FBI Closes in on Anthrax Terrorist 


Prime Suspect is a Zionist 
by 
Hector Carreon 
La Voz de Aztlan 
2/26/2002 


Jewish microbiologist Dr. Philip M. Zack may be behind the deadly 
anthrax contaminated letters that were mailed to NBC's Tom Brokaw, 
Senator Tom Daschle and others, according to FBI sources. In a 
rapidly unravelling investigation by the FBI, it appears that the 
"Arab- hating-Jew" was behind a vile conspiracy to frame a colleague 
who was born in Egypt and who worked, along with Dr. Zack, at the 
U.S. Army's Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in 
Fort Detrick, Md. 


La Voz de Aztlan has maintained from the beginning that the anthrax- 
laced letters seemed contrived and were purposely written to make 
them appear that they were coming from someone in the Islamic World. 
New information just released by the FBI confirms our suspicions. On 
October 9, 2001 we published "Anthrax Terrorists may be Zionists" in 
which we outlined the reasons for our suspicions and in addition 
reported on a letter we received with a yellowish powder. On October 
24, 2001 we published an editorial "Anthrax Letter Messages Seem 
Contrived" in which we commented on our theory concerning the origin 
of the letters. We also published pictures of the three actual 
letters and envelopes. We have now compared the handwriting on these 
letters to the one we received and it looks suspiciously the same. We 
are not handwriting experts and have made the decision to publish the 
envelope and letter we received so that our readership can see for 
themselves. Our local police department never came to pick up the 
envelope and letter and we still have them in a double zip-lock 
plastic bag. The letter and envelope addressed to La Voz de Aztlan 
are published at http://www.aztlan.net/letterbiochem.htm 


The case against Dr. Phillip M. Zack began unravelling when Egyptian- 
born scientist Dr. Ayaad Assaad, now a U.S. citizen, was called in by 
the FBI for an interview on October 2, 2001. The FBI had received an 
unsigned letter falsely accusing Dr. Assaad of being responsible for 
mailing the anthrax tainted letters. The letter stated, among other 
things, "Dr. Assaad is a potential biological terrorist," and "I have 
worked with Dr. Assaad, and I heard him say that he has a vendetta 
against the U.S. government and that if anything happens to him, he 
told his sons to carry on." Rosemary A. McDermott, attorney for Dr. 
Assaad, stated that here is a very close connection between the 
person who sent that letter and the person who sent the anthrax. Ms. 
McDermott said "The person who wrote that letter knew intimate 
details of my client's life and his professional history, and about 
the Fort Detrick operation. I don't think that is a coincidence." The 
Fort Detrick biochemical research laboratory has maintained stores of 
weapons-grade anthrax that is commonly known as the Ames strain of 
Bacillus anthracis. 


The anonymous letter falsely accusing Dr. Assaad was was sent a 
little after the September 11 terrorist attacks but before anyone 
knew about the anthrax-laced letters. On October 5, 2001, about 10 
days after the anonymous letter was mailed, Robert Stevens, Photo 
Editor of The Sun in Florida, became the first of five individuals to 
die from an anthrax infection. 


The racist and bigoted attacks on Dr. Ayaad Assaad by Zionist Philip 
Zack and others started while he worked at the Army's bioweapons lab 
at Fort Detrick in Maryland during the 1990's. This is when a vicious 
racist vendetta was launched against the scientist of Arab descent. A 
group of coworkers led by then Army Lt. Col. Philip Zack began a 
hateful campaign to harass and get Dr. Assaad fired from his duties. 
The Zionists apparently wanted to get rid of anyone that could 
uncover their sinister plans which consisted in stealing "weapons 
grade anthrax" and other deadly viruses used in biological weapons. 
The conspirators had the support of the lab's former commander. Among 
other things, the bigots wrote and passed around a very crude poem 
denigrating Arab Americans, an obscene rubber camel and constantly 
poked fun at Dr. Assaad's use of the English language. In 1991 Dr. 
Assaad discovered the eight-page poem in his mailbox. The poem was 
lewd and mocked Dr. Assaad. The poem also referred to the rubber 
camel that was passed around. It was outfitted with all manner of 
sexually explicit appendages. The poem in part read: ``In Assaad's 
honor we created this beast; it represents life lower than yeast.'' 
The bigots noted that the rubber camel will be given each week ``to 
who did the least.'' 


