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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Lessons from the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001 | |
Analysis by John Miller, CNN | |
Updated: | |
6:47 PM EDT, Sun May 5, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
I had spent much of the week in a space suit. | |
It was March of 2001 and I was in training at the Center for Domestic | |
Preparedness in Anniston, a little known facility operating on a former | |
Army base in Alabama. | |
I had just left the New York Police Department to join ABC News as | |
their expert on al-Qaida, Bin Laden and Terrorism. I landed in a class | |
with 20 cops and firemen to get certified as a Weapons of Mass | |
Destruction Technician. The “space suits” were Level A hazmat | |
suits, with hoods and self-contained breathing apparatuses. We | |
practiced how to operate in environments with nerve agents like sarin | |
gas, or biological agents like anthrax. | |
When I completed my training, they gave me a small lapel pin in the | |
shape of a cobra to signify I had trained in air-tight vaults with | |
“live” deadly chemical agents and was certified. | |
Seven months later, I woke up struck by a most beautiful day. It was | |
sunny, warm, and there was not a cloud in the blue sky. It was the | |
morning of September 11, 2001. | |
In the days that followed, America tried to recover from events that | |
had shaken us to our core. There were nearly 3000 dead and fears of | |
another attack. | |
A new terror | |
Anthrax. The ABC news desk asked me to look into a Florida man who had | |
died from anthrax poisoning. Was this terrorism? I ran down what I | |
could, but it seemed that Robert Stevens, a photo editor at American | |
Media near Boca Raton, FL, had been hiking on a vacation. He could have | |
picked it up in a cave or from a dead animal. He didn’t seem like a | |
natural target for terrorists. | |
And then came the flood. A week later, the letters began coming to the | |
New York Post and ABC News. Senate Majority Leader Tom Dachle’s | |
office got one. More than two dozen staffers tested positive for | |
anthrax exposure. NBC News got one addressed to Tom Brokaw. His | |
assistant had been exposed and became very ill, but recovered. | |
On October 12, NYPD Detective Patrick Pogan finished up a long night at | |
the Staten Island landfill, where he sifted through the debris coming | |
in from Ground Zero, looking for evidence or human remains connected to | |
the hijackers or any of Pat’s many friends and partners lost at the | |
Twin Towers. He later joined the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces | |
squad I-41, the Weapons of Mass Destruction Unit. | |
I caught up with him recently. “Back then, after working at the | |
landfill all night, I would sleep under my desk on the floor,” he | |
recalled. “After 9/11, real sleep wasn’t a thing anymore. I was | |
asleep for a little while and the phone rang. The supervisor asked if I | |
could cover a lead.” | |
Anthrax. Another letter containing white powder had been received by | |
Judith Miller, the New York Times’ lead reporter on WMD. Pogan says | |
Miller told him it probably wasn’t real. “It smells like Talcum | |
powder,” he remembers her saying. | |
He had two thoughts; first, I hope she doesn’t know that because she | |
sniffed it, and second, she was probably right. He and his FBI and NYPD | |
colleagues had responded to dozens of hoax calls that they referred to | |
simply as ‘white powder jobs.’ Pogan took the letter to the New | |
York City Health Department lab for testing. | |
The next time Pogan went back to the lab, one of the biologists looked | |
up from the microscope and said, “Hey, glad you’re here. We were | |
just about to call you. This stuff is real, it’s anthrax.” | |
“The biologist let me look through the microscope. There they were. I | |
could see them, these little tubes on the microscope image. This was | |
anthrax,” Pogan said, and he briefed his superiors. | |
“I got back in the car and I turned to John Scarbeck, the agent I | |
worked with and said, what do you want? I got cipro (ciprofloxacin) or | |
doxycycline in the glove compartment, pick one.” Both antibiotics are | |
considered anthrax antidotes. “On the WMD squad you always knew | |
exposure was a risk, so I kept these in the car,” he added. | |
Pogan and his team were still overwhelmed by 9/11 leads and a smoking | |
wreck at Ground Zero, but they knew New York City was under attack | |
again. This one wasn’t fiery, instant, and deadly on a mass scale. | |
This one was dark, slow, insidious and like nothing we had seen before. | |
It also lined up with what Pogan and I had learned in our COBRA | |
training at Anniston. This weapons grade anthrax was finely milled into | |
tiny particles that could not be contained simply by a sealed envelope. | |
It escaped into postal facilities where the mail was processed. It | |
floated through the air like a deadly lottery ticket where the unlucky | |
person who chose to take a breath while passing by. It was killing | |
people, one at a time, day by day. Between October 5, and November 22, | |
2001, five people who were exposed died from anthrax poisoning. | |
Seeking experts | |
Anthrax. Saddam Hussein? Bin Laden? A lone wolf in his basement? The | |
