I was watching Anderson Pooper 360 on CNN today and saw this segment (http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2010/03/04/ac.intv.ivins.mind.cnn?iref=allsearch) about the 2001 Anthrax attacks. They are STILL saying it was all orchestrated by one white Catholic guy named Bruce Ivins :P . They got this stupid woman on there claiming all kinds of crap about him saying he was a nut and did it ALONE. It's hilarious. I decided to put a little piece together showing how friggan obvious it is that it was a false flag.
By: ZCF (http://terrorofzion.blogspot.com/2010/03/cnn-anthrax-attacks-propaganda-exposed.html)
CNN recently just aired a new clip supposedly shedding new light on the alleged suspect of the Anthrax mailings that happened back in late 01' right after 9/11. A woman claiming to have known Bruce Ivins personally, spews all kinds of unsubstantiated claims about him being "insane, a drunk, a drug addict and having anger problems." This is typical character assassination of a patsy. Her demeanor in the interview is that of a liar. Bruce Ivins did not orchestrate the anthrax mailings. It took the FBI (Fucking Belligerent Idiots) SEVEN YEARS to finally target this guy as the lead suspect in 2008 even though they had no evidence against him. The anthrax mailings were the tail end of the 9-11 false flag operation, and were a concerted effort to scare the shit out of the American public so they support this fake war on terror out of abject fear. The Anthrax scare convinced Americans that they could die by simply opening their mail; therefore they need to run to the government for protection, right?
Bruce Ivins is nothing more than an opportune patsy who conveniently committed suicide right before he could be brought to trial. Since the FBI had no evidence against him they had to kill him (of course make it look like a suicide); then they could just officially blame him for the attack without proving it in a trial -- case closed. Typical intelligence work!
Here are some details about the anthrax attacks that make the accusations against Ivins completely ridiculous:
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_BS-08aH0vnw/SrQjGwvvBZI/AAAAAAAAAL8/gK_Iorb5zlw/s400/ZionistIvins.jpg)
1) Bruce Ivins worked at Fort Detrick USAMRIID weapons lab and had a stable career as a micro biologist, vaccinologist, and senior bio-defense researcher (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Edwards_Ivins).
2) He worked there for 28 years with no problems and had received a commendation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Edwards_Ivins#2003_Department_of_Defense_commendation) from Fort Detrick lab for helping solve technical problems in the manufacture of an Anthrax vaccine.
3) Ivins initially AIDED the FBI in the anthrax investigation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Edwards_Ivins#Initial_investigative_role). He helped them by analyzing samples taken from the contaminated letters and the hoax letters.
4) Initially, the FBI's chief suspect in the Anthrax case was Dr. Steven Hatfill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Hatfill), a bio-weapons expert and CIA asset (http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/pursuithatfill.html). Dr. Hatfill was discovered to have been taking CIPRO (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/02/opinion/02KRIS.html?ex=1026273600&en=153d9368ec04cb43&ei=5040&partner=MOREOVER), the antidote to anthrax, for months leading up to the mailings.
5) In 2006, FBI director Robert Mueller abruptly CHANGED LEADERSHIP (http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/01/nation/na-anthrax1) of the Anthrax investigation. IMMEDIATELY after the forced personnel change at the FBI, investigations into Hatfill abruptly ceased and Ivins was now targeted as the lead suspect. Clearly the honest original FBI investigators were swapped with co-opted agents tasked with framing Ivins and taking attention away from Steven Hatfill.
6) A patsy is born. Soon after this the FBI and media began painting Ivins as "insane, paranoid, delusional, suicidal and dangerous. (http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/07/nation/na-ivins7)" The FBI supposedly releases emails written by Ivins and claims they show signs of anxiety, paranoia, depression (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/06/AR2008080601400_pf.html).
7) On July 27, 2008 -- shortly before the FBI was to bring a case against Ivins to trial -- he apparently commits suicide by taking an overdose of Tylenol (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Edwards_Ivins#Death). NO AUTOPSY WAS ORDERED (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aKQxd_8Ywgpg&refer=home). LOL!
8) No charges are filed against Ivins after his death but the FBI assigns him full responsibility for the attacks. Case closed. LOL!
9) The letters used in the Anthrax mailings appear as if they were written by Muslim extremists, but Bruce Ivins was a Roman Catholic.
(http://www.historycommons.org/events-images/b353_anthrax_brokaw_letter_inside_2050081722-24675.jpg)
Why would a Roman Catholic with no motive whatsoever to perpetrate this outrageous act of terrorism, send out anthrax laced notes impersonating an Islamic terrorist? Answer: HE WOULDN'T! This is another false flag operation.
10) The U.S. government originally tried to blame Iraq and Al Qaeda (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks#Al_Qaeda_and_Iraq_blamed_for_attacks) as being behind the Anthrax mailings. The idiots who planned it didn't realize the type of Anthrax used was of the Ames strain which could be tacked back to only a select few American weapons labs.
Since the Al-Qaeda/Iraq accusation didn't fly too far the FBI decides an American Roman Catholic should be a sufficient patsy :D. Nobody will tell the difference ;)
11) Israeli intelligence claimed to have witnessed Iraqi intelligence give Mohamed Atta a flask of anthrax (http://www.rys2sense.com/anti-neocons/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=18046) at a meeting in Prague before 9-11. This meeting never took place, Israel made the whole thing up.
12) The anthrax letters were all mailed from locations in New Jersey and Florida (http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/detect/antdetect_letters.html); the same states where some of the alleged 9-11 hijackers lived prior to the attacks. Also the same two states in which Mossad agents were living NEXT DOOR (http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2002/10/04/911-what-did-israel-know/) to the patsy 9-11 hijackers. How did the perpetrators of the Anthrax false flag know to send the letters from these locations? Gee since Israel was living next to the said hijackers and since Israel lied and said that Atta got anthrax from Iraqi intelligence it kind of looks like Israel might have been the ones behind this frame up doesn't it?
13) A Zionist Jew named Dr. Philip Zack had been fired from USAMRIID back in 1991 for his harassment of an Arab co-worker named Dr. Assad. Zack also stole Anthrax from the lab back in 1992 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Zack). He was a "person of interest" in the 2001 Anthrax case but the FBI doesn't follow up on it even though he had previously stolen Anthrax from the same lab and had shown his utter racist contempt for his Arab co-worker. That would perfectly explain why the Anthrax letters look like they were written by Muslims. Because Zionist Zack wrote them and tried to frame his former Egyptian co-worker Dr. Assad.
Qui Bono?
Who benefited from the Anthrax scare? Obviously not Muslims or Mr. Ivins. It was a horribly botched Mossad-CIA false flag operation used to incite more fear of terrorism after 9-11 and continue to paralyze the nation in fear so they bow down and accept all the U.S. governments wishes (i.e. Massively escalating the defense budget and going to war in the Middle East on behalf of Israel).
Nice summary Monkey See, MD. Just to put a fine point on it:
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2008 ... the-patsy/ (http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2008/08/04/the-patsy/)
QuoteIn September 2001 – before the news of the anthrax letters broke, but after they had been postmarked – a letter addressed to the "Town of Quantico police" was received that accused Assaad of being a terrorist who was planning to wage biological warfare against the U.S. on American soil. As the first anthrax letters were opened, Assaad got a call from the FBI. Agent Gregory Leylegian wanted to have a little talk with him.
...As the agent read the accusing letter aloud, one thing became readily apparent: the Camel Club was getting its revenge.
Whatever the motives of the Quantico letter's author, one fact seems fairly obvious: whoever wrote it very likely had foreknowledge of the anthrax attacks. Yet all attempts to examine this vital piece of evidence have been deflected by the FBI. ....
[T]he Hartford Courant... [uncovered] the chaotic and dangerous conditions that existed at Ft. Detrick for years, as well as the victimization of Assaad. One Courant story in particular... detailed the wide variety of pathogens the facility lost track of over the years – including one developed by U.S. scientists known simply as "Pathogen X" .... In exposing this laxity, the Courant reported an incident in which a former employee, Dr. Philip Zack, was videotaped sneaking into the supposedly secured facility where pathogens were stored, assisted by his "good friend" Dr. Marian Rippy. They were both involved in conducting unauthorized experiments, according to Dolan and Altimari, and were charter members of the Camel Club. Indeed, the reason for Zack's departure reportedly had much to do with his constant harassment of Assaad.
1) The timing of the Quantico letter implicates its author.
2) The author of the letter is very likely Zack because it attempts to implicate Assad.
3) Zack was videotaped illegally entering the facility where the pathogens were stored.
That's very strong circumstantial evidence. Any investigation would have Zack as a primary suspect.
Great point Chris. I actually wasn't aware of that one. Looking at this evidence a fucking two year old could deduce that Dr. Zack did it. The FBI is a complete joke of a federal agency and should be wiped off the map -- abolished forever.
What I don't understand is how they connected Ivins to the Florida Anthrax cases at the Sun Media, AMI company in Boca Raton, FL? Connecting any of the "Suspects" to this can't be done. The FBI is just a "Jew Stooges" organization at this point.
As for Ivins, the FBI says he hated "NYC" which looks like a total Jew Shilling setup and deflection. This case has and has had "JEW Intelligence" plant and cover up all over it since the first letters.
The letters were post marked a week after the 9/11 attacks. Note the double tracings of the letters "A-T-T" in the pic at the link. Whoever mailed it tried to pin it on "ATTA" who was dead at the time of mailing. This is a Jew Hit Job pure and simple -- and ZACK is Jew Suspect #1.
How in the world of reason can the Anthrax murders be mixed and mismatched with motives between "Al-Queda", "Atta-9/11 Hijackers", "Anti-Democrat US Senators (Daschle, Leahy)", "Anti-Brokaw TV Newsanchors", and "Anti-New York" Lab Doctors...while deflecting blame from a Zionist Weapons Grade Anthrax maker and handler "Dr. Zack" is simply JEWISH Disinfo. The Targets and Suspects cannot be logically connected unless a False Flag Jew-Zionist group is executing the crimes, pure and simple. Consequently,
this has NeoCon Jew written all over it. This is "child" simple at this point when the motive, means, opportunity and logistics are examined. It all points to the criminal JEW ZACK. (I won't call him "Dr.")
This article has some facts but has a "Muslim terrorists" did it angle. Useful though:
http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/Florida.html (http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/Florida.html)
Ask yourself "Is this Ivins mailing this???? -- Hell No! Impossible--this is Jew.
--------------
Quote(http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/FBI-3a.jpg)
"THE DOODLING TERRORIST"
Is it just a coincidence that Atta is a name that can be spelled with just As and Ts? People who believe al Qaeda was behind he mailing sometimes point that out. The fact that most of the A's and T's were traced over cannot be denied. Anyone can see it. But what does it mean? Atta had been dead for a week by the time of the first mailing. But he was in the news every day and on the minds of everyone following the unfolding details of his journey to the World Trade Center. It was probably on the mind of the scientist preparing the letters - and, if he used someone else to actually write the letters, on the mind of that person, too.
Whoever traced over those As and Ts doesn't appear to have done it consciously. If he had, he wouldn't have traced over more than two of the Ts. Two would have been enough. And the tracing would have been more deliberate, not as casual and careless as it appears. The tracing over letters appears to be simple doodling.
It seems very odd that a man about to commit a crime would doodle on such a letter. That's one of the many reasons I believe that someone else did the actual writing. The doodling by tracing over letters can be easily explained if someone had just copied the letter from some other format and was waiting for the letter to be examined by the culprit. More details are on the Handwriting Page. There undoubtedly could be many other reasons for the retracing of those two particular letters of the alphabet. I just can't think of any.
--------
QuoteAnthrax suspected doctor hated New York
* By Todd Venzia
* From: NewsCore
* February 21, 2010 2:28AM
THE mad scientist believed to be behind the deadly 2001 anthrax-letter attacks put a coded message in his missives.
The attacks, which killed five people and sickened several workers at the New York Post, included code that spelled out his hatred for the city according to a federal report, the New York Post reported today.
As the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officially closed its investigation into the anthrax case yesterday, the feds said their prime suspect, Dr Bruce Ivins - who killed himself in 2008 as the feds were about to charge him - thought the Big Apple was a rotten place and included the message "FNY" in his letters to New York media organisations.
"With respect to 'FNY,' according to numerous witnesses who knew him well . . . Dr Ivins had a deep hatred for New York," investigators wrote in a report released yesterday.
The report called the "FNY" message a "verbal assault on New York" and recalled an anecdote typical of Ivins' disdain.
"In the aftermath of 9/11, Dr Ivins sent [a former colleague] an e-mail where he essentially accused 'typical' New Yorkers of overplaying the tragedy and seeking attention, wondering 'what about those folks in Oklahoma City, they deserve sympathy too', " the report said.
Ivins also harboured a hatred for the Yankees. (TOTAL PROPAGANDA...)
"Dr Ivins strongly associated [the former colleague] with New York," the report said. "His communications with her . . . in the years that followed were replete with references to the New York Yankees, her favorite baseball team, not always in the kindest of terms."
In the missives to The Post and former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, Ivins bolded some characters in the text. Investigators believe the sets of letters - 'TTT AAT TAT" - correspond to the three-letter designations for three kinds of amino acid "codons" in DNA.
These acids also have single letter designations, that can spell out "FNY." They can also spell out "PAT," the name of a woman in his lab he had a crush on.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaki ... 5832599314 (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/anthrax-suspected-doctor-hated-new-york/story-e6frf7jx-1225832599314)
-------
Also the "Bush" revenge motive, aided by the Jewish Anthrax Criminals like Zack, against the The National Enquirer for the pics of the Boozing Bush daughters:
http://www.newsgarden.org/columns/anthr ... gets.shtml (http://www.newsgarden.org/columns/anthrax/anthraxtargets.shtml)
(http://www.newsgarden.org/columns/images/jenna.jpg)
http://mindprod.com/politics/anthrax.html (http://mindprod.com/politics/anthrax.html)
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QuoteInvestigators believe seven letters containing anthrax spores were mailed. Four of the seven are thought to have been mailed on the same day and addressed to major media outlets in New York City: ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, and the New York Post. Of these, only the NBC and New York Post letters were recovered. Letters believed to be addressed to ABC News and CBS News offices caused two persons to develop anthrax infections. One was a seven-month-old boy brought in by his mother, a producer at ABC News; the other was an assistant to Dan Rather at CBS. These letters were never found.
The two recovered letters did not have a return address but were postmarked 2001-09-18 in Trenton, New Jersey. They contained identical messages tending to indicate that the perpetrators were Islamic terrorists. The notes read, "09-11-01, THIS IS NEXT, TAKE PENACILIN NOW, DEATH TO AMERICA, DEATH TO ISRAEL, ALLAH IS GREAT."
It is also believed an anthrax-laced letter was mailed to the National Enquirer.
Interestingly, hoax letters claiming to contain anthrax were mailed days later from St. Petersburg, Florida. However, instead of anthrax spores, these letters contained a harmless substance described by some as looking like talcum powder. One of these hoax letters was again addressed to NBC News in New York City. In addition, Judith Miller, the author of a book on bio-terrorism and a reporter on the Middle East for the New York Times, received an anthrax hoax letter at her office. The St. Petersburg Times and Fox News also received similar hoax letters.
The mailing of the hoax letters cannot be considered the work of a copycat. For example, the NBC News hoax letter was mailed on September 20. This would have been two days after the NBC News letter containing anthrax was mailed from Trenton, New Jersey. The remaining hoax letters were mailed between October 5 and 9. News reports naming media outlets that received the original anthrax letters were on October 12 and 13. A copycat mailer could have acted only after October 12, when the public first became aware of the media anthrax letters. The apparent purpose of mailing the hoax letters was to foster the anthrax scare and create a media frenzy.
The mailings of anthrax-laced letters from New Jersey and the Florida hoax letters that followed were probably coordinated. The mailing sites of Trenton, New Jersey and St. Petersburg, Florida were chosen, perhaps, to emphasize an Arab or Islamic connection in the minds of Americans. Trenton is the home of a large Arab-American community. Also, several of the September 11 hijackers had lived in both areas. The mailers of the anthrax and hoax letters wanted the public to think that remnants of al-Qaeda were still around and active.
However, the mailing of the anthrax letters shows a degree of media savvy that would be unusual for foreign Islamic terrorists. The persons who sent the letters knew which media outlets would have the greatest influence on the public. Even today, with the advent of cable and satellite television, the three major television broadcast networks remain as the primary source of news for most Americans. The New York Post and the National Enquirer are tabloid papers and were likely chosen for their sensational headlines. Of all the papers in New York City, the New York Post would have screamed the loudest concerning the threat from Islamic terrorists. For Americans who don't follow the news, the National Enquirer, with its presence at every checkout stand in America, would convey the message. The desired effect in choosing these media outlets was to alarm the public and to remind them these terrorists wanted to destroy both America and Israel.
But only five of the seven anthrax letters were sent to media outlets. The remaining two were addressed to members of the United States Senate. These letters were posted on Tuesday, October 9, exactly three weeks from the first anthrax mailings, and four weeks from September 11. The letters were addressed to two of America's most liberal Democrat Senators: Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont.
............
A team of scientists at the Fort Detrick lab opened the Leahy letter on December 5. This letter also contained a very fine powder which was easily made airborne. The Leahy letter had particles that were smaller and more uniform in size compared to the Daschle letter. This made the anthrax spores in the Leahy letter even deadlier: Smaller spores of a uniform size have a better chance of entering the respiratory system and causing death.
It was reported the quality of the anthrax spores found in the Leahy letter surpassed previously known state-sponsored bio-weapons programs. According to Newsweek, "The Leahy anthrax" was coated with a chemical compound unknown to experts who have worked in the field for years; the coating matches no known anthrax samples ever recovered from biological-weapons producers anywhere in the world, including Iraq and the former Soviet Union." The anthrax in the Leahy letter has proven to be a superior product. Bio-defense experts assisting the FBI have so far been unable to duplicate the anthrax material through any reverse engineering processes. Investigators are left with the uncertain choice of deciding if this was the work of a lone brilliant scientist-or a state-sponsored bio-weapons program.
Quote from: "CrackSmokeRepublican"The letters were post marked a week after the 9/11 attacks. Note the double tracings of the letters "A-T-T" in the pic at the link. Whoever mailed it tried to pin it on "ATTA" who was dead at the time of mailing. This is a Jew Hit Job pure and simple -- and ZACK is Jew Suspect #1.
I agree CSR. Here is the idiotic FBI explanation of the coding in the fake Al Qaeda letters...
(http://www.anthraxwar.com/1/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Picture-6.png)
Clearly "ATTA" is what the coding was emphasizing... which is supposed to be some sort of farewell from Mohammed Atta. The real perpetrators wanted to pin the whole thing on Atta and Iraq -- it all makes sense. The coding, timing of the letters, locations they were sent from (Florida, New Jersey); same locations where Atta and other Arab patsies were living, etc... It's a big frame up gone wrong.
Here is another good page on it:
http://www.anthraxwar.com/1/?p=538 (http://www.anthraxwar.com/1/?p=538)
It makes perfect sence that Atta was the original guy that was going to be blamed for the Anthrax attacks and it fits in PEREFECTLY with the "Iraq gave Atta anthrax in Prague (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/991495/posts)" story which turned out to be Mossad bullshit (http://www.rys2sense.com/anti-neocons/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=18046). Mossad, and its sayan Mr. Zack were behind this along with the CIA and its asset Steven Hatfill. Another good point is the fact that Jerome Hauer the "bio-terrorism expert" was the guy who advised the WhiteHouse (http://911review.org/Wget/winterpatriot/jerome-hauer.html) to go on the anthrax antidote CIPRO a month before the Anthrax mailings. So clearly he had foreknowledge of the mailings. Hauer was also the managing director of KROLL which ran the WTC security since 93', and he also went on TV on 9-11 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA34yagVDcc) chanting "Bin Laden did it" and when asked if explosives could have been involved in bringing down the towers he said NO "it was the impact of the planes" and the "intense heat" from the "jet fuel". This criminal Khazar is suspect #1 in the crime of 9-11, everything leads back to Hauer.
Interesting that Hauer's wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Hauer) has been drastically edited since I last saw it. Everything about his family history has been removed. They took out everything about him being born into a Jewish-Zionist family and that his mother was a leading Zionist of the Hadassah "daughters of Zion" group in New York. Strange....
I've been working on other issues for a while now, but I need to bring something to light that it seems that no on else here *or really anyone else in general* remembers or even REALIZES:
I personally saw a news segment where medical witnesses and pharmacy workers were interviewed and said that Atta and a couple of other phoney patsies had come to his pharmacy for Cipro, OR that Cipro was prescribed while at some hospital; either way I remember the drug was a very big issue because it was the main drug used against anthrax. I SWEAR TO GOD THAT THIS WAS BROADCAST ALMOST IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE ANTHRAX SITUATION. The pharmacist, if my memory is correct, also said that there was evidence that the men had anthrax-style lesions, but I am not 100% certain of that as I am about the report in-general. It is critical to note that NOTHING more was ever said about or done with this information as far as I know.
This is a very important piece of information that someone who has Lexis-Nexus can use to open-up a REAL can-of-worms because I know what I saw and the implication here, people, is that the weakest link in this whole chain are the people who tried to make themselves eye-witnesses to Atta and gang being the ones behind this anthrax bullshit but because the story WAS such absolute bullshit, not even "the people" would believe it...and so it disappeared into the memory hole.
LINDSEY
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51917 (http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51917)
Please post the whole article, but here is the information about the "LEGEND" that was being created but never went anywhere:
"Then there is the report of pharmacist Gregg Chatterton in Delray Beach, Fla. He told investigators that two of the 9/11 hijackers came into his store, Huber Drugs, looking for medication to treat irritations on Mohamed Atta's hands. Chatterton, whose pharmacy is not far from American Media International's headquarters, recalled that Atta said, "My hands – my hands burn; they are itching.""
In the video a pharmacist filled a prescription for Cipro, so the whole incident is not here; I VIVIDLY REMEMBER THAT CIPRO WAS PRESCRIBED BECAUSE THAT WAS THE PROOF THAT ATTA AND GANG WERE INFECTED WITH THE ANTHRAX BACTERIUM. What is truly pitiful is that there is REAL proof/evidence of Lt. Col. Philip Zack *JEWISH* was the man responsible for all of this, and yet this shill Farah is trying to say that IRAQ was responsible!
LINDSEY
NB: As for Ron Paul...
NO MORE EXCUSES.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/1 ... 27410.html (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/18/leahy-anthrax-suspect-did_n_127410.html)
QuoteLeahy: Anthrax Suspect Did Not Act Alone
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the of Senate Judiciary Committee said Wednesday he does not believe that Dr. Bruce Ivins acted alone in the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks. Sen. Patrick Leahy was one of the targets of the lethal anthrax-laced letters that killed five and sickened 17 in fall 2001.
At a hearing in front of his committee, the Vermont Democrat told FBI Director Robert Mueller that he thinks other people must have been involved.
Leahy did not say why he believed Ivins had help and he also cast doubt that the Army scientist was the attacker in the first place.
"If he is the one who sent the letter, I do not believe in any way, shape or manner that he is the only person involved in this attack on Congress and the American people. I do not believe that at all," Leahy said.
He added: "I believe there are others involved, either as accessories before or accessories after the fact. I believe that there are others out there, I believe there are others who could be charged with murder. I just want you to know how I feel about it, as one of the people who was aimed at in the attack."
Mueller did not directly contradict Leahy, saying "I understand that concern."
Still, Mueller maintained the Justice Department's view that Ivins was the mastermind and sole attacker.
"In the investigation to date, we have looked at every lead and followed every lead to determine whether anybody else was involved, and we will continue to do so," Mueller told Leahy. "And even if the case does become closed, if we receive additional evidence, indicating the participation of any additional person, we certainly would pursue that."
Story continues below
The Justice Department and FBI have yet to close the case on the "Amerithrax" investigation after declaring Ivins its only suspect last month. Ivins killed himself in July after learning that prosecutors were preparing to indict him.
Republicans shared Leahy's doubts surrounding the case.
Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the top GOP member of the panel, said he had problems with some of the evidence against Ivins that has been made public. In a testy exchange with Mueller, he also demanded to have a say in selecting scientists who will be performing an independent review of the DNA fingerprinting analysis of the anthrax that lies at the heart of the government's case.
The review by the National Academy of Sciences will be made up of private scientists who did not assist the FBI in the investigation, and could take up to 18 months to complete. Mueller said he would consider allowing the Judiciary Committee to suggest scientists, but noted that the NAS and Justice Department likely would have to agree to it.
"What's there to consider, Director Mueller?" Specter said. "We'd like to have the authority to name some people there to be sure of its objectivity. We're not interlopers here. This is an oversight matter. What's there to consider?"
Mueller said "to the extent that the rules of the science allow that to happen, I have no objection to that request."
"Well, that's not far enough," Specter snapped.
NAS spokesman William Kearney said the organization would "welcome input on potential committee members" from Congress, federal agencies, scientific community and the general public. Still, all suggestions must be approved by the NAS president, Kearney said.
Sitting in the front row of the audience at the Senate hearing was Dr. Steven Hatfill, another Army scientist who for years was wrongly accused of orchestrating the attacks. The Justice Department in June settled a $5.8 million lawsuit with Hatfill, who claimed his privacy rights were violated by officials speaking with reporters about the case.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a longtime skeptic of the anthrax investigation, grilled Mueller on how the FBI could have focused on Hatfill for years when investigators as early as 2002 had lab records showing Ivins was conducting late-night research in the days immediately before the deadly letters were mailed.
"Shouldn't the FBI apologize to Dr. Hatfill?" Grassley asked. "Please explain how chasing an innocent man for four years was not a mistake, as you said it was not a mistake."
Mueller said the FBI investigators acted appropriately throughout the case _ based on the information they had at any given time.
Hatfill, smiling, left the hearing after Grassley's questions.
http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/AlQaeda.html (http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/AlQaeda.html)
"1. In June of 2001, two men visited the emergency room of Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, FL. One of them was Ahmed Alhaznawi, who piloted the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania on Sept. 11. Dr. Christos Tsonas treated Alhaznawi for an ugly, dark lesion on his leg.
2. After September 11, when federal investigators found the medicine among the Alhaznawi's possessions, Dr. Tsonas was question (in October, after anthrax became a hot subject in the news, particularly in Florida). Dr. Tsonas reviewed the case and decided that the lesion "was consistent with cutaneous anthrax.""
That "medicine" was Cipro.
Again, could someone please post this whole article...
LINDSEY
Keep in mind with the Israeli tracking team that close, they must have known about the Anthrax, or at least planted it on these guys. In other words, Anthrax letters showed up because Israeli Talpiot Intelligence teams were handling this stuff before and after 9/11. They could have "dusted" the "Arabs". In fact this could have been the agent to kill them after which the Jew Talpiot Teams dumped the bodies in the Florida Swamps :
viewtopic.php?p=15366 (http://theinfounderground.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=15366)
Fine job as always MSMD, you're wise beyond your years and great research. And the contributions of our forum members...damn you guys never cease to 'wow' me :) , nice thread!
1200 views and growing ;).
Spread it around folks! It's not hard.
The first seeding of 9-11 'anthrax attack' in public consciousness probably started with this 1997 event when a package HOAX was delivered to the Washington DC B'nai B'rith headquarters, making the news:
>> http://www.cnn.com/US/9704/24/bnai.brit ... index.html (http://www.cnn.com/US/9704/24/bnai.brith.early/index.html) The package contained a broken lab dish labeled 'bacillus anthracis' with red material inside.
Around this time, the FDA was shutting down the Lansing Michigan (MBPI) anthrax vaccine operations, the only licensed biodefense maker of the vaccine. Before it reopened, ownership changed hands from the state of Michigan to the new company BioPort, created expressly for the changover --except BioPort became a business entity back in 1995 according to journalist Alex Constantine.
Who's Alex Constantine? --a musician-turned-journalist after his fascination with a satanic ritual murder case in San Francisco, making a name for himself as a 9-11 investigator. He blames the neo-Nazis within the US government and dismisses the involvement of Jews. Here's an interview, in the archives: http://www.givemesometruth.info (http://www.givemesometruth.info) . Around minute 54 he says that lots of people had foreknowledge of the 9-11 attacks and someone called him a week in advance with a warning. The guy lives in Los Angeles apparently. He spun an early version of events in an article called "Project Anthrax".
So, Constantine says that he got the list of BioPort's directors from their website back in 2002.
This post on BioPort opens with a dual account of BioPort's founding: http://citizen2009.wordpress.com/bioport/ (http://citizen2009.wordpress.com/bioport/), noting that Israeli IDF personnel, Yoav Stern and Zivi Nedivi, are founders. Included are other companies involving these men and their connections to the Israeli Technology Acquisition Corp., Kellstrom (Boeing aircraft parts distributor) and Bogen Communications.
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from http://citizen2009.wordpress.com/bioweapons/ (http://citizen2009.wordpress.com/bioweapons/)
[Timeline....]
1979 - " bio-warfare mishap in the Soviet Union that resulted in the deaths of 64 persons. Despite his earlier efforts to demonstrate the "innocent" nature of the accident, [Matthew] Meselson's investigation incontrovertably proved that the Soviets had a secret bio-weapons program in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Meselson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Meselson) Meselson was a founding Fellow at the Salk Institute http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/sverd ... tract.html (http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/sverd/sverd_abstract.html)
1993 – Porton Down's Center for Applied Microbiology Research (CAMR) is privatized, organized under the auspices of Citigroup's Fuad El-Hibri who became the CEO and Chairman of BioPort of Lansing Michigan, the only licensed US producer of anthrax vaccine
1997 – The first event in the continuing rash of anthrax attacks, culminating Sep-Nov 2001, was a package delivery 'hoax' sent to the Washington DC chapter of B'nai B'rith http://www.cnn.com/US/9704/24/bnai.brit ... index.html (http://www.cnn.com/US/9704/24/bnai.brith.early/index.html)
2001 – anthrax attacks, see below
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2001 ANTHRAX
The official case of the 2001 Anthrax attacks was closed in 2009. The solitary prime suspect, Dr. Bruce E. Ivins, was dead of "apparent suicide" (July29), reported on August 1 of 2008 just as he was about to be indicted on charges. http://articles.latimes.com/aug/01/nation/na-anthrax1 (http://articles.latimes.com/aug/01/nation/na-anthrax1)
Timeline >>> http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/chron ... vents.html (http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/chronologyanthraxevents.html)
Retrospective of the post-9-11 anthrax attacks, which killed 5 Americans:
The First Victim
Oct. 05, 2001 – "Bob Stevens, 63, photo editor, the Sun, American Media, Boca Raton, Fla. Contracted inhalation anthrax. Died Oct. 5. Unknown how he became infected" http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/new ... tacks.html (http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2001/10/19/2001-10-19_tracking_anthrax_attacks.html)
Other reports ran stories that Bob had been in North Carolina, visiting Duke University on Sept 27 and left because he didn't feel well. It's unclear how many days Stevens spent in N.C. or on which day he became sick, but on Oct.1, he was in the hospital in Lantana, Florida. On October 2 he lapsed into a coma and died three days later on (Friday) the 5th. Although the medical confirmation of anthrax infection came on Monday October 1, no investigation was initiated until Stevens died on Friday Oct.5. Bob's fellow employees, who left the offices of AMI on that Friday, never returned to the building. The account of AMI newspaper archivist Maria Peters indicates that the building housed the only collection of backissues known to exist –from the 1950s forward; hardcopies of the National Enquirer, Star, Globe, Sun, Examiner, etc– which were in the process of transcription to computer files for which employees had no back-up.
A secondhand account is given about what happened inside the AMI offices :http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/nln/nln02/winter/index.htm describing the recollection of Maria Peters.
Bob worked at American Media Inc., 4950 Communication Ave, #100, Boca Raton, FL 33431, very close (walking distance) to the Boca Raton Airport on the north side of the 95 http://www.mapquest.com/maps?address=31 ... country=US (http://www.mapquest.com/maps?address=3100+Airport+Road&city=boca+raton&state=fl&country=US)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Media,_Inc (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Media,_Inc).
[wikipedia] "The modern American Media came into being after Generoso Pope Jr. [Gene] , longtime owner of The National Enquirer, died in 1988, and his tabloids came under new ownership. American tabloids began consolidating in 1990, when American Media bought Star from Rupert Murdoch. The purchase of Globe Communications (owner of the Globe and the National Examiner) followed nine years later.
[from the hyperlink]... [MIT graduate] Pope worked for the CIA's psychological warfare unit ...Pope moved the Enquirer from New York to Lantana, Florida in 1971. By the time of Pope's death, his GP Group, in addition to The National Enquirer, included Weekly World News, and a magazine distributor, Distribution Services Inc. It was sold in 1989 by his heirs to the company that would become American Media."...
[hyperlink on Pope's widow 'Lois'] "About a year after his death, and according to the terms of Pope's will, the executors of his estate, including former Secretary of Commerce, Pete Peterson [Blackstone Group] arranged to put the Enquirer and its sister publications up for sale. The company was bought in a closed auction by the Macfadden Publishing and Boston Ventures partnership for $412 million. [American Media was sold in 1999 to the investment group Evercore Partners. The Macfadden trade titles were sold to VNU the same year; Dutch multinational VNU http://www.answers.com/topic/vnu-n-v (http://www.answers.com/topic/vnu-n-v) ,in 1999 VNU acquired The Nielsen Company, famed for market research intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_Company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nielsen_Company)
...In the field of medical research, the Lois Pope LIFE Foundation is the driving force behind the Lois Pope LIFE Center in Florida, the top neurological research facility in the world."
—"Six American Media employees in Boca Raton" were exposed to anthrax. Mr. Bob Stevens died on Oct. 5, and Ernesto Blanco was hospitalized for pneumonia.
Owners:
EVERCORE PARTNERS –[wikipedia] "The Company was founded by Blackstone Group alumni Austin Buetner and Roger Altman in 1996....Evercore has recently been expanding its advisory business significantly. Now occupying the number 8 spot in US M&A transactions...The firm currently has 250 employees and offices in New York, London, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Monterrey as well as a partnership with Mizuho Financial Group in Tokyo." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evercore_Partners (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evercore_Partners)
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/17/busin ... azine.html (http://www.nytimes.com/1999/02/17/business/investment-group-buys-the-national-enquirer-and-star-magazine.html). AMI was Evercore's second ever purchase, after an insulation company.
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Austin Beutner -(founder) http://www.kcrw.com/people/beutner_austin?role=guest (http://www.kcrw.com/people/beutner_austin?role=guest) , Dep. Mayor of Los Angeles, overseas airports and Port of L.A.
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Roger C. Altman -(founder) http://www.private-equity.org.uk/profil ... r+C+Altman (http://www.private-equity.org.uk/profile_career_bio.php?contact=Roger+C+Altman) ;grad of Georgetown and UChicago, Lehman Bros, Dep.Sec. of the US Treasury, Council on Foreign Relations. Altman was Evercore's CEO/Chairman from its inception through 2009 and remains as Evercore's Chairman of the Board ; R.C.A. is the son of a grocery broker and librarian, raised in Brookline, Mass; became Lehman's youngest partner at age 28; advisor/friend to the Clintons and John Kerry; resigned his Treasury post 'under pressure' over the Whitewater investigation http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/25/nyreg ... mall.html; (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/25/nyregion/public-lives-a-merger-maker-who-learned-to-think-small.html;) http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/busin ... 0Roger%20C (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/business/yourmoney/21deal.html?_r=1&n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/People/A/Altman,%20Roger%20C).
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Pedro Aspe – founded Protego in 1996;Minister of Finance and Public Credit of Mexico; PhD from MIT ; Protego Tank company http://www.protego.de/en/ (http://www.protego.de/en/) , acquired by Evercore in 2006 http://people.forbes.com/profile/pedro-aspe/51991 (http://people.forbes.com/profile/pedro-aspe/51991)
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Ralph Schlosstein – Pres/CEO; founder of HighView Investment Group; co-founded BlackRock in 1988; Dep. to Asst Sec. of the Treasusury (R. Altman); Schlosstein May2009 http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2009/05/22/w ... s-new-ceo/ (http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2009/05/22/who-is-ralph-schlosstein-evercores-new-ceo/), new CEO of Evercore; in 1983 at the time of his marriage to Jane Hartley (media exec), Schlosstein was a VP for Lehman Bros. Kuhn Loeb; co-founder of BlackRock, the largest money manager in the world with $3.2 trillion in assets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackRock (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BlackRock) ; http://people.forbes.com/profile/ralph- ... tein/89292 (http://people.forbes.com/profile/ralph-l-schlosstein/89292)
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Gail Block Harris – President of the Board of Directors of New York Cares; director of CIGNA Life Insurance
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Curtis Hessler – founded 101 Communications LLC; Asst. Sec of the Treasury (76-81); Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, and Rhodes Scholar http://dnb.powerprofiles.com/profile/05 ... ORTLAND-OR (http://dnb.powerprofiles.com/profile/054865527/101+COMMUNICATIONS-PORTLAND-OR)
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Anthony N. Pritzker - co-founder of The Pritzker Group; President of Baker Tanks; Executive at the Marmon Group; Dartmouth and UChicago; Baker Tanks (largest in US), "From 2000 to 2004 he served as President of Baker Tanks, the nation's leading tank and pump equipment rental business. In 1998, he was appointed by the Marmon Group to oversee Stainless Industrial Companies, a portfolio of several industrial manufacturing companies. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pritzker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pritzker) the family
http://www.pritzkergroup.com/investment ... onals.html (http://www.pritzkergroup.com/investment_professionals.html) Pritzker Group
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmon_Group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmon_Group) Marmon Group (60% ownership by Berkshire Hathaway)
http://www.bakercorp.com/ (http://www.bakercorp.com/) Baker Tanks
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Francois de St. Phalle – Vice-Chair of Dillon, Read & Co. Inc; partner in Lehman Brothers; Chairman of Lehman International
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Eduardo G. Mestre – Vice Chair; past Chairman of Citigroup bank; past Chairman of the Board of WNYC, New York's public radio stations; Chairman of the Board of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory [a division Brookhaven Nat'l Lab]; born in Havana; grad of Harvard and Yale
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Bernard J. Taylor – co-Vice Chair http://uk.reuters.com/business/quotes/o ... rId=948107 (http://uk.reuters.com/business/quotes/officerProfile?symbol=EVR.N&officerId=948107) chief of Evercore Europe; JPMorgan Chase; CEO Braveheart Financial Services (acquired by Evercore); CEO Robert Fleming &Co.; chair of ISIS Innovation Ltd.
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Robert B. Walsh – CFO; Senior Partner at Deloitte & Touche LLP; co-Founding Partner for Deloitte's Capital Markets Group; Board of Directors of New York Cares
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William Hiltz – Sr. Managing Dir.; head of UBS Warburg Global Energy http://panachemag.com/File/William_Hiltz/ (http://panachemag.com/File/William_Hiltz/) ; http://people.forbes.com/profile/william-o-hiltz/92868 (http://people.forbes.com/profile/william-o-hiltz/92868)
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Adam B. Frankel – counsel http://www.evercore.com/userdetail/inde ... serid=1222 (http://www.evercore.com/userdetail/index.php?userid=1222)
Paul Pensa – acct.;Credit Suisse First Boston http://www.evercore.com/userdetail/inde ... serid=1285 (http://www.evercore.com/userdetail/index.php?userid=1285)
Thomas J. Gavenda – acct.; formerly with Primus Guaranty http://ir.primusguaranty.com/phoenix.zh ... highlight= (http://ir.primusguaranty.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=179637&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=619014&highlight=)
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″David J. Pecker became Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of American Media, Inc. (AMI) in May 1999, when along with Evercore Partners, he purchased the company.... The company's holdings also include Distribution Services Inc. (DSI), the leading supermarket in-store merchandiser....Following 9/11 in October 2001, American Media became the first U.S. company to be targeted by bio-terrorists using anthrax, and one of its employees became the first casualty... Despite being evacuated from its corporate headquarters, Mr. Pecker moved quickly to relocate the company's operations...
In November of 2002, Mr. Pecker and Evercore acquired Weider Publications Inc., the leading publisher of health & fitness magazines, including category leader 'Shape' and Men's Fitness. It was the latest acquisition in a 20-year career that has seen Mr. Pecker complete more than $3.6 billion in magazine transactions. In April 2003, Mr. Pecker participated in the $1.5 billion recapitalization of AMI led by Evercore and Thomas H. Lee Partners." http://www.pace.edu/page.cfm?doc_id=33431 (http://www.pace.edu/page.cfm?doc_id=33431) Pecker was the prior CEO of Hachette Magazines (Diamandis Communications Inc.)
—there's a pic o' Pecker in the link above.
Hachette Magazines Inc., (the former Diamandis Communications headed by Peter G. Diamandis, magazine publisher, who became chief of CBS's magazine division which he bought in 1987 changing the name and making the largest magazine business purchase in US history. http://www.bucknell.edu/x12876.xml (http://www.bucknell.edu/x12876.xml) , http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/peter-diamandis (http://articles.latimes.com/keyword/peter-diamandis) Hachette Filipacchi [France] is "the largest magazine publisher in the world" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachette_F ... %C3%A9dias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachette_Filipacchi_M%C3%A9dias). Hachette's OWNER "since 1980 is Matra—–Mécanique Avion TRAction or Matra was a French company covering a wide range of activities mainly related to automobile, bicycles, aeronautics and weaponry... Matra was owned by the Floriat family.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matra) , transitioned by stock acquisition to Lagardere Group http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagard%C3%A8re_Group (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagard%C3%A8re_Group)
Matra is a Defense Contractor –"Matra Hautes Technologies (Matra High Technology) or MHT was the defence arm of Matra. The company was involved in aeropspace, defence and telecommunications. In February 1999 Matra Hautes Technologies merged with Aérospatiale to form Aérospatiale-Matra. On July 10, 2000 Aérospatiale-Matra became part of EADS. http://www.eads.com/1024/en/businet/def ... ence.html; (http://www.eads.com/1024/en/businet/defence/defence.html;) controlling ownership and management by Lagardere SCA. EADS North America: http://www.eadsnorthamerica.com/800/en/ ... 81%29.html (http://www.eadsnorthamerica.com/800/en/presence/EADS_NA_Presence_North_America%20%281%29.html)
In Feb 2000, MATRA BAE Dynamics, "Europe's missile giant" won the UK contract http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/20 ... matra.html (http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2000/02/25/62558/uk-missile-order-secures-matra.html)
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AMI Chief Executive David Pecker told CNN he thought his company was targeted because of its name. "I think this is an attack against America. The World Trade Center was attacked, the Pentagon was attacked, and American Media was attacked, and I think this was the first bio-terrorism attack in United States," Pecker said.
Recently, overwhelming debt appears to be forcing AMI out of business, or into the hands of its creditors. ""It looks like a major-league collapse of the Pecker empire," said one industry executive." http://mediawiredaily.com/2006/06/david ... uscle.html (http://mediawiredaily.com/2006/06/david-pecker-losing-his-muscle.html)
Try this link (again) for the recollection of American Media Inc.s librarian Maria Peters
http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/nln/nln0 ... /index.htm (http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/nln/nln02/winter/index.htm)
Additional anthrax activity
Nov 23 – "Chilean and U.S. officials confirmed the first reported case of a deadly strain of the bacteria in mail outside the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta confirmed on Thursday that a letter sent from Switzerland to Chile was tainted with anthrax. The letter had been sent to Dr. Antonio Banfi, a pediatrician at a children's hospital in Santiago."
It looks like American Media Inc. had all the connections and technology through its owners to set up the attacks. So is Philip Zack just another diversion too?
American Media Inc.'s building was new in 1999. They moved over to Boca Raton from the old National Inquirer site in Lantana. Still, even in a brand new building, they renovated before the death of Bob Stevens. AMI had a separate building for administration and accounting.
http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/misc2.html (http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/misc2.html) This link is a long stream of 'anthrax' news from various sources, supplying the cut below:
Building Security ....
Quote"The newly renovated, 63,000-square-foot building has restricted access. All visitors are buzzed in by one of the company's 25-member security force. The force consists of part-time, off-duty police officers and retired full-time ones, Ostaszewski said. Visitors are issued high-tech passes that bleed through red ink after 24 hours to render them worthless. Once inside, as many as 10 cameras pan for any suspicious activity. "It's not the Pentagon, but it is real good system," Ostaszewski said."...."
And Bob came home sick from his North Carolina trip visiting Duke U. among other places. Anthrax is not contagious --requires direct contact with spores. After he died on Friday and the building went into full quarantine, at first the investigators said only his computer keyboard tested positive for anthrax spores. Later, they said it was in the mailroom too, in a canvas postal bin....after an AMI mailroom worker was hospitalized for pneumonia....
QuoteOct-01-2001 " (Debora Mackenzie for New Scientist) A 63-year-old resident of Lantana, Florida, developed headache and fever on Sunday while visiting Duke University in North Carolina. Doctors testing for meningitis in Florida found anthrax bacilli in his spinal fluid.
An X-ray revealed an enlarged space under the breastbone. This is unique to the pneumonic form of anthrax, which is almost invariably fatal if antibiotic treatment begins after symptoms start. The US Centers for Disease Control confirmed the diagnosis on Thursday.
"No one has any idea where this came from," says Martin Hugh-Jones of Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, head of the World Health Organisation's working group on anthrax." http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/misc2.html (http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/misc2.html)
--According to my ranging around, anthrax "in the field" is easy enough to get that any microbiology student can do it. Spores are probably ubiquitous and stay viable for 10 years, so they say. The closest I've gotten to an original journalistic source that insists "only 20 or so labs" in the US would have a weaponized Ames Strain is Jay Edward Epstein. The evidence for weaponized anthrax, as opposed to processed-for-study anthrax, is dependent on the structure of the powder, not the biochemical analysis. A general search on laboratory milling machines turns up commonly available equipment that promises identical results to the 'weaponized' anthrax.
-- A story that Dugway Proving Grounds was running 'anthrax attack' war games before/during 9-11 is part of the record.
Christopher Bollyn writes about the wife and daughter of Webster Tarpley working for Gene S. Sachs, who has BAE Systems (N. American subsid) for his largest client http://www.bollyn.com/index.php#article_11619 (http://www.bollyn.com/index.php#article_11619)
.....hmm.
The letters from Trenton were mailed from a single mailbox on a street in Princeton, beside the university campus...
Evercore, Blackstone, Swine flu and Big Pharma http://www.lewrockwell.com/rajiva/rajiva25.1.html (http://www.lewrockwell.com/rajiva/rajiva25.1.html)
QuoteBoth Blackstone and Evercore have powerful ties to big pharma.
I. Blackstone:
Blackstone entered the huge Indian drug market in 2006, buying shares in Emcure, which produces antiretroviral drugs, antiviruses and antibiotics. Besides pharmaceuticals, Blackstone is also heavily invested in hospitals, nursing homes, health insurance and health care packaging, among other things. So while drug companies don't want Americans buying cheaper generic drugs abroad, companies like Blackstone are investing in foreign drug companies and profiting.
II. Evercore:
Evercore, which Altman now heads, is a big player in the drug industry too.
In July (just one month after swine-flu was declared a pandemic) Evercore concluded its second multi-billion dollar health care deal of this year when it advised leading vaccine maker Sanofi-Aventis (SASY. PA) in its acquisition of the other 50% of Merial from joint owner, Merck. Evercore's previous multi-billion dollar deal was advising Wyeth on its acquisition by Pfizer, the biggest pharma deal of the year when it took place.
Sanofi-Aventis is described as the world's leading flu vaccine maker and is rushing to create a swine-flu vaccine that it began testing on August 6.
Industry analysts have noted that sales of swine-flu vaccine will add billions of dollars to drug company revenues in 2009 and 2010. ("Sanofi-Aventis Starts Swine Flu Shot Trials," Reuters, August 7, 2009).
Meanwhile, the Sanofi-Aventis and Pfizer deals have pushed Evercore ahead of Credit Suisse in volume of mergers & acquisitions in US rankings.
Both deals were put through by Altman and a former Credit Suisse banker who joined Evercore two years ago, after concluding some of the decade's biggest health-care deals for clients like Johnson & Johnson, Schering-Plough, Wyeth, GlaxoSmithKline, Roche Holding and Teva Pharmaceutical.
("The Pharmaceuticals Banker That Helped Evercore Land a $4 Billion Mandate," Deal Journal, July 31, 2009)
QuoteFormer AMI building declared free of anthrax contamination
By Gretel Sarmiento, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 08, 2007
WEST PALM BEACH — Federal environmental experts have concluded that the former American Media Inc. building in Boca Raton has been cleared of the anthrax spores that killed a photo editor more than five years ago and shuttered the tabloid publisher's headquarters.
The 160-page report was sent to Dr. Jean Malecki, director of the Palm Beach County Health Department. She will review it and decide by next week whether the building, which she ordered closed on Oct. 10, 2001, can reopen.
Malecki did not indicate Wednesday what her decision would be, but her reaction after getting the positive assessment was clear.
"It was a relief," she said. "It's been five years of my life. But it will be over soon, I guarantee it."
The report's conclusion: "In summary, based in the information available, the technical working group concludes that the measures used to treat and remove B. anthracis at the former AMI building at 5401 Broken Sound Blvd. were successful.
"The technical working group believes that the building can be safely reoccupied, normal working activities resumed, and building contents reused."
....
BioONE, a fumigation company associated with former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, fumigated the three-story facility with chlorine dioxide in July 2004. But the building remained closed when BioONE refused to release the cleanup data, claiming the building's owner, David Rustine, did not renew its contract or pay for the fumigation efforts.
Rustine, who paid only $40,000 for a contaminated building worth $3.8 million, hired MARCOR Remediation to finish cleaning the boxes of AMI materials in 2005. This past November, MARCOR began the final cleanup and sampling to ensure all spores had been killed.
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/forme ... xfree.html (http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/formeramibldganthraxfree.html)
Look, I have to say that we need to stop wasting our time with apparent red-herrings and ludicrous "speculation" about tabloids being responsible for the anthrax attacks, and continue to focus on the evidence that people don't know or don't remember to present a convincing case that the same people who were responsible for 911 were ALSO responsible for this attack...
and I do NOT mean those wily A-RABS.
For anyone who doesn't understand what I mean by RED-HERRINGS and LUDICROUS "SPECULATION" here is precisely what I mean so that there is no confusion:
Jennifer Lake's quote as follows: "It looks like American Media Inc. had all the connections and technology through its owners to set up the attacks. So is Philip Zack just another diversion too?"
LINDSEY
NB: This is just embarrassing and takes away from the heart of the reason that this Topic was begun in the FIRST PLACE.
Philip Zack is "low-hanging fruit". Shouldn't we question that?
What happened to Zack? Anybody know? In my reading about him, I learned that it was fairly common for Ft. Detrick researchers to come back into secured buildings after their assignments were curtailed --they just walked in, took 'material' from the labs and left. So there would have to be others over the years 'on camera' who did the same as Zack. Anyone tracked his movements during 2001? Where is he now? Does anyone think Zack could have worked alone and pulled off the attacks? Has any 'truth' researcher or official investigator made progress with indictable evidence about Zack since 2001, or is this a situation of going nowhere? Does anyone here at TIU think it's a RED HERRING to ASK QUESTIONS about the first victim and the contaminated building he worked in and seek to answer them since this is an unsolved crime on which the authorities have closed-the-book?
One of the problems with the anthrax attacks is that the various 'letters' obviously contained powders of different types. The supposed letter that exposed AMI editor Bob Stevens was never found, but the 'hearsay' of coworkers recalled a strange fan letter to Jennifer Lopez that came weeks before his death (2 weeks? 3 weeks?) with a Star-of-David pendant and white powder inside. It sounded like the letter was opened in an office area and shared among staff, ending up in a waste can....so the trail of contamination inside the building has relevance considering that no letter existed by the time of the investigation.
...and here we are back at the site of the AMI building. BioONE was more than 'associated' with "Giuliani :
http://www.giulianipartners.com/press_b ... 11304.aspx (http://www.giulianipartners.com/press_bioone_011304.aspx)
QuoteJanuary 13, 2004 - Boca Raton, FL. Flanked by Rudolph W. Giuliani, Chairman and CEO of Giuliani Partners LLC, and John Y. Mason, President and CEO of Sabre Technical Services LLC, David Rustine, President of Crown Companies and the new owner of the American Media Inc. (AMI) building announced today that Bio·ONE™ has been selected to decontaminate and remediate the building –– site of the first recognized anthrax incident in 2001.
""Bio·ONE has unique chlorine dioxide-based technology and experience cleaning-up anthrax-contaminated buildings with no residual toxicity. This made them the clear choice,"" said Rustine.
Sabre Technical Services, a leader in biological and chemical remediation technology and services, has teamed with Giuliani Partners, a management consulting firm with extensive experience in security, emergency preparedness and response, as well as crisis management, to create Bio·ONE Solutions LLC. Bio·ONE is a joint venture that will work to enhance the current technology and to expand the uses of chlorine dioxide as a tool for dealing with biological and chemical incidents, as well as develop new beneficial public and commercial applications. The new joint venture will be headquartered in the remediated AMI building.
Valuable things went missing during the clean-up. Even Elvis's picture left the building:
http://www.irishelvisfanclub.com/last_photo.htm (http://www.irishelvisfanclub.com/last_photo.htm)
QuoteDavid Rustine, the Boca Raton developer who inherited millions of celebrity photos when he bought the tabloid's contaminated headquarters for $40,000 in 2003 says he suspects the 1977 photo was snatched by a man who teamed with former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giulianai to clean the building.
Who else had motive? We should expand our knowledge base with all the pertinent questions...
Quotehttp://www.elvispresley.dk/news.asp?pag ... ews_id=146 (http://www.elvispresley.dk/news.asp?page_id=79&news_id=146)
"AMI was paid millions by its insurer for its archive of prints and photographs before Rustine bought the $3.8 million building for a song. In the case of the Elvis photo, reports indicate it was owned by AMI."
Quotehttp://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/ ... elvis.html (http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2008/06/23/0623_elvis.html)
"The Elvis Photo was destroyed," say the attorneys representing a New York man who is accused of snatching the picture from the anthrax-tainted former headquarters of the National Enquirer."..."As evidence that the photo was destroyed, Mason's attorneys included a grainy picture of a man wearing a white hooded jumpsuit and a gas mask. The man, whom they identify as tabloid in-house counsel Daniel Rotstein, is holding the photo that produced a record 6.5 million sales for the Enquirer when it was on the cover of the tabloid shortly after Elvis Presley's August 1977 death.
The picture of Rotstein was snapped shortly before the Elvis photo and hundreds of others were shredded, the attorneys contend. Rotstein, they say, oversaw the shredding."..."Royce Emley, a former promotion manager for AMI, said the negative of the Presley photo — one of five shot of the dead rock-and-roll icon — was kept in a vault. He suspects top editors grabbed the negatives before they evacuated the building during the anthrax attack."
Quotehttp://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/20 ... 45407.html (http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/2005/3/24/aff4d7cb-85b2-49f3-9a75-cf0824045407.html)
"Sun Photo Editor Bob Stevens was one of five people killed following exposure to anthrax in 2001, and the AMI office building has been shuttered since then. Real estate investor David Rustine bought the building in 2003, according to AP.
Rustine planned to destroy 4.5 million pictures — including a photo of Elvis Presley in his coffin — along with 305,000 pounds of other materials that have all been kept in sealed storage since the attacks. Several photographers objected, and Rustine agreed to decontaminate the items, AP reported.
This effort will be 20 times larger than decontaminating documents from Capitol Hill following the anthrax mailings to Washington, said John Mason, president and CEO of contractor Bio-ONE."
July 9, 2005
Quotehttp://www.redorbit.com/news/science/16 ... index.html (http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/169020/ami_boxes_to_get_second_anthrax_cleaning/index.html)
BioONE officials would not comment on the nature of their continuing work and referred all questions to the EPA. Malecki said the company would continue to provide "emergency assistance."
Several months ago, BioONE announced its plans to move into the building and establish its headquarters there once Malecki lifts a quarantine on the building.
"BioONE is committed to being part of the Boca Raton business community," the company asserted in a written statement Wednesday.
...so AMI's owners made millions on the anthrax attack...
...an untolled loss of materials resulted during the clean-up...
...Giuliani Partners got another feather in its cap and a deal with the EPA...
"Who benefits?", huh?
Quotehttp://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/misc9.html (http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/misc9.html) Giuliani Firm Anthrax Work Ends in a Feud
November 29, 2005
Boca Raton's mayor, Steven Abrams, boasted to local residents that, in terms of the building's tenants, the city was trading up. "It used to be home of the National Enquirer and now it's the home of a national hero," Mr. Abrams said last fall as he and Mr. Giuliani campaigned for President Bush.
...In the Bio-One episode...Ms. Cavanagh said both her firm and the real estate investor who bought the contaminated building from American Media for $40,000, David Rustine, assumed at the outset that all the boxed up materials would be destroyed.
...The photo files could be among the most hazardous items ever on the site. It was a photo editor for American Media, Robert Stevens, who died after being exposed...
...Bio-One now says it has no plans to move into the tabloid publisher's former offices. "We really were committed to making the building itself into a symbol that we can handle these types of issues," Ms. Cavanagh said. "Because of what occurred with the owner, obviously that didn't work out."
Quotehttp://bocaraton.isabellascott.com/page/3/ (http://bocaraton.isabellascott.com/page/3/)
Boca Raton American Media Inc.'s building reopened
February 23rd, 2007
Tabloid publisher American Media Inc.'s former headquarters was reopened Thursday after years of decontamination from an anthrax attack...
Quotehttp://www.tcpalm.com/news/2010/jan/04/ ... cant-vero/ (http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2010/jan/04/high-end-developer-foreclosed-on-two-vacant-vero/) Public records show Rustine later sold the building for $9.29 million in May 2007
wow...interesting math on the AMI property.
And this unexplainably exorbitant profit was made not too long before the Florida market went bust...
Quotehttp://savebocaraton.blogspot.com/ (http://savebocaraton.blogspot.com/) More than 300,000 residential units sit empty across Florida, 64,588 properties were in foreclosure as of May 2009, second only to Nevada, and real estate prices are still plummeting. Nonetheless, state lawmakers are making it easier for developers to add even more. Gov. Charlie Crist signed this bill with the reasoning that it would ease government oversight and exempt many areas from a requirement that says builders must pay for road improvements...The bill rewrites Florida's 25-year-old growth management law, principally by allowing developers in the most urban counties to add more housing developments without expanding roads and by allowing counties and cities to designate new urban areas that also would be exempt...Crist signed the bill in private with no public ceremony. His press office issued a terse news release that attributed no quotations to Crist endorsing the legislation. Florida is now even more in the grip of the real estate developers...
How common are anthrax outbreaks?
Quotehttp://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/misc9.html (http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/misc9.html) [about 3/4 down the page] Local veterinarian discusses anthrax threat during 2005 Bovine Connection
December 07, 2005, Sidney (Montana) Herald
In light of the tragic loss of 37 cattle in Roosevelt County earlier this fall, Schieber felt it was prudent to inform the large group about the potential risks of anthrax epidemics.
"Anthrax is not new, it's been here for hundreds of years. There typically is an outbreak every five to 10 years. It is something that is here to stay," Schieber said..."In the summertime if you suddenly notice a cow death, you have to suspect anthrax"...
Once the anthrax spores are hatched, the incubation period ranges from three to seven days. Symptoms of infected animals include fever, initial aggression, depression, muscle trimmers, seizures, breathing difficulty and mild bloating. Death occurs rapidly.
---snips from the timeline http://www.heartson.com/Politics/anthra ... eline.html (http://www.heartson.com/Politics/anthrax_research_timeline.html) ---
March 16, 1999, Robert C. Myers, DVM, COO of BioPort,-America's only anthrax vaccine maker-appealed to a Senate Appropriations Committee for urgent funding for both anthrax and smallpox vaccines. In 1996, in his own words, he "was part of a team of organizations, led by Battelle Memorial Institute, which came together to compete for the [Department of Defense's Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program] JVAP. Despite dozens of potential bioterrorist threats, Dr. Myers stated these two threats were the greatest since anthrax is easy to handle...