It appears that the conspirators created an extremely toxic workplace 
on purpose in order to take control of the laboratory. The lab became 
very dysfunctional and hostile to the few "good" scientists that 
worked there which included Dr. Assaad. Dr. Assaad said ``This person 
knew in advance what was going to happen and created a suitable, 
well-fitted scapegoat for this action. You do not need to be a Nobel 
laureate to put two and two together.'' Dr. Assaad said he reported 
everything to his supervisor, Col. David R. Franz, but that Colonel 
Franz ``kicked me out of his office and slammed the door in my face, 
because he didn't want to talk about it.'' Dr. Assaad was eventually 
dismissed by Colonel Franz as were two other scientists of Arab 
descent. 


The evidence against the racist Zionist bigot Dr. Philip "Mengele" 
Zack is very strong. Lab specimens of anthrax spores, Ebola virus and 
other pathogens disappeared from the Army's biological warfare 
research facility in the early 1990s during the very same period that 
the conspirators were harassing Dr. Assaad. An 1992 inquiry into the 
disappearance of the deadly pathogens found evidence that someone was 
secretly entering the laboratory late at night to conduct 
unauthorized research involving anthrax. A numerical counter on a 
piece of lab equipment had been rolled back to hide work done by the 
mystery researcher. A lab scientist, Dr. Mary Beth Downs, told 
investigators that she had come to work several times in 1992 to find 
that someone had been in the lab at odd hours to use the electron 
microscope to conduct some clandestine research. Dr. Downs reported 
in a memo that whoever was using the microscope was "either in a big 
hurry or didn't know what they were doing." Documents from the 
inquiry show that one unauthorized person who was observed entering 
the laboratory at night was Lt. Col. Philip Zack who at the time no 
longer worked at Fort Detrick. A surveillance camera recorded Lt. 
Col. Zack being let in at 8:40 P.M. on January 23, 1992, by another 
conspirator by the name Dr. Marian Rippy. Dr. Philip M. Zack has not 
been arrested. 


http://aztlan.net/zack.htm 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

September 19, 2005 


Covering the Tracks of the Anthrax Attacks 
What, where, why -- who?   


by Justin Raimondo 


Four years ago today, letters containing anthrax were postmarked from 
Trenton, N.J., to five major American media outlets, including ABC 
News, NBC News, CBS News, the New York Post, and AMI Media, a 
publisher of supermarket tabloids. Thus began a series of attacks over 
several weeks that terrorized the nation, infected 22 people, killed 
five – and played a key role in amplifying the post-9/11 hysteria and 
paranoia that took the nation on a course set for war. 


Three weeks after the first mailings, two letters containing highly 
weaponized anthrax – far more deadly than the relatively crude 
concoction contained in the first letters – showed up in the offices 
of two Democratic senators, Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. The Capitol 
emptied, most members of Congress fled Washington, and the country – 
already jumpy as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks – was 
practically prostrate with fear. 


Remember how the War Party used these attacks to stoke up sentiment 
for attacking Iraq? Andrew Sullivan declared: 


"At this point, it seems to me that a refusal to extend the war to 
Iraq is not even an option. We have to extend it to Iraq. It is by far 
the most likely source of this weapon; it is clearly willing to use 
such weapons in the future; and no war against terrorism of this kind 
can be won without dealing decisively with the Iraqi threat. We no 
longer have any choice in the matter. Slowly, incrementally, a Rubicon 
has been crossed. The terrorists have launched a biological weapon 
against the United States. They have therefore made biological warfare 
thinkable and thus repeatable. We once had a doctrine that such a 
Rubicon would be answered with a nuclear response. We backed down on 
that threat in the Gulf War but Saddam didn't dare use biological 
weapons then. Someone has dared to use them now. Our response must be 
as grave as this new threat." 


