Some of the top anthrax experts in the world say that the killer
anthrax was weaponized:
William C. Patrick III, top U.S. bioweapons expert, who holds
numerous patents on the weaponization of anthrax, and former chief
of the Product Development Division of the Agent Development and
Engineering Directorate for the Army's Biological Warfare laboratories
at Fort Detrick and consultant to the C.I.A., stated
of the anthrax in the Leahy and Daschle letters:
"It’s high-grade. It’s free flowing. It’s
electrostatic free. And it’s in high concentration. It appears
to have an additive that keeps the spores from clumping."
Dr. Byron Weeks, a former Air Force doctor and retired colonel
who has studied infectious diseases and bio warfare for decades,
stated:
"Yes, of course it was weaponized anthrax. There's no
question."
Dr. John Ezzell, a top expert who has published some 60 articles
on anthrax, tested the letter and concluded that, in his many years
of researching anthrax, he had never seen anthrax spores so potent.Dr.
Ezzell characterized the anthrax in the Daschle letter as being
"weaponized."Indeed, the anthrax spores were so potent that, when
Dr. Ezzell opened the Daschle letter to test it, some of its contents
aerosolized instantly.
The Chief of Biological Planning and Operations at the UN Monitoring,
Verification and Inspection Commission, Dr. Kay Mereish, reported
that the letter anthrax had in fact been prepared with a charge,
according to a 2006 lecture at a CBRN meeting by D. Small, who had
worked with the anthrax
Dr. Richard Spertzel, a former biodefense scientist who worked
with Ivins at the Fort Detrick lab, stated to CNN that there was
"no way" a lyophilizer could have created the fine anthrax spores
used in the attack letters. Spertzel stated:
"Apparently, the spores were coated with a polyglass
which tightly bound hydrophilic silica to each particle. That's
what was briefed (according to one of my former weapons inspectors
at the United Nations Special Commission) by the FBI to the German
Foreign Ministry at the time.
Another FBI leak indicated that each particle
was given a weak electric charge, thereby causing the particles
to repel each other at the molecular level. This made it easier
for the spores to float in the air, and increased their retention
in the lungs.
In short, the potential lethality of anthrax
in this case far exceeds that of any powdered product found
in the now extinct U.S. Biological Warfare Program. In meetings
held on the cleanup of the anthrax spores in Washington, the
product was described by an official at the Department of Homeland
Security as 'according to the Russian recipes' -- apparently
referring to the use of the weak electric charge.
***
The FBI spent between 12 and 18 months trying 'to reverse engineer'
(make a replica of) the anthrax in the letters sent to Messrs.
Daschle and Leahy without success, according to FBI news releases.
So why should federal investigators or the news media or the American
public believe that a lone scientist would be able to do so?”
Spertzel also wrote:
"In my opinion, there are maybe four or five people in the whole country
who might be able to make this stuff, and I'm one of them. And even
with a good lab and staff to help run it, it might take me a year
to come up with a product as good.”
