Background Briefing

Transcript

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.

Kirsten Garrett: Today on Background Briefing you’ll hear, perhaps more than you possibly wanted to know, about the mysterious and highly sensitive and dangerous world of biochemical weapons. Not only do we live with the possibility of what some hate-charged fanatics might do, but there’s the worrying dimension of mismanagement, incompetence and stupidity as well.

Some scientists, for example, have a way of carrying very valuable and dangerous pathogens about the globe. It’s called V.I.P. That stands for Vial In Pocket. The story of V.I.P. is towards the end of today’s Background Briefing.

And with that cheery bit of information, hello, I’m Kirsten Garrett.

Today’s program is a BBC production called Dirty Wars. The reporter, Allan Urri was able to get an interview with Seif al-Islam, one of the sons of Colonel Gaddafi of Libya. Seif al-Islam talks about how his father came to change the course of history and make peace with the West.

Gaddafi’s decision to come clean about nuclear weapons led to international exposure about the nuclear materials being traded out of Pakistan. To begin the story, Allan Urri.

Allan Urri: The Mayfair district of London is home to some of the world’s most exclusive hotels. On 19th March, 2003, the day before Britain went to war with Iraq, one of the most extraordinary deals in modern times was being struck in a private hotel room while guests took tea in the lounge, or sipped cocktails.

This is where the son of Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, told British Intelligence officers his father was willing to give up his secret plans to acquire a nuclear bomb.

Seif al-Islam: It was quite unique at the time for me, because I was face-to-face with the British Secret Service for the first time in my life, and with the people who I regarded for a long time as devils, as enemies for me. And I was quite nervous that something goes wrong. And then one of them said ‘One day the history will recognise that a huge and historic initiative started in a small room in a small hotel’.

Allan Urri: Libya, for years a pariah State, wanted to come back in from the cold, and was prepared to renounce terrorism and nuclear weapons to help it do so. For the first time, the BBC can reveal how Libya got some of the essential components it needed for a nuclear bomb. In spite of international sanctions. This program has also discovered policy failures, which for two decades have allowed the most lethal weapons known to mankind to be supplied illegally to the world’s most dangerous regimes.

Tony Blair: Libya has now declared its intention to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction completely. This decision by Colonel Gaddafi is an historic one and a courageous one, and I applaud it.

Allan Urri: December 19th, 2003, nine months to the day after that secret hotel meeting, the official announcement was made.

How could a country without a sophisticated technological base, have managed to put together a viable bomb program under the noses of the international community? The answer was, they bought it off the shelf, from a thriving black market, which had remained largely hidden from view and unchecked for many years. In fact, Libya is one of the few successes America and Britain have had in tackling the highly organised smuggling ring proliferating weapons of mass destruction.

It began with that secret hotel meeting, called by Colonel Gadaffi’s son, Seif al-Islam, back in the early spring of last year. He’s been speaking for the first time, about his role in brokering a deal with British Intelligence in an exclusive interview for the BBC.

Seif al-Islam: We started by telling them the message I have from the leader regarding how to work together to launch an initiative to reform the Middle East and so on. And then they mentioned the issue of WMD. OK, we are happy to be allies and work together in the Middle East. But first of all we have critical issues, we have to sort out, and I told them Yes, it’s OK, there’s nothing against that. And the leader, I know he’s ready to open this file with you.

Allan Urri: Your father had said to you, had he? if British Intelligence asks you about the nuclear weapons, then you’re to open the book on it?

Seif al-Islam: No, it’s not like this. I know my father very well, and I know his way of thinking. I know for a long time that he’s ready to tackle this issue , the WMD issue, with the West, if it is the right deal and the right terms.

Allan Urri: This was playing on his mind a bit for a while, was it, this whole issue about the nuclear weapons program was playing on his mind?

Seif al-Islam: Yes, of course, because don’t forget that Mr Tony Blair, he sent two letters to my father regarding this issue, and he urged him to find a solution for this problem, and therefore we were aware that the British and the America are worried about the activities going on in Libya.

Allan Urri: The Libyan deal was seen as a triumph of international diplomacy led by Britain. But why wasn’t Colonel Gaddafi confronted sooner over his plans to acquire weapons of mass destruction. According to official documents seen by this program, Libya began trading on the Black Market in 1997, and David Landsman, head of Counter Proliferation at the British Foreign Office, admits its Secret Service knew what was going on before Tripoli threw in the towel.

I’m just wondering why there was a sense that the Foreign Office knew something of what was going on in Libya, and why they weren’t confronted?

David Landsman: You can have information, you can have suspicions, but in the end if a country doesn’t want to co-operate fully, there are limits to what can be found out. "You can have suspicions, but in the end if a country doesn’t want to co-operate fully, there are limits to what can be found out." Libya for example, is a large country. If it doesn’t tell you what it’s doing, you may not find very easily a small installation somewhere in that country which is involved in pursuing a clandestine program, it’s simply not realistic to expect to be able to do it all without some co-operation.

Allan Urri: But you suggested in Libya’s case that you did in fact know quite a lot about what was going on.

David Landsman: We had some good ideas about a good deal.

Allan Urri: But it took them to come to you effectively before the program was dismantled.

David Landsman: Well that’s a pretty good way of doing it, if it works, and it was an approach which was well worthy pursuing, and it’s an approach which in the end proved successful. Of course I’m not saying that had the Libyans not done that we wouldn’t have found other ways to expose that they’ve been doing and to help to bring it to a conclusion.

Allan Urri: Luckily, they didn’t need to. Colonel Gadaffi’s son, Seif al-Islam says he’s relieved that Libya has made new alliances. But he’s unwilling to accept his country’s role in nurturing a dangerous black market trade.

Question from Allan Urri: Libya has made the world a much less safe place, hasn’t it, by its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Seif al-Islam: This is an American statement. We, and the leader, and the Libyan government, and we made a very brave decision, and we made America safer, and you safer here in London, this whole world safer. That’s why the world should reward Libya for that, and it’s a big achievement.

Allan Urri: But you’ve got your reward now. What about the pursuit of nuclear weapons in the first place? Your father, and Libya as a nation, was paying people in the black market, and that black market has been supplying others, that cannot have made the world a safer place.

Seif al-Islam: Yes, but I will tell you the truth, because of our initiatives, and because of the Libyan President, there is no active network any more, the whole network is frozen, and it’s because of Libya.

Allan Urri: The nuts and bolts of what was smuggled into Tripoli are now being examined. Tonnes of nuclear materials were removed to the United States for inspection by UN-sponsored agencies in January of this year. They included some of the most sensitive items, including parts for centrifuges. David Allbright, a physicist and former UN nuclear weapons inspector, says centrifuges play a critical role.

David Allbright: You can’t build a nuclear weapon unless you have the nuclear explosive material, and a very common one is highly enriched uranium, and what the centrifuge does is make the highly enriched uranium. It’s a sophisticated piece of equipment, spins very rapidly and separates the uranium isotopes. Uranium naturally has a very tiny amount of uranium 235 and a lot of uranium 238. What you want for a nuclear weapon is something that may be mostly uranium 235. And so the centrifuge, particularly when you put thousands of them together, can make the weapon grade uranium in large enough quantities to use in a nuclear weapon.

Allan Urri: Libya had signed an international treaty, which made it subject to scrutiny by the world’s nuclear inspectorate, the International Atomic Energy Agency. But it was able to smuggle centrifuge components and other materials undetected by agency inspectors who were on the ground in Tripoli. It was difficult to uncover the operation because the black market networks it was using could supply almost everything it needed, keeping its operation undercover and contained.

In the words of one executive of the International Atomic Energy Agency, it was a nuclear Wal-Mart. Its headquarters were in Pakistan and the Chairman of the Board of this lethal supermarket was the man known as the Father of Pakistan’s own nuclear weapons program, Dr Abdul Qadiyah Khan.

Reporter: Pakistan has been condemned by governments around the world over its decision to blow up five nuclear devices…

Allan Urri: Pakistan successfully tested its own nuclear bombs in 1998. Mansoor Ijaz, is a Pakistani-American who studied the motives of A.Q. Khan, believes he had a grand vision for his nation.

Mansoor Ijaz: A.Q. Khan has always viewed himself as the global Islamist visionary, and he wanted to create his own panacea where Pakistan would be the centre of the Muslim world. It would be the place from which the nuclear umbrella would sprout out and it would then seen as the country that had the strongest religions commitment to Islam outside of Saudi Arabia.

Allan Urri: Khan was a gifted metallurgist who in the early 1970s got a job in Holland, working for a consortium which commercially enriched uranium, called Urenco. Khan stole from Iranco classified documents and fled back to Pakistan. He was convicted in his absence by a Dutch court, of espionage. But the conviction was overturned on a technicality. These were the first signs that A.Q. Khan represented a significant threat.

From Pakistan, he tried to enlist other scientists around the world he thought might help. But not all were willing. DrMujaddid Ijaz, a prominent Pakistani-American nuclear physicist, turned him down. After he died, his son, Mansour, find letters from Khan’s associates to his father, threatening their family.