[snip]
July 1999: Thomas Inglesby, Hopkins Institute and top advisior of the Pentagon, writes his first popular scenario: "Anthrax: A Possible Case History" http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol5no4/inglesby.htm (http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol5no4/inglesby.htm)
[snip]
March 2000: In early March 2000 at his home in Irvine, Orange County, California, Larry C. Ford, M.D., died of a shotgun blast. His death was later ruled a suicide, notwithstanding the fact that his firearms had supposedly been confiscated by the police several days before, after the attempted murder of his business partner, a crime for whichhe was a principal suspect. Only later was it revealed that Ford had served as a consultant to both the CIA and the chemical- and biological-weapons program of the South African Defense Forces, headed by Wouter Basson. Ford's contributions to Basson's program included lecturers on converting ordinary items into lethal biological weapons. After Ford's death his Irvine neighborhood was evacuated for several days as federal authorities excavated a weapons' bunker in Ford's yard and removed samples of various toxic biological agents found in Ford's refrigerators. The specific biological agents found in Ford's home have never been identified by the authorities, nor have they reported if any toxic agents were found in the university and other laboratories used by Ford. An initially frenzied FBI investigation quickly became quiescent. One Ford associate reports that Ford had been in contact with BioPort Corporation, sole U.S. manufacturer of anthrax vaccine. Recently discovered evidence indicates that, shortly before his death, Ford was actively preparing to move his medical-scientific work abroad. Close Ford associates expected a revival of the investigation after the onset of the recent anthrax incidents but have observed no evidence of any current Ford-related activity on the part of the FBI or other agencies. [Forensic Intelligence International, LLC Re: Investigation into Responsibility for Recent Anthrax Incidents, Stephen P. Dresch, Ph.D.]
[snip]
May 2000 R. James Woolsey (CIA Director 1993-95) participated in a bioterrorism exercise at Andrews Air Force Base In May 2000 the Johns Hopkins Center, in collaboration with the ANSER Institute for Homeland Defense, (CSIS) the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Oklahoma Memorial Institute for the Study of Terrorism held a bioterrorism exercise at Andrews Air Force Base.Former Senator Sam Nunn played the President.David Gergen played the National Security Advisor. Governor Frank Keating played himself, Frank Wisner was Secretary of State, ex-CIA director James Woolsey (ironically) played CIA Director, John White played Defense Secretary, and Dr. Margaret Hamburg was HHS Secretary. The Attorney General was played by George Terwilliger, William Sessions was FBI Director, and Jerome Hauer played FEMA Director. http://www.hopkins-biodefense.org/pages ... /fema.html (http://www.hopkins-biodefense.org/pages/library/fema.html) .
[snip]
June 26 , 27, 2000 Thomas Inglesby, Hopkins Institute organize his first Anthrax-Scenario Test-games Inglesby became important for the Pentagon and Fort Detrick, when he wrote his first popular scenario in July 1999: "Anthrax: A Possible Case History" >From this text: "..Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) offices in five U.S. cities have received warnings of an imminent bioterrorist attack. Each threat indicated that a "shower of anthrax would rain on U.S. cities," unless certain demands were met immediately..." http://www.bt.cdc.gov/documents/Atlanta/BTScenario.pdf (http://www.bt.cdc.gov/documents/Atlanta/BTScenario.pdf) http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol5no4/inglesby.htm (http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol5no4/inglesby.htm)
July 2000, Germany's Bayer AG negotiated an unprecedented sole endorsement by the FDA of the antibiotic Cipro for anthrax, despite the drug's high risk, high price, and largely untested status.(7) Shortly thereafter, USA Today reported a study of conflicting interests on the FDA advisory committees endorsing drug policies. Author Dennis Cauchon wrote that between January 1, 1998 and June 30, 2000, during 92% of the 159 meetings, "at least one member had a financial conflict of interest. At 55% of meetings, half or more of the FDA advisers had conflicts of intrest. Conflicts were most frequent at the 57 meetings when broader issues were discussed: 92% of members had conflicts. At the 102 meetings dealing with the fate of a specific drug, 33% of the experts had a financial conflict."(20) Given this background, it is most reasonable to speculate that the FDA's unprecedented sole antibiotic endorsement of Bayer's largely untested and outrageously expensive Cipro for anthrax likewise reflected special and grossly conflicting of financial interest. http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/ant ... onage.html (http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/anthrax/anthrax_espionage.html)
[snip]
Early September 2001: NY Times Investigation reveals Battelle to make genetically altered anthrax. In the first few days of September 2001 - immediately prior to the attacks of the 11th, the New York Times carried a major investigation which at any other time would have been a story of huge significance...It revealed three secret bio-defence projects at a time when the American people believed none was taking place. One - run by a contractor - Battelle - was to create genetically altered anthrax. The question now is - are there more such projects? The private contractor companies linked to the military and jokingly referred to as "beltway bandits" because they're sprinkled around the Washington beltway ring-road, is where individuals with the right mix of skills might be working. Some of these contractors are now known to have been involved in classified bio-defence projects. One of these secret projects, carried out in the Nevada desert, was part of a series of three
BBC reported that Battelle Memorial Institute (a favorite Pentagon and CIA contractor and for whom Alibek served as biological warfare program manager in 1998) conducted a secret biological warfare test in the Nevada desert using genetically-modified anthrax early last September, right before the terrorist attacks. The BBC reported that Patrick's paper on sending anthrax through the mail was also part of the classified contractor work on the deadly bacterial agent.
September 4. 2001: Details have emerged regarding a number of biological weapons research programs initiated by the United States. Under "Project Bachus," Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) officials constructed a BW production facility using only materials readily available on the commercial market and produced "simulated" BW agents in 1999 and 2000. Officials claim the project helped the Department of Defense (DoD) and intelligence community learn more about the signatures that such a facility would emit. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) initiated a second project, "Clear Vision," in 1997. This project replicated portions of a bomblet developed by the former Soviet Union to disseminate BW in order to measure its potential effectiveness in dispersing the agents. Additional research into BW programs has been undertaken as part of the Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA) "Jefferson Project." This program is intended to develop a small amount of a more potent strain of anthrax, although no work has begun on the project to date. DoD officials claim that this program was initiated to test vaccines against the agent, in light of claims by Russian scientists in 1997 that such a strain of anthrax was under development. Despite the fact that the BWC permits experiments on small microbes for defensive purposes, U.S. officials have expressed concern that both "Clear Vision" and the "Jefferson Project" may appear to foreign governments as violations of "the spirit if not the letter of the BWC." [The New York Times, September 4 and 5, 2001; Jane's Defense Weekly, September 12, 2001]
September 6, 2001 MSNBC The story refers to an article that was to be published the following day in the weekly magazine Science, reporting the 1918 flu virus had recently been RNA sequenced. Researchers had traced down and obtained virus samples from archived lung tissue of WWI soldiers, and from an Inuit woman who had been buried in the Alaskan permafrost.
September 7, 2001 Jeb Bush refreshed and prepared Martial Law for florida.
[snip]
American Media Inc.'s anthrax-contaminated building went to new owner Rustine for the clean-up:
David A. Rustine was formerly with Prudential Insurance (NY) before setting up his real estate/contracting business in Florida in 1984, which he named "Crown Companies" (Crown Real Estate Inc., Crown Leasing and Management Inc., and Crown Contractors, Inc.)
Wikipedia notes this about Prudential http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prudential_Financial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prudential_Financial)
Quote"During the 1980s and 1990s, Prudential Securities Incorporated (PSI), formerly a division of Prudential Financial, was investigated by the SEC for suspected fraud. During the investigation, it was found that PSI had defrauded investors of close to $8 billion, the largest fraud found by the SEC in US history to that point. The SEC charged that Prudential allowed rogue executives to cheat customers on a large scale and blithely ignored a 1986 SEC order to overhaul its internal enforcement of securities laws. In all, some 400,000 individual investors lost money on the deals."
Did Rustine have any part in that? What motive did he have for naming his business "Crown Companies"? Is there a relationship with private equity bankers at Henry Crown & Co.?
***
Henry Crown (1896-1990), a.k.a. Henry Krinsky http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Crown (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Crown) .."gained a controlling interest in General Dynamics in 1959 when he merged the company with MSC [Material Service Corporation]"...
From Time Magazine, Nov. 03, 1952:
Quote"He is chairman of the Empire State Building Corp., is the No. 2 power in the Hilton hotel chain, and controls the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad (with two associates). With Hotelman Conrad Hilton, he bought Chicago's Palmer House and with Hilton and some associates, the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. On top of all this, Crown built his Materials Service Corp. of Chicago into the biggest supplier of construction materials in the U.S....After a World War II stint as a colonel in charge of buying $1 billion worth of Army supplies, Crown started spreading into other fields...with Realtor William Zeckendorf he bought a big tract of land on Manhattan's East Side, with the idea of putting up a big housing development. The deals paid off: the Waldorf, once deep in the red, is now well in the black; the Manhattan land, soon sold to the Rockefellers for United Nations headquarters, made Crown a $600,000 profit on his $2,000,000 investment....
Recently on a visit to the Empire State Building, Crown was amazed to hear that in the previous month the building had taken in $180,000 from sightseers who paid $1.20 a head to go to the top. Since Crown has no intention of letting such traffic go to waste, his next role may be about as far from coal mining as he can get—running a big bar and restaurant 1,070 feet above the sidewalks of New York." http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 73,00.html (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,806573,00.html)
***
'Crown' and 'Pritzker' have more in common than as respective owners of Hilton and Hyatt hotels. The Chicago Jewish news lists them consecutively and their company founders grew up in the same neighborhood:
Quotehttp://www.chicagojewishnews.com/lists_chijews.htm (http://www.chicagojewishnews.com/lists_chijews.htm)
20. Henry Crown, along with his two brothers, started Material Service Corporation in 1919 and launched a business empire that came to include ownership of the Empire State Building and interests in the Hilton Corporation and General Dynamics. He was a decorated colonel serving in the Corps of Engineers in World War II. The Crown family has been a major source of funds for numerous Jewish causes, with special support for Jewish education.
21. Abram Nicholas Pritzker, known as A.N., was the patriarch of one of Chicago's most successful and most philanthropic families. Like Henry Crown, he grew up in the Wicker Park neighborhood, and later earned a law degree from Harvard. He helped develop a diversified group of companies that included the Hyatt Hotel chain, Hammond Organ and McCall's magazine. He and his family have made substantial financial contributions to numerous institutions in Chicago, throughout the country and in Israel.
***
At least one example of the Crown (General Dynamics) and Pritzker (Group) association before and after 9-11 is evident in the creation of Galaxy Aerospace:
Quotehttp://www.ainonline.com/index.php?id=3 ... &tx_ttnews (http://www.ainonline.com/index.php?id=308&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews)[pointer]=0&tx_ttnews[mode]=1&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=16028
Jan.2002
"In 1996 Brian Barents accepted a position with the newly formed Galaxy Aerospace, and along with it the responsibility for integrating the assets of Astra Jet Corp., a struggling New Jersey company with a single product --the midsize Astra SPX.
His appointment as the head of day-to-day operations of Galaxy was no shot in the dark. He had already spent 12 years at Cessna Aircraft....In 1989 he joined Learjet....Barents left in 1996 to lead Galaxy.
By 1997 Galaxy Aerospace officially emerged to 'produce, market and support a line of advanced technology business aircraft' built by IAI [Israel Aircraft Industries]. Later that same year, Galaxy Aerospace moved from Princeton, New Jersey, to Alliance Airport in Fort Worth, Texas....
By 2000, Galaxy Aerospace had grown from 35 people to more than 400... Annual sales had grown from less than $100 million in 1996 to $500 million in 2000.
....In April [2001].., Gulfstream Aerospace parent company General Dynamics announced it would purchase Galaxy Aerospace for $330 million cash"...
According to http://www.aviationweek.com/shownews/99 ... rfrm03.htm (http://www.aviationweek.com/shownews/99nbaa1/airfrm03.htm)
Quote"The Galaxy and SPX are built in Tel Aviv and flown green to Alliance for completion"...
BioPort, the anthrax vaccine producer, had a Crown & Co. associate in its circle in Boca Raton: former Israeli IDF Intelligence in the web of "Israeli Tech Acquisition Corp--BioPort--Kellstrom", Kellstrom director NIV HARIZMAN, formerly of CitiCorp, BT Alex Brown, Credit Suisse and currently Plainfield Asset Management LLC, noted for inside 'put' options before 9-11.
Prior to his professional career, from 1982 to 1986, Mr. Harizman served as a First Lieutenant in Military Intelligence in the Israeli Defense Forces. Mr. Harizman received a B.B.A. in 1989 from University of Texas at Austin and an M.B.A. in 1993 from University of Chicago Graduate School of Business. From 1989 to 1990, Mr. Harizman worked on the trading floor of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) trading equity and index options. From 1990 to 1994, Mr. Harizman was an investment analyst and derivatives trader for Henry Crown & Co., the investment holding company of the Chicago-based Crown Family. From 1995 to 2000, Mr. Harizman was a Managing Director in the Financial Sponsor Group of Bankers Trust Alex Brown...
"ISRAEL – Plainfield Asset Management LLC acquired a 10% stake, or 0.806 mil ordinary shares, in Mainrom Line Logistics Ltd, a shipping company, for 9.92 Israeli shekels ($3.01 US) per share, or a total value of 8 mil shekels ($2.427 mil), in a privately negotiated transaction. http://money.cnn.com/news/deals/mergers ... 22040.html (http://money.cnn.com/news/deals/mergers/reports/1192622040.html)"
Plainfield's horse-racing investments https://www.vet.cornell.edu/news/articl ... neGift.htm (https://www.vet.cornell.edu/news/articles/08EquineGift.htm)
ARTICLE: "Look Who's Making Coin Off the Credit Crisis"
Business is so good that hedge funds are piling in, too. Darien, Conn.-based Patriot Group is a lender to Merchant Cash & Capital, for example. Other players rumored to be investing in the MCA [merchant cash advance] business are Goldman Sachs (nyse: GS – news – people ), Deutsche Bank (nyse: DB – news – people ), Plainfield Asset Management and Silverpoint Capital. http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/31/cash-a ... vance.html (http://www.forbes.com/2008/01/31/cash-advance-goldman-ent-fin-cx_mf_0131cashadvance.html)
Kellstrom was based in Sunrise, Fla (also listed in Miramar; both Boca Raton neighbor areas) and after a brief but stellar rise in the business of aircraft parts, sold in May 2002.
Are these anthrax associations tightening up?
Quotehttp://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2002/05/17/5202/ (http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2002/05/17/5202/) Aug. 15 — Anthrax spores were found in a mailbox this week on Nassau Street, bringing the FBI's investigation back to Princeton....The mailbox, which was located across the street from Holder Hall, has been replaced, and state authorities say they consider present health risks minimal. But the finding has renewed hope that the investigation, which began in October, will eventually succeed in finding the mailer of the anthrax letters. Four of the letters were postmarked near Princeton...
The anthrax tainted mailbox in Princeton, on Nassau Street in front of Holder Hall, is also in front of the main office of Rockefeller College:
Quotehttp://rocky.princeton.edu/index.php?op ... &Itemid=58 (http://rocky.princeton.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=37&Itemid=58) ..."The Holder Tower fronting Nassau Street is quite discernible from a distance and distinctive to the College. The College Office entrance from Nassau Street is adjacent to the tower"...
From the link in the previous post:
QuoteThe contaminated Nassau Street mailbox does not prove that any of the anthrax letters were sent from Princeton. The box holds both incoming and outgoing mail — individuals deposit letters to be sent, and the postal service uses the box to store sorted, incoming letters addressed to local residents. An incoming letter that had been through the same sorting equipment as one of the anthrax letters might have carried the spores to Princeton. It is also possible, however, that an outbound letter could have left the spores behind. The FBI has not said which part of the mailbox was the source of the spores or if spores could have spread from the inbound to the outbound part of the box.
...it's the only streetside mailbox in the US having this anthrax distinction from the collection of news reports that I've read. It's the busiest place in Princeton.
This is from another site http://letsrollforums.com/questions-off ... c42b0& (http://letsrollforums.com/questions-official-story-believer-t2165.html?s=164fed800c5c7c94430a046a369d3c15&s=e99be97fe8f4118713710fc714ac42b0&)
Re: THE SUN-SENTINEL
1. Did Gloria Irish own unit 1504 at the Delray
Racquet Club, 755 Dotterel?
2. Did she rent that property to Hamza Alghamdi in
August 2001?
3. Why did the media not report about a connection of
the Sun-Sentinel and the hijackers?
4. Why did it first appear that the hijackers had
something to do with the anthrax attacks?
5. Why has this connection or coincidence never
appeared in the media again?
6. What was the connection between husband Michael
Irish (SunSentinel) and Bob Stevens (who died from
Anthrax?
Delray Beach is also where Ornit Suter and her mother live:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_j6dN9Xk_xSQ/S ... lorida.png (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_j6dN9Xk_xSQ/SuzyGEeHpDI/AAAAAAAAAaQ/HAEftDnF4Fc/s1600-h/102+Seville+A+,+Unit-+1020,+Delray+Beach+%28unincorporated%29,+Florida+33446++BlockShopper+South+Florida.png)
from http://mybigfatanti-zionistlife.blogspo ... st_19.html (http://mybigfatanti-zionistlife.blogspot.com/2009/09/blog-post_19.html)
adding to your post, Bela.....
Oct. 15, 2001
Quotehttp://www.sptimes.com/News/101501/Worl ... to_t.shtml (http://www.sptimes.com/News/101501/Worldandnation/Hijackers_linked_to_t.shtml)
Sun editor Michael Irish's wife, Gloria, rented unit 1504 at the Delray Racquet Club to Marwan Alshehhi and Saeed Alghamdi this summer, said FBI spokeswoman Judy Orihuela.
Alshehhi was aboard United Airlines Flight 175, the second jet to strike the World Trade Center. Alghamdi was on United Flight 93, which crashed 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh when passengers apparently thwarted an attempt to target another building...
"We are not searching the apartment at this time," Orihuela said from outside the tabloid's Boca Raton headquarters. "We are focusing on this building." ....
Two terrorists, Alshehhi and Alghamdi, rented the apartment in Delray Beach just north of Boca Raton, the FBI said. The other seven, including suspected ringleader Mohamed Atta, are connected because they visited the apartment or otherwise had a direct tie to the inhabitants, a federal official familiar with the investigation told the Miami Herald.
Previously, only Saeed Alghamdi and another terrorist, Ahmed Alnami, both aboard United Flight 93, had been connected to the Delray Racquet Club apartment.
It is clear that the apartment was a meeting ground for terrorists, authorities say. Now they must determine whether unit 1504 was also a hatching ground for the anthrax attacks.
Mike Irish, who, records show, is a licensed airplane pilot, several years ago was a member of the Civil Air Patrol based at a small-plane airport in Lantana, just north of Delray Beach, an official there told the Washington Post. One of the hijackers, Atta, reportedly rented a plane at that airport to practice flying for three days in August. Stevens, the Sun photo editor who died of anthrax Oct. 5, also lives in Lantana. But there is no indication whether Irish or Stevens ever crossed paths with Atta...
In other developments Sunday....Nevada officials said four people who may have come into contact with a contaminated letter at a Microsoft office tested negative while results weren't known for two others.....Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said he considered the anthrax cases in New York, Nevada and Florida to be instances of bioterrorism. "It certainly is an act of terrorism to send anthrax through the mail," he said on Fox News Sunday.
...Health investigators have tested more than 300 people at American Media and have found some people with "elevated levels" of antibodies...Though O'Connor [Palm Beach Health Dept.] said investigators don't know for sure whether those antibodies were produced to fight off anthrax or other diseases, such as HIV or hepatitis...All employees are taking antibiotics...
News of the exposures has caused jitters around the world, with a number of false or pending cases reported over the weekend....
Suter, Irish, and "terrorists". In Delray.
From LordLindsay's post earlier in this thread:
Quote"Then there is the report of pharmacist Gregg Chatterton in Delray Beach, Fla. He told investigators that two of the 9/11 hijackers came into his store, Huber Drugs, looking for medication to treat irritations on Mohamed Atta's hands. Chatterton, whose pharmacy is not far from American Media International's headquarters, recalled that Atta said, "My hands – my hands burn; they are itching.""
From History Commons:
QuoteSummer 2001: Some Hijackers Use Computers at Florida Public Library
According to Kathleen Hensman, a librarian at the Delray Beach, Florida public library, several hijackers use the library's Internet computers during the summer months. She will remember them because, on one occasion, Marwan Alshehhi asks her about any good restaurants in the city. On another occasion, Mohand Alshehri and another individual keep staring at her while using a terminal. "They wanted to be aware of what I was doing," she will say. [Washington Post, 9/17/2001 pdf file; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/30/2001; New York Times, 11/23/2001]
QuoteOctober 14, 2001: 'Strange Coincidence' Briefly Increases Suspicions Al-Qaeda Is behind Anthrax Attacks
Gloria Irish.Gloria Irish. [Source: AP / St. Petersburg Times]The FBI confirms that Gloria Irish rented an apartment to two of the 9/11 hijackers. Her husband is Michael Irish, who is an editor of the Sun, a Florida tabloid newspaper, and the first victim of the anthrax attacks earlier this month. Bob Stevens, who also worked at the Sun, and several others at the tabloid offices were injured.[Bob Stevens was "injured" so much that he is currently dead.-ed.] The FBI says that Irish rented different apartments in Delray Beach, Florida, to hijackers Marwan Alshehhi and Saeed Alghamdi during the summer of 2001. But one FBI spokesperson says, "Right now it looks like a coincidence," and another calls it a "strange coincidence."Two of the hijackers, including Mohamed Atta, also had subscriptions to the Sun. [Knight Ridder, 10/14/2001; Guardian, 10/16/2001] But Irish says "there is no way" the hijackers could have known about any Sun connection through her. [Washington Post, 10/15/2001] Michael Irish is a licensed pilot who was a member of the Civil Air Patrol based at Lantana Airport. Atta reportedly rented a plane at that airport in August. Stevens, who died of anthrax on October 5, also lived in Lantana. But there is no evidence that Irish or Stevens crossed paths with Atta. [St. Petersburg Times, 10/15/2001] The story will quickly die after nothing more is found to the connection.
Notes From the Anthrax Letters by Leonard Cole, pages 39-46:
The Letter to Stevens had a star of David in it.
The address to the building was not the one published in the paper, but rather in the local phone book.
Bob Stevens knew Michael Irish; both were from England.
Gloria Irish found Stevens' house for him. (RE Agent)
http://books.google.com/books?id=uvVL1n ... q=&f=false (http://books.google.com/books?id=uvVL1ntPlGAC&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=leonard+cole+gloria+irish&source=bl&ots=YTQAteStp6&sig=_7MYRteTswp48CHj269olSDod4E&hl=en&ei=d_mnS9KsM4bWtgOkppG2DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false)
I think these "terrorists" were posers: Mossad agents with false IDs. Delray is not far from Hollywood/Ft. Lauderdale, where plenty of israeli art students were nested. see the DEA Report: http://www.911-strike.com/dea-il-spy.htm (http://www.911-strike.com/dea-il-spy.htm)
QuoteSaudi Gazette 9/18/01 and The Khaleej Times 9/20/01
Marwan al-Shehhi is still alive in Morocco
QuoteCNN shows a picture of a Saudi pilot called Saeed Alghamdi and claims it is the hijacker of the same name. However, the pilot is alive and working in Tunisia. The FBI listed the hijacker's possible residence as Delray Beach, Florida, where the pilot trained in 1998, 1999, and 2000, which may be why CNN uses a photograph of the wrong person. The pilot returns to Saudi Arabia to avoid problems and CNN apologises for the error. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/14/2001; Arab News, 9/18/2001; Los Angeles Times, 9/21/2001; Daily Telegraph, 9/23/2001; BBC, 9/23/2001]
Christopher wrote
QuoteI think these "terrorists" were posers: Mossad agents with false IDs...
second that, and take in all this activity in and around American Media Inc. even as the source of the "weaponized strain from a government lab" theory which is the basis of all patsy-making, including Zack:
December 5, 2001
Quotehttp://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/05/us/na ... gewanted=1 (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/05/us/nation-challenged-disease-anthrax-pervades-florida-site-experts-see-likeness.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1)
...The test results, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency last week, show that anthrax spores spread throughout the three-story office building in Boca Raton that is the headquarters of American Media Inc., a tabloid publisher. Spores ended up not just in the mailroom and on Mr. Stevens's keyboard, but also in such out-of-the-way places as atop a room divider and computer monitors and in a nook between banks of shelves.
Officials involved in the effort said they were surprised by how far the material had spread. Such findings point to an extremely dangerous kind of anthrax preparation, with small particles that can easily float in the air, officials and experts said.
This is Maria Peters' account of what went on inside the library of AMI on Thursday, October 4, 2001:
Quote"We recently had a public address system installed and the very first announcement that came over was from our house attorney announcing that a co-worker, Bob Stevens, [an AMI photo editor] had been diagnosed with anthrax. By the afternoon we had a disease specialist available by e-mail if we had any questions or concerns about anthrax. On Friday there was a company-wide meeting on the third floor (where anthrax was later discovered at Stevens' computer) to assure everyone that there was nothing to be concerned about. One of the specialists even remarked, 'Do you think I'd walk into this building if I thought there was anthrax in here?' He later, of course, was on the Cipro protocol."
"Friday afternoon, October 5, we received word that Bob Stevens had died of anthrax. On Sunday evening, about 11:30 P.M., I received a call from one of the editors for me to inform my staff immediately that 1.) anthrax was found in the building and the building was sealed off, and 2.) to report to the Florida Department of Health the next day (Monday, October 8) for the nasal swab testing and the Cipro prescription."
Martha Moffet, who was home sick with pneumonia when Bob Stevens was diagnosed, recalls that after he died the employees were "plunged into a nightmare of fear, constantly changing information, testing and treatment. Everyone in the company, and any visitors during certain times, were put on a 60-day regimen of antibiotics. The AMI building was closed, and we had to proceed with no resources, not even our Rolodexes." http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/nln/nln0 ... /index.htm (http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/nln/nln02/winter/index.htm)
http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/hcourant.html (http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/hcourant.html)
QuoteThe Hartford Courant
December 19, 2001
...Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a microbiologist affiliated with the Federation of American Scientists, earlier this month carried the profile a bit further when she predicted that the perpetrator is an American microbiologist with access to weaponized anthrax, that likely came from a government lab or one contracted by the government.
QuoteDecember 20, 2001
...``You could walk out with anything,'' Crosland said. ``It was all my personal stuff, but it could have been anything.'' ...
...Interviews with more than a dozen current and former Fort Detrick scientists provided a rare account of what they described as a lax security system, that could have done little to prevent an employee from smuggling the ingredients for biological terrorism out of the country's premier biodefense lab.
QuoteJanuary 20, 2002
...Lab specimens of anthrax spores, Ebola virus and other pathogens disappeared from the Army's biological warfare research facility in the early 1990s, during a turbulent period of labor complaints and recriminations among rival scientists there, documents from an internal Army inquiry show.
The 1992 inquiry also found evidence that someone was secretly entering a lab late at night to conduct unauthorized research, apparently involving anthrax. A numerical counter on a piece of lab equipment had been rolled back to hide work done by the mystery researcher, who left the misspelled label "antrax" in the machine's electronic memory, according to the documents obtained by The Courant.
...In addition to anthrax and Ebola, the specimens included hanta virus, simian AIDS virus and two that were labeled "unknown" - an Army euphemism for classified research whose subject was secret.
...Many of the specimens were tiny samples of tissue taken from the dead bodies of lab animals...Some samples, particularly viruses, are also irradiated with gamma rays before they are handled by the pathology lab...
But Dr. Ayaad Assaad, a former Fort Detrick scientist who had extensive dealings with the lab, said that because some samples were received at the lab while still alive - with the expectation they would be treated before being worked on - it is possible some became missing before treatment.
...More troubling to Langford than the missing specimens was what investigators called "surreptitious" work being done in the pathology lab late at night and on weekends...
Documents from the inquiry show that one unauthorized person who was observed entering the lab building at night was Langford's predecessor, Lt. Col. Philip Zack, who at the time no longer worked at Fort Detrick. A surveillance camera recorded Zack being let in at 8:40 p.m. on Jan. 23, 1992, apparently by Dr. Marian Rippy, a lab pathologist and close friend of Zack's, according to a report filed by a security guard.
QuoteJune 13, 2002
...Questions about lax security at Fort Detrick were first raised earlier this year in a series of stories in The Courant.
The Hartford Courant and lead staff writer on the story, Jack Dolan, appear to be the source of the "Zack theory".
Quotehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hartford_Courant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hartford_Courant) The Courant was purchased in 1979 by Times Mirror, the Los Angeles Times' parent company. The first years of out-of-town ownership were described by a former Courant reporter in a book titled Spiked: How Chain Management Corrupted America's Oldest Newspaper.
The owners of the Hartford Courant:
Quotehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribune_Company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribune_Company)
The Tribune Company is a large, employee-owned,[1] American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Baltimore Sun and the The Morning Call, among others.
..Through Tribune Broadcasting, the company operates 23 television stations, WGN America on national cable and Chicago's WGN-AM. The group's combined reach is more than 80 percent of U.S. television households...
A merger with The Times Mirror Company, completed in June 2000, effectively doubled the size of Tribune by adding more newspapers to the company's holdings. The $8.3 billion transaction was the largest acquisition in newspaper industry history.
The Times Mirror merger added seven daily newspapers to the Tribune group, including the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, The Baltimore Sun and the Hartford Courant. Tribune was now the only media company with newspapers and television stations in the top three markets.
Sam Zell --he's around in the TIU archives.
Keep an eye on Judith Miller as a "faked target" in the mailings.
-----------
QuoteAnthrax hoax victim
On October 12, 2001, Miller opened an anthrax hoax letter mailed to her New York Times office. The 2001 anthrax attacks had begun occurring in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, with anthrax-laced letters sent to ABC News, CBS News, NBC News and the New York Post, all in New York City, as well as the National Enquirer in Boca Raton, Florida. Two additional letters (with a higher grade of anthrax) were sent on October 9, 2001 to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy in Washington. Twenty-two people were infected; five died. In 2008, as the government's investigation of these mailings focused on Bruce Ivins, Mr. Ivins committed suicide. The official view is that Mr. Ivins acted alone.[citation needed]
Miller was the only major U.S. media reporter, and the New York Times the only major U.S. media organization, to be victimized by a fake anthrax letter in the fall of 2001. Miller had reported extensively on the subject of biological threats and had co-authored with Stephen Engelberg and William Broad a book on bio-terrorism, Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War which had been published on October 2, 2001. Miller also co-authored an article on Pentagon plans to develop a more potent version of weaponized anthrax, "U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits", published in the New York Times on September 4, 2001, weeks before the first anthrax mailings.[3] Miller also participated in a senior-level bio-terror attack simulation on Oklahoma City conducted on June 22 and June 23, 2001 called "Operation Dark Winter"; her role was media reporter/observer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Mil ... rnalist%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller_%28journalist%29)
QuoteOn May 17, 2006, NavySEALs.com and MediaChannel.org published an exclusive interview with Miller[citation needed] in which she detailed how the attack on the Cole spurred her reporting on Al Qaeda and led her, in July 2001, to a still-anonymous top-level White House source, who shared top-secret NSA signals intelligence (SIGINT) concerning an even bigger impending Al Qaeda attack, perhaps to be visited on the continental United States. Ultimately, however, Miller never wrote that story. Two months later, on September 11, Miller and her editor at the Times, Stephen Engelberg, another Pulitzer Prize winner, both remembered and regretted the story they "didn't do".[citation needed]
On September 7, 2007, she was hired as an adjunct fellow of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a neo-conservative free-market think tank. Her duties will include being a contributing editor for the organization's publication, City Journal. On October 20, 2008 Fox News announced that it had hired Miller.[22]
Quotehttp://universitypress.info/USABiologicalTerror.pdf (http://universitypress.info/USABiologicalTerror.pdf)
In the early 1940s, the US and Britain began working on developing "anthrax bombs" which they intended to drop on German cities. According to Stanford University historian Prof. Barton J. Bernstein: "British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was advised that 1,000 projectiles, each of 500 pounds and containing 106 four-pound anthrax bombs, could destroy life in a 25 mile area...
Because the Germans surrendered before any of these anthrax bombs could be tested on German civilians, these biological bombs were instead dropped on the villagers of Gruinard, an island off the northwest coast of Scotland.
...the island became uninhabitable for more than 45 years
The author of this article, called "America Betrayed" recounts documented biowarfare testing on Americans and writes:
QuoteIn the Senate hearings held in 1977, we were in fact warned that the United States government reserved the right to continue attacking its own citizens in order to protect national security. According to Pentagon spokesperson, Lt. Colonel George A. Carruth, "additional tests" would be conducted in the future if the Army felt it necessary to assess our 'vulnerability' to biological attacks...
In 1979, the USSR conducted an anthrax attack on its citizens as well:
Quotehttp://www.wbur.org/special/specialcove ... e_bio2.asp (http://www.wbur.org/special/specialcoverage/feature_bio2.asp)
A mysterious outbreak of the disease killed at least 68 people 22 years ago in the Russian industrial center of Sverdlovsk, today known as Yekaterinburg. At the time, neither the victims nor their families suspected they had been hit by a biological weapon.
In 1992, then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who in 1979 was Communist Party chief in Sverdlovsk, said in an interview that the outbreak was caused by an accident at a germ warfare laboratory. Until that time, the official explanation had always been infected meat.
...Details of the incident were first described in a 1994 article by Harvard's Matthew Meselson in the journal Science. Meselson and his co-authors found that most of the 77 known patients lived and worked in the southern part of the city, near Military Compound 19, and concluded the outbreak was caused by a spray of anthrax spores originating at the compound.
Meselson was a founding Fellow of the Salk Institute in San Diego, and was called on by the government in 2001 to participate in the anthrax analysis.
Quotehttp://www.bulldognews.net/anthrax_russ ... break.html (http://www.bulldognews.net/anthrax_russian_outbreak.html) The amazing explanation Russian public health leaders gave for this episode will appall the reader, as it did those of us who heard their story when they visited the United States in 1988. These Russian officials fabricated a story of a foodborne epidemic brought on by faulty inspections by public health veterinarians.
...The American pathologist David Walker proved false the Russian explanation for the anthrax epidemic in Sverdlovsk as soon as he examined the thoracic and mediastinal lymph nodes of the victims. The findings were consistent with airborne spread of the disease.
Walker had no doubt that the 64 persons whose tissues he examined were victims of a release of anthrax aerosol that occurred for a few hours on April 2, 1979, near a military production facility in Sverdlovsk.
The investigation of the epidemic by Matthew Meselson and Jeanne Guillemin, with assistance from Alexis Shelokov and Martin Hugh-Jones followed up on what Meselson suspected -- that the epidemic was unusual and of great relevance to the prevention of biologic warfare.
In 2008, during the 'wrongful death' lawsuit filed by Maureen Stevens against the government and Batelle, the govt lawyers took the position that anthrax had never been used as a 'terror' weapon:
Quotehttp://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/200 ... 5301_x.htm (http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-05-05-3318965301_x.htm)
Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Bucholtz and Batelle lawyer Tami Lyn Azorsky argued there's no way their clients could foresee the material would be used as a terror weapon because it had never happened before....
The lawsuit claims the strain of anthrax that killed Stevens was traced to the Army's Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md....The suit also claims the government and Batelle are negligent because they failed to keep it secured....
Quotehttp://www.realclearpolitics.com/news/a ... death.html (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/news/ap/us_news/2008/Aug/05/anthrax_widow_s_lawsuit_blames_us_for_death.html) "One of the real areas of satisfaction, if you can call it that, is that we've maintained all along this was an inside job" said Richard Schuler, Maureen Stevens's attorney.
...[her son-in-law Hogan said] "I'm just very happy that they actually found somebody."
...One court document contends that even if a U.S. employee is found responsible for the anthrax attacks, those acts are "beyond the scope of employment" and the government isn't liable....so it shouldn't have to pay the Stevens family....
Quotehttp://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/euro ... x.history/ (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/11/07/russia.anthrax.history/) Russian scientists first grew spores in secret labs in 1926. But anthrax didn't become powerful until the 1950s, when experiments on rats produced stronger strains....
"Perhaps a million people worked in the anthrax program since 1926," says Fyodorov. "Yes, some people went away to other countries ... but (each person) only brings a fragment of the knowledge required to develop a strain."
In 1988, Glasnost caused a Soviet science contingent to visit the US and present data on the Sverdlosk incident:
Quotehttp://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/14/world ... wanted=all (http://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/14/world/russians-explain-79-anthrax-cases.html?pagewanted=all)
The data they presented, according to American officials who attended, went beyond what was put forth in the past. But the officials said the data might not be complete.
The United States assessment of the episode rests on estimates of the number who died, on reports that many vicitms had symptoms suggesting that they had inhaled anthrax spores...
The Soviet scientists said none of the Sverdlovsk victims had pulmonary anthrax, the type that is spread through inhalation of the bacillus anthracis spore. The only pulmonary symptoms, they said, were fluid in the lungs and chest cavities that they attributed to toxic shock from intestinal anthrax...
Anthrax has long been regarded as easily convertible to military use, which would violate a 1972 international convention banning the possession of biological weapons. Both the United States and the Soviet Union have signed the accord.
_______________________________________________
The scope of 2001 anthrax in Washington buildings:
According to a November 6, 2001 article http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/200 ... oundup.htm (http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2001/11/06/anthrax-cleanup-roundup.htm) , the **facilities that tested positive at any time were:
**Postal Service: 13 facilities tested positive
**Pentagon: .."found in two mailboxes" inside a US post office within the building
**Supreme Court: "a trace amount of anthrax was found in the court's basement mailroom"
**CIA: "trace amounts of anthrax were found there on Oct.25...not enough to cause illness"
**Health and Human Services: "Despite earlier positive readings, further testing has found no evidence"...
**Agriculture: "Preliminary tests last week found anthrax at the offices of USDA's Economic Research Service on M Street...but a subsequent round of tests were negative"
and the Congress buildings:
**Longworth House Office Building
**Hart Senate Office Building
An earlier report from Oct.25, announced to lawmakers, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/sept11/cr_047.asp (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/sept11/cr_047.asp) included "The mailroom in the Dirksen Senate Office Building where a trace of anthrax was discovered last week"...
The Washington Post printed a story the next day, Oct.26, that "a test for anthrax in a mailroom in the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Md., came back positive Thursday"... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/ap ... 29_000.htm (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011026/aponline013929_000.htm)
Found this:
http://www.livevideo.com/video/killtown ... r-the.aspx (http://www.livevideo.com/video/killtown/A207012237254F63B3D841A9260FE612/scripted-tv-news-clips-for-the.aspx)
QuoteDark Winter
Exercise Overview
The Dark Winter exercise portrayed a fictional scenario depicting a covert smallpox attack on U.S. citizens. The scenario is set in three successive National Security Council (NSC) meetings (Segments 1,2 and 3) which take place over a period of 14 days. Former senior government officials played the roles of NSC members responding to the evolving epidemic; representatives from the media were among the observers of these mock NSC meetings and played journalists during the scenario's press conferences (see Players List). The exercise itself was held at Andrews Air Force Base, Washington, D.C., on June 22-23, 2001.
The Dark Winter exercise was the collaborative effort of four organizations. John Hamre of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) initiated and conceived of an exercise wherein senior former officials would respond to a bioterrorist induced national security crisis. Tara O'Toole and Tom Inglesby of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies and Randy Larsen and Mark DeMier of Analytic Services Inc. (ANSER) were the principal designers, authors and controllers of Dark Winter. Sue Reingold of CSIS managed administrative and logistical arrangements. General Dennis Reimer of the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) provided funding for Dark Winter.
Additional Information
July 23, 2001 House Hearing on Combating Terrorism: Federal Response to a Biological Weapons Attack
I was honored to play the part of the President in the exercise Dark Winter.... You often don't know what you don't know until you've been tested. And it's a lucky thing for the United States that, as the emergency broadcast network used to say, 'this is just a test, this is not a real emergency.' But Mr. Chairman, our lack of preparation is a real emergency.
— The Honorable Sam Nunn in testimony before the House Government Reform Committee,Subcommittee on
National Security,Veterans Affairs and International Relations, July 23, 2001
Shining Light on "Dark Winter"
article published electronically on 02/19/02 in
Confronting Biological Weapons:
a special section in Clinical Infectious Diseases
http://www.upmc-biosecurity.org/website ... arkwinter/ (http://www.upmc-biosecurity.org/website/events/2001_darkwinter/) (maybe take anonym.to to get there.)
Personally, I have no doubt that we were in the midst of an ongoing biological attack with WEST NILE VIRUS when 9-11 happened. The WNV was new to North America in 1999 --and the US strain matches an Israeli strain that was isolated in 1957. The investigator who wrote this up noted the 'beginning' as a case of suspected pigeon poisoning in Central Park http://citizen2009.wordpress.com/west-nile-virus/ (http://citizen2009.wordpress.com/west-nile-virus/)
The spraying that followed appears to have targeted people, not mosquitos. No mainstream citation has attempted to explain how an outbreak in new York skipped down to Florida or if there is a precedent for this traveling vector with mosquitos. Something near 50,000 Americans by now have been infected with WNV, an infection identical to polio.
Jerome Hauer was managing the spray campaign. In 2004, he was made a director of BioPort/Emergent BioSolutions and also a La Jolla, Ca. (near VA, Salk &Scripps) company with an "anti-radiation" pharmaceutical http://citizen2009.wordpress.com/2010/0 ... ion-drugs/ (http://citizen2009.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/anti-radiation-drugs/)
Anthrax hoaxes in 1999 alone represent one-eigth of ALL the terror threats recorded since year 1900! http://lxmi.mi.infn.it/~landnet/Biosec/cameron.pdf (http://lxmi.mi.infn.it/~landnet/Biosec/cameron.pdf).
"The Monterrey WMD Terror Database includes 175 entries for 1999, of which 104 occurred in the United States.....Over one quarter of the incidents recorded in the database [687 incidents since 1900] occurred in a single year, 1999. Of the 494 incidents that occurred 1990 to 1999, 35 percent ocurred in 1999. This is largely the result of the second cause: the high number of anthrax hoaxes that were perpetrated in the United States Of the 104 incidents..in 1999, 81involved anthrax threats. This wave of anthrax hoaxes began in October 1998 and continues...
...Apart from hoaxes, there was a single incident involving anthrax: an attempted acquisition. Similarly, there were relatively few incidents of any type that involved other high-end sophisticated agents such as ricin (one threat with possession) and sarin (two hoaxes)."
ANSER is also worth a look over. They are an offshoot of the Rand corporation and have done deep analysis of Air Force Weapons systems. They did a lot of research on the outcomes of Dual National Israeli Jerome Hauer's "Darkwinter". They focused on crowd psychology during outbreaks:
QuoteOur History
Analytic Services Inc. is a public-service institute, an independent, not-for-profit corporation chartered in California with the assistance of the RAND Corporation in 1958. The corporation quickly became known as ANSER: today ANSER is one of two operating units under the Analytic Services umbrella.
A Board of Trustees from business, public service, academia, and military affairs governs the company. From the beginning, the Board has played an active role in ensuring that operations are in the public interest and meet consistently high standards of excellence, objectivity, and utility.
The corporation was originally established to support the Air Force, which needed a technically qualified, objective organization close to the Pentagon, able to respond on a day-to-day basis to identified needs for unbiased studies and analyses. Shortly after it was established, Analytic Services Inc. became a Federal Contract Research Center (FCRC), one of nine such organizations including RAND, Aerospace, MITRE, CNA, and Lincoln Laboratory. As such, it served a single client (the Air Force Director of Development Planning, later the Deputy Chief of Staff/Research and Development) and was restricted to only modest growth.
After changing its status in 1976, dropping the FCRC designation, Analytic Services Inc. began work for numerous Air Force organizations, other Department of Defense components, and other federal agencies. On the occasion of the corporation's 25th anniversary in 1983, the Secretary of the Air Force wrote, "ANSER studies and technical approaches have served to illuminate ... issues related to the research, development and acquisition of almost every major Air Force weapon system over the past quarter of a century. ANSER's work has been marked by quality, responsiveness, and objectivity...."
Analytic Services Inc. has always served the national interest by expanding capabilities, enriching staff, and moving in new directions as current and future clients alter the course and content of their missions. It values flexibility, professionalism, and continuous learning as it strives to enlarge its contributions to the Nation.
The corporation now provides analytic and technical support to government agencies throughout the national security, homeland security, and public safety mission areas. Analytic Services Inc. uses a flexible, impartial, multidisciplinary approach to address complex problems, often on a quick-response basis.
More recently, in 2004 The Homeland Security Institute (HSI) was founded as the second operating unit of Analytic Services Inc. HSI is a Studies and Analysis Federally Funded Research and Development Center sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security that delivers independent and objective analyses and advice in core areas important to its sponsor in support of policy development, decision making, and evaluation of new ideas on issues of significance.
Work by the corporation today adheres to the principles that Analytic Services Inc. established in 1958: excellence in everything that it does; uncompromising integrity and ethics; dedication and a service attitude to each client; creative thinking, communication, and flexibility in performance of all work; learning as it conducts its business; and maintaining a base of employees who are continually growing and enhancing their professional standing.
The company maintains its home office in Arlington, VA. As its work and contract base have evolved, field offices have provided essential support. Analytic Services Inc. has offices in Colorado Springs, CO, and Hampton, VA.
http://www.anser.org/%28X%281%29S%28qs0 ... px?mid=267 (http://www.anser.org/%28X%281%29S%28qs0zov55wukxp24515zo0j55%29%29/Content.aspx?mid=267)
------
More on Dark Winter from a Clinical research perspective:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/4483004 (http://www.jstor.org/pss/4483004)
This from http://www.rense.com/general47/bushsmitten.htm (http://www.rense.com/general47/bushsmitten.htm)
Two important reputed pictures of George W. Bush were in the custody of American Media, Inc., headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida. publisher of several supermarket tabloids including National Enquirer. One was an authenticated one of George W. Bush, laying in the satanic ritual coffin while engaging in homosexual acts with his male sex-mate who was later to engage in such over later years and traveled with Bush and reportedly on occasion stayed at Bush's Texas ranch. The other picture was mentioned in Part 13 of this "Overthrow" series.
To obstruct the use of these two reputedly authentic pictures, the America Media picture editor, Bob Stevens, was snuffed out by way of anthrax-by-mail. [See pt 13 of this series.]
In October, 2001, after the death (murder) of Bob Stevens, the FBI caused the closing and sealing of the entire American Media building in Boca Raton. Some months later, the FBI refused to reportedly permit officials of the publisher to retrieve important pictures inside the building in a database. Some familiar with the situation, contend it was the two mentioned pictures."
Quotehttp://www.anthraxattacks.net/2009/07/t ... ry-solved/ (http://www.anthraxattacks.net/2009/07/the-anthrax-mystery-solved/)
...Israel's bio-weapons programs dates back to the earliest formation of the Zionist state. Dr. Avner Cohen documents Israel's program in his paper, "Israel and Chemical/Biological Weapons: History, Deterrence, and Arms Control." Cohen begins by describing how Zionists during the 1948 war poisoned the wells and water supplies of Arab villagers. According to Israeli military historian Dr. Uri Milstein, the typhoid epidemic that spread throughout the costal town of Acre in May 1948 was the result of Zionist Jews contaminating the Arabs' water supply. In Gaza the Jews failed in a similar attempt. The Egyptian Army found four Jews disguised as Arabs near the water wells. The four terrorists were caught with a canteen filled with dysentery and typhoid bacteria. All four were tried, convicted, and hanged within a three-month period. Dr. Cohen questions if the two incidents were isolated or part of a larger program of bio-warfare during the 1948 war.
Israel's bio-weapons facilities are located at the Israel Institute of Biological Research (IIBR) in Ness Ziona (also Nes Ziona, Nes Tona) a few miles southeast of Tel Aviv. In 1952 the IIBR consisted of a single building hidden in an orange grove. Today, the IIBR has grown into a massive 14-acre compound with several hundred employees surrounded by high walls and electronic sensors. What goes on behind those high walls is something Israel would prefer to be kept secret.
Dutch journalist Karel Knip has researched the IIBR and came up with some interesting findings. Knip began by going through medical literature he found on the Internet. Specifically, he focused on the papers of 140 scientists affiliated with IIBR over the last five decades. With the help of experts on chemical and biological weapons, Knip developed an overview of the various programs that exist at IIBR. Knip found IIBR research began in the 1950s involving plague, typhus, and rabies. Dr. Avner Cohen discusses Knip's findings in his paper and states, "... a significant number of studies at IIBR focused on anti-livestock agents, following the path of other national BW [bio-weapons] programs at the time." 'Anti-livestock agents' is Cohen's cryptic reference to Israel's anthrax programs.
A motive for Israel in launching the anthrax attacks would be to bring America into war against Iraq and to remove that country as a potential threat to the Jewish state. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the United States Senate was thrown into a heated debate as to whether or not this country should go to war. Senator Tom Daschle took the lead in being against American involvement. In order for Israel to achieve her war objective, this time Senator Daschle would have to be removed—or turned toward Israel's position. Either way, Israel would win.
Likewise, Senator Patrick Leahy ran afoul of the Israelis when he introduced his Leahy Amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act. The Leahy Amendment, also called the Leahy Law, prohibits American arms sales to foreign security or military units that systematically violate human rights. The Israeli military routinely tortures Palestinian prisoners, assassinates Arab political figures, and fires American-made rockets and missiles into civilian crowds and apartment buildings. If an American administration ever decided to enforce the Leahy Law, Israel would find herself under an arms embargo. Eliminating or 'turning' her Senatorial adversaries—a gamble she couldn't lose— would be powerful motives for Israel to target Senators Daschle and Leahy for political assassination by anthrax.
For Israel to have initiated the anthrax attacks, prior knowledge of the al-Qaeda plot was essential. The Mossad, Israel's external intelligence service, has made it their mission to track Arab terrorists around the world. Indirect evidence of Mossad's surveillance of the al-Qaeda hijackers prior to September 11 can be found in the Drug Enforcement Agency report, "Suspicious Activities Involving Israeli Art Students at DEA Facilities," and in an investigative report from Fox News.
In March 2001, an alert was issued by the National Counterintelligence Executive, a branch of the CIA, warning federal employees to be aware of "suspicious visitors to federal facilities." There had been reports of Middle Eastern persons showing up at government buildings—many of them DEA offices—claiming to be Israeli art students. At first it was thought the Israeli art students might be Arab terrorists planning an attack. However, it later turned out the art students were indeed Israelis.
The Israelis would appear unannounced at various government offices or at the homes of federal officials. They would falsely identify themselves as art students from the University of Jerusalem or Bazala Academy in Israel and attempt to sell their artwork on canvas. Astute government employees soon discovered the Israelis were more interested in obtaining information than in selling artwork. The students, in the course of their conversations, would ask for business cards and inquire about the officials' work activities and those of their associates. At times, the Israelis were found breaching government entrances through back doors and parking garages. Others appeared at government offices that were hidden or undisclosed to the local community. Some were found with diagrams of government buildings showing entrances and offices of various employees—indicating prior surveillance. Others were found with photographs of government agents. One Israeli had a computer printout with the heading "DEA groups."
...During this period, the DEA was investigating the activities of Israeli organized crime. Israeli mobsters, along with the Russian Mafia, control the distribution of the drug Ecstasy in America. It should be noted there is no real difference between these two criminal organizations. It has been known for a long time that the Russian Mafia is made up of Russian Jews from the former Soviet Union. Questions still remain: Why were Israeli spies posing as art students interested in the activities of the DEA? What connection does the Mossad have with the Russian Mafia? The conclusion that best fits the known facts is that Israeli intelligence launched an operation against the DEA to protect their new intelligence asset, the Russian Mafia, from prosecution.
After September 11, the activities of Israeli art students were seen in a new light. The FBI began to investigate the trail left by the Arab hijackers and found many of them had residences in Florida. Interestingly, one third of the art student spies were also based in Florida. It was discovered that some of the Israeli art students had addresses in the same locations as the hijackers. One commentator said that, at times, they were just yards apart....
Quotehttp://garfield.library.upenn.edu/histc ... de/82.html (http://garfield.library.upenn.edu/histcomp/meselson/node/82.html)
In April and May 1979, an unusual anthrax epidemic occurred in Sverdlovsk, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Soviet officials attributed it to consumption of contaminated meat. U.S. agencies attributed it to inhalation of spores accidentally released at a military microbiology facility in the city. Epidemiological data show that most victims worked or lived in a narrow zone extending from the military facility to the southern city limit. Farther south, livestock died of anthrax along the zone's extended axis. The zone paralleled the northerly wind that prevailed shortly before the outbreak. It is concluded that the escape of an aerosol of anthrax pathogen at the military facility caused the outbreak.
Quotehttp://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publ ... No%204.pdf (http://www.onehealthinitiative.com/publications/ONE%20HEALTH%20in%20Action%20%20No%204.pdf)
Soviet medical authorities reported that the epidemic was linked to an outbreak of anthrax among livestock in the area, and that the human cases were due to people eating contaminated meat and having skin contact with contaminated animal carcasses. The size of the human epidemic, however, led to international speculation whether it was natural or accidental, and if accidental whether it was due to activities in violation of the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972. After repeated attempts to bring in dependent scientific teams to Sverdlovsk, permission was granted for a scientific team to visit, and the investigation took place in 1992 and 1993.
The investigative team, led by the noted American geneticist, molecular biologist and Harvard biochemist, Matthew S. Meselson, PhD, included Jeanne Guillemin, PhD, noted author/sociologist/medical anthropologist, Alexis Shelokov, PhD, a vaccine expert from the Salk Institute with a long career in public health, David Walker, MD, well known University of Texas Medical Branch pathologist, and renowned veterinary medical epidemiologist Martin Hugh-Jones, DVM, MPH, PhD. In her *book, Dr. Guillemin said, "The veterinary perspective is essential. Anthrax is a zoonosis, a disease that can travel from animals to humans. It is almost always associated with grazing animals, especially sheep, cows, goats, and horses that pick it up from contaminated soil, by either eating or inhaling the tough spores that are the dormant form of its deadly bacteria." The legendary human medical epidemiologist, Alexander D. Langmuir, MD was involved in deciphering data for publication.
From the beginning, the team took a "One Health" approach with human medicine and veterinary medicine professionals working side by side to investigate both human and animal cases of anthrax that had occurredSince the KGB had apparently destroyed hospital and public health records of the outbreak, the team had to locate (using government compensation lists) and personally interview survivors as well as family and friends of anthrax cases,search local cemeteries, and comb through hospital autopsy reports and individual case histories. They also searched reports from veterinary laboratories and interviewed owners of sheep and other livestock that had died. Through this painstaking process, they were able to analyze 77 human cases, and establish that most of them lived and worked in the southern part of the city.
...The apparently 4 km long area where cases were clustered was downwind from a military microbiology laboratory that had officially been developing an improved anthrax vaccine at the time of the outbreak. This seemed to provide evidence that an accidental release of anthrax from the military facility had caused the human outbreak...
...The fact that animals died in an area almost 50 km from the nearest human case provided key information about the movement of the airborne anthrax spores...It also indicated that sheep may be more susceptible than humans since they apparently became sick and died at exposure levels an order of magnitude lower than where human cases occurred. In this way, the animal deaths served as "sentinel events" providing warning information to humans about an environmental health hazard, in this case a pathogen that is a prime bioterrorism agent.
Wasn't this just THE BEST TEST ever?...the Soviets were "officially..developing an improved anthrax vaccine at the time". The One Health (One Medicine) folks are still excitied about this event.
QuoteThe findings of the team's investigation were published in Science (Meselson M, Guillemin J,
Hugh-Jones M, Langmuir A, Popova I, Shelokov A, Yampolskaya O.The Sverdlovsk anthrax
outbreak of 1979.Science. 1994; 266(5188):1202-8 and *Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly
Outbreak by Jeanne Guillemin, University of California Press, 1999.
There were 96 human cases total in the Soviet outbreak.
Three months after the conclusion of the Russian onsite tour, on 11-22-1993, Alexander Langmuir died, leaving only the two Salk Institute Fellows plus a wife as the core team http://www.anthrax.osd.mil/documents/li ... dlovsk.pdf (http://www.anthrax.osd.mil/documents/library/Sverdlovsk.pdf) :
husband and wife, Matthew Meselson and Jeanne Guillemin
--Meselson, founding Salk Fellow, at Harvard http://www.polioforever.wordpress.com/salk-institute/ (http://www.polioforever.wordpress.com/salk-institute/)
--Guillemin, Dept. of Sociology at Boston College, MIT, Brigham & Women's Hospital, conducted interviews during the Sverdlovsk investigation and later authored "Anthrax: the Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak" published in December 1999 http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/8835.php (http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/8835.php)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Guillemin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Guillemin)
--Martin Hugh-Jones of Louisiana State University http://www.vetmed.lsu.edu/pbs/hugh-jones.html (http://www.vetmed.lsu.edu/pbs/hugh-jones.html) , Director of the WHO division called the Collaborating Center for Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems for Public Health. He retired from LSU in 2005, and down-graded his WHO job to 'Deputy Director'. Hugh-Jones had a lot to say about Hatfill and Ivins, including how "Ivins would never have been on his shortlist of [suspects]" http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... t=1&f=1003 (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93194941&ft=1&f=1003) , but he maintained a belief that the anthrax attacks were "domestic and I have no reason to doubt that". Hugh-Jones described Hatfill as a 'jerk' http://smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/07/1 ... 99245.html (http://smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/07/1068013399245.html) According to the military's Sverdlovsk link above, Hugh-Jones did not participate in the 'report' meetings, though he is considered the foremost US expert on anthrax.
--Alexander Langmuir http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Langmuir (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Langmuir) " Alexander Duncan Langmuir (2 September 1910 – 22 November 1993) was an American epidemiologist. He is renowned for creating the Epidemic Intelligence Service."
--Alexis Shelokov, also a Salk Institute Fellow in San Antonio,Tx, was a spine surgeon and scoliosis specialist http://www.spine-health.com/files/AlexisShelokov.pdf (http://www.spine-health.com/files/AlexisShelokov.pdf) , described as a vaccinologist who speaks fluent Russian, he passed away at age 55. Shelokov had a central role in the controversies about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which were reaching a head in the early 1990s. CFS can be considered "the other AIDS", less fatal but more neurologically debilitating and contagious, still mired in mystery from the malfeasance of CDC/NIH personnel such as Stephen Straus.
--David H. Walker, a spine surgeon, WHO director, and pathology chair >>"last fall during the anthrax poisoning episodes and their aftermath, reporters for major national, international, and local media outlets clamored to interview Drs. Peters and Walker and several of their knowledgeable UTMB colleagues, including Dr. Robert Shope, associate director of the Center for Biodefense and leader of the team responsible for most of the countermeasures to bioterrorism research." http://www.utmb.edu/utmbmagazine/archiv ... e_Wind.pdf (http://www.utmb.edu/utmbmagazine/archive/Quarterly/sum02/Death_in_the_Wind.pdf)
excerpt from Guillemin's book:
Quotehttp://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117197&page=1 (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117197&page=1)
Chapter One: ACCURSED FIRE AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPON
Tuesday, June 2, 1992. After a long transatlantic flight from New York, our research team arrives in the new post-Soviet Russia, a nation that six months before did not exist. We are in the first stage of a trip to investigate the cause of the worst anthrax epidemic recorded in a modern industrial nation....
