Let me address the relative difficulty of making the anthrax.
Before the anthrax mailings, in an interview in September 2000, Dr. Ken Alibek addressed whether Bin Laden could make a “Alibek-caliber” powdered anthrax. Dr. Alibek was a colleague of microbiologist Ali Al-Timimi. Al-Timimi was taught by Bin Laden’s sheik al-Hawali and actively communicating with him.
“HOMELAND DEFENSE: OK. Let’s say I’m an Usama bin Laden type individual. I have millions of dollars. Can I produce a high-quality “Ken Alibek-caliber” dry powdered anthrax?
KEN ALIBEK: In many cases it’s not likely. Of course, if you get hundreds of thousands of dollars and if you have a person who knows how to do this, you could make a highly effective biological weapon. But if you have a person with millions of dollars but has no idea how to do this, or someone with a bachelor’s degree in biology even, it’s not going to help. You need to have somebody with either practical knowledge or somebody with the right type of mind to do this. Unfortunately, this information is available now.
We just don’t understand that if your objective is to develop an effective biological weapon and to deploy it with an aerosol, all this information is available. It is a matter of time and effort in gathering this information. In many cases, it’s not necessarily the information that counts. It’s a matter of knowledge in microbiology and aerosol science and knowing how to build a more effective aerosol device. If you’ve got the money, and you’ve got the managerial skills to find the right people, the rest is just a matter of time.
***
HOMELAND DEFENSE: So the information is still in your head if you wanted to do this? If you wanted to go set up an offensive production capability, you could do it?
KEN ALIBEK: I have no such intentions.
HOMELAND DEFENSE: But the point is, you probably have that information. If terrorists get the right technical data, they can reduce their timetable, for example, shrinking it from three years to three months.
KEN ALIBEK: That is correct. But I don’t like it when someone says I can do this. I know I can do this, but I know I will never do this.
HOMELAND DEFENSE: Well, we’re very glad that you’re on our side now. On a different subject, is the U.S. government doing the right things now to protect the country?
KEN ALIBEK: For me, this is a most painful topic.”
[USAMRIID Major General John] Parker did disclose that the anthrax in question contained silica, a common substance found in sand and quartz. (But we can credit it was silicon because siliconizing solution serves the same purpose as silica in the culture medium). Another department colleague of Bin Laden’s sheik’s protege — Dr. Alibek’s co-director of the Center for Biodefense at GMU — told a reporter that the presence of silica is significant, but he declined to say why, citing national security concerns.
“I don’t think I want to give people — terrorists — any information to help them, said Dr. Charles Bailey, a scientist at Advanced Biosystems Inc. at George Mason University and former commander of the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).”
The problem was that a microbiologist trained in computer science and actively communicating with Bin Laden’s sheik, according to NSA intercepts, was working just feet away from both famed Russian anthrax bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and Dr. Bailey. Bin Laden’s supporters already had potential access to the information.
Admittedly, Al-Timimi merely wanted to destroy Western Civilization. He was not known to use fake screen names on the internet or work late at his lab down the street from home after the country had been attacked.
These long posts are not relevant to the article. They only deter discussion of the article.
Let me turn to the issue of isotope ratios — revealing where the culture medium was grown.
The FBI scientists have been able to distinguish between water isotopes ratios in the anthrax. Brian Williams reports that investigators have told NBC that the water used to make the spores came from the Northeastern United States. Researchers have been able to establish that anthrax grown in water in the Northeastern United States is distinguishable from anthrax grown in water from the Southeast and Pacific Northwest. In one published anthrax study, researchers grew Bacillus subtilis, a harmless bacteria that resembles Bacillus anthracis, using local water from five different U.S. cities. The scientists were able to distinguish those grown in various cities. The method can be used to narrow the number of possible origins of the water based on the number of oxygen and hydrogen isotopes. Interviewer Kestenbaum said: “Ehleringer is now creating a map showing how the isotope ratios of water vary anthrax was grown, it may rule some places out.” A scientist explained the research in an NPR interview in 2004.
Ehleringer and his colleagues published a March 2007 article titled “Stable isotope ratios of tap water in the contiguous United States” in “Water Resources Research.” The study was funded by the “federal government.” The raw data survey results have been embargoed by the federal government.” (The agency would usually be identified). In other water isotope ratio studies the funding agency was identified as the CIA or whatever agency it was — it varied. Perhaps this March 2007 study was funded by the Department of Justice/Federal Bureau of Investigation and was done specifically for the purpose of laying the scientific groundwork of a prosecution in Amerithrax.
Separately, a press release announced in September 2003 that University of Maryland researchers have developed a technique to help the FBI track the origins of deadly anthrax spores by identifying the medium used to grow it. The FBI asked Maryland professor Catherine Fenselau to turn her mass spectrometry lab to the forensic task of sleuthing how bacillus spores, such as anthrax, are prepared. While the Utah scientist in this study was looking at the tap water, Helen W. Kreuzer-Martin, the Maryland scientist in a study published in April 2007 titled “Stable Isotope Ratios and the Forensic Analysis of Microorganisms,” was looking at the nutrients in the culture. The DOJ/FBI likely hopes to put all the data together with the more familiar reasons to suspect someone (means, motive, modus operandi and opportunity), and put on a case that to a moral certainty proves it was committed by the perp(s). Absent the scientific evidence, there perhaps is a lack of a “smoking gun.” Here, based on this new science, hopefully there is a smoking petri dish.
By looking at the oxygen, hydrogen and deuterium geospatial distribution, authorities can more precisely identify where the water came from. For example, the deuterium map might be relied upon to eliminate an ambiguity left by the range indicated by the oxygen and hydrogen maps.
Selected sources:
Bowen, G. J., J. R. Ehleringer, L. Chesson, E. Stange, and C. E. Cerling. 2007. “Stable isotope ratios of tap water in the contiguous USA,” Water Resour. Res. 43:W03419.
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2007/2006WR005186.shtml
Horita, J., and A. A. Vass, “Stable-isotope fingerprints of biological agents as forensic tools,” J. Forensic Sci. 48:122-126 (2003)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=12570211&dopt=AbstractPlus
Kreuzer-Martin, H. W., L. A. Chesson, M. J. Lott, J. V. Dorigan, and J. R. Ehleringer, “Stable isotope ratios as a tool in microbial forensics. 2. Isotopic variation among different growth media as a tool for sourcing origins of bacterial cells or spores,” J. Forensic Sci. 49:961-967 (2004).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=15461095&dopt=AbstractPlus
Kreuzer-Martin, H. W., L. A. Chesson, M. J. Lott, and J. R. Ehleringer, “Stable isotope ratios as a tool in microbial forensics. 3. Effect of culturing on agar-containing growth media,” J. Forensic Sci. 50:1372-1379 (2005).
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=retrieve&db=pubmed&list_uids=16382831&dopt=AbstractPlus
Kreuzer-Martin, H. W., M. J. Lott, J. Dorigan, and J. R. Ehleringer, “Microbe forensics: oxygen and hydrogen stable isotope ratios in Bacillus subtilis cells and spores,” Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 100:815-819 (2003).
http://www.pnas.org/content/100/3/815.abstract?ijkey=fab4cbbab441ba7dff87548c7f41866771a131bb&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha