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CNN Live At Daybreak
Anthrax Even Purer Than Originally Thought
Aired March 27, 2002 - 06:36 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.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Let's talk about a mystery now. Six months after the anthrax attacks, investigators still don't know who is behind them, but there are key clues that investigators hope will help them solve the mystery. For more on that, we go to CNN's Susan Candiotti.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The latest anthrax analysis is yielding another key clue. CNN has learned the deadly spores filling the letters to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy are even more pure than investigators thought, making it highly unlikely the anthrax killer could have made and treated the spores in a make-shift setting.
VAN HARP, ASSISTANT FBI DIRECTOR: The person knew what they were doing.
CANDIOTTI: Assistant FBI Director Van Harp is leading the investigation.
HARP: Contrary to what was initially out there at the beginning of the investigation, this anthrax, we do not believe, was made up in a garage or a bathtub.
CANDIOTTI: The FBI has narrowed the labs to about two dozen, all each capable of making the deadly spores.
HARP: There are only so many people, so many places that this can be done.
CANDIOTTI: One of them is here, the U.S. Army Lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland. CNN was given a rare look inside a key laboratory leased by the FBI to help find the anthrax killer. Behind an entrance marked "infectious area crash door," samples of deadly spores from attacks that began last October.
MAJ. GEN. JOHN PARKER, FORMER COMMANDER, FORT DETRICK: We are looking for the original ownership of a bacteria, and then who stole it to use it for this illicit, immoral purpose.
CANDIOTTI: Over the years for research purposes, Fort Detrick shared its anthrax with other labs. In the 1990's, there were a series of security lapses here. It also has a long history of training highly skilled scientists, leading some to suggest the spores or even the anthrax killer might be associated with the lab.
Until his retirement last week, Major General John Parker oversaw the team of scientists at the Army's Medical Research Lab here assigned to the FBI's anthrax case.
PARKER: When you think of, well, where did anthrax possibly come from, you have to think of our laboratory.
CANDIOTTI: Fort Detrick is where the FBI opened the intercepted anthrax-stuffed letter addressed to Senator Patrick Leahy. Dr. Johnnie Zell (ph) is the gloved scientist seen here gingerly pulling the letter and deadly spores out of the envelope.
(on camera): What was going through your mind knowing that the world was watching really?
DR. JOHNNIE ZELL (ph), SCIENTIST: Not to make a mistake. But, no, it was intense, and it just felt very good afterwards that we were very successful in removing the material and protecting the properties of the material.
CANDIOTTI (voice-over): Beyond groundbreaking science, there are investigative handicaps. No crime scene, just a handful of letters; 5,000 interviews have yielded no suspect.
HARP: Quite possibly, we have already interviewed the person once, but we are going to get back to him if we did.
CANDIOTTI: Some scientists accuse the FBI of stalling to protect government secrets.
BARBARA ROSENBERG, FED. OF AM. SCIENTISTS: There may be embarrassing information connected with the entire event, and that there may not be really enthusiasm about bringing this information out into the public.
CANDIOTTI: The FBI bristles at those suggestions.
HARP: Those are uninformed outsiders.
CANDIOTTI: After searching everything left behind by the September 11 hijackers, the FBI says there is absolutely no evidence linking them to the anthrax attacks. In the end, science may hold the key to the killer.
HARP: And once the science half is done, I think we are going to solve this investigation.
CANDIOTTI (on camera): After months of research and meticulous testing at labs here and elsewhere, and thousands of interviews, the FBI says it has no single suspect, and cannot predict when it will solve the anthrax attacks.
Susan Candiotti, CNN, at Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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