...After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, the political doors have opened for our travel to Sverdlovsk, which has reclaimed its prerevolutionary name, Yekaterinburg. We have allowed ourselves only two weeks to attempt to discover conclusive evidence about the source of the 1979 anthrax deaths.
...The congenial Dr. Alexis Shelokov, who speaks fluent Russian, is a vaccine expert from the Salk Institute with a long career in public health. The more reserved Dr. David Walker is chief of pathology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. We are hoping that reports in the Russian press will prove true, that autopsy samples have been preserved by two pathologists who worked during the 1979 outbreak.
The fifth member of our team is veterinarian Martin Hugh-Jones from Louisiana State University, a member of the World Health Organization's Anthrax Research and Control Working Group, and an avid world traveler.
Yekaterinburg was the site of the Romanov family execution http://en.rian.ru/culture/20070903/76292975.html (http://en.rian.ru/culture/20070903/76292975.html) and apparently a place of revived nationalism. Guillemin notes they had an agricultural black market.
Quotehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yekaterinburg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yekaterinburg)
In the 1930s, Yekaterinburg became a large industrial center of Russia. It was the time when the famous Uralmash was built, becoming the biggest heavy machinery factory in Europe.
During World War II, many government technical institutions and whole factories were relocated to Yekaterinburg away from the war-affected areas (mostly Moscow).... During the 1991 coup d'état attempt, Sverdlovsk, a home city of President Boris Yeltsin was selected by him as a reserve capital of Russian Federation in an emergency if Moscow would became dangerous for the Russian government. A reserve cabinet headed by Oleg Lobov was sent to the city, where Yeltsin enjoyed a strong popular support at that time.
...tsk, tsk, except for maybe among those pesky Siberian farmers. A generation earlier, they were subject to experimental polio vaccines from Russian Albert Sabin, who had his Russian Jewishness in common with Jonas Salk.
The Salk Institute has a veritable 'exchange' program with the Weizmann Institute.
And in the same time period....real "total" war application of anthrax in Africa in the exact context which Frank Macfarlane Burnet advised to the Australian government in 1947. Burnet headed the Aussie counterpart to what became the Salk Institute, specializing in influenza, polio, and other 'intestinal agents', his personal biowarfare recommendations http://polioforever.wordpress.com/f-macfarlane-burnet/ (http://polioforever.wordpress.com/f-macfarlane-burnet/)
The diamond market, Oppenheimer and DeBeers, have caused immeasurable strife in the region:
Quotehttp://www.anthraxvaccine.org/zimbabwe.html (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/zimbabwe.html) Anthrax Epizootic in Zimbabwe, 1978-1980: Due to Deliberate Spread?
Meryl Nass, M.D.*
Abstract
The largest recorded outbreak of anthrax in humans occurred in Zimbabwe during its civil war, in 1979 to 1980. There were a number of unusual features of the epizootic. The disease spread over time from area to area, until six of the eight provinces were affected. Yet anthrax usually appears as a point source outbreak, without significant geographic spread. Only the African-owned cattle in the Tribal Trust Lands were affected; cattle belonging to whites were uninvolved. A critical review of the scientific explanations proposed to account for these events is presented. The possibility that the epizootic could have been a biological warfare event is evaluated. Finally, suggestions are advanced for further investigations into the origin of this epizootic.
...Technologically, production of anthrax spores is not a difficult problem. Anthrax weapons were developed and tested by at least the Japanese, British, and United States governments during the Second World War [56-58], and it is suspected that a number of other nations have developed or acquired the technologies since [59]. The spores are stable under a wide range of conditions of temperature, pressure, and moisture. Many means exist for delivering viable anthrax spores [60,61]. Experiments on Gruinard Island (where the British tested anthrax weapons in 1942-1943) included release from exploding bombs and by airplane [62]. Either of these two methods, or other methods, could conceivably have been used in Zimbabwe. Deliberate contamination of animal feeds or fertilizers might have accomplished the same end, although these products were not widely used.
...Anthrax weapons produced by the military existed in the United States until about 1970, when President Nixon gave orders for their destruction. One cannot totally exclude the possibility that some biological munitions were transferred from the United States to other countries prior to their destruction. It is also not impossible to imagine that such weapons could have been produced by a nation that was not a complying party to the Biological Weapons Convention (which in any case only entered into force in 1975), or even by a renegade group, and could have found their way to Zimbabwe.
...The rationing and limiting of food supplies to the black population was in fact a part of the military strategy for controlling the population and restricting their support to the guerrillas...
...In his memoirs, Flower admits to the deliberate distribution of poisoned clothing, which killed hundreds of black guerrillas [68]. Yet clothing can be worn by anyone. Organophosphate poisoning from tainted clothing affected civilians as well, and poisoning by this means became documented in the Zimbabwe medical literature [69,70]. Dr. Paul Epstein, an American physician practicing in Mozambique for the Ministry of Health, with support from the American Friends Service Committee in 1978, treated large numbers of Zimbabweans, who had arrived from ZANLA training camps, for a bleeding disorder. Initially a viral hemorrhagic fever was suspected. But there were many deaths despite treatment. Eventually a fat biopsy was obtained and sent for toxin analysis; this analysis revealed the presence of warfarin [71]. Thus another unconventional mode of warfare, warfarin poisoning, may have been employed by some within the Rhodesian military...
...Jeremy Brick Hill, a Zimbabwe journalist and veteran of the conflict, claimed that the Rhodesian CIO and Selous Scouts (an arm of the Rhodesian military that employed blacks who successfully masqueraded as guerrillas) used anthrax, cholera, thallium-contaminated foodstuffs, and organophosphate-impregnated clothing in the later years of the war [72,73].
Anthrax Vaccine:
Quotehttp://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbo ... ax-508.pdf (http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/anthrax-508.pdf) ....in 1876, Robert Koch definitively established a microbial origin for anthrax making this the first disease for which this was done. A live attenuated animal vaccine was developed and tested by Louis Pasteur in 1881. An improved animal vaccine containing a suspension of an avirulent, nonencapsulated live strain of B. anthracis was developed in 1939. The role of toxin in the pathogenesis of anthrax was demonstrated in 1954. A human vaccine composed of cell-free culture filtrate was developed in 1954, and in 1970 an improved cell-free vaccine was licensed in the United States.
The Arms Textile Mill outbreak in New Hampshire in 1957 was an official test in which 4 workers died :
Quotehttp://www.anthrax.mil/vaccine/protect2.asp (http://www.anthrax.mil/vaccine/protect2.asp) "There was an unexpected outbreak of inhalational anthrax during this study. "
Quotehttp://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29162 (http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29162) Did Army cause anthrax outbreak in mill?...Editor's note: Today, WorldNetDaily presents the first of a two-part report on the federal government's involvement with anthrax. In this story, WND investigates a 1957 outbreak of anthrax in a textile mill that happened to be the site of Army experiments on a vaccine for the disease. Tomorrow's installment examines the federal investigation into the post-9/11 anthrax attacks...
...A central activity at the Arms Textile Mill throughout the 1950s was the processing of goat hair imported from Pakistan, Iraq and Iran. The refined hair was used in the lining of expensive men's suits and overcoats manufactured at the mill. The Arms Mill, in 1957, employed 632 workers spread throughout a complex of large red brick buildings located on the banks of the Merrimack River and near the edge of downtown Manchester, N.H.
...In an amazing coincidence, at the same time as the deadly Arms Mill outbreak the manufacturing plant was the site for tests using an experimental vaccine. Tests on the mill workers – who were considered at risk for anthrax due to handling animal products such as goat and sheep hair – had begun quietly in May 1955 and were sponsored by the Biological Warfare Laboratories of the U.S. Chemical Corps at Fort Detrick.
Not so amazing is the fact that in May of 1955 the Salk polio vaccine was stopped for 5 days and then resumed while the Nevada Test Site was still executing Operation Teapot --New England recorded 400 to 700 percent increases in polio at this time. In 1957, when the anthrax outbreak occurred at the mill, the fallout from the largest and dirtiest test series, Plumbob, concentrated in this place. I'd post the fallout 'cloud track' maps for '57 which I've seen, except I can't find them anymore. The other years are available --just not 1957. The Arms Textile workers who died thought they had a bad case of the flu.
The point in all this, I assume, to test the ability of chemicals and radiation to 'prime' people for infectious agents. No opportunity looks lost historically, to set-up Israel's enemies.
QuoteNearly a half-century beyond the Arms Mill outbreak, no definitive scientific explanation or cause for the epidemic has been discovered. Scientists at UCLA's Department of Epidemiology and other research centers have speculated that"the circumstantial evidence suggested a relationship to a particular batch of goat hair." However, because no samples of that animal hair exist today, no up-to-date testing can be accomplished, and results from tests conducted in 1957 and 1958 remain inconclusive.
Interesting finds there Jenny... I notice the "J-tagged names" on these two Russian Anthrax Scientists
Looks like Meselson is doing research in a new lab in Galveston, TX.
Quote(http://www.semp.us/_images/biots/Biot322PhotoM.jpg)
(http://www.semp.us/_images/biots/Biot322PhotoO.jpg)
Galveston National Laboratory: "The Best Little Bug House in Texas"?
Biot Report #322: January 19, 2006 Printer Printer Friendly
Construction is underway for the six-story, 63,000 square-feet "Galveston National Laboratory" (GNL) at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) at Galveston, according to a well-written and thoughtful January 12, 2006 "New England Journal of Medicine" penned by Robert Steinbrook, M.D., and titled "Research in the Hot Zone". (1) Established in 1891, The UTMB at Galveston consists of a complex of six hospitals, four academic schools, numerous research centers and institutes, and one of the largest medical libraries in the Southwest. (2)
The completed GNL will be a biosafety level 4 facility, which is the highest biosafety rating for laboratories dealing with highly-contagious organisms. The laboratory will be located near the center of the medical school campus, a short distance from the emergency department and the children's hospital. The UTMB at Galveston faces the Texas coast mainland on the north side of the flat and hurricane-prone Galveston barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico. The UTMB Magazine writers call the new GNL facility "The Best Little Bug House in Texas." (3)
The new GNL laboratory has many safety features and will be "surrounded by a 200-foot security perimeter from which private vehicles will be excluded," writes Steinbrook who also notes that "n general, the Galveston project [the Galveston National Laboratory] has had the support of the community [of 60,000 people], largely because of the extensive groundwork that had been laid during the planning and construction of the current laboratory". The current laboratory to which Steinbrook refers is the much smaller 2,000 square-foot biosafety level 4 facility named after virologist Robert E. Shope, M.D. who died of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis in 2004. (4) A virtual tour of a typical biosafety level 4 laboratory is available from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. (See note 5 below for web address.)
Researchers attached to the GNL, which is projected for completion in mid-2008, hope to develop countermeasures to diagnose, prevent, and effectively treat infectious diseases caused by anthrax, bubonic plague, hemorrhagic fevers (e.g., Ebola), typhus, West Nile virus, influenza, and drug-resistant tuberculosis, among others, says a fact sheet prepared by the Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases at UTMB. (6) An example of the work currently underway in the smaller Robert E. Shope Laboratory, operational since 2004 according to Steinbrook, is combining H5N1 (the avian flu virus strain) with other influenza strains that infect humans. (p. 110)
Biosafety level 4 laboratories are rare. Currently four exist in the United States: Hamilton, Montana; San Antonio, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Frederick, Maryland; and Galveston, Texas. A fifth one remains in the planning stages for Boston, Massachusetts whose local community has voiced opposition.
Taxpayers via the National Institutes of Health ($110 million federal money), local sources ($40 million to be covered via state revenue bonds), and private philanthropy ($17 million) are funding construction of the Galveston National Laboratory. The UTMB will own and operate the GNL and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease/National Institutes of Health, whose current head is Anthony Fauci, M.D., will oversee the research projects inside of it. (6)
The principal investigator for the GNL project is Stanley M. Lemon, M.D., a hepatitis virologist trained at Cornell University and employed for years at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill before moving to sunny Galveston in 1997 to become dean of the UTMB School of Medicine. Two years earlier, in 1995, Robert Shope had moved to Galveston from Yale University where he had been employed for his entire adult life. He carried with him to Galveston "one of the most extensive collections of virus cultures in the world", which he and another colleague assembled. The collection of some 5,000 samples is also known as the "World Reference Center for Emerging Viruses and Arboviruses." (7) Like Lemon, Shope was a virologist, but he favored arboviruses (e.g., yellow fever, dengue, Ebola). Shope's father, Richard, was also a virologist who discovered papovavirus, the causative agent of skin and genital warts.
The UTMB School of Medicine is also the long-time professional home of David H. Walker, M.D., head of pathology and executive director of the Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases at The UTMB. Dean Lemon said of Walker, "He has attracted some of the world's top scientists in tropical diseases and has put UTMB on the map as one of the best research centers for emerging infectious diseases in the world." (8)
David Walker is well known to some people for another reason, which helps to explain his intense interest and participation in realizing a level 4 laboratory at The UTMB. In early 1992, Harvard geneticist Matthew Meselson, Ph.D., a longtime crusader against bioweapons, contacted Walker in Galveston to invite him on a fact-finding mission to Sverdlovsk, Russia. (9) Meselson had been working with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on the 1979 disastrous Sverdlovsk human anthrax epidemic, as discussed in two books on the topic and recorded in documents stored in the National Security Archives at George Washington University. (10-12). Walker joined Meselson's team, which traveled to Sverdlovsk on June 2, 1992, to examine the remains of the 42 victims autopsied in the wake of the 1979 anthrax epidemic. This trip became possible only because the Soviet Union dissolved and Boris Yeltsin, who hailed from Sverdlovsk, gave his Communist blessing to the trip.
Following the trip, Walker hosted as a visiting scientist at The UTMB in Galveston Russian pathologist Dr. Lev Grinberg who, with lead Russian pathologist Dr. Faina Abramova, performed the 42 anthrax victim autopsies in 1979 and aided the Meselson team in its fact-finding mission in 1992.
Sources:
1. Robert Steinbrook: "Research in the Hot Zone" in The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 354, No. 2, January 12, 2006, pp. 109-112.
2. "About UTMB" at: http://www.utmbhealthcare.org/AboutUTMB/; (http://www.utmbhealthcare.org/AboutUTMB/;) accessed January 20, 2006.
3. "The Best Little Bug House in Texas", UTMB, Spring 2005, available at: http://www.utmb.edu/utmbmagazine/archive/05_Spring... (http://www.utmb.edu/utmbmagazine/archive/05_Spring...).
http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/page1/98/08...; (http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/page1/98/08...;) accessed January 20, 2006.
4. David H. Walker: "Robert Ellis Shope: 1929-2004. (In Memoriam)(Obituary)" in Emerging Infectious Diseases; 4/1/2004; available at:
http://www.highbeam.com/library/docfree.asp?DOCID=...= (http://www.highbeam.com/library/docfree.asp?DOCID=...=).
5. "NIAID Biodefense Research" available at: http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/Biodefense/Public/blt.ht...; (http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/Biodefense/Public/blt.ht...;) accessed January 20, 2006.
6. "Galveston National Laboratory" fact sheet; available at: http://www.som.utmb.edu/som/Research/NBL%20fact%20...'; (http://www.som.utmb.edu/som/Research/NBL%20fact%20...';) accessed January 20, 2006.
7. Kevin Moran: "Virus research lab to be sited in Galveston", Houston Chronicle, August 7, 1998, available at: http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/page1/98/08...; (http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/page1/98/08...;) accessed January 20, 2006.
8. Center for Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases at The UTMB: Faculty. Available at: http://www.utmb.edu/CBEID/administration/team.htm; (http://www.utmb.edu/CBEID/administration/team.htm;) accessed January 20, 2006.
9. Jim Kelly: "Death in the Wind" in UTMB Quarterly, Summer 2002, pp. 3-11. Available online at:
http://www.utmb.edu/utmbmagazine/archive/sum02/UTM...'; (http://www.utmb.edu/utmbmagazine/archive/sum02/UTM...';) accessed January 20, 2006.
10. National Security Archive: "Anthrax at Sverdlovsk"; available at: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB61/; (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB61/;) accessed January 20, 2006.
11. Jeanne Guillemin: "Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak", University of California Press, 1999.
12. Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg, William Broad: "Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War" Simon and Schuster, 2001.
Found this article with citations from both the Galveston Lab and the IIBR. They are likely sharing info and researchers which, IMHO, means they can use US taxpayer findings for more than just "preventing" outbreaks:
---
QuoteGenetic and Antigenic Diversities of Major Immunoreactive Proteins in Globally Distributed Ehrlichia canis Strains
Xiaofeng Zhang,1 Tian Luo,1 Avi Keysary,5 Gad Baneth,6 Simone Miyashiro,1 Carmela Strenger,5 Trevor Waner,5 and Jere W. McBride1,2,3,4*
Departments of Pathology,1 Microbiology and Immunology,2 Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases,3 Institute for Human Infections and Immunity, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas,4 Israel Institute for Biological Research, Ness Ziona, Israel,5 School of Veterinary Medicine, Hebrew University, Rehovot, Israel6
Received 3 December 2007/ Returned for modification 26 January 2008/ Accepted 3 May 2008
The extent of knowledge regarding the diversity of globally distributed Ehrlichia canis strains has been limited to information gained from a few evolutionarily conserved genes. In this study, E. canis strains from the United States (strain Jake [US]), Brazil (strain São Paulo
), and Israel (strain 611 [IS] and Ranana [IS-R]) were used to examine the antigenic and genetic diversities of four well-characterized major immunoreactive protein genes/proteins. gp36 and gp200 were the most divergent genes, and nucleotide substitutions in the gp36 tandem repeat region of the IS strain, but not the IS-R strain, resulted in two amino acid differences (S->P and P->T) in each nine-amino-acid repeat (epitope-containing region). DNA sequences of gp19 and gp140 were completely conserved in the US and BR strains, but differences were found in the Israeli strains, including two fewer tandem repeats in gp140 and a single amino acid substitution in gp19 from the IS strain. E. canis whole-cell lysates from each isolate were examined by Western immunoblotting using sera from naturally infected dogs from each country, and four major immunoreactive proteins (gp19, gp36, gp140, and gp200) were identified in each strain using protein-specific antisera. The US and BR strains exhibited highly conserved immunoreactive protein profiles, while some differences were identified in the IS strain. Sera from naturally infected Israeli dogs confirmed gene sequencing information, which demonstrated two distinct E. canis strains, defined by the gp36 gene. Conversely, gp19 was strongly reactive and present in all E. canis isolates. gp140 and gp200 were also present in all strains, although gp140 in the IS strain had two fewer tandem repeats and exhibited a smaller mass.
* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Department of Pathology, Center for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases, University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX 77555-0609. Phone: (409) 747-2498. Fax: (409) 747-2455. E-mail: http://cvi.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/15/7/1080 (http://cvi.asm.org/cgi/content/abstract/15/7/1080)
Found this too about the Dugway:
QuoteUT—Hundreds, perhaps thousands of open-air
germ warfare tests were conducted at Dugway during
the Cold War. The tests introduced non-indigenous
diseases or increased the range of indigenous
diseases in the region, including encephalomyelitis,
Rocky Mountain spotted fever, psittacosis, Q fever,
anthrax, brucellosis, plague, tularemia, and hydatid
disease, all of which are now considered endemic
among the native wildlife. In recent years, Dugway
also produced weapons-grade anthrax of the same
strain used in the attacks in the fall of 2001
http://www.internationalterrorist.com/a ... _24x36.pdf (http://www.internationalterrorist.com/artwork/terrormap_24x36.pdf)
Maybe the The Silicon Analysis will finally trace back to Israel's IIBR? I figure the IIBR scientists probably visited Dugway and Ft. Detrick over the years. This discovery is about 1-week old...
also
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... elson.html (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plague/interviews/meselson.html)
QuoteSilicon Analysis of Anthrax Attack Spores: New Answers Leave More Questions Unanswered
By: Jim White Friday March 19, 2010 1:00 pm
RMR-1029 Flask
We now know conclusively that the spores in the anthrax attacks did not come directly from this flask labeled RMR-1029 by Bruce Ivins, but were cultured most likely using RMR-1029 as the culture inoculum.
Among the many enduring scientific mysteries surrounding the Amerithrax investigation of the anthrax attacks of 2001 is the question of whether an agent such as fumed silica was used to "weapoinze" the spores. Early in the analysis of the attack, statements were issued claiming that the spores were indeed weaponized with silica, but subsequent analysis has proven that not to be the case. New data just released help to pinpoint the reason for the earlier misunderstanding while at the same time emaphasizing that central questions about the conclusion that Bruce Ivins acted alone remain unanswered.
To review, here is a key Washington Post article from October, 2002 that fed into the "weaponized" theory:
A significant number of scientists and biological warfare experts are expressing skepticism about the FBI's view that a single disgruntled American scientist prepared the spores and mailed the deadly anthrax letters that killed five people last year.
These sources say that making a weaponized aerosol of such sophistication and virulence would require scientific knowledge, technical competence, access to expensive equipment and safety know-how that are probably beyond the capabilities of a lone individual.
/snip/
Several sources agreed that the most likely way to build the coated spores would be to use the fine glass particles, known generically as "fumed silica" or "solid smoke," and mix them with the spores in a spray dryer.
Interestingly, these speculations in the Post were going well beyond the initial disclosures about silicon. Here are snippets of a White House briefing on October 29, 2001. Major General Parker was the head of USAMRIID, the facility where Ivins worked:
Q: Does that suggest then that there was no additive, there's been nothing in the spores to make them more — or nothing added to the spores to make them more easily aerosolized?
MAJOR GENERAL PARKER: Complicated question. We do know that we found silica in the samples. Now, we don't know what that motive would be, or why it would be there, or anything. But there is silica in the samples. And that led us to be absolutely sure that there was no aluminum in the sample, because the combination of a silicate, plus aluminum, is sort of the major ingredients of bentonite.
However, the problem is that even though the element silicon was found to be present at higher than expected concentrations in the attack material, the spores were not "coated". Here is a key disclosure of the lack of coating:
Harvard University molecular biologist Matthew S. Meselson, who has consulted for the FBI on the anthrax probe, dismisses these early statements as misunderstandings or misinterpretations of the scientific studies conducted on the Daschle powder. "I don't know of anybody with spore expertise who actually worked on the stuff who said the spores were coated," he says. The FBI has never publicly claimed the spores were coated with silica and, in fact, told members of Congress at classified briefings that the spores were not coated, he says.
...
Meselson, who reviewed Beecher's article for the FBI, was asked to assess scanning electron micrographs of the anthrax powder. Early in 2002, he spent half a day at the FBI's Washington field office and looked at "a large heap of electron micrographs" of the powder from the Daschle letter.
"I saw no evidence of anything except spores, no evidence of silica nanoparticles," Meselson says. "If silica was present, I would have seen it, but nothing could have been purer than what I saw," he insists. Though purified, the preparation "had not been milled," he adds.
I have to note here, that as a Ph.D molecular biologist, the opinion of Mesleson carries tremendous weight for me. Meselson began his career by publishing what later came to be called "The Most Beautiful Experiment in Biology". [To appreciate the elegance of the experiment, see this WikiMedia Commons illustration and watch this brief animation.]
While still under the impression that an agent such as fumed silica was used to weaponize the attack spores, work was carried out at Dugway in attempt to produce similar material. The Chemical and Engineering News article linked above summarizes some of that work and the results. Other parts of the work, including electron micrographs of coated and uncoated spores of a similar bacterial species were published here.
The newest information about the silicon mystery comes in a news article in the March 19 issue of the journal Science. Here, we see conclusive visual evidence that the silicon (in green in the upper frame) in the attack spores is located inside the outer covering of the spores:
silicon in attack spores
Sandia National Laboratories illustration as reproduced in Science
Here is how the article described the analysis carried out at Sandia National Laboratories:
A more detailed analysis by Joseph Michael and Paul Kotula of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contradicted that conclusion. Studying individual spores with a transmission electron microscope, they found that the silicon was located within the spore coat, well inside the cell's exosporium (outermost covering). By contrast, when they looked at surrogate spores weaponized with silica, the silicon was clearly outside the exosporium.
But the Sandia study, presented last September to a National Academies panel reviewing the science behind the investigation, still leaves questions. Out of 124 spores from a letter mailed to Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Michael found the silicon-and oxygen signature in 97—78% of the sample. The signature was present in 66% of a sample from a letter to former Senator Tom Daschle and in 65% of spores from a letter sent to the New York Post.
Out of nearly 200 other anthrax samples from different labs, none came close to displaying such a prominent silicon signature. The highest, in a sample from Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, was 29%. The researchers couldn't find silicon in the coat of a single spore out of some 300 taken from RMR-1029, the flask in Ivins's lab identified as the source of the bacteria used in the attacks; they concluded that all the silicon had come from the culture.
These results show conclusively that the silicon content of the attack spores differed from the silicon content of the spores that were in the actual RMR-1029 flask pictured above. The results suggest that the silicon inside the spores used in the attack came from the culture medium in which the spores were grown. Researchers in Japan recently published results with the bacterium Bacillus cereus that provide further support for this interpretation.
These researchers grew B. cereus cultures on growth medium containing high or low concentrations of silicates and found that spores produced after growth on the high silicate medium had a layer of silicon inside the spore that looked like the illustration above for the anthrax spores used in the attacks. They then carried out various experiments on high and low silicon spores to determine how the high silicon spores differed from the low silicon spores. They found no difference in spore dispersion in air (although I have reservations about whether they first achieved the same level of purification away from debris that is reported for the attack material) but did find the high silicon spores were more resistant to disruption in acid, a trait that could have evolutionary advantages. Their final sentence of the publication is the most important here:
Our findings also strongly indicate that the anthrax spores were harvested from culture on a silicate-containing medium.
The published findings of the Amerithrax investigation suggest that detailed genetic analysis (that has not yet been released in full) indicates that the attack spores share a unique subpopulation of four mutant strains along with the primary Ames strain that was only found in Ivins' RMR-1029 flask or cultures that were known to be directly derived from it. These newly released silicon results conclusively show that the attack spores could not have been taken directly from the RMR-1029 flask, but would have to have been cultured on a high silicate growth medium. In this diary, I showed that the amount of spore material that was present in the attack letters would have been very difficult for Ivins to culture on his own in the small shake flasks he had available to him. Instead, it would have been much easier for a researcher with access to a fermenter to produce such a large amount of spores. In this diary, I pointed to a facility at Dugway that has a fermenter of just the right size to produce the material in only one or two batches. Isn't it interesting that the second highest silicon content batch of spores analyzed by Sandia came from Dugway?
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/36075 (http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/36075)
Note this is laced with some propaganda:
QuoteSource: Baltimore Sun, December 12, 2001.
Anthrax matches Army spores
Bioterror: Organisms made at a military laboratory in Utah are genetically identical to those mailed to members of Congress.
By Scott Shane, Sun Staff
For nearly a decade, U.S. Army scientists at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah have made small quantities of weapons-grade anthrax that is virtually identical to the powdery spores used in the mail attacks that have killed five people, government sources say.
Until the anthrax attacks led to tighter security measures, anthrax grown at Dugway was regularly sent by Federal Express to the Army's biodefense center at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, where the bacteria were killed using gamma radiation before being returned to Dugway for experiments. The anthrax was shipped in the form of a coarse paste, not in the far more dangerous finely milled form, according to one government official. Most anthrax testing at Dugway, in a barren Utah desert 87 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, is done using the killed spores to reduce the chance of accidental exposure of workers there.
But some experiments require live anthrax, milled to the tiny particle size expected on a battlefield, to test both decontamination techniques and biological agent detection systems, the sources say. Anthrax is also grown at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, where it is used chiefly to test the effectiveness of vaccines in animals. But that medical program uses a wet aerosol fog of anthrax rather than the dry powder used in the attacks and at Dugway, according to interviews and medical journal articles based on the research.
The wet anthrax, while still capable of killing people, is safer for laboratory workers to handle, scientists say. Dugway's production of weapons-grade anthrax, which has never before been publicly revealed, is apparently the first by the U.S. government since President Richard M. Nixon ordered the U.S. offensive biowarfare program closed in 1969. Scientists familiar with the anthrax program at Dugway described it to The Sun on the condition that they not be named.
The offensive program made hundreds of kilograms of anthrax for bombs designed to kill enemy troops over hundreds of square miles.
Dugway's Life Sciences Division makes the deadly spores in far, far smaller quantities, rarely accumulating more than 10 grams at a time, according to one Army official. Scientists estimate that the letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle originally contained about 2 grams of anthrax, about one-sixteenth of an ounce, or the weight of a dime. But its extraordinary concentration - in the range of 1 trillion spores per gram - meant that the letter could have contained 200 million times the average dose necessary to kill a person. Dugway's weapons-grade anthrax has been milled to achieve a similar concentration, according to one person familiar with the program. The concentration exceeds that of weapons anthrax produced by the old U.S. offensive program or the Soviet biowarfare program, according to Dr. Richard O. Spertzel, who worked at Detrick for 18 years and later served as a United Nations bioweapons inspector in Iraq.
Lab security measures
No evidence linking the Dugway anthrax to the attacks has been made public, and there might well be none. Army officials say the anthrax there and at Fort Detrick has long been protected by multiple security measures. The FBI has extensively questioned Dugway employees who have had access to anthrax, according to people familiar with the investigation. Agents also have questioned people at Fort Detrick and other government and university laboratories that have used the Ames strain of anthrax found in the letters. Still, the analysis of the genetic and physical properties of the anthrax mailed to Daschle and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy has caused investigators to take a hard look at Dugway's anthrax program.
First, the genetic fingerprint of the mailed anthrax is indistinguishable from that of the Ames "reference strain," which is the strain used most often at Fort Detrick and Dugway, according to a scientist familiar with the genetic work. Researchers led by Paul Keim at Northern Arizona University have compared the two samples and found them identical at 50 genetic markers - the most sensitive genetic identification method available. That does not mean the mailed anthrax necessarily originated from an Army program, because Ames anthrax has been widely used at government and university laboratories in the United States and overseas.
Shipped without records
While some sources have estimated Ames might have been used in as few as 20 labs, one scientist who has worked with anthrax said the total cannot be known exactly, but is probably closer to 50. "Until the last few years, a graduate student would call up a friend at another lab and say, 'Send me Ames,' and they'd do it," the scientist said. "There wouldn't necessarily be any records kept." Ames is similar to but distinct from the Vollum1B strain of anthrax used in the old U.S. offensive biological weapons program.
The genetic testing proves the mailed anthrax was not left over from the old program, most scientists agree. Even more provocative than the genetics are the physical properties of the mailed anthrax. While some scientists disagree, many bioterrorism experts argue that the quality of the mailed anthrax is such that it could have been produced only in a weapons program or using information from such a program.
Link to Dugway base
If true, that would greatly limit the field, increasing the likelihood of a link to the only site in the United States where weapons-grade anthrax has been made in recent years. Dugway, which is larger than Rhode Island, has been a military testing ground since World War II, when military officials selected it for its remote location in Utah's Great Salt Lake Desert. The Dugway anthrax program was launched in the early 1990s, shortly after the Persian Gulf war reawakened U.S. military commanders to the threat from biological weapons.
Iraq is known to have built a major bioweapons program that included anthrax in its potential arsenal. (Early Iraq-War propaganda three months after 9/11--The CSR)
According to Dugway's Web site, the proving ground's Life Sciences Division has an aerosol technology branch and a biotechnology branch, both of which use a Biosafety Level 3 laboratory designed to contain pathogens. Anthrax and other dangerous germs at Dugway are guarded by video cameras, intrusion alarms, double locks and a buddy system that does not permit workers to handle the agents alone, according to one scientist. But Dugway does not have a gamma radiation machine, which is why its anthrax has been shipped to Detrick for irradiation. Dr. David L. Huxsoll, who headed Detrick's biodefense program in the 1980s, said vaccines and detection systems must be tested against aerosolized anthrax if troops are to be prepared for biological attacks.
"When you're building a program to defend against biological weapons on the battlefield, you have to be prepared for an aerosol exposure," he said.
Not a treaty violation
Milton Leitenberg, an expert on bioweapons at the University of Maryland, said he was not aware of the Dugway anthrax production.
But he said making a few grams of weapons-grade anthrax for testing defensive equipment would not violate the international convention on biological weapons.
The treaty bans the production of bioagents "of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective and other peaceful purposes."
"There's no specific limit in grams or micrograms," Leitenberg said. "But if you got up in the hundreds of grams, people would be very, very skeptical."
The FBI's investigation, called Amerithrax, has focused on the possibility that the anthrax terrorist might be a loner in this country with some scientific training. The Sun reported Sunday that in two months, none of the hundreds of FBI agents on the case had contacted the Army retirees who produced anthrax in the 1950s and 1960s.
Yesterday, one of those anthrax veterans, Orley R. Bourland Jr. of Walkersville, got a call from the White House Office of Homeland Security seeking information.
The FBI had not made contact with several veterans interviewed yesterday.
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/EPI/bioter/anthr ... pores.html (http://www.ph.ucla.edu/EPI/bioter/anthraxmatchesarmyspores.html)
This guy is interesting:
QuoteRichard O. Spertzel
is a veterinarian, microbiologist and expert in the area of biological warfare. He participated in germ warfare research at U.S. Army Medical Unit (USAMU), Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland. (USAMU is now known as the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID)[1]. Spertzel held several positions USAMRIID including Deputy for Research, Deputy Commander, and Chief of the Animal Assessment Division. From 1994 to 1998 Spertzel served as the Senior Biologist for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq. His strongly misleading Congressional testimonial about the WMD capabilities of Iraq[2] helped to justify the subsequent US invasion of Iraq. After the invasion, Spertzel was a member of the Iraq Survey Group, which found that Iraq was not producing nor planning to produce WMD at the time of the invasion.
Education
In 1955, Spertzel earned a Bachelor of Arts in microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania. Sperzel did postgraduate work at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and in 1962 he was awarded a Master's Degree in radiation biology by the Graduate School of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Rochester. His terminal degree was obtained in 1970, a Doctor of Philosophy in microbiology from the University of Notre Dame.
[edit] 2003 Invasion of Iraq
As part of the Congressional hearings prior to authorization of the invasion of Iraq, Spertzel provided testimony to the United States House Committee on Armed Services on September 10, 2002.
Testimony by Spertzel[3]:
* "From its inception in the 1970s, Iraq's BW program included both military and terrorist applications."
* "Although Iraq claims that it 'obliterated' the program in 1991 (without the supervision by the UN as was set out in the ceasefire resolution 687, April 1991), and in so doing it destroyed all weapons and bulk agents unilaterally without any further documentation. The evidence indicates rather that Iraq continued to expand its BW capabilities."
* "Iraq asserts that the program was obliterated in 1991 but this is patently not true."
* "Documentation recovered by UNSCOM indicated a continued build up of Iraq's BW program capability."
* "It has had 12 years to advance its viral capability and, as I have cited elsewhere, this almost certainly includes smallpox as an agent."
* "There is no doubt in my mind that Iraq has a much stronger biological warfare program today than it had in 1990."
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the United States government concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction during the period leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq after reviewing the Iraq Survey Group's final report on September 30, 2004. Claimed links of Iraq to terrorist groups like al Qaeda were never verified, and the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States concluded that there was no real evidence of such links. Much of the "intelligence" suggesting WMD in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion was fabricated by groups like the Iraqi National Congress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_O._Spertzel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_O._Spertzel)
QuoteThe anthrax material
The letters contained at least two grades of anthrax material; the coarse brown material sent in the media letters and the fine powder sent to the two U.S. Senators. In addition, it has been suggested the anthrax material sent to an old Post Office Box address of the National Enquirer and then forwarded to AMI may have been an intermediate grade similar to the anthrax sent to the Senate.[14] The brown granular anthrax sent to media outlets in New York City caused only skin infections, cutaneous anthrax. The anthrax sent to the Senators caused the more dangerous form of infection known as inhalational anthrax, as did the anthrax sent to AMI in Florida.
Although the anthrax preparations were of different grades, all of the material was derived from the same bacterial strain. Known as the Ames strain, it was first researched at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), Fort Detrick, Maryland. The Ames strain was then distributed to at least fifteen bio-research labs within the U.S. and six locations overseas.
DNA sequencing of the anthrax taken from Robert Stevens (the first victim) was conducted at The Institute for Genomic Research beginning in December 2001. Sequencing was finished within a month and the analysis was published in the journal Science in early 2002.[15]
Radiocarbon dating conducted by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in June 2002 established that the anthrax was cultured no more than two years before the mailings. In October 2006 it was reported that water used to process the anthrax spores came from a source in the northeastern United States.[16] Erroneous press reports in 2003 indicated the FBI failed to reverse engineer the type of anthrax found in the letters.[17][18] According to Chemical & Engineering News, December 4, 2006,[16] there was never any attempt to "reverse engineer" the attack anthrax. Instead, the Dugway Proving Grounds "used the Leahy powder as the culture starter to 'produce several different preparations using different media, and different ways of drying and milling the preparation' that the FBI could use for comparison purposes." They "never analyzed the Leahy powder and did no comparative analyses between the preparations made and the Leahy powder."
Controversy over coatings and additives
Early reports suggested the anthrax sent to the Senate had been "weaponized." On October 29, 2001, Major General John Parker at a White House briefing said that silica had been found in the Daschle anthrax sample. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge in a White House press conference on November 7, 2001, told reporters that tests indicated silica, not bentonite, had been used as a binding agent in making the anthrax.[19] Later, the FBI claimed a "lone individual" could have weaponized anthrax spores for as little as $2,500, using a makeshift basement laboratory.[20]
In late October, 2001, ABC chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross several times linked the anthrax sample to Saddam Hussein; on October 26, "sources tell ABCNEWS the anthrax in the tainted letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was laced with bentonite. The potent additive is known to have been used by only one country in producing biochemical weapons — Iraq.... it is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program...The discovery of bentonite came in an urgent series of tests conducted at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and elsewhere," [21] on October 28, stating that "despite continued White House denials, four well-placed and separate sources have told ABC News that initial tests on the anthrax by the US Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland, have detected trace amounts of the chemical additives bentonite and silica" [22] and several times on October 28 and 29.[23]
A number of press reports appeared suggesting the Senate anthrax had coatings and additives.[24][25][26] Newsweek reported the anthrax sent to Senator Leahy had been coated with a chemical compound previously unknown to bioweapons experts.[27] Two experts on the Soviet anthrax program, Kenneth Alibek and Matthew Meselson, were consultants with the Justice Department and were shown electron micrographs of the anthrax from the Daschle letter. They replied to the Washington Post article "FBI's Theory on Anthrax Is Doubted" (October 28, 2002), reporting that they saw no evidence the anthrax spores had been coated and that more careful investigation of the specimens is necessary.[28]
A week after Meselson and Alibek had their letter published in the Washington Post, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), one of the military labs that analyzed the Daschle anthrax, published an official newsletter stating that silica was a key aerosol enabling component of the Daschle anthrax.[29] The AFIP lab deputy director, Florabel Mullick, said "This [silica] was a key component. Silica prevents the anthrax from aggregating, making it easier to aerosolize. Significantly, we noted the absence of aluminum with the silica. This combination had previously been found in anthrax produced by Iraq." Unlike naturally occurring anthrax the coated spores were able to reaerosolize. A study published in JAMA on December 11, 2002 showed simulated office activities conducted in the Daschle suite more than three weeks after the initial incident resulted in up to a 65 fold increase in airborne spores over samples collected at the same locations during a semiquiescent state.[30] The spectrum AFIP based their conclusions on actually showed a peak for the element Silicon, an element sometimes naturally occurring in anthrax[citation needed] and not silica (Silicon dioxide) used to weaponise it. A former top military scientist who saw the AFIP scanning electron micrographs of the powder stated; "If the spores had been coated with silica, they would have looked like doughnuts with large sugar particles on them," instead, "the Daschle spores were clean doughnut holes with no sugars."[31]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks)
From the site Jenny gave above: http://www.anthraxattacks.net/2009/07/t ... ry-solved/ (http://www.anthraxattacks.net/2009/07/the-anthrax-mystery-solved/)
QuoteAnthrax is a spore-forming germ, Bacillus anthracis, and can be found in livestock such as sheep or cattle. Analysis of the spores from the letters reveled them all to be of the same strain. This particular strain, known as the Ames strain, was first researched at the Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), Fort Detrick, Maryland. This strain of anthrax bacteria originally came from a single cow that had died in Texas in 1981. Ames has the reputation of being deadlier than other anthrax strains. Some have called Ames the "gold standard" of anthrax.
From Fort Detrick, the Ames strain was sent to researchers in at least fifteen laboratories within the United States and six laboratories abroad. It is not known how many other universities and labs may have had access to the strain, but according to one law-enforcement official "more labs than you think" could have obtained the Ames strain.
In the past, microbiologists attending conferences on infectious diseases would take vials of various strains and simply swap them with each other to aid in their research. Martin Hugh-Jones, a scientist at Louisiana State University, stated that during this period deadly pathogens were traded "like playing cards." In the real pre-9-11 scenario, any microbiologist in the world might have obtained the Ames strain.
israel has done this before:
QuoteThe planning for the anthrax attacks of 2001 goes back to at least 1997. In April of that year, the national headquarters of the Jewish organization B'nai B'rith in Washington, DC received a package that contained a petri dish labeled Anthracis Yersinia, implying the dish contained bacteria that could cause anthrax infections or plague. The dish had been broken and was leaking a red fluid. Tests later determined the petri dish to be relatively harmless, and it did not contain the bacteria Anthracis or Yersinia. However, it did contain Bacillus cereus, which is less dangerous and is sometimes used as an anthrax simulant.
Does this remind anyone of the fake anthrax sent to friend of israel, Judith Miller? On October 12, 2001, Miller opened an anthrax hoax letter addressed to her New York Times office. The REAL ANTHRAX letters were sent to the enemies of israel: Leahy and Daschle:
QuoteA two-page typed letter accompanied the petri dish. The letter was largely incoherent and contained comments on Jews, Nazis, and the 'Holocaust.' The letter was signed, "The Counter Holocaust Lobbyists of Hillel." Months prior to the B'nai B'rith hoax, a movement was forming on college campuses calling for a debate to question some assertions concerning the 'Holocaust.' Those responsible for the mailing chose to blame historical revisionists or so-called "Holocaust deniers."
The B'nai B'rith hoax received a great deal of media attention. Television outlets like CNN and other networks broadcast the incident live to a national audience. The nearby area was evacuated, and for a period of time office personnel were quarantined. The case has never been solved, and the cost to the government was two million dollars.
Israel's Mossad most likely was responsible for the mailing. The hoax benefited Israel and the Jews in several ways. First, national publicity was generated in this first major anthrax scare. Second, sympathy was elicited for the Jewish organization that was attacked. Third, the persons supposedly responsible—namely, those who have questions concerning the 'Holocaust'—were demonized.
QuoteIsrael is perhaps the only country in the world that could have succeeded in the anthrax attack upon America. With the help of Jewish scientists from the former Soviet Union, Israel's bio-weapons research has probably surpassed that of all other nations. The Soviet Union's bio-weapons program had 32,000 scientists and staff working in 40 different research and production facilities. Two thousand of these scientists worked exclusively on the Soviet anthrax program. A significant number of these scientists may have immigrated to Israel and become employed in her bio-weapons programs.
On the day of September 11, 2001 the Mossad was waiting for al-Qaeda to strike. Soon the greatest bio-terror event in history would follow. Different grades of anthrax were prepared at Israel's bio-warfare center at Ness Ziona. Coarse brown granules that would cause only skin infections were prepared for the New York media letters. The deadlier "weapons grade" anthrax was reserved for Senators Daschle and Leahy.
The envelopes were pre-addressed and waiting for the letters and the anthrax material to be placed in them. The letters were written with only the date at the top to be added later. In his analysis, Ed Lake has suggested the "09-11-01" top portion of the letter seems to have been printed at a different time and perhaps by a different hand. This would be a necessary precaution if the terror flights were changed or delayed by a few days.
On the day of September 11, or perhaps shortly thereafter, copies of the original letter were made at a publicly accessible copier in New Jersey. Through analysis of scratches on the glass, the FBI is certain they have found the copier used to produce the letters. The original letter used to make the copies may have been destroyed. The Mossad officer could have taken the copies to Israel the next day. The anthrax letters were likely prepared, taped, and brought back to America days later via Israeli diplomatic pouch into New York City or Washington, DC. This speculative scenario could have all occurred within the week that followed September 11. The first batch of anthrax letters was mailed in Trenton, New Jersey, exactly one week after the devastating airplane attacks.
I don't know if it happened exactly this way, but I do think it might be a mistake to think that the immediate source of the anthrax was a US lab. If the Ames strain was being given out to "fifteen laboratories within the United States and six laboratories abroad", it would not be unreasonable to assume that israel had that strain.
Also, israel was not, and is currently not a signatory to the international Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention.
Adding up the evidence:
1) israel is a major anthrax researcher.
2) many former USSR anthrax scientists now reside in israel.
3) israel not a signatory to BTW Convention
4) fake anthrax sent to israel supporter
5) real anthrax sent to israel enemy
6) fake anthrax mailed to israel supporter four years prior to 9/11.
7) timing with 9/11 attacks; those attacks have also many coincidental ties to israel
8) ability of israel diplomatic pouches to move substances in and out of the US without any inspection.
Another curious aspect of the FBI investigation is the destruction of the evidence in the middle of the investigation:
QuoteOn October 3, 2001, doctors determine that Robert Stevens in Florida has been infected with anthrax (see October 3, 2001). A culture of anthrax bacteria is grown from a sample of his spinal fluid and quickly flown by corporate jet to Paul Keim. Keim is a geneticist at Northern Arizona University who had recently developed a means to distinguish between strains of anthrax. He and his team gets the sample on October 4 and work all night. By Friday morning, they tell investigators that it is the Ames strain of anthrax. [Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/1/2008] The media will first report that the anthrax was the Ames strain on October 10. [Associated Press, 10/10/2001] Despite Keim's findings, the FBI will approve the destruction of a vital repository of Ames samples, also on October 10 (see October 10-11, 2001).
QuoteOctober 10-11, 2001: FBI Permits Destruction of Original Batch of Ames Strain Anthrax
Edit event
The FBI allows the original batch of the Ames strain of anthrax to be destroyed, making tracing the type of anthrax used in the recent anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001) more difficult. The Ames strain actually originates from a dead cow in Texas, but Iowa State University in Ames has kept many vials of Ames and other anthrax strains collected over more than seven decades. This entire collection is destroyed. It is unclear who wanted the collection destroyed or why. The FBI learned the anthrax used in the attack letters was the Ames strain on October 5 (see October 5, 2001), but this will not be publicly confirmed until October 25. The FBI denies it approved the destruction and say they only did not oppose it, but university officials say the FBI gave explicit approval. [New York Times, 11/9/2001; South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 12/8/2001] The Ames strain is one of 89 known varieties of anthrax and is commonly used in US military research. The Washington Post will later report that "The [Ames strain identification], as compelling as a human fingerprint, shifted suspicion away from al-Qaeda and suggested another disturbing possibility: that the anthrax attacks were the work of an American bioweapons insider." The identification of the Ames strain focuses much attention on two top US Army bioweapons laboratories in particular that have heavily used Ames: USAMRIID in Maryland and Dugway Proving Ground in Utah (see Late 2001). [Washington Post, 9/14/2003]
Israelis, Neocons, and the Israeli Dual National Spertzel
QuoteRubin and the Chicken-hawk Intelligence Agency
Rubin issued a statement following the Downing Street dossier flap, taking full credit for the cooked intelligence report. His only complaint was that, while the Blair government apologized to Al-Marashi, they did not issue a similar public statement of regret to him and his journal.
To have done so would have been suicidal, as a quick review of Rubin's pedigree makes clear.
According to three current biographies, Prof. Barry Rubin is the deputy director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Israel, and a senior fellow at Hebrew University's Harry Truman Center and Haifa University's Jewish-Arab Center. He is the director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center, research director of the Lauder School of Government Policy and Diplomacy, and a senior fellow at the International Center for Counterterrorist Policy (ICT)—all of which are part of the Interdisciplinary Center, Israel's first private university, in Herzliya.
The Lauder School was named after Ronald Lauder, the former Reagan Ambassador to Austria, former president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, soon-to-be-successor of Edgar Bronfman Sr. as head of the World Jewish Congress, and a notorious financier of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The ICT, which co-sponsored a May 26, 2002 Herzliya center conference on suicide terrorism with the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith, is financed by the Marc Rich Foundation, the tax shelter of fugitive Russian Mafiya don Marc Rich. Avner Azulay, a former Mossad officer and director of the Rich Foundation, is an ICT director. Another publicly listed associate of the ICT is Maj. Gen. Meir Dagan, one of Ariel Sharon's most notorious thugs, and the current head of the Mossad.
Rubin, a transplanted Israeli citizen, still spends a good deal of time in the United States. On Feb. 4, he was one of the speakers at a Willard Hotel luncheon in Washington sponsored by Eleana Benador Associates, a New York City public relations firm that counts among its clients the entire chicken-hawk apparatus. Among the other speakers with Rubin were Benador clients Perle, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney, Laurie Mylroie, former UN weapons inspector Richard Spertzel, and former Iraqi weapons scientist Khidhir Hamza.
Rubin is also the chief Middle East columnist for Conrad Black's Hollinger Corp.-owned Jerusalem Post, and a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the think-tank spawn of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the official Israel lobby in America. His writings frequently appear in Middle East Quarterly, the hyper-shrill propaganda journal of Daniel Pipes. Rubin and Pipes are both funded by the Bradley Foundation, one of the quartet of ultra-right-wing tax-exempt funds, along with the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Olin Foundation, and the Mellon Scaife Foundation.
Typical of Rubin's prolific writings was a Dec. 3, 2002 Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, entitled "Sharon the Centrist?" The article celebrated Sharon's Likud party primary victory over Netanyahu, and assailed both Netanyahu and the Labor Party candidate, Gen. Amram Mitzna, whom Rubin labelled an apologist for the Yasser Arafat whom he termed an unrepentant terrorist.
In his Benador schpiel, Rubin echoed Perle and Doug Feith's "A Clean Break" strategy, arguing that the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would herald the "third Arab revolution" of the postwar period, triggering a spontaneous outbreak of democracy, human rights, and free trade throughout the Arab world. Rubin's simplistic fantasy of a Middle East re-made in the American-Israeli image has prompted some genuine experts to denounce him as the "Bernard Lewis for dummies." Princeton Professor Lewis is the author of the "Arc of Crisis" strategy for permanent instability in the Middle East.
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3 ... _hoax.html (http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3007neocon_hoax.html)
Note the Patriot Act getting rammed through congress and the Anthrax scare. Looks like the Anthrax scare was leveraged by Israeli-Traitor USA intelligence for getting the Iraq War memorandum and the Patriot Act passed. These Israeli compromised assets were utilized in the US government, Weapons programs and US Military. It seems logical that if getting the Iraq-war started was for Israel's long-term security, they would have had Mossad agents on the ground in the USA with military grade Israeli Anthrax to "scare" through these bills in the US Congress. I agree with Christopher and Jenny this was a Mossad delivered and an Israeli Bio-Weapons developed program plain and simple -- perhaps the compromised media trying to tie all of this back to Ft. Detrick or Dugway is just a massive diversion like the 19 Arab hijackers some of which were found alive?
QuoteAnthrax Coverup: A Government Insider Speaks Out
By Steve Watson
Is it possible that the anthrax attacks were launched from within our own government? A former Bush 1 advisor thinks it is.
Francis A. Boyle, an international law expert who worked under the first Bush Administration as a bioweapons advisor in the 1980s, has said that he is convinced the October 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people were perpetrated and covered up by criminal elements of the U.S. government. The motive: to foment a police state by killing off and intimidating opposition to post-9/11 legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the later Military Commissions Act.
"After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush Administration tried to ram the USA PATRIOT Act through Congress," Boyle said in a radio interview with Austin-based talk-show host Alex Jones. "That would have set up a police state.
"Senators Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont)
were holding it up because they realized what this would lead to. The
first draft of the PATRIOT Act would have suspended the writ of habeas
corpus [which protects citizens from unlawful imprisonment and
guarantees due process of law]. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere,
come these anthrax attacks."
"At the time I myself did not know precisely what was going on, either
with respect to September 11 or the anthrax attacks, but then the New
York Times revealed the technology behind the letter to Senator
Daschle. [The anthrax used was] a trillion spores per gram, [refined
with] special electro-static treatment. This is superweapons-grade
anthrax that even the United States government, in its openly
proclaimed programs, had never developed before. So it was obvious to
me that this was from a U.S. government lab. There is nowhere else you
could have gotten that."
Boyle's assessment was based on his years of expertise regarding
America's bioweapons programs. He was responsible for drafting the
Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 that was passed
unanimously by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President
George H.W. Bush.
After realizing that the anthrax attacks looked like a domestic job,
Boyle called a high-level official in the FBI who deals with terrorism
and counterterrorism, Marion "Spike" Bowman. Boyle and Bowman had met
at a terrorism conference at the University of Michigan Law School.
Boyle told Bowman that the only people who would have the capability to
carry out the attacks were individuals working on U.S. government
anthrax programs with access to a high-level biosafety lab. Boyle gave
Bowman a full list of names of scientists, contractors and labs
conducting anthrax work for the U.S. government and military.
Bowman then informed Boyle that the FBI was working with Fort Detrick
on the matter. Boyle expressed his view that Fort Detrick could be the
main problem. As widely reported in 2002 publications, notably the New
Scientist, the anthrax strain used in the attacks was officially
assessed as "military grade."
"Soon after I informed Bowman of this information, the FBI authorized
the destruction of the Ames cultural anthrax database," the professor
said. The Ames strain turned out to be the same strain as the spores
used in the attacks.
The alleged destruction of the anthrax culture collection at Ames,
Iowa, from which the Fort Detrick lab got its pathogens, was blatant
destruction of evidence. It meant that there was no way of finding out
which strain was sent to whom to develop the larger breed of anthrax
used in the attacks. The trail of genetic evidence would have led
directly back to a secret government biowarfare program.
"Clearly, for the FBI to have authorized this was obstruction of
justice, a federal crime," said Boyle. "That collection should have
been preserved and protected as evidence. That's the DNA, the
fingerprints right there. It later came out, of course, that this was
Ames strain anthrax that was behind the Daschle and Leahy letters."
At that point, recounted Boyle, it became very clear to him that there
was a coverup underway. He later discovered, while reading David Ray
Griffin's book on the 9/11 attacks, The New Pearl Harbor, that Bowman
was the same FBI agent who allegedly sabotaged the FISA warrant for
access to [convicted co-conspirator] Zacharias Moussaoui's computer
prior to 9/11. Moussaoui's computer contained information that could
have helped prevent the attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon.
In 2003, Bowman was promoted and given the Presidential Rank Award by
FBI Director Robert S. Mueller. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote a
letter to Mueller, chastising the organization for granting such an
honor to an agent who had so obviously compromised America's security.
During the anthrax scare, the House of Representatives was officially
shut down for the first time in the history of the republic. Once
opposition from Leahy and Daschle evaporated in the wake of the
attempts on their lives, the USA PATRIOT Act was rammed through.
Testimony by Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) revealed that most
members of Congress were compelled to vote for the bill without even
reading it.
"They were going to move to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, which is
all that really separates us from a police state," Boyle said. "And
that is what they have done now with respect to enemy combatants [in
the Military Commissions Act of 2006]." Boyle added that lawmakers are
now arguing that Amendment XIV, which guarantees due process of law to
all Americans, does not mean what it has been taken to mean and that,
under the Military Commissions Act, any U.S. citizen can be stripped of
citizenship and be labeled an enemy combatant.
Continued Boyle: "In other words, they have taken the position that at
some point in time, if they want to, they can unilaterally round up
United States native-born citizens, as they did for Japanese-Americans
in World War II, and stick us into concentration camps." Boyle asserted
that top officials, such as White House legal advisor John Yoo and
former Assistant Attorney General Jack Goldsmith (now a professor at
Harvard Law School), are pushing for the legalization of torture as
well.
"The Nazis did the exact same thing," said Boyle. "They had their
lawyers infiltrating law schools. Carl Schmidt was the worst, and he
was the mentor to Leo Strauss, the [ideological] founder of the
neoconservatives. So the same phenomenon that started in Nazi Germany
is happening here, and I exaggerate not. We could all be tortured; we
could all be treated this way."
Boyle stressed that it is vital to keep up the pressure on Senator
Leahy, who now chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, giving him
subpoena power. Since Leahy was himself a target, he may have
sufficient motivation to get to the bottom of the attacks. The FBI and
the Justice Department have so far refused full disclosure to Congress.
In addition to his credentials as a government advisor, Boyle also
holds a doctorate of law magna cum laude and a Ph.D. in political
science, both from Harvard University. He teaches international law at
the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Boyle also served on
the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-92) and
represented Bosnia-Herzegovina at the World Court.
Boyle alleged that due to his activities as a lawyer, he was
interrogated by an agent from the CIA/FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force in
the summer of 2004. The agent tried to recruit him as an informant to
provide the FBI with information on his Arab and Muslim clients. When
he refused, according to Boyle, the FBI placed him on the government's
terrorism watch lists.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/24273 (http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/24273)
Benador Associates (builders of the Iraq-war)
Benador Associates was a public relations firm and speaker's bureau founded around 2002 that promoted expert writers and speakers focusing primarily on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East.
Benador Associates described its areas of specialization as "media applied to politics, conflict resolution, the dialogue of civilisations, foreign policy, national security, anti-terrorism, defense of human rights and freedom of religion, among others."
The CEO and founder of the firm, Eleana Benador, is a Peruvian-born linguist-turned-publicist. Her clients include Richard Perle, the former chairman of the Defense Policy Board; former CIA director James Woolsey; New York Daily News columnist A. M. Rosenthal; American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Michael Ledeen; National Review contributing editor Frank Gaffney Jr.; former Washington Times editor in chief Arnaud de Borchgrave; former Secretary of State Alexander Haig Jr.; and Iraqi dissident Kanan Makiya, a Brandeis professor who advocated the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In December 2007, Eliana Benador announced that she was forming Benador Public Relations and would no longer be involved with Benador Associates.[1] Benador Associates now appears to be defunct.
Speakers Listed alphabetically
Max Boot, Ismail Cem, Arnaud de Borchgrave, Khalid Durán, John Eibner, Hillel Fradkin, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., Michel Gurfinkiel (fr), Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Khidhir Hamza, Fereydoun Hoveyda, Mansoor Ijaz, Charles Jacobs, Shaykh Kabbani, Stanley H. Kaplan, Martin Kramer, Charles Krauthammer, George Jonas, Michael Ledeen, Kanan Makiya, Paul Marshall, Laurie Mylroie, John O'Sullivan, Richard Perle, Walid Phares, Richard Pipes, Dennis Prager, David Pryce-Jones, Tom Rose, A. M. Rosenthal, Barry Rubin, Tashbih Sayyed, Richard O. Spertzel, Amir Taheri, Ruth Wedgwood, R. James Woolsey, Jr., Meyrav Wurmser
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benador_Associates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benador_Associates)
------------
QuoteAbout Benador
According to Benador's web site,[1] Benador Associates is a "Public Relations, Media and International Speakers Bureau." Benador was founded by Eleana Benador. Offices are "located in New York City as well as in Paris and London. However, the activities of the firm are expanding throughout the American continent, as well as in Europe and the Middle East."
Jim Lobe describes Benador as follows:
"When historians look back on the United States war in Iraq, they will almost certainly be struck by how a small group of mainly neo-conservative analysts and activists outside the administration were able to shape the US media debate in ways that made the drive to war so much easier than it might have been... But historians would be negligent if they ignored the day-to-day work of one person who, as much as anyone outside the administration, made their media ubiquity possible. Meet Eleana Benador, the Peruvian-born publicist for Perle, Woolsey, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney and a dozen other prominent neo-conservatives whose hawkish opinions proved very hard to avoid for anyone who watched news talk shows or read the op-ed pages of major newspapers over the past 20 months."
