WAIT, NO, WAIT - Anthrax is NOT from Iraq

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Germ Tests Point Away From Iraq Hill, N.Y. Post Spores Lack Telltale Compound

By Rick Weiss Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, October 30, 2001; Page A09

Federal officials said yesterday that the anthrax spores that infected workers at the New York Post and in the office of Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) were not mixed with bentonite, a mineral compound used by the Iraqi biological weapons program to make the spores more infectious.

The chemical findings appeared to support recent hints by various U.S. officials that Iraq is not a prime suspect in the recent anthrax attacks, which have killed three and wreaked havoc with the postal system.

But officials said they are still considering all possibilities. "There are a lot of theories out there. We just need some facts to turn a theory into reality," said Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge.

Chemical tests are still being conducted on the spores with the goal of shedding light on who produced them and whether they are the products of a state-sponsored bioweapons program or a smaller terrorist operation, officials said. But with relatively small amounts to work with, and quantities gradually diminishing as tests consume them, it remained unclear yesterday whether chemical testing will ever be able to settle the burning question of the spores' origins.

"I've been asked to study the samples from A to Z to know what's in the sample, what's the character of that anthrax, what its family lineage is, and what its antibiotic sensitivities are," said Maj. Gen. John Parker, commanding general of the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command Center, which is overseeing much of the research. "But you have to know that we don't have much sample. . . . People have to think about it before we destroy more sample to maybe run down a wrong road."

Microscopic examinations had already found the spores to be surrounded by a brownish "halo" that some had said resembled a bentonite coating. Bentonite, a natural clay made from volcanic ash, is a mixture of silica dioxide and aluminum oxide, often in combination with iron oxide. According to United Nations inspectors who dismantled parts of the Iraqi biological weapons program after the Gulf War, that program used bentonite as part of a unique system for creating anthrax spores that were especially light and easily airborne.

The clay covering helped reduce electrostatic charges that otherwise made the tiny spores clump together into larger particles. Big particles are less likely to get deep into people's lungs, where they can produce the more severe form of the disease.

Parker said that high-energy X-ray studies had found no evidence of aluminum, a key ingredient of bentonite. However, he added, studies did indicate the presence of silica.

Asked if silica by itself could accomplish the same electrostatic goal as bentonite, Parker said he did not know. "We don't know what that motive might be or why it would be there or anything," he told reporters at a briefing.

But Richard Spertzel, who was part of the U.N. team that inspected the Iraqi biological weapons arsenal, said it was his understanding that silica by itself was a good aerosolizing agent. He said that he had recently had a conversation with William Patrick, a retired U.S. Army biological weapons expert who helped make anthrax into a weapon in the 1960s. Patrick told him that the United States used silica by itself to help aerosolize the bacteria that cause tularemia, or rabbit fever -- one of several diseases that the United States sought to "weaponize" until the U.S. program was halted in 1969, Spertzel said.

According to Patrick, silica by itself was as effective as bentonite for aerosolizing some kinds of bacteria -- including the bacteria that cause tularemia, which are smaller than those that cause anthrax, Spertzel said. Patrick could not be reached for comment.

Separately, the FBI said yesterday it has been checking for anthrax spores in apartments and cars used by the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Judy Orihuela, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Miami field office, said the agency has tested two cars that were owned by hijackers Mohamed Atta and Waleed M. Alshehri.

"Both cars came back negative," she said. "We picked them up from a used-car dealer in Tamerac. There was a Pontiac Grand Prix belonging to Atta, and the other car was registered to Waleed M. Alshehri. We looked at them in September, pre-anthrax, and there was nothing there. The only powder I can think of would be fingerprint powder."

The FBI may soon conduct additional tests on a car rented by Atta. Brad Warrick, owner of Warrick Rent-a-Car in Pompano Beach, Fla., who rented two cars to Atta before the Sept. 11 attacks, said he notified the FBI on Monday that he had found some white powder in the trunk of one of the cars, a 1995 Ford Escort. That vehicle had previously been studied by the FBI, Warrick said. The car has been sitting unrented for weeks, Warrick said. But when he looked at it recently he noticed about a teaspoonful of white powder in the trunk.

"They [the FBI] returned my call, and they are passing it on to the proper person at the FBI. I am waiting to hear back now," he said.

Warrick said the Escort was the last car Atta rented from him. "It was brought back two days before the bombing. That is the one that has white powder in the trunk. It looks like spilled laundry detergent."

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2001

Answers

New Scientist: Anthrax Preparation Indicates Home-Grown Origin

-- Anonymous, October 30, 2001

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