most
important leads first.

He also noted that it will be some time before there is anything
meaningful to compare with samples from other labs, because the
anthrax spores in the Leahy letter are still undergoing chemical
analysis. That process may take weeks to complete.

The letter to Leahy, found among quarantined mail, was unopened,
leaving a substantial quantity of material inside for the FBI to test.
The letter is seen as the FBI's best hope for forensic clues in the
attacks that have killed five people and sickened 13.

A possible profit motive for the attacks has been the subject of
speculation among scientists. Richard Ebright, a microbiologist
with Rutgers University's Waksman Institute, said the list of
possible scenarios and perpetrators would be quite long -- ranging
from drug manufacturers to companies specializing in
decontamination and cleanup.

"There are numerous mid-Atlantic regional links to all of these
possibilities," said Ebright. "Doesn't narrow the field much, does
it?"

DNA tests have confirmed that the spores used in the terrorist
attacks are genetically identical to a strain obtained by researchers
at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious
Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Md., in about 1980. The
Army has acknowledged distributing the strain to five other
agencies, and some of the strain was in turn shared with other
researchers.

The five labs that received the Ames strain from USAMRIID are the
Army's Dugway Proving Ground in central Utah; Battelle Memorial
Institute in Columbus, Ohio; the University of New Mexico's Health
Sciences Center in Albuquerque; the Canadian DRES; and Porton
Down.

Battelle, a private contractor that has worked with the Pentagon in
developing defenses against biological attacks, is one of several
labs visited by FBI agents investigating the anthrax attacks. Katy
Delaney, a Battelle spokeswoman, said the company has
cooperated fully with the government's investigation.

FBI agents "have interviewed people on our staff," Delaney said,
but she declined to provide information about the nature of the
interviews or how many Battelle employees had been questioned.
"I can say that we have continued to provide all of the information
and material that has been requested by the government," Delaney
said.

Battelle is a contractor at Dugway, which last week acknowledged
making a powdered form of anthrax to use in testing sensors and
other equipment used to defend against biological attacks.

In the past several weeks, the FBI has also learned that a CIA
defensive biowarfare program has involved the use of Ames-strain
anthrax. Investigators have been very interested in the CIA
program, government officials said, including work done by private
contractors in connection with it.

Investigators learned belatedly that the CIA possessed Ames-strain
anthrax spores because the agency was not listed among 91 labs
registered with the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention to handle various strains of anthrax bacteria. Before
1997, labs that possessed anthrax spores but did not
transfer them to other labs were not required to register with the CDC. The FBI
has been surprised to learn only anecdotally of some programs, such as the
CIA's, which have the material.

The CIA program was designed to develop defenses to a vaccine-
resistant strain of anthrax reportedly created by the former Soviet
Union. CIA officials have said they are certain the anthrax used in
the mailings did not come from their work, that none of it is missing
and that the small amount in their possession was not milled into
powder form.

Staff writers Steve Fainaru and Rick Weiss contributed to this
report.

© 2001 The Washington Post Company



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