— Jim Lobe, The Andean Condor among the Hawks, Asia Times, August 15, 2003.
Speakers
Benador's Speakers are "a highly qualified cadre of inspiring, knowledgeable speakers who are available to address your group or broadcast audience...Each of our experts is nationally and internationally recognized on issues of the Middle East and national security, among others."
Current
(Listed as Expert - April 28, 2006)
Ali Al-Ahmed [2] Raphael Israeli [3] Salameh Nematt [4]
Ali Ahmed Al-Baghli [5] Charles Jacobs [6] Richard Perle [7]
Nir Boms [8] George Jonas [9] Walid Phares [10]
Arnaud de Borchgrave [11] Stanley H. Kaplan [12] Richard Pipes [13]
Ismail Cem [14] Efraim Karsh [15] Dennis Prager [16]
Leon Charney [17] Charles Krauthammer [18] David Pryce-Jones [19]
Saad Eddin Ibrahim [20] Herbert I. London [21] Tom Rose [22]
Rachel Ehrenfeld [23] Lord Lamont of Lerwick [24] A.M. Rosenthal [25]
John Eibner [26] Michael A. Ledeen [27] Jano Rosebiani [28]
Hillel Fradkin [29] Kanan Makiya [30] Tashbih Sayyed [31]
David Gelernter [32] Paul Marshall [33] Natan Sharansky [34]
Dr. Stephen Gullo [35] Andrew C. McCarthy [36] Richard O. Spertzel [37]
Michel Gurfinkiel [38] Hassan Mneimneh [39] Amir Taheri
Alexander M. Haig, Jr. [40] Laurie Mylroie [41] Paul Vallely [42]
Victor Davis Hanson [43] Ayman Nour [44] Ruth Wedgwood [45]
Fereydoun Hoveyda [46] John O'Sullivan [47] James Woolsey [48]
Mansoor Ijaz [49] Yossi Olmert [50] Meyrav Wurmser [51]
Former Speakers
* Max Boot
* Khalid Durán
* Frank Gaffney Jr.
* Khidhir Hamza
* Saad Eddin Ibrahim
* Martin Kramer
* Shaykh Kabbani
* Judith Miller
* Salameh Nematt
* Barry Rubin
* Michael Rubin
Planting fake evidence against Iran
In May 2006, Canada's National Post ran a sensational story by Benador associate and Iranian exile Amir Taheri. The piece claimed that Iran's government had passed a law requiring Jewish residents to wear a yellow insignia -- reminiscent of the policies of Germany's Nazi regime. The story was quickly debunked and the National Post apologized. Eleana Benador admitted that her PR firm had planted the piece. [52]
Reporting on the controversy, Larry Cohler-Esses wrote in The Nation: [53]
[Eleana] Benador, who said her client [Amir Taheri] was "traveling in the Middle East," was impatient with dissections of his work. Terming accuracy with regard to Iran "a luxury," she said, "My major concern is the large picture. Is Taheri writing one or two details that are not accurate? This is a guy who is putting his life at stake." She noted that "the Iranian government has killed its opponents." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "says he wants to destroy Israel. He says the Holocaust never happened.... As much as being accurate is important, in the end it's important to side with what's right. What's wrong is siding with the terrorists."
Taheri might seem to be one of Benador's biggest liabilities. In fact, he is right now the agency's proudest coup. On May 30--just days after the National Post's apology for running his false story on Iranian Jews--Taheri was one of a group of "Iraq experts" brought to the White House to consult with George W. Bush on the disastrous situation there.
What others say
So there are these peculiar archipelagoes of opaqueness in the world of news, where journalists are at the mercy of single sources that appear solid. It is very dangerous for the US cable news channels to depend so heavily for analysis of things like Iraq and the war on terror, on retired military officers and on well-connected cyphers like Walid Phares. (Hint to cable news personnel departments: if an academic has a spotty publication record and is at some small place or doesn't have a proper university post, but you get a call pushing him from some rightwing think tank in Washington or from the Benador Agency, be suspicious).
Juan Cole, Psy-Ops and News, Informed Comment, Dec. 3, 2004.
Contact details
Phone: (917) 626-1266
Email: info AT benadorassociates.com
To contact Eleana Benador: eb AT benadorassociates.com
Website: http://www.benadorassociates.com/ (http://www.benadorassociates.com/)
External links
* Some information about Benador Associates is available (in French) here
* Laura Miller, "War is Sell," PR Watch, 4th Quarter 2002.
* Jim Lobe, "The Andean condor among the hawks," Asia Times, August 15, 2003.
* Brian Whitaker, "Conflict and catchphrases", The Guardian, February 24, 2003.
* "Benador Reps Sharansky", O'Dwyers PR Daily, June 6, 2005.
* Larry Cohler-Esses, "Bunkum From Benador," The Nation, June 14, 2006.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti ... Associates (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Benador_Associates)
Quotehttp://www.historycommons.org/entity.js ... endly=true (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=paul_keim_1&printerfriendly=true)
On October 3, 2001, doctors determine that Robert Stevens in Florida has been infected with anthrax (see October 3, 2001). A culture of anthrax bacteria is grown from a sample of his spinal fluid and quickly flown by corporate jet to Paul Keim...
I'm guessing that 'corporate jets' are not standard hospital assets even in South Florida. Since Pritzker was in the Israeli-made corporate jet business, could it have belonged to AMI owners?
Paul Keim
Quotehttp://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/anthr ... ctive.html (http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/anthraxsdoggeddetective.html)
Keim, 46, got into anthrax almost by accident. After finishing his PhD in 1981 at the University of Kansas, he went looking for a job -- and first interviewed for a temporary position at the University of Utah. Raised in Kansas, he took one look from the plane at the Wasatch Mountains and knew he wanted to live there.
He spent years at Utah working for a renowned biologist, Gordon Lark, who had a taste for scientific variety that helped shape Keim's own....
Keim's work at Northern Arizona started small. There was no anthrax back then, just Keim, a technician and some money from a seed company to study soybeans.
But Keim needed a summer job to supplement his teaching salary. He got one with help from a former colleague who was working at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Starting in 1991, Keim would jump in his car each summer and drive 450 miles east to Los Alamos to study innocuous bacteria that degrade organic pollutants.
Meanwhile, his friend Paul Jackson was studying something more exciting..."He was very secretive about it. It was tantalizing," Keim recalls -- and that's how it remained until Keim got a security clearance in 1994. He then learned that Jackson was doing research on organisms that hostile governments might use for biological weapons.
Keim and Jackson began working together, developing ways to distinguish strains of microbes from one another using DNA typing...The team got to work, scouring the DNA of anthrax for places where strains differed even slightly from one another. Keim would send samples of anthrax DNA back to his lab in Flagstaff. Technician Jim Schupp would run experiments on that DNA and send the results, in the form of X-ray films, back to Keim at Los Alamos.
In 1995, there was only one known site of variability in the anthrax genome. Using that, all known strains of anthrax could be divided into only three types.
By 1996, Keim, Jackson and their colleagues had found 31 sites that would occasionally differ among strains. But the real breakthrough came in 1999...
...and so did the hoaxes...
On Sept.9, 1999, the "experts", Terry C. Dixon, B.S., Matthew Meselson, Ph.D., Jeanne Guillemin, Ph.D., and Philip C. Hanna, Ph.D. wrote:
Quotehttp://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/341/11/815 (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/341/11/815) Human anthrax is not common, and only one of us has seen a case...
Inglesby et al. have provided a description of the policies and strategies for dealing with anthrax as a biologic weapon.4 The goal of this article is to familiarize physicians with the current understanding of the pathogenesis, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of anthrax...
[Cutaneous]...The primary skin lesion is usually a nondescript, painless, pruritic papule that appears three to five days after the introduction of endospores. In 24 to 36 hours, the lesion forms a vesicle that undergoes central necrosis and drying, leaving a characteristic black eschar surrounded by edema and a number of purplish vesicles...These lesions are painless... Although cutaneous anthrax can be self-limiting, antibiotic treatment is recommended.
...so why did the 'hijackers' complain of burning and itching?
Quote from: "Jenny Lake"Paul Keim
On Sept.9, 1999, the "experts", Terry C. Dixon, B.S., Matthew Meselson, Ph.D., Jeanne Guillemin, Ph.D., and Philip C. Hanna, Ph.D. wrote:
........
Quotehttp://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/341/11/815 (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/341/11/815) Human anthrax is not common, and only one of us has seen a case...
Inglesby et al. have provided a description of the policies and strategies for dealing with anthrax as a biologic weapon.4 The goal of this article is to familiarize physicians with the current understanding of the pathogenesis, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of anthrax...
[Cutaneous]...The primary skin lesion is usually a nondescript, painless, pruritic papule that appears three to five days after the introduction of endospores. In 24 to 36 hours, the lesion forms a vesicle that undergoes central necrosis and drying, leaving a characteristic black eschar surrounded by edema and a number of purplish vesicles...These lesions are painless... Although cutaneous anthrax can be self-limiting, antibiotic treatment is recommended.
...so why did the 'hijackers' complain of burning and itching?
Maybe they were Israelis trying to dispose of "Arab" bodies and got a film of acid or lye on their hands ...?
Los Alamos must've had the best anthrax collection...
Quotehttp://www.washingtonspectator.org/arti ... shes_2.cfm (http://www.washingtonspectator.org/articles/20050215bushes_2.cfm) ..When Securacom went public on September 11, 1997, its prospectus for the Initial Public Offering prominently featured photographs of its clients the World Trade Center and Dulles airport, with a client list that included United Airlines and Los Alamos National Laboratories...
Remember this?
QuoteMonday, Feb. 1, 1999
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/na ... 020199.htm (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/dotmil/arkin020199.htm) "Gentlemen! We have called you together to inform you that we are going to overthrow the United States government." So begins a statement being delivered by Gen. Carl W. Steiner, former Commander-in-chief, U.S. Special Operations Command.
At least the voice sounds amazingly like him.
But it is not Steiner. It is the result of voice "morphing" technology developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
By taking just a 10-minute digital recording of Steiner's voice, scientist George Papcun is able, in near real time, to clone speech patterns and develop an accurate facsimile. Steiner was so impressed, he asked for a copy of the tape.
Steiner was hardly the first or last victim to be spoofed by Papcun's team members...
Marvin Bush was still a director (from 1993-2000) of Securacom
and this:
http://www.wisconsinproject.org/aboutus ... ref99.html (http://www.wisconsinproject.org/aboutus/media/medref99.html)
April 28, 1999, CNN, "The World Today," live interview on possible Chinese theft of nuclear weapon design information from the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Quotehttp://www.answers.com/topic/wen-ho-lee (http://www.answers.com/topic/wen-ho-lee) "In 1999, Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee was fired from his job; in 1999 he was arrested and held without trial for 278 days while his handling of sensitive nuclear information was investigated. [FBI Director, Louis J.]Freeh accused him of downloading a "portable, personal trove" of U.S. nuclear secrets. Lee pled guilty to one of the fifty-nine counts brought against him, after which he was freed from jail."
Los Alamos, posted November 1, 2001
Quotehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/ap ... 44_000.htm (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011101/aponline145044_000.htm)
The lab maintains the world's largest bank of genetic information on Bacillus anthracis, the organism that causes anthrax. More than 1,200 strains are on file, with 100 more newly identified strains from nature and scientific programs added every year from around the world...
In 1994 Los Alamos helped provide some answers to one of the world's most perplexing biological warfare puzzles: Why did 68 people living near a weapons plant in the former Soviet Union die suddenly in 1979?
...Los Alamos researchers and others examined tissue from the victims. Tests confirmed that all were infected by an unnatural mixture of anthrax strains, indicating they probably inhaled spores released from the weapons plant.
Today, Los Alamos is largely mum on its current anthrax mission. Officials will only discuss in general terms the esoteric DNA analysis going on...The lab has highly advanced equipment, some of it able to run 100 times faster and 200,000 times more sensitive than conventional DNA testing.
...On the commercial side, the lab traced an anthrax outbreak in Australia to 145-year-old anthrax spores from buried cattle that had been imported from India.
...Until now, Los Alamos has not used actual bacteria in its studies.
hmmm. Are they claiming examination of 'virtual' tissue?..even 145 year-old, but still viable, spores?
Los Alamos had another earlier high profile spying case in 1998:
Quotehttp://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2000_hr/cook.html (http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2000_hr/cook.html) ... Dr. Peter Lee confessed in a plea bargain to having knowingly passed a document classified Secret Restricted Data to China Academy of Engineering Physics (CAEP) associates during one of his trips to Peoples Republic of China (PRC).
and in 1999, Israel Aircraft Industries hosted China's second highest official, about the time Wen Ho Lee was getting arrested:
Dec. 1999, Chinese official visits IAI:
Quotehttp://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/02/world ... gewanted=1 (http://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/02/world/chinese-official-visits-israeli-aircraft-plant.html?pagewanted=1) A top Chinese official concluded a five-day visit to Israel on Tuesday with an unannounced stop at a state company that is outfitting Chinese aircraft with sophisticated surveillance radar.
The project has been criticized by some Pentagon officials and Congressional leaders.
Israeli press reports said the official, Li Peng, personally inspected the Chinese-owned, Russian-made aircraft at Israel Aircraft Industries' headquarters outside Tel Aviv. The military contractor, owned by the Israeli government, is receiving a reported $230 million to equip the plane with its airborne radar system.
Mr. Li, a former prime minister, is the head of China's Parliament and the second-highest official in its Communist Party.
Company officials declined to comment publicly on Mr. Li's visit but confirmed that it had taken place. ''There was nothing unusual about it,'' said one executive. ''Li Peng's visit to Israel was not a secret, and all the previous Chinese government delegations have visited I.A.I. as well.''
But the tour of the military aircraft plant was omitted from the Israeli Foreign Ministry's detailed official itinerary for Mr. Li, whose extended visit here included publicized stops at three other Israeli companies.
And it took place against a backdrop of continuing friction between the United States and Israel over the sale to China of advanced Israeli military technology -- technology that American critics contend has been developed with American financial and technological aid.
...The Israelis said further that despite United States concerns, they were offering to equip three more aircraft for China, in what would be one of Israel's largest foreign military contracts to date. The Israeli radar was developed by Elat, a subsidiary of Israeli Aircraft Industries.
...Mr. Li spent five nights and four days in Israel, alternating trips to a kibbutz and the Holocaust memorial with receptions at Parliament and Prime Minister Ehud Barak's office and visits to local technology industry leaders.
maybe this too circuitous, but the timing is interesting.
Epstein is likely an Intel asset and could likely be Israeli Intel as well. Here he points to a Saudi...
QuoteFBI Overlooks Foreign Sources of Anthrax
WALL STREET JOURNAL
December 24, 2001
Commentary
by Edward Jay Epstein
The government seems hell-bent in its effort to limit the suspects in the anthrax mystery to a domestic loner. First, the FBI's behavioral analysis came up with the profile of a lone wolf based on its "exacting handwriting and linguistic analysis" of one letter that contained 18 words and another that contained 27 words. It suggested that the writer of these two letters was a single disgruntled American, not connected to the jihadist terrorists of Sept. 11 (even though the letter used the plural pronoun "we" and began with an underlined "9-11").
The problem is that this approach could not apply to the attacks for which no letter was found, such as the one in Florida. More important, the "lone wolf" theory failed to explain how a single person could acquire a virulent strain of Ames bacteria and weaponize it into an aerosol by milling the spore to one to five microns in diameter and producing billions of spores.
Initially, the FBI theorized that this strain was widely available, since it had been circulated to thousands of researchers, but this confused the nonvirulent Ames strain (which lacked an outer protective shells and toxic proteins) with the virulent one contained in the letters. As it turned out, only a small number of repositories -- fewer than 20 -- ever had access to the virulent strain. The search might have been narrowed down to a single repository if the FBI had not allowed an Agriculture Department facility at Iowa State to destroy through incineration the specimens that constituted the "family tree" of the Ames strain (which had originally been found in 1932 in Ames, Iowa).
Next, an analysis at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff found that the DNA of the anthrax used in the attacks was indistinguishable from an Ames strain sample provided by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick, Md. At this point, the White House spokesman Ari Fleischer commented that the "evidence is increasingly looking like" the anthrax-laced letters came from a domestic source.
This assumption is premature. The virulent strain of the Ames virus is also found abroad.
David Franz, who headed the biological-research program at Fort Detrick between 1987 and 1998, said that when the Army wanted to conduct defensive experiment on the Ames strain, it had to obtain the "information" from a British military lab that did experiments with Ames anthrax in the powdered form. Evidently, the virulent Ames strain had been sent from the U.S. to Britain, and, after the U.S. destroyed its stockpiles in the 1970s, samples had to be obtained from the British facility at Porton Downs, specifically from the Center for Applied Microbiology and Research (CAMR). Martin Hugh-Jones, a scientist at Lousiana State University who received a sample from CAMR in the 1990s, recalls that it was marked "October, 1932." So the matching sample traces not only to the U.S. but to Britain.
The security of the British anthrax bacteria is complicated by its privatization. In 1993, at the time it was supplying the virulent Ames strain sample, CAMR was partly privatized by the British government through a marketing agreement with Porton Products Ltd. in which Porton sold all its anthrax vaccine. Porton Products was owned by Speywood Holdings Ltd., which, in turn, was owned by I&F Holdings NV, a Netherlands Antilles corporate shell owned by Fuad El-Hibri, a Lebanese Arab with joint German-U.S. citizenship; his father, Ibrihim El-Hibri; and possibly other undisclosed investors.
Prior to his taking over this biotech company, Fuad El-Hibri had worked in the mergers-and-acquisitions department of Citibank in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, where he specialized in arranging investments for large Saudi investors. Saudi Arabia then was interested in obtaining an anthrax vaccine to counter Saddam Hussein's biological warfare capabilities. But the U.S. would not provide it.
So when Mr. El-Hibri took over the British biotech lab, he reorganized its bio-terrorism defense business, and arranged deliveries of biotech defense products to Saudi Arabia. Mr. El-Hibri was unavailable for comment, but the ownership is a matter of record and he has not made a secret of his involvement in bio-warfare research. Indeed, he testified before Congress in 1999: "I participated in the marketing and distribution of substantial quantities of two bio-defense vaccines -- botulinum Type A and anthrax."
Even more intriguing, Mr. El-Hibri's interest in anthrax vaccines did not stop with his deal with CAMR. In 1998, he arranged a leveraged buyout of the Michigan Biological Products Institute. MBPI, which originally had been owned by the state of Michigan, held the exclusive contract for providing the U.S. government with anthrax vaccine. While its vaccine worked well against the Vollum strain of anthrax (used by Russia), it was more problematic against the Ames strain. So it had conducted tests with the virulent Ames strain on guinea pigs, mice and monkeys with mixed results. BioPort's spokeperson confirmed that it had access to the virulent Ames strain for testing on animals. To take over MBPI, Mr. El-Hibri became an American citizen, and gave retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a large block of stock in Intervac, one of the corporations involved in the maneuver. The controlling shareholder was the same I&F Holdings used to take control of the British biotech lab, CAMR. He then renamed the company BioPort. BioPort, which controlled America's anthrax vaccine, was apparently of some interests to scientists in Afghanistan since an environmental assessment report of its planned laboratory renovations was turned up in the house of a Pakistani scientist in Kabul.
So far, the offshore availability of anthrax has been overshadowed by the search for a domestic lone wolf. Since the lethal bacteria could have been stolen from either a foreign or domestic lab, weaponized in a stealthed bio-warfare facility overseas and sent in ziplock bags to the person mailing the letters, The investigative focus needs to be widened.
http://edjayepstein.blogspot.com/2009/1 ... apart.html (http://edjayepstein.blogspot.com/2009/12/anthrax-case-falls-apart.html)
--------
Keep in mind about Epstein:
QuoteGEORGE BUSH JR. in 1976 employed Billy Joe Lord. Lord was
Lee Harvey Oswald's roommate on the ship in 1959 when
Oswald defected to the Soviet Union. Lord filed an
affidavit with the FBI against Edward Jay Epstein the last
person to interview de Mohrenschildt before he committed
suicide after Epstein's writers threaten Lord to go to his
employer, hinting that his father was CIA Director.
Lord filed his March 15,1977 FBI complaint against Epstein
and his writers of being CIA agents. Lord had no way of
knowing that Epstein would be the last person to interview
George de Mohrenschildt two weeks later an hour before de
Mohrenschildt placed a shotgun in his mouth to clear his
conscience of his role in the JFK assassination. In 1976
Lord was an employee of Bush Exploration and oil company
in Midland, Texas and would not tolerate being threaten by
Epstein and his writers. They threaten Lord that if he
didn't cooperate they would go to his boss George Bush Jr.
at the time Bush Sr. was CIA Director and corresponding
with George de Mohrenschildt in August of 1976. The
letters between Bush Sr. and de Mohrenschildt are missing
from the CIA records as are more than 200 other Top Secret
Documents while Bush was CIA Director.On May 20, 1963
Oswald's friend, CIA agent George de Mohrenschildt a
$300,000 line of credit from Prescott Bush's banking firm
for a CIA-trust Bank. This was three days before de
Mohrenschildt would met with Vice-President, Lyndon Baines
Johnson for a second time which was before the JFK
assassination.
http://www.theinfounderground.com/forum ... =20&t=8971 (http://www.theinfounderground.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=8971)
( I personally think De Mohrenschildt was actually a Crypto-Jew from Russia. The city in Russia he came from was 70% Jewish at the time of his birth. -- The CSR.)
Epstein's misdirection...from the Israeli Mossad angle? Note he mentions the connection between Richard O. Spertzel and Ivins... of course Richard Spertzel was a member of the NeoCon team at Benador...
QuoteMonday, December 21, 2009
The Anthrax Case Falls Apart
The vast anthrax investigation, code-named Amerithrax, ended as far as the public knew on July 29 2008 with the death of Dr. Bruce Ivins, a microbiologist/wiki/Biodefense at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Maryland, at the nearby Frederick Memorial Hospital. The proximate cause of death was an overdose of the pain-killer Tylenol. No autopsy was performed, and there was no suicide note. Less than a week after his apparent suicide, the FBI declared Dr. Ivins to have been the sole perpetrator of the 2001 Anthrax attacks, and the person who mailed deadly anthrax spores to the NBC, the New York Post, and Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy accompanied by a photo-copied warning. These attacks killed 5 people, closed down the Senate's Office Building, caused a national panic, and nearly paralyzed the postal system. The FBI's 6 year investigation of it was the largest inquest in its history, involving 9000 interviews by its agents, the issuance of 6000 subpoenas, and the examination of tens of thousands of photo-copiers, typewriters, computers, and mail-boxes.
But., as massive as it was, it failed to find a shred of evidence that identified the Anthrax killer– or even a witness to the mailings. With the help of a task force of scientists, it found a flask of anthrax that closely matched through its genetic markers the attack anthrax. This flask had been in the custody of Dr. Ivins, a senior biological warfare researcher, who had published no less than 44 scientific papers over three decades, and who was working on developing vaccines against anthrax. As custodian, he provided samples of it to other scientists at Fort Detrick, the Battelle Memorial Institute, and other facilities involved in Anthrax research. According to the FBI's reckoning, over 100 scientists had been given access to it. Any of these scientists (or their co-workers) could have stolen a minute quantity of this anthrax and, by mixing it into a media of water and nutrients, used it to grow enough spores to launch the anthrax attacks. Consequently, Dr. Ivins, who was assisting the FBI with its investigation, as well as all the scientists who had access to it, became suspects in the investigation. In what approached an inquisition, they were intensely questioned, given polygraph examinations, and played off against one another in variations of the prisoner's dilemma game. And their labs, computers, phones, homes, and personal effect were scrutinized for possible clues.
As the Amerithrax proceeded over more than a half a decade, the FBI ran into frustrating dead ends, such as its relentless 5 year pursuit of Steven Hatfill, that ended with his exoneration in 2007 and his receiving a $5.8 million settlement from the US government as compensation for the damage inflicted on him. Another scientist became so stressed by the FBI's games that he began to drink heavily and died of a heart attack. Eventually, the FBI zeroed-in on Dr. Ivins. Not only did he have access to the anthrax, but FBI agents suspected he had subtly misled them into their Hatfill fiasco. A search of his email turned up pornography and bizarre emails which,, though unrelated to anthrax, suggesting that he was a deeply disturbed individual. As the FBI turned the pressure up on him, isolating him at work, and forcing him to spend what little money he had on lawyers to defend himself. He became increasingly stressed. His therapist reported that Ivins seemed obsessed with the notion of revenge and even homicide. Then came his suicide (which as Eric Nadler and Bob Coen show in their documentary The Anthrax War was one of four suicides among bio-warfare researcher.) Since Dr. Ivins odd behavior closely fit the FBI's profile of the mad scientist it had been hunting, his suicide provided an opportunity to finally close the case. So it pronounced Dr. Ivins the anthrax killer.
But there was still a vexing problem– Silicon.
Silicon was used in the 1960s to weaponize anthrax. Through an elaborate process, anthrax spores were coated with silicon to preventing them from clinging together so as to create a lethal aerosol. But since weaponization was banned by international treaties, research anthrax no longer contains silicon, and the flask at Fort Detrick contained none. Yet, the anthrax grown from it had silicon, according to the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. This silicon explained why when the letters to Senators Patrick Leahy and Tom Daschle were opened, the anthrax vaporized into an aerosol. If so, then somehow silicon was added to the anthrax. But Dr. Ivins, no matter how weird he may have been, had neither the set of skills nor the means to deliberately attach silicon to anthrax spores. At minimum, such a process would require highly-specialized equipment, such as a jet mill, that did not exist in Ivins' lab– or, for that matter, anywhere at the Fort Detrick facility. As Richard O. Spertzel, a former bio-defense scientist who worked with Ivins, explained, the lab didn't even deal with anthrax in powdered form, adding "I don't think there's anyone there who would have the foggiest idea how to do it." So while Dr. Ivins' death provided a convenient fall guy, the silicon content still had somehow to be explained.
The FBI's answer was that the anthrax contained only traces of silicon and those, it theorized, could have been accidently absorbed by the spores from the water and nutrient in which they were grown. No such nutrients were ever found in Ivins' lab, nor, for that matter, did anyone ever see Dr. Ivins attempt to produce any unauthorized anthrax (a process which would have involved him using scores of flasks.) But since no one knew what nutrients had been used to grow the attack anthrax, it was at. least possible that they had traces of silicon in them which accidently contaminated the anthrax.
Natural contamination was an elegant theory that ran into problems after Congressman Jerry Nadler pressed FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III in September 2008 to provide the House Judiciary Committee with a missing piece of data: the precise percentage of silicon contained in the anthrax used in the attacks. The answer came seven months later. According to the FBI lab, 1.4% of the powder in the Leahy letter was Silicon. "This is a shockingly high proportion," explained Dr. Stuart Jacobson, an expert in small particle chemistry. "It is a number one would expect from the deliberate weaponization of anthrax, but not from any conceivable accidental contamination." Nevertheless, in an attempt to back up its theory, the FBI contracted scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Labs in California to conduct experiments in which anthrax is accidently absorbed from a media heavily-laced with silicon. When the results were revealed to the National Academy Of Science in September 2009, they effectively blew the FBI's theory out of the water. The Livermore scientists had tried 56 times to replicate the high silicon content without any success whatsoever. Even though they added increasingly high amounts of silicon to the media, they never even came close to the 1.4 percent in the attack anthrax. Most results were indeed an order of magnitude lower, with some as low as .001 percent. What these tests inadvertently demonstrated is that the anthrax spores could not have been accidently contaminated by the nutrients in the media. " If there is that much silicon , it had to have been added, " Jeffrey Adamovicz, who supervised Ivins work at Fort Detrick, wrote to me. He added that the silicon signature in the attack anthrax could have been added via a large fermerntor– which Battellle and other labs use" but "we did not use a fermentor to grow anthrax at USAMRIID [and] We did not have the capability to add silicon compounds to anthrax spores."
If Dr. Ivins had neither the equipment or skills to weaponize anthrax with silicon, then some other party, with access to the anthrax, must have done it. Even before these startling results, Senator Leahy had told Mueller , "I do not believe in any way, shape, or manner that [Ivins] is the only person involved in this attack on Congress." So, even though the public believed that the Anthrax case had been closed more in 2008, the FBI investigation was back to square one in late 2009.
Labels: Anthrax ivins silicon
posted by Edward Jay Epstein at 5:30 PM
http://edjayepstein.blogspot.com/2009/1 ... apart.html (http://edjayepstein.blogspot.com/2009/12/anthrax-case-falls-apart.html)
Epstein never mentions the Israeli Mossad but he does mention the "Arabs" in a prior article... he's showing the evidence but hiding the killers behind the Kitchen door...
QuoteNext Door to Mohammed Atta
translated from Die Zeit 41/2002 October 2, 2002
by Oliver Schröm
Note: This report appears to based mainly on questionable and previously discredited sources, mainly a DEA investigation report on the so-called art students. Blogger Bruce Rolston fact-checks a number of Die Zeit's claims in this story. I'm inclined to go along with Rolston's interpretation and to disregard this article. Oliver Schröm's responds to these questions here, but nothing in his reply mitigates my skepticism. Stefan.
Israeli agents were living in Florida and tailing the future death pilots -- until their cover was blown.
On April 30 of last year the US Air Force sounded an alarm. The security division of the Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City warned of an "intelligence ring of Israeli art students". American law enforcement agencies had earlier learned that a noticeably large number of Israeli students had applied for jobs at software development and technology firms that primarily served government agencies. The obvious suspicion was that the young Israelis were members of a spy ring. A specially formed task force, consisting of employees of the DEA, INS and Office of Security Programs, looked into the matter.
The young Israelis were placed under surveillance and their personal details were analyzed by computer. Die ZEIT obtained the 61-page final report, according to which, 120 Israelis, organized into cells of four to six persons, formed a tightly organized and efficient espionage network. A few of the putative students were actually specialists on eavesdropping, radio technology, or counter-terrorism.
The Israelis were arrested, interrogated and subsequently deported. In the world of intelligence, espionage among friends is an everyday occurrence. In this case too many people were involved for the matter to be covered up. But both the Israeli government and American authorities tried to downplay it.
Not until after the attacks of September 11 did the consequences of the spy ring become clear. Apparently the agents were not interested in military or industrial facilities, but were shadowing a number of suspects, who were later involved in the terrorist attacks against the US. According to a report of the French intelligence agency that Die ZEIT examined, "according to the FBI, Arab terrorists and suspected terror cells lived in Phoenix, Arizona, as well as in Miami and Hollywood, Florida from December 2000 to April 2001 in direct proximity to the Israeli spy cells."
According to the report, the Mossad agents were interested in the leader of the terrorists, Mohammed Atta and his key accomplice, Marwan al-Shehi. Both lived in Hamburg before they settled in Hollywood, Florida in order to plan the attacks. A Mossad team was also operating in the same town. The leader, Hanan Serfati, had rented several dwellings. "One of Serfati's apartments was located on the corner of 701st St. and 21st Ave. [sic] in Hollywood, right near the apartment of Atta and al-Shehi.", French intelligence reported later. Everything indicates that the terrorists were constantly observed by the Israelis. The chief Israeli agent was staying right near the post office where the terrorists had a mailbox. The Mossad also had its sights on Atta's accomplice Khalid al-Midhar, with whom the CIA was also familiar, but allowed to run free. The Mossad apparently warned their American counterparts several times about the terrorists, especially about al-Midhar. The American government later admitted that they had received such warnings prior to September 11. But at most that there were attacks planned against American installations outside the United States.
Die ZEIT has learned that a few weeks before the attacks, Israeli intelligence gave US authorities a list with names of suspects who were staying in the US for the purpose of preparing attacks. Apparently not until shortly before September 11 did the CIA recognize that al-Midhar was dangerous and asked law enforcement agencies to look for him.
The full list at Benador (could just as well be AEI or AIPAC):
QuoteJune 19, 2006
The Specific People For Whom Accuracy Is An Unaffordable "Luxury"
It's rare that America's premier propagandists come straight out and say that, in these dangerous times, factual accuracy is a "luxury" we can't afford. But as I noted below, Eleana Benador of the PR firm Benador Associates did just that in an interview with the Nation:
Benador, who said her client [Amir Taheri] was "traveling in the Middle East," was impatient with dissections of his work. Terming accuracy with regard to Iran "a luxury," she said, "My major concern is the large picture. Is Taheri writing one or two details that are not accurate? This is a guy who is putting his life at stake." She noted that "the Iranian government has killed its opponents." Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "says he wants to destroy Israel. He says the Holocaust never happened.... As much as being accurate is important, in the end it's important to side with what's right. What's wrong is siding with the terrorists."
Benador Associates, of course, represents many of the those who were most strident in calling for war with Iraq. Now their clientele is extremely strident in calling for war with Iran.
Do the factual standards Eleana Benador espouses apply to her clients besides Taheri? It seems fair to assume so, given their extremely impressive track record of lying. (For one example, involving Benador client Richard Spertzel, see here. If anyone feels like conducting a research project, I guarantee there are literally hundreds more.)
So who are these people for whom accuracy is a luxury? Here are a few of the most prominent, taken from the Benador website. No one who's spent any time awake since 1993 will be surprised:
David Gelernter
Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
Victor Davis Hanson
Charles Krauthammer
Michael A. Ledeen
Laurie Mylroie
Richard Perle
Richard O. Spertzel
Amir Taheri
James Woolsey
Meyrav Wurmser
(Note that Judith Miller, while no longer listed, is a former client.)
The entire list is below.
Ali Al-Ahmed
Ali Ahmed Al-Baghli
Nir Boms
Arnaud de Borchgrave
Ismail Cem
Leon Charney
Ariel Cohen
Saad Eddin Ibrahim
Rachel Ehrenfeld
John Eibner
Hillel Fradkin
Ilana Freedman
David Gelernter
Dr. Stephen Gullo
Michel Gurfinkiel
Alexander M. Haig, Jr.
Victor Davis Hanson
Fereydoun Hoveyda
Mansoor Ijaz
Raphael Israeli
Charles Jacobs
George Jonas
Stanley H. Kaplan
Efraim Karsh
Charles Krauthammer
Herbert I. London
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
Michael A. Ledeen
Kanan Makiya
Paul Marshall
Andrew C. McCarthy
Michael Meyer
Hassan Mneimneh
Laurie Mylroie
Ayman Nour
John O'Sullivan
Yossi Olmert
Salameh Nematt
Richard Perle
Walid Phares
Richard Pipes
Dennis Prager
David Pryce-Jones
Tom Rose
A.M. Rosenthal
Jano Rosebiani
Tashbih Sayyed
Natan Sharansky
Michael Shrimpton
Richard O. Spertzel
Amir Taheri
Paul Vallely
Ruth Wedgwood
James Woolsey
Meyrav Wurmser
http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000982.html (http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/000982.html)
A good run down that exonerate Ivins. Note Spertzel's quote:
QuoteSean Sailor
March 2, 2010
After a 8 year investigation the FBI officially closed it's "Amerithrax" case last month claiming deceased microbiologist Bruce Ivins "acted alone" in the October, 2001 anthrax mailings that resulted in the deaths of 5 people.
This however, is one "conspiracy theory" only an outright loon would believe, as it lacks any evidence linking Mr Ivins to the crime, even circumstantially.
A quick rundown of the facts are:
Nothing ties Ivins to the letters. Nothing ties the anthrax to Ivins either. He was one of over 100 others that had access the same materials. Material that was not of the type sent in the letters. Ivins did not have access to the type of weaponized anthrax used in the attack, nor was he able to make it himself.
"In my opinion, there are maybe four or five people in the whole country who might be able to make this stuff, and I'm one of them," said Richard O. Spertzel, former deputy commander of USAMRIID
Indeed, an electron microscope, which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, would be needed to manufacture such a highly refined product. Not to mention years of specialized training that Ivins also lacked.
There must be something that ties this crime to Ivins? the incredulous reader might be asking himself at this point. No and no again I will answer, there is none.
The FBI' s released documents show there was no evidence, no testimony, no witnesses and no confession of guilt. These same FBI documents reveal that the majority of the investigation centered upon finding something sexual in nature to hang upon Mr. Ivins.
Lacking any evidence that he was somehow linked to the terrorist attacks, the FBI then targeted the investigation on Ivins' sex life and preferences.
Hundreds of FBI man hours were then spent investigating what kind of magazines Ivins enjoyed, his sexual preferences and making calls to mail order purveyors of marital aids to see if someone might remember him.
Weeks of Special Agent time was poured into finding out if Ivins was the same man who played a few songs at a sorority house in Nashville decades ago.
Amazingly, no one could remember.
Ivins spent tens of thousands of dollars defending himself against a case that, in the end, centered around his sexual proclivities and had nothing to do with the capital crime for which he was "suspected" of.
A read through the available case documents shows a man many years active in his church and charities such as the Red Cross, with no criminal record.
A man who was, in the words of a colleague, "hounded" by the FBI with multiple raids upon his home, interrogations, surveillance and compelled grand jury appearances. He passed 2 lie detector tests, survived multiple audits of his workplace and went through an incredible amount of strain.
In the end however, the FBI was unable to link Mr Ivins in the Amerithrax attacks no matter how many panty sniffing FBI agents went into the field to investigate sorority houses.
The FBI would have had to give up, until a curious thing happened on July 27, 2008: Bruce Ivins killed himself.
In the end, the "dangerous" scientist killed himself with Tylenol, leaving no suicide note. Even though he had protested his innocence to the end and had recently emailed a friend that he had no intention of killing himself.
Just days after Ivins' "suicide" the government stance changed from that of being unable to charge him, to that he did it. Not only that, but lacking any evidence that he did do it, they were never the less sure he acted had alone.
On August 6, just 10 days after Ivins death, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor, officially made a statement that Ivins was the "sole culprit" in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
That has been the official government line since that time, culminating in the FBI official closing of the case with the same pronouncement.
Again, lacking any evidence tying him to the terrorist attacks, they have instead accused Mr. Ivins of being a cross-dresser and point out that they found girly magazines when going through his trash.
The mainstream press in America, like the lap-dogs that they are, sensed the tone of how they were to cover it from that point and have obliged the government almost completely since that time. Ignoring the fact that no evidence exists to link Ivins to the crime, they smear him as the "anthrax letter scientist" cross-dresser that's "into bondage".
Fox News, whose commentators regularly accuse anyone that suggests 9/11 needs to be re-investigated as being a "nut" that thinks something as preposterous as 'our own government" was responsible, has no problem saying the same with the Amerithrax case. They have to. Everyone knows the anthrax came from Ft. Detrick.
For some reason, instead of "our own government" its a Benedict Arnold amongst us. Something that must never have occurred to them concerning 9/11. Because they keep saying "own government" as if every single person in the government down to the lowest postal worker would have had to been in on it.
No problem with that in the Amerithrax case though. No mention of it being a "loony" idea that "our own government" did it, no commentators stating that the FBI position is "blasphemous".
So much for an "inside job" being crazy: MSM loves the idea with the Ivins case. They don't even need any evidence. Nor are they interested in any. It's good enough for them to quote a FBI agent as saying that he heard Ivins himself say he was a cross-dresser, then proceed to list what the FBI found in their panty raids.
As to the Amerithrax crime? They covered that part in the headline Anthrax Letter Scientist 'Obsessed' With Bondage, Sorority. What more proof do you need?
As for myself, none.
I have all the proof I need to know that the MSM would get on the airwaves tomorrow and announce that the moon was made of cheese- if only they could be convinced that it's the official government position on the matter.
Sean Sailor March, 2010
http://seansailor.wordpress.com/ (http://seansailor.wordpress.com/)
One year later propaganda, pinning it on Al-Ciada before the Iraq War. Here Spertzel begins to suggest it was Iraq that created the Anthrax if not Al-Ciada:
QuoteAl Qaeda, Anthrax and Ayman
means, opportunities, motive, and modus operandi
Copyright 2002 Ross E. Getman, Esq.
November 20, 2002 rev.
(Note: Footnoted authorities are linked.)
Vice President Cheney, CIA Director Tenet, Gorbachev, the former chief arms inspector in Iraq, and the former head CIA agent in Iraq all have said that they believe that Al Qaeda is responsible for the anthrax attacks. A growing number of commentators agree -- urging that the publicly known evidence about means, opportunity, modus operandi and motive in the Amerithrax investigation points to Al Qaeda.(1) The argument, however, is far stronger than has been made to date.
First, Al Qaeda has had anthrax since at least 1997. Dr. Ayman Zawahiri's right-hand man confessed that Zawahiri succeeded in obtaining anthrax and intended to use it against US targets.
Second, Senators Daschle and Leahy likely were targeted because of the appropriations to military and security forces that have prevented the militant islamists from achieving their goals. The appropriations are made pursuant to the "Leahy Law." The FBI's involvement in muslim countries is deemed to interfere with the sovereignty of those countries. Senator Leahy is Chairman of both the Judiciary Committee overseeing the FBI and the Appropriations Subcommittee in charge of foreign aid to these countries.
Third, the Egyptian islamists sent letter bombs a few years ago to newspaper offices in New York City and Washington, D.C. in connection with the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center. The letter bombs were sent in connection with the treatment of the Egyptian islamists imprisoned for the earlier attack on the WTC. The apparent purpose of the letter bombs --which resulted in minimal casualty -- was to send a message. (There is an outstanding $2 million reward)
A number of additional miscellaneous issues are addressed below. The issues are marked by conflicting evidence but are consistent with Al Qaeda's responsibility: to include the FBI's profile; the hijacker Ahmed's leg lesion; the reported inquiries about cropdusters; Atta's travel to Prague and alleged meeting with an Iraqi official; the dubious "Hatfill theory"; the question whether the letter to AMI was the Jennifer Lopez letter; the Fort Lee, New Jersey $100,000 processor; and the "confirmed cases" of anthrax in Pakistan.
The FBI, for its part, reports that it is vigorously testing many alternative hypotheses.(2) The FBI has said that authorities do not know whether the perp is American or Foreign.(3) Asked if the possibility of an overseas perpetrator is still open, an investigator says, "Absolutely. Until we get a good suspect identified, we're looking at all theories."(4)
Means and Opportunity: Al Qaeda's Biochem Program
Bin Laden purchased anthrax a few years ago from a supplier in North Korea.(6) The Moro Front, an Indonesian radical group associated with Bin Laden, arranged for the purchase, but Bin Laden's own name was reportedly on the purchase order.(7) Dr. Ayman Zawahiri had a list of 100 US and Israeli targets to use it against.(8) Thus, while the question of the source of the Ames strain used in the Amerithrax mailings is problematic and addressed more fully below, Al Qaeda's acquisition of anthrax for the purpose of using it as a weapon against the US has been known for a long time. Indeed, Vice President Cheney and his staff knew to take Cipro on 9/11, a full week before the first anthrax letter was mailed.(9)
In 1999, the Federation of American Scientists ("FAS") detailed the facts relating to Bin Laden's purchase of anthrax in 1997 (relying on the translation of confessions and court testimony of Egyptian Islamic Jihad members).(10) At the same time the pro-Bin Laden Jihad elements obtained the anthrax and other pathogens, they diversified the targets and did not limit them to the blowing up of installations. They launched joint action with other groups and organizations, both local groups and others operating outside their countries. The group has maintained the objective of seizing power in Egypt since the coup planned by Jihad in 1981 and despite the Egyptian government's success in cracking down on the organization.(11)
Upon the merger in 1998, the most senior planners in Al Qaeda relating to tactics and biological weapons were Egyptian Islamic Jihad, to include Ayman Zawahiri, Mohammed Atef, and Abu Khabab. Zawahiri is the real "brains" behind 9/11, not Bin Laden.(12) While the US government views the two groups as having merged in 1998, author Peter Bergen suggests that they have essentially been the same organization, with the merger having occurred some years before that.(13) Formerly the head of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Zawahiri assumed the #2 position after Bin Laden upon a merger of some of Islamic Jihad into Al Qaeda a few years ago.(14) Zawahiri was in charge of Al Qaeda's biological weapons program. Zawahiri's wrath against the United States is thought to have sharpened in 1998 upon the extradition of some islamic jihad members to Egypt from Albania.(15)
In 1998, Zawahiri took time out from his travels to create some computer documents describing his biological and chemical program, which he code-named "Curdled Milk."(16) The project apparently included work on a pesticide/nerve agent that used a chemical to increase absorption (and was tested on rabbits and dogs).(17)
Zawahiri was assisted by Midhat Mursi (alias Abu Khabab).(18) An Egyptian chemical engineer, he ran the camp named Abu Khabab. Abu Khabab's whereabouts are still unknown. Al Qaeda's experimentation with its chemical weapons is now featured on the nightly television news picturing a dog being put to death. Disturbing scenes of death show Al Qaeda's capability with what appears to be cyanide gas, which Al Qaeda contemplated using recently in Indonesia -- dispensing it by perfume bottles -- and reportedly in the Tube in London.(19)
There have been even more dramatic reports concerning an Al Qaeda facility in northern Iraq where there was testing of chemical and biological weapons (such as ricin, which is derived from castor beans) on barnyard animals and a human.(20) It apparently is protected by a radical Kurdish group in an area not controlled by Saddam Hussein.(21) ABCNEWS reported that there is evidence the terrorists tested ricin in water, as a powder and as an aerosol. They used it to kill donkeys and chickens, and at one point, the terrorists allegedly exposed a man to the toxin in an Iraqi market and followed him home and watched him die several days later.(22) In Afghanistan, documents were found indicating that Al Qaeda was doing research relating to plans to use botulinum to kill 2,000 people.(23) According to Stephen Younger, director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, however, Al-Qaida's interest in biological weapons has been focused mainly on anthrax.(24) One lab contained a centrifuge for separating liquids and an oven in which slurried agents could be dried.(25)
Dr. Ayman Zawahiri's home in Kabul tested positive for anthrax. (26) It has never been reported that the test was a false positive or that the anthrax was determined to be naturally occurring. Similarly, 5 out of 19 labs tested positive for traces of anthrax.(27) The Kabul office of Pakistani scientist Sultan Bashiru-din Mehmood also contained documents indicating an interest in anthrax -- to include calculations relating to the aerial dispersal of anthrax by a balloon. US-hating (Taliban) Mullahs oversaw the anthrax vaccine laboratory, much to the consternation of the scientist in charge of the lab. (28) In late November, an AP photo showed something at the lab described as "anthrax spore concentrate."(29)
John Lindh told interrogators that, according to battlefield rumors, a biological attack was expected to be a "second wave."(30)
Zawahiri traveled widely in his attempts to obtain and weaponize anthrax and other terroristic missions -- he traveled to Malaysia, Iraq, Russia and United States. For example, Zawahiri traveled to the US in 1991, 1995 and possibly 1998 under an alias.(31) He went to California, New York and DC (and apparently Texas at one point). Zawahiri sometimes was accompanied by a New Jersey pharmacist and a California doctor (a former classmate who denies knowing who Zawahiri was). They were joined by a former US Army sergeant and key Al Qaeda operative, Ali Mohammed.(32) Zawahiri went to Russia in 1997 where he was imprisoned for 6 months. (The Russians never learned his real identity.) (33) In 1998 he went to Baghdad.(34) According to Newsweek, U.S. operatives in Afghanistan discovered evidence indicating that one or more Russian scientists were helping al-Qaeda weaponize anthrax.(35) US News had an account of a reporter's encounter with a Filipino carrying papers from Dr. Zawahiri (allowing free lodging) and bragging about his ability to manipulate anthrax.(36)
Dr. Richard Spertzel, the former UN inspector in Iraq, says that the product here was well within Iraq's capability. UNSCOM determined that the Iraqi weapons program produced dried anthrax as well as the more primitive wet form.(37) Spertzel and others agree that Iraq would likely have Ames -- having first sought it in 1988 (and security being so lax at so many laboratories that had it).(38)
Given that we know where Saddam lives, and he is a survivalist, he would want to maintain deniability in the event he had assisted in the anthrax mailing. As former Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek has explained, a terrorist state sponsor would want to use a strain that was not associated with it.
Spertzel states: "Iraq certainly knows how to produce 100 percent pure spores. That is a technique that they developed ... which is capable of giving them the kind of concentrations that we are seeing in the Daschle letter."(39) The bottom-line, however, remains that Iraq is just one of a number of possibilities. Al Qaeda had purchased anthrax for the intention of using it against US targets and Zawahiri sought out the necessary expertise in his travels. (40)
The genetic analysis of Dr. Keim, from Northern Arizona, had promised to remove all doubt potentially as to the source of the anthrax. Hopes have long since faded according to press reports. Timothy D. Read, whose work at the Institute for Genetic Research in Rockville, Md. provided the FBI with its first genetic roadmap for anthrax, has said that the differences identified by his team could not pinpoint the source.(41)
The research is reported in "Science."(42) The analysis is directed to showing the similarity between various samples of Ames. According to many reports, Ames was widely distributed to universities throughout the world. But even under the most conservative estimate (such as made by Dr. Hatch Rosenberg), the strain was sent to 15-20 labs. The "Science" article does not address the testing done with respect to isolates from the vast majority of labs where Ames was known to be. 15 labs remained to be tested. (Note that the date of the lab isolate presumed by some to be Ft. Detrick was not disclosed in the article.)
One expert, Dr. C.J. Peters, summarizes:
"Knowing that this strain was originally isolated in the U.S. has absolutely nothing to do with where the weapon may have been prepared because, as I tried to make the point, these strains move around. A post doc in somebody's laboratory could have taken this strain to another lab and it could have been taken overseas and it could have ended up absolutely anywhere. Tiny quantities of anthrax that you couldn't see, that you couldn't detect in an inventory can be used to propagate as much as you want. So that's just not, in fact, very helpful."(43)
Ft. Detrick sent its Ames strain to places like Porton Down in Great Britain and Suffield in Canada.(44) We can reasonably assume that Ft. Detrick did not send it directly to any supplier in North Korea. Presently, there is no information in the public record as to the strain that Bin Laden purchased in 1997. Informed analysis requires that at least that much be determined.
Working on the assumption that the anthrax purchased from the North Korea supplier was not Ames -- which is a huge and perhaps reckless assumption -- then the question relevant to an Al Qaeda theory is what access to the US Army strain might have been accomplished by someone with 1) a multi millionaire (Bin Laden) backing his play, and 2) a lot of Muslims who believe in his Islamist cause (for example, toppling the Egyptian and Saudi regimes). The possible sources include Russia, Iraq, the US Army, or a facility that obtained Ames from the US Army or other researcher who had it.
This was the instinct of the Administration from early on, according to Woodward's Bush at War:
"They turned to the hot topic of anthrax. The powder in the letter mailed to Senator Daschle's office had been found to be potent, prompting officials to suggest its source was likely an expert capable of producing the bacteria in huge amounts. Tenet said, "I think it's AQ -- meaning Al Qaeda."
"I think there's a state sponsor involved. It's too well thought-out, the powder's too well refined. It might be Iraq, it might be Russia, it might be a renegade scientist, perhaps from Iraq or Russia."
"I'm not going to talk about a state sponsor." Tenet assured them.
"It's good that we don't." said Cheney, "because we're not ready to do anything about it."
The technique to weaponize the anthrax was not the one used by the US Army. (William Patrick's process involved freeze drying and chemical processing whereas it was the Iraqi process that involved spraydrying.)(45)
It appears, according to US bioweaponeer William Patrick, that the electrostatic charge was not removed.(46) This is contrary to what numerous press accounts have reported (based on assumptions outside observers were making dating back to last Fall). Moreover, former Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and Harvard biologist Meselson have opined that there was no special coating.(47) Any silica-like coating, Drs. Meselson and Alibek say, may have been naturally occuring. Both of these points seem to indicate that the production was not state-sponsored, industrial production.
An article in the New York Times in May 2002 noted the views of the bioweaponeer experts Alibek and Patrick based on the admittedly sparse information available:
"As federal experts investigated the residual Daschle sample, they found the picture becoming fuzzier. On one hand, the concentration of the anthrax was extraordinarily high — roughly equal to that made in the abandoned American germ weapons program, a trillion spores per gram. But federal experts now say the particles turned out to have a large size range. While single spores predominated, the experts said, some Daschle clusters ranged up to 40 microns wide — far too big to penetrate human lungs. A micron is one-millionth of a meter, and a human hair is 75 to 100 microns wide. The big clusters suggested the powder was far less than weapons grade. Private experts disagree on just how much less. Ken Alibek, a former Soviet germ official who is now president of Advanced Biosystems, a consulting company in Manassas, Va., called the Daschle anthrax mediocre. 'It was not done with a regular industrial process,' Dr. Alibek said in an interview. 'Maybe it's homemade.' ... But William C. Patrick III, a scientist who made germ weapons for the American military and is now a private consultant on biological defense, rated the Daschle anthrax as 7 on a scale of 10. 'It's relatively high grade,' Patrick said, 'but not weapons grade.' (48)
Dr. Spertzel, on the other hand, remains more impressed with the quality of the product. Perhaps everyone would agree, however, that there is much information that has not yet been disclosed about the process used to weaponize the anthrax, and perhaps that is as it should be.
Motive: The reason Leahy and Daschle were targeted
The letters to the news organizations were mailed -- coincidentally or not -- on September 17 or September 18, the day the Camp David Accord had been signed in 1978 and then approved the next day by the Israeli knesset.(49) The letter read:
09-11-01
THIS IS NEXT
TAKE PENACILIN NOW
DEATH TO AMERICA
DEATH TO ISRAEL
ALLAH IS GREAT.
Taking into account the fact that there was no mail postmarked with a Trenton postmark on Columbus Day, October 8, the letter to Senator Tom Daschle postmarked October 9 may actually have been mailed October 6. October 6 was the day Anwar Sadat was assassinated for his role in the Camp David Accord. (Sadat was assassinated on October 6, which was Armed Forces Day. He was killed during an annual holiday parade which marks the day Egypt made a critical successful surprise attack on Israel during the 1973 war). (50)
The note read:
09-11-01
YOU CAN NOT STOP US.
WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX.
YOU DIE NOW.
ARE YOU AFRAID?
DEATH TO AMERICA.
DEATH TO ISRAEL.
ALLAH IS GREAT.(51)
In an interview broadcast on al-Jazeera television on October 7, 2001 -- which was about when the second letter saying "Death to America'" and "Death to Israel" was mailed -- Ayman Zawahiri echoed a familiar refrain sounded by Bin Laden:
"O people of the U.S., can you ask yourselves a question: Why all this enmity for the United States and Israel? Your government supports the corrupt governments in our countries."(52)
Senator Daschle is the majority leader of the Senate, which approves appropriations that support the governments in countries such as Egypt, Israel and Pakistan. Senator Leahy is Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, which has oversight jurisdiction over the FBI and INS. (53) That role alone would explain why Senatory Leahy was targeted as a symbol. But to more fully appreciate why Leahy -- a human rights advocate and liberal democrat -- might have been targeted as a symbol, it is important to know that Senator Leahy is head of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, the panel in charge of aid to Egypt and Israel. That aid goes to the core of Al Qaeda's complaint against the United States. (The portion going to Egypt and Israel constitutes, by far, the largest portion of US foreign aid, and most of that is for military and security purposes.)(54) Pakistan is now a grudging ally in the "war against terrorism" largely due to the US Aid it now receives in exchange for that cooperation. In September 2001, the press in the US and in muslim countries discussed the waiver of the curbs under the Leahy Law in light of the war against terror.(55)
A Hamas activist wrote in an ode "To Anthrax" on November 1, 2001:
"O, anthrax, despite, your wretchedness, you have sewn horror in the heart of the lady of arrogance, of tyranny, of boastfulness!"(56)
The "Leahy Law" plays a key role in the secret "rendering" of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Al Qaeda) operatives to countries like Egypt, Jordan and Algeria where they are allegedly tortured. Although humanitarian in its intent, the law permits continued appropriations to military and security units who conduct torture in the event of "extraordinary circumstances." According to the New York Times,
"Egypt's intelligence service has a reputation for being among the most formidable and ruthless in the Middle East, and several of those arrested in other countries have been sent to Egypt for interrogation or trial. According to evidence gathered for a 1999 trial in Egypt of more than 100 defendants from the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the intelligence agents regularly used torture to obtain confessions from suspected terrorists."(57)
A video clip dealing with the rise of militant Islam in Egypt features a jailed Zawahiri in the early 1980s ferociously condemning torture and other human rights violations by the Egyptian government.(58)
After 9/11, national security interests sometimes have been deemed to override such concern for human rights. (US officials recently complained about an Egyptian-American academic who has been imprisoned, but Al Qaeda/Egyptian Islamic Jihad operatives have not merited our concern). (59) Dr. Ayman Zawahiri's associates and even his brother have been spirited off by jet planes to destinations where interrogations might be more fruitful.
In a videotape that circulated in the summer of 2001, Zawahiri said
"In Egypt they put a lot of people in jails -- some sentenced to be hanged. And in the Egyptian jails, there is a lot of killing and torture. All this happens under the supervision of America."(60)
One associate of Zawahiri was secretly grabbed in southeast Asia and turned over to Egypt, and a Yemeni microbiologist was seized in Pakistan in October and turned over to Jordan.(61). At the time Ayman Zawahiri was getting his biological weapons program in full swing, his brother Mohammed was picked up in the United Arab Emirates and secretly rendered to Egyptian security forces.(62) According to his recent autobiography, Zawahiri himself reportedly was tortured while imprisoned after the assassination of Anwar Sadat.
The appropriations to these military and security units have prevented Al Qaeda from achieving its aims. Zawahiri discusses this torture, the secret rendering of jihadists, and the US Aid and cooperation with Egyptian and other military and security forces throughout his 2001 book "Knights Under the Prophet's Banner."(63) The people who suggest that Al Qaeda would have had no motivation to send weaponized anthrax to Senators Daschle and Leahy -- because they are liberal -- are mistaken. The main goal of Dr. Zawahiri is to topple President Mubarak. He views the US Aid as the chief obstacle and is indifferent to this country's labels of conservative and liberal. This US Aid to the security forces is his chief complaint against the United States and has been Al Qaeda's main focus since 1998.
Modus Operandi: Egyptian Islamists' earlier WTC letter bombs
This was not the first time the Egyptian islamists sent letter bombs to newspaper offices in connection with an attack on the World Trade Center. A dozen letter bombs were sent to newspaper offices in New York City and Washington, D.C. in December 1996/January 1997. The letter bombs were sent from Alexandria, Egypt, to the London, New York, and Washington, D.C. offices of the newspaper Al Hayat.(64) The paper, owned by a member of the Saudi royal family, is the leading international Arabic-language newspaper.(65)
Two people were injured when one bomb went off in London. Bombs were also sent to the prison officials at the Kansas prison where the WTC plotters were being jailed. (66) The blind sheik the previous year had given an interview complaining of mistreatment by prison officials and asking that he be avenged. The key WTC bomber imprisoned at Leavensworth had also complained of mistreatment and the conditions.(67)
One commentator has noted:
"It has been stated that the tactics of enclosing warnings in the letters shows the attacker did not intend to commit murder. This is nonsense. The death of Robert Stevens was public knowledge before the Senate letters were mailed. The attacker knew full well that he was placing large numbers of people in deadly peril and acknowledged this in the text of the Senate letters. As Brian Jenkins [Deputy Director of Kroll Associates] has famously noted, 'terrorists want a lot of people watching, not a lot of people dead.' The letter tactics were chosen to maximize the scope of terrorism, not to limit or avoid casualties."(68)
Sending poisonous letter bombs is part of Al Qaeda's modus operandi in that the Al Qaeda operations manual, the most recent version on CD-ROM, had a chapter on "Poisonous Letter." (69) As with the insertion of biologicals into food, the key is mass panic, not mass casualty.
