BioTerror in the U.S.

While the Bush administration is beating the war drum against Iraq for allegedly obtaining biological and nuclear weapons and spreading them around the world, here in the USA we might have our own homegrown terrorist living freely and working everyday with lethal viruses like Ebola and Marburg. Dr. Steven Hatfill, virologist and right-wing ex-mercenary, is also the primary "person of interest" in the FBI's ongoing anthrax case.

Some prominent biodefense researchers think Hatfill is the right suspect, but that the FBI has balked at arresting him. Some have pointed out that the FBI has been dragging its feet on the case from the first day, recognizing that Hatfill is an insider, and that arresting him would not only embarrass the Bush administration and bring more calumny down on the FBI and CIA, but probably also expose some nasty secrets about the US biodefense -- or more accurately "bioweapons" -- program.

On Aug. 1, the FBI, under pressure from Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy (targets of two anthrax letters), searched Dr. Hatfill's apartment near Ft. Detrick for the third time. Hatfill has been interviewed by the FBI four times, undergone a lie detector test, and has now hired two layers to represent him. He has also lied about his past, claiming that he was in the US Army Special Forces (he flunked out of Special Forces training after the first month), and he has claimed to have a doctorate in molecular cell biology from the University of Rhodes (but the University has no record of his receiving the degree). There's also a mountain of circumstantial evidence against him.

Hatfill is one of about 20 or 30 people in the US with the scientific know-how to safely handle anthrax spores, who also has had access to a level 3 or 4 "hot" lab where he could work with powdered anthrax without risking infection. Notably, the anthrax in the letter to Tom Daschle was of such high potency that the list of suspects becomes even smaller. It includes Hatfill and only two or three other people who know how to use a new, efficient weaponizing technique developed only recently by one of Hatfill's close colleagues.

Until last year, Hatfill had a security clearance and access to the labs at Ft. Detrick in Maryland, where he was employed until 1999. He left Ft. Detrick to work for a government contractor, SAIC Corp., but his security clearance remained valid until Aug. 23, 2001, allowing him continued access to government labs. According to coworkers, when the Pentagon revoked his security clearance for undisclosed reasons, Hatfill was furious.

Hatfill's colleagues have reported that he lost his security clearance because he failed a lie detector test, specifically when asked questions about his service in the late 1970s with a secret, undercover military unit of the white, racist Rhodesian government. The Selous Scouts were notorious for using chemical and biological warfare against the black, independence fighters in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and against the black civilian population of Rhodesia who occasionally gave material help to the opposition. Historians have documented that the Selous Scouts seeded rivers with cholera, used the chemical toxins warfarin and thallium, sold parathion-laced clothing to opposition fighters and civilians alike, poisoned reservoirs and wells, and were almost certainly responsible for causing the world's largest anthrax outbreak, which sickened over 10,000 people and killed 182.

When Hatfill failed his lie detector test, he complained that the people administering the test were amateurs and that they couldn't understand what he and other Cold Warriors had to do in Rhodesia. Hatfill may have been lying about his work with the Selous Scouts just as he lied about his Special Forces training; nevertheless, his statements provide valuable clues to his mental state and his aspirations.