Mansoor Ijaz: My father from 1966 until 1992, brought and taught over 109 students to the United States from primarily Pakistan but other parts of the Muslim world as well. And in doing so, he developed a lot of very strong relationships with people that then went back to Pakistan and populated key parts of the nuclear program. And they would then reach out to people like my father initially in the form of letters that were ‘Hi, how are you? It’s good to be in communication again. What type of things are you working on? By the way, this is what I’m working on and it would be great if I could get help on a, b and c.’

And then later, some of the letters, when my father wasn’t so forthcoming, to hand in things that were very sensitive in nature and would have frankly violated United States laws if they’d ever gotten out, and then it was a matter of patriotism, and which country are you loyal to, and are you a loyal Muslim? And then finally, it got down to in I think one letter I remember reading when I was packing my father’s things away when he died, was almost like a threat ‘If you don’t get this thing done for us, we’re not going to be able to do x, y and z for your family here in Pakistan. They will suffer as a result.

Allan Urri: What was Khan and his associates asking your father to do then?

Mansoor Ijaz: What they were looking for were components, and then there was also a time where they were looking for pure physics help. How for example, certain elements of trigger devices are developed and so forth.

Allan Urri: Many of A.Q. Khan’s people weren’t spies, they were businessmen. I’m in a London suburb outside the former offices of one of those who illegally exported sensitive equipment from here, bound for Khan’s laboratory complex in Pakistan. The operation was closed down after an investigation by the British Customs service, and a trial three years ago. But there are others across Europe who escaped prosecution. Hundreds of parts necessary to build nuclear weapons were gathered bit by bit from companies in Europe with the right manufacturing expertise. Some were in breach of export controls. Next they were sent to third country destinations like Malaysia, and once there, they were partially assembled or further machined before being shipped via other countries to their real customers, some of the world’s most dangerous regimes. Much of this was made to look like legitimate trade, serving to disguise its true purpose and its final destination.

It’s difficult to track these movements, but some do. Gary Mulholland, who heads the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control in Washington, uses sophisticated computer software to help plot patterns of shipping of sensitive materials.

Gary Mulholland: This is our database. It lists the names of about 3,800 entities around the world, companies and individuals, who have been linked in one way or another, to the spread of mass destruction weapons.

Allan Urri: Khan’s network regularly traded through Dubai. For Gary Milholland, it’s been the destination of choice for those who want to disguise the end use and final destination for equipment used in secret nuclear weapons programs.

Gary Mulholland: In the case of Dubai, it doesn’t really have effective export control laws, so you send things in and they go out and nobody knows where. And that’s been going on for 20 years.
"In the case of Dubai, it doesn’t really have effective export control laws, so you send things in and they go out and nobody knows where."
Allan Urri: It’s a trans-shipment hub, really.

Gary Mulholland: It’s a trans-shipment hub and Dubai is proud that it doesn’t hassle people. It’s a perfect black hole into which descend a sensitive technology, because you can always say Well, we thought it was staying in Dubai.

Allan Urri: Dubai is part of the United Arab Emirates, seen as allies to the West and friends of the USA. So for Under-Secretary John Bolton of the American State Department, there’s some discomfort in addressing the issue of Dubai re-exporting illicit cargoes.

John Bolton: It’s not just a question of Dubai. There are major ports around the world where the volume of traffic is such that without new systems of checks, you simply can’t verify what’s coming in and going out.

Allan Urri: You’ve got evidence here, haven’t you, that material has been going in to Dubai from Malaysia, and then going on to Libya. Do you accept that Dubai has to do a better job than it’s thus far done in intercepting these materials and stopping what’s going on?

John Bolton: I think everybody has to do a better job. I think it’s a mistake to single out any one port in particular.

Allan Urri: The BBC wanted to ask the UAE government about the criticisms of Dubai raised by Gary Mulholland, but they didn’t respond to our requests for an interview, or a statement.

Although Dubai has been a big loophole in the efforts to control the proliferation of nuclear materials, there have been other, more serious failures.

For years there have been clear warning signs about what A.Q. Khan was up to, but Britain, America and other Western countries have taken little action to stop him. After he helped Pakistan get the bomb in 1998 he became so emboldened that he began trading openly in the marketplace. Two years later in the Pakistani city of Karachi, the country held its first arms fair. The specialist publication, Jane’s Defence Weekly, sent a senior editor from Washington to cover the story. When Andrew Koch saw what was for sale, he could hardly believe his eyes.

