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American Morning

Anthrax in America: Authorities Looking into Possibility of Homegrown Terrorist

Aired October 29, 2001 - 09:36   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.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Authorities still don't know who is behind the anthrax attacks, and as the number of cases and contaminated sites increases, the anxiety increases as well.

Authorities are looking at a number of theories, including the possibility of homegrown terrorist.

National correspondent Eileen O'Connor has been tracking the investigation.

Good morning, Eileen.

EILEEN O'CONNOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Miles.

Well, you're right, investigators haven't ruled anything in or out. And they say they are and have been looking at a group of domestic terrorist groups. One thing, Miles, is that they looked at early on was the fact that there were 90-some abortion clinics were targeted with letters that said that they had contained powdery substance that purported to contain anthrax, turned out they were fake. But there was the thinking by investigators that perhaps they were linked to those anthrax-laced letters that turned out to have real anthrax.

In addition, they're looking possibly at some racist groups or militia groups, anti-government groups, that might be taking advantage of the feeling in America of vulnerability, trying to create some sort of instability in the government.

Then of course those racist groups, white supremacist groups, looking at the wording of those letters. The letter to Tom Brokaw and "New York Post" and Tom Daschle all said "death to America, death to Israel, Allah is Great." Now one thing investigators thing is that that was purposely put there to throw people off track, to lead investigators or people to assume that this was an Islamic fundamentalist group, that this was Osama bin Laden, and also to create some kind of anti-immigration, anti-Arab backlash.

In addition, they do know that there is some experience with the white supremacist group, at least one white supremacist, Larry Wayne Harris. In fact, in 1995 was -- pled guilty to wire fraud. He in fact tried to use a false letterhead and got three vials of botulism. The strain from a lab that had these cultures that gave out to researchers for use in research facilities. At the time, Larry Wayne Harris had been a lab worker. Now he was arrested. He was found out, later in fact found after he was on probation with some vials of the anthrax vaccine. He said he was vaccinating himself and his dogs against anthrax. He even wrote a book about the threat of bioterrorism that some people say in fact a manual on how to do it -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Eileen, it's Interesting, I know that investigators can actually glean a lot from those letters themselves. One of those things that's of interest to me is they use the U.S. format for the date. That is to say, the month, the date and the year. The rest of the world tends to do the day, the month and the year. I guess there's no detail that is too small that would escape investigators as they go through all of this?

O'CONNOR: No. Exactly. But that could go either way, in the sense they could have written it on purpose because it was sent to Americans. Also, you know, one of the thing investigators looked at early on, Miles, was 9/11 some sort of anniversary that was significant to a particular group, the people who did the hijacking, or was it 911, emergency technicians, that were called to respond? And investigators looked at that. Was this some kind of sick joke? Miles.

O'BRIEN: Eileen O'Connor, who will be watching the investigation for us out of Washington.

Thanks very much.

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