FBI director predicts success in ricin, anthrax probes
KNOXVILLE (AP) — FBI Director Robert Mueller said Thursday that anthrax and ricin attacks on Washington offices will be solved and the country is a safer place since the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks thanks in part to local vigilance.
“I wouldn’t give up,” Mueller said when asked about the 2001 anthrax attack on government and news media offices in Washington and the more recent discovery of ricin in the mailroom of Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
“The investigations are still going and I am confident that we will have success in each of those investigations,” Mueller told reporters after touring the FBI’s East Tennessee regional offices in Knoxville.
Five people died and 17 others were sickened when anthrax-laced envelopes were mailed in the fall of 2001 to then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Sen. Patrick Leahy, both Democrats.
Last week, a small amount of the powdery poison ricin was found on the mail-opening machine in the Capitol office of Frist, now Senate majority leader. No one became ill, but three office buildings were closed for nearly a week.
Since then, it has been reported that the Secret Service intercepted a letter Nov. 6 addressed to the White House that contained a small vial of ricin. The letter, complaining about new rules requiring more rest for truckers, bore a Chattanooga postmark.
“That report I have not heard and I am not certain is accurate,” Mueller said when asked about the Chattanooga postmark. “I will tell you the investigation in Washington is ongoing.”
The FBI director suggested this is new territory for the agency.
“It is a little bit different with the biological attacks such as anthrax or ricin in the sense that you don’t have fingerprints. You don’t have bullets. You don’t have some of the forensics that you will see in other crimes.
“Nonetheless, since the anthrax attacks we and other agencies have learned a tremendous amount about the genetic makeup of these substances. So we are much better prepared today to identify … the possible processes used to manufacture these substances than we were before.”
Mueller said the capture of al-Qaida planners abroad, the removal of their training camps in Afghanistan and a more vigilant domestic effort involving state and local law enforcement are bearing results in the war on terrorism.
“For those reasons, the country as a whole, but East Tennessee as well, is a safer place from the threat of terrorism than it was prior to Sept. 11,” he said.
John Sterling, East Tennessee coordinator for the state Office of Homeland Security, said Thursday there are “no known terrorist cells operating in Tennessee.”
“Now we are trying to make sure that Tennessee is as safe a place as we can make it. That’s why we are working with federal, state and local partners to build district counter-terror capabilities,” he said.
“The bottom line is we are trying to make Tennessee as unattractive as we can. That is what we are working diligently to promote,” Sterling said.
Mueller said because of the FBI’s new emphasis on terrorism, it may be less involved in bank robbery cases that don’t cross county lines or drug cases. But he said the FBI will continue to support state and local law enforcement in fighting gang activity.
“When it comes to crime in our communities … to the extent we can help, we will,” he said.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.