Andrew Koch: Khan Research Labs which is Pakistan’s primary nuclear weapons laboratory headed by A.Q. Khan, had a large booth there, and at the booth they were handing out glossy brochures; they were offering the kind of technology that would be directly applicable in a nuclear weapons program, the whole kit and caboodle, all in one. And if there’s any doubt, there was an accompanying brochure which very clearly states that complete ultracentrifuge machines were for offer, and I inquired of sales representatives at the booth whether as a foreigner I could actually buy this, and they said Yes, of course, they wouldn’t hand it out at the show if it wasn’t. It’s very clear at the time higher-ups in Khan Research Lab were very serious about trying to find a market for its goods and services.
Allan Urri: Now if you as a journalist can go to this arms fair in the year 2000 and pick up these brochures and be told ‘Well, yes we’ve got licences to export all this equipment’ then so can the intelligence community, so they surely must have known about this.

Andrew Koch: They knew about this. Clearly there were a lot of intelligence officials there from various European and American entities.

Allan Urri: But even though Khan had become so brazen, the rest of the world seemed unwilling to intervene. It took the attacks of September 11th the following year, and a change of President before, finally, plans were laid to try to break up his network. By then, A.Q. Khan had sold an enrichment plant to North Korea, capable of yielding enough weapons-grade uranium for several bombs a year. Iran had been sold centrifuge plants, weapons designs and expertise. When Libya dismantled the program he’d been supplying to Colonel Gaddafi, the game was up. Earlier this year, Khan confessed and appeared on State television to offer a public apology.

A.Q.Khan: With the evidence and the findings and I have one voluntarily admitted that much of it is true and correct. My dear brothers and sisters, I have chosen to appear before you to offer my deepest regrets and unqualified apologies.

Allan Urri: But the Pakistani scientist’s most disturbing foray into the black market came as far back as 1990, and Western intelligence agencies knew all about it. This program has discovered that A.Q. Khan offered to sell nuclear warhead designs to the country seen in recent times to be the biggest threat to global security, Iraq. Saddam Hussein came within a whisker of achieving a nuclear bomb, at a time when he was facing invasion from Coalition forces in the build-up to the first Gulf War.

Documents recovered in Iraq five years later, gave British and American intelligence agencies information about an attempt by Khan to strike a chilling secret deal. According to David Allbright who was part of the UN weapons inspections program there following the conflict, it would have been the final piece in Iraq’s nuclear jigsaw.

David Allbright: They had trouble building nuclear weapons, and this design that we now know Khan could have offered Iraq, would have been ideal both in terms of its diameter and its weight, to fit on an Iraqi missile. "This design that we now know Khan could have offered Iraq, would have been ideal both in terms of its diameter and its weight, to fit on an Iraqi missile."

Allan Urri: If they’d taken up that offer then, they would have had nuclear capability.

David Allbright: Yes. It would really have helped them significantly.

Allan Urri: But in the build-up to the Gulf War the Iraqis were cautious, fearing this could be some kind of trick by the CIA. So instead of moving to strike a deal, they asked instead for a sample of what Khan’s people were offering. They left it too late. War intervened, and the world was brought back from the brink of a potential catastrophe.

For David Allbright, if ever an alarm bell should have been rung about A.Q. Khan, it was then in 1995 when the documents were discovered by American and British forces.

David Allbright: When I saw the document I was really stunned by it. This was like a smoking gun document of some really horrific thing taking places. For A.Q. Khan to be linked to an offer to help Iraq right before we may go to war, and that offer could actually have helped Iraq get a nuclear weapon by the time we did go to war, I find it just horrifying, and I was surprised by the lack of follow-up. It didn’t seem to be taken that seriously.

Allan Urri: According to nuclear weapons experts we’ve spoken to, the warhead design offered to Iraq is likely to be the same sort as the one sold by Khan to Libya years later. John Bolton, Under-Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the State Department, prefers to concentrate on the more recent attempts to close down the nuclear Wal-Mart, attempts which he believes have been successful.

John Bolton: The reason the network was exposed when it was, was because of the Libyan decision, so it became public knowledge, not necessarily because of the strategic decision that we made but because of dint of circumstances. But I think all in all, it’s worked out very well from our perspective.

Allan Urri: But there are those who believe this has been an intelligence failure because this network has been allowed to carry on for so long.

John Bolton: I think you’re mischaracterising what’s been going on. The Pakistani nuclear weapons program has been something that the United States has tried for decades to stop through sanctions and economic measures that were not shared by European countries for example. I think that from the time that information began to come to us about Khan’s extracurricular proliferation activities, we’d been concerned about in judging it, and I would say for those out there commenting on the network who don’t have the full information, that they should have a sense of proportion in trying to do the same analysis that policymakers in London and Washington were trying to do, in judging what the appropriate steps were, to learn as much as we could about the network, and not bring it down prematurely, but also not allow it to come to fruition in the customer country.