Nuke 'em!, said Andy – without a single iota of evidence that Iraq was 
involved. But who needs evidence? That's soooo September 10th. 
Everything's changed, we were told: we don't require evidence, not 
anymore. All we need are vaguely portentous phrases, such as "a 
Rubicon has been crossed." We can make up the rest as we go along… 


Over at the Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol was gleefully rubbing his 
hands together and cackling that the administration seemed finally to 
have signed on to the neocon prescription for taking the "war on 
terrorism" beyond Afghanistan, to Iraq: 


"Has the administration come around thanks to repeated efforts at 
persuasion by The Weekly Standard (and a few other hawks)? Perhaps. 
But a likelier explanation is that they have come to believe we'll 
have to take the war beyond Afghanistan – to Iraq and other state 
sponsors of terror – because they've found evidence of support by 
'other states' for very recent and sinister bin Laden-related 
activities. 


"What if the anthrax cases in Florida are an act of terrorism? What if 
the presence of the anthrax spores there is connected to the fact that 
a few of the September 11 terrorists, led by Mohammed Atta, lived 
within a few miles? What if Atta – or some other bin Laden operative – 
had access to anthrax from the terrorist-sponsoring country that we 
know has a long record of developing anthrax as a biological weapon, 
Iraq?" 


Unlike the more emotive Sullivan – for whom evidence of an Iraq 
connection would only be an unnecessary drag on his breathy 
imprecations – the cool-headed Kristol came up with a scenario meant 
to convince the reader that such a connection was at least possible. 
It involved the now famous – and decidedlydisproved – meeting between 
Mohammed Atta and an alleged Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague. 
Although the Czech police denied it, the myth persisted, and grew: not 
only did Atta plan the 9/11 terrorist attacks in collaboration with 
Iraqi intelligence on his trip to Prague, he also – according to 
Kristol and James "World War IV" Woolsey – hatched the anthrax plot. 
However, given that this mythical meeting, conducted in the course of 
six busy hours, was alleged to have taken place at the Prague airport, 
and was conducted within range of security cameras, one wonders if 
passing vials of anthrax under such circumstances might have proven 
somewhat problematic. 


Oh well, the War Party didn't need especially logical arguments in 
stoking the fires of American rage: the smoke had yet to lift from 
downtown Manhattan, and the victims of the Twin Towers and Pentagon 
attacks were still being counted. As anthrax panic gripped the nation, 
the White House was preparing to extend the war to "other countries" – 
a prospect Kristol & Co. found thrilling. If the administration 
wouldn't bow to the bellicose blandishments of the Weekly Standard, 
then perhaps they would bend before the amplified fear of terrorism 
raised by the anthrax attacks. 


And so they did. 


In retrospect, outrage and fear generated by the anthrax attacks were 
essential elements of the propaganda campaign designed to link Iraq to 
terrorism in the U.S. and drag us into war. The attacks were so 
propitious in this regard that one might be forgiven for wondering if 
the perpetrators had this as their intention. Certainly they took 
great pains to convey the impression that the postal pestilence was 
authored by angry Arabs of one sort or another. 


Also, in retrospect, the investigation into the anthrax mystery seems 
remarkably botched, a kind of pre-Katrina premonition of a dangerous – 
even criminal – incompetence. The authorities quickly seized on one 
Steven J. Hatfill, a government scientist and a somewhat hapless 
figure, against whom not a single shred of solid evidence could be 
marshaled. Yet Hatfill was branded a "person of interest" and 
relentlessly harassed by government agents, who – in collaboration 
with a certainNew York Times columnist – destroyed his reputation. 
U.S. government agents followed him everywhere, made his life a 
misery, and refuse to this day to either apologize or offer some small 
compensation to a man whose life they have ruined. 


