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CNN Live Sunday
'Weaponizing' Anthrax: Additional Steps to Make it More Lethal
Aired October 21, 2001 - 15:18 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: You know, Elizabeth was just talking about how hardy anthrax is. And perhaps that is why we're seeing anthrax as the weapon of choice for this latest campaign of terror.
To join us to talk a little bit more about this and give us some insights into anthrax and how it is weaponized -- this is a term we're becoming familiar with -- is Javed Ali, our expert on bioterrorism.
Javed, let's talk about what weaponizing is, first of all. That's a new for a lot of people.
JAVED ALI, CNN BIOTERRORISM ANALYST: It's a new term, and it's kind of an elastic term in the sense of there is no real hard definition of what that means with respect to biological warfare, biological weapons. But maybe I can clear up some points.
I think when that term weaponization is discussed, it's in reference to additional steps that are taken to prepare the material or do something to the actual organism itself to make it more useful as a weapon rather than just the way it exists in its natural state.
O'BRIEN: All right. Based on that definition, what we know about this power, which was sent through the mail, was this weaponized anthrax?
ALI: There's really no way for those of us sitting on the outside of this investigation to tell. It may have -- the material or the anthrax or the organisms may have come in the powdered form through some other legitimate source.
So it's still too early to tell whether it was weaponized into the powder form as well.
O'BRIEN: Well, so can you give us a sense, then, whether it's weaponized or not? Taking anthrax, which we know if ubiquitous in soil in certain places, and turning it into something that can be a powder, something that can float in the air, is not a simple task, is it? This is something typically that governments have done in past history.
Currently, who has the technology, the wherewithal, the means to do this?
ALI: Another very difficult question to answer with any precision. But the bottom line, the assessment of any perpetrator or even a national government that was interested in developing a biological weapons capability for any agent, whether its anthrax or something else, getting to that level of actually producing it in a sufficient quantity, making sure that it's viable, storing it, stabilizing it, and then trying to weaponize it. That is a fairly sophisticated undertaking.
And heretofore, we haven't seen very many successful attempts at weaponization outside of the efforts of the Soviet Union's biological weapons program, and to a limited degree, the Iraqi program.
O'BRIEN: So we have a fairly small list of suspects, when you talk about the powdered form of anthrax, then?
ALI: Well, it's a fairly small list, but that's not to say that there could be clusters of individuals or that capability is now resident in some potential terrorist organization. So it's still too early to say whether the sponsor -- or at least the material is from a state source, or it has been developed by a non-state entity.
I don't think the clues or the evidence, at least as we know them publicly, is available yet.
O'BRIEN: So it could be done. The technology is not inaccessible to someone who is determined and has a little bit of money to back it up.
ALI: And you have to have the expertise as well. I mean, that's a fundamental component of trying to get to that weaponization stage, and looking at one terrorist group, if you want to call them that, the Aum Shinrikyo (ph) cult in Japan that was -- became infamous for the March 1995 Tokyo subway incident that they had apparently tried to use biological agents well before using chemical agents in all of their attempts to both acquire a virulent strain of biological agents, and then produce them in sufficient quantities, and even deliver them failed, even though they had a lot of money, they had some technical expertise, and they had a very sophisticated technical infrastructure to produce these agents.
O'BRIEN: All right. So I guess the bottom-line lesson is here that anthrax may be the hardiest of the biological weapon of choice, it's still not easy, in a word.
ALI: Correct.
O'BRIEN: All right.
ALI: Correct.
O'BRIEN: Javed Ali, our expert on bioterrorism -- thank you very much for being with us and helping us understand this a little bit better.
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