Allan Urri: A.Q. Khan is under house arrest in Pakistan but he’s been given a presidential pardon in return for his confession. B.S.A Tahir, his trusted lieutenant is detained in Malaysia. Some middlemen, based around Europe, are under investigation. But for too long, America and Europe failed to take decisive action to stop them. Too much had been bought from the black market by regimes considered a threat to a peaceful world. It’s left the international community having to confront Iran about its attempts to get nuclear weapons. There are growing suspicions about Syria and Saudi Arabia, all at a time when the Middle East has rarely been more volatile. North Korea shows no sign of dismantling its w.m.d. program.

It’s not only nuclear bombs that are keeping intelligence officers awake at night, but myriad other possibilities, chemical weapons or biological pathogens. And the problem is sometimes close to home.

Promo: The United States military, highly trained, well equipped, and ready to meet the challenges of today.

Allan Urri: A promotional video for the American military. The challenges to American troops could include one of the most horrifying weapons known to mankind.

Promo: These biological threats may exist naturally in other parts of the world, or they could be deliberately used against our service members in an act of warfare or terrorism …

Allan Urri: America is not only concerned for its soldiers. The United States believes terrorists will try to attack its homeland with biological weapons which cause fatal illness and mass casualties.

Man: Any group with even a modicum of money and not a lot of scientific knowledge, could, if they were good, come up with a really serious biological threat that really could potentially kill lots and lots of people.

Allan Urri: But if the United States spends billions of dollars on measures to defend itself from the dirty warfare of black biology, this BBC series has discovered disturbing blunders, which have instead increased the risks.

Deep in the heart of Texas lies a tiny hamlet called Noonday, which is clustered around a crossroads. I’m driving on the outskirts now; the sign I’ve just passed tells me the population here is 550. And one of those who lived here didn’t agree with certain aspects of American life. So much so, it collected enough dangerous materials and equipment to kill thousands of his fellow countrymen, and Noonday is where he stored them.

Lesley Duecker owns small storage units here at the crossroads in Noonday. She lives with her family on site.

Lesley Duecker: My average customer is probably someone going through a divorce. Boyfriends, breaking up with girlfriends, and one of them’s booted out and they have to come and store their things.

Allan Urri: Is it good business, that sort of thing?

Lesley Duecker: Yes.

Allan Urri: One of Lesley Decker’s customers was far from average. He was William Krar, a 62-year-old small-time arms dealer who made a living out of buying and selling guns and other military surplus. When the FBI raided the storage units he rented, they unlocked the door of a major terrorist threat. The agent in charge of the investigation, Peter Galbraith, showed me pictures of what William Krar had been hoarding.

Peter Galbraith: That shows the cache of ammunition, there were about 500,000 rounds we calculated of varying calibres. Everything from armour piercing rounds of 223 ammunition, 9 millimetre, 45 calibre found.

Allan Urri: It’s enough to supply a small army isn’t it?

Peter Galbraith: Oh, it would be a good supply for a small army. There were even flamethrowing-type rounds that were recovered.

Allan Urri: But the biggest worry was not the guns and ammunition. At Kra’s house Peter Galbraith’s FBI agents recovered a small jar of an industrial strength chemical, sodium cyanide. As they continued with their search, they found Krar had gathered together other ingredients, which combined with the cyanide would make a catastrophic weapon.

Peter Galbraith: We found a number of chemicals. These are the acids that would have been used with the sodium cyanide to weaponise it. Acid can be combined with the sodium cyanide crystals in order to make it into a lethal gas. That gas could then be introduced into a building, and we calculated that with the 800 grams of sodium cyanide that was recovered, that would be sufficient amount that it would kill everyone in a 30,000 square foot building within about 10 minutes.

Allan Urri: You’re talking potentially about hundreds of fatalities.

Peter Galbraith: Yes.

Allan Urri: In May, William Krar was jailed for 11 years. Some of his associates were also put behind bars. But there are others who’ve used terrifying ways to threaten and kill Americans, and they’ve never been caught.

Reporter: In the five live report this week, America on edge.

President George W Bush: The key thing for the American people is to be cautious about letters that come from somebody you may not know, unmarked letters, letters …

Allan Urri: The FBI has had less success in investigating the anthrax letters sent to Senators and journalists in the days which followed the attacks of September 11th. Five people died, 18 were injured and 35,000 had to take precautionary antibiotics. Anthrax is a biological agent, which when manufactured to use as a weapon, can kill many thousands. And this was weapons-grade anthrax. The FBI believed the offender could have been a government scientist, working within America’s classified biodefence program.

