The letter bomb is the poor man’s cruise missile. In many ways it is more deadly than its high technology counterpart because, once a letter bomb has been discovered, either by striking its luckless target or being detected beforehand, it creates chaos. After October 2001, when the first of the anthrax-contaminated mails was sent to people in the US political establishment, the whole system of correspondence for the entire administration was thrown into confusion. One White House aide commented that had there been no e-mail, the government might have been paralyzed. Indeed, the use of the deadly poison anthrax was more destructive than any letter or parcel that exploded. Entirely new systems to detect “loaded” mails had to be created. It was no longer a case of sniffer dogs or highly sensitive equipment able to identify explosives. The relatively standard process of x-raying mails was also found not to be foolproof.
Now another horror, ricin, has been discovered in a letter sent to US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. This is a toxin developed by the Soviet KGB which was used in political assassinations. It was also discovered in Afghanistan after the overthrow of the Taleban and Al-Qaeda and stocks are known to have been in the possession of Saddam Hussein. Though the authorities in Washington say the recently-discovered poison was of low toxicity because it was in powder form, it still presents a threat. At the very least severe damage has once again been done to the business of government.
No one was ever arrested for the anthrax letter bombs, which happening so soon after 9/11, were initially also attributed to Al-Qaeda. Later on however, suspicions moved toward someone within the US scientific community. Though it is possible that the ricin attack is the work of another, or perhaps even the same, demented person in the US, the White House is unlikely to want to see it that way. It will try its best to link the attack either to Al-Qaeda or to the dying remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Baathists or both, and present it as proof of the danger they pose to ordinary Americans on American soil. Even more likely, though not exactly a weapon of mass destruction, the use of ricin will be used by President Bush to back up the currently feeble arguments that Saddam did indeed pose an imminent threat.
On the other hand, the good news is that the mail-bomber leaves a trail. Paper and envelopes can be fingerprinted, their manufacture and point of sale traced, their journey tracked to where they were posted. As with any terrorist bomb discovered intact, there is always the chance that the would-be killers have left some clue. The parcel bombs sent to EU officials led to the arrest of a suspect among a group of anarchists in Sardinia. The US authorities must surely hope they will have more success tracing the ricin terrorists than they did with the anthrax ones.
