Someone who either was involved with the U.S. military’s biological weapons program or had a connection to the program may be responsible for the U.S. anthrax incidents, according to reports today.

The FBI has expanded its investigation in the anthrax incidents to include U.S. government laboratories, according to law enforcement officials, according to the New York Times.  The dry powder used in the recent anthrax incidents is nearly identical to that which was produced by the U.S. military in its offensive biological warfare program, said the Times.

A preliminary analysis of the powder indicated it has very high levels of spore concentration like the anthrax designed by the U.S. program, according to a federal science adviser.  Even though the anthrax used in the recent incidents may have come from a foreign source, the concentration of spores is much higher than in any anthrax produced by other countries, the New York Times reported.

The high quality of the anthrax gives weight to the idea that someone tied to the U.S. military laboratories might be responsible, a federal science advisor said.  “It’s frightening to think that one of our own scientists could have done something like this,” the advisor said.  “But it’s definitely possible” (William Broad, New York Times, Dec. 3).

Investigators have already questioned people involved in the U.S. military defensive research program that replaced the discontinued offensive biological weapons program, the New York Times reported.  Officials at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases were cooperating with investigators, said senior research scientist Col. Arthur Friedlander.  “They’ve asked us about personnel who had access,” Friedlander said.  “They didn’t talk to me about my personal experience.  They asked me about other personnel.”

Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a molecular biologist and an arms control specialist at the Federation of American Scientists, laid out a detailed insider theory in a paper distributed on Thursday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the Times reported yesterday.  In the paper, titled “A Compilation of Evidence and Comments on the Source of the Mailed Anthrax,” Rosenberg said she agreed with the conclusion that the anthrax used in the recent incidents was treated in a sophisticated manner similar to the old U.S. offensive biological weapons program.

“All the available information is consistent with a U.S. government lab as the source, either of the anthrax itself or of the recipe for the U.S. weaponization process,” Rosenberg said. She added that the person responsible is “an American microbiologist who had, or once had, access to weaponized anthrax in a U.S. government lab, or had been taught by a U.S. defense expert how to make it.  Perhaps he had a vial or two in his basement as a keepsake.”

Rosenberg said that, contrary to current reports, the Ames strain probably did not originate in 1980 or 1981. Instead, she said, it likely arose decades earlier and was used for research in the U.S. biological weapons program that began during World War II.

Other experts and officials, however, disagreed with Rosenberg’s hypothesis.  Whoever is responsible for the anthrax incidents “clearly knew what they were doing,” Friedlander said.  “But to make the leap that this came out of a government lab is somewhat large.”

Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University microbiologist, said enemies of the United States were likely to leap onto the conclusions in Rosenberg’s paper.  “Every state that’s hostile to the United States is going to pick up on this,” Ebright said. “They’ll say it was an orchestrated government attack, which I don’t believe for a second.  But you can see people believing it” (Broad/Miller, New York Times, Dec. 2).

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