Dangers from pathogens are emerging at a time when there are new frontiers of biology, according to James Carafano, a former army officer who’s now a senior research Fellow of Homeland Security at the Heritage Foundation think-tank in Washington.

James Carafano: Biotech is the fastest growing industry on the planet. All the technologies that we’re using to make biomedical advances are the same technologies that could be used to make biological weapons, and so the technology is proliferating very, very rapidly, so the capacity is there, the technology’s there, and we know the will is there. There are groups out there that really aren’t just interested in terrorism, but really are interested in taking countries to their knees and killing thousands or if they could, tens of thousands of people.

Allan Urri: It sounds like the sort of bleak Doomsday scenario envisaged during the height of the Cold War, but America argues there is evidence to support that notion. The CIA’s most recent worldwide threat assessment again emphasised the dangers posed by Osama bin Laden and his followers.

After allied forces overthrew the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in 2001, they discovered an al Qa’eda training camp, which shed light on terrorist efforts to establish a biological weapons program. Milton Leitenberg, an arms control specialist, who studies biological warfare, says what was found there gave a chilling insight into al Qa’eda’s intentions to work with anthrax.

Milton Leitenberg: We found a small facility in Kandahar, where the al Qa’eda had placed the first pieces of equipment that they had bought, and they bought a centrifuge and they bought an incubator. Then there was a tape discovered saying The Americans tell us that this is very dangerous stuff and we should look into it, and we have been remiss in not doing so. But they had, in the previous two or three years, begun to think about what must we do to become capable of doing this?

Allan Urri: Because of the threat posed by al Qa’eda, America has moved to protect itself. It believes the march of science means its enemies might put together a viable bioweapons program quicker than ever. So it’s given biodefence a greater priority, spending billions more dollars a year.

The government has turned to the nation’s universities for help with some of the science. But according to Ed Hammond, who runs a campaign group in America which tries to find out more about secret defence work, there are dangers associated with that He argues such places are unused to the sort of security that sensitive government contracts require.

Ed Hammond: There are two types of risks I would say. The first would be laboratory accidents. As we expand the number of facilities and the number of people working with very dangerous disease agents, the likelihood that these will escape the lab and have environmental or human health consequences, increases.

The second would be the possibility of a rogue scientist or a person who has access to these materials and who has gained the knowledge and how to use them as a weapon by virtue of working in biodefence, going over to the dark side, and deliberately using their knowledge to cause harm.

Allan Urri: That’s just what they thought had happened at Lubbock, in Texas, where last year a university scientist working for the government on a new antidote for bubonic plague, reported vials of the deadly organism missing from his lab.

Newsreader: Sources tell Channel 11 that at least 30 vials of the bubonic plague are missing from Texas Tech University.

Allan Urri: Lubbock is notable only as the birthplace of Buddy Holly. It’s had nothing else to sing about since, so when local TV reporter Burt Mummolo got a call warning him the organism known as the Black Death was on the loose, he was somewhat taken aback.

Burt Mummolo: It was a slow news day And the producer called us and said there’s missing plague, and you couldn’t believe it. Is it a terrorism, that was obviously the big worry, you know, is terrorism a part of it, and are these small, tiny towns, instead of New York City, going to be targets, because security’s less. So yes, there was a definite worry. But then you understood that all these authorities were in town, nine different law enforcement agencies, the Texas Rangers, the Lubbock Police Department, the FBI, the Centre for Disease Control, 60 different law enforcement officers had flown into town. It was spooky.

Allan Urri: It didn’t just spook Lubbock, it spooked the nation. The President was briefed, America was still jittery after the anthrax letters, and investigators knew plague bacteria can be turned into a biological weapon. Within hours the FBI decided the missing vials had not been stolen by terrorists, but accidentally destroyed in the laboratories of Texas Tech University where one of the world’s leading plague scientists, Dr Thomas Butler, had been working with them. They discovered he’d breached import regulations when bringing plague samples from abroad back to his Texas lab. Then they found financial irregularities relating to grants he’d been given for research. He was put on trial but cleared of smuggling charges over importation. He was however convicted of charges relating to fraud.

Jonathan Turley: This was a criminal case in search of a theory, a motive. At first they suggested that he had given the vials to terrorists, and they soon found that that was ridiculous. Then they suggested that he might have sold the vials to someone, that he was in financial need. Then they suggested for a long period of time, that he was doing this simply to get attention.

Allan Urri: Dr Butler’s lawyer, Jonathan Turley, argues the government victimised his client, having over-reacted because they first thought they were dealing with terrorism.