It is interesting that the U.S. government was all too eager to follow 
the path suggested by journalists such as Nicholas Kristof, one of 
Hatfill's earliest and most relentless nemeses, while studiously 
ignoring the clues provided by others. The Hartford Courant ran a 
series of articles by Dave Altimari, Lynne Tuohy, and Jack Dolan that 
not only pointed in the direction of the possible perpetrators, but 
named names and implied a political-ideological motive behind the 
crime. 


The anthrax strain has been positively identified as being of the Ames 
variety, of the sort stored at USAMRIID, the U.S. government 
biological weapons facility at Fort Detrick, Md., and a few other such 
labs. Soon after the anthrax attacks, the Courantexposed the weird 
problems besetting the Ft. Detrick facility, which had apparently been 
missing large quantities of biological toxins, including not only 
anthrax but also hanta virus, Ebola virus, and other lethal pathogens. 
These mysterious disappearances apparently occurred: 


"During a turbulent period of labor complaints and recriminations 
among rival scientists there, documents from an internal Army inquiry 
show. The 1992 inquiry also found evidence that someone was secretly 
entering a lab late at night to conduct unauthorized research, 
apparently involving anthrax. A numerical counter on a piece of lab 
equipment had been rolled back to hide work done by the mystery 
researcher, who left the misspelled label 'antrax' in the machine's 
electronic memory, according to the documents obtained by The 
Courant." 


This "mystery researcher" may have been someone at the very center of 
that "turbulent period," one Philip Zack. Zack and a group of 
personnel at Ft. Detrick had been systematically harassing an Egyptian 
co-worker, Dr. Ayaad Assaad. The Courant reports: 


"Documents from the inquiry show that one unauthorized person who was 
observed entering the lab building at night was Langford's 
predecessor, Lt. Col. Philip Zack, who at the time no longer worked at 
Fort Detrick. A surveillance camera recorded Zack being let in at 8:40 
p.m. on Jan. 23, 1992, apparently by Dr. Marian Rippy, a lab 
pathologist and close friend of Zack's, according to a report filed by 
a security guard." 


The harassment of Assaad, detailed here, took on bizarrely juvenile 
forms: an obscene poem, a rubber camel delivered to his mailbox, a 
constant stream of racist anti-Arab remarks such as one might find 
posted these days on Little Green Footballs. Court documents reveal a 
harrowing experience of cruel and relentless persecution carried out 
by a small clique, including Zack, who called themselves the "camel 
club." 


While the anthrax letters received enormous publicity, one mailed 
missive that might provide a key clue to the identity of the 
perpetrators has received very little: an anonymous letter, sent in 
late September before the anthrax drama unfolded, to the military 
police at the Marine base in Quantico, Va., accused Dr. Assaad of 
being behind a terrorist plot to unleash biological horrors in 
American cities. The author revealed a detailed knowledge of Dr. 
Assaad's career at USAMRIID and claimed to have formerly worked with 
him. 


Assaad was interrogated by the FBI on Oct. 3, then let go after the 
letter was determined to be a hoax. When the effects of the anthrax 
attacks began to make themselves known, the full horror of what had 
happened began to dawn on Assaad – but not, apparently, on the 
authorities. Says Assaad: "My theory is, whoever this person is knew 
in advance what was going to happen (and created) a suitable, 
well-fitted scapegoat for this action." The odd timing of the letter – 
sent after the anthrax letters were mailed, but before their deadly 
contents were known – certainly seems to point in this direction. The 
Courant reports FBI spokesman Chris Murray saying "the FBI is not 
tracking the source of the anonymous letter, despite its curious 
timing, coming a matter of days before the existence of anthrax-laced 
mail became known." Instead of following the trail of this important 
clue, investigators went off on a tangent with the Hatfill angle, 
which proved [.pdf] to be a dead end. 


An Egyptian scientist, albeit one who is an American citizen and had 
lived in this country for quite some time, had been set up as the 
scapegoat for the crime – before knowledge of the mailed anthrax was 
generally known. This same scientist had been the object of a hate 
campaign generated by virulently anti-Arab co-workers at Ft. Detrick, 
at least one of whom was videotaped surreptitiously entering the lab 
at night (after he had been dismissed from his position and was not 
authorized to enter in any event). 


