Brian Ross reports in an ABCNEWS.com article titled, “No Suspects, Few Clues.” Excerpt:
April 4 — Six months after the government first said a man in Florida was sick with anthrax, which later killed five people and set off a nationwide panic, federal investigators say they have no suspects and few clues.
The FBI asked for the help of Dr. Ken Alibek almost immediately because no one in the world has made more weapons-grade anthrax than he has.
Until he defected 10 years ago, Alibek ran the secret Soviet and Russian anthrax program and says he has the expertise to make the material that was sent in the American anthrax letters. “Yes, it would be easy to do,” he said.
Now Alibek tells ABCNEWS he and a number of other scientists were told last month they must take lie detector tests if they wanted to continue to help the FBI. He confirmed he had to answer questions including “Did you do it?” and “Do you know who did it?”
Alibek said he passed the test.
FBI Believes Person Responsible Is U.S. Scientist
The FBI continues to believe the person responsible for the anthrax attacks is likely a current or former U.S. scientist, perhaps a prominent one.
Federal investigators say Alibek is one of at least a dozen such individuals, many who worked in the bioweapons research program at Ft. Detrick, Md., have been given and passed lie detector tests.
“There are very few people who have this technical skill,” said Dr. David Franz, the former bioweapons commander at Ft. Detrick. “And that’s, in my mind, what makes this a very small group of potential perpetrators.”
Because polygraph “tests” have no validity and are easily passed through the use of simple countermeasures that polygraphers cannot detect, the FBI should place no reliance whatsoever on polygraphy in clearing potential suspects.