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CNN Live At Daybreak

High Grade Anthrax Needs to be Traced to Source

Aired October 23, 2001 - 07:34   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: Looking for answers now to the anthrax attacks. With more cases and more deaths, there are plenty more questions. Where did these attacks come from?

Joining us once again with his insights is former United Weapons -- United Nations, that is, Chief Weapons Inspector Ambassador Richard Butler -- welcome back.

RICHARD BUTLER, FORMER U.N. CHIEF WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Morning, Paula.

ZAHN: Let's talk a little bit about the heat the postal service is under right now. You saw the postmaster general get creamed yesterday basically by postal workers saying what is going on here? You know you clear out the Capitol and you make sure the senator's and the representative's offices are clean but meanwhile we're sorting mail and getting sick. Do they have a point?

BUTLER: I think they do, Paula. What we're seeing now is some additional clarification of the picture. I'm going to state the bleeding, the obvious, right. This stuff has come through the mail so there's someone out there lacing letters with anthrax.

ZAHN: Right.

BUTLER: And we have abundantly clear evidence of that now, this shocking business. I must say, I was quite shocked when I heard this. Two people who simply sort mail...

ZAHN: Never opened the letters.

BUTLER: ... are now dead, OK. So -- and it went to media organizations and to the Capitol, OK, through the mail. So someone out there is putting anthrax in those letters.

Now second point, it's high quality anthrax, Paula. It's the stuff that you can't see. It moves through the air. Maybe it's leaked out of envelopes before someone -- well, actually it has. We know that now -- leaked out of envelopes before someone has opened them...

ZAHN: All right, is that the best explanation then?

BUTLER: ... and breathed in. ZAHN: So that's the best explanation...

BUTLER: I think so.

ZAHN: ... for how these postal workers got sick?

BUTLER: I think so unless someone has been sprinkling this stuff like black pixie dust or something, you know, in that Brentwood sorting room. Now obviously I don't think that's happened. So it's through the mail someone's putting high quality anthrax, the kind that you can inhale, the worst kind with its tiny particle size that you can't see, and these people are dying.

Now next thing is we need to know where that anthrax is coming from. As I've said to you before, this is not low-grade stuff. Whoever made this knows exactly what they're doing.

ZAHN: Yes, but there's some confusion on that and you've even acknowledged that. The first day we heard it was virulent and highly sophisticated, then it seemed like the government backed off from that a little bit. Now is that what we are being told, if the stuff somehow got out of a sealed envelope and two people are dead,...

BUTLER: I think so. I think so.

ZAHN: ... this points to what you said all along?

BUTLER: Yes, well I think so. There are people more expert than me. I listen to those -- for example, the man who was my chief biologist when I was in charge of the job in Iraq, he believes very strongly that this is high quality stuff probably from Iraq. That's his opinion. We don't know that it's fact.

ZAHN: And why? Why does he think it's from Iraq?

BUTLER: Because of the way in which it has been killing people, because of its quality, meaning the way in which it's been made.

ZAHN: So does that mean you give more credence then to the reports that hijacker Mohammed Atta was seen having two meetings with top ranking Iraqi officials?

BUTLER: That's right. Yes, I do, Paula.

ZAHN: This was within the year proceeding the September 11 attack?

BUTLER: Absolutely. Look, I'm going -- I'm going to stick it every step in this story as closely as I can to the facts. I do not know today that Iraq was involved. But goodness me, every piece of information that we see rolling out day after day draws us closer to that possibility. We now know that the guy who drove one of those aircraft into the World Trade Center tower had two meetings, not one, two meetings with Iraqi intelligence just months before. We know that the deputy head of Iraqi intelligence, who is now their ambassador in Turkey, would you believe, he's been south to meet with Osama bin Laden. I could go on. We don't have time.

Believe me, Paula, this plot is thickening. Now we have reports that Iraq is moving its chemical and biological weapons manufacturing and store stockpiles out of the Baghdad area to hide sites in the north and the south.

ZAHN: That was actually just confirmed this morning.

BUTLER: That's right.

ZAHN: What does that mean, though, because the U.S. Defense Department came out with a report in January saying they knew that Iraq had started manufacturing chemical weapons once again?

BUTLER: Well, I...

ZAHN: This shouldn't come as any great surprise, should it?

BUTLER: No, it shouldn't, but I think it's time that we were leveled with. There's a real need for truth here.

ZAHN: Wait a minute, are you saying the government's lying to us right now?

BUTLER: No, I'm not. I wouldn't (INAUDIBLE) like that.

ZAHN: What are you saying?

BUTLER: I'm saying that a statement that was made six months ago by the administration saying that if we catch Iraq with weapons of mass destruction that we will take care of them needs to be clarified. What do you mean if is what I'm saying. Of course Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. That's a known fact.

Now we have a report that they think they may be attacked so they're moving them out of harm's way. I think we need a little bit of verity out here about exactly what Iraq's weapon's status is and when that's clear, I think the nations of the world who are really concerned about this terrorist action and about Iraq's possible role in it had better sit down around the table and get real about it and come to some conclusions about what we do about Iraq and its weapons of mass destruction.

ZAHN: As always, it's good to have you with us because this story just broke. The Associated Press confirming that Iraq is,...

BUTLER: OK.

ZAHN: ... of course, moving some of its chemical weapons underground to bunkers.

BUTLER: Right.

ZAHN: Which I'm told that U.S. bombs are smart enough to hit if that was a kind of activity the U.S. government...

BUTLER: They should be.

ZAHN: ... wanted to get involved in.

BUTLER: They should be, yes. OK.

ZAHN: Good of you to join us, thanks.

BUTLER: Good to see you.

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