Whoever wrote the poison pen letter denouncing Dr. Assaad as a 
potential terrorist in all likelihood knows something about the 
origins of the anthrax attack. In this context, the crudeness of the 
messages accompanying the anthrax – "death to America" and "death to 
Israel" – seems like an obvious effort to divert attention away from 
the real authors of a crime that goes unsolved to this day. 


Just as the Bush administration was looking for an excuse – any excuse 
– to take out after Iraq, the anthrax horror reared its head and 
silenced any remaining opposition to the war plans of this 
administration, at least momentarily. It all seems like such a 
terribly convenient coincidence. In retrospect, it was as much a part 
of the vortex of fearmongering that sucked us into war as tales of 
Iraqi WMD palmed off by Ahmed Chalabi's "heroes in error" and the 
extravagant effusions of Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice. No, I am 
not suggesting that the U.S. government or the Bush administration 
carried out these attacks: yet whoever did surely had in mind making 
it easier for the War Party to unleash mass death and destruction in 
the Middle East, a veritable wave of hate that would carry us to 
Baghdad and beyond. 


Why isn't Congress investigating this? Where is the probe into the 
"intelligence failure" that managed to target and destroy an innocent 
person while pulling investigators away from evidence pointing in a 
more plausible direction? Whoever pulled off the anthrax attacks is 
still out there, waiting for the right moment to strike. This is a 
case that must be solved – because there's more where that came from. 


http://www.antiwar.com/justin/ 


[Note: Justin Raimondo has been in the forefront of exposing the 
hate-motivated injustices that Drs. Assaad and Hatfill have faced. 
Check www.antiwar.com for previous intriguing and revealing columns in 
which he dissects especially the attempted frame-up of an 
Egyptian-American scientist by, it appears, a hateful, bigoted Jewish 
colleague.] 

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Anthrax Missing From Army Lab
January 20, 2002 
By JACK DOLAN And DAVE ALTIMARI, Courant Staff Writers 

Lab specimens of anthrax spores, Ebola virus and other pathogens
disappeared from the Army's biological warfare research facility in the
early 1990s, during a turbulent period of labor complaints and
recriminations among rival scientists there, documents from an internal
Army inquiry show. 

The 1992 inquiry also found evidence that someone was secretly entering
a lab late at night to conduct unauthorized research, apparently
involving anthrax. A numerical counter on a piece of lab equipment had
been rolled back to hide work done by the mystery researcher, who left
the misspelled label "antrax" in the machine's electronic memory,
according to the documents obtained by The Courant. 

Experts disagree on whether the lost specimens pose a danger. An Army
spokesperson said they do not because they would have been effectively
killed by chemicals in preparation for microscopic study. A prominent
molecular biologist said, however, that resilient anthrax spores could
possibly be retrieved from a treated specimen. 

In addition, a scientist who once worked at the Army facility said that
because of poor inventory controls, it is possible some of the specimens
disappeared while still viable, before being treated. 

Not in dispute is what the incidents say about disorganization and lack
of security in some quarters of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute
of Infectious Diseases - known as USAMRIID - at Fort Detrick, Md., in
the 1990s. Fort Detrick is believed to be the original source of the
Ames strain of anthrax used in the mail attacks last fall, and
investigators have questioned people there and at a handful of other
government labs and contractors. 

It is unclear whether Ames was among the strains of anthrax in the 27
sets of specimens reported missing at Fort Detrick after an inventory in
1992. The Army spokesperson, Caree Vander-Linden, said that at least
some of the lost anthrax was not Ames. But a former lab technician who
worked with some of the anthrax that was later reported missing said all
he ever handled was the Ames strain. 

Meanwhile, one of the 27 sets of specimens has been found and is still
in the lab; an Army spokesperson said it may have been in use when the
inventory was taken. The fate of the rest, some containing samples no
larger than a pencil point, remains unclear. In addition to anthrax and
Ebola, the specimens included hanta virus, simian AIDS virus and two
that were labeled "unknown" - an Army euphemism for classified research
whose subject was secret. 

