"Our stuff" was sent to Iraq among other places.
Saddam's people had only to find a dead cow, sheep or goat out in a field somewhere to find anthrax to start developing suitible spores.
It's not like anthrax is a secretive bacteria.
The five purchase orders documenting the strains sent by the American Type Culture Collection in the mid-1980s did not include Ames, the strain used in the attacks. ATCC did not have Ames in its catalog.
Iraq’s attempt to get Ames a few years later after a British conference confirms that at the time they did not have Ames. (They had, for example, the second best, Vollum).
Iraq may very have obtained Ames. Alibek points out that a lead Russian scientist was helping them and he had access to Ames. Russia, Alibek says, had a spy at Ft. Detrick and would get all specimens and work within 6 months.
But given that all the evidence points to US-based supporters of Al Qaeda, and not Iraq, the more interesting question is whether ATCC had virulent Ames in its patent repository. ATCC sponsored Ali Al-Timimi’s program. A former ATCC employee says Ali had access to that patent repository. ATCC does not deny to me that its patent repository had virulent Ames — it just refuses to confirm that it did or not.
By “our stuff,” rather than referring to Ames, I meant that the Administration by December was of the view that the evidence pointed to a US biodefense insider.
There was a lot of confusion over the distribution of Ames, but the best view is that the FBI has identified 16 labs known to have had it — and perhaps the maximum number of labs that had it is 20-30. The FBI notes that in the case of some foreign labs, they are not in a position to know.
Ayman Zawahiri felt that the koran dictated that they use the weapons of their enemies.
Good propaganda too.