Jonathan Turley: The only thing he did wrong was that he trusted the United States government. He didn’t realise that when dozens of FBI agents descend on a little town in Texas somebody’s going to get criminally charged. And then they’ve got one guy who they can pin this whole controversy on. That’s Tom Butler.

Allan Urri: However, it was the way Dr Butler had transported his samples, which remained the most disturbing aspect of the case. He’d been to Tanzania, where there’d been an outbreak of bubonic plague. He obtained samples from victims and then in contravention of international regulations, flew with them in his luggage, without informing the airlines or the aviation authorities.

Professor Victoria Sutton, a special adviser to the prosecution in the Butler case, says this was irresponsible.

Victoria Sutton: Any level of risk of being exposed to plague is too much. "Any level of risk of being exposed to plague is too much." If a bag breaks open as they often do, and falls on the ground, there is a risk of aerosolising anything that may be in vials. The particles would burst into the air on impact with the ground where it could be easily inhaled by someone who was nearby.

Allan Urri: How were these vials and other samples packed? Were they secure?

Victoria Sutton: There are devices and packages that are approved for shipping plague, and he did not use those kinds of containers, and in fact had makeshift containers of his own that he used.

Allan Urri: Dr Butler didn’t fly directly back to the United States. He stopped off in London. The BBC has investigated what happened during his time in transit. Dr Butler needed to preserve his samples by keeping them at the right temperature. For this he needed dry ice to chill them down. But instead of using a recognised commercial company, operating to internationally agreed standards to help him, he chose to do it himself.

His plan involved enlisting the help of a British microbiologist with whom he’d previously worked. He arranged for the man to give him the dry ice, but first he had to get to him, away from the airport, where had he been spotted, he could have been in serious trouble. That involved a train ride on London’s busy underground system, with his plague samples carried in a holdall inside containers he’d made up himself. He met his British associate on a street corner outside the station on which I’m standing. Up the steps in front of me just outside the entrance, the dry ice was exchanged. Then, with his samples in his bag, Dr Butler used more public transport as he travelled halfway across Greater London, one of the world’s most densely populated areas to get to the airport, from which he flew home to America.

Thomas Butler turned down our request to interview him about this matter. He’s in jail in Texas beginning an appeal against his sentence of two years. But his lawyer, Jonathan Turley, argues his client didn’t put public safety at risk.

The transfer of dry ice took place on a street corner outside a busy underground station in London. Is that a wise thing to do?

Jonathan Turley: Well I don’t know if it’s wise or not, but we’ve had plenty of scientists come forward to say there was no risk here. You had containers within the container and he was simply replacing the dry ice.

Allan Urri: But surely that should be done in a laboratory, not on a street corner.

Jonathan Turley: Well I think that there is a great misconception about how dangerous these types of vials are. The scientists in the field when you raise these types of questions, have said there’s more of a public perception of danger. He was doing the type of transport and packaging that all of his contemporaries generally did. "There is a great misconception about how dangerous these types of vials are."

Allan Urri: There’s little doubt that there’s confusion among some scientists about the regulations relating to safe shipping of pathogens. But rather more worryingly, the methods used by Dr Butler which bypass those regulations, have been in common use. According to Dr Ted Reid, a colleague of Butler’s microbiologists refer to it as V.I.P., Vial In Pocket, and they’ve been doing it for years.

Question from Allan Urri: How common is it for scientists to be carrying vials of pathogens in their pockets, flying on aeroplanes and going through international airports?

Jonathan Turley: Seeing there’s not that many scientists and there’s not that many microbiologists transporting samples, I suppose you would say it’s not very common. However, if you were to ask me Is this a common method that microbiologists might use to transport a sample, I would say Yes.

Allan Urri: Is it really the best and most secure method for the transportation of these things?

Jonathan Turley Well I assume you could have a little container, and have a guard fly sitting there watching that container, although I don’t see how that could be any safer than having the trained scientist having it right there in his pocket or probably in his attaché case that he carries with him.

Allan Urri: But are the airport authorities aware that these things are being carried on planes?

Jonathan Turley: I suppose they are now.

Allan Urri: The incident in Texas threw into sharp relief the concerns about lax procedures in university laboratories. And a recent US Government audit of American universities, published in March, supports that view, Auditors to the snapshot of the security of what’s known in America as select agents, micro-organisms, like plague, capable of causing death or disease.

Man: Weaknesses at all eleven universities left select agents vulnerable to theft or loss, elevating the risks of public exposure. At least half the universities had inadequate procedures to identify persons barred from accessing select agents.