A former commander of the lab said in an interview he did not believe
any of the missing specimens were ever found. Vander-Linden said last
week that in addition to the one complete specimen set, some samples
from several others were later located, but she could not provide a
fuller accounting because of incomplete records regarding the disposal
of specimens. 

"In January of 2002, it's hard to say how many of those were missing in
February of 1991," said Vander-Linden, adding that it's likely some were
simply thrown out with the trash. 

Discoveries of lost specimens and unauthorized research coincided with
an Army inquiry into allegations of "improper conduct" at Fort Detrick's
experimental pathology branch in 1992. The inquiry did not substantiate
the specific charges of mismanagement by a handful of officers. 

But a review of hundreds of pages of interview transcripts, signed
statements and internal memos related to the inquiry portrays a climate
charged with bitter personal rivalries over credit for research, as well
as allegations of sexual and ethnic harassment. The recriminations and
unhappiness ultimately became a factor in the departures of at least
five frustrated Fort Detrick scientists. 

In interviews with The Courant last month, two of the former scientists
said that as recently as 1997, when they left, controls at Fort Detrick
were so lax it wouldn't have been hard for someone with security
clearance for its handful of labs to smuggle out biological specimens. 

Lost Samples 

The 27 specimens were reported missing in February 1992, after a new
officer, Lt. Col. Michael Langford, took command of what was viewed by
Fort Detrick brass as a dysfunctional pathology lab. Langford, who no
longer works at Fort Detrick, said he ordered an inventory after he
recognized there was "little or no organization" and "little or no
accountability" in the lab. 

"I knew we had to basically tighten up what I thought was a very lax and
unorganized system," he said in an interview last week. 

A factor in Langford's decision to order an inventory was his suspicion
- never proven - that someone in the lab had been tampering with records
of specimens to conceal unauthorized research. As he explained later to
Army investigators, he asked a lab technician, Charles Brown, to "make a
list of everything that was missing." 

"It turned out that there was quite a bit of stuff that was unaccounted
for, which only verifies that there needs to be some kind of
accountability down there," Langford told investigators, according to a
transcript of his April 1992 interview. 

Brown - whose inventory was limited to specimens logged into the lab
during the 1991 calendar year - detailed his findings in a two-page memo
to Langford, in which he lamented the loss of the items "due to their
immediate and future value to the pathology division and USAMRIID." 

Many of the specimens were tiny samples of tissue taken from the dead
bodies of lab animals infected with deadly diseases during vaccine
research. Standard procedure for the pathology lab would be to soak the
samples in a formaldehyde-like fixative and embed them in a hard resin
or paraffin, in preparation for study under an electron microscope. 

Some samples, particularly viruses, are also irradiated with gamma rays
before they are handled by the pathology lab. 

Whether all of the lost samples went through this treatment process is
unclear. Vander-Linden said the samples had to have been rendered inert
if they were being worked on in the pathology lab. 

But Dr. Ayaad Assaad, a former Fort Detrick scientist who had extensive
dealings with the lab, said that because some samples were received at
the lab while still alive - with the expectation they would be treated
before being worked on - it is possible some became missing before
treatment. A phony "log slip" could then have been entered into the lab
computer, making it appear they had been processed and logged. 

In fact, Army investigators appear to have wondered if some of the
anthrax specimens reported missing had ever really been logged in. When
an investigator produced a log slip and asked Langford if "these exist
or [are they] just made up on a data entry form," Langford replied that
he didn't know. 

Assuming a specimen was chemically treated and embedded for microscopic
study, Vander-Linden and several scientists interviewed said it would be
impossible to recover a viable pathogen from them. Brown, who did the
inventory for Langford and has since left Fort Detrick, said in an
interview that the specimens he worked on in the lab "were completely
inert." 

"You could spread them on a sandwich," he said. 

But Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a molecular biologist at the State
University of New York who is investigating the recent anthrax attacks
for the Federation of American Scientists, said she would not rule out
the possibility that anthrax in spore form could survive the
chemical-fixative process. 