Al Qaeda is concerned with handling its efforts in such a way as to develop and maintain the Arab hatred of the US and Israel -- and that requires a delicate balance and choice of suitable targets. Zawahiri divines from his religious texts that it is moral to kill American civilians on the grounds that they stood silent as taxpayers while US-bought weapons were used on Palestinians. The al Qaeda shura (policy-making council), however, may deem that Al Qaeda needs to choose the methods of attack carefully so that they are both are effective and calculated to gain the support of others. (Gassing the Kurds ultimately was a public relations debacle for Saddam once the world stopped looking the other way). Just recently Zawahiri was invited to participate by telephone or internet in a conference of islamists in Cairo. The seeds he has planted are bearing fruit. (70) Where there are democratic processes, islamists have made substantial recent gains, to include in Pakistan, Morocco, Bahrain and Turkey.
When Zawahiri's Islamic Jihad or related egyptian islamist group (led by the blind sheik) sent letter bombs to newspaper offices in Washington, D.C. and NYC in 1997 -- to include the "Parole Officer" and other prison officials where a key WTC bomber was imprisoned -- it apparently was because Al Hayat didn't support the radical islamist cause and because the WTC prisoners had complained of mistreatment. Why would the Islamic Jihad target AMI, the publisher of the National Enquirer? Just a dispute with a landlady over a security deposit? (The wife of the AMI owner was the landlady for some of the hijackers). (71) Was there an early first letter to AMI so that the hijackers would be in a position to receive feedback on the effectiveness of the weaponized anthrax? Or had Bat Boy given Bin Laden the finger prior to 9/11? What coverage did those publications give the blind sheik and the WTC bombers? The FBI is investigating and went back to AMI.(72)
Miscellaneous
1. The FBI's Profile. The FBI profile, according to early reports, concluded that the letter writer is an American but is foreign-born (and not a native english speaker). (73) The emphasis in the press reports, however, has always been on the suggestion that the mailer likely is "domestic" rather than foreign -- a lone, male scientist who works in a lab.
Although the FBI profile has been widely criticized by experts and in editorials in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Washington Post, The Economist, The Weekly Standard, and other newspapers and magazines, it is more flexible than its critics imagine.(74) The Amerithrax profile of a loner with a grudge permits a variety of motivations, including sympathy with the Islamist cause.(75). It is worth noting that the FBI even uses the word "domestic" to refer to Americans sympathetic with an extremist islamic cause. The Washington Post explained in late October:
"Everything seems to lean toward a domestic source," one senior official said. 'Nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist type operation.' The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are considering a wide range of domestic possibilities, including associates of right-wing hate groups and U.S. residents sympathetic to the causes of Islamic extremists."(76)
Indeed, as Attorney General Ashroft has said, an "either-or matrix" is not useful.(77) By way of example, was long-time Al Qaeda operative and former US Army sergeant Ali Mohamed "foreign" or "domestic"? Are the young men from Buffalo -- most of whom were US citizens and born here -- "foreign" or "domestic"? Domestic terrorism expert Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center has never departed from his view noted last October -- that a domestic terrorist (in the conventional sense of native-born and right-wing) is not responsible.(78)
The FBI's stock profile concerning anthrax was a lone, unstable individual -- last October, the profilers pretty much just reached into the filing cabinet. Surprisingly, the profilers did not adjust their thinking based on 9/11 or the intelligence that Zawahiri had obtained anthrax for the purpose of weaponizing it for use against US targets.(79) In any event, FBI profiler James R. Fitzgerald, head of FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, can be forgiven his flawed profile in early November because such a profile is far more useful in supporting warrants in the US in connection with a variety of leads that prudently needed to be pursued.
One intelligence official reportedly has suggested that one reason that the FBI has not emphasized the possibility of a foreign source is that it might require UN involvement in the investigation pursuant to certain biological weapons protocols.(80)
2. The hijacker Ahmed's blackened leg lesion. One of the hijackers, Ahmed Alhaznawi, went to the ER on June 25 with what now appears to have been cutaneous anthrax, according to Dr. Tsonas, the doctor who treated him, and other experts.(81) Alhaznawi had just arrived in the country on June 8. His exposure perhaps related to a camp he had been in Afghanistan. He said he got the blackened gash-like lesion when he bumped his leg on a suitcase two months earlier. (82) Two months earlier he had been in camp (according to a videotape he later made serving as his last Will and Testament).(83) There are some spiders that on rare occasions bite and cause such a blackened eschar (notably the Brown Recluse Spider found in some parts of the United States).(84)
The FBI merely says no anthrax was found where the hijackers were.(85) (The FBI tested the crash sites where the planes came down and found no traces of anthrax). No doubt there are some other diseases that lead to similar sores. It is reasonable to credit, though, that it was cutaneous anthrax considering all the circumstances.( 86) Although it may have been unrelated, Atta later came in to a pharmacy with red hands as if he had been working with a chlorine bleach solution, which is used to decontaminate anthrax.(87)
3. The inquiries about cropdusters. Mohammed Atta and Zacarias Moussaiou reportedly made inquiries about cropdusters.(88) Ahmad Ressam, an Al Qaeda terrorist caught in the United States, revealed that Bin Laden was personally interested in using low flying aircraft to dispense biological agents. (89)
The CIA, in an October 2002 assessment, reports that, Iraq, for example, "already has produced modified drop-tanks that can disperse biological or chemical agents effectively. Before the Gulf war, the Iraqis successfully experimented with aircraft-mounted spray tanks capable of releasing up to 2,000 liters of an anthrax simulant over a target area. Iraq also has modified commercial crop sprayers successfully and tested them with an anthrax simulant delivered by helicopters."(90)
Anthrax likely can be delivered using the nozzle set-up that some USDA official says Atta imagined (as explained by Secretary Cohen some years ago).(91) Indeed, Secretary Cohen's remarks were found in the Kabul home with papers relating to the aerial delivery of anthrax.
Some investigators on the team prosecuting Zacarias Moussouai think he wasn't expected to take part in the 9/11 plan as such, but was expected instead to use a cropduster. (French intelligence suggests instead that there was a plan to hijack an international airliner.) It's also unknown what role Atta's roommate, pilot Ramzi Binalshibh, would have played if he had succeeded on one of his four attempts to get into the country. (Ramzi Binalshibh was Atta's former roommate in Germany and was recently captured in Karachi, Pakistan). On the other hand, perhaps the cropdusters related to a chemical or nerve agent. Others reasonably suggest it related to use as a flying fuel bomb. Others even reasonably question that there were ever such inquiries. Based on the interrogation of Famzi Binalshibh, it now appears that the 9/11 planners lost confidence in Moussaoui's discretion, and intended to use him only as a fallback. Whatever the reason for the inquiries -- assuming for the sake of argument they occurred -- perhaps they ran out of pilots (due to Zacarias Moussaiou's arrest and Ramzi Binalshibh's inability to get into the country).(92)
4. Atta's travels to Prague and the alleged Iraq connection. According to some reports, Atta met in Prague with an Iraqi case handler and obtained the anthrax from Iraq then. (93) The reported transfer of a vial of anthrax, however, is totally unproven (regardless whether the story traces back to Israeli intelligence or instead traces back to Egyptian intelligence). The origin of the story seems to have been based simply on speculation of what might have occurred (at a meeting that has not yet even been established to have occurred).
In contrast to what most of the senior Czech officials have said, the Prague Post quoted the director general of the Czech foreign intelligence service UZSI (Office of Foreign Relations and Information), Frantisek Bublan, denying the much-touted meeting -- and he also now may (or perhaps not) have been joined by the Czech President.(94) But never let it be said the White House has been consistent on the issue either.(95) Until and unless those Czech officials still claiming there was a meeting produce a photo, we are left with a mush of conflicting and inconclusive reports. The bottom-line is that Al Qaeda did not need Iraq to commit this crime and it is more prudent to limit the conclusion to Al Qaeda's involvement absent additional evidence, particularly when going to war is at issue.
Mr. Pearl, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, says there is "powerful evidence" showing Iraq is giving biological and chemical weapons to Al Qaeda.(96) There are some detailed reports by defectors concerning Al Qaeda's coordination with Saddam on biological and chemical weapons beginning in 1998, but those reports all depend on the reliability of those defectors -- the briefs made by President Bush and Tony Blair lacked a "smoking gun" in this regard.(97) The presence of facilities does not tell you much. Implied threats that biological weapons will be used in defense are to be expected given that the US has said it is going to attack Iraq (based on its worst fears).
A detailed argument relating to the connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda can be found online in the trillion dollar complaint against Iraq brought by the law firm Kreindler & Kreindler in connection with 9/11.(98)
5. The "Hatfill Theory". The FBI official in charge of the investigation, Agent Van Harp, has said in a USA Today interactive chat and elsewhere that the speculation about foot-dragging by the FBI has no basis. As explained in a Wall Street Journal article dated March 26, which was based on information provided by the FBI, the reason for the delay has related to the many scientific, safety and security issues implicated.(99) He emphatically denied the suggestion by Dr. Hatch Rosenberg (first made in a BBC interview) that it was a CIA experiment gone awry.(100) He said all the names of the folks submitted by Dr. Hatch Rosenberg and her contacts in the field had been investigated and did not pan out. (Apparently, five acquaintances in the field had reached the same conclusion and Dr. Rosenberg served as their spokesperson.) The recent hoopla has not produced any publicly known evidence relevant to the anthrax mailings that leads to a different conclusion. Evidence relating to polygraphs or use of bloodhounds under these circumstances are inadmissible precisely because they are unreliable.(101)
Hatfill's statements were very eloquent, as were the comments of his attorney.(102) The commentary critical of the Rosenberg conjecture and press about Hatfill tends to strike a Richard Jewell theme.(103) Most of all, Dr. Rosenberg's assertion in her February and June analysis that the FBI has determined that an American made the mailing or has excluded a foreign connection is simply mistaken and contradicted by on-the-record statements and real world events (such as the November 1, 2002 press conference given by FBI Director Mueller and marathon month-long interrogation of a top Pakistani surgeon).
6. Was the letter to AMI the Jennifer Lopez letter? One unresolved question relates to how the anthrax was transmitted to AMI in Florida. (AMI publishes the National Enquirer and other tabloids). Phil Brennan, a conservative commentator who knew the two victims there, reports that he is confident that the letter transmitting the anthrax was sent before 9/11. It consisted, he says, of a goofy love letter to Jennifer Lopez, and included an open soap packet and a cheap Star of David charm.(105) (According to an early National Enquirer report, it also included a cigar).(106) He says Stevens held it up to his face and then put it down on the keyboard (where traces of anthrax were found). Mr. Brennan very well may be right, which would clinch Al Qaeda's responsibility. Note that the publisher's wife was the real estate broker who rented to two of the hijackers. Small world, eh?(107)
The key expert evidence on this issue of the Jennifer Lopez letter thus far is the New England Journal of Medicine in which Stevens' doctor concludes that the letter, mailed pre-9/11, but opened 9/19 and resulting in symptoms appear 9/30, evidenced an incubation period consistent with inhalational anthrax.(108) (He refers to the 1979 accidental release in Russia). A recent CDC report discusses a second letter of possible interest thought to have been opened on September 25 by a different woman who was exposed.(109) The jury will have to remain out unless and until there is more information on the letter(s) that transmitted the anthrax to AMI. The FBI now has gone back to AMI.(110) The FBI reports that the letter may have been opened in the mailroom -- with the product falling on copy paper that then contaminating all the xerox machines in the building.(111)
7. The Fort Lee, New Jersey $100,000 processor
One potential lead reported in the press concerns a $100,000 piece of equipment bought by someone from Pakistan who has pled guilty to a check kiting scheme used to raise the funds used to purchase the processor. (112) A senior expert at the DOD has said that commercially available equipment used to make powdered milk could be used to make powderized anthrax.(113)
8. The Pakistan anthrax
The three reported "confirmed cases" in Karachi, Pakistan also are worthy of note. Although there were 100 other hoaxes, including hoax letters sent to other Jang newspaper branches, there was no report about the retesting of letters at the main branch of Jang, Habib International bank and Dell Computer. As of a November 12, 2001, the well-regarded private hospital that had done the lab testing had not yet provided the samples to the Pakistan government for retesting. (114)
Conclusion
In the anthrax mailings, Dr. Zawahiri appears to have accomplished the attack on the US "structure" he intended.(115) With the planes, Al Qaeda struck the US trade dominance (World Trade Center) and its military might (Pentagon). If you credit Zubaydah (rather than Atta's roommate Ramzi), Al Qaeda was intending to strike the White House with the plane that went down in Pennsylvania.
With the anthrax he appears to have rounded out the field that he imagines provides support to Israel -- the legislative branch and media. In addition to the Senate majority leader, anthrax was mailed to the position symbolic of the 50 billion in appropriations that has been given to Israel since 1947 (and the equally substantial $2 billion annually in aid that has been keeping Mubarak in power in Egypt and the militant islamists out of power).
The statement this June by the spokesperson who explained that Al Qaeda had a right to kill 4 million and had the right to use biological or chemical weapons needs to be factored into the bureaucratic reckoning.(116) The potential downside of not discovering the perpetrator is far greater if that turns out to be the motivation.(117)
NOTES
1Jonathan Rauch, "Does Al Qaeda Have Anthrax? Better Assume So," National Journal, June 1, 2002.
"The Anthrax Trail,"Al Qaeda is still a bioterrorist threat," Wall Street Journal, March 26, 2002.
David Tell, "Remember anthrax? Despite the evidence, the FBI won't let go of it's 'lone American' theory," Weekly Standard, April 29, 2002.
Jack Kelly, "Their Faraway eyes", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 14, 2002.
Reed Irvine, "Notes from the Editor's Cuff", AIM Report, August 28, 2002.
"Anthrax probe ignoring foreign links?: Critics question FBI's emphasis on homegrown scientist," WorldNetDaily.com, October 8, 2002.
"Al Qaeda's Anthrax: Is Osama behind the mail attacks?" MIT Technology Review, April 16, 2002.
"Biodefense," at Biodefense Sprectrum, Inc. website.
Phil Brennan, "Alibek Doubts FBI Claims on Hatfill," Newsmax, October 3, 2002.
Littwin: "Anthrax trail on wrong path?" Rocky Mountain News, September 5, 2002.
Cliff Kincaid, "Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda, Anthrax West Nile Virus, and a Scapegoat named Hatfill."
Ely Karmon, "The Anthrax Campaign: An Interim Analysis," ICT.org October 30, 2001.
"Cheney: 'Reasonable' to assume anthrax cases linked to terrorists," CNN, October 12, 2001.
"Gorbachev: Terrorist using anthrax, " CNN, dated October 16, 2001.
"CIA Officer Warns of Terrorist Strikes in U.S.," NewsMax.com, November 25, 2002 .
Bob Woodward, Bush at War, at 248 (2002).
Jennifer Barrett, "Newsweek Poll: Bin Laden to Blame For Anthrax," MSNBC.com
3 Laurie Garrett, "Clash of agencies hampered inquiry into anthrax mystery, " Newsday, July 23, 2002.
See also Dan Eggen, "FBI Working to Replicate Type of Anthrax Used in Last Year's Deadly Mailings," Washington Post, November 1, 2002.
4 David Johnston and William J. Broad, "Anthrax in Mail Was Newly Made, Investigators Say," New York Times, June 22 2002. See also Judith Miller, Fox News interview, July 2, 2002.
5 Eleanor Clift , "Still Looking For Suspects," Newsweek (June 24, 2002 issue).
6. Yousef Bodansky, Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War On America, at 326.
7. "Osama bought a batch for 10G," The New York Post, October 24, 2001.
"Bin Laden Bought Anthrax, E-Coli and Salmonella, Aide Tells Court," The Mirror, October 25, 2001.
Simon Reeve, The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousef, Osama Bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism, at 262 (1999).
8. "Did Bin Laden buy bioterror: trial testimony says he did," San Francisco Chronicle, October 21, 2001.
9. "FBI & Bush Administration Sued Over Anthrax Documents," Judicial Watch Press Release, June 7, 2002.
10. "Islamic Jihad 'Confessions' Described" FAS.org, March 6, 1999.
11. Ibid.
12. Scott Baldauf, "The 'cave man' and Al Qaeda: A Pakistani journalist who repeatedly interviewed bin Laden says he's not the terror group's main force," Christian Science Monitor, October 31, 2001.
"Arab elite warms to Al Qaeda leaders," Christian Scientist Monitor, July 30, 2002
13. Peter Bergen, Holy War, Inc., at 205-207 (2001) (paperback)
14. Betsy Hiel, "Egyptian Islamic Jihad linked to bin Laden," Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 15, 2002.
Rohan Gunaratna, Inside Al Qaeda, at 26 (2002).
15. "The Man Behind Bin Laden," New Yorker, September 16, 2002.
16. Alan Cullison and Andrew Higgins, "Computer in Kabul holds chilling memos," Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2001.
17. Judith Miller, "Holy Warriors: Killing for the Glory of God, in a Land Far From Home," New York Times, January 16, 2001.
18. Ibid.
19. "Disturbing scenes of death show capability with chemical gas," CNN, dated August 19, 2002.
"Bin Laden Paid For Bali Bombing," FoxNews, October 20, 2002.
Judith Miller, "Qaeda Videos Seem to Show Chemical Tests," New York Times, August 19, 2002.
"Tapes shed new light on bin Laden's network," CNN, August 19, 2002.
UK: Three Charged Over Terror Plot, CNN, November 17, 2002
20. "Bush Cancels Iraqi Strike," ABCNEWS August 20, 2002.
21. "U.S. Monitors Kurdish Extremists", Foxnews, August 21, 2002.
22. "Bush Cancels Iraqi Strike," ABCNEWS August 20, 2002.
23. Reuters, "Al Qaeda tested germ weapons," New Zealand Herald, January 1, 2002.
24. CBSNews, " Weapons Worries," July 18, 2002.
25. Judith Miller, "Lab Suggests Qaeda Planned to Build Arms, Officials Say," New York Times, September 14, 2002.
Agence France-Presse, "US finds Al-Qaeda lab built to produce anthrax: report," March 23, 2002.
"Al-Qaeda might have stockpiled anthrax spores," Times of India, December 10, 2001.
Tabassum Zakaria, "US: Al Qaeda Tried for Bio Weapons in Afghanistan," Reuters, July 17, 2002.
Jonathan Weisman, "Possible anthrax lab unearthed near Kandahar, USA Today, March 25, 2002.
"Al Qaeda: Alive and Killing," Newsweek, November 25, 2002.
26 "Al-Qaeda: Anthrax Found in Al-Qaeda home," Global Security Newswire, December 10, 2001.
27. Judith Miller, "Lab Suggests Qaeda Planned to Build Arms, Officials Say," New York Times, September 14, 2002.
28. Gary Jones, Mirror, November 19, 2001.
29 Kathy Gannon, "Taliban Showed Interest In Anthrax Research Lab. Scientists Say An Official Paid Frequent Visits" in The Boston Globe, November 22, 2001 (photo caption).
30. "US biological attack imminent - Taliban", iafrica.com, December 12, 2001.
"Walker Lindh: Al Qaeda planned more attacks," CNN, October 3, 2002
31. Peter Waldman et al., "Sergeant Served U.S. Army and bin Laden, Showing Failings in FBI's Terror Policing," Wall Street Journal, November 26, 2001.
Dale Kasler, "Terrorist ruse hurt giving by Muslims" Sacramento Bee, October 25, 2001.
"Ex US soldier admits embassy bombings," BBC News, October 20, 2000.
32. John Sullivan and Joseph Neff, "An al Qaeda operative at Fort Bragg," Raleigh News & Observer, November 14, 2001.
Steven Emerson, American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us , 55-60 (2002)
33. Andrew Higgins, Alan Culli, "Saga of Dr. Zawahri Sheds Light On the Roots of al Qaeda Terror," Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2002.
34. http://www.kreindler.com (http://www.kreindler.com) (trillion dollar 9/11 complaint against Iraq recounts Zawahiri's visits to Iraq)
35. Jeffrey Bartholet, "Terrorist Sleeper Cells: A U.S.-Based Al Qaeda 'Sleeper Cell' Was Poised to Launch a Post-Sept. 11 Attack on a Major Washington Target; Would-Be Terrorists Went Underground or Fled U.S. Evidence Indicates Al Qaeda Had Russian Help Developing Anthrax; Al-Zawahiri Believed Involved in Bin Laden's Biological Weapons Program." Newsweek, December 9, 2001.
See also Ken Alibek, with Stephen Handelman, Biohazard: The Chilling True Story Of The Largest Weapons Program In The World -- Told From Inside By The Man Who Ran It, at 272 (1999) (paperback).
36. "Bravado--and blood--in Taliban territory" US News and World Report, November 12, 2001.
37. "Russia, Iraq and Other Potential Sources of Anthrax, Smallpox and Other Bioterrorist Weapons," Hearings Before the Committee On International Relations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, First Session, December 5, 2001.
38. Ibid. See "Iraqis 'infiltrated UK germ labs'", BBC News, November 16, 2002
39. Richard O. Spertzel, "U.S. Policy in Iraq: Next Steps", Hearings Before the Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on International Security, Proliferation and Federal Services," March 1, 2002.
Wendy Orent, "Anthrax in America," The New Republic, October 17, 2001
40. Milton Leitenberg, Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism in the First Years of the 21st Century (rev. July 10, 2002)" at pp. 23-33.
41. "Anthrax probe hits genetic dead end: Despite promise, gene analysis failing to help investigation," Associated Press, June 19, 2002.
The Institute For Genomic Research, Press Release.
42. Timothy D. Read, et al., "Comparative Genome Sequencing for Discovery of Novel Polymorphisms in Bacillus anthracis," Science, 296: 2028-2033 (May 9, 2002).
43. Dr. C.J. Peters, August 30, 2002 on PBS' "Searching for Clues."
44. Mark Schoofs, Gary Fields and Maureen Tkacik, "The Anthrax Probe Ranges Far and Wide As Investigators Scour Tips, Quotes & Research Trash for Leads," Wall Street Journal, December 11, 2001
45. Guy Gugliotta, Gary Matsumoto, "FBI's Theory On Anthrax Is Doubted, Attacks Not Likely Work Of 1 Person, Experts Say," Washington Post, October 28, 2002.
Rick Weiss and Dan Eggen, "Anthrax spores were doctored to be deadlier," The Washington Post, October 25, 2001.
46. John J. Fialka and Gary Fields, "Static Electricity Present in Anthrax Letters Made Spores Cling, May Have Saved Lives," The Wall Street Journal, dated December 3, 2001.
Guy Gugliotta, Gary Matsumoto, "FBI's Theory On Anthrax Is Doubted, Attacks Not Likely Work Of 1 Person, Experts Say," Washington Post, October 28, 2002.
47. Jonathan Rauch, "Does Al Qaeda Have Anthrax? Better Assume So," National Journal, June 1, 2002.
Scott Shane, "Anthrax powder from attacks could have been made simply: single maker a possibility, scientists now theorize", Baltimore Sun, November 3, 2002.
Guy Gugliotta, Gary Matsumoto, "FBI's Theory On Anthrax Is Doubted, Attacks Not Likely Work Of 1 Person, Experts Say," Washington Post, October 28, 2002.
"Powder Used in Anthrax Attacks 'Was Not Routine,' The Washington Post, April 09, 2002.
48. David Johnston and William J. Broad, "Anthrax Sent Through Mail Gained Potency by the Letter," New York Times, May 7, 2002. See also Richard Preston, The Demon In The Freezer, at 165, 171-172 (2002).
49. PBS: Online Newshour, "Camp David Accord" (September 17, 1978)
50. Egypt State Information Service, " October 6, 1973: The Battle of the Crossing."
51. FBI Homepage, 2001 Press Releases, (Anthrax Letters photos).
52. Statement of October 7, 2001 following September 11 attack.
See also "Statement Attributed to Al Qaeda Warns of More Attacks on New York, Washington", FoxNews, November 17, 2002
"Full text: bin Laden's 'letter to America'," Guardian Unlimited, November 24, 2002.
"Interview with Osama bin Ladin," Frontline. May 1998.
"Interview with Mujahid Usmah bin Ladin." Nida'ul Islam, Oct/Nov 1996.
"Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, World Islamic Front Statement," February 23, 1998.
Statement of September, 1996 after return to Afghanistan.
Al Jazeera TV interview, about October 25, 2001.
Video tape with visiting sheikh, Kandahar area, mid-November, 2001 (http://www.september11news.com/OsamaSpeeches.htm (http://www.september11news.com/OsamaSpeeches.htm))
Videotape, December, 2001.
53. Senator Patrick Leahy's homepage, Committee Assignments.
54. Ibid; see also "Figures on US Aid," September 10, 2000.
PBS, Interview Ahmed Sattar, (1999).
55. "Congress asked to waive curbs on 'rogue states' Dawn , September 25, 2001. See " Leahy Law".
See Ayman Zawahiri, "Knights Under the Prophet's Banner," (2001).
56. Palestinian Hamas newspaper, al-Risala, Translation by Middle East Media Research Institute, report no. 247, (November 7, 2001);
57. Susan Sachs, "An Investigation in Egypt Illustrates Al Qaeda's Web," New York Times, November 21, 2001.
See also
Roland Jacquard, In the Name of Osama Bin Laden, 108, 248 (2002)
58. PBS video excerpt.
59. "Fighting An Unholy War," Washington Times, August 18, 2002.
60. Summer 2001 Al Qaeda videotape.
61. "US Bypasses Law in Fight Against Terrorism," Washington Post, March 12, 2002.
62. Andrew Higgins, Alan Culli, "Saga of Dr. Zawahri Sheds Light On the Roots of al Qaeda Terror," Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2002.
63. Ayman Zawahiri, "Knights Under the Prophet's Banner," (2001).
64. Diplomatic Security Service, Department of State, "Letter Bomb Incidents".
65. Robert H. Reid, Associated Press, "Mail bombs sent to Arab newspaper", January 14, 1997.
66. Susan Sachs, "An Investigation in Egypt Illustrates Al Qaeda's Web," New York Times, November 21, 2001.
ENN Daily Intelligence Report, January 13, 1997.
67. "Letter bombs found in Washington area and federal prison in Kansas:FBI considers link to World Trade Center bombing," CNN January 2, 1997.
68. Paul De Armond, "Insider Diversion: profiling the anthrax attacks," (June 2002 rev.) online.
69. " Evidence suggests al Qaeda pursuit of biological, chemical weapons," CNN, November 14, 2001.
BBC, dated October 28, 2001 (remarks of Vice President Cheny on training and manuals relating to these kinds of substances).
70. "9/11 mastermind invited to Cairo Islamic seminar," Reuters, September 2, 2002.
71. Phil Brennan, "FBI Rejects Link Between Anthrax, 9-11 Terrorists, Newsmax, August 16, 2002.
72. Kathy Bushounse, and Kevin Krause, "FBI scouts back issues of tabloids in search for anthrax motive," Sun-Sentinel, August 30, 2002.
73. Guy Gugliotta, Gary Matsumoto, "FBI's Theory On Anthrax Is Doubted, Attacks Not Likely Work Of 1 Person, Experts Say," Washington Post, October 28, 2002.
74. Editorial, "Still Waiting For Answers, New York Post April 29, 2002.
Editorial, "The Deepening Anthrax Mystery," The New York Times, May 11, 2002
Wall Street Journal, dated September 5, 2002 ("The FBI persists in pursuing the yellow brick road theory of a lone madman laid out by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg of the Federation of American Scientists.")
Robert Bartley, "The Hatfill Case: Essential Background," Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2002.
Editorial, "Al Qaeda is still a bioterrorism threat," Wall Street Journal, dated March 26, 2002.
FBI Profile Disputed," Global Security Newswire, dated December 6, 2001.
Edward Jay Epstein, "FBI Overlooks Foreign Sources of Anthrax," Wall Street Journal,
75. November 9, 2001, Amerithrax Press Briefing.
See also anthrax-profiler.com .
76. "Anthrax attacks linked to US extremists," Washington Post, October 28, 2001.
77. Attorney General John Ashcroft, Press Conference, October 18, 2001.
78. Ron Martz, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Experts doubt anthrax a domestic plot," October 19, 2001.
See also Brian Levin: Militias and bioterrorism, CNN, October 17, 2001.
79. "Did Bin Laden buy bioterror: trial testimony says he did," San Francisco Chronicle, October 21, 2001.
80. "Who's Behind the Anthrax Attacks," Newsmax, November 19, 2002
81. "Al Qaeda-Anthrax Link?", CBS News, March 23, 2002
82. "Memo on Florida Case Roils Probe," The Washington Post, March 29, 2002, Friday, Pg. A03;
See Cutaneous anthrax images.
Thomas W. McGovern, MD, Cutaneous Manifestations of Bioterrorism: Anthrax
83. Sarah El Deeb, "Hijacker farewell video found," Associated Press, April 15, 2002.
84. Map showing distribution of Brown Recluse Spider.
85. "Memo on Florida Case Roils Probe," The Washington Post, March 29, 2002, Friday, Pg. A03.
"Hijacker's lesion deepens mystery: U.S. official cautions against linking anthrax and Sept. 11 attacks," Baltimore Sun, March 24, 2002.
86. "Report Linking Anthrax and Hijackers Is Investigated," The New York Times, March 23, 2002.
87. "Coz: Mohamed Atta Spotted With Possible Anthrax Symptoms," Newsmax , October 12, 2001.
88. Michael Y. Park, "Bioterror Threat: Myth or Reality?" Foxnews, September 25, 2001.
89. "Bin Laden's Biological Threat," BBC, October 28, 2001.
90. "Face to face with Atta," ABCNews.
91. Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs, October 2002.
92. Report: Moussaoui tied to 9/11 plot, CNN, November 20, 2002
"Moussaoui's 9/11 Role Doubted?" CBSNews, July 20, 2002.
Toni Locy, "Moussaoui case doesn't hinge on role in 9/11," USAToday
Edward Jay Epstein, Question of the Week, online.
93. "FBI Overlooks Iraq's Connection to Anthrax Attacks," Newsmax
"Following the trail of powder," f2 network, October 20, 2001.
94. Edward Jay Epstein, "The Fog of Scoops."
"Mohammed Atta in Prague FAQ"
"Czechs retract Iraq terror link," UPI, October 20, 2002.
"Prague Discounts an Iraqi Meeting," New York Times, October 21, 2002.
95. Bob Drogin, Paul Richter and Doyle McManus, "White House says Sept. 11 skyjacker had met Iraqi agent," Los Angeles Times, August 2, 2002.
96. Pearle warns: 'Powerful' evidence of Iraq-Al Qaida WMD ties World Tribune.com, July 15, 2002.
97. "Blair's statement to MPs on Iraq," CNN, September 24, 2002.
Sebastian Rotella, "Allies Find No Links Between Iraq, Al Qaeda," Los Angeles Times, November 4, 2002
98. http://www.kreindler.com (http://www.kreindler.com) (trillion dollar 9/11 complaint against Iraq recounts Zawahiri's visits to Iraq)
99. Mark Schoofs and Gary Fields, "Anthrax Probe Was Complicated By Muddled Information, FBI Says," Wall Street Journal, March 26, 2002.
100. Transcript, "Ask The FBI: The anthrax investigation," USA Today, March 26, 2002.
See also Dan Eggen and Guy Gugliotta, FBI Secretly Trying to Re-Create Anthrax From Mail Attacks," Washington Post, November 2, 2002.
101. "FBI's use of bloodhounds in anthrax probe disputed. Techniques: The three California handlers brought in by the bureau are viewed skeptically by many in their field," Baltimore Sun, October 29, 2002.
102. Hatfill's First Statement .
Hatfill's Second Statement.
Victor Glasberg's statement and Q and A session
103. Robert Bartley, "The Hatfill Case: Essential Background," Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2002.
"Circle of suspicion: Is the 'evidence' against an undeclared anthrax suspect just coincidences and a colorful past?" US News, August 26, 2002.
Rachel Smolkin, AJR, "Into The Spotlight", November 2002.
Editorial: "Person of Interest", Sacramento Bee, August 15, 2002.
Editorial, Blacklisting Steven Hatfill, Washington Post, September 5, 2001.
David Tell, "Remember Anthrax?" Weekly Standard April 29, 2002.
Fred Reed, "Steve Hatfill, Anthrax, and Bushwah," online.
104. "FBI Ignored Letter in Anthrax Probe," Newsmax August 15, 2002.
105. National Enquirer. .
106. Phil Brennan, "FBI Rejects Link Between Anthrax, 9-11 Terrorists," Newsmax, August 16, 2002.
107. "FBI Ignored Letter in Anthrax Probe," Newsmax August 15, 2002.
108. Larry M. Bush, Barry H. Abrams, M.D., Anne Beall, B.S., M.T., and Caroline C. Johnson, M.D., "Index Case of Fatal Inhalational Anthrax Due to Bioterrorism in the United States," New England Journal of Medicine, 345:1607-1610, November 29, 2001.
109. MS Traeger et al., " First case of bioterrorism-related inhalational anthrax in the United States, Palm Beach, Florida, 2001," Emerg Infect Dis , October 2002.
110. Kathy Bushouse, and Kevin Krause, "FBI scouts back issues of tabloids in search for anthrax motive," Sun-Sentinel, August 30, 2002.
111. John Murawski, "Anthrax at AMI traveled via copiers," Palm Beach Post, September 15, 2002.
112. David Tell, "Who is Syed Athar Abbas," Weekly Standard, July 17, 2002.
Rocco Parascandola, "Guilty Plea in Fraud Case But Feds Fear Pakistani's Purpose for buying Food Mixer," Newsday , July 15, 2002.
113. Air Force Journal, May 2002.
Guy Gugliotta, Gary Matsumoto, "FBI's Theory On Anthrax Is Doubted, Attacks Not Likely Work Of 1 Person, Experts Say," Washington Post, October 28, 2002.
Timothy P. Carney, "Milling Anthrax: Just a Click Away?" Human Events, October 29, 2001.
"Tracking Anthrax," PBS, October 17, 2001.
114. Hannah Bloch, "Some More Spores?: Suspicious packages raise prospect that Pakistan may be the latest target of bioterrorists", TIME, November 12, 2001.
"Pakistan, other US allies grapple with anthrax scares," Christian Science Monitor, November 5, 2001.
"Anthrax attacks in Pakistan as US strikes raise tensions," Middle East Times November 2, 2001.
"Anthrax Found in Pakistan News Office, " ABCNews, November 2, 2001.
"US Firm in Pakistan Gets Anthrax Letter," rediff.com October 24, 2001.
"Pakistan reports anthrax exposures," CNN, November 2, 2001.
"Pakistan to test 3 people for anthrax exposure, " CNN, November 3, 2001.
Ghulam Hasnain, "Lethal Weapon: With three confirmed cases of anthrax exposure so far, offices in Karachi begin to gear up to face the new threat" Newsline (November 2001).
"No anthrax in Pakistan: minister," Dawn.com (reporting on 100 hoaxes and confirming that three cases at issue had not yet been retested; urging no need to panic).
115. Ayman Zawahiri, Knights Under the Prophet's Banner, (2001).
116. "'Why We Fight America': Al-Qa'ida Spokesman Explains September 11 and Declares Intentions to Kill 4 Million Americans with Weapons of Mass Destruction," Middle East Media Research Institute, Special Dispatch Series - No. 388 June 12, 2002 No.388.
117. "Federal advisers say U.S. unprepared for biological attack," By Laura Meckler, Associated Press, August 27, 2002.
Interesing quotes from Incogman's Blog:
QuoteRead this comment left at a blog site:
"I have been a close friend of Dr. Bruce Ivins for years. The FBI needed a scapegoat, especially after Stephen Hatfill, whose foot the FBI ran over, won a $5.2 M lawsuit against them.
The new FBI director needed a capture in this case. So, they took all of the Ft. Detrick anthrax researchers and put them under intense interrogation.
Bruce was a mild, meek and sensitive scientist. The FBI showed his clinically depressed daughter, who was institutionalized in a mental hospital, photos of the anthrax victims, and said "your father did this." They offered his son $2.5 M and a sportscar if he would "rat" on his father.
Bruce could not stand stand up to the constant harrasment by the FBI. So we have lost a very talented researcher
OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM:* LEGAL
DIMENSIONS OF AN INFINITELY JUST OPERATION
DR. BARRY A. FEINSTEIN**
(Jew Disinformationalist -- The CSR)http://www.law.fsu.edu/Journals/transna ... nstein.pdf (http://www.law.fsu.edu/Journals/transnational/vol11_2/feinstein.pdf)
(These Citations are pulled from the pages. Lame, idiot Jew attempt to link Iraq/Al Ciada and the Anthrax attacks) :x
Quote283. Jim Loney, New Anthrax Cases Heighten U.S. Bioterror Fears, at
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/2001101 ... ax_dc.html (http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011014/ts/attack_anthrax_dc.html) (Oct. 14, 2001). "We've
seen the enemy in the murder of thousands of innocents, unsuspecting people . . . The
terrorists cannot be reasoned with," U.S. President George W. Bush said as he signed antiterror
legislation into law. "Witness the recent anthrax attacks through our postal service."
Deborah Zabarenko, Sophisticated Process Created Killer Anthrax, at
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/2001102 ... c_118.html (http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011026/ts/attack_anthrax_dc_118.html) (Oct. 26, 2001).
The U.S. President described the anthrax cases in America as "a second wave of terrorist
attacks upon our country." Sandra Sobieraj, Bush Tries to Allay Anthrax Fears, at
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/2001110 ... ush_2.html (http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011103/ts/anthrax_bush_2.html) (Nov. 3, 2001). The U.S.
Government at the time thought that the anthrax scare may have been linked to bin Laden.
Iran Says U.S. Paying for Giving Anthrax to Iraq, supra note 17. For further discussion on
biological terrorism in the U.S. and its possible links with bin Laden, see supra notes 4
17. There were reports that prior to the suicide attacks on America one of the suicide
terrorist hijackers had met on two separate occasions with Iraqi intelligence officers, in June
2000 and in April 2001. Atta Met Twice With Iraqi Intelligence, at http://www.cnn.com (http://www.cnn.com)
/2001/US/10/11/inv.atta.meetings/index.html (Oct. 11, 2001); see also Czechs Confirm
Suspected Hijacker Met Iraqi, at http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/ (http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/)
10/27/inv.czech.iraq/index.html (Oct. 27, 2001); Did Atta Get Germs From Iraq?, at
http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597 ... 2,00.shtml (http://www.cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,315205-412,00.shtml) (visited Oct. 28, 2001).
Intelligence agents were investigating whether a second hijacker also had met with an Iraqi
intelligence agent. Czechs Confirm Suspected Hijacker Met Iraqi, supra. Furthermore, Iraq
had been singled out by American investigators as a "prime suspect as the source of the
deadly [anthrax] spores" that resulted in anthrax outbreaks in the U.S., which "have all the
hallmarks of a terrorist attack." David Rose & Ed Vulliamy, Iraq 'Behind US Anthrax
Outbreaks', OBSERVER, Oct. 14, 2001, available at http://www.observer.co.uk/ (http://www.observer.co.uk/)
international/story/0,6903,573893,00.html; Did Atta Get Germs From Iraq?, supra; see also
Stephen Fidler & Carola Hoyos, Attack on Afghanistan Diplomacy: US Looks to Moscow for
Help to Curb Iraq Weapons Inspections, FINANCIAL TIMES, Nov. 7, 2001, available at
http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchi ... =curb+iraq (http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=011107001308&query=curb+iraq).
The former United Nations Chief Weapons Inspector, Richard Butler, also assessed that there
appeared to be a good likelihood that Iraq was indeed linked to the anthrax outbreaks in the
U.S. Nathan Guttman, The Assistants of the Majority Leader in the Senate Opened a Postal
Envelope and Discovered Anthrax Powder In It, HA'ARETZ, Oct. 16, 2001, at 2A (in Hebrew,
trans. by author) (on file with author); see also Iran Says U.S. Paying for Giving Anthrax to
Iraq, REUTERS, available at http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/2001102 ... ax_dc.html (http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011026/ts/attack_iran_anthrax_dc.html) (Oct. 26, 2001).
Butler, in explaining the existence of a possible connection between the anthrax mailings and Iraq, pointed out that "there's a credible report,
not fully verified, that they [Iraq] may indeed have given anthrax to exactly the group that
did the World Trade Center" suicide terrorist attack. CNN.COM, Ex-U.N. Weapons Inspector:
Possible Iraq-Anthrax Link (Oct. 15, 2001), at http://www.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH (http://www.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH)
/conditions/10/15/anthrax.butler/index.html (visited Nov. 9, 2001). Reports had emerged
following the anthrax attacks in the U.S. regarding Iraqi attempts in 1988 and 1989 to obtain
from British sources the Ames strain of anthrax, the same strain that had been employed in
anthrax mailing attacks in the U.S. William J. Broad & David Johnston, U.S. Inquiry Tried,
But Failed, to Link Iraq to Anthrax Attack, N.Y. TIMES, Dec. 22, 2001, at A1, available at
h t t p : / / d a i l y n e w s . y a h o o . c o m / h / n y t / 2 0 0 1 1 2 2 2 / t s
/u_s_inquiry_tried_but_failed_to_link_iraq_to_anthrax_attack_1.html. But see id. (Iraq, with
a long record of germ warfare arsenal development, has yet to be connected directly with the
anthrax mailings).
Among the evidence that seemed to link Iraq to the October 2001 anthrax mailings in
the U.S. was the fact that Iraq is the only known place that has used an additive in the
production of anthrax called bentonite, which apparently was used in the lethal form of
anthrax contained in a letter sent to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
Laurie Mylroie: Is Iraq Involved with U.S. Terror Attacks?, at http://www.cnn.com/2001/ (http://www.cnn.com/2001/)
COMMUNITY/10/29/mylroie/index.html (Oct. 29, 2001). But see Broad & Johnston, supra
(tests conducted in October 2001 had not by then seemed to show any indications of the
existence of aluminum, which is a major component of bentonite). According to retired
microbiologist Richard O. Spertzel, the head of the biological weapons inspections team of the
United Nations in Iraq, the use of bentonite by Iraq in the development of its germ weapons
programs had been considered by Iraq, and the level of sophistication of the anthrax that was
contained in some of the attacks had convinced him and others that Iraq unquestionably
might be behind them. Id. Thus, concluded Rutgers University microbiologist Richard H.
Ebright, who was carefully watching the investigations of the anthrax attacks in the U.S., the
Iraqi connection "should not be dismissed as a desparate reach for a casus belli against Iraq"
and should continue to be examined. Id.
Moreover, there are reports that Iraq was behind the first World Trade Center terrorist
bombing attack in 1993. Sources indicate that that bombing's mastermind, Ramzi Yousef,
may have been an Iraqi intelligence agent. Laurie Mylroie: Is Iraq Involved with U.S. Terror
Attacks?, supra. These inquiries are all increasing the amount of evidence observers say is
massing to the effect that "Saddam Hussein was involved, possibly indirectly, with the 11
September hijackers." Id.; Rose & Vulliamy, supra. According to Stanley Bedlington, a CIA
counter terrorism center senior analyst, "[t]here certainly is no doubt that Saddam Hussein
had pretty strong ties to bin Laden." Peter Eisler, Targeting Saddam: Was There an Iraqi
9/11 Link? Evidence is Thin, But Regime's Links to bin Laden and al-Qaeda Run Deep, USA
TODAY, Dec. 7, 2001, at 1A, available at http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline (http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline)
/20011203/3667784s.htm. Regular ties have existed between bin Laden's operatives and the
Iraqi regime, according to most of those present and past officials who are watching such
matters, and many believe that al-Qaeda has been assisted by Iraqi operatives in possiby
providing the know-how and where-with-all to manufacture bombs, and in other endeavors --
"the sort of assistance Iraq has provided to any number of terrorist groups." Id. Furthermore,
inspectors with the United Nations weapons inspection team in Iraq in the 1990s discovered
a training camp for terrorists located in Salman Pak, south of Baghdad. This secret, separate
facility was the place where apparently non-Iraqi, Islamic radical Arabs were trained to be
terrorists, inter alia learning how through small cells to hijack airplanes using only knives.
Id. Moreover, not only was the CIA counter terrorism center certain that bin Laden was also
receiving money from Iraq, it was suspected that undoubtedly Iraq would attempt to infiltrate
al-Qa'ida with Iraqi agents. According to a Monterey Institute of International Studies
scholar, Tim McCarthy, who also was involved in the weapons inspections by the United
Nations in Iraq, penetrating an operation with Iraqi operatives is exactly the way Saddam
Hussein functions: "Saddam believes in getting inside these sorts of organizations." Id. Iraqi
military intelligence operation chief Wafiq al Samarrai, as well, thinks that Iraqi operatives
have been placed in the al-Qa'ida organization. Id. Intelligence and military personnel are
convinced that al-Qa'ida and Iraq are working closely together. Id. As former CIA director
James Woolsey pointed out: "I don't know what the (Iraq-al-Qaeda) relationship is, whether
it's a 90-10 joint venture or a 10-90 joint venture, and it doesn't matter." Id. He explained
that certain attacks by al-Qa'ida "look like a foreign intelligence service was involved, and we
have a long history of contacts between Iraqi intelligence and al-Qaeda." Id. Woolsey
concludes that "[a]ll of that, plus the (blocking) of the U.N. inspections, is enough." Id.
------
David Kelley's link to Spertzel going back in time. I bet Kelley was going to rat out Spertzel's hand in the Israeli-Mossad Anthrax attacks in S. Florida... and possibly even blow apart the Iraq war planning schemes... possibly by trying to hang Spertzel out to dry in the Jew'd Press with evidence:
QuoteHad Kelly decided to work for or against 'The New Jeruselum' of the 'coalition?
It has been suggested that Dr Kelly was passed over for promotion as head of UNSCOM, and instead Richard Spertzel was appointed
"Although he mixed with diplomats, Kelly was not one of them. He found their world shallow. In the corridors of the UN, the talk was about who was up, who was down. It turned out that he was not as up as he had hoped. In late 1994 the UN appointed Richard Spertzel, a US biologist, as head of its bio-weapons investigation in Iraq a role Kelly almost certainly would have liked. Kelly remained an adviser but one step removed from the centre of power. " - source
http://www.declarepeace.org.uk/captain/ ... iburu.html (http://www.declarepeace.org.uk/captain/murder_inc/site/niburu.html)
http://www.ladlass.com/intel/archives/001396.html (http://www.ladlass.com/intel/archives/001396.html)
This has "Jew" written all over it:
QuoteIRAQIS KILLED KELLY TO KEEP GAS ATTACK SECRET
by James Murray
2 August 2009
Sensational evidence suggesting weapons inspector David Kelly was murdered by Iraqis planning to attack Britian is being offered to the Iraq war inquiry.
Retired American microbiologist Richard Spertzel says he is prepared to fly to London to give evidence to diplomat Sir John Chilcot's investigation.
Mr Spertzel, who led the United Nations biological inspection team in Iraq and worked closely with Dr Kelly, says evidence emerged that Saddam Hussein was planning to attack American and European cities with nerve agents contained in over-the-counter perfume bottles.
He says he read witness statements alleging that the deadly agents Sarin and mustard gas were to be used.
In another astonishing twist Mr Spertzel says he was told that he and Dr Kelly were on an Iraqi hit list. "I was number theree and David was number four", he said.
The Swedish executive chairman of the UN inpsection team was warned that he was top of the list and took the threats so seriously that he resigned.
Russian intelligence agencies in Baghdad passed over information about the list but did not disclose how they came across the information, known only among Saddam's inner circle.
When he learned of Dr Kelly's death in July 2003 in woods near his home in Southmoor, Oxfordshire, Mr Spertzel immediately suspected that he had been killed by Iraqi spies.
"It was a very strange death," he said. "We were wary that the Iraqi intelligence services may have been involved. My concern was whether the Iraqis were after David Kelly."
Although an inquiry led by Lord Hutton in 2003-04 decided that 59-year old Dr Kelly took his own life while under pressure over the information he supplied for the "sexed-up" dossier on Iraq, Mr Spertzel keeps an open mind.
"I can't say one way or the other," he said, adding that a murder investigation carried out at the time could have uncovered crucial evidence.
Asked whether he supported calls for an inquest, Mr Sperzel said: "It might be too little, too late. I knew Dr Kelly reasonably well and in my view he was not suicidal."
However, he believes that it would be "very useful" if the Chilcot inquiry looks into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Kelly.
"If something turned up that the Iraqi intelligence services was involved in it would eliminate all sorts of arguments," said Mr Spertzel, who gave evidence to a US Senate committee on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability before the invasion in March 2003.
"There is no quesiton in my mind that we had to go in," he added, "Did they have the capability and an ongoing programme? Yes."
Intelligence services had discovered an agreement between Iraq and Syria dating back to 1994 outlining cooperation on the development of biological and chemical weapons.
Mr Spertzel said he established that there were laboratories in Iraq capable of producing biological weapons. He added: "One was making Sarin and mustard gas to be placed in perfume phials bound for the US and Europe."
"Apparently they were designed to mimic just about any manufacturer. That was pretty serious."
Sarin, which causes victims to die a choking death, has a short-shelf life but mustard gas can be stored for years.
It is thought by many people in the western intelligence community that Iraqi biological eapons were driven into Syria before the invasion so the stockpiles could not be found. Syria has always denied the claims.
http://dr-david-kelly.blogspot.com/ (http://dr-david-kelly.blogspot.com/)
RT has it right.
QuoteSo Saddam Hussein authorises injecting Sarin and mustard gas into perfume bottles, and having them shipped to the West? Given the originator of the claim is from the neocon stable, one has to take the assertions with a pinch of salt. Let's hear more from Dick Spertzel about his sources. -- RT
QuoteBioterror fight may spawn new risks
As field of study expands, concerns grow about potential pathogen leaks; 'Accidents are more likely'
By Scott Shane
Sun National Staff
June 27, 2004
The federal government has responded to the threat of bioterrorism with a spending blitz that has already surpassed the annual cost of the Manhattan Project to build the first atom bomb. But as illustrated by a recent mishap in which a Frederick lab inadvertently shipped lethal anthrax across the country, the biodefense push might be creating new hazards even as it seeks to make the country safer.
The flood of new money - $14.5 billion spent since 2001 - has drawn scores of new researchers and facilities into the field, creating more possibilities for the release of anthrax and other "select agents," the legal term for pathogens with bioterrorist potential.
Known incidents have been few, but scientists say the proliferation of places and people involved in germ experiments in the United States - 11,119 workers in 317 labs approved to date - inevitably boosts the chance of accidental leaks or deliberate diversion of germs.
In addition, the Bioterrorism Act of 2002 requires that the location of labs handling lethal pathogens be kept secret, giving citizens no way to find out what research is being conducted in their neighborhoods.
Martin E. Hugh-Jones, a veteran anthrax researcher at Louisiana State University, says he has been "amazed" by the influx of people into his field.
Before 2001, with only a dozen U.S. research groups studying anthrax, "we all knew each other by first name," Hugh-Jones says. Today, when he reviews anthrax research proposals, "I see a lot of names I've never heard of. ... On a probabilistic basis, there's more of a risk of accidents or attacks," he says.
While advances have been made toward new ways to detect anthrax, Hugh-Jones says that overall, "I think we've spent an awful lot of money, and I'm not sure we're much better off."
Richard H. Ebright, a Rutgers University biochemist and critic of the expansion, said the lure of funding has drawn neophytes into the field. "With the expansion of the biodefense effort - especially to institutions and individuals without experience with lethal biological agents - accidents are more likely," he says.
"I think people will find it surprising that 11,000 people are cleared to work with the most dangerous agents, which have little importance for public health outside the bioterrorism field," Ebright says.
Passed in the aftermath of the anthrax letters that killed five people in 2001, the Bioterrorism Act imposed tough new regulations on germ research. Safety experts say that while researchers complain about paperwork, the rules have unquestionably raised awareness of the threat and added accountability to a field with lax recordkeeping.
Stefan Wagener, president of the American Biological Safety Association, says the law prompted some labs to destroy little-used stocks of germs, sometimes forgotten in freezers, that might have posed a hazard.
"I would say the impact has been positive," says Wagener, a microbiologist who oversees the Canadian government's highest-security biodefense lab, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. "But has the law made the United States safer from an insider's bioterrorist attack?
"That's harder to answer."
It is also an important question, because the FBI has focused its investigation of the still-unsolved anthrax attacks largely on U.S. biodefense facilities rather than foreign terrorist groups. The letters contained a strain of anthrax used mainly in a few U.S. and foreign labs supplied by the Army's biodefense center at Fort Detrick.
Since registration began last year, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have inspected and fully certified 235 facilities nationwide and given provisional approval to 82 more to work with anthrax and other select agents. The 11,119 people who work in them have been cleared by the FBI, which checked them against criminal and terrorist databases.
Not all applicants have passed muster. The CDC has denied three labs' applications and "suspended" nine others, indicating that a provisional approval was revoked, said Ted Jones, acting director of the Select Agent Program.
The FBI's Monte D. McKee, who oversees the checks on lab workers, will say only that "less than 1 percent" of lab workers have been turned down, usually because of a criminal record. The check does not involve confirming the worker's academic or work credentials, or interviewing associates, he says.
Because there was no previous count of labs or researchers, it's impossible to measure the growth precisely. But most observers say that while red tape has driven some scientists out of the field, new research money has attracted a greater number.
The National Institutes of Health's database of research grants shows that the number of projects involving anthrax soared from 28 in 2000 to 253 last year. NIH projects mentioning "bioterrorism" and related words climbed from 25 in 2000 to 665 last year.
"The number of institutions working actively with select agents has skyrocketed," says Edward Hammond, who tracks biodefense research for the Sunshine Project, a Texas-based watchdog group. "In terms of accidental release, I think we're unquestionably less safe than we were before 2001."
The federal spending increase has been so rapid that even the government seems to be having trouble keeping track. In April, when President Bush issued a sweeping directive to step up the nation's defenses against bioterrorism, the White House said the government had spent $10 billion on biodefense since 2001. The Department of Health and Human Services counted $12.9 billion the same day.
But Ari Schuler, an analyst at the Baltimore-based Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, did a more complete search and documented $14.5 billion in federal spending on civilian biodefense since 2001. For the 2005 fiscal year that starts Oct. 1, President Bush has requested a record $7.6 billion, more than 18 times the budget in 2001.
For the years 2002 to 2005, average annual biodefense spending comes out to $5.4 billion a year - more than the annual spending in 2004 dollars on the Manhattan Project, the World War II quest for an atomic bomb, or the Reagan-era Strategic Defense Initiative, a missile defense program.
Some of the money has gone into buying a stockpile of antibiotics and improving communications between local, state and federal health authorities. But much has gone to hands-on research on dangerous germs.
Some of the new work is being done at Southern Research Institute in Frederick, which accidentally shipped the potentially lethal anthrax to research collaborators in Oakland, Calif.
Thomas G. Voss, a microbiologist who oversees SRI's homeland defense work, said that before late 2001 the Frederick lab had handled only mild vaccine strains of anthrax.
Since then, he said, virulent strains have been used for research on vaccines, antibiotics and detection methods.
In March, SRI shipped vials of a liquid anthrax mixture by Federal Express in a sealed container to Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute in California for a vaccine study. The anthrax was of a virulent strain, but SRI workers had tried to kill the bacteria before shipping it by immersing the vials in hot water, Voss said.
Only early this month, after two groups of mice inoculated with the supposedly "inactivated" anthrax sickened and died, did the Oakland researchers suspect something was awry. Tests showed the anthrax bacteria were alive.
At least seven people working on the Oakland project were given antibiotics as a precaution, officials said. None has developed symptoms of anthrax.
SRI officials did not return phone calls last week. In an earlier interview, Voss said the company would review its procedures for killing anthrax. But he said, "The take-home message is, this is biology, which can be unpredictable."
CDC spokesman Von Roebuck said the agency is monitoring SRI's self-review. But he said that while the incident suggests that "there's a tradeoff" in safety with growing numbers of labs conducting biodefense work, the registration and background checks "certainly raise the safety level."
The Bioterrorism Act requires labs to report the theft, loss or release of pathogens. The CDC was unable to provide the number of such incidents, but Jones said there have been "not very many."
Jones said the law's confidentiality requirements prohibit him from saying whether SRI is registered to handle select agents. "I'm not confirming or denying that this [SRI] is a registered entity," he said.
The confidentiality rules, designed to prevent terrorists from learning the location of germ stocks, also keeps the public in the dark, says Hammond, of the Sunshine Project.
"There is legitimate information to withhold - such as the combination to the lock on a lab's freezer," Hammond says. "But the mere fact of which institutions are using select agents, which agents they're using and what they're doing with them should be made public."
Copyright (c) 2004, The Baltimore Sun
Link to the article:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation ... 8679.story (http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.biodefense27jun27,0,6098679.story)
Spertzel, Benador teams, and Israeli-US/UK Dual Loyalist-Traitorous- "Hasbara" Jews had a hand in murdering Dr. Kelley...IMHO... call it CIA/MI6--- it's just JEW... plain and simple... he had the details on Richard Spertzel's lies and likely had the data on him when he was murdered... apparently MI6 or another agency confiscated data from him shortly after his murder. -- The CSR
-----
QuoteIraq whistleblower Dr Kelly WAS murdered to silence him, says MP
By FIONA BARTON
Last updated at 00:18 20 October 2007
* Comments (36)
* Add to My Stories
Weapons expert Dr David Kelly was assassinated, an MP claims today.
Campaigning politician Norman Baker believes Dr Kelly, who exposed the Government's "sexed-up" Iraq dossier, was killed to stop him making further revelations about the lies that took Britain to war.
He says the murderers may have been anti-Saddam Iraqis, and suggests the crime was covered up by elements within the British establishment to prevent a diplomatic crisis.
Scroll down for more ...
David Kelly
'Murdered': Weapons' expert David Kelly
Read more...
* Why I know weapons expert Dr David Kelly was murdered, by the MP who spent a year investigating his death
The LibDem MP, who gave up his front bench post to carry out his year-long investigation, makes his claims in a book serialised exclusively in the Daily Mail today and next week.
The official Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr Kelly ruled in 2004 that he slashed one of his wrists with a garden knife and took an overdose after being "outed" as the mole who revealed the flawed argument for invading Iraq.
But Norman Baker is convinced the scientist was murdered.
He says he was told by a secret informant that British police knew about the plot but failed to act in time and that the death was later made to look like a suicide to prevent political and diplomatic turmoil.
The highly-respected MP's personal quest to uncover the truth about Dr Kelly's death was prompted by deep concerns over the circumstances surrounding the apparent suicide.
He - and a group of eminent doctors - were greatly troubled by the evidence presented to Lord Hutton.
They claimed medical evidence proved that the alleged method of suicide - the cutting of the ulnar artery in the wrist and an overdose of co-proxamol painkillers - could not have caused the scientist's death.
Mr Baker said: "The more I examined [Lord Hutton's verdict], the more it became clear to me that Hutton's judgment was faulty and suspect in virtually all important respects."
His findings are today revealed in the first extract from his book The Strange Death of David Kelly. In it, he claims:
? No fingerprints were found on the gardening knife allegedly used by the scientist to cut one of his wrists;
? Only one other person in the whole of the British Isles committed suicide in the same way as the scientist allegedly did in 2003;
? There was an astonishing lack of blood at the scene despite death being officially recorded as due to a severed artery;
? The level of painkillers found in Dr Kelly's stomach was "less than a third" of a normal fatal overdose.
The Lewes MP also suggests that the knife and packs of painkillers found beside Dr Kelly's body were taken from his home in Southmoor, Oxfordshire, during a police search after his death and later planted at the scene.
He tells in his book how he was contacted by "informants" during his "journey into the unknown".
One is alleged to have told him Dr Kelly's death had been "a wet operation, a wet disposal".
Mr Baker explains: "Essentially, it seems to refer to an assassination, perhaps carried out in a hurry."
Another secret contact told him that a group of UK-based Iraqis had "named people who claimed involvement in Dr Kelly's death".
The informant was later the victim of "an horrific attack by an unknown assailant".
