WASHINGTON — The anthrax mailed to the Senate majority leader's office marks the first time such a professionally refined form of anthrax has been used as a bioterrorist weapon. "It tells me that this is not a homegrown terrorist," says Richard Spertzel, who led the United Nations' team of bioweapons inspectors in Iraq in the 1990s. "This indicates a foreign source of knowledge, at least." Federal investigators, who have had to rely on anthrax experts, doctors and microbiologists to lead them through the intricacies of bioterrorism, are not as certain as scientists like Spertzel. But the level of sophistication involved in manipulating the bacteria, investigators say, has convinced them their investigation is far more serious than it first appeared.
Ritter's out to lunch.