Anthrax-Suspect Hatfill worked on Pentagon-Iraq-Afghanistan Program

posted by ewing2001 on Thursday July 03, @10:19AM

Anthrax Probe Figure Worked for Pentagon

By CURT ANDERSON, Associated Press Writer -July 3

WASHINGTON - Even after he came under FBI scrutiny in the 2001 anthrax attacks, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill continued to teach Pentagon training sessions for military personnel preparing to search for chemical and biological weapons overseas.

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Officials from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Special Operations Command said Thursday that Hatfill did the work as an employee with defense contractor Science Applications International Corp.

The DIA got Hatfill to teach courses at Camp Dawson, W.Va., in March 2002, after he had lost both his job and his government security clearance as the anthrax investigation intensified.

"To lose him at that point would have been a bad thing for the DIA," said Lt. Cmdr. James Brooks, a DIA spokesman. "We wanted to get the training done, and he was the expert."

Hatfill also bought materials for and helped construct mock biological weapons labs to train special operations personnel on what to look for in Afghanistan , Iraq and elsewhere, officials say. And he trained State Department employees in how to respond to potential chemical or biological attacks against them.

A senior federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was this very work that caught the FBI's attention as agents searched for people in the United States who might be capable of making deadly anthrax spores into a weapon.

Hatfill, a physician and bioterrorism expert, has not been charged in the anthrax attacks, but has been labeled "a person of interest" by Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) and is under 24-hour FBI surveillance.

Letters laced with anthrax that were mailed to government and news media offices in fall 2001 killed five people and sickened 17 others. Hatfill has repeatedly denied any connection to the attacks and his friend and spokesman, Pat Clawson, said Hatfill's sensitive work for the military shows the trust once placed in him.

"Steve's expertise and knowledge is something that's very valuable to the U.S. government," Clawson said. "Obviously the Defense Department values his expertise. It's astonishing that the Justice Department doesn't."

FBI and Justice Department officials declined comment. But Brooks, the DIA spokesman, called Hatfill "an extremely professional, knowledgeable expert. That was our relationship with him."

Hatfill came to SAIC in January 1999 from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. He worked for SAIC until March 4, 2002, as a senior scientist, said spokesman Ron Zollars from company headquarters in San Diego.

Hatfill went from there to a position at Louisiana State University — a job he subsequently lost amid the FBI anthrax probe. Hatfill is now unemployed and living in Washington.

Under the State Department contract with SAIC, Hatfill trained Diplomatic Security Services personnel in a "countermeasures program" in case they should encounter biological or chemical attacks overseas.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Hatfill did the training on a part-time basis from mid-April 2002 until mid-June 2002. Officials could not immediately explain how Hatfill was involved when he had left SAIC in March.

Still, Hatfill received a letter of recommendation in summer 2002 on State Department letterhead praising his work. Boucher said that was written by an unidentified employee without proper authorization from the agency.

"It was the personal views of that employee," Boucher said.

State Department and Pentagon officials said they were aware of the FBI's interest in Hatfill while he performed the work, but that security concerns were not an issue because Hatfill did not handle any classified materials.

Lt. Col. Rivers Johnson, a Pentagon spokesman, said Hatfill "never had unescorted access to equipment or Special Operations Forces compounds" while doing his training work.

The mock labs Hatfill helped construct were not functional and could not have been used to process anthrax or any other dangerous compounds, officials said. The FBI nevertheless tested the labs for traces of anthrax but found nothing.

The FBI also recently drained a pond outside Frederick, Md., where a previous search had turned up lab equipment and a plastic container that some investigators theorize could have been used to place anthrax into envelopes under water. Tests on the equipment, however, have not revealed anthrax and tests on pond muck and other items found after the drainage are incomplete.

The pond is a few miles from Fort Detrick, location of the Army bioterrorism lab where Hatfill formerly worked. It is also near his former apartment.

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