The MP, who has repeatedly called for the police to re-open the case, alleges that the scientist had "powerful enemies" because of his work on biological weapons. A colleague of Dr Kelly, Dick Spertzel, America's most senior biological weapons inspector, confirmed to Mr Baker that the scientist was "on an Iraqi hit list".
Mr Baker alleges that opponents of Saddam Hussein feared Dr Kelly would "discredit" them by revealing "misinformation" they had deliberately planted to bolster the case for Britain and America's intervention in Iraq.
The MP claims Kelly's integrity might have "signed his own death warrant".
The book also alleges that British police "had got wind of a possible plan to assassinate Dr Kelly but were too late to prevent his murder taking place".
The MP suggests that the police may have tried to make the killing appear to be a suicide "in the interests of Queen and country" and to prevent any destabilisation of the sensitive relationship between the Allies and Iraq.
Mr Baker adds: "It is all too easy to dismiss so-called conspiracy theories. But history shows us that conspiracies do happen - and that suicide can be staged to cover murderers' tracks.
"All the evidence leads me to believe that this is what happened in the case of Dr Kelly."
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0jdFFBE8w (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-488662/Iraq-whistleblower-Dr-Kelly-WAS-murdered-silence-says-MP.html#ixzz0jdFFBE8w)
US Jews working from the inside...
QuoteLibby's Drafts of Powell's
UN Speech Could Be
`Smoking Gun' To Impeach Cheney
by Michele Steinberg
On Feb. 7, 2003, Lyndon LaRouche, then a candidate in the 2004 Democratic Presidential primaries, warned the nation—especially the other Democratic Party candidates—after the Feb. 5, 2003 speech delivered to the UN Security Council special session on Iraq, by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, that Powell was the "apparent victim of a hoax."
LaRouche said: "A suddenly unleashing, already raging international scandal over certain dubious elements included in U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's UNO Security Council address, tends to discredit my Democratic Party rivals even more more than a Powell who was plainly carrying out a mission crafted by others.
"For example, U.S. credibility is under assault as today's Reuters' 'World News' dispatches featured breaking news which strongly suggests that Colin Powell's UNO Security Council address was, in significant part, a hoax based on cooked-up documents of Britain's Blair government." (For the full statement, see "Powell Apparent Victim of Hoax.")
As documented in the Feb. 21, 2003 issue of EIR, large parts of Powell's speech were based on a British intelligence assessment, issued by British Prime Minister Tony Blair's office, which had been prepared by a think-tank run by Barry Rubin, an American neo-conservative, and then passed into British intelligence. Rubin's dossier, in turn, was based on a graduate student thesis, written nearly 20 years earlier!
But, there is far more to the story, as EIR has exposed. Rubin was an extension of the long arm of Dick Cheney's disinformation apparatus, run out of his office by his national security aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, with a direct "stovepipe" from the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans (OSP), run by Libby's cronies, neo-cons Douglas Feith and Paul Wolfowitz, the No. 3 and No. 2 officials in the Pentagon. In Feb. 21, 2003, EIR wrote:
"Rubin, a transplanted Israeli citizen, still spends a good deal of time in the United States. On Feb. 4, [2003] he was one of the speakers at a Willard Hotel luncheon in Washington sponsored by Eleana Benador Associates, a New York City public relations firm that counts among its clients the entire chicken-hawk apparatus. Among the other speakers with Rubin were Benador clients [Richard] Perle, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney, Laurie Mylroie, former UN weapons inspector Richard Spertzel, and former Iraqi weapons scientist Khidhir Hamza."
Today, there is no question the speech was a hoax.
"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, who had been an advisor to Powell for 16 years, and who served as his chief of staff from 2002 to 2005, and had worked on the speech. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life," Wilkerson told CNN in an August 2005 documentary, "Dead Wrong—Inside an Intelligence Meltdown."
'Book of Evidence'
The following report is an outline to enable investigators in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate to conclude not only that Powell's speech was a hoax—but that it was one cooked in Cheney's office.
According to a former high-level intelligence professional, who also served for decades in the U.S. Armed Forces, Libby's drafts could provide "the smoking gun." Powell reportedly tossed the 90-page draft (or by some accounts, drafts), that Libby and Cheney's office were trying to force him to deliver to the UN, "in the garbage," because it was so unsubstantiated. Instead, he spent 3-4 days at CIA headquarters trying to verify each piece of information he would use at the UN. But several reports say that Libby was there, breathing down Powell's neck, and trying to reinsert the material that Powell had rejected—even on the day of the speech. (See "Yes Dick, You Are a Liar," EIR, Dec. 9, 2005.)
The Libby drafts will probably show the details that Cheney's office was maintaining its own intelligence shop, gathering information that had been rejected by intelligence professionals, a former CIA official told EIR. Congressional investigators could get "behind the curtain" of what Cheney and Libby were deliberately doing to manufacture intelligence, by reviewing those drafts. Where did Lewis Libby get his information? How did it get funneled into him? The Senate must investigate this question.
Another senior Washington intelligence source told EIR that Libby would not have dared to shove a draft of a speech down the throat of the Secretary of State, unless he was doing it for Cheney and had Cheney's okay.
Libby has now been indicted for perjury: lying to Federal investigators. Could his crime have stemmed from a doctrine of lying and misleading the American people—and Congress—to achieve a war that could not be justified? As 2006 begins, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence conducts its crucial "Phase II" investigation of the lies that led up to the Iraq War, the most crucial "book of evidence" for that investigation must be the Libby draft of Powell's speech.
EIR cannot comment directly on the Libby drafts, as they are still secret.
We can show that the key allegations in Powell's testimony were false and unreliable, and that much of the false information came from a nefarious network of rogue intelligence operations run by Cheney. And sources for the false information include New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Pentagon-funded Iraqi National Congress, and its intelligence unit, the Information Collection Program (ICP).
In addition, Congressional investigations have established that the intelligence community withheld from Congress—and possibly from Powell—crucial information that debunked allegations that Iraq was aiding and training al-Qaeda.
Finally, a Dec. 20, 2005 report of House Judiciary Committee Minority Staff, issued by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), the ranking member on that committee, indicates that Powell doctored transcripts of alleged wiretapped conversations between Iraqi officials, in his UN testimony, to enhance his allegation that Iraqi officials were hiding evidence from UN inspectors.
There are already enough statements by Powell and his longtime assistant, Colonel Wilkerson, for the Senate Intelligence Committee to call Libby, and every single person involved in creating and delivering that UN speech, for a full investigation. For example:
In the Los Angeles Times, Nov. 20, 2005, on the source "Curveball," who provided faked information on "mobile bio-weapons labs," that Powell played up, Powell says: "I was not pleased. What really made me not pleased was they [the CIA and DIA] had put out a burn notice on this guy, and people who were even present at my briefings knew it."
In a 2005 interview with ABC-News interviewer Barbara Walters, Powell said the speech was a "blot" on his record, and "I'm the one who presented it to the world, and [it] will always be part of my record. It was painful. It is painful now."
Two Levels of Hoax
The final version of Powell's speech contained fake statements so numerous, that one can only imagine what he had to discard from drafts that were shoved on him by Libby and Dick Cheney's office.
Why this elaborate hoax? Simply put, the Administration's case for war was going down the tubes in January 2003, because of the ongoing and successful inspections by the UNMOVIC, the UN team on bio-chemical weapons, headed by Dr. Hans Blix and by the International Atomic Energy Agency, headed by Dr. Mohammed ElBaradei. The UN inspectors had made repeated visits to every supposed "WMD site" that U.S. and British intelligence had identified, and every one was a dry hole.
As the investigation will show, the Iraqi defectors' network of Chalabi had been scrambling to come up with new "intelligence." The scramble dates to at least February 2002, when Amb. Joseph Wilson, sent on a CIA mission to Niger, had determined that the allegations that Iraq had purchased uranium yellowcake from Niger, were groundless. But the new "intelligence," compiled through the Iraqi National Congress's ICP, where information from Chalabi controlled Iraqi defectors became "intelligence," was so hasty and sloppy that the hoaxes can now be documented.
Powell on the Iraqi nuclear sites: Much of the information Powell presented came from an Iraqi National Congress-promoted defector, Saeed al-Haideri, who claimed to have worked at dozens of secret WMD sites in Iraq. A CIA polygraph exam exposed him as a liar. Yet, within weeks of the CIA assessment, Judy Miller, then with the New York Times, was given access to al-Haideri for interviews which were featured prominently in the newspaper. Cheney gave a series of speeches based on the Miller article, and al-Haideri was praised by name in White House statements.
Powell on "aluminum tubes": Powell not only asserted that the "aluminum tubes" seized from a ship bound for Iraq in 2000, were for centrifuges for the nuclear program, but he ranted, foolishly, that critics inside the intelligence community who had pointed out that it was impossible for those tubes to be used for the centrifuges, were dead wrong. The aluminum tubes story was again, a "Cheney special," which again had originated in a New York Times story by Judith Miller, on Sept. 8, 2002.
Do these two cases of Miller's articles spreading what turned out to be false intelligence on Iraqi WMD suggest that she had a role as a White House channels for disinformation? Miller later surfaced as having a special relationship with Scooter Libby, and was one of the earliest recipients of the classified information from him about the identity of CIA covert agent Valerie Plame, the wife of Ambassador Wilson, who had debunked the Niger yellowcake story.
Powell on the "mobile trailer bio-weapons labs": He said that biological weapons production facilities existed on trucks, and on train cars, even illustrating the point with a slide show. The whole story was a "Curveball" concoction. In November 2005, five members of the German intelligence agency, BND, were allowed to divulge to the Los Angeles Times, how many times, and how intensely they had warned the United States intelligence services that Curveball was a fabricator, who also turned out to be an Iraqi National Congress stringer—related to one of Chalabi's bodyguards.
Powell on the al-Qaeda/Saddam Hussein conspiracy: Powell went on for pages, about the "decades-long experience" of the ties between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. But the U.S. Senate learned—long after Cheney's pre-emptive war against Iraq—that the White House, CIA, and DIA, had withheld crucial evidence that the information about the al-Qaeda/Iraq links was faulty.
On Nov. 23, 2005, National Journal reporter Murray Waas wrote that the Senate Intelligence Committee was involved in a pitched battle with the White House to get them to turn over to the committee a copy of the Sept. 21, 2001 "Presidential Daily Briefing" which was prepared for George W. Bush, and informed him that there was no evidence whatsoever linking Iraq to al-Qaeda, or the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11. The White House had never revealed this to the Intelligence Committee until August 2004—after the committee had completed its pre-election report on the intelligence failures! The briefing has still not been turned over to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Then, on Nov. 29, 2005, Colonel Wilkerson told BBC in an interview that the administration had misused intelligence from captured al-Qaeda member al-Shaykh al-Libi, who claims that he has been the victim of torture. Wilkerson said he is beginning to have "concerns" that the White House was not "simply fooled," but had lied.
"One is the questioning of Shaykh al-Libi, where his confessions were obtained through interrogation techniques other than those authorized by Geneva. It led Colin Powell to say at the UN ... that there were some pretty substantive contacts between al-Qaeda and Baghdad. And we now know that al-Libi's forced confession has been recanted and we know—we're pretty sure that it was invalid.
"But more important than that, we know that there was a Defense Intelligence Agency dissent on that testimony even before Colin Powell made his presentation. We never heard about that."
Wilkerson is referring to a DIA memo from February 2002, which was declassified on Oct. 26, 2005, at the request of Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.), both members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Wilkerson also says that the al-Libi disinformation was withheld from Powell.
The DIA's disowning of al-Libi's statements had also been withheld from the U.S. Senate, says Senator Levin, who is also on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
That DIA finding "is stunningly different from repeated Administration claims of a close relationship between Saddam and al-Qaeda," said Levin in a Nov. 6, 2005 statement. "Just imagine the impact if that DIA conclusion had been disclosed at that time. It surely could have made a difference in the congressional vote authorizing the war."
The DIA memo comments on al-Libi's claims that al-Qaeda forces went to Iraq:
"This is the first report from Ibn al-Shaykh in which he claims Iraq assisted al-Qaida's CBRN [Chemical, Biological, Radiological or Nuclear] efforts. However, he lacks specific details on the Iraqis involved, the CBRN materials associated with the assistance, and the location where training occurred. It is possible he does not know any further details; it is more likely this individual is intentionally misleading the debriefers [emphasis added by Levin]. Ibn al-Shaykh has been undergoing debriefs for several weeks and may be describing scenarios to the debriefers that he knows will retain their interest." The DIA memo also said, "Saddam's regime is intensely secular and is wary of Islamic revolutionary movements. Moreover, Baghdad is unlikely to provide assistance to a group it cannot control."
Levin also stated that a CIA report on al-Shaykh al-Libi from the same time period said that he was not in a position to know anything about such training. There are also reports that al-Libi recanted his statements.
Levin and Rockefeller are now asking that four other DIA documents about Iraq be declassified.
Chalabi Gloats
In February 2004, when it had come out that David Kay, head of the U.S. occupation inspection teams, had concluded that there are no Iraqi WMD, Ahmed Chalabi gloated to the London Telegraph, "We [the Iraqi National Congress] are heroes in error. As far as we are concerned, we have been entirely successful, our objective has been achieved. That tyrant, Saddam, is gone, and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important." But Chalabi's, and Cheney's, coverup is breaking apart.
Mark Bender, George R. Canning, Carl Osgood, Jeffrey Steinberg, and Scott Thompson also contributed to this article.
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2006/3 ... peech.html (http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2006/3302powell_un-speech.html)
Spertzel was on her team...
------
QuoteThe Andean condor among the hawks
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - When historians look back on the United States war in Iraq, they will almost certainly be struck by how a small group of mainly neo-conservative analysts and activists outside the administration were able to shape the US media debate in ways that made the drive to war so much easier than it might have been.
Part of their success, of course, is attributable to their own close ties to the administration. Some, such as former Central Intelligence Agency chief James Woolsey, and American Enterprise Institute (AEI) fellow Richard Perle, for example, used their access as members of the Defense Policy Board (DPB) to enhance their credibility as players with inside information.
And many of the same group could credit their polish and polemical skills with dominating the talk shows on television and radio and the opinion pages in the nation's major newspapers.
It also no doubt helped that most of the group had known each other for many years, often worked with the same organizations and think tanks, and subscribed to the same basic ideology that had a clear and consistent story line: Saddam Hussein is evil and dangerous; the US is good and benign; and if we don't get him first, he will try to kill us.
The simplicity and consistency of that message - however questionable the evidence to support it may turn out to be - were appealing in themselves, particularly to television, on which about 80 percent of the public relies for their international news.
But historians would be negligent if they ignored the day-to-day work of one person who, as much as anyone outside the administration, made their media ubiquity possible.
Meet Eleana Benador, the Peruvian-born publicist for Perle, Woolsey, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney and a dozen other prominent neo-conservatives whose hawkish opinions proved very hard to avoid for anyone who watched news talk shows or read the op-ed pages of major newspapers over the past 20 months.
Also found among her client list are other major war-boosters, including former New York Times executive editor and now New York Daily News columnist, A M Rosenthal; Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer; the Council on Foreign Relations' resident imperialist, Max Boot; and Victor Davis Hanson, a blood-and-guts classicist and one of Vice President Dick Cheney's favorite dinner guests.
Aside from her success in getting her clients distributed all over the television dial at critical moments in the march to war, what is particularly remarkable about Benador is the speed with which she has built what is obviously a thriving business, based on 17 to 18-hour work days, the personal attention she gives to both her clients and her media contacts, and her conviction that what her clients say is true and right.
"In general, I do agree with their views," Benador told Inter Press Service during an interview this week in the plush lobby of what is Washington's only grand hotel in the European style, the Willard. "So when I represent them, I can really convince another person."
New York-based Benador Associates is less than two years old, but has a star-studded client roster of 38 people, most of them Middle East specialists. Benador estimates that she arranges for her clients each week between 15 and 30 interviews on US and foreign television. In the same period, she places an average of about five op-eds by them in the most influential newspapers, such as the Times, the Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. And none of that includes what she considers her main responsibility - to get her clients influential and, if possible, lucrative speaking engagements.
She downplays her achievements and importance, noting that media demand for prominent neo-conservatives was spurred "not because of Eleana Benador, but because of the long overdue need to address the threat of terrorism".
Benador was born in Lima, where she was crippled by polio while very young. At the age of seven she moved with her family to Paris, where she remained when they returned to Peru when she was 16. She attended the Sorbonne in Paris and the Catholic University in Lille and later studied and worked in Vienna and Geneva, where she met her husband, a Swiss art dealer. After nine years of raising their now 14-year-old son, Benador returned to work, dividing her time between "anti-terrorism" and art history.
She then joined the Middle East Forum (MEF), a Philadelphia-based think tank headed by neo-con Daniel Pipes, whose recent nomination by President George W Bush to the board of the US Institute for Peace has stalled as a result of strong criticism from Arab-American, Muslim and civil-rights groups, who accuse him of inciting hatred against Muslims.
Benador left the MEF in October 2001 to create Benador Associates, and credits Woolsey and Rosenthal, in particular, with helping her get started. "Woolsey really opened his doors for his other friends," she said. Woolsey has long been close to Perle, who has his own network of neo-cons based at AEI, including Ledeen, Hillel Fradkin, Michael Rubin, Meyrav Wurmser and Laurie Mylroie, all of whom have been outspoken and influential hawks on Iraq. And all are Benador clients.
Her client list also includes a number of Muslims, such as Amir Taheri, Ismail Cem, Fereydoun Hoveyda, Tashbih Sayyed and Mansoor Ijaz, all of whom supported the war and have called for Bush to extend the "war on terrorism" to other Middle Eastern countries. Another prominent Muslim represented by Benador, Shaykh Kabbani, created an uproar in the Muslim community in 1999 by charging that most US mosques were preaching extremist views.
Benador also represents two controversial Iraqis - Kanan Makiya and Khidhir Hamza - associated with the Iraqi National Congress led by Ahmad Chalabi, who has been strongly supported by neo-conservatives in the administration and the DPB. Hamza, a former nuclear scientist, has been especially controversial due to his repeated warnings in the media about Iraq's alleged reconstitution of a nuclear-weapons program. Hamza and Makiya, says Benador, are "really my most powerful voices right now".
The publicist says that she sees her work as "more of a mission than a business", a mission in which her Muslim clients play a key role. "I'm totally convinced that in our world to get peace we need to make peace with moderate Muslims," according to Benador. "If they are not our allies, we will never have peace. They are the ones who can defeat their own extremists, and they are the first victims of Muslim extremists. This is something I'm very firmly fighting for."
Nor are all her clients dyed-in-the-wool neo-cons. She also represents columnist Arnaud de Borchgrave, a right-winger who has opposed the neo-cons' Mideast policy as tilted too far toward Israeli interests.
Benador says that she is now trying to work more with companies that are investing in the Middle East and need up-to-date analysis of the situation there from her clients. She has also launched an effort to present programs on "anti-Americanism" on US university campuses using her clients as featured speakers.
(Inter Press Service)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/EH15Aa01.html (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/EH15Aa01.html)
QuoteDoctors Seek to Reopen Inquest in to Death of U.K. Weapons Expert
By Chris Dade.
Subscribe to author
Dec 5, 2009 by ■ Chris Dade
Six doctors, convinced that the man said to have revealed how the government of Tony Blair exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction did not commit suicide, are pressing for a new inquiry in to the man's death.
In July 2003, 59-year-old Dr. David Kelly, the head of microbiology at the Porton Down biowarfare research laboratories near Salisbury, Wiltshire in the Southwest of England, was found dead in woods near his home in the neighboring county of Oxfordshire.
Dr. Kelly had cuts to his left wrist and three packets of a painkiller known as co-proxamol, there was only one tablet remaining out of the 30 that would have been contained in three packets, were found on or near to his body.
As the London Times reports the discovery of Dr. Kelly's body came only three days after he had appeared before the U.K. Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee. His appearance before the committee was linked to accusations, which he denied, that he provided information that was used in the making of a program for BBC Radio 4, broadcast two months earlier.
During the program it was suggested that the U.K. government, then led by Ton Blair, had "sexed up" a dossier which contained information on the weapons of mass destruction in the hands of then leader of Iraq, Saddam Hussein. The purpose of the 2002 dossier was to justify the invasion of Iraq that had taken place in March 2003.
An inquiry in to Dr Kelly's death, chaired by Lord Hutton, was subsequently held and in early 2004 the inquiry concluded that the man who, says the Daily Express, had visited Iraq on 37 occasions, with another trip due around the time of his death, to ascertain how many weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein did actually possess, bled to death from the cut on his wrist and also overdosed on co-proxamol.
However the suicide verdict reached by the Hutton inquiry, which Sky News notes was suspended before it had even begun, by Lord Falconer, at the time the Lord Chancellor, has always been disputed by a number of people within the medical profession.
Dr. Michael Powers QC, a former assistant coroner, is adamant that the cut to the ulnar artery in Dr Kelly's left wrist could not have caused death by bleeding. Furthermore toxicology reports allegedly indicated a level of co-proxamol in Dr Kelly's body consistent with him having taken a normal dose of the painkiller and inconsistent with him having taken 29 tablets.
And Dr. Powers, who has confirmed that Dr. Kelly suffered from heart disease that was not severe enough to have killed the weapons expert, and is unhappy that the inquiry, classed by Lord Falconer as "fulfilling the function of an inquest" by invoking the Coroners Act, was conducted by a person who is not a coroner, namely Lord Hutton, is one of six doctors taking legal action in an attempt to have the inquest in to Dr. Kelly's death reopened.
The London Times quotes Dr. Powers - joined in the legal action by trauma surgeon David Halpin, epidemiologist Andrew Rouse, surgeon Martin Birnstingl, radiologist Stephen Frost, and internal general medicine specialist Chris Burns-Cox - as saying of the death of Dr. Kelly, who said in a phone conversation just prior to his death that it would be no surprise if his body "was found in the woods":
Suicide cannot be presumed it has to be proven. From the evidence that we have as to the circumstances of his death, in particular the aspect of haemorrhage, we do not believe that there was sufficient evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he killed himself.
There are many times in political life that the country needs to have an answer and the desire to have an answer overwhelms the desire to get the right answer. There is that pressure to find a conclusion.
I have no doubt that many of us when we read about this thought that he had killed himself. But you cannot be certain.
Everyone's death is significant. This death had a significance which was greater and I feel that the process of the investigation of death ought to have been a thorough one. That was not provided for him
The aim of the legal action is to force the matter before the High Court and Attorney General Baroness Scotland will being contacted with a view to achieving that aim.
There are those who believe that Dr. Kelly was murdered.
:x
Richard Spertzel, responsible for the 1994-1999 search for any biological weapons held by Iraq and the head of a UN inspection team that cooperated with Dr. Kelly, is one individual who believes that his erstwhile colleague was indeed murdered. According to a report in the Daily Express in July Mr Spertzel has asserted that he and Dr. Kelly were both on an assassination list compiled by the regime of Saddam Hussein and that it was Iraqi agents operating in the U.K. who killed the British weapons expert.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/283276 (http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/283276)
Old news from the EIR's Steinberg but worth a look over:
Quote
Powell-Blair Iraq Dossier Was Cooked In Israel
By Jeffrey Steinberg
Executive Intelligence Review
http://www.LaRouchePub.com/eiw (http://www.larouchepub.com/eiw)
2-18-3
According to media accounts, the 10 Downing Street "dossier," cited favorably by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in his disastrous Feb. 5 report to the United Nations Security Council, was plagiarized from an American graduate school paper, based on information more than a decade old. The scandal that erupted when the Blair dossier hoax hit the press, seriously undermined the credibility of those war party advocates of an immediate Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. As Lyndon LaRouche wrote, Powell was set up by a gang of public relations flacks who can't think straight.
So far, so good. But a deeper probe into the scandal reveals that there was good reason that the spin-meisters at the Coalition Information Center--the Washington-London civilian government propaganda unit that crafted both the Blair dossier and major portions of Secretary Powell's own lighter-than-air book of evidence--did not reveal the sources of their information. The entire cooked intelligence picture was "Made in Israel." It was cooked up at a right-wing think-tank complex notorious as a hotbed of radical Likudnik propaganda, and with links to the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney, via his Chief of Staff Lewis Libby and his former client, Marc Rich.
The essential facts are as follows: Two days before Powell's UN appearance, 10 Downing Street issued a 16-page paper, "Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception, and Intimidation," purportedly based on high-level British intelligence data. In fact, at least 11 of the 16 pages were lifted, verbatim, from an Israeli journal, {Middle East Review of International Affairs}, whose sole proprieter is Dr. Barry Rubin, an American-born Israeli citizen. The 11 pages were drawn from two articles, by Ibrahim al-Marashi and Robert Rabil, that appeared in the September 2002 edition of that journal.
Al-Marashi's article, a profile of Iraqi intelligence, was drawn, largely, from Iraqi government documents confiscated during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Al-Marashi, in turn, heavily footnoted his article to other, earlier stories published in Rubin's obscure online journal, by Amazia Baram, the journal's deputy editor.
This was no bit of grammar school plagiarism. The public relations team that put together the Blair and Powell propaganda drivel were themselves linked to Rubin and his fellow Israeli pranksters, through Ahmed Chalabi's discredited and corrupt Iraqi National Congress (INC).
Chalabi, University of Chicago protege of the late utopian Albert Wohlstetter, then fugitive swindler, was adopted as the Iraqi oppositionist-of-choice by Israeli "X Committee" agent and chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle and his British Arab Bureau handler, Dr. Bernard Lewis, in the 1980s.
RUBIN AND THE CHICKEN-HAWK INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Rubin issued a statement following the Downing Street dossier flap, taking full credit for the cooked intelligence report. His only complaint was that, while the Blair government apologized to Al-Marashi, they did not issue a similar public statement of regret to him and his journal.
To have done so would have been suicidal, as a quick review of Rubin's pedigree makes clear.
According to three current biographies, Prof. Barry Rubin is the deputy director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Israel, and a senior fellow at Hebrew University's Harry Truman Center and Haifa University's Jewish-Arab Center. He is the director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center, research director of the Lauder School of Government Policy and Diplomacy, and a senior fellow at the International Center for Counterterrorist Policy (ICT)--all of which are part of the Interdisciplinary Center, Israel's first private university, in Herzliya.
The Lauder School was named after Ronald Lauder, the former Reagan Ambassador to Austria, former president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, soon-to-be-successor of Edgar Bronfman Sr. as head of the World Jewish Congress, and a notorious financier of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The ICT, which co-sponsored a May 26, 2002 Herzliya center conference on suicide terrorism with the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai Brith, is financed by the Marc Rich Foundation, the tax shelter of fugitive Russian Mafiya don Marc Rich. Avner Azulay, a former Mossad officer and director of the Rich Foundation, is an ICT director. Another publicly listed associate of the ICT is Maj. Gen. Meir Dagan, one of Ariel Sharon's most notorious thugs, and the current head of the Mossad.
Rubin, a transplanted Israeli citizen, still spends a good deal of time in the United States. On Feb. 4, he was one of the speakers at a Willard Hotel luncheon in Washington sponsored by Eleana Benador Associates, a New York City public relations firm that counts among its clients the entire chicken-hawk apparatus. Among the other speakers with Rubin were Benador clients Perle, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney, Laurie Mylroie, former UN weapons inspector Richard Spertzel, and former Iraqi weapons scientist Khidhir Hamza.
Rubin is also the chief Middle East columnist for Conrad Black's Hollinger Corp.-owned {Jerusalem Post}, and a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the think-tank spawn of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the official Israel lobby in America. His writings frequently appear in {Middle East Quarterly}, the hyper-shrill propaganda journal of Daniel Pipes. Rubin and Pipes are both funded by the Bradley Foundation, one of the quartet of ultra-right-wing tax-exempt funds, along with the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Olin Foundation, and the Mellon Scaife Foundation.
Typical of Rubin's prolific writings was a Dec. 3, 2002 Op-Ed in the {Wall Street Journal}, entitled "Sharon the Centrist?" The article celebrated Sharon's Likud party primary victory over Netanyahu, and assailed both Netanyahu and the Labor Party candidate, Gen. Amram Mitzna, whom Rubin labelled an apologist for the Yasser Arafat whom he termed an unrepentant terrorist. In his Benador schpiel, Rubin echoed Perle and Doug Feith's "A Clean Break" strategy, arguing that the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would herald the "third Arab revolution" of the postwar period, triggering a spontaneous outbreak of democracy, human rights, and free trade throughout the Arab world. Rubin's simplistic fantasy of a Middle East re-made in the American-Israeli image has prompted some genuine experts to denounce him as the "Bernard Lewis for dummies." Princeton Professor Lewis is the author of the "Arc of Crisis" strategy for permanent instability in the Middle East.
THE COALITION INFORMATION CENTER
It takes two to tango. The Blair dossier--based on the cooked-in-Israel propaganda of Rubin--and the Powell UN speech, were both largely the work of the Coalition Information Center (CIC), an Anglo-American government propaganda unit set up to counter opposition to the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, and later transformed into a permanent shared venture of the White House and 10 Downing Street.
According to recent news accounts in {New Yorker} magazine and the {New Republic}, the CIC was the brainchild of Gen. Wayne Downing (USA-ret.)--who was chief of counter-terrorism at the National Security Council until last June--and his deputy, former CIA officer Linda Flohr. The two hired a discredited public relations firm, the Rendon Group, which had a reputation for burning through government cash, but which had been instrumental in the launching of Chalabi's INC. Downing, before joining the White House team, was the "military advisor" to the INC. In mid-February, Downing was in India, as part of a delegation from the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), another thinly-disguised Israeli espionage and recruiting front which targets retired American military and intelligence officers.
John Rendon, a Jimmy Carter-era Democratic National Committee executive director, made his connections to Team Bush in 1989, when he handled the propaganda for the overthrow of Gen. Manuel Noriega. In Panama, Rendon hooked up with CIA Iran-Contra operative Flohr, who got Rendon the propaganda contract for Operation Desert Storm. In 1991, President Bush signed a Presidential Finding, authorizing a covert campaign to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and Rendon got an estimated $150 million in CIA cash to manufacture a Potemkin Village opposition to the Baghdad regime, built around Chalabi. According to investigative reporters Seymour Hersh and Jeff Stein, most of the CIA money went to overpaid public relations consultants, posh London flats, flights on the Concorde, and even more suspect cash diversions. Ultimately, the CIA Inspector General got into the act, and Rendon was dumped by the Agency.
Things improved for this crowd, once again, when "Bush 43" came to town. Flohr, who had gone to work for the Rendon Group after retiring from the CIA in 1994--and working for Oliver North's bullet-proof vest company--was tapped by Downing to join him at the National Security Council (she is now officially listed as the director of counter-terrorism for the NSC and director of security for the Office of Homeland Security). Not only did Rendon put together the CIC, but, following Sept. 11, 2001, he won a $100,000 per month Pentagon contract to work for the short-lived Office of Strategic Influence. This was a black-propaganda unit inside the Feith's "chicken-hawk intelligence agency" led by William Luti, a retired Navy captain who was seconded to the Pentagon from the Office of Vice President Dick Cheney. When the {New York Times} exposed the planned OSI agitprop unit, the plans were scrapped, but Rendon retained the Pentagon cash-flow.
_____
For a personal update, call EIR, toll-free, at 1-888-347-3258. Say you "saw it on Rense.com."
http://www.rense.com/general34/COOKED.HTM (http://www.rense.com/general34/COOKED.HTM)
QuoteProbably not to the depth where the necessary arrests would have to be made ;)
A couple of essential facts worth consideration: Two days before Powell's infamous UN appearance, 10 Downing Street issued a 16-page paper, "Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception, and Intimidation," purportedly based on high-level British intelligence data. In fact, at least 11 of the 16 pages were lifted, verbatim, from an Israeli journal, Middle East Review of International Affairs, whose sole proprieter was Dr. Barry Rubin, an American-born Israeli citizen. The 11 pages were drawn from two articles, by Ibrahim al-Marashi and Robert Rabil, that appeared in the September 2002 edition of that journal. This garbage was then passed off as having been verified by UK intelligence services by the cabal of traitors nested in Downing St.
According to three current biographies, Prof. Barry Rubin was the deputy director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies in Israel, and a senior fellow at Hebrew University's Harry Truman Center and Haifa University's Jewish-Arab Center. He is the director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center, research director of the Lauder School of Government Policy and Diplomacy, and a senior fellow at the International Center for Counterterrorist Policy (ICT)—all of which are part of the Interdisciplinary Center, Israel's first private university, in Herzliya.
Rubin, a transplanted Israeli citizen, still spends a good deal of time in the United States. On Feb. 4 2003, he was one of the speakers at a Willard Hotel luncheon in Washington sponsored by Eleana Benador Associates, a New York City public relations firm that counted among its clients the entire neocon chicken-hawk apparatus. Among the other speakers with Rubin were Benador clients Richard Perle (an Israeli agent), Michael Ledeen (an Israeli agent), Frank Gaffney (an Israeli agent), Laurie Mylroie (a fucking idiot) ;)
Taken in conjunction with the tool specifically set up to disseminate the black propaganda, the Office Of Special Plans set up by Dumsfeld and headed by Douglas Feith (an Israeli agent), into willing governmental apparatus hell bent on mass murder - http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jul/17/iraq.usa (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jul/17/iraq.usa)
"In the days after September 11, Mr Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, mounted an attempt to include Iraq in the war against terror. When the established agencies came up with nothing concrete to link Iraq and al-Qaida, the OSP was given the task of looking more carefully....William Luti, a former navy officer and ex-aide to Mr Cheney, runs the day-to-day operations, answering to Douglas Feith, a defence undersecretary and a former Reagan official. The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House not only for the Iraqi opposition. It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon's office in Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam's Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorise. "None of the Israelis who came were cleared into the Pentagon through normal channels," said one source familiar with the visits. Instead, they were waved in on Mr Feith's authority without having to fill in the usual forms."
Here's an excellent documentary on the subject in the US:
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?doc ... 0057137878 (http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=2894821400057137878)
- an episode of the Dutch documentary program "Tegenlicht" about the Israel lobby in the USA. This documentary (April 2007) was created as a result of the controversy created by Mearsheimer and Walt's "The Israel Lobby" article. Featuring interviews with Mearsheimer, geostrategist Lawrence Wikerson, Richard Perle, historian and critic Tony Judt, John Hagee, former Congressman Earl Hilliard, Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch, Michael Massing and Daniel Levy.
http://randombanter.net/index.php?topic=8540.0 (http://randombanter.net/index.php?topic=8540.0)
Assessment of the DoD Embedded Media Programhttp://www.militaryreporters.org/pdfs/embed%20study.pdf (http://www.militaryreporters.org/pdfs/embed%20study.pdf) (page 85)
QuoteOn 12 February 2003, OASD(PA) began sending e-mails to bureau chiefs/NMRs
to provide them with their organizations' embed opportunities. The e-mails provided the
number of embeds by type (ground, maritime, air), the number of embeds by specific
major ground units, and the number of embeds by air bases. They did not include the
ultimate assignment for each embed. During the Bureau Chiefs' meeting on 27 February,
the DASD(PA) stated, "When we made the decision to centralize this process, we made
that decision because we wanted to make sure that the right news organization across the
spectrum of international, domestic and all forms of medium got properly represented on
the battlefield. But we made a conscious decision to do that down to the division level
where there is a PAO and a division commander, where the embed can discuss the type
of coverage he/she wants to do." To support the local and regional medias' needs for
their readers and viewers, the OASD(PA) POC tried to match their embed allocations
with military units in that region. E-mails were sent to 212 media organizations, with
allocations to fill 731 of the 775 embed allocations in Table V-1. It did not include
44 allocations for the 82ABN, 173ABN, or 3ACR. A caveat stated that not every country
hosting U.S. forces had agreed to accept journalists, so some embed opportunities might
require additional time for approval and some may not be executed at all.
.......
Attendees at the media training courses were told that their costs would not
exceed $300, but no data are available on the actual costs charged to the attendees at each
course. Based on the $300 amount, the media organizations that sent the most individuals
(15) paid $4,500, and the total cost to the media for 232 students did not exceed $69,600.
Media organizations that sent embeds to a hostile-environment training courses paid
approximately $3,000 per individual. Centurion Risk Assessment Services charges
$2,500 per person for their 5-day course, and the Pilgrims Group charges $3,200 per
person for their 6-day course.92 Another company used by media organizations that
offers similar training is AKE Limited.
The military provided embeds the PPE for chemical and biological protection,
and the media organizations were responsible for providing body armor, helmets, and any
other protective equipment desired. During the ASD(PA) Bureau Chiefs' meeting on
14 January 2003, the DASD(PA), in response to a question about why DoD would not
furnish it, stated, "We have had discussions with many of you in this room about that. To
be quite honest with you, there's a fair amount of concern that if we put our military flack
vests on you, if we put our military helmets on you, if we provide protective clothing for
you beyond the NBC suits, you begin to look very much like a soldier, a sailor, or a
marine that's out there, and so we've gotten a fair amount of push-back from that." Estimates
of expenditure per individual for body armor and helmet ranged from $1,000 to
$1,500. Embeds attached to ground units also needed to purchase additional personal
equipment if they did not already have it (e.g., a tent, a sleeping bag, a ground pad, canteens,
and so forth). For additional protection, OASD(PA) made smallpox vaccine and
anthrax vaccine available to embeds. It was voluntary and not a perquisite for
embedding. The vaccine cost per dose was $5.80 for smallpox and $94.96 for anthrax.93
The smallpox vaccine required 1 dose and the anthrax vaccine required 6 doses,
administered over 18 months. Thus, the total cost for all 7 shots was $575.56. No data
were available to indicate how many embeds received the shots.
92
Great job in the thread, CSR, showing the value of the anthrax attacks in pressuring for war. It leaves no room for doubt about the centrality of the event to 9-11.
But there is still an Official Story about anthrax that doesn't fit. I cobbled together a timeline from the news with a few 'angles' added to bring up some new questions and look at the roles of involvement -- if you guys will bear with me. I don't want to belabor this thread so I made this as a way of cutting-to-the-chase.
Questions:
Could it be that First Victim, Bob Stevens of American Media Inc., was a carefully orchestrated murder? Gaps and inconsistencies in the news stories of Bob's death suggest room for this as likely. NO contamination was found in his home, not one spore to report. Credible testimony said Bob had symptoms on Wed. Sept. 26.That night he stayed late at his AMI office and should be "on camera" entering, moving, and exiting the building (refer to Ed Lake's thesis which doesn't mention that). Somebody knows exactly what Bob did at work on the night before he was leaving for North Carolina at 7am on the 27th.
Who were the owners and what were the business interests of American Media Inc.?
Two accounts of Bob checking in at JFK Medical Center exist (next to Lantana Airport where they don't allow jets). He either walked in semi-incoherent or was comatose. Spinal fluid was flown by corporate jet to Arizona for hasty confirmation of anthrax by a Los Alamos specialist, Paul Keim, who made an effort to determine the strain. This was the beginning of a three-ring circus about a weaponized strain. The practice of fractional jet-ownership means that companies no longer have a proprietary interest in their 'rides'. Private jets come equipped with pilots and crew. Is it probable that Bob was contaminated elsewhere (North Carolina, perhaps) and his office was planted with anthrax spores after the AMI employees were barred from re-entry? This event is key. The "anthrax strain evidence" has been discredited.
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The next two victims were Postal workers. Shortly after their deaths, a Postal Service forensics specialist, Roy W. Geffen, announced that they believed only three anthrax letters were circulated in the mail, opposing the publicized theory that seven letters had been sent. The USPS had the power to launch its own investigations into 'mail (and wire) fraud' which often led to indictments in phoney securities and assisted in drug smuggling cases. This makes a wide motive against the Post Office. USPS workers also maintain a public service 'exposure' website called Judicial Watch. It's been suggested that the anthrax contamination cost "billions" to the USPS and there are additional deaths and illness that officials omit. On the subject of the six contaminated post offices in South Florida, the media goes silent; no names, no illness, no deaths. In the apparent route of postal processing, the closer to end-point delivery, the more lethal the 'letters' became. Bob's workplace, AMI, was reputedly swarming with spores. Why wasn't one South Florida case of anthrax reported among the postal workers there?
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The last two victims were a 'hospital supply room' worker in Manhattan who lived alone and rode the subway to and from the Bronx every day, and a random-seeming 'little old lady' in Connecticut. A theory of cross-contaminated mail is supposed in the deaths of these two women but officials found NOTHING except for a slightly 'positive' envelope in another town almost two miles away from the Ct. woman.
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The Washington D.C. anthrax trail is unexplainable by means of cross-contaminated letters. Other anthrax-tainted mail was recorded elsewhere (like Kansas City, Mo. and Indianapolis) and outside the country. This "trail" must be telling a story. To complicate matters, President Bush asked the children of America to send letters to the White House for the children of Afghanistan --the same day the 'Daschle Letter' was opened in the Hart Building, Ari Fleischer told the press, more than 10,000 letters flooded the mailrooms in a 12-hour period.
TIMELINE
2001
–"In March 2001, an alert was issued by the National Counterintelligence Executive, a branch of the CIA, warning federal employees to be aware of "suspicious visitors to federal facilities." There had been reports of Middle Eastern persons showing up at government buildings—many of them DEA offices—claiming to be Israeli art students. At first it was thought the Israeli art students might be Arab terrorists planning an attack. However, it later turned out the art students were indeed Israelis." http://www.anthraxattacks.net/2009/07/t (http://www.anthraxattacks.net/2009/07/t) ... ry-solved/
–In April [2001].., Gulfstream Aerospace parent company General Dynamics announced it would purchase Galaxy Aerospace for $330 million cash"...Galaxy is headquartered at Ross Perot's Alliance Airport outside Fort Worth
–"In the spring and summer of 2001, eight additional hijackers arrived in the United States and settled in Florida. Nine opened SunTrust bank accounts. Three others arrived in San Diego, rounding out the five-man team based in California. http://www.sptimes.com/2002/09/01/911/F ... _lau.shtml (http://www.sptimes.com/2002/09/01/911/Florida_terror_s_lau.shtml)
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–July 10 — "Gloria [Irish] first met one of the terrorists when he walked into the office of her company, Pelican Realty, around July 10."
http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/misc2.html#ne011031 (http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/misc2.html#ne011031)
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– "In August 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld resumed the [BioPort anthrax] vaccine program, but only on a limited basis"..http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/fbirushjudgement.html (http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/fbirushjudgement.html)
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Sep 1 — "a Canadian study published on Sept.1, 2001...indicated that anthrax particles might be small enough to seep out of microscopic pores in envelopes" [see footnote] http://www.ndu.edu/ANTHRAX%20CHRONOLOGY.pdf (http://www.ndu.edu/ANTHRAX%20CHRONOLOGY.pdf)
–[snip] Early September 2001: NY Times Investigation reveals Battelle to make genetically altered anthrax. In the first few days of September 2001 – immediately prior to the attacks of the 11th, the New York Times carried a major investigation which at any other time would have been a story of huge significance...It revealed three secret bio-defence projects at a time when the American people believed none was taking place. One – run by a contractor – Battelle – was to create genetically altered anthrax...
–[snip] September 4. 2001: Details have emerged regarding a number of biological weapons research programs initiated by the United States. Under "Project Bachus," Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) officials constructed a BW production facility using only materials readily available on the commercial market and produced "simulated" BW agents in 1999 and 2000...[The New York Times, September 4 and 5, 2001..]
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The [snip]s are from the 'heartson' timeline. http://www.heartson.com/Politics/anthra (http://www.heartson.com/Politics/anthra) ... eline.html
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BEFORE September 11 — Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly will later say (see Nov.1) that they received several anthrax threat letters before 9-11; Hannity will declare his matched the anthrax-containing, block-lettered envelopes.
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September 11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/ap ... 58_000.htm (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011023/aponline201158_000.htm) .."On the night of the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House Medical Office dispensed Cipro to staff accompanying Vice President Dick Cheney as he was secreted off to the safety of Camp David, and told them it was "a precaution," according to one person directly involved..."
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Sep 18 –"Investigators believe seven letters containing anthrax spores were mailed....Two recovered letters did not have a return address but were postmarked 2001-09-18 in Trenton, New Jersey".. http://mindprod.com/politics/anthrax.html (http://mindprod.com/politics/anthrax.html)
These two letters were sent to NBC News and the New York Post
*
Day-by-day Anthrax Attack from Sep 18 to Dec 8
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/chron ... vents.html (http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/chronologyanthraxevents.html)
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Sep 19 –this is the recalled day that AMI editor Bob Stevens and others opened the "Jennifer Lopez" love letter [not anthrax]
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Sep 20
–NBC letter, addressed to Tom Brokaw, is postmarked Sept.20 from St. Petersburg, Fla..."The Brokaw letter matched two other biothreat letters....One was sent to Judith Miller [opened Oct.12]...and the other to Howard Troxler, a columnist for the St. Petersburg Times." http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/messageanthrax.html (http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/messageanthrax.html)
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http://www.anthraxattacks.net/2009/07/t (http://www.anthraxattacks.net/2009/07/t) ... ry-solved/ ..."During this period, the DEA was investigating the activities of Israeli organized crime. Israeli mobsters, along with the Russian Mafia, control the distribution of the drug Ecstasy in America. It should be noted there is no real difference between these two criminal organizations. It has been known for a long time that the Russian Mafia is made up of Russian Jews from the former Soviet Union. Questions still remain: Why were Israeli spies posing as art students interested in the activities of the DEA? What connection does the Mossad have with the Russian Mafia? The conclusion that best fits the known facts is that Israeli intelligence launched an operation against the DEA to protect their new intelligence asset, the Russian Mafia, from prosecution.
After September 11, the activities of Israeli art students were seen in a new light. The FBI began to investigate the trail left by the Arab hijackers and found many of them had residences in Florida. Interestingly, one third of the art student spies were also based in Florida. It was discovered that some of the Israeli art students had addresses in the same locations as the hijackers. One commentator said that, at times, they were just yards apart...."
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Sep 21 –The NY Post, Johanna Huden, "determined to be the first victim", notices a blister on her finger which bursts the next day...She goes to a doctor on Sept. 29 but is "not properly diagnosed for weeks". The Post letter was never opened.
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Sep 22 –Hamilton postal center; Richard Morgano "has two mosquito-bite-sized spots on his arm"
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Sep 24 –Boca Raton, AMI; Ernesto Blanco "has onset fatigue which turns to fever, cough on Sept.28″
*
Sep 25 –Phillip Zack sent a letter to the FBI implicating Dr. Assaad
–Stephanie Dailey, in the American Media Inc. mailroom, opens a second letter, believed to contain the anthrax that contaminated the Boca Raton building. (refer to Ed Lake)
*
Sep 26 –Bob Stevens first showed symptoms of sickness, according to his wife Maureen and their doctor Larry Bush, and yet he left for a 5-day driving trip to his daughter's home in North Carolina(?)..."Mr. Stevens had traveled with his wife to visit a daughter and go hiking in North Carolina, but became ill on the drive back to Florida." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/16/science/the-doctor- (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/16/science/the-doctor-) s-world-cdc-team-tackles-anthrax.html?pagewanted=2
Sep 28 -- child of ABC News employee is exposed and develops cutaneous anthrax..."when Dr. Borkowsky first examined the infant's skin lesion on Oct. 2, tests showed no evidence of anthrax. The infant also suffered kidney damage, bleeding and a type of anemia that rapidly destroyed red blood cells and required four blood transfusions. "The syndrome this child had had never been described in anthrax" but had been linked to spider bites, Dr. Borkowsky said...[on Oct.12] Dr. Mostashari said the infant's lesion looked exactly like the one that he had seen four hours earlier in Erin O'Connor, 38, the first recognized anthrax victim in New York City. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/04/scien ... ng-it.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/04/science/the-doctor-s-world-first-challenge-in-anthrax-case-not-missing-it.html)
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Oct 1 –AMI coworker Ernesto Blanco is hospitalized at Cedar Medical Center in Miami for pneumonia; Blanco has chronic respiratory disease. Overnight, at 2am on the 2cd, Bob Stevens checked into JFK Medical, adjacent to the Lantana Airport which has a ban on jet traffic –Stevens' spinal fluid was flown by jet to Arizona on the 3rd.
— http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/19/us/na ... -case.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/19/us/nation-challenged-response-experts-adjust-approach-each-new-anthrax-case.html) "The woman at CBS developed cutaneous anthrax, the most treatable form of the disease, on her cheek on Oct. 1."...."Dr. Richard P. Fried told the city health department on Oct. 1 that a patient might have anthrax." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/18/nyreg ... orida.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/18/nyregion/a-nation-challenged-nbc-doctor-in-city-reported-anthrax-case-before-florida.html)
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Oct 2 —[overnight] at 2am, Maureen Stevens drove her husband to the hospital. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/16/scien ... gewanted=2 (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/16/science/the-doctor-s-world-cdc-team-tackles-anthrax.html?pagewanted=2) ..."the patient himself was unable to communicate — he was in a coma when he arrived at the hospital in Atlantis, Fla., and died without regaining consciousness. So health workers had to interview his wife and family to reconstruct what he did during the preceding two weeks. ...In all their work, the epidemiologists "found nothing that was suspicious," said Dr. James M. Hughes, a top C.D.C. expert who oversaw the investigation from Atlanta....Meanwhile, C.D.C. workers sought advice from Dr. Philip S. Brachman, an expert in anthrax epidemiology and a former director of the Epidemic Intelligence Service...Dr. Brachman said he reviewed his records from his days as an officer with the epidemic service in the late 1950's and early 1960's, when he investigated anthrax cases that developed among workers exposed to contaminated goat hair and wool at three mills in North Carolina and one in South Carolina. The mills are now closed, but given how long anthrax spores can live in the environment, Dr. Brachman wondered if Mr. Stevens could have contracted the disease in one of the cities where the mills had been."
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http://911review.org/Sept11Wiki/Hatfill,Stephen.shtml (http://911review.org/Sept11Wiki/Hatfill,Stephen.shtml) "Investigative journalist Wayne Madsen reports that on October 2, 2001 – just two days before the first anthrax case was reported in Boca Raton, Florida and a week and a half before the first anthrax was sent through the mail to NBC News in New York – Advanced Biosystems received an $800,000 grant from NIH to focus on very specific defenses against anthrax: http://www.counterpunch.org/madsenanthrax.html (http://www.counterpunch.org/madsenanthrax.html) "
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Oct 3 –" doctors determine that Robert Stevens in Florida has been infected with anthrax (see October 3, 2001). A culture of anthrax bacteria is grown from a sample of his spinal fluid and quickly flown by corporate jet to Paul Keim. Keim is a geneticist at Northern Arizona University who had recently developed a means to distinguish between strains of anthrax. He and his team gets the sample on October 4 and work all night. By Friday morning, they tell investigators that it is the Ames strain of anthrax. (Flam 9/1/2008) The media will first report that the anthrax was the Ames strain on October 10. (Breed 10/10/2001) Despite Keim's findings, the FBI will approve the destruction of a vital repository of Ames samples, also on October 10 (see October 10-11, 2001)." http://www.historycommons.org/entity.js ... endly=true (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=paul_keim_1&printerfriendly=true)
—..."the Florida Department of Health laboratory was able to provide a rapid diagnosis of anthrax, thanks to the efforts of technicians who had recently completed a training course as part of the Laboratory Response Network funded with bioterrorism response money." http://www.ndu.edu/centercounter/ANTHRA ... NOLOGY.pdf (http://www.ndu.edu/centercounter/ANTHRAX%20CHRONOLOGY.pdf)
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Oct 4 –An "unusual" large team of 15 epidemiologists from the CDC are dispatched (13 by private jet) to South Florida
— news media and AMI employees are informed of Stevens' condition
Oct 5 –Stevens dies at JFK Medical Center (Lantana). Another worker at AMI, chief librarian Martha Moffet, is 'out' with pneumonia at the time. Investigators go to the Stevens' home, seal it with crime-scene tape, and test for anthrax. They find nothing.
—St. Petersburg, hoax letter postmarked this day to Judith Miller (and presumably Howard Troxler)
*
Oct 7 –[Sunday] AMI lawyer and VP Michael Kahane is called at 4 p.m. to evacuate and close the building. Hours of phonecalls ensue to instruct AMI employees to report to the health department in the morning.
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Oct 8 --500 or more people show up at Palm Beach Health Dept. for swab tests and antibiotics.
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Oct 9 –two letters to Senators Daschle [opened in the Hart Building office Oct.15] and Leahy [opened by experts Dec.5] are postmarked from Trenton. These bear the return address "Greendale School"
— Troxler, from the St. Petersburg Times, receives a hoax letter that matches the Brokaw and Judith Miller letters
–"Ms. O'Connor's case [NBC News] of cutaneous anthrax was diagnosed on Oct. 9, rattling the city and setting off an intense investigation into its source...Dr. Fried said that on Oct. 1, after he first examined Ms. O'Connor, he told her she might have an infected spider bite or Lyme disease, but he did not mention anthrax...he re-examined Ms. O'Connor on Oct. 3 and on Oct. 8, when the lesion had developed into a black crust, which is characteristic of cutaneous anthrax. But Dr. Fried and the health department were perplexed because anthrax did not grow on the culture taken from the skin lesion." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/18/nyreg ... orida.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/18/nyregion/a-nation-challenged-nbc-doctor-in-city-reported-anthrax-case-before-florida.html)
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Oct 10 –Stephanie Dailey, from AMI's mailroom, is the third employee to test positive for anthrax and the last confirmed case in Florida –all Florida cases (3) are limited to AMI, despite contamination in 6 post offices
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Oct 12 –Judith Miller opens a hoax letter at her office http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Mil ... rnalist%29 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller_%28journalist%29) ..."Born in New York City to a Jewish father and an Irish Catholic mother, Judith Miller grew up in Miami and Los Angeles, where she graduated from Hollywood High School....Judith Miller attended Ohio State University...She graduated from Barnard College in 1969 and received a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. In 1971, while at Princeton, Miller traveled to Jerusalem to research a paper. She became fascinated with the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and spent the rest of the summer traveling for the first time to Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon"...Miller started at the Washington bureau of the New York Times in 1977, part of a new post-Watergate intake. She and her boyfriend Steven Rattner, also a Times reporter, became close friends of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., the son of the publisher of the Times....For several summers, Miller and Rattner shared a weekend house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with Sulzberger and his wife Gail. In 1992 Sulzberger became publisher of the Times in his own right."...
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Oct 15 –Daschle letter is opened ".. 31 workers on Capitol Hill were exposed to anthrax spores from a contaminated letter sent to the office of Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader." http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/19/us/na ... -case.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/19/us/nation-challenged-response-experts-adjust-approach-each-new-anthrax-case.html)
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Oct 16 — White House press briefing, "QUESTION: Ari, can you talk about what the volume of mail response is to the White House, from the president's request that children send in dollars for children in Afghanistan?
QUESTION: And also is there any concern at the White House that the president solicited this mass mailing right before we have all these concerns about what's in the mail?....FLEISCHER:..as of yesterday afternoon the White House had received some 8,000 pieces of correspondence addressed to the children of Afghanistan, and then by 9:15 this morning it had been upped to 18,000. So obviously it's coming in, and the president is very pleased.." http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0110/16/se.16.html (http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0110/16/se.16.html)
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Oct 17 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/17/us/na ... ictim.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/17/us/nation-challenged-first-cases-jeb-bush-tries-avert-panic-2nd-anthrax-victim.html) "Dr. John Agwunobi, the Florida secretary of health, said that health officials had tested 1,100 people, only 3 of whom have tested positive for anthrax exposure....But Dr. Agwunobi made no mention of five additional American Media employees who senior company executives have said tested positive for anthrax antibodies....State health officials also said today that they were testing a summer intern at American Media for exposure to anthrax after he suddenly became ill and was hospitalized on Sunday with flulike symptoms, a high fever and possible pneumonia...."He had a little fever," said Hank Arizmandi, the student's father. ' They thought the low-grade fever might be attributable to recent dental surgery. Jordan had a nasal swab for anthrax that came back negative. At the hospital, he was also given a blood test for anthrax.' "
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Oct 18 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/18/nyreg ... orida.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/18/nyregion/a-nation-challenged-nbc-doctor-in-city-reported-anthrax-case-before-florida.html) " Three days before anthrax was first detected in Florida, a Manhattan doctor called the New York City Department of Health to report a suspicion: one of his patients might have contracted anthrax."
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Oct 19 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/19/us/na ... -case.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/19/us/nation-challenged-response-experts-adjust-approach-each-new-anthrax-case.html) The response to the new anthrax case at CBS News was decidedly lower-key....The CBS News building, on West 57th Street in Manhattan, was not evacuated. Workers — including the woman who tested positive for anthrax spores — remained at their jobs. And health officials did not recommend antibiotic treatment for large numbers of workers. All this was in sharp contrast to the response at NBC when a case of cutaneous anthrax was diagnosed in an assistant to Tom Brokaw on Oct. 9, said Dr. Stephen M. Ostroff, an epidemiologist from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
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Oct 21 –Thomas Morris Jr., Brentwood Road (Wash, DC) postal worker, dies
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Oct 22 –Joseph Curseen Jr., Brentwood postal worker (from Clinton, MD), dies. Mr. Leroy Richmond, who was diagnosed with inhalation anthrax, is expected to recover. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/23/us/a- ... gewanted=1 (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/23/us/a-nation-challenged-the-doctors-experts-revisit-views-on-surviving-anthrax.html?pagewanted=1)
Leroy Richmond worked at an express mail facility by the Washington-Baltimore International Airport where he sorted out mail headed to Brentwood and then delivered it there.
–A stamp center in Kansas City, Missouri isolates mail from Brentwood after employees wastebaskets test positive; "On Monday Oct.22, Stone ordered the trays [from Brentwood] set aside and shrink-wrapped. None of the Brentwood mail has tested positive for anthrax...and it was unclear how the employees trash might have been contaminated...200 workers were advised to take antibiotics as a precaution" http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2001/oct/3 ... _found_at/ (http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2001/oct/31/anthrax_found_at/)
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Oct 23 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/23/scien ... rfare.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/23/science/response-on-many-fronts-experts-plan-for-the-unthinkable-biowarfare.html) "Protection against biological and chemical attack was never very high on lists of national priorities — until the days after Sept. 11, when it collectively occurred to Americans how vulnerable they were." [wrote Lawrence K. Altman MD, of the NYTimes]
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Oct 24 – http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/24/us/a- ... e-fly.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/24/us/a-nation-challenged-news-analysis-fighting-a-new-health-threat-on-the-fly.html) "We don't have much data on humans," said David R. Franz, former commander of the Army's germ-defense laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md. "Most of what we know is based on 3,000 monkeys. There is hardly any human data on the effects of inhaled anthrax spores."
— "The inspector in charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service's main forensic laboratory told [AP news]..that investigators were confident there have been only three anthrax-tainted letters sent through the mail...'I still think we're dealing with three letters' said Roy W. Geffen, who runs the lab in suburban Virginia. 'That's the best information we have.' " http://www2.ljworld.com/2001/oct/31/hos ... rker_dies/ (http://www2.ljworld.com/2001/oct/31/hospital_worker_dies/)
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Oct 25 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/25/us/na ... -told.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/25/us/nation-challenged-treating-disease-be-alert-anthrax-clues-doctors-are-told.html) .."Dr. Schuchat [CDC] said, "In the Washington, D.C., area, very nonspecific, unimpressive symptoms in a postal worker should be taken extremely seriously." She added that experience so far has shown that a patient whose symptoms "would not cause an excess amount of concern" can quickly become critically ill....Yet the diagnosis can be a major challenge for even the most astute doctors....Centers for Disease Control officials warn that for all their epidemiological value, nasal swabs have little or no value in diagnosing anthrax in patients...Dr. Fleming added that studies in monkeys suggested that anthrax spores disappeared quickly after appearing in the nose."
