Harris said he once trained Iraqis in biological warfare

Friday, Feb. 20, 1998 | 9:13 a.m.

A central Ohio man who was charged in Las Vegas with possessing the deadly germ anthrax said in a 1996 interview that he at one time worked for the CIA training Iraqi scientists in biological warfare.

The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported today that Larry Wayne Harris, 46, of Lancaster, said during the interview on a short-wave radio program that from 1985 to 1990, he worked for the CIA training Iraqi scientists in biological warfare.

"I was actively involved in training Iraqi microbiologists on how to conduct biological warfare," Harris said during "The Intelligence Report," produced by Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Wolverine Productions. "We provided the weapons for them. We trained them."

Wolverine Productions is headed by Mark Koernke, a survivalist with ties to militia groups.

Harris said the plan was for the Iraqis to use the materials against Iran. "They (Iraq) were our allies at the time."

FBI agents spent about three hours on Thursday searching Harris' residence and back yard. As a group of reporters and television photographers watched from in front of the residence, the agents also took and examined six bags of garbage that had been placed at Harris' curb.

The FBI did not say what, if anything, had been found at the home in Lancaster, a city of 35,000 people about 30 miles southeast of Columbus. A telephone message seeking comment was left at the bureau's regional office in Cincinnati.

Harris and William Leavitt, 47, of Las Vegas and Logandale, Nev., appeared before a federal magistrate in Las Vegas Thursday afternoon. They were charged under a federal law that prohibits the production and possession of any biological agent for use as a weapon.

The men were arrested in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson, Nev., late Wednesday as they were allegedly trying to arrange a lab test of the substance. Their beige Mercedes-Benz, sealed in plastic, was hauled off to a military base for tests to confirm whether the material carried inside was the germ warfare agent.

An informant said one of the men told him he had "military grade anthrax" in flight bags in the trunk of the Mercedes, according to an FBI affidavit. The informant said he saw eight to 10 bags marked "biological" in the trunk.

Authorities say Harris and Leavitt may have been about to test the agent at a medical center in Henderson.

Harris, identified by the FBI as a member of the Aryan Nations, was previously given probation after pleading guilty to illegally obtaining bubonic plague bacteria through the mail in 1995. He also wrote a self-published, 131-page book called "Bacteriological Warfare: A Major Threat to North America."

The Southern Poverty Law Center of Birmingham, Ala., said in an article of a past edition of its Klanwatch Intelligence Report that information in the book could be used by domestic terrorists.

The FBI affidavit said Harris is a licensed clinical and public health microbiologist.

Harris' wife, Carol, refused to speak with reporters camped outside her home. She switched off the porch light after FBI agents left at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

In a 1997 interview for a television documentary, Harris claimed that he got anthrax spores by sinking a long metal probe into a 20-year-old burial site for cows infected with the disease. Harris claimed he successfully cultured the spores in his lab, but refused to say if he possessed anthrax, said James Neff, who conducted the interview.

Neff, the Kiplinger Professor of Journalism at Ohio State University, collaborated on the never-aired documentary with Oregon Public Broadcasting. Parts of their tape were aired on ABC Thursday.

According to Neff, Harris described how someone could create a deadly broth from the anthrax culture, put it in a pressurized paint sprayer and then spread the deadly germs from a low-flying airplane like a crop duster. It would kill at least 100,000 and be undetectable, Harris said.

"No smell, no taste, no kaboom," he quoted Harris as saying.