Experts Doubt FBI’s Anthrax Attack Theory

A significant number of scientists and biological warfare experts are expressing skepticism about the FBI’s view that a single disgruntled American scientist prepared the spores and mailed the deadly anthrax letters that killed five people last year.

These sources say that making a weaponized aerosol of such sophistication and virulence would require scientific knowledge, technical competence, access to expensive equipment and safety know-how that are probably beyond the capabilities of a lone individual.

As a result, a consensus has emerged in recent months among experts surveyed by the Washington Post that some of the fundamental assumptions driving the FBI’s investigation might be flawed.

Instead, more than a dozen experts suggested that investigators might want to reexamine the possibility of state-sponsored terrorism, or try to determine whether weaponized spores might have been stolen from an existing, but secret, biodefense program, or perhaps given to the attacker by an accomplice.