Oct 30 –"Investigators could not find even a single spore of anthrax near Ms. Nguyen's home in the Bronx, or at Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital where she worked" http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/26/us/a- ... gewanted=8 (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/26/us/a-nation-challenged-the-anthrax-trail-tracking-bioterror-s-tangled-course.html?pagewanted=8)
Oct 31 –fourth victim, Kathy Nguyen, a worker in the basement supply room at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, dies from inhalation anthrax. Her work area was once the mailroom.
..."the source of Nguyen's infection remains unknown. A co-worker's suspicious lesion has been determined not to be anthrax." ...."it is not known what mail she might have handled at her job at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, or at home in the Bronx. So her death appears to broaden the population that must be concerned about vague flulike symptoms."
"Kathey Nguyen..an immigrant from Vietnam who lived alone..and commuted by subway..died at Lenox Hill Hospital....[she] had been too sick to help the..investigators" . http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2001/oct/3 ... rker_dies/ (http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2001/oct/31/hospital_worker_dies/) Nguyen's job was distributing supplies around the hospital. White House spokesman, "Ari Fleischer said a coworker of Nguyen has a suspicious lesion...There are no results yet, he said...'Somebody is trying to kill the American people by sending anthrax through the mail' Fleischer said."
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Nov 1 — "Fox News Channel..Sean Hannnity and Bill O'Reilly were hit by threatening letters similar to those laden with anthrax....The letters arrived before Sept. 11...[and] bore a postmark from Indianapolis, where the Post Office discovered yesterday that some of its equipment is contaminated...Hannity said that he'd begun receiving suspicious mail last winter and again in August.... The 'Hannity & Colmes' co-host revealed that in addition to the letters with an Indianapolis postmark, "one or two were from Trenton (N.J.), "where traces of anthrax have also been reported." Hannity said he hasn't gotten any more..since the Sept. 11 attacks and hasn't been tested for anthrax exposure." SOURCE: newsmax.com http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/misc2.html#ne011031 (http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/misc2.html#ne011031)
http://archive.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/1/29/125952 (http://archive.newsmax.com/articles/?a=2000/1/29/125952) "Jan. 31, 2000 –WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. — William Rees-Mogg, former editor of The Times of London, has joined..NewsMax.com ...NewsMax.com has, in its first 15 months, become the leading news site on the web" [Rees-Mogg, Vice-Chair of the BBC Board of Governors (1981-1986)]..."Prudential Securities stated that NewsMax.com is "one of the web's truly great new sites"..."In November 1999, NewsMax.com expanded into the financial news arena with..MoneyNews.com". Rees-Mogg is the Chairman of Newsmax Media, originally registered by Christopher Ruddy in Nevada on 8-20-1998, filed in Florida, Sept., at 560 Village Blvd, Ste. 120, West Palm Beach 33409
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsmax_Media (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsmax_Media) "Christopher W. Ruddy started Newsmax.com on September 16, 1998, supported by a group of politically conservative investors, including the family of the late Central Intelligence Agency Director William J. Casey. Later, Richard Mellon Scaife, his former employer at the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and a supporter of conservative causes, invested in the fledging company.[2] One of the initial board members was author James Dale Davidson who edited a financial newsletter that had shared Ruddy's interest in the alleged suicide of President Bill Clinton's aide, Vincent Foster. Davidson's co-editor, Lord Rees-Mogg, former editor of The Times and Vice Chair of the BBC" —later became chairman of Newsmax Media
http://www.answers.com/topic/christopher-ruddy (http://www.answers.com/topic/christopher-ruddy) - Long Island, NY native; alumnus of London School of Economics and Hebrew University, Jerusalem; media fellow of Hoover Institution; former New York Post and and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review contributor.
The Times (London) and The New York Post are owned by Rupert Murdoch (News Corporation)
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Nov 4 –WASHINGTON: The anthrax scare spread further as deadly spores were discovered at yet another mail distribution center in New Jersey, while investigators in Washington studied a suspicious letter sent to the US Treasury Department.
The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services announced late on Saturday that one of the environmental samples taken by the FBI in the Bellmawr Mail Distribution Center last Wednesday came back positive...Health officials focused their attention on the Bellmawr center after a Delaware resident who works there came down with skin anthrax".. http://www.dawn.com/2001/11/05/int7.htm (http://www.dawn.com/2001/11/05/int7.htm) ..."CNN reported on its website that the mailroom at a Veteran's Administration Hospital in Washington has tested positive for the presence of the bacteria."
– http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/04/us/na ... ttack.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/04/us/nation-challenged-precautions-us-sets-up-plan-fight-smallpox-case-attack.html) "The government has begun taking steps to cope with the possibility of a terrorist attack involving smallpox by training doctors to recognize the disease and by vaccinating small teams of experts...Last week, the disease centers vaccinated about 140 members of epidemiologic teams that can be summoned at a moment's notice"
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Nov 6 –" Anthrax arrives in Russia in US mailbag
The US consulate in Yekaterinburg, Russia, reports that one of six diplomatic mailbags received from Washington Oct 25 tested positive for anthrax spores. The consulate asked Russian health authorities to test the mail Oct 26 after a State Department mailroom employee in Virginia contracted anthrax. Yekaterinburg, formerly called Sverdlovsk, was the site of an anthrax disaster due to an accidental release in 1979." http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/conten ... h-nov.html (http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/bt/bioprep/btwatch/btwatch-nov.html)
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Nov 10 – http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/11/us/na ... enate.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/11/us/nation-challenged-anthrax-testing-new-tests-confirm-potency-anthrax-senate.html) "The E.P.A. conducted tests of Mr. Daschle's office on Nov. 10 and on Nov. 15, in part to answer the question of whether the spores would stick to an object or become airborne again. The office, and the entire Hart Senate Office Building, have been closed for decontamination since Oct. 26."
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Nov 15 –"$3.2 billion Kennedy-Frist bioterrorism bill introduced
Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Bill Frist, R-Tenn., introduce a bill to authorize spending $3.2 billion to combat bioterrorism. The bill would authorize $1.5 billion for state and local preparedness in fiscal 2002, including hospital preparedness, and $400 million to improve oversight of the nation's food supply."...
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Nov 16 — The Leahy letter is "discovered Nov. 16 in a barrel of unopened congressional mail" where it leaks "like a sieve"
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Nov 20 – "Anthrax traces in Kennedy and Dodd offices...offices are both in the Russell Senate Office Building."
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Nov 21 –Ottilie Lundgren, 94, of Oxford Connecticut, dies of inhalation anthrax. Tests in and around her home come back negative, baffling authorities..."Lundgren died at Griffin Hospital in Derby the same day the CDC confirmed that she had inhalation anthrax. CDC spokeswoman Nicole Coffin says testing so far has shown that the strain of anthrax that killed Lundgren was similar to anthrax found in other recent cases." http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/conten ... h-nov.html (http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/bt/bioprep/btwatch/btwatch-nov.html)
Nov 23 – "Chilean and U.S. officials confirmed the first reported case of a deadly strain of the bacteria in mail outside the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta confirmed on Thursday that a letter sent from [[Zurich]] Switzerland to Chile was tainted with anthrax. The letter had been sent to Dr. Antonio Banfi, a pediatrician at a children's hospital in Santiago."
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Interestingly, this link provides a description of Israeli art students who were 'caught' and profiled by the DEA carrying passports issued in Buenos Aires,Argentina and Santiago, Chile http://www.911-strike.com/dea-il-spy.htm (http://www.911-strike.com/dea-il-spy.htm)
The Royal Society of Liechtenstein "administrative functions are conducted in Zurich" http://www.seattlepi.com/archives/1987/8701100366.asp (http://www.seattlepi.com/archives/1987/8701100366.asp) ; and they had a Florida address --this is a tie-in to Agora, Inc. of Baltimore which has business enterprises and colleagues all over Palm Beach County/South Florida. The "Royal Society" connection uncovers the 1991-1992 "Goldcor" stock swindle involving Joel S. Nadel, a CIA front for drug-smuggling, Agora-promoted penny stock from Israel, "naked shorting", In-Q-tel, SEC fraud...and on it goes. Joel Nadel hired Ira L. Sorkin (Bernie Madoff's lawyer too)back in 1992 when his partners were caught up in the DEA's WALL STREET cocaine bust. One of Agora's founders, James Dale Davidson, is named above in connection to NewsMax.com.
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News from http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/conten ... h-nov.html (http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/bt/bioprep/btwatch/btwatch-nov.html) :
Nov 25 – "The Sep 11 events have led to new opportunities to address preparedness and consequence management, says Margaret A. Hamburg, a former assistant secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in the Clinton administration who heads the foundation's biological projects."
Nov 27 — "Smallpox virus can be homemade"
Nov 28 — "US to buy 155 million doses of smallpox vaccine
United States health officials agree to buy 155 million doses of a new smallpox vaccine from a partnership between Acambis, a British-based company, and Illinois-based Baxter International.." http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/conten ... h-nov.html (http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/bt/bioprep/btwatch/btwatch-nov.html)
[[Acambis was acquired by Sanofi-Aventis in 2008 http://citizen2009.wordpress.com/sanofi-aventis/ (http://citizen2009.wordpress.com/sanofi-aventis/)]]
Dec 3 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/03/us/a- ... hreat.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/03/us/a-nation-challenged-the-inquiry-clues-overlooked-to-a-coming-threat.html) .."Suddenly, the United States Postal Service was recognized as a spore-spreading system. In the last three days, even the most enigmatic of the five anthrax deaths — the cases of a Connecticut widow and a New York City hospital worker have been shown to have possible links to the mail. Letters that passed through a Hamilton, N.J., sorting center within seconds of the tainted letters sent to two senators on Oct. 9 had gone to the neighborhoods of these two victims, investigators discovered....Many conundrums posed by the postal assaults will not be resolved quickly, officials said....There is still nothing leading investigators back toward the source of the anthrax, Mr. Mihalko said."
Dec 4, 2001 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/04/scien ... ng-it.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/04/science/the-doctor-s-world-first-challenge-in-anthrax-case-not-missing-it.html) .."Until the intentional spread of anthrax in recent months, only 18 cases of inhalation anthrax had been reported since 1950, and 227 of the skin form from 1955 to the beginning of the intentional spread this fall."...
Dec 19 — http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/hcourant.html (http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/hcourant.html) The Hartford Courant ...".Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a microbiologist affiliated with the Federation of American Scientists, earlier this month.. predicted that the perpetrator is an American microbiologist with access to weaponized anthrax, that likely came from a government lab or one contracted by the government."
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Dec 25 – http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/25/healt ... nowns.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/25/health/the-doctor-s-world-in-offering-anthrax-vaccine-officials-admit-to-unknowns.html) "Thousands of postal employees and workers on Capitol Hill who took antibiotics because they were exposed to anthrax two months ago now face a difficult new medical decision: whether to take an anthrax vaccine to forestall the slim and theoretical possibility that they may still develop the disease....health officials last week were forced to do what they rarely do — confess ignorance about the risks of a disease and its treatment options....For example, on Sept. 21, a few days before the first cases in the outbreak of the deliberate spread of anthrax, Tommy G. Thompson, the health and human services secretary, confidently said on CBS's "60 Minutes," 'We're prepared to take care of any contingency, any consequence that develops or any kind of bioterrorism attack.'...Because the vaccine has never been used to prevent anthrax after people have been exposed to spores, its effectiveness in such circumstances is unknown and it is classified as experimental."
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"According to statistics from the CDC, its laboratories and other members of the agency's Laboratory Response Network tested over 125,000 samples during the period following the first reports of the outbreak. In several cases, some state and local laboratories were so overloaded with testing requests that they contemplated setting up triage procedures to prioritize tests...the reported difficulties in meeting testing demands highlight the need for those laboratories to ensure a surge capability for possible future bioterrorist incidents. Ensuring adequate laboratory capacity was one of the issues raised during a December 2001 meeting convened by the CDC to examine lessons learned from the anthrax response and to chart a research agenda for preparing for future attacks." http://www.ndu.edu/centercounter/ANTHRA ... NOLOGY.pdf (http://www.ndu.edu/centercounter/ANTHRAX%20CHRONOLOGY.pdf)
2002
Jan 06, 2002 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/06/us/na ... error.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/06/us/nation-challenged-anthrax-anthrax-missteps-offer-guide-fight-next-bioterror.html) "While it is too early to glean a set of precise lessons for a future bioterror attack — particularly since no suspect has yet been charged in this one — the officials acknowledge that the handling of the outbreak was marked by a catalog of miscalculations, missteps and misunderstandings about bioterrorism in general and anthrax in particular....In late September [of 2001], Secretary Thompson told television viewers that the government was prepared to deal with any kind of bio terrorism attack."
Jan 20 –the Hartford Courant names Phillip Zack, reporting on his past associations at Fort Detrick and the harassment directed at coworker Dr. Ayaad Assaad. Owner of the Hartford Courant: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribune_Company (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribune_Company) "The Tribune Company is a large, employee-owned,[1] American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It is the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher, with ten daily newspapers and commuter tabloids including Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Baltimore Sun and the The Morning Call, among others."
March 26, 2002 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/26/healt ... tacks.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/26/health/director-defends-cdc-s-handling-of-anthrax-attacks.html) Dr. Jeffrey P. Koplan, the departing director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, defended again yesterday his agency's handling of the anthrax attack ..as he announced that he would become vice president for academic health affairs at Emory University...news reports suggested that he was leaving under pressure....In the last three years, C.D.C.'s budget has doubled to $7.7 billion from $2.5 billion in 1998."
May 5, 2002 — " Jerome Hauer became director of the federal Office of Public Health Preparedness (OPHP), succeeding Dr. D. A. Henderson from Johns Hopkins Institute" http://911review.org/Sept11Wiki/Hauer,Jerome.shtml (http://911review.org/Sept11Wiki/Hauer,Jerome.shtml)
Aug 16 — "US Sen. Bill Nelson said today he is drafting legislation to require the federal government's assistance in cleaning up the anthrax-contaminated American Media Inc. building at the Arvida Park of Commerce....Nelson said he is working with Sen Lieberman to find a solution..to create the new homeland security agency" http://billnelson.senate.gov/news/details.cfm?id=244107 (http://billnelson.senate.gov/news/details.cfm?id=244107)
Aug 29 — http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/30/us/th ... -pill.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/30/us/threats-responses-countering-bioterrorism-many-workers-ignored-anthrax-pill.html) "Most postal, government and news people who were advised to take an antibiotic to prevent inhalation anthrax a year ago failed to complete the full course of therapy, a federal study has found....No cases of anthrax developed, including among those workers who took no antibiotics at all....56 percent of those advised to complete the course did not. It also found that mild and transient adverse reactions like headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, stomach aches and diarrhea occurred commonly among people taking the antibiotics prophylactically....This is believed to be the first large-scale study of prophylactic antibiotic therapy for inhalation anthrax....Federal health officials had recommended a 60-day course of an antibiotic for more than 9,300 workers who were exposed to anthrax spores in four states and the District of Columbia in 2001....The study did not include those people who were told to stop taking antibiotics after laboratory tests determined that they had not been exposed...Ciprofloxacin was the drug used most often in the initial days of the anthrax attacks. It can cause convulsions as well as other adverse effects on the brain and central nervous system, and also lead to rupturing of the Achilles tendon and others.....The anthrax study was conducted at six sites where spores were released in Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C. "
Dec 6, 2002 — "Judicial Watch filed a complaint on December 6, 2002 for criminal investigation with the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia concerning the October 2001 anthrax contamination of the Brentwood Postal Facility. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court rejected our petition for writ of certioari on May 11, 2006."
Timewise, Bob Stevens was the 8th person contaminated in the official reconstructed version. These people developed cutaneous anthrax and saw doctors before him:
Victims:
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Johanna Huden, New York Post, she's the 'index patient' (Sept. 21) who never opened the anthrax letter "near" her desk.
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Richard Morgano; Hamilton postal center, reached into the sorting machines and had lesions by Sept.22
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[ maybe a worker at Hamilton acct. office, x-contamination]
Erin O'Connor, NBC
Teresa Heller, West Trenton letter carrier (x-contamination)
Claire Fletcher, CBS - had a face lesion Oct. 1 reported that day by her doctor - no letter found
[infant son] ABC, exposed Sept.28, lesion by Oct 2, developed serious illness - no letter found
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AMI - 3 cases, only Florida cases
*Bob Stevens, AMI --alive but comatose Oct 3, had anthrax confirmed 10/2-10/3
Ernesto Blanco, AMI --he was ill before Bob, on Sept.24. Something pneumonia/flu-like was going around AMI.
Stephanie Dailey, mailroom AMI (remembered letter opened on Tue. Sept.25) --she just got back from a two-week vacation, so her memory is credible to me even though it's written up as "on or about Sept.25". The vacation return would tend to fix the timing better. Dailey never felt sick at any time but got a positive swab result on Oct.10
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Leroy Richmond, airport postal center worker who carried mail to Brentwood; Mr. Richmond from Stafford,Va. went to the hospital in Falls Church to recover.
*Thomas Morris Jr,, Brentwood Road postal center
*Joseph Curseen Jr, Brentwood Road postal center
*Kathy Nguyen, Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat, NO known source (coworker with a lesion doesn't have anthrax),
A Bellmawr, NJ worker (Delaware resident) has skin anthrax
*Ottilie Lundgren, Oxford Connecticut, NO known source (a piece of 'spore' mail is found in the next town when by chance the elderly next door neighbor died of something pneumonia-like and the investigators tested his home and neighbors, turning up one positive piece of mail --almost 2 miles from Mrs. Lundgren)
(*fatalities)
Trail of Contamination (so far, in progress)
Florida :
–#1 victim from Lantana (checked into JFK Medical Center)
–AMI, Boca Raton, where two letters were opened, the J-Lo package (not anthrax) and the 'real' threat addressed to the National Enquirer containing anthrax from the letter opened by Stephanie Dailey in her office, which was in or near the first floor mailroom." (J-LoLetter link below). It could have been mailed from a South Florida p.o. and it could have been a hoax. Ms. Dailey was not even slightly sick at any time, though on Oct.10 she heard back that her swab was positive.
–six post offices
New Jersey :
–Hamilton mail center –all four anthrax letters in evidence, stamped 'Trenton' were processed here (CDC graph, http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/J-LoLetter.html (http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/J-LoLetter.html))
–Hamilton accounting office
–Bellmawr (35 mi. from Hamilton)
–Princeton mailbox (Aug. 2002)
New York :
–NewYork Post, 1211 (6th) Ave. of the Americas
–ABC News, West 66th St
–NBC News, 30 Rockefeller Plaza
–Governor Pataki's office
–CBS News, West 57th St.
–#4 victim, Manhattan Eye, Ear & Throat Hospital
–USPS Morgan Center
–Mayor Giuliani's office (incoming package)
Washington, DC and outlying region
–18 area buildings
–14 Senators' offices
–3 House offices
–#2 and #3 victims, Brentwood USPS facility (Brentwood Road NE, Wash.DC)
–Falls Church, VA (hospital): man who sorts express mail near Baltimore-Washington Int'l Airport and carries it to Brentwood Road– Mr. Leroy Richmond of Stafford, Va. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford,_Virginia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stafford,_Virginia)
–Howard University
–Langley, VA
United States
–#5 victim from Oxford Connecticut, no contamination!
–Indianapolis, IN (sorting equipment), see Nov 1 on the Timeline
–Kansas City, MO http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2001/oct/3 ... _found_at/ (http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2001/oct/31/anthrax_found_at/)
Outside United States
–Kenya
–Argentina
–Brazil
–Lithuania (US Embassy mailbag)
–Pakistan
–India
–Chile (letter from Zurich to Santiago)
–Russia, Yekaterinburg (US consulate mailbag)
Can we make sense of 3 athrax letters in the mail as the USPS lab suggested?
If the Postal forensics were right and only 3 anthrax letters circulated in the system, which ones could they be?
...don't answer those, about the 3 letters...just my musing with floating facts. It puts the USPS at odds with the gov't storyline.
There's a lot to know, including a "new normal" about pathogens, they say, where even one spore, or 20 spores could start an infection.
One of the official spokesman from a government agency said the anthrax attack was "death by a thousand cuts".
Maybe he's right.
The postal 'machinery' was allowed to operate unabated far longer than an astutely managed system under attack should have been. This caused a cumulative aggregation of anthrax spores -- a thousand cuts -- to concentrate in sorting equipment. It could have come from dozens or hundreds of letters processed along the same route mailed by any number of people anyplace within the route -- a thousand paper cuts. New York City had a contaminated postal center but no anthrax cases reported among its workers. Why, when leaking envelopes at the point of origin in New Jersey caused lesions?
Kansas City's mid-October mail from Brentwood was not contaminated --but their own workers' wastebaskets tested positive! How?
These odd facts need a home theory to nestle into.
If this was as complex as September 11, manufacturing postmarks was a piece-of-cake. Maybe one, two, or none of the 'evidence' letters actually contaminated the postal route. Maybe the real anthrax letters that dirtied up the postal centers were mailed to and from the perpetrators themselves and the rest were specially made plants, either deposited directly to addressees, or entered into the postal system close to their targets.
But I'm musing again....
Dec 1 2001 -- "Investigators have found a trace of anthrax bacteria on the outside of a letter sent to a residence in Seymour, Conn., about 1½ miles from the home of an elderly widow who mysteriously died of the disease last week....The newly discovered Seymour letter -- a business letter sent to an estate liquidator who works from home -- was postmarked in Trenton, N.J., and dated Oct. 9 -- the same day that letters containing billions of deadly spores were mailed to Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.)....Joxel Garcia, Connecticut's public health commissioner, emphasized that the Seymour letter bore only the slightest contamination. "Very, very small amounts -- one colony," he said.
...On the reverse side of most mail, a machine prints a faint orange bar that reveals the date, time, location and machine that sorted that piece of mail.Then an automated sorter scans the destination information for each piece into a computer. It is that computer file that led investigators to 88 Great Hill Road in Seymour, home of John S. Farkas, 53." http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/anthraxtraceconn.html (http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/anthraxtraceconn.html)
"A MadCowMorningNews investigation has revealed that San Diego defense contractor Titan Corp is at the center of a private intelligence network engaged in a broad range of criminal activities with seeming impunity, everything from drug trafficking to white collar crime that includes massive stock fraud cumulatively totaling billions...The companies involved market products to businesses and consumers that were originally developed for grandiose defense schemes like the U.S. Stars Wars program, or dreamed up in the labs of the CIA, Mossad and other intelligence agencies....
...Titan Corp's most curious partner, Miami attorney Michael D Farkas.... Today Farkas and Beni own a company attempting to market Israeli anti-missile technology to U.S. airlines and owners of commercial aircraft." http://www.madcowprod.com/11062006.html (http://www.madcowprod.com/11062006.html)
QuoteOf course, it is Titan's still-unexplained involvement with both Michael Farkas and the company he founded, SkyWay Aircraft of St Petersburg, FL., which is ultimately the firm's most intriguing criminal connection...
Skyway is the company recently in a spotlight of unwanted media attention (okay, a flashlight of attention, from only the MadCowMorningNews) as the owner/operator of "Cocaine One," the DC9 caught carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine in Mexico in April for which no one, apparently, is responsible." http://www.madcowprod.com/11062006.html (http://www.madcowprod.com/11062006.html)
QuoteLebanon: Makram Majid Chams of Titan Corp , 9/11 fame sues Daniel Hopsicker
Makram Majid Chams of Lebanon,Saudi Arabia,Titan Corporation, San Diego,and Venice,Florida during events leading up to 9/11, and last known to be with W Bush's allies in Saudi Arabia,is suing Daniel Hopsicker of http://www.madcowprod.com (http://www.madcowprod.com) !Daniel Hopsicker also investigated and wrote,'Barry and the Boys',about Mena, Arkansas, Barry Seal and the drug trafficking scandal of the Iran-Contra era of the 1980s.... Daniel Hopsicker's take on his situation : Titan Corp Contractor Sues The MadCowMorningNews http://www.madcowprod.com/11072006.html (http://www.madcowprod.com/11072006.html) ................................................................................................................ Daniel Hopsicker in his own words regarding Makram Majid Chams : 5.5 Ton Cocaine Bust Reveals New Details of 9.11 Attack http://www.madcowprod.com/05172006.html (http://www.madcowprod.com/05172006.html) Makram Chams owned a Kwik-Check convenience store in Venice, where the biggest overseas money transfer to the terrorists, $70,000 from the UAE., was sent, according to the testimony of FBI agents during the 9.11 Commission hearings. Actually the FBI testimony never mentioned Chams, or his store. They did however show the receipt for the money order at the final hearing of the 9.11 Commission, which we attended. And we were already familiar with the address where the money order went: 201 Nokomis Avenue. Makram Cham's Kwik-Chek... Strangely, Chams left town soon after the 9.11 attack, abandoning a thriving convenience store which has stood vacant ever since. In a story in the Sarasota Herald Tribune, reporter Earle Kimel, who first broke the story of Mohamed Atta’s American girlfriend, Amanda Keller, called Chams' abandoned store “A pocket of urban blight in the otherwise smartly tailored suit of downtown Venice.†Just another freak coincidence? - Daniel Hopsicker ............................................................................................................... Strange thing is that Chams,who fled for Saudi Arabia after 911,(and not to Afghanistan or Iraq but to Bush's Saudi allies for protection),and who was or is also suing Titan Corporation as a former employee, was the very one who cashed the $70,000 check from Dubai at his convenience store and Kwik Check conveniently located in Venice,Florida to aid Mohamed Atta's and terrorist flight school activities in Venice,Florida pre 9/11!" http://beirut.indymedia.org/ar/2006/11/5889.txt (http://beirut.indymedia.org/ar/2006/11/5889.txt)
poor old Ottlie Lundgren!...is it a coincidence, ya think?
Just a quick note that Farkas is a Sephardic Jewish last name.
Below, is a report on Benador and their Propaganda for an "Iran" War...
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QuoteTuesday, May 23, 2006
When you want war -- call BENADOR
The whiff of war pervades the air, and we all know what the first casualty is. emptywheel at the Next Hurrah notes that
...Judy is back on the Neocon payroll (or at least some faction thereof), and that John Bolton is pursuing regime change. And that, by association, Judy got her toes wet on the Iran warmongering at the same time as her former speakers bureau, Benador Associates, started placing outrageously fraudulent stories to justify a war.
The reference is to Amir Taheri, the guy behind the recent propaganda yarn that Iran had passed a law to make Jews wear identifying insignia. From Greg Sargent at The Horse's Mouth:
QuoteMeanwhile, Amir Taheri, the fellow who penned one of the original stories, has posted a press release on the site of his rep Benador Associates that is anything but a mea culpa. Taheri seems to be standing by the story, though he concedes that his "column was used as the basis for a number of reports that somehow jumped the gun." He doesn't address the small problem that the law appears to have made no mention of religious minorities, only saying that his "sources" are telling him that the ideas of special markers for followers of Judaism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism are "being discussed," though we're not told by whom.
Obviously, Taheri still hopes to convince the gullible that his fiction is factual.
Here is the web page for Benador. And here is a very revealing quote about Benador from the Asia Times of August 15, 2003 :
QuoteWhen historians look back on the United States war in Iraq, they will almost certainly be struck by how a small group of mainly neo-conservative analysts and activists outside the administration were able to shape the US media debate in ways that made the drive to war so much easier than it might have been... But historians would be negligent if they ignored the day-to-day work of one person who, as much as anyone outside the administration, made their media ubiquity possible. Meet Eleana Benador, the Peruvian-born publicist for Perle, Woolsey, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney and a dozen other prominent neo-conservatives whose hawkish opinions proved very hard to avoid for anyone who watched news talk shows or read the op-ed pages of major newspapers over the past 20 months.
More:
New York-based Benador Associates is less than two years old, but has a star-studded client roster of 38 people, most of them Middle East specialists. Benador estimates that she arranges for her clients each week between 15 and 30 interviews on US and foreign television. In the same period, she places an average of about five op-eds by them in the most influential newspapers, such as the Times, the Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times.
She acquired that kind of clout in two years? Such things do not happen by accident. Hard work alone won't do the trick. This woman is connected. I would bet that someone else -- some larger organization -- set up Benador.
Her husband, you may be intrigued to learn, is a Swiss art dealer. I don't yet know his name, but I feel fairly sure that he owned the Galerie Benador in Geneva. He may be Emmanuel Benador, the Picasso expert. If that guess is correct, then perhaps Arianna Huffington -- who wrote a book about Picasso -- can tell us more about the Benadors.
I wonder if Eleanor made her initial connections with neocon "parapoliticians" (if I may be allowed such a term) via her involvement in the art world?
Incidentally, another Benador-linked neocon is the well-known propagandist Laurie Mylroie, who co-wrote a book on Saddam Hussein with Judith Miller. Dr. Barry Rubin, the proprietor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (often considered a MOSSAD front) is also in the Benador orbit.
http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/05/ ... -much.html (http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/05/how-much-machiavelli-is-too-much.html)
An anthrax blog notebook in progress: http://thirdring.wordpress.com/ (http://thirdring.wordpress.com/)
Michael D. Farkas and SkyWay Communications (SkyWay Aircraft)
Quotehttp://www.madcowprod.com/08082006.html (http://www.madcowprod.com/08082006.html)
"Last week we reported the discovery that SkyWay Aircraft had been leasing a "repair" facility for more than $20,000 a month at DFW Airport in Dallas—even though the company had nothing to repair— from Richard Rainwater, called "George W. Bush's biggest supporter" and "the power behind the throne" in news accounts during Bush's first Presidential campaign.
New evidence unearthed since then has begun to fill in the picture of an operation which boasted a bewildering international cast of characters, in San Diego, Israel, Miami, Dallas, and in the case of two prominent principals, on the lam...
SkyWay Aircraft was not a real entity"...
..Since the MadCowMorningNews was successful last month in obtaining the FAA registration records for "Cocaine One," the accumulating evidence has all pointed to a clear conclusion: the DC9 carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine was a CIA plane which belongs to the Agency's no-longer-totally-secret airline...
...Along with GenesisIntermedia, the stock of two other companies was used to generate fraudulent loans in the Stockwalk scam. One was a company called Holiday RV. Stores. The other was Imperial Credit Industries. Michael Farkas is involved with both firms.
Holiday R.V. Stores was owned and controlled by Michael Farkas, through a holding company he founded called Atlas Recreational Holdings. Michael Farkas and Adnan Khashoggi were partners in a $300 million scam. It was called "the largest brokerage industry failure in more than 30 years."
Michael Farkas, is also on the board of Genesis Realty, founded by Ramy El-Batrawi, a man who is clearly no piker when it comes to pilfering money from a public company...His GenesisIntermedia exploits put Glenn and Brent Kovar's $40 million theft at SkyWay in the shade...
...Before leaving the ties between Michael Farkas and Ramy El-Batrawi and Adnan Khashoggi, we discovered a story from the St Paul Pioneer Press (where the fraud bankrupted one of that city's biggest firms) that may help explain our contention that what we are witnessing is the daily workaday transactions of a very large but still-invisible organization:
"SEC filings show ties among Imperial, Holiday and Genesis," reported the Saint Paul Pioneer Press on April 22 2002.
The Israeli Connection, Pt. 1
"For example, El-Batrawi owns a private company called Genesis Diversified Investments, which is an investor in a company called Aviation Group that in 2001 merged with a British Columbia company called Travelbyus."
"Lee Sanders, the chairman of Travelbyus is a director of Holiday. Riley is a former chief executive of Holiday and its largest shareholder. Riley also is among the largest shareholders of Imperial."
Michael Farkas' connections to right wing Israeli political parties, and to Israeli Mossad, have already been ably covered by others. Farkas was listed in 2005 as president of Manhigut USA. This is the US branch of the Israeli Manhigut Yehudit, involved in fundraising for the radical settlers who were trying to resist the Gaza withdrawal...he is also the American sales agent for anti-missile technology developed by Israel Aircraft Industries, and is a Director of spy technology company CCS...
interesting enough...
John S. Farkas (88 Great Hill Rd.), who possessed the only anthrax-contaminated mail in the vicinity of the last victim, Ottlie Lundgren, lived up the road from her church, the Immanuel Lutheran Church at 25 Great Hill Rd., Oxford.
The secluded house of Mrs. Lundgren where she lived alone was on Edgewood, which is a looping U-shape road off Great Hill, in between the Farkas house to the west and the church down the hill to the east. The only thing that separated them was an invisible town line. Ottilie was apparently regular as rain, attending church, the local library, the same restaurant...
News reports listed Mr. Farkas as an estate liquidator --there is a nearby Auction/Liquidator in Seymour called Keystone Auctions-- but John Smith Farkas is (at least now) an 'art dealer', graphic artist, and Director of Education at Gibbs College, Farmington, Connecticut.
Here's more, showing his artwork at a gallery in the Chelsea district of NYC:
http://www.newcenturyartists.org/artist ... arkas.html (http://www.newcenturyartists.org/artists/JackFarkas.html)
The New Century Artists promote the under-represented, such as gays and lesbians, they say... the top Farkas image looks a bit 'homophile' to me...
Their gallery in NYC also shares an address with Agora Gallery at 530 West 25th St.
http://www.agora-gallery.com/ (http://www.agora-gallery.com/)
Note Mr. Farkas's education: University of New York, Rochester Inst. of Technology, Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore...
He was the first curator for the Town of Fairfield Art Collection, the same town that invested its pension funds with Bernie Madoff.
...now, there is Agora Inc. of Baltimore, lurking by association all over South Florida...penny stock fraud, Gloom and Doom financial news, travel, offshore investment, CIA connections...
these coincidences just keep adding up.
Michael Farkas married a 'model' named Rebecca J. Brock, who has New York art and fashion connections...
A quick note on Israeli Mole Captain William Luti:
--------
Quote
Notes on Captain William Luti USN Retired
Assessment: The WL model indicates that Luti is a way over his head and probably manipulated by agents of influence of a foreign power. His loyalty and patriotism are certainly open to question based on his pattern of activities and associations and should be looked into by the proper authorities. I suspect that he has been involved in the planting of disinformation and propaganda designed to push the US to invade Iraq. If this is the case he may be subject to charges. If there was an attempt to "deal up" to break the case Luti seems like an easy target.
Is William J. Luti a spy for Israel ? Is Bill Luti an Israeli mole operating under Doug feith and Paul Wolfowitz. CBS indicates that an analyst is "a" mole for Israel but I suspect that there are several. The Office of Special plans under Luti apperas to have operated as a Mossad propaganda machine. One has to assume that if the FBI is investigating special scrutiny must be applied to Abram N. Shulsky, Director of Office of Special Plans and F. Michael Maloof. If it is an analyst then watch Shulsky and Maloof. My advice to the FBI is too lean on Bill Luti since I think he is most likely to crack. They may find more then just one mole in the Pentagon.
See FBI Suspects Israel Has Mole in Pentagon -- CBS
William J. Luti
Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs
Runs Office of Special Plans under Douglas Feith. Not widely trusted or respected outside of NeoCon circles.
Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Near Eastern South Asian Affairs and Special Plans William Luti at a Pentagon press conference on June 4, 2003. DoD photo by Helene C. Stikkel. (Released)
Luti not trusted by State Department
Senior State Department officials are said to be particularly displeased with William Luti, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Near East and South Asian Affairs. Luti, a retired Navy captain and Gulf War combat veteran who served on Vice-President Dick Cheney's staff last summer, is seen by people at State as so obsessed with an immediate overthrow of Saddam that he hasn't thought through the consequences. Luti's supporters, however, include Richard Perle. The New Yorker: Fact
Luti Called Gen. Zinni a Traitor
In an official meeting at which Kwiatkowski was present, Luti openly called Marine General, former Chief of Central Command, and Middle East envoy Anthony Zinni, a "traitor" for having reservations about the march to war, and open contempt and calls for Secretary of State Colin Powell to resign were common. What she observed until her voluntary early retirement was nothing less than a full-scale assault on the intelligence and policymaking apparatus of the United States. She witnessed intelligence and careful analysis being replaced with propaganda, falsehoods and manipulation and fed to the Congress and the Executive Office of the President. This "fear peddling" was, Kwiatkowski writes, "designed to take Congress and the country into a war of executive choice, a war based on false pretenses." Dual Loyalties: Pro-Israel influence on US policy
"Office of Special Plans is overseen by Under-Secretary of Defense William Luti, a retired Navy captain. Luti was an early advocate of military action against Iraq, and, as the Administration moved toward war and policymaking power shifted toward the civilians in the Pentagon, he took on increasingly important responsibilities." The New Yorker: Fact
http://www.amconmag.com/12_15_03/article3.html (http://www.amconmag.com/12_15_03/article3.html)
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/schu ... hulsky.php (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/schulsky/schulsky.php)
Luti is seen as Cheney's man in the DOD. He does not appear to fit the dual loyalty profile but he is at the very center of the "goings on" in the Pentagon. Agent of influence, fellow traveler, or maybe just not that bright it is hard to tell just where Luti fits into the Likudnik apparatus.
The Office of Special Plans relied heavily on data gathered (or manufactured) by Israeli intelligence agencies particularly Mossad and also on information provided by Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, or I.N.C. To lend credibility to the doctored material the same information was leaked to Likudnik shills such as Judith Miller of the New York Times and Columnist William Safire. By citing anonymous sources reporting the same information they could make the phony data look more solid.
Dual Loyalties: US DOD: Feith and Luti on U.S. Intelligence Issues in Iraq and Iran - 6-4-03
Dual Loyalties: Tufts E-News -- William J. Luti : A Defining Role
Dual Loyalties: Dr. William J. Luti: Strategic Responses to New Security Challenges
Dual Loyalties: The New Yorker: Fact - Luti, Wolfowitz, and Chalabi
Pentagon on Feb. 11, 2004. Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Special Plans and Near Eastern and South Asian
Affairs William Luti. DoD photo by R. D. Ward. (Released)
DoD Briefing on Policy and Intelligence Matters
The Feith & Luti Show June 4, 2003
Seen on http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/luti/luti.php (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/luti/luti.php)
"William J. Luti Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs
Institutional Affiliations
Center for Security Policy: Participant in various CSP events, including its 2002 Keeper of the Flame award ceremony, which also counted on the participation of Douglas Feith, Peter Rodman, Dov Zakheim, Pete Aldridge, Richard Perle, and James Schlesinger
Government Posts/Panels/Commissions
Special Adviser to Vice President Richard Cheney for National Security Affairs (Middle East) (2001)
Commander, USS Guam (1997-98)
Office of House Speaker Newt Gingrich: Congressional Fellow (1996-97)
Served on USS John F. Kennedy during 1991 Gulf War
Education
The Citadel: B.A. in History
U.S. Naval War College: M.A. in National Security and Strategic Studies
Tufts University: M.A. and Ph.D. in International Relations"
http://southwestasia.blogspot.com/2004/ ... le-in.html (http://southwestasia.blogspot.com/2004/08/fbi-suspects-israel-has-mole-in.html)
STRATEGIC STUDIES GROUP XVIII http://www.nwc.navy.mil/ssg/former.htm (http://www.nwc.navy.mil/ssg/former.htm)
QuoteInvestigations update
I need to update the "neo-convicts" post already.
First, all four investigations I mentioned yesterday may be the same.
The Franklin case is apparently linked to the Plame leak and linked to the Feith op and linked to the Chalabi case.
Former CIA agent and current MSNBC talking head Larry Johnson said the other day that the Franklin affairs "was linked to the investigation on the forged uranium documents." I've found a MSNBC transcript from August 27 on LexisNexis:
I've heard about this investigation for, you know, several months now. And you know it is -- it actually is tied into the forged memo regarding the sale of uranium to Iraq from Niger.
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: What I've been told is that there's a strong belief that the forgery was carried out by Israel in an effort to help build up the evidence to allow the United States to justify going to war. So, this whole thing that started with the outing of Valerie Plame, the CIA officer, started growing and expanding when they saw that there's this forged memo and then people linked to the office of -- in the office of Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Fife [sic] at the Department of Defense were seen as having some very close contacts and sharing information with the Israeli intelligence sources.
The Marshall, Rozen, and Glastris story doesn't mentioned Israeli agents present at the Franklin/Rhode meetings with Ledeen, Ghorbanifar and SISMI in Rome.
Hmmmm.
Warren Strobel of Knight-Ridder more directly makes a connection that I suggested yesterday. The Franklin-Israel investigation does tie directly to the Chalabi-Iran leaks:
An FBI probe into the handling of highly classified material by Pentagon civilians is broader than previously reported, and goes well beyond allegations that a single mid-level analyst gave a top-secret Iran policy document to Israel, three sources familiar with the investigation said Saturday.
The probe, which has been going on for more than two years, also has focused on other civilians in the Secretary of Defense's office, said the sources, who spoke on condition they not be identified, but who have first-hand knowledge of the subject.
In addition, one said, FBI investigators in recent weeks have conducted interviews to determine whether Pentagon officials gave highly classified U.S. intelligence to a leading Iraqi exile group, the Iraqi National Congress, which may in turn have passed it on to Iran....both center on the office of Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's No. 3 official.
Richard Sale of UPI links several investigations together indirectly. For example, he ties the "non lawful" intelligence op Feith was allegedly running to the neocons in Vice President Cheney's office -- the primary area of interest to the Plame investigators, apparently:
[William] Luti, a former Navy captain, switched to the Pentagon from Vice President Richard Cheney's staff, according to a congressional investigative memo.
According to other congressional memos, Luti was made deputy undersecretary and reported directly to Feith.
Luti also presided over the NESA office that worked closely with OSP "with sometimes an interchangeable staff," according to one congressional memo described the OSP "as a loose group of acolytes and hired hands" for Cheney, and (Cheney's chief of staff) I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Feith -- all "performing a mixture of intelligence, planning and other unspecified operational duties in support of preordained policy."
In regard to the Chalabi leak, Sale specifically discusses Harold Rhode a great deal, saying that he has had his security clearances lifted in the past (as did Ledeen in the '80s) and may even now be on administrative leave:
According to one former senior U.S. intelligence official who maintained excellent contacts with serving U.S. intelligence officials in the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, "Rhode practically lived out of (Ahmad) Chalabi's office."
This same source quoted the intelligence official with the CPA as saying, "Rhode was observed by CIA operatives as being constantly on his cell phone to Israel," and that the information that the intelligence officials overheard him passing to Israel was "mind-boggling," this source said.
It dealt with U.S. plans, military deployments, political projects, discussion of Iraq assets, and a host of other sensitive topics, the former senior U.S. intelligence official said.
Sale also reports that Michael Ledeen worked on a contract basis for OSP under Feith!
Cheney's office, where Libby and Hannah worked, dispatched Luti to Feith, who already served as boss to Franklin, Ledeen, and Rhode. Did these guys prompt someone (Israel? Italy?) to cook up the Niger uranium story, burn Plame when that forgery was found out, and leak all kinds of state secrets to their pals in Israel and the INC? And then, Chalabi screwed them all over by leaking to Iran?
http://rpayne.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_archive.html (http://rpayne.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_archive.html)
(http://www.newsfollowup.com/images/flow4.gif)
http://www.newsfollowup.com/flowchart.htm (http://www.newsfollowup.com/flowchart.htm)
http://www.newsfollowup.com/bioport.htm (http://www.newsfollowup.com/bioport.htm)
----------
# Other "strategic" events:
# January 1998
Philip Odeen (Reynolds + Reynolds/TRW) mentions in a testimony:
"...the future we face in 2020 will be very different. A whole host of new challenges and opportunities are emerging. While we may find ourselves facing enemies on traditional battlegrounds, it is far more likely that we will face very different adversaries and that our conflicts will include locations in space, throughout our information networks, in highly urbanized areas, within the undeveloped and developing world and, perhaps even on our own soil. Our adversaries will include not just the armed forces of nations, but also international criminals and terrorist groups..."
# May 1998
On May 28, 1998, future anthrax suspect Stephen Hatfill and Jerome Hauer (OEM, WTC 7) speak together at a CFR meeting about "Building a 'Biobomb': Terrorist Challenge"
Seisint is established in 1998 and started to work on an anti-terror data-mining program, later renamed to MATRIX (the Multistate Anti-TeRrorism Information eXchange).
The company is located on 6601 Park of Commerce Blvd Boca Raton, FL 33487.
In October 2001, the American Media Building in Boca Raton (4950 Communication Ave, later moved to Broken Sound Ave) is attacked with Anthrax. Both offices are 4-5 minutes away from Seisint.
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/289643.shtml (http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/05/289643.shtml)
Here's an update on http://www.thirdring.wordpress.com/ (http://www.thirdring.wordpress.com/)
The disturbing anomaly about the Brentwood Rd USPS contamination is this : One of the inconsistencies of timing in the Brentwood Rd. contamination is the claim that the postal workers were exposed from a sorter-machine cleanup that used blower equipment on the morning of October 11. Mr. Richmond's lawsuit 'discovery' revealed that the Daschle letter did not pass through the facility until the 12th . By then, several lawsuits were in progress and it wasn't in anyone's interest to reconcile this discrepancy. While Mr. Richmond was in the hospital, and memories were fresh, his Brentwood supervisor came to his bedside to help reconstruct the exact sequence of events that led to his exposure. It was agreed that Mr. Richmond's cleaning activity on the the 11th was the cause of his infection and the three other infected workers. (See the Washington D.C. page for more)
The Connection between 9/11, Anthrax and Iraq
Dr. Graeme MacQueen | May 1, 2010
Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/v/xmRNoDNH-Ps
Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/v/IZ0ft3NaZy0
Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/v/HEDdVPbR1Tc
Part 4:
http://www.youtube.com/v/eJVDxEiCCl8
Part 5:
http://www.youtube.com/v/75bkUQF1lpI
http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/05 ... -and-iraq/ (http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/the-connection-between-911-anthrax-and-iraq/)
I think it's really interesting that this recent rendition of the anthrax retrospective is so predictable. MacQueen heads right down the road to Nowhere with an UNSOLVABLE premise based on the "weaponization" of spores. He's chosen an undefeatable position, because this part of the review is the most contradictory, most tricky and unobtainable for its classified nature, and tiresomely exhaustive to sort. We'll all just take his word for it, eh? This kind of "proof" always depends on "who" you believe, not "what", and since everybody with access to a spore photo, Q-tip, baggie and a badge has made every kind of imaginable statement about the weaponized anthrax, it's a winners choice.
He made no effort to actually describe the events of the anthrax attack itself, throwing the falsehoods of 9-11 back on the table as an all-purpose conspiracy. If the US military inside-jobbers did 9-11, of course, they did anthrax too. And he reiterates the statements of scientists who confirmed the sophisticated quality of the D.C.-bound powder, who actually said it was never seen before and unknown within any national bioweapons program, so NATURALLY he concludes it must have come from an ultra-super-secret insider US lab and Batelle just wont 'fess up, darnit!
By-passing MacQueen's third proposition altogether, his hot-dog theory [you don't know what's in it, but some of it can't be good for ya] doesn't meet enough of the knowable facts. The evidence has become convincing to me that "weaponized" (as in really really special) anthrax was never processed through the mail. Yes, somebody provided some frighteningly deadly stuff near the end-points of the story. A coordinated group did do it and they had lots of inside help. Maybe not lots, just "key" helpers. I think the victims were pre-selected. I think the interagency havoc during the response was evil-ly counted on. And more than ever, I think the money trail is the hottest road to Is-ra-hell.
These are more story features just added to my blog.
http://jenniferlake.wordpress.com/ (http://jenniferlake.wordpress.com/)
The deadliest of the "in evidence" letters, comprising four of a suspected seven, was the Leahy letter. It was found on November 16, 2001, shortly before the last recorded fatality in Connecticut, in a quarantined batch of undelivered mail. It was thought to have been delayed behind the Daschle letter which was opened Oct.15, because of mistaken routing to the State Department's mail facility, but it was missing a special stamp from the State Dept. machinery. CDC investigator Jim Hayslett tracked down the Leahy Letter's Washington journey and learned from the senator's aide that, in fact, the Leahy letter was delivered and returned unopened when the gravity of the Daschle letter contamination was known. Senator Leahy's office tested negative for anthrax. Over a month later, when the letter turned up in undelivered mail, the envelope bore a mysterious pinhole.
The official story asks us to believe that a 94-year-old woman in Connecticut died from cross-contaminated mail. As proof of a theory, on November 30, officials found a neighbor one mile away with a saved letter bearing "an anthrax spore, a tiny amount" that had followed the Leahy letter through the New Jersey sorting machine by 15 seconds. And that's it – proof of a theory. The neighbor's house and family turned up zero contamination. The local post office and the victim's home and belongings turned up zero contamination. But the lingering question is whether or not Mrs. Lundgren's neighbor, artist and "estate liquidator" John Smith Farkas, may have been involved in some deeper way with or without his knowledge. Among the 'interesting persons' of September 11th is New york/Miami lawyer who was well-connected to the CIA and Israeli Mossad, named Michael D. Farkas. As yet, the research neither proves nor disproves a connection between these men, however in the world of high-finance and fine-art, they are drawing closer and closer...
Earlier, in the Florida contamination at the National Enquirer where no letters had been saved, the remembrance of a woman employee who worked in the mailroom office, was that "on or about" September 25 she opened a powdery letter at her desk. She continued to use her office for two more weeks before the American Media Inc.'s building was closed down two days after the death of the SUN tabloid photo editor on Oct.5. She remained healthy and well, even through the diagnosis of having anthrax spores on her nasal swab. Her mailroom office later tested 'hot' for anthrax and the building had air-borne microscopic contamination throughtout its three-stories, but there were no spores found in the air ducts near her workstation....an enigma indeed.
Photo editor, Bob Stevens, was said to have visited Duke University on or before the day his infection became acute, a recollection of his wife Maureen and known to be true by North Carolina health officials. No reports of Mr. Stevens' activity or purpose at Duke has been offered in the mainstream press, but according to the "Special Libraries" of news archivists used by the tabloids, only two places in the country house the information and personnel Experts on the terror events of September 11- Harvard and Duke Universities. Was Bob visiting for professional reasons regarding 9-11? Did he have a personal interest in 9-11 or was there another reason? The ongoing 'wrongful death' lawsuit of Mrs. Stevens and her family, hinging on the 'lone perpetrator' theory, have fundamentally 'gagged' any case information until well into 2011, when the case may finally be allowed to proceed.
The first two inhalation-anthrax cases which happened in Florida, to Mr. Stevens and co-worker Ernie Blanco, were both administered in 'medical centers' belonging to HCA, the Hospital Corporation of America, a large-scale hospital manager belonging to Senator Bill Frist, MD, and his family (founded by Frist's father). Frist became the Congressional 'anthrax' spokesman and also took a chair at CSIS, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which participated in bioterror drills that included various anthrax attack scenarios. Mr. Blanco survived, thanks in great part to a 'miraculous' coincidence concerning a minor car accident on a Miami street involving the mother of a DoD anthrax expert. Blanco's son-in-law was nearby, working at his car dealership job when the lady came in to negotiate for a car. This fateful connection led to Ernie Blanco's case being advised from afar by top docs in the US military.
In Washington D.C. at the Brentwood Road mail center, four cases of inhalation anthrax resulted in two fatalities. One of the two survivors remains today 'unidentified'. He does not appear in the subsequent lawsuits. Brentwood employed approximately 2,000 workers, and this man was said to be among them. Curiously, the other survivor, Mr. Richmond, was best friends with the two who died and he worked part of his time at an express package facility by the Washington-Baltimore Int'l Airport, some long distance outside D.C. Off work, the three met regularly to play cards and pray together, Mr. Richmond himself being the common point of contact. (Anthrax is not contagious – only spores can initiate infection). Richmond was the first to sicken enough to seek treatment. During his hospitalization which began Oct.19, he was enabled by his Brentwood plant manager to remember the details of how he became infected. It was agreed and reported in the news at the time, that an unusal request by his manager for Mr. Richmond to clean a Brentwood letter-sorting machine on the morning of October 11 was the infectious cause. At least one of the deadly "weaponized" letters, the Daschle letter, did not pass through the equipment until 7:10 am the next day, on the 12th. Either the contamination was already present, or the timing is wrong. Should we believe the Leahy letter caused this contamination when it did not leave a spore behind at the senator's office? So far, details of the Leahy letter's timing through Brentwood cannot be found.
In a class-action suit brought against the Postal Service by Brentwood workers, it was revealed that mid-managers were instructed by their superiors to LIE to the floor supervisors about possible contamination and keep the workers on the job. In a surreal twist of visualization, regularly uniformed postal employees carried on their normal duites while health officials in hazmat space-suits walked around them taking samples. The lawsuit only mentions the Daschle letter, stamped on the morning of October 12. After the Daschle letter was opened on the 15th, hours later the FBI carefully ferried it over to Fort Detrick for analysis by Dr. John Ezzell –Dr. Ezzell was said to have called the anthrax powder inside "the Face of Satan". He said in all his years as a bioweapons expert, he had never seen anything as concentrated or imagined an aerosol as finely produced.
Despite his careful technique and state-of-the-art protective barriers, Dr. Ezzell took the "very painful" step of inhaling bleach solution for fear of anthrax. He went home and baked all his mail in the family kitchen and then prepared a public statement for the internet, encouraging everyone to use their ovens to 'autoclave' their own mail.
Fortunately, John Ezzell's fears aside, the Face of Satan didn't leave anthrax spores in anyone's airways on Capitol Hill. Staffers and Capitol Police who might have breathed in spores turned out to test positive for bacterial antibodies only. Washington D.C. did not report any known contamination to any other letter or package mail. Just the Daschle and Leahy letters. Spores, however, seemed to be all over D.C. mailrooms in miniscule amounts, causing closures and general havoc. Up to that point in time, the medical significance of tiny amounts was not a matter of concern. It was the later Connecticut case that began changing doctors' minds. They really were very impressed, the news told us, that Ottilie Lundgren could have been infected by near-undetectable amounts of anthrax. Another neighbor of Mrs. Lundgren was impressed enough to cover his entire house with heavy-gauge plastic and duct tape.
QuoteThursday, June 22, 2006
RERUN: Judith Miller and Bill Patrick, tainted warriors for the biodefense
This week's pleasing tale of the Mubtakkar of Death reminded me of how there is always a market for big reporter literature of Doomsday put off and black future implied. In October of 2001, we were still in the middle of Amerithrax and I reviewed Judith Miller's book, Germs, for the Village Voice.
That book, as well as her minor connection to the Amerithrax case, was a selection of incredible stories -- some true, some probably greatly exaggerated or delivered with more embellishment than necessary -- and it made her an instant terror expert and celebrity. She was common on the evening news and the talk show of her friend, Larry King. Peddled by a famous right wing speaker's bureau, Benador Associates, along with a host of neocons urging the case for war in Iraq, Miller was ubiquitous in the news on bioterror.
Eventually she was swept out the door by the New York Times, which in a fit of self-examination, had looked at her reporting on weapons of mass destruction from the front-lines of the war with Iraq and found it wanting. Patrick, who had been another big newsmedia favorite on bioterror, had long gone silent. He had been questioned by the FBI in connection with the Amerithrax case when the investigation turned to the theory that the mailed anthrax was of domestic origin.
It was said that Patrick became a consultant, perhaps unpaid to the FBI, after they had cleared him of suspicion. Whatever had happened, the American guru of biowarfare was muzzled. No longer did he tell tales of how good his microbial preparations had been. Newspaper articles on him flying about the country to deliver seminars on bioterror, one -- for example, in Hollywood, for an audience of the well-to-do and reported in the Los Angeles Times, stopped. His rambles to reporters on how easy it was to dispense powders of silent death over Maryland and the capitol were silenced. With the Iraq war a mess, the preliminary reporting on it a disgrace, and Amerithrax unsolved, the world moved on right over Miller and Patrick, removing her from the big word processor and zipping their flapping lips.
Here's my old review on Germs:
===========
Plagued Out Book by Times Reporters Overexposes Readers to Bioterror
On Sunday, October 14, Judith Miller of The New York Times wrote of her personal anthrax scare, "As I washed my hands and tried to dust off the powder that clung to my pants and shoes, I thought about what Bill Patrick, my friend and bioweapons mentor had told me . . . "
We should all be so lucky to have as friend and "bioweapons mentor" someone who, according to Miller's book, Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, infected "volunteers" with Q fever microbes to see what dosages were effective in producing illness, a man who was "overjoyed" when a field test on animals went south and people who weren't supposed to get sick did, because it proved his team of sorcerer's apprentices were producing "a product that was very, very good." The reader is informed that everyone survived. That made it all right?
In a better world, a Bill Patrick would have been given the bum's rush a long time ago, but, like it or not, we are saddled with him as one of our bioterror gurus. Why? Because the inverse logic seems to be that if you spent most of your life making things to sicken people fatally, you are, perhaps, more valuable as an adviser on the subject of biological evil, malfeasance, and mischief than someone who benightedly dedicated their life to defeating infectious diseases.
Patrick's fermentations seep through almost the entirety of Germs. He's Dr. StrangeBug, talking to a military group about how the U.S. supposedly had a plan to attack Cuba with two microorganisms to pacify it ("killing less than two percent of the population"), deriving statistics on how many people might be slain or made seriously ill with his viruses and bacteria, giving a now unintentionally idiotic play-by-play description of how someone with his expertise could hose down half the people in the World Trade Center with tularemia armed only with a trusty garden sprayer.
In Germs (Simon & Schuster), Miller and her co-authors, Times journalists Stephen Engelberg and William Broad, cover a wide swath of people, groups, and nations who have, at one time or another, been deeply engaged in this nasty game. While almost all of it has been published in the Times or elsewhere, it probably has not previously been as thoroughly annotated.
In the quest to inform readers on the subject of biological weaponry, the pro forma rule in writing on the subject has been horrification for the sake of horrification. One need only look at the reputation of Richard Preston, the genre's equivalent of the splatter-movie director. In influential investigative articles on bio-terror for The New Yorker and a novel about the same, The Cobra Event, Preston never met a virus that did not melt bodies, induce people to mutilate themselves, or cause the spurting of quarts of black and red ichors. In this respect, Miller and her co-authors' work stands out, being largely free of nauseating descriptions of the terminal stages of disease.
But Germs is also filled with well-researched arcana that, while academically interesting, would have little meaning with regards to the current predicament, in which tiny lots of bad stuff touch small numbers through the mails. While the authors could not foresee into what milieu their work would be published, the book is still too much about big numbers and the alleged capacity for creating thousands of illnesses with blinding speed.
The minute attention to the bureaucratic arguments involved in working out the details of the technology of killing is deadening. For example, just how interested are you in knowing the debate over how much anthrax it would take to kill perhaps half the people in Washington, D.C. A five-pound bag? An 80-pound bag? Or a 50-pound bag? It turns out, Germs reveals, that Patrick had the answer: The 50-pound bag. And Bill Clinton's Defense Secretary William Cohen certainly exaggerated when he held up a five-pound bag of sugar on TV and said that if it was anthrax it could do the same. Hey, knock yourself out.
The savage dilemma of Germs and books of the type is that, without exception, they implacably develop into a generic litany of speculations, extremely terrible news--some hearsay, some not--and fearsome applications said to be possible right now or in the not-too-distant future. Common sense dictates that if it is all true, we will only be spared a gruesome end by blind luck or intervention of the deity.
Germs, according to Larry King on Monday, is a national bestseller. Maybe so, but if you think you've been overexposed to anthrax already, avoid it like the plague. Please have mercy, dear authors. We get the idea.
posted by George Smith at 9:29 AM
http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2006/06 ... trick.html (http://www.dickdestiny.com/blog/2006/06/rerun-judith-miller-and-bill-patrick.html)
QuoteJudy Miller: Reporter or (Israeli) Operative?
By: Phoenix Woman Monday March 26, 2007 6:00 pm
(http://www.firedoglake.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/judy.jpg)
As anyone who has followed the Plame case knows, a prime consideration among the news people discussing the case was whether journalism was damaged by Judith Miller's being made to testify and to reveal a source. Most newsies now say that it was not, but — as emptywheel notes in her recent FDL post on the subject — the NYT's Max Frankel is still defending both Judy Miller and his paper on this issue.
