By JUDITH MILLER

Published: December 28, 2003
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Two years after the anthrax letter attacks, senior administration officials say they have fresh concerns about the nation's vulnerability to terrorist attacks with the deadly germ.

The officials said their fears had intensified in part because they now recognized that anthrax spores could be more widely dispersed than previously believed. In addition, they said, terror suspects with ties to Al Qaeda have told questioners that the group has been trying to obtain anthrax for use in attacks.

One indication of concern was a secret cabinet-level "tabletop" exercise conducted last month that simulated the simultaneous release of anthrax in different types of aerosols in several American cities.

The drill, code named Scarlet Cloud, found that the country was better able to detect an anthrax attack than it was two years ago, said officials knowledgeable about the exercise. But they said the exercise also showed that antibiotics in some cities could not be distributed and administered quickly enough and that a widespread attack could kill thousands. "The exercise was designed to be very stressful to the system, and it was," a senior government official said.

Veterans of America's biological warfare program of the 1950's and 1960's said the recent recognition of the ability of anthrax to spread widely appeared to be in line with research conducted decades ago and remains secret.

"The new generation of biological and chemical experts is simply unfamiliar with the earlier studies," said William C. Patrick III, a former head of product development at Fort Detrick, Md., then the military's center for developing germ weapons.

Another factor fueling concern about anthrax is the questioning of senior Qaeda agents now in United States custody, administration officials said.

One official said that after his arrest in March, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants, confirmed to American officials earlier reports that Al Qaeda, and particularly its second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, a physician, had long been eager to acquire biological agents, particularly anthrax. The official noted that Qaeda agents had inquired about renting crop-dusters to spread pathogens, especially anthrax.

According to an article by Milton Leitenberg, a biological warfare expert at the Center for International and Security Affairs at the University of Maryland, computer hard drives and handwritten notes seized at the home where Mr. Mohammed was arrested included an order to buy anthrax, along with other evidence of an interest in acquiring anthrax and other dangerous germs.

"Nothing so far translated implies access to the most dangerous microbial strains or to any advanced processing or delivery methods," Mr. Leitenberg concluded in a survey of recent developments in bioterrorism published in the journal Politics and Life Sciences.

American officials also said in interviews that Mr. Mohammed had told questioners that until the American invasion after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Al Qaeda's anthrax program was based in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and was led by two men: Riduan Isamuddin, known as Hambali, and Yazid Sufaat, a Malaysian member of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Qaeda-affiliated group.

Mr. Sufaat, who received a degree in biological sciences in 1987 from California State University, was a technician in the Malaysian military. In 1993, he set up a company to "test the blood and urine of foreign workers and state employees for drug use," Mr. Leitenberg wrote. Government officials say his company appears to have been involved in transferring money and buying ammonium nitrate for explosives for Qaeda groups in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.

Although Mr. Sufaat tried to acquire anthrax, there is no evidence that he was able to procure the appropriate strain used for attacks, officials said. Mr. Sufaat was arrested in 2001 as he tried to enter Malaysia and is being held at an undisclosed place, officials said. He has reportedly confirmed numerous details about Al Qaeda's effort to develop anthrax and other biological agents.

So, too, has Hambali, who like Mr. Sufaat fled to neighboring Pakistan after the United States invaded Afghanistan. He was arrested last August in Thailand and has been cooperating with American officials, several officials said.

CBS News reported in early October that Hambali had been trying to open a new biological weapons program for Al Qaeda in the Far East when he was arrested.

Officials said recent notices from the Department of Homeland Security also reflected the concern about a bioterror attack. A Nov. 21 warning from the department to law enforcement agencies states that while Al Qaeda is not known to have executed an attack using chemical or biological agents, "the acquisition, production or theft of these materials and subsequent dissemination is a top Al Qaeda objective."

Jerome Hauer, a former acting assistant secretary of health and human services for biodefense who now heads a biodefense center at George Washington University, said it was "no secret that Al Qaeda wants to use anthrax." He said, "If they get to the point where they have the technical sophistication to execute an attack, I think they would do so."

Lisa Bronson, a deputy under secretary of defense, said an anthrax attack was viewed as a threat to military personnel. Speaking to a group of security and arms control experts, she said anthrax was considered a unique weapon because of its stability and potential use in missiles and other delivery systems.

Last month's anthrax drill was notable for the top-level attention it drew and the gaps it showed in the effort to protect against bioterrorism. About three dozen senior officials involved in domestic defense, including two cabinet officers — Tom Ridge, the secretary of homeland security, and Norman Y. Minetta, the secretary of transportation — as well as John Gordon, the head of the White House's Homeland Security Council, participated in the exercise at the Pentagon's National Defense University, officials said.

The drill was an effort to follow up on weaknesses in federal emergency response plans identified in a simulated bioterrorism attack. That exercise, called Top Off 2, was organized by the Department of Homeland Security and involved 8,000 local, state, and federal officials. It simulated a radiological attack on Seattle and a pneumonic plague attack on Chicago.

The weeklong exercise showed that the government needed to improve plans for delivering vaccines and antibiotics to those exposed to a deadly agent, administration officials said. It also demonstrated that the government needed better plans for controlling and monitoring the movement of potentially contaminated produce and people in such an emergency, officials said.

Last month's test "showed that we are a lot better off today than we were two years ago before 9/11," a senior administration official said in an interview. "It also showed that there has definitely been a fast learning curve on bioterrorism."

But it also pointed up the problems in rapid distribution of medicine that could counteract anthrax exposure and showed that the government had enormous difficulties stopping the spread of contamination through the country and into Canada.

In an interview, a senior official said the exercise underlined the need for a program that President Bush first outlined in this year's State of the Union speech for providing $5.6 billion over 10 years to encourage the development of drugs, vaccines and other defenses against biological, nuclear, radiological and chemical attacks. The program, Project Bioshield, would also encourage private companies to work with federal agencies to develop measures to combat smallpox, Ebola virus, plague, anthrax and other pathogens. The government would then buy and stockpile the drugs or vaccines.

Although the measure passed overwhelmingly in the House and Senate, legislation authorizing its implementation has not been approved.