Alibek made his first network-television news appearance in February 1998, and three months later testified at a congressional committee hearing on terrorism and intelligence. A news release said Alibek would "provide new information on Russia's offensive biological weapons program."
The only contact listed was a committee staffer named Vaughn Forrest, a onetime candidate for Congress. Forrest in the 1980s had traveled to Afghanistan to support the Muslims who ultimately drove out the invading Soviet Union. In helping Afghanistan's mujahedin, Forrest had developed a productive relationship with the CIA. Forrest introduced Alibek to the chairman of the Senate-House Joint Economic Committee. Forrest took the lead in arranging the hearing.
He and Alibek formed a lasting bond.
In his 1999 memoir, Alibek said that Forrest "was among the first to perceive the potential" for developing a product that would guard against not one, but an array of biological agents.
Forrest introduced Alibek to others who could help, including Florida Republican Bill McCollum, then-chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Forrest had once been McCollum's chief of staff. McCollum, now Florida attorney general, said Alibek "was worried about what the Soviets had made and what somebody else could get ahold of."
The list of identified suspects, McCollum said, included Libya, Iran and Iraq.
"I thought we had a real threat from this," McCollum said, adding that he distributed Alibek's book to "people in the administration and also members of Congress."
When Forrest left the congressional payroll, he became a consultant to Hadron Inc., where Alibek and Bailey worked. Forrest later became a director with Alibek in a successor company. Forrest declined to be interviewed for this report.
Alibek's public profile rose after the Sept. 11 attacks and the mailings of anthrax a month later that killed five people.
Appearing before a House subcommittee on national security in October 2001, Alibek said that earlier "attempts to wipe out Iraq's biological weapons capability were probably not successful." He also told the subcommittee that Russian biological weapons experts had "emigrated to rogue nations such as Iraq." As the U.S.-led war got underway in March 2003, Alibek said during an online discussion hosted by the Washington Post: "There is no doubt in my mind that [Saddam] Hussein has WMD."