"You'd have to grind it up and hope that some of the spores survived,"
Rosenberg said. "It would be a mess. 

"It seems to me that it would be an unnecessarily difficult task.
Anybody who had access to those labs could probably get something more
useful." 

Rosenberg's analysis of the anthrax attacks, which has been widely
reported, concludes that the culprit is probably a government insider,
possibly someone from Fort Detrick. The Army facility manufactured
anthrax before biological weapons were banned in 1969, and it has
experimented with the Ames strain for defensive research since the early
1980s. 

Vander-Linden said that one of the two sets of anthrax specimens listed
as missing at Fort Detrick was the Vollum strain, which was used in the
early days of the U.S. biological weapons program. It was not clear what
the type of anthrax in the other missing specimen was. 

Eric Oldenberg, a soldier and pathology lab technician who left Fort
Detrick and is now a police detective in Phoenix, said in an interview
that Ames was the only anthrax strain he worked with in the lab. 

Late-Night Research 

More troubling to Langford than the missing specimens was what
investigators called "surreptitious" work being done in the pathology
lab late at night and on weekends. 

Dr. Mary Beth Downs told investigators that she had come to work several
times in January and February of 1992 to find that someone had been in
the lab at odd hours, clumsily using the sophisticated electron
microscope to conduct some kind of off-the-books research. 

After one weekend in February, Downs discovered that someone had been in
the lab using the microscope to take photos of slides, and apparently
had forgotten to reset a feature on the microscope that imprints each
photo with a label. After taking a few pictures of her own slides that
morning, Downs was surprised to see "Antrax 005" emblazoned on her
negatives. 

Downs also noted that an automatic counter on the camera, like an
odometer on a car, had been rolled back to hide the fact that pictures
had been taken over the weekend. She wrote of her findings in a memo to
Langford, noting that whoever was using the microscope was "either in a
big hurry or didn't know what they were doing." 

It is unclear if the Army ever got to the bottom of the incident, and
some lab insiders believed concerns about it were overblown. Brown said
many Army officers did not understand the scientific process, which he
said doesn't always follow a 9-to-5 schedule. 

"People all over the base knew that they could come in at anytime and
get on the microscope," Brown said. "If you had security clearance, the
guard isn't going to ask you if you are qualified to use the equipment.
I'm sure people used it often without our knowledge." 

Documents from the inquiry show that one unauthorized person who was
observed entering the lab building at night was Langford's predecessor,
Lt. Col. Philip Zack, who at the time no longer worked at Fort Detrick.
A surveillance camera recorded Zack being let in at 8:40 p.m. on Jan.
23, 1992, apparently by Dr. Marian Rippy, a lab pathologist and close
friend of Zack's, according to a report filed by a security guard. 

Zack could not be reached for comment. In an interview this week, Rippy
said that she doesn't remember letting Zack in, but that he occasionally
stopped by after he was transferred off the base. 

"After he left, he had no [authorized] access to the building. Other
people let him in," she said. "He knew a lot of people there and he was
still part of the military. I can tell you, there was no suspicious
stuff going on there with specimens." 

Zack left Fort Detrick in December 1991, after a controversy over
allegations of unprofessional behavior by Zack, Rippy, Brown and others
who worked in the pathology division. They had formed a clique that was
accused of harassing the Egyptian-born Assaad, who later sued the Army,
claiming discrimination. 

Assaad said he had believed the harassment was behind him until last
October, until after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. 

He said that is when the FBI contacted him, saying someone had mailed an
anonymous letter - a few days before the existence of anthrax-laced mail
became known - naming Assaad as a potential bioterrorist. FBI agents
decided the note was a hoax after interviewing Assaad. 

But Assaad said he believes the note's timing makes the author a suspect
in the anthrax attacks, and he is convinced that details of his work
contained in the letter mean the author must be a former Fort Detrick
colleague. 

Brown said that he doesn't know who sent the letter, but that Assaad's
nationality and expertise in biological agents made him an obvious
subject of concern after Sept. 11.