Allan Urri: The report also found inadequate inventory and record-keeping procedures at all eleven. The BBC made repeated requests to speak to the Department of Homeland Security, the agency with most responsibility for co-ordinating security efforts but they didn’t respond. Meanwhile another government department which should know better is leaking equipment terrorists could use to work with those deadly biological agents. Incredibly, the Department of Defence has been selling off surplus stocks of laboratory gear and protective clothing to the public. The system of checks and regulations supposed to be in place to prevent that, broke down completely. It came to light during an investigation by America’s General Accounting Office which audits government departments. The GAO’s Greg Coutts (spelling not confirmed), organised a sting operation of the Department of Defence, to see how easily a terrorist could buy bioweapons equipment.

Greg Coutts: We set up a fictitious company name and we set up a fictitious credit card, and we made all the purchases using the company’s name and the same credit card.

Allan Urri: When your dummy company was up and running, what were you buying?

Greg Coutts: We bought a number of the components that could potentially be used to produce a crude form of biological agent, including one large biological safety cabinet, one bacteriological incubator, one laboratory centrifuge, one laboratory evaporator, 500 chemical and biological protective suits.

Allan Urri: And that would be what, a crude laboratory but one that could be effective if it was in the wrong hands?

Greg Coutts: Correct.

Allan Urri: Were there any checks on who was getting access to this equipment who was buying?

Greg Coutts: When they called to validate the name of the company we faxed to them a fictitious document, and they pretty much bought our story and they sold us all the equipment and the protective gear.

Allan Urri: They didn’t make any further checks?

Greg Coutts: No.

Allan Urri: Not only that, they were able to buy at bargain basement prices. Total cost to the military of that equipment bought new, $56,000. Terrorists could get it as military surplus for $4,000. Greg Coutts and his colleagues were so concerned that they started to check up on those who made genuine purchases, to try to find out where such equipment was ending up.

Greg Coutts: We found that some of the equipment was actually being sold internationally to foreign countries, in some cases that were known as trans-shipment points for terrorists of foreign countries.

Allan Urri: What countries are you talking about?

Greg Coutts: We found some was going to the United Emirates, some was going to Pakistan etc. and so again, once it went out the door of the Department of Defence they really didn’t know at the end of the day where it ended up.

Allan Urri: But aren’t there export controls on these items?

Greg Coutts: There aren’t on used items or excess property like this, there are for new equipment, and so there is a significant program to look at the sale of new equipment but for used equipment like this, there was not an infrastructure in place.

Allan Urri: But while the supply arm of the Defence Department has been asleep on the job, other parts of the military are forging ahead with classified biodefence work.

Woman: USAMRID is the only laboratory in the Department of Defence or DOD equipped to study highly hazardous diseases that require …

Allan Urri: Some of that is being brought together at Fort Deitrich in Maryland, under a new agency known as NBACC, the National Biodefence Analysis and Countermeasures Centre. The Centre is proposing to acquire biological agents and then alter them by genetic engineering and other processes to make weapons-grade organisms. They then plan to disperse them in laboratory conditions.

Jonathan Tucker is a senior researcher at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and a former biological weapons inspector for the United Nations. He argues his country is actually creating new dangers in trying to anticipate the nature of the threat.

Jonathan Tucker: The area of biodefence that troubles me the most is that related to threat assessment, which involves experiments to characterise possible future threats, so that we can develop defences against them. "The area of biodefence that troubles me the most is that related to threat assessment…" If we think another country is developing an antibiotic strain of anthrax or a vaccine resistant strain of smallpox, we might do experiments to replicate those threats even if they are prospective threats, that someone hasn’t actually developed such a weapon, just so that we can prepare for that future eventuality. And I fear that we could get into an arms race with ourselves, and that this information which would be very sensitive and dangerous, could leak out of this facility and actually create the very threat that we most fear.

Allan Urri: The concerns about leaks appear well-founded. NBACC’s research program was supposed to have been kept a secret, but even before the Centre has become operational, a briefing at an Army conference which outlines some of that program was posted on a website. It was later removed, but not before information got into the public arena. We wanted to talk to the US government about NBACC, and about other unclassified work it’s doing on biodefence, but no-one was prepared to be interviewed.

The challenge for America is to mount a credible defence against bioterrorism whilst not increasing the threats it’s trying so hard to defend itself from. The evidence aired in this program suggests that’s not yet been achieved. Elementary blunders, panic, poor safety and security, have compromised its work at home, and that could increase the risk of proliferation to al-Qa’eda or others planning to attack the US and its allies with the most terrifying weapons known to mankind.

Kirsten Garrett: That program was originally made for the BBC by Allan Urri and produced by David Lewis. Background Briefing’s technical operator is David Bates. I’m Kirsten Garrett, and you’re with ABC Radio National.