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American Morning

Interview With Marilyn Thompson

Aired April 15, 2003 - 09:34   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.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: You might remember 18 months ago, letters laced with anthrax mailed from New Jersey to Congress and media organizations up and down the East Coast. Five people died. Since last summer, agents have focused much of their attention on a former bioweapons expert, Dr. Steven Hatfill. U.S. officials still today have him under 24-hour surveillance.
Marilyn Thompson is the author of "The Killer Strain: Anthrax and a Government Exposed." She is live here in New York to talk about the latest on this investigation. Good to see you, and thanks for being patient, Marilyn.

MARILYN THOMPSON, AUTHOR, "THE KILLER STRAIN": Thank you.

HEMMER: First on Steven Hatfill, why is the thumb of suspicion still on him right now?

THOMPSON: Well, the FBI has had to go down a number of trails of circumstantial evidence surrounding Dr. Hatfill, and clearly, they are not ready to ease the surveillance of him. It has remained around the clock. Dr. Hatfill complains that his phones are tapped, that as soon as he drives out of the driveway, he can see the FBI cars following him up and down the interstate. He recently had a job interview that he said was thwarted by FBI surveillance.

HEMMER: But in that time, also, in the past 18 months, the Iraqi regime has fallen and long ago, a year and a half ago, there were strong connections -- or thought to be strong connections with Baghdad. Is that argument right now with Iraq dead in the water?

THOMPSON: Well, the argument that this particular material came from Iraq, that has been diminished somewhat over the past months. Mainly because of the strain of anthrax that was involved in these letters, and our belief that while Iraq had many other strains, it didn't necessarily have the Ames strain, which was the particular type in these letters.

HEMMER: So the mystery is this, Marilyn. If he or she or they were so successful in the anthrax attacks, why have they not or he not or she not struck again?

THOMPSON: That is a very interesting question. I mean, the FBI would argue that it thinks it has people in its sights that are afraid to try anything again. Whether that is true, we don't know. They have not made an arrest.

HEMMER: And there are no charges filed against Steven Hatfill, we need to make that quite clear. There is a suggestion, in my next question that might take us in that direction, I want to soft pedal a little bit, because we don't want to publicly convict this guy at all. Are your sources in Washington, D.C. suggesting, though, the fact that the attacks have not happened, the fact that they have ceased with him under surveillance, that that leads them to believe that Steve -- still he is their No. 1 suspect?

THOMPSON: He remains their No. 1 person of interest, they haven't gone as far as calling him a suspect. And yes, they will tell you that they believe they have stopped the attacks by keeping the proper people under surveillance.

HEMMER: In the meantime, though, across the country, are we any safer? We learned much?

THOMPSON: I think that we have learned a few things. We are seeing a beefed-up effort to improve the surveillance of the mail, for example, the testing and monitoring equipment in the U.S. postal facilities. Huge dollars thrown at the issue of homeland security to try to beef up domestic preparedness.

But my sad conclusion after looking at the mistakes here is that this could, in fact, happen again, because the series of mistakes that were made were largely the result of basic human error.

HEMMER: I can only sit here and hope you are wrong. Thanks for talking. Marilyn Thompson, author of "The Killer Strain," also with the "Washington Post." Thanks for being patient.

THOMPSON: Thank you.

HEMMER: You got it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired April 15, 2003 - 09:34   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: You might remember 18 months ago, letters laced with anthrax mailed from New Jersey to Congress and media organizations up and down the East Coast. Five people died. Since last summer, agents have focused much of their attention on a former bioweapons expert, Dr. Steven Hatfill. U.S. officials still today have him under 24-hour surveillance.
Marilyn Thompson is the author of "The Killer Strain: Anthrax and a Government Exposed." She is live here in New York to talk about the latest on this investigation. Good to see you, and thanks for being patient, Marilyn.

MARILYN THOMPSON, AUTHOR, "THE KILLER STRAIN": Thank you.

HEMMER: First on Steven Hatfill, why is the thumb of suspicion still on him right now?

THOMPSON: Well, the FBI has had to go down a number of trails of circumstantial evidence surrounding Dr. Hatfill, and clearly, they are not ready to ease the surveillance of him. It has remained around the clock. Dr. Hatfill complains that his phones are tapped, that as soon as he drives out of the driveway, he can see the FBI cars following him up and down the interstate. He recently had a job interview that he said was thwarted by FBI surveillance.

HEMMER: But in that time, also, in the past 18 months, the Iraqi regime has fallen and long ago, a year and a half ago, there were strong connections -- or thought to be strong connections with Baghdad. Is that argument right now with Iraq dead in the water?

THOMPSON: Well, the argument that this particular material came from Iraq, that has been diminished somewhat over the past months. Mainly because of the strain of anthrax that was involved in these letters, and our belief that while Iraq had many other strains, it didn't necessarily have the Ames strain, which was the particular type in these letters.

HEMMER: So the mystery is this, Marilyn. If he or she or they were so successful in the anthrax attacks, why have they not or he not or she not struck again?

THOMPSON: That is a very interesting question. I mean, the FBI would argue that it thinks it has people in its sights that are afraid to try anything again. Whether that is true, we don't know. They have not made an arrest.

HEMMER: And there are no charges filed against Steven Hatfill, we need to make that quite clear. There is a suggestion, in my next question that might take us in that direction, I want to soft pedal a little bit, because we don't want to publicly convict this guy at all. Are your sources in Washington, D.C. suggesting, though, the fact that the attacks have not happened, the fact that they have ceased with him under surveillance, that that leads them to believe that Steve -- still he is their No. 1 suspect?

THOMPSON: He remains their No. 1 person of interest, they haven't gone as far as calling him a suspect. And yes, they will tell you that they believe they have stopped the attacks by keeping the proper people under surveillance.

HEMMER: In the meantime, though, across the country, are we any safer? We learned much?

THOMPSON: I think that we have learned a few things. We are seeing a beefed-up effort to improve the surveillance of the mail, for example, the testing and monitoring equipment in the U.S. postal facilities. Huge dollars thrown at the issue of homeland security to try to beef up domestic preparedness.

But my sad conclusion after looking at the mistakes here is that this could, in fact, happen again, because the series of mistakes that were made were largely the result of basic human error.

HEMMER: I can only sit here and hope you are wrong. Thanks for talking. Marilyn Thompson, author of "The Killer Strain," also with the "Washington Post." Thanks for being patient.

THOMPSON: Thank you.

HEMMER: You got it.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com