FBI codenamed the case “Amerithrax.” In November, the FBI released | |
a profile developed by the Bureau’s Behavioral Science Unit saying | |
that the anthrax killer was likely a male, a loner and might work in a | |
laboratory. Hundreds of agents, analysts and scientists worked around | |
the clock. For help, they turned to the US Department of Defense lab at | |
Fort Detrick, Maryland, where anthrax expert Dr. Bruce Ivins worked. | |
By summer of 2002, the investigation had zeroed in on a main suspect. | |
Search warrants were carried out at the Maryland apartment of Dr. | |
Steven Hatfill, a bio-weapons expert who had worked for the Department | |
of Defense as well as for governments in places like Rhodesia, now | |
known as Zimbabwe. | |
The FBI swabbed Hatfil’s home and Florida storage lockers for traces | |
of anthrax. Then they discovered he had been taking cipro. | |
Investigators learned that Hatfill’s Easy Pass had registered road | |
trips on the highways near the places in Maryland, and New Jersey where | |
the anthrax letters were mailed from. Despite efforts to keep the | |
investigation secret, Hatfill’s name came out, and he was described | |
by Attorney General John Ashcroft as “a person of interest” in the | |
case. | |
By September of 2002, I had left the news business to become the Chief | |
of Counterterrorism for the LAPD. “White powder jobs” continued to | |
come in, all of them hoaxes or some accidentally spilled Sweet’N Low | |
on a conference room table. The LAPD hazmat team had reduced its | |
response from building evacuations, blocked streets, and | |
decontamination showers to a discreet arrival by three hazmat team | |
members and a quick assay using specialized equipment to determine the | |
properties of the powder. Usually within half an hour, we could say it | |
was non-hazardous, and quietly go away. But each time I rolled on one | |
of those jobs, I knew the anthrax killer was still out there and I | |
wondered if they would strike again. | |
In August of 2002, the “person of interest,” Dr. Steven Hatfill, | |
held a press conference declaring his innocence and filed a civil | |
lawsuit against the Attorney General, the Justice Department and the | |
FBI. When I left the LAPD to join the FBI as an Assistant Director in | |
2005, my job was to run the FBI’s outreach to the communities across | |
the country and to serve as the Bureau’s national spokesman. | |
My boss, then FBI Director Bob Mueller, met regularly at the FBI’s | |
command center with the families of the anthrax victims to update them | |
as best he could about the case. Mueller took the Bureau’s | |
relationship with the families very seriously. He felt we owed it to | |
them to keep them in the loop. The families were told a good deal that | |
was not public. I don’t believe they were ever the source of a leak | |
about the case. | |
Eventually, Director Mueller changed the Amerithrax probe’s | |
leadership. He worried that the focus on Dr. Hatfill had closed the | |
investigation off from other suspects. Hatfill had been cleared and | |
paid more than $2.8 million in a settlement that also included another | |
$3 million to be paid out at $150,000 a year. Under a new inspector, | |
the case started from scratch. | |
In 2008, the investigation had narrowed down to Dr. Bruce Ivins, one of | |
the bio scientists who investigators first interviewed looking for | |
anthrax expertise. | |
Ivins essentially felt that his work was underfunded and | |
underappreciated. The Ameritrhax squad believed Ivins thought an | |
anthrax attack right after 9/11 would result in a flood of resources to | |
his Army bioweapons research lab. | |
Ivins likely knew from the FBI interviews and conversations with his | |
lawyer that he was about to be charged as the anthrax killer, so he | |
took an overdose and died in an apparent suicide. He was right. We had | |
a mountain of evidence, and were going to arrest him within 48 hours. | |
The anthrax case is full of lessons, successes, and failures. I learned | |
that you can train for something the way the experts think it’s going | |
to unfold, but when it actually goes down, you may find that even the | |
best training didn’t tell you everything about the real-world events. | |
I also realized how important it is to think of the victims and their | |
families. FBI Director Mueller made it a point to develop a | |
relationship of trust and accessibility with them. I believe that’s | |
why they never publicly criticized the agency, which would have only | |
made the job harder. | |
The final takeaway is about tunnel vision. Every investigator has to | |
follow their gut, but only to a point. You may have the best suspect in | |
the world, but the real suspect may be standing right next to you. | |
John J. Miller is the Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst | |
for CNN. He is a veteran award-winning journalist and experienced law | |
enforcement and intelligence executive. Prior to joining CNN, Miller | |
served as Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence & Counterterrorism of the | |
New York Police Department (NYPD). He’s also held positions with the | |
Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI. | |
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