Selling the threat of bioterrorism

Fear that Iraq possessed smallpox was emphasized by the Bush administration leading up to the war. As Congress prepared to vote on whether to authorize war, then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee on Sept. 18, 2002, that a smallpox attack by Iraq could kill as many as 1 million Americans and infect an additional 2 million.

Alibek has not retreated from his statements regarding Iraq's possession of smallpox or other biological weapons. He said in an interview that he had "talked to people who actually visited the Iraqi sites. And they said they had no doubt [there] was an offensive biological weapons program.... We need to look for the traces."

It is a lonely position today.

"There's been a lot of people thrashing around there for the last five years," said Russell, the retired general. "I don't think anybody could have hid it."

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Millions in funding

Alibek's most reliable benefactor in Washington has been Rep. H. James Saxton (R-N.J.), a gravelly voiced former elementary school teacher and state legislator. Saxton says that for two decades, he has focused on the threat posed by Islamic terrorism.

For most of the last decade, Saxton chaired the House Armed Services Committee's terrorism subcommittee and also headed the Joint Economic Committee, where Forrest landed as a senior aide.

On May 21, 2002, Saxton called a news conference to announce "a potential new defense against bioterrorism," based on Alibek's tests with mice. After being treated with an experimental product, the mice had survived doses of smallpox and anthrax.

Saxton at the time said that the results held hope for "lifting some of the burden of fear that haunts Americans."

And, while fighting for an earmark of federal grant money for Alibek at a March 2004 hearing, Saxton upbraided Anthony Tether, the Bush administration's director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

"You need to be more on his side," Saxton said of Alibek, adding: "I find it hard to believe that I have to fight as hard as I can to get a few measly bucks to keep him going."

Tether assured Saxton that he would accede to his wishes. Tether did so -- and fresh grant money was sent for Alibek's research.

Tether said that he had resisted spending more on Alibek's research because his "cocktail approach" -- mixing more than one drug with other ingredients in search of a product that might protect against smallpox, anthrax and plague -- made it "very hard to determine what is working and what is not."