Milton Leitenberg: Well, it's public that we dug up what they buried. They buried the Anthrax that had been produced and stored for years, from Sverdlovsk. He claims it's not their production. I can't answer that for you, and he's not going to. But the Soviets did have... whether it was two hundred tons or not, I can't answer. We made calculations of the ditches. You can, by satellite reconnaissance, already in the '70's... There's a particular kind of wavelengths that you use. Not visual wavelengths, that you use, that will tell you that. So, we could see at the site, a row of long ditches. So, one of the things we did was get the government of Kazakhstan, of course when we went there, to dig it. We dug up those ditches, and we found Anthrax. Now they had tried to decontaminate it, hadn't done a hundred percent efficient job, an American contractor went in and decontaminated it again, and then three, or four years later, a second time, cause we got worried about people coming around... Terrorists maybe dig up a little in Central Asia, sell it to the wrong people. So, it was done twice. So, we know the dimensions of the ditches, how deep it is. You know that you have to add a certain amount of formaldehyde, and chloride, and the rest. You can make a calculation of how much is in the ditch. What the tonnage is precisely, I don't know. But it's more than you'd use for research. It's tons.

Slava Paperno: Why was it buried there to begin with?

Leitenberg: Just to get rid of it.

Paperno: They had to transport it all the way from Sverdlovsk, down to...

Leitenberg: Yes. Well, probably not for... Some may have come from Sverdlovsk. Alibek tells you that it went from Sverdlovsk to two other sites, which he names: Zima Station, and a particular airbase. 'Cause they did have spray aircraft, but it's not very clear the spray aircraft were functional. But they made the stuff, anyway. The whole story's terribly complex. When I ask the question of what did they intend doing with it... It's terribly interesting that they really didn't have the delivery systems. They did have these bomblets. Then the question is, what kind of plane were those bomblets going to be carried by, and what was its range? It couldn't reach the US. Europe, and China. Not the US. But the story is that it was against us. So, there's all kinds of things that are still... You ask what questions... A lot of questions which get at the heart of what the hell did they think this is all about.

Paperno: Is it relevant for today? I mean, why are we doing this?

Leitenberg: Oh, it's a case history of a weapon program of the most dangerous kind; a weapon of mass destruction, run out of the pocket of a little group of generals in the Fifteenth Directorate, and run amok. Tens of thousands of people. We still have not been allowed... we signed an agreement with the Russians in September '92, called the Trilateral Agreement. They were supposed to let us into Kirov. Someone should have asked them how come... You should have asked them that: how come you don't let us into Kirov yet? Not into Sverdlovsk, not into Kirov, not into Zagorsk. Now it's Sergiev Posad. They still won't let us in there. OK, I don't know that they're producing weapons. They probably are not. But why not let someone in?

Paperno: You know, two years ago, Gvardeiskaya in Kazakhstan was announced closed area for foreigners. We could not get into Gvardeiskaya, and to Otar. No foreigner can walk into the town.

Leitenberg: Why?

Paperno: I don't know. But this was by the decision by the government... of the government of Kazakhstan.

Leitenberg: I can tell you who to ask in the US government. If you tell him to go away.