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American Morning

Anthrax Scare: Who is Doing It?

Aired October 17, 2001 - 11:35   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Alright, right about 25 minutes before the hour. Let's update you on what we have now. The latest on the anthrax scare out of Washington, D.C. 29 people we are told, 29 have been exposed to anthrax as a result of that letter that arrived in the Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office on Monday of this past week.

We are also told hundreds are now in line to be tested as well to see if they were exposed. Again to draw the clarification to exposure and infection, it is dramatic at this point. Exposure is what we have confirmed, not an infection.

Overall, across the country, we have four cases of infection, two in Florida, and two in new York city.

In addition to this, the House is saying it will close its offices at the end of business today on Wednesday and come back to Washington, open up again on Tuesday of next week. We anticipate the Senate may follow suit. We have not confirmed that just yet, but we are awaiting word the possibility that the Senate may close its doors as well. This is a precaution it get a security sweep to take through -- all through the Capitol Building and also the Senate and House office buildings that sit there on the campus of the Congress in Washington. Again, 29 exposures at this point. As we get more, we will pass it along.

But for now, here is Daryn to talk more about it.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Bill, one of the many questions that comes up with this and there are a lot of questions out there. Who would be angry enough to want to attack with anthrax.

And to get more insight on that, let's bring in Brian Levin. He is a professor at Cal State San Bernardino and he is with the Center For The Study Of Hate And Extremism. Professor, good morning. Thanks for joining us.

PROFESSOR BRIAN LEVIN, CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF HATE AND EXTREMISM: Thank you for having me, Daryn.

KAGAN: Automatically, I think people are jumping to the conclusion this is somebody outside the country. Is that a fair assumption or do you think people should be careful not to jump to that assumption so quickly? LEVIN: I agree with you on both counts. I do think it is a fair assumption, but I don't think we should rule out the presence of possible home grown domestic terrorists.

Here's why though. Right now, with the limited information that we have, I'm leaning more towards foreign based.

KAGAN: Why?

LEVIN: Well the first is the location. We saw New Jersey, which is a place where some of the terrorists involved in the 9-11 attack and also with the first World Trade Center attack were residing. Of course it was more in northern New Jersey. Also, the hijackers were located about nine miles away from the AMI building in southern Florida.

So location, I think is one thing. Timing is another. It came soon after the attacks. What else? One of your earlier guests spoke about the level of sophistication needed. I think that someone who might be connected to a country like Iraq or a group that has been attempting to cultivate this for some time probably would have an edge with regard to coordination and expertise.

And lastly, there is some very interesting pieces of information that are floating around there. The first, is that there were Allah references in the letters to both Mr. Brokaw and Mr. Daschle.

Additionally, one of the hijackers is alleged to have met with some Iraqi official. He also had an interest in crop dusters and apparently sought pharmacological help for a dermatological problem. So those things, I think, point in one direction, but not they're not dispositive and there are probably a half a dozen good arguments on how a domestic group may be involved.

KAGAN: Let me throw a couple of those at you right now. I'll play devil's advocate for a moment. First of all, location. This latest attack of course being on the U.S. Capitol, there are plenty people -- plenty of people within the borders of the United States that are angry at the federal government.

LEVIN: Absolutely. And they might be even more angry now as we have been monitoring at our organization, fighthate.org, communications that are public of these anti-government groups.

DARYN: What kind of things are you seeing?

LEVIN: Well, we're seeing -- very interesting dichotomy. Some of them are very patriotic and want to use their unauthorized militias to help the homeland defense effort.

KAGAN: Okay. Interesting offer.

LEVIN: Yeah, on the other hand, many of them are skeptical about international cooperation, the whole "new world order" thing that helped foment the militia movement in the early 90s. And many are very concerned about globalization and the U.N., and NATO AWACS over the east coast and the National Guard at airports. And wire tapping and all this. So, they are very concerned about an increase in federal authority. So there is really a mix. But I'd say more so concerned about greater government authority.

KAGAN: And let me throw one other devil's advocate point out to you. You mentioned the mention of Allah in the letter. First of all, anybody could put that in. That doesn't necessarily mean that that is coming from someone who is of the Islamic faith. Also...

LEVIN: Absolutely.

KAGAN: ...if you look at the outside. I think the return address was a grade school in New Jersey. I mean, clearly, I don't think it was coming from a grade school. So, how -- how -- how seriously could you take what was written in the letter? I don't know how much does that lead to who actually sent it?

LEVIN: Well, the outside of the envelope -- to someone who studies terrorists -- the outside of the envelope has a different purpose than the inside. The outside is to get it open and get those

KAGAN: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

LEVIN: bacterial agents exposed to people. The inside might very well be a ruse, but if you were an anti-government person, you probably would want to express some of these concerns.

One of the things that we do when we train federal law enforcement at fighthate.org, is -- is we look at the type of terrorists that are out there. And I think you made an excellent point. The first type is the ideological, and they could either be foreign or domestic. But that doesn't mean you should discount the psychologically dangerous person who might just have their own contorted reason for doing it, and lastly someone who has a grudge. Those are the three areas that we look at.

And -- and I agree with you. It's too early to discount any of them. But right now, based on the limited pieces of individual evidence that's out there, I'm leaning slightly more towards a foreign-based terrorist entity rather than a home grown one.

KAGAN: One final question. Do you see it as an individual or as a group?

LEVIN: If it's -- if it's a foreign-based, it's likely to be a cellular involvement -- in a group. If it's domestic-based, it -- it's likely to be a smaller or -- or an individual. One thing about al Qaeda is they always plan their stuff two or three steps in advance and are always looking, doing new things. They did have an interest in chemical and biological agents but they did not have the sophistication.

Indeed, if they coupled up with Iraq, that might be a possibility. But again, this is just educated speculation at this point. KAGAN: Well, we do appreciate that educated speculation. Brian Levin, Professor Brian Levin, Cal State San Bernardino. Thanks for joining us today, and we'll be talking with you in days to come.

LEVIN: Thank you kindly for having me, Daryn.

KAGAN: Thank you.

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