Army made
weapons-grade anthrax recently, U.S. says
New York Times News Service
Published
December 13, 2001
As the
investigation into the anthrax attacks widens to include federal labs and
contractors, government officials have acknowledged that Army scientists
in recent years have made anthrax in a powdered form that could be used as
a weapon.
Experts said this appeared to be the first disclosure of
government production of anthrax in its most lethal form since the U.S.
renounced biological weapons in 1969.
Officials
at the Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah said that in 1998 scientists
there turned small quantities of wet anthrax into powder to test ways to
defend against biowarfare attacks.
Dugway spokeswoman Paula
Nicholson said the powdered anthrax produced that year was a different
strain from the one used in the recent mail attacks that have killed five
people.
Dugway officials said powdered anthrax was also produced in
other years, but they declined to say whether any of it was the Ames
strain, the type found in the letters sent to two senators and news
organizations. Government records show that Dugway has had the Ames strain
since 1992.
The disclosure comes as federal criminal investigators
are trying to figure out where stores of anthrax are housed around the
nation and who has the skill to create the powdered form.
Barbara
Hatch Rosenberg, an expert in biological weapons, , concluded recently
that at least 15 institutions have worked recently with the Ames
strain.
Copyright © 2001, Chicago Tribune
