Milton Leitenberg: The only thing to hide, is half of his sentence: that only parts of the plan were... In other words, how many runs in how many fermentors did they do for each pathogen that the mobilization capacity plan required them to do? If they were supposed to do anthrax and brucellosis, did they test every one of the fermentors with live agent, or just... I'm blocking on the word again.
Slava Paperno: Simulator?
Leitenberg: Simulant. Whatever the simulant they used. Anthrax simulants. Or did they just do one fermentor? And did they do the same with each of the agents? So you have a whole set of questions here.
Paperno: Why is this important?
Leitenberg: To know how ready they were. Again, it's a half-ass business if you only tested half of one fermentor capacity. 'Cause we know they had problems with their fermentor.
Paperno: Like what?
Leitenberg: Alibek tells you that, and I know it, and the Americans know it. They were always getting phage contamination in their runs. It eats up... bacteriophage is a little thing that eats up the bacteria. So if you get contaminated, you're not producing what you want to produce. Also, other bacteria will grow in there. They had big problems. Russian facilities don't have good management procedures; GMP. Sloppy, filthy, careless.
Paperno: He talks about alcohol being stolen from...
Leitenberg: No, that's minor. That's not serious. So there are questions. In other words, you've got that whole row of fermentors. How many things did they proof-test? And then, were those... were the products of the proof-tests all taken to Voz Island and tested? Supposedly, they were. But those are... you start getting into the black.