Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a molecular biologist currently investigating last autumn's anthrax attacks, drew national attention with her speech, which she delivered at the Wilson School on Monday. Rosenberg said the FBI is "dragging its feet" on the anthrax investigation, fearing that punishing the perpetrator — whom Rosenberg claimed is a government insider — might force bureau officials to acknowledge secret anthrax research conducted in American military laboratories.
Yesterday, FBI spokeswoman Sandra Caroll dismissed Rosenberg's allegations as "purely speculative."
"When and if we have a suspect in mind certain precautions have to be taken, but we will move aggressively on that individual," Caroll said.
On February 5th, Rosenberg released a public report of her findings.
"For more than three months now the FBI has known that the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks is American," she wrote.
"This conclusion must have been based on the perpetrator's evident connection to the U.S. biodefense program. In addition to this signpost, the perpetrator has left multiple, blatant clues, seemingly on purpose."
In the report, Rosenberg contemplates the perpetrator's motives: "He must be angry at some biodefense agency or component, and he is driven to demonstrate, in a spectacular way, his capabilities and the government's inability to respond. He is cocksure that he can get away with it. Does he know something that he believes to be sufficiently damaging to the United States to make him untouchable by the FBI?"
Her report offers scathing criticism of the government investigation. "The perpetrator is surely too smart to believe that either the FBI's ludicrous recent actions or the White House protestations of ignorance mean that the authorities are not on to him," she wrote.
"This is no way to instill public confidence in the competence of the FBI."
During her speech, Rosenberg repeatedly stressed that her information came from "government insiders," but gave no specific names. She suggested she knew the identity of the government's chief suspect, but declined to identify the suspect in her speech.
Rosenberg said she is motivated to keep working on her investigation because she believes the government may be hiding something, and "wants to encourage pressure on the FBI to prosecute the perpetrator [of the anthrax attacks] publicly."
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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