Is this a legitimate consideration? This depends in part on whether one sees Miller as a disinterested observer, merely reporting a story — or as an actively partisan operative for a particular political faction. It also depends on whether or not Miller has outed other story sources, and whether it's ever OK to out a story source – and remember, Frankel is implying that the outing of a source is A Very Big No-No and is Never Ever Done.
Let's look at the disinterested observer/reporter angle first.
Judith Miller herself has explicitly rejected the traditional role of journalist as someone who examines the facts regardless of whether they hurt one's preconceived notions; as quoted by Michael Massing in The New York Review of Books in its February 26, 2004 issue, she says the following in response to being asked why she didn't include commentary from WMD skeptics in her stories: "My job isn't to assess the government's information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of The New York Times what the government thought about Iraq's arsenal." In other words, she's not a reporter, she's a stenographer for the Bush team. (Miller would soon furiously claim to have been misquoted, but Massing, in the letters section of the March 25, 2004 NYRB, firmly stood behind his quotation of her: "Judith Miller is simply wrong. During my hours of interviews with her, she requested that I read back all of the quotes that I wanted to use, and I readily agreed. I distinctly remember reading back the quote in question, and I distinctly remember her approving it. I did this not 'reluctantly' but willingly and patiently, precisely so that I could guarantee accuracy and avoid the type of claim she is now making.")
But we don't even need Miller's own words — words she's tried to disavow — to see that she isn't so much a reporter as she is an operative with an agenda. As is clear to anyone who has been reading about this case at this site, DailyKos, The Next Hurrah, Eschaton, or pretty much anywhere else in the reality-based community over the last few years (not to mention emptywheel's excellent book Anatomy of Deceit), Miller was as much in the hip pocket of Ahmad Chalabi as were the rest of her neocon friends in the Bush Junta – so much so that she actually ordered around American soldiers on Chalabi's behalf. (Trust me, I only wish I were kidding about that.)
As for the whole "outing a source is a no-no and is never ever done" gambit, well, guess what? As emptywheel pointed out way back in the summer of 2005, Judith Miller has burned at least one source before (in this case, Amy Smithson), without needing to be hauled off to jail first — and nobody was running around saying that this spelled The End Of Journalism As We Know It. Funny how none of Miller's defenders seem to know this little bit of her history.
But aside from this hypocrisy about the alleged sanctity of sources, Miller, as a person whose newspaper career spans three decades, should also be aware that in old-school journalism, if a source screws over a reporter with bad information, the reporter is free to out the source. In fact, it is the reporter's duty to out a lying source. As Atrios said, and reporters John Gizzi and David Freddoso at the conservative outfit Human Events demonstrated in 2004, "A source lies to you, and you find out, you burn him. Period." And goodness knows that Judy's sources fed her the most egregious garbage over the years, as the corrections to her articles attest.
Now, Max Frankel must know all of this. He has to, he's a Timesman — one might almost say THE Timesman. But his loyalty to the paper, and to a disgraced ex-Timeswoman who brought shame upon the paper (and, I suspect, a touch of loyalty to the ideology espoused by Miller and her neocon friends), not to mention the utter refusal overall to admit that (just like with Whitewater and Wen Ho Lee) they were hosed by the Republican Noise Machine, is interfering with his vision. Otherwise I can't see how he would have let such a fundamentally dishonest piece as this one escape his keyboard.
http://firedoglake.com/2007/03/26/judy- ... operative/ (http://firedoglake.com/2007/03/26/judy-miller-reporter-or-operative/)
Interesting connection with Luti and Northrup Grumman... not good that these Scam Jews who spread disinfo on Iraq and helped plan NeoCon attacks against the USA get into these positions of power in the increasingly "Israelized" Military Industrial Complex. -- CSR
QuoteWilliam Luti
# Northrop Grumman: Vice President of Strategy, Information Systems
# National Security Council: Former Special Assistant to the President
# Department of Defense: Former Deputy Undersecretary for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs
William Luti, a corporate executive with Pentagon contractor Northrop Grumman, is a retired Navy captain with close ties to neoconservatives and other hardline factions in the Republican Party. An early proponent of the Iraq War, Luti first came to national attention during the debate surrounding the use of faulty intelligence preceding the 2003 invasion. As an aide to Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, Luti helped oversee work at the Office of Special Plans (OSP), the controversial Pentagon intelligence shop that was spearheaded by Abram Shulsky and was the alleged source of much of the misinformation about Saddam Hussein's purported weapons programs and ties to Al Qaeda. [1]
After leaving the George W. Bush administration, Luti joined Northrop Grumman as a vice president of one of its information divisions. According to his Northrop bio, Luti "is responsible for leading the development of the [Information Systems] sector's long-range strategic plan and annual operating plan working closely with the divisions, government relations and business development groups. He also represents the IS sector on the Northrop Grumman Corporation Strategic Development Council." [2]
A naval officer for over 26 years, Luti became involved in right-wing politics in the late 1990s, when serving as an aide to then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA). After leaving Gingrich's staff, Luti served his final major assignment for the Navy as captain of the USS Guam. When George W. Bush became president in 2001, Luti went to work for Vice President Dick Cheney, then retired from the Navy a few months later to join Feith's team at the Pentagon. [3] By the start of the Iraq War in March 2003, Luti was more closely affiliated with the neoconservative civilians in the Pentagon than with the military brass, and in July 2005, after Feith resigned, Luti left the Pentagon to join the staff of the White House National Security Council. [4]
Seymour Hersh first documented Luti's role in the faulty intelligence on WMD in a May 2003 New Yorker piece about the Office of Special Plans. According to Hersh, the OSP, which was conceived by Paul Wolfowitz and began operating soon after the September 11 attacks, "brought about a crucial change of direction in the American intelligence community. These advisers and analysts ... produced a skein of intelligence reviews that ... helped to shape public opinion and American policy toward Iraq. They relied on data gathered by other intelligence agencies and also on information provided by the Iraqi National Congress, or INC, the exile group headed by Ahmed Chalabi." [5]
Hersh reported that by late 2002, the Office of Special Plans had overshadowed the CIA and the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and become Bush's main intelligence source on Iraq's WMD and on Saddam Hussein's alleged Al Qaeda connections. He wrote that "[a]lthough many people, within the administration and outside it, profess confidence that something will turn up, the integrity of much of that intelligence is now in question. The director of the Special Plans operation is Abram Shulsky, a scholarly expert in the works of the political philosopher Leo Strauss. Shulsky has been quietly working on intelligence and foreign policy issues for three decades; he was on the staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee in the early 1980s and served in the Pentagon under Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle during the Reagan administration, after which he joined the Rand Corporation. The Office of Special Plans is overseen by Under-Secretary of Defense William Luti, a retired Navy captain. Luti was an early advocate of military action against Iraq, and, as the administration moved toward war and policymaking power shifted toward the civilians in the Pentagon, he took on increasingly important responsibilities." [6]
In March 2004, an expose by Karen Kwiatkowski, a former Pentagon staffer in Luti's section, cast more light on Luti's activities at the OSP. Kwiatkowski noted that Luti apparently helped coordinate the OSP's efforts with Cheney's office, and that he would frequently and ostentatiously boast about his close work with Cheney's then-chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. She claimed that Luti was bullying toward subordinates and critics and in a meeting once referred to retired Gen. Anthony Zinni as a "traitor" for his skeptical attitude toward the Iraq War. Luti was, however, notably deferential to Shulsky, who was ostensibly his subordinate. [7]
Kwiatkowski also revealed that Luti had clashed with Bruce Hardcastle, the section's intelligence staffer from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). She wrote that "Luti and possibly others within OSP were dissatisfied with Hardcastle's briefings, in particular with the aspects relating to WMD and terrorism. I was not clear exactly what those concerns were, but I came to understand that the DIA briefing did not match what OSP was claiming about Iraq's WMD capabilities and terrorist activities. I learned that shortly before I arrived, there had been an incident in NESA [the Pentagon's Near East and South Asia desk] where Hardcastle's presence and briefing at a bilateral meeting had been nixed abruptly by Luti. The story circulating among the desk officers was 'a last-minute cancellation' of the DIO [defense intelligence officer] presentation. Hardcastle's intelligence briefing was replaced with one prepared by another Policy office that worked nonproliferation issues. While this alternative briefing relied on intelligence produced by DIO and elsewhere, it was not a product of the DIA or CIA community, but instead was an OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] Policy 'branded' product—and so were its conclusions. The message sent by Policy appointees and well understood by staff officers and the defense intelligence community was that senior appointed civilians were willing to exclude or marginalize intelligence products that did not fit the agenda." [8]
Nearly a year before Kwiatkowski went public with her allegations, W. Patrick Lang, a former Middle East expert at the DIA, had come forward with similar conclusions. In an interview with Seymour Hersh, he said that "the Pentagon has banded together to dominate the government's foreign policy, and they've pulled it off. They're running Chalabi. The DIA has been intimidated and beaten to a pulp. And there's no guts at all in the CIA." [9]
An unnamed Pentagon official familiar with Luti's work said that the deputy undersecretary's arrogance strained relations with his colleagues. "It's very difficult to inform people who already know it all," said the official. A former intelligence official commented, "Basically [Luti] didn't like other people's information if it didn't agree with his opinion." Luti called his critics "either confused, malicious, or both." [10]
Unlike most of the neoconservatives who were involved in war planning during the Bush administration, Luti has a military background. He served as a naval weapons officer beginning in the mid-1970s, but went back to school in the late 1980s to study strategy and diplomacy at Tufts University's Fletcher School, receiving his Ph.D. in 1990. He then served on the USS John Kennedy during the 1991 Gulf War. According to his Northrop Grumman bio, Luti's varied assignments as a naval officer have included "the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Executive Panel and the CNO Strategic Studies Group. He commanded an aviation squadron, an amphibious assault ship and an amphibious ready group. He is also a veteran of the 1991 Desert Storm air campaign. He received many honors during his naval aviation career, including the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal and the Strike/Flight Air Medal. In 2005, he received the Distinguished Public Service Medal, the Defense Department's highest civilian award." [11]
According to a Washington Post profile, Luti forged ties with leading neoconservatives through their shared interest in the Strangelovian nuclear war strategist Albert Wohlstetter: "In the early 1990s, while deputy director of the chief of naval operations' executive panel, a civilian advisory group, Luti became interested in the views of one member, strategy guru Albert Wohlstetter. A mentor to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, Defense Policy Board member Richard N. Perle, and several other prominent conservative defense thinkers, Wohlstetter became Luti's entree into their world. From there, while still in the Navy, Luti became a congressional fellow in the office of then-Speaker Gingrich. His time there, in part spent working on legislation related to arming and training Bosnian Muslims, again brought him into contact with interventionist conservatives." [12] Randy Scheunemann, a director of the Project for the New American Century who worked with Luti on Iraq issues while he was on Gingrich's staff, told the Post, "We were talking with people like Perle and Wolfowitz about doing the right thing in Bosnia." [13]
Education
o The Citadel: B.A. in History, 1975
o Naval War College: M.A. in National Security and Strategic Studies, 1986
o Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University: Ph.D. in International Relations, 1990
The Right Web Mission
Right Web tracks militarists' efforts to influence U.S. foreign policy.
Sources
1. Seymour Hersh, "Selective Intelligence," New Yorker, May 12, 2003.
2. Northrop Grumman, "William J. Luti," (PDF) (accessed on June 4, 2009).
http://www.northropgrumman.com/informat ... illiam.pdf (http://www.northropgrumman.com/information-systems/docs/LutiWilliam.pdf)
3. Thomas E. Ricks, "Iraq War Planner Downplays Role," Washington Post, October 22, 2003.
4. Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough, "Luti Moves," Washington Times, July 15, 2005.
5. Seymour Hersh, "Selective Intelligence," New Yorker, May 12, 2003.
6. Seymour Hersh, "Selective Intelligence," New Yorker, May 12, 2003.
7. Karen Kwiatkowksi, "The New Pentagon Papers," Salon.com, March 10, 2004.
8. Karen Kwiatkowksi, "The New Pentagon Papers," Salon.com, March 10, 2004.
9. Seymour Hersh, "Selective Intelligence," New Yorker, May 12, 2003.
10. Thomas E. Ricks, "Iraq War Planner Downplays Role," Washington Post, October 22, 2003.
11. Northrop Grumman, "William J. Luti," (PDF) (accessed on June 4, 2009).
12. Thomas E. Ricks, "Iraq War Planner Downplays Role," Washington Post, October 22, 2003.
13. Thomas E. Ricks, "Iraq War Planner Downplays Role," Washington Post, October 22, 2003.
QuoteEarly 2002: Office of Special Plans Ignores DIA Intel That Contradicts Its Assumptions on Iraq
Bruce Hardcastle, the Defense Intelligence Agency officer assigned to Bill Luti, provides Luti's office, the Office of Special Plans, with intelligence briefings. But his reports are not utilized by Luti or his colleagues, because they do not support neoconservatives' assumptions about Iraq's weapon capabilities and terrorist activities. [Salon, 3/10/2004 Sources: Paul O'Neill]
June 2002: INC Letter Reveals 'Direct Flow of Information' to Cheney
The Iraqi National Congress (INC—see 1992-1996) sends a letter to the Senate Appropriations Committee asking that the INC's "Intelligence Collection Program" be transferred from the State Department's oversight to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA)'s HUMINT (Human Intelligence) Service. In what former DIA official Patrick Lang will later call "a clumsy act of indiscretion," the letter reveals that there is, in Lang's words, "already a direct flow of information from the INC into the hands of Bill Luti [a senior official at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans—see September 2002 ] and John Hannah, the latter being Scooter Libby's deputy in [Vice President] Cheney's office." [Middle East Policy Council, 6/2004]
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.js ... lliam_luti (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=william_luti)
QuoteApril 16, 2006: Cheney's Staff Powerful, Secretive, and Highly Influential, Reporter Finds
Edit event
John Hannah.John Hannah. [Source: PBS]Dick Cheney's Office of the Vice President (OVP) is so cloaked in secrecy, journalist Robert Dreyfuss reports, that it routinely refuses to provide a directory of staff members or even the numbers of staff and employees. Dreyfus writes, "Like disciplined Bolsheviks slicing through a fractious opposition, Cheney's team operates with a single-minded, ideological focus on the exercise of American military power, a belief in the untrammeled power of the presidency, and a fierce penchant for secrecy." The list of current and former staffers includes, as of April 2006: former chief of staff Lewis Libby; his replacement, David Addington; top national security advisers Eric Edelman and Victoria Nuland; neoconservative and hardline Middle East specialists such as John Hannah, William Luti, and David Wurmser; anti-Chinese Asia specialists such as Stephen Yates and Samantha Ravich; a varying number of technocratic neoconservatives in other posts; and an array of communications specialists, including "Cheney's Angels": Mary Matalin, Juleanna Glover Weiss, Jennifer Millerwise, Jennifer Mayfield, Catherine Martin, and Lea Anne McBride. It is known that Cheney's national security staff was assembled by Libby from various far-right think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute, and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), as well as carefully screened Cheney supporters from a variety of Washington law firms. [American Prospect, 4/16/2006] Lawrence Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, will recall in early 2007: "A friend of mine counted noses [at the office] and came away with 88. That doesn't count others seconded from other agencies." [Washington Monthly, 1/7/2007]
'Cabal' of Zealots - Wilkerson calls Cheney's inner group a "cabal" of arrogant, intensely zealous, highly focused loyalists. Recalling Cheney's staff interacting in a variety of interagency meetings and committees, "The staff that the vice president sent out made sure that those [committees] didn't key anything up that wasn't what the vice president wanted," says Wilkerson. "Their style was simply to sit and listen, and take notes. And if things looked like they were going to go speedily to a decision that they knew that the vice president wasn't going to like, generally they would, at the end of the meeting, in great bureaucratic style, they'd say: 'We totally disagree. Meeting's over.'" The committee agendas were generally scuttled. And if something did get written up as a "decision memo" bound for the Oval Office, Cheney himself would ensure that it died before ever reaching fruition."
Sidestepping the NSC - The National Security Council (NSC) is designated as the ultimate arbiter for foreign policy options and recommendations for the president. But, according to Wilkerson, Cheney's office and the NSC were often at loggerheads, and Cheney's "shadow NSC" had the upper bureaucratic hand. Cheney "set up a staff that knew what the statutory NSC was doing, but the NSC statutory staff didn't know what his staff was doing," says Wilkerson.
China Threat - Cheney's Asia advisers, Yates and Ravich, were most often encountered by Wilkerson. They helped drive Cheney's agenda for China, which was obsessive to the point of paranoia. China was a grave, if long-term, threat to the US, they believed. The US must begin strongly cultivating Taiwan as a counterbalance to China, whom they asserted was preparing for military action against the US. Former US ambassador to China Charles Freeman compares Yates to the Defense Department's Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith; all three believed, Freeman says, that China was "the solution to 'enemy deprivation syndrome.'"
Iraq Policy - Cheney's current and former staffers played an even larger role in shaping the administration's Iraq policy than is generally known, and Cheney "seeded" staffers in other departments to promote his war agenda. Luti left the OVP in 2001 to join the Department of Defense, where he organized the Office of Special Plans (OSP). Wurmser, an AEI neoconservative, joined the Pentagon and created the forerunner of the OSP, the Counterterrorism Evaluation Group, which helped manufacture the evidence of connections between Hussein and al-Qaeda. Wurmser worked closely with Hannah, Libby, Luti, and another Pentagon official, Harold Rhode. Ravich worked with neoconservative Middle East analyst Zalmay Khalilzad to build up Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress, their designated supplanter of Hussein.
US or Israel Interests? - Many of Cheney's most influential staffers are pro-Israeli to the point where many observers wonder where their ultimate loyalties lie. David Wurmser is a standout of this group. Wurmser worked at WINEP with Hannah, then joined the AEI, where he directed that group's Middle East affairs, then joined Feith's OSP before moving on to Bolton's inner circle at the State Department, all before joining Cheney in the OVP. Most outsiders consider Wurmser's ideas wildly unrealistic. A former ambassador says of Wurmser, "I've known him for years, and I consider him to be a naive simpleton." [American Prospect, 4/16/2006]
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.js ... lliam_luti (http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=william_luti)
QuoteAIPAC Trial and an Update of Past Events
By Ryan Dawson
Two AIPAC employees have been on trial for spying on the US and giving classified information to Israel. They were indicted in 2005, and so far here have been the postponed trial dates for the case that threatens the most powerful foreign lobby (which is not registered as a foreign agent, even though attorney general RFK ordered that they should register but then somebody shot him):
- April 20th 2006
- May 23rd, 2006
- August 7th, 2006
- October 7th, 2006
- June 4th, 2007
- September 19th, 2007
- January 16th, 2008
- April 29th, 2008
Now May 27th, 2009 (maybe)
And then best of all AIPAC itself is on trial with Rosen on June 5th, 2009.
On top of that Steve Rosen one of the two agents on trial, is suing AIPAC for 5 million dollars. Rosen and his fellow AIPAC employee Keith Weissman were caught taking classified information in meetings with Lawrence Franklin an employee for Douglas Feith Under Secretary of Defense for Policy who met with uncleared Israeli generals in the DoD during the run up to the war with Iraq and who created a special office called the Office of Special Plans which cherry picked information and passed on known false information from Israel to the office of the vice president. Franklin was sentenced to 12 years in jail. Feith resigned. And Rosen is suing AIPAC. The information that Israel took pertained to Iraq and Iran's capacities to make nuclear weapons. It was essential to know what the US knew and more importantly what they did not know about Iraq and Iran in order for the Israelis to cook up cases for war.
Iraq-is-building-a-bomb was one of the prewar lies which justified a hurried invasion by stating we can't wait for the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud. To further this myth Judith Miller a New York Times employee who was romantically involved with a Mossad Lawyer and then Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, reported that Iraq was gathering aluminum tubes for centrifuges in a nuclear reactor. Over lapping this story were reports of Saddam buying yellow cake Uranium (U3O8) from Niger. Miller had been used before during the 1993 world trade center bombing where she tried to blame that on Iraq (it was actually our own FBI) and the OKC bombings which she also tried to blame on Iraq. She also gathered other bogus "reports" about Iraq from the INC and spouted off that Iraq had VX gas and Anthrax.
All these lies fell apart. Iraq did not have a reactor to put aluminum tubes (which isn't even physically possible, you need graphite). The INC was made of Iraqi defectors who simply read from an OSP script on what to say and were later placed in positions of power in the New Iraqi government just as PNAC writers had called, desired and pushed for long before the war. The Yellow cake claims were based on crude forgeries. In fact they didn't even forge the right person's name and instead they put down an obsolete foreign minister who had not been in the government since the 80s. And According to Italian reports Franklin again along with Israel hawk Michael Ledeen were responsible for passing on these forged documents over to the British cell who then gave them to the OSP. Most of all Iraq did not have and WMD and they didn't have VX gas. The anthrax claim was also false but this was very interesting. You see this claim tried to connect Iraq to the 911 attack in the US.
The mythology went like this. After the 911 attack there was a follow up attack of anthrax letters. Now at that time everyone believed that the anthrax came from Al Qaeda. The letters were mailed from within the US starting on Sep 18th.
However because planes were ordered to stand down after the attacks this caused a general screw up in the mail around DC resulting in the first anthrax laced letter not being opened until much later in October. The first media reports about the letters were also in October. However the PNAC group's Weekly Standard already had reports out saying that a lead hijacker in 911 had met with Iraqis in Prague. This report came out just 7 days after the attack, Sep 18th the same day anthrax was mailed. Later they would expand this lie and say not only did Al Qaeda meet with Iraqis but they also were given anthrax. Of course no meeting ever took place. Interestingly SOMEONE sent a letter to the Justice Department saying that a scientist in Maryland, Dr. Assad, was responsible for a biological weapons attack using anthrax. The problem is that whoever sent this letter on the 20th somehow knew of an anthrax attack before it happened. This may have been done to make it look like the warning must be true. However the letter didn't just warn of an attack, it reported like they knew who might have done an attack that already happened. It also reported that the writer and Assad had worked together in the past. So the huge problem is no attack had happened because none of the anthrax letters had been opened yet!
The suspect accused was not in the locations of where the letters were sent at the time they were sent or even days before or after. Furthermore the accused suspect was a man who worked with another man named Philip Zack who had actually been caught stealing anthrax from their lab in 1992 months before the first World Trade Center Truck bombing of Feb 1993. Zack was released not for stealing biological weapons but for racially motivated attacks on his co-worker. This same Co-worker Assad was now being blamed for mailing anthrax by an anonymous writer who someone knew or correctly guessed that there was going to be a biological attack on the US coincidentally using anthrax a weapon he had been busted doing illegal research with and illegally stealing from a lab he was no longer even supposed to be working for. Zack's colleague Dr. Marian Rippy still worked in the lab and let him in on late nights, all of which has been caught on film.
It makes one wonder why Zack was not at least questoined by the FBI in its long goose chase to find out who mailed anthrax.
It gets deeper. In Oct of 2001 reports came out from Zionist run News papers that at the meeting in Prague (which never happened) Iraqis passed anthrax to Atta who then must have given it to other Al Qaeda members who mailed it after 9/11. The papers sited Israeli security forces as their sources.
The London Times reporter in the UK who first made the report later died in his apartment. The New York Observer which made the reports in the US is owned by Jewish Billionaire Charles Kushner's son. Charles Kushner later went to jail after blackmailing his own sister's husband with a honey trap. Kushner hired a prostitute to sleep with his brother-in-law in a hotel where the whole act was secretly recorded. Kushner's sister pushed forward anyway and got him thrown in jail. What is interesting is that Kushner was the man who paid for an Israeli national to come to New Jersey and gave him a salary. He also gave the Governor of New Jersey money indirectly as a "consultant". It would be revealed that Governor McGreevey was infact a closet homosexual who was having sexual relations with Cipel the Israeli national who Kushner had arranged to come to the United States AND WORK FOR THE GOVERNOR. This Israeli got a job as the Head of Homeland Security for the state and was allowed to inspect the nuclear facilities and land a 6 figure salary job.
One must ask the question that the FBI apparently didn't. How could Israeli security forces WITNESS a transfer of anthrax from Iraqis to Al Qaeda in a meeting in Prague when Iraq didn't have any anthrax, Atta never had a meeting in Prague, and the anthrax used in 911 didn't even come from Al Qaeda it came from within the United States from the United States' own labs!?
Obviously the Israelis were lying. Furthermore isn't it interesting that the first paper to report it was owned by the man who also set up a honey trap on the governor as well as his own family and arranged for an Israeli national to come over (out of the blue) to work for the governor and get a position in security.
Whoever sent the anthrax tried very hard to blame Al Qaeda for it. Ultimately after chasing around Steven Hatfill around for years which resulted in a 5.8 million dollar settlement, the FBI landed on its final suspect Bruce Ivins who in less than a month after being targeted, allegedly killed himself. Ivins worked at the same lab as Dr. Rippy and Dr. Zack, but he was not in the locations of the mailing.
Whoever sent anthrax somehow knew where the Al Qaeda cells were because they went down to the same locations in Florida and New Jersey and sent anthrax. If you think that Bruce Ivins drove down to Florida and then up to New Jersey and mailed anthrax and then got back to Maryland in time to show up for work in less than 18 hours, you must be crazy or you work for the FBI. There is no way Ivins could do that at least not by himself. And how would he know where to go? No, the anthrax was sent by the same people who lied about witnessing it being transferred from Iraqis to Al Qaeda.
This was a false flag attack by Israel. It would be discovered that Israeli spies were also located right next to the alleged Al Qaeda cells in Florida and New Jersey. Furthermore a Mossad front company would be busted in New Jersey which was using moving vans. One such van was busted on 9/11 with traces of explosives and cheering Israelis who were filming the 9/11 plane attack. Later police stopped two other vans with explosive devices, on on or near the George Washington Bridge and one at Ground Zero. Men were arrested. The reports of the truck bombs came out live and then were quickly removed from the media as fast as the steel from the towers was shipped to China.
And it gets worse. When the anthrax was mailed there were also a few anthrax hoax letters mailed. The press blamed these on copy cat attacks. There is a problem with this however. The news reports about the anthrax mailings came AFTER some of the hoax letters were post marked. Thus whoever sent the hoax letter also knew about an attack. They assumed that the Sep 18 letters would be opened sooner than they were. Guess who got anthrax hoax letters? Judith Miller of the New York Times and Fox News.
On the other side Israeli enemies in the US Senate got real anthrax letters mailed to them with weapons grade materiel inside. This shows that this anthrax was made by or stolen from a state power. This could not have been cultured from a dead cow by a nerd in his basement. This anthrax had complex accelerates on it, and this too was at first blamed on Iraq.
But now we know. Iraq did not have any VX gas, anthrax, or nuclear bombs or even programs. Al Qaeda did not send the anthrax and the lies claiming all these things were based on crude forgeries piped through an Israel cabal later busted spying on the US and Israel sources who witnessed things at a meeting that never even happened. On top of it all Israel has the means, the location, the timing, and the motivations to send the anthrax and blame their enemies. They are busted in the largest spy-ring ever uncovered in the US, the head of security is an Israeli National, and there is a front company for the Israel Mossad busted on a day where at least two and maybe three vans were packed with explosives just like the 1993 bombing with Josey Hadas.
None of this hit the media. No shock there they wont even report the racial colonies that Israel builds in the West Bank instead they call then Jewish Neighborhoods that are "defended" from attackers of irrational religious extremists.
To this day there is no reporting in the MSM about the Niger forgeries or the Israeli spy rings or the AIPAC employee trial. The New York Sun which reported on the trial has now gone under. Ask yourself why is this? Other lies about the war have been reported. But why has the anthrax case, the truck bombs, the spy rings, and AIPAC case, and the Niger Forgeries, all of which are known things, not been reported by the MSM in the US?
It gets worse.
Back when AIPAC was illegally gathering Intel on what the US knew and didn't know about Iraq AND Iran's nuclear capacities, a branch of the CIA working on tracking nuclear weapons proliferation was actively trying to figure out what the truth was. In this process they uncovered something else. Employees of the American government were illegally selling arms. The Nexus of the trade went through the ATC (American Turkish Council) a lobby for the Military industrial complex which benefited greatly from the Iraq war, and is located in the gateway of the drug trade from the "liberated" poppy fields of Afghanistan to Europe. The ATC is basically a miniature AIPAC with all the same players involved. And FBI whistle blower named Sibel got wind of these dealing through translating and before she could come out with it she had a gag order slapped on her and she was threatened with jail time.
Quote: Immediately after 911, the FBI arrested a bunch of people suspected of being involved with the attacks – including four associates of key targets of FBI's counterintelligence operations. Sibel heard the targets tell Marc Grossman: 'We need to get them out of the U.S. because we can't afford for them to spill the beans.' Grossman duly facilitated their release from jail and the suspects immediately left the country without further investigation or interrogation.
Let me repeat that for emphasis: The #3 guy at the State Dept. facilitated the immediate release of 911 suspects at the request of targets of the FBI's investigation. And I had reported a year before that this was just something I noticed by watching CSPAN and a red-flag popped into my head as they were going over the funding for the war.
The CIA's team which would have been on the trail on these illegal trades, and would have known what Iraq and Iran really had or didn't have in regards to nuclear weapons, was ruined. Valarie Plame a clandestine CIA agent in the outfit in charge of tracking nuclear weapons, was ousted by Lewis Libby and Karl Rove. In doing this her front companies BJA was also exposed. Because of this the entire unit was compromised and a dark cloud was created over the capacities of Iraq and Iran. From that the lies about both countries building a bomb continued. It is still being claimed by hardcore Neocons about Iran. Libby went to trial and was convicted but Bush commuted his sentence.
Again no media reporting on this. Sure it was on the web. It was on Antiwar.com and whatreallyhappend.com and this site rys2sense.com and some others but by an large it was never reported and of course never connected to the larger picture.
All of this and more has been reported by Ryan Dawson's Iraq 911 PNAC all roads lead to Israel, report. And can be viewed in the Film War By Deception. Full screen version available here
The film is 3 hours. I don't claim to be a movie maker. But all of the information is in there. It's been out since 2004 on this website in an older film as well as in text. And the text was just globbed together reports from my blogs which were written as things were happening. I correctly nailed the OSP and Libby as it was made, correctly stated Iraq did not have any WMDs before the war started, correctly predicted the 7/7 bombing which resulted in my websites being deleted and that is when we started Rys2sense. I correctly stated that Ivins would become a fall guy after Hatfill won his settlement. This site knows what is up. There is absolutely no reason to dabble into goofy pointless stuff such as "Freemasons" "Illuminati" "Bavarian Death Cults" "Space creatures" "Lucifarians" etc. All of that is pointless infotainment for people to make a buck. Don't be a sucker. It's damaging because it makes us all look insane. Nothing sinks credibility like end times cultist, religious rhetoric, and science-fiction/comic book fantasies. Please be an adult.
War By Deception Part I 37min
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 533&hl=en# (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1949856046897332533&hl=en#)
War By Deception Part II 58min
War By Deception Part III 19 min
War By Deception Part 4 51 min
165 minutes of truth. Pass this video around. NO MORE WARS for Israel!
http://www.rys2sense.com/anti-neocons/v ... 69#p121369 (http://www.rys2sense.com/anti-neocons/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=18034&p=121369#p121369)
-Ry
http://www.davidduke.com/general/aipac- ... _9283.html (http://www.davidduke.com/general/aipac-trial-iraq-911-pnac-anthrax-and-what-the-media-wont-report_9283.html)
QuoteTuesday, August 5, 2008
The Anthrax Killer? Richard Spertzel
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mjv-0TcTrhw/SJk_ziowq7I/AAAAAAAABJc/c5LPm6f4Wes/s400/spertzel.gif)
Is this is the man who made the anthrax that killed five people soon after 9-11? I think so.
Of course, the FBI are protecting him by pointing the finger at others. And Spertzel himself is busy weighing in with his expert opinion to confuse the media, and using his high-level contacts to confuse investigations, just to muddy the waters.
But I think this is the guy. Richard Spertzel.
He is on the books at Benador Associates (with Amir Taheri, Charles Jacobs, Charles Krauthammer, Dennis Prager, Herbert London, James Woolsey, Laurie Mylroie, Meyrav Wurmser, Michael Ledeen, Michael Rubin, Natan Sharansky, Richard Perle and others), he's a regular on Murdoch's FOX News, he writes articles for the Murdoch WSJ. You get the picture?
Zionist. Neocon.
Of course, he was not working alone.
More articles from Spertzel here and more investigation ongoing at Glenn Greenwald's blog, where a highly informed commenter recently said:
"Spertzel is really scary and seems to just taunt the world from the neocon perspective."
Spertzel has repeatedly insisted that the anthrax sent to Daschle and Leahy was very highly sophisticated:
"In my opinion, there are maybe four or five people in the whole country who might be able to make this stuff, and I'm one of them," said Richard O. Spertzel, chief biological inspector for the U.N. Special Commission from 1994 to 1998. "And even with a good lab and staff to help run it, it might take me a year to come up with a product as good."
One the one hand that is a boast. On the other hand it is a threat.
Now ask yourself why the head of the FBI has been protecting this man for nearly seven years?
UPDATE: Spertzel is of course loudly telling people that he doesn't believe that Bruce Ivins was the killer. Given that the FBI has not been able to make a strong case against Ivins, and they know it, that's not really surprising. It helps give Spertzel some much-needed credibility in the public eye.
The DoJ has just released documents (PDFs here) related to the case but are not going to close the case yet "because of incomplete administrative details". Yeah, like a motive! And proof!
This is the motive currently being bandied about:
Authorities were looking at whether Ivins may have released anthrax to test a vaccine he was working on, another official said.
I don't have time to read through all the docs today, but details emerging don't indicate any bombshell of proof. It's hard to believe the FBI really thought they could charge and convict Ivins on this evidence alone.
According to one affidavit made public, Ivins submitted false anthrax samples to the FBI, was unable to give investigators "an adequate explanation for his late laboratory work hours around the time of" the attacks and sought to frame an unnamed co-worker.
He was also said to have received immunizations against anthrax and yellow fever in early September 2001, several weeks before the first anthrax-laced envelope was received in the mail.
Um, wouldn't everybody working in an anthrax lab be taking immunizations regularly? But that bit about framing an unnamed co-worker is interesting: was that Assaad, or Hatfill?
Then there's the corporate element, and an email that much is being made of:
[Ivins] was under pressure to assist a private company that had lost federal approval to produce an anthrax vaccine and sent a suspicious e-mail a few days before the anthrax attacks.
The e-mail warned that Osama bin Laden's terrorists "for sure have anthrax and sarin gas" and had "just decreed death to all Jews and all Americans." The affidavit said the language in the e-mail was similar to warnings in the anthrax letters, such as: "WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX. . . . DEATH TO AMERICA . DEATH TO ISRAEL."
Note how WaPo reproduced that text in the original CAPS, just to make sure you saw it. But what's new? It's already been established (e.g. his letter to the local paper) that Ivins was a Christian Zionist, but so was the whole Fort Detrick lab (see Camel club antics). And no doubt half the USA had similar thoughts after 9-11. I mean, Bin Laden hates Jews? Duh!
And if Ivins really believed, as many others did, that Al Quaeda might have anthrax, surely that would explain his late nights in the lab after 9-11. OTOH:
The spike in his evening hours began in mid-August, almost a month before the Sept. 11 attacks, investigators said.
That's a little harder to explain. But it's still not incriminating evidence.
And then there's this:
Moreover, the envelopes that held the letters were "federal eagle" envelopes, so-named because of the eagle perched on a bar bearing the initials "USA" in the upper right-hand corner, and bore tiny but tell-tale defects that searchers determined were bought from a post office in Maryland or Virginia, the official documents relate.
And of the 16 government, commercial and university laboratories that had virulent anthrax strains like the one used in the deadly mailings, only one was located in Maryland or Virginia — the Fort Detrick lab where Dr. Ivins worked before his July 29 suicide, the documents say.
Yeah, real tight evidence right there. Not.
http://ridingthejuggernaut.blogspot.com ... rtzel.html (http://ridingthejuggernaut.blogspot.com/2008/08/anthrax-killer-richard-spertzel.html)
Quote'Why I'm certain my friend Dr Kelly was murdered'
By Andrew Malone
Last updated at 8:18 PM on 10th July 2010
Quote(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/07/10/article-1293568-0A632BB2000005DC-801_233x423.jpg)
Mai Pederson
His friend: Mai Pederson has damming new evidence to suggest Dr David kelly's death was not a suicide
They used to walk the streets of Baghdad together after dark.
She liked to clear her head after the tensions of the day; he wanted to compensate for the missed strolls he normally took in the Oxfordshire countryside near his home.
But these nightly outings for David Kelly, the ill-fated weapons expert, and Mai Pederson, his beautiful young U.S. military interpreter, also provided an intriguing insight into how perilous the British scientist's position had become.
A senior member of a United Nations inspection team in Iraq, Kelly's mission was to discover whether Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction - and to determine whether America and Britain would go to war.
The stakes could not have been higher.
To help him deal with obfuscating Iraqi officials, he was assigned Pederson, a gifted linguist with the U.S. Air Force who also had secret, high-level links to American intelligence.
Beguiled by his mysterious younger colleague, Kelly asked if he could walk with Pederson at night.
And so an unlikely relationship blossomed on the dark streets of Baghdad.
That friendship deepened when, one night in 1998, five years before the U.S. and Britain invaded, the pair shared a life-or-death experience on a stroll around the Iraqi capital.
Suddenly, a red laser dot appeared on the British scientist's clothes over his heart: an unseen sniper had him in his sights.
The laser beam moved slowly upwards until it was trained on the centre of Kelly's forehead.
Amid unbearable tension, the red dot remained there for what seemed like an age.
The sniper didn't pull the trigger - it was simply a warning. Iraqi officials brushed off the incident, sniggering that it was just 'kids playing around'.
But Kelly knew his life was in grave danger, informing his younger companion that he had been told by intelligence sources that he was number three on a Saddam Hussein death list as a result of his work.
(http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2010/07/10/article-1293568-0A632B0F000005DC-629_468x286.jpg)
David kelly
The late Dr David Kelly is pictured leaving The House of Commons, Tuesday July 15, 2003, after giving evidence to the Commons select committee.
Shrugging off the risks, he told Pederson he couldn't abandon his mission, but that he expected to be found dead in the woods near his home in Oxfordshire, rather than in Iraq.
It was a claim he repeated to other close friends. It turned out to be a chillingly accurate prediction.
Memories of those tense, heady days and nights came flooding back for Mai Pederson this week as the seventh anniversary of the death of David Kelly, her close friend and confidante, approaches on July 17.
It is a tragedy which continues to be cloaked in controversy.
'We started out as work colleagues and he became like an older brother to me,' she told me when we met this week in America.
'He was a man of impeccable integrity, honour, dignity and respect. His family meant everything to him, as did his work.
'It is time the facts came out.'
Pederson hasn't met with Kelly's wife since his death, but Mrs Kelly did testify to the Hutton inquiry that Pederson was 'influential' in his life and had become a family friend.
Kelly, as is now well-known, was found dead in the woods near his home in July 2003, having supposedly used a blunt knife he'd had since he was a boy to hack into a tiny, deep vein and bleed to death - even though little blood was found at the scene.
Despite leaving no note for his wife or his beloved daughter, who was due to get married three months later, the government's Hutton Inquiry into his death concluded in 2004 that Kelly committed suicide after being named as the source of a BBC report suggesting that Tony Blair's spokesman 'sexed up' intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction in order to justify going to war against Iraq.
After repeated calls for a full inquest into Kelly's death, the Labour government instead decided that official papers about the affair should be kept secret for an unprecedented 70 years - and, even more bizarrely, the reason for that decision is itself a state secret.
But now, amid signals that the new British coalition government may re-examine this utterly perplexing case, Kelly's former translator - and spiritual soul-mate - has come forward to give the saga a dramatic, compelling new twist.
In damning evidence to the new attorney general, Dominic Grieve, who has indicated his 'concerns' about the case, Pederson revealed that Kelly could not have killed himself by hacking into his wrist - because he could only move his arm with difficulty due to an old injury.
'He couldn't even cut a steak,' says Pederson, holding her own arm out stiffly to mimic his disability.
'He hurt his elbow and was incredibly weak in that arm.'
She also rubbished claims he had taken 29 Co-Proxamol painkiller pills before cutting his wrists, saying he struggled to swallow pills.
For Kelly suffered from 'unexplained dysphagia' - a syndrome that can make it almost impossible to swallow pills, while food and other substances are ingested without a problem. This has been confirmed by other friends.
Pederson recalls offering him a pill for a headache which he refused, saying he couldn't swallow any pills and explaining he'd had the problem for years.
Speaking exclusively to the Mail, the twice-divorced Pederson - who is fluent in five languages - insisted that she was determined to honour the memory of a 'kind, brilliant man' by unearthing the truth about who really killed him, saying: 'This cries out for a formal, independent and complete review.
'If that means stirring the ashes, so be it.
'The death of David Kelly is not just about him or about the tragedy for his family - it affects all of us. The facts don't add up and the responses from the British government don't add up.'
More than anyone else - even, perhaps, including Janice, Dr Kelly's widow - Pederson knows the truth about Kelly's frame of mind at the time of his death, and, intriguingly, how he had even made plans for the future once the fuss over the BBC story had died down.
From the time in the late Nineties that they became acquainted, they made an unlikely pair. He, introverted and studious; she, Kuwaiti-born to Egyptian parents and vivacious.
According to an ex-husband, she was actually an American spy with eyes that could 'bewitch' any man.
After meeting in Iraq in 1998, right up to the day of Kelly's death, the pair spent as much of their time together as possible. When they were apart, they regularly kept in touch by phone and email.
Other staff on the UN weapons inspections team in Baghdad assumed the bearded, scruffy English scientist was as dull as he looked.
But after he started accompanying Pederson on her walks, she discovered a different side to Kelly.
While she listened in silence,she says, he chatted away animatedly about his wife and children and how he loved taking daily walks in the woods near his home. She found it distracting and relaxing.
Indeed, the pair became as close as it's possible to be without sharing a bed.
In the following years, Kelly made frequent trips to America to see her(he was often in the U.S. on UN business and for meetings with other top scientists).
He was also reputedly thinking about moving there permanently.
Between dozen of trips to Iraq on inspection tours, as Britain and America sought a legal case for war against Saddam, the pair met regularly at locations around the U.S from California to Alabama.
In a sign of just how deep their friendship went, Kelly was even officially registered as living at three houses Pederson owned in America.
This was,apparently,simply a favour to enable him to have US. credit cards with an American mailing address.
A devout agnostic, Kelly decided to convert without informing his wife to the Baha'i faith, the ancient Persian religion of which Pederson was a follower.
He gave up alcohol and started attending Baha'i meetings.
Not surprisingly, colleagues whispered that the pair were having an affair.
Could it have been true? 'I did not have an affair with Dr Kelly,'Pederson says firmly.' His family meant everything to him. I'd met his wife and daughters.
'His work was his mistress.'
Now 49,with piercing brown eyes, Pederson says the British academic - who was 20 years older - was not her type and it would, in any case, have been a court martial offence under U.S. military regulations to have an affair with a married man.
Yet her decision to submit this new dossier of evidence to the British government has reignited the politically charged debate about whether Kelly was murdered.
Already she has been attacked by John Rentoul, official biographer of the former prime minister (and, ironically, a columnist for The Independent, which denounced the Hutton Inquiry), has branded publication of her claims as' contemptible'.
BBC journalist Tom Mangold, meanwhile, denounced Pederson as a conspiracy theorist who must'believe in the tooth fairy' and demanded to know why she had taken so long to speak out.
Yet Pederson has tried to give evidence repeatedly.
In fact, less than a month after Kelly's death, she agreed to meet two British detectives who flew out from London to question her.
She spent two days telling them all she knew about the case and explaining why she believed the scientist could not possibly have committed suicide.
Yet, like many others in this saga of contradictory evidence and unanswered questions, her attempts to shed light on Kelly's physical as well as mental condition have been repeatedly rebuffed.
Indeed, two days after British police interviewed her and promised she would not be named on account of her sensitive work with the military her name was leaked to the then Labour supporting Times newspaper and she was portrayed as a shadowy Mata Hari figure.
While his family say Kelly was depressed, Pederson says he was nothing of the kind.
He had even phoned her at the height of the drama surrounding the row about the leaks to the BBC about the 'sexed-up' Iraq weapons dossier, cheerfully saying he was driving to a place in the West Country to escape the Press and that he would come out to see her in a couple of months.
Alarmed by the media attention after her identity was disclosed, Pederson moved in to Air Force accommodation to live in seclusion.
There, she privately offered to give evidence to the Hutton Inquiry on condition that her identity was disguised as it had been for British intelligence agents called to give evidence.
Hutton refused. More recently, frustrated by the lack of action over her evidence, her Washington lawyer Mark Zaid sent a letter last year to Baroness Scotland, the then Labour Attorney General.
Receipt of the letter was acknowledged in a single line reply from her office.
But,again,nothing happened.
Now,however, Pederson hopes someone will finally listen.
And yesterday she received a much more sympathetic response from the office of new Attorney General Dominic Grieve, advising her to speak to the group of doctors currently launching their own legal challenge to make all documents relating to his death public.
She does not, she insists, have a 'smoking gun' evidence of who killed Kelly or why.
But she's convinced he was murdered.
'None of it makes sense anyone can see that,' she says.
The suggestion that Kelly could have been murdered by British government agents seems preposterous.
But did the Establishment have evidence that a 'hit' was planned against Kelly by Iraq and fail to act?
There have been repeated rumours that police were aware he had gone missing long before his family reported him overdue from his walk.
Or could Iraqi exiles have silenced him because his claims (about there being insufficient evidence of weapons build up to justify an invasion of their country) were at odds with their desire to see Saddam deposed?
In truth, Mai Pedersondoesn't know the answers. But what she does know is that the official story has gaping holes.
She says:'The more time that passes with the Government ignoring the contradictory evidence, the more conspiracy theories will grow and faith and trust in the Government will lessen.
Legitimate questions deserve answers.
'The British Government owes him, his family and the country the full truth,whatever that might be.
Dr Kelly can no longer speak, so we must do so for him.'
There is, of course, a way for the new government to try to put an end to the controversy by seeking answers to the unanswered questions.
If there really is nothing to hide about the baffling death of Dr David Kelly, why, then, does so much remain hidden?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... dered.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1293568/Why-Im-certain-friend-Dr-Kelly-murdered.html)
1949 — "In 1949 and 1950 [Dr. Frank Olson] worked briefly on "Operation Harness", a joint US-British effort to spray virulent organisms –so-called BW antipersonnel agents– around the Caribbean, decimating untold thousands of plants and animals. At the time of his death Olson was developing a new, portable, and more lethal form of anthrax that could be put into a small spray can....According to his son Eric, Frank Olson also learned that the Americans were deploying Anthrax against enemy troops in Korea" http://www.frankolsonproject.org/Articles/Chase.html (http://www.frankolsonproject.org/Articles/Chase.html)
http://thirdring.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/timeline/ (http://thirdring.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/timeline/)
A long article from 2003, the author although JewTribe makes the connections. Warning that it has subtle disinfo since it focuses on "Islamists" instead of the JTribe-Sayanim-JPuppets that pulled off 9/11 and the Anthrax attacks. Does give an indication of the "confusion" between Islamic countries and the attacks on 9/11 due to J-Tribe disinformation. At this point in the game... reading between the lines hiding J-Tribe crimes yet blaming the incompetent "Goyim" is child's play... he makes lists and deflects the focus from Jews... -- CSR
========
"Whereas the inhabitants of the Indian peninsula are Hindus whose hearts have been full of hatred towards Muslims, therefore, India is the most important base for us to work there from against Pakistan," David Ben Gurion, quoted in the Jewish Chronicle, August 9, 1967.
In his 2006 memoir In the Line of Fire, President Musharraf wrote that Omar Saeed Sheik "is a British national born to Pakistani parents in London" in December 1973.
Omar Sheikh was reportedly a contemporary of England cricket captain Nasser Hussain at the private Forest School, in Snaresbrook, in the UK. (BBC Profile: Omar Saeed Sheikh)
Omar Sheik attended the London School of Economics (which reportedly has links to MI6).
"It is believed in some quarters that while Omar Sheikh was at the LSE he was recruited by the British intelligence agency MI-6," Musharraf wrote. "It is said that MI-6 persuaded him to take an active part in demonstrations against Serbian aggression in Bosnia and even sent him to Kosovo to join the jihad"
========
There's Something About Omar:
Truth, Lies, and The Legend of 9/11
by Chaim Kupferberg
http://www.globalresearch.ca (http://www.globalresearch.ca) , 21 October 2003
The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KUP310A.html (http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KUP310A.html)
It was almost an afterthought. On March 1, 2003, the War On Terror had finally served up the alleged paymaster of 9/11 - a shadowy Saudi by the name of Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi. Yet his arrest just happened to coincide with the capture of a much bigger fish - the reported 9/11 mastermind himself, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - thus relegating Mustafa Ahmed to the footnote section of the "official" 9/11 Legend. But there was another, more explosive side to this tale. Only seventeen months before, a former London schoolboy by the name of Omar Saeed Sheikh was first exposed as the 9/11 paymaster, acting under the authority of a Pakistani general who was in Washington D.C. on September 11, meeting with the very two lawmakers who would subsequently preside over the "official" 9/11 congressional inquiry. Omar Saeed, as reported back then by CNN, was acting under the alias of...Mustafa Ahmed. So where is Omar now? Sitting in a Pakistani prison, awaiting his execution for the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl - while another man fills the shoes of his pseudonym. What follows is a reconstruction of one of the most extensive disinformation campaigns in history, and the chronicle of a legend that may now shine a devastating spotlight on some of the cliques behind 9/11 - and the FBI Director covering the paper trails.
"The hijackers left no paper trail," proclaimed FBI Director Robert Mueller on April 30, 2002. "In our investigation, we have not uncovered a single piece of paper...that mentioned any aspect of the Sept. 11 plot." Yet in the weeks immediately following September 11, Mueller and his FBI had left the public with a very different impression - an impression that conjured the vision of truckloads of paper documents pointing any number of ways to the culpability of Osama Bin Laden for the events of 9/11. For one, there was the infamous handwritten "checklist" found not only in hijacker Mohamed Atta's abandoned luggage, but also in the car rented in hijacker al-Hazmi's name, discovered at Dulles Airport, and which included lofty Arabic prayers alongside last minute reminders to bring "knives, your will, IDs, your passport, all your papers." But more importantly, the treasure trove in al-Hazmi's glove compartment yielded a paper trail that led all the way to London - and to the arrest of a potentially major suspect.
On September 30, 2001, as reported in the Telegraph by David Bamber, British prosecutor Arvinda Sambir announced that authorities had arrested Lotfi Raissi, whose name was found in al-Hazmi's rental. A further search of Raissi's apartment had yielded up a video clip starring Raissi with alleged hijacker Hani Hanjour - all in all, another circumstantial slam-dunk in the snowballing case against al-Qaida. Or was it? For by April of 2002 - when Mueller made his "paper trail" declaration - Raissi would go free for want of evidence.
As we will shortly see, Raissi was being set up to play his part in a prearranged drama, one in which a definitive money trail leading to al-Qaida would be announced just in time for the October 7, 2001 launch into Afghanistan. Yet a brief, almost innocuous, article in the October 9 Times of India would lay havoc to this plan, necessitating a massive cover-up and a search for an alternative smoking gun that would unveil itself before a skeptical world audience on December 13, 2001 as the Official Bin Laden Videotape Confession.
An essential player in that original plan was Omar Saeed Sheikh (hereafter Omar Saeed), a 27 year-old London-born man of Pakistani parentage who had attended the London School of Economics before answering the call of militancy, heading off to Bosnia, and from there, to Pakistan, where he would make his "bones" in a 1994 kidnapping, serving time in an Indian prison until being bartered out for hostages in a 1999 airplane hijacking. Packing a lifetime into the next two years, Omar Saeed caught the eye of the so-called militant faction of Pakistan's ISI (the Pakistani CIA), rounding out his curricular vitae by tinkering around with the al-Qaida computer network in Afghanistan.
Omar Saeed made his public post-9/11 debut on September 23, 2001, on the very same day that his pseudonym, Mustafa Ahmad, made its own post-9/11 debut through President Bush's Global Terrorist Executive Order, in which a "Shaykh Sai'id (aka Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad)" was mentioned as a financial operative in al-Qaida, among a list of 27 individuals and entities slated to have their assets frozen. On September 23, Nick Fielding of The Sunday Times reported: "British officials have now asked India for legal assistance in seeking the whereabouts of Omar [Saeed] Sheikh. British security services confirmed this weekend that they wanted him for questioning."
A week later, on September 30, 2001, we found out why, when David Bamber of the Telegraph reported: "Police also believe that ... Omar [Saeed] Sheikh, who is British, trained the terrorists in hijacking techniques." As Bamber implied, Omar Saeed was working in cahoots with Lotfi Raissi, who was just recently arrested and charged with training the hijacker pilots. In other words, in less than three weeks after 9/11, authorities were closing in on Raissi and Omar Saeed, the alleged trainers of the alleged hijackers.
Now all that remained was to furnish a "smoking gun" link to al-Qaida by way of a money trail, all in time for the planned October 7 invasion of Afghanistan. On the very day that the Telegraph outed Raissi and Omar Saeed as the 9/11 trainers, ABC News This Week announced that a $100,000 money trail had been traced in Florida from hijacker Atta to "people linked to Osama bin Laden."
The very next day, on October 1, Judith Miller of the New York Times reported that hijacker Atta received money from someone using the alias "Mustafa Ahmad". Five days later, on October 6, Maria Ressa of CNN, quoting terrorism expert Magnus Ranstorp, officially unveiled Omar Saeed as the pseudonymous 9/11 money man: "He [Omar Saeed] is ... linked to the financial network feeding bin Laden's assets, so therefore he's quite an important person...because he transfers money between various operatives, and he's a node between al Qaeda and foot soldiers on the ground." Ressa went on to report: "Because investigators have now determined that [Omar Saeed] and Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad [the pseudonym] are the same person, it provides another key link to bin Laden as the mastermind of the overall [9/11] plot."
Two days later, on October 8, Ressa revisited the story, this time connecting Omar Saeed to an October 1 attack on the provincial legislature in Kashmir - an incident that led Pakistan and India closer to the brink. October 8, incidentally, was also one of the very last times that CNN touched upon Omar Saeed - at least until he bobbed up a few months later, on February 6, as the FBI's main suspect in the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl. Yet by then, CNN - and Maria Ressa - was stricken by a curious case of amnesia, neglecting to mention that Saeed was previously outed by them as the 9/11 bag-man. Why this sudden silence? And, more to the point, why did Omar Saeed virtually drop off CNN's radar after October 8?
Perhaps the answer lies in an October 9 bombshell, courtesy of the Times of India:
"While the Pakistani Inter Services Public Relations claimed that former ISI [Pakistani intelligence] director-general Lt-Gen Mahmud Ahmad sought retirement after being superseded on Monday, the truth is more shocking. Top sources confirmed here on Tuesday that the general lost his job because of the "evidence" India produced to show his links to one of the suicide bombers that wrecked the World Trade Center. The U.S. authorities sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohammed Atta from Pakistan by [Omar Saeed] at the instance of General Mahmud [Ahmad]."
In short, the Times of India revealed that Omar Saeed was acting under the direct orders of the head of Pakistani intelligence and not Osama bin Laden. That in itself could perhaps have been explained away, as it was widely acknowledged that Islamic elements in the ISI were sympathetic to the Taliban and their al-Qaida guests. Yet tracing the "smoking gun" money trail to General Ahmad created an entirely new smoking gun that led straight back to Washington, D.C. - for General Ahmad had already been reported as having breakfast in the nation's capital with Senator Bob Graham and Representative Porter Goss on the morning of September 11 (Both Graham and Goss would go on to co-chair the joint Senate-House 9/11 inquiry). In fact, as early as September 9 - two days before 9/11, for those who didn't notice - Karachi News had weighed in with the following observation:
"ISI Chief Lt-Gen [Mahmud Ahmad's] week-long presence in Washington has triggered speculation about the agenda of his mysterious meetings at the Pentagon and National Security Council... What added interest to his visit is the history of such visits. Last time Ziauddin Butt, [General Ahmad's] predecessor, was here during Nawaz Sharif's government, the domestic politics turned topsy-turvy within days. That this is not the first visit by [General Ahmad] in the last three months shows the urgency of the ongoing parleys."
If ever there was a paper trail leading to the 9/11conspirators, these articles provided the print-smeared paving. Taken together, they would conjure up the following plausible scenario: Omar Saeed, acting under the direction of General Ahmad and the ISI, had provided money and "training" (as reported in the Telegraph) to the hijackers while "false-flagging" himself to the hijackers as an operative of al-Qaida. The General, on the other hand, may have represented himself to Omar Saeed as acting exclusively under ISI authority, when in fact he was acting under the direction of his American-Anglo handlers. With Omar Saeed seeding the "legend" of a bona fide money trail leading back to bin Laden, the stage would then be set for Omar Saeed to take the fall as the main patsy providing the smoking gun of al-Qaida complicity for 9/11. Yet at some point, this carefully enacted "legend" began to unravel once Indian intelligence was able to establish (or just mischievously leaked) Saeed's link with General Ahmad, forcing a reluctant FBI - or, alternatively, a cooperative element in the FBI outside of the hermetically compartmentalized loop - to go along and confirm the findings.
Naturally, in the light of the Times of India's Oct. 9 bombshell, somebody would have to organize a prophylactic strategy of damage control. Yet where the original money trail "legend" was carefully, even artfully, crafted, the efforts to perform a partial-birth abortion on it were piecemeal, ill-considered, and - most damaging of all- worked to highlight the participation of individual accessories in the cover-up campaign.
A comprehensive cover-up strategy would entail four objectives: i) explaining General Ahmad's "sudden retirement"; ii) gradually minimizing the money trail story while subtly transforming it; iii) providing a new "smoking gun"; and iv) carving out an alternative "legend" for Omar Saeed while finding an alternative paymaster. Of the four objectives, the last one would turn out to be the most convoluted.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media - except for a brief mention by the Wall Street Journal - would largely ignore the October 9 Times of India item. General Ahmad's "sudden dismissal" was accounted for by TIME and The Washington Post as being due to his "pro-Taliban" loyalties - leaving out any mention of an al-Qaida or money trail connection. With General Ahmad thus safely "out of sight", he was also presumably "out of mind." Omar Saeed, on the other hand, represented a trickier problem, as the authorities and the mainstream media - CNN at least - had already gone on record as fingering him as the 9/11 paymaster. Moreover, Omar Saeed had originally been set up to be a major player in the overall 9/11 "legend".
As we will see, many of the players in this carefully plotted, decade-long "legend" - Ramzi Yousef, Mohamed Atta, Ramzi Binalshibh (or bin al-shibh), Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Zacarias Moussaoui, and the paymaster role - were intricately interconnected in a web of activities and unfolding revelations. With the definitive identification of a paymaster now put on hold, the full crystallization of the Official 9/11 Legend would also have to await a more opportune time. In the short term, Omar Saeed would have to disappear, yet due to his prior exposure in the media, and in view of his deep involvement with many of the other players in the legend, his role in all this would ultimately have to be accounted for. And so, Omar Saeed would need to be reintegrated back into the 9/11 picture by way of an alternative legend, most of which would play itself out after September 11.
As for the formerly snowballing money trail story, post-October 9, it was gradually being ushered to a slow death of irrelevance, awaiting its temporary replacement with a new "smoking gun." In the meantime, the "Mustafa Ahmad" pseudonym was being passed on to a new owner - or a number of alternative ones, depending on which media outlet was offering whichever version. In some reports, the paymaster alias would be tagged to an Egyptian "Shayk Saiid". In its November 11, 2001 issue, Newsweek bequeathed the alias to a 33 year-old Saudi named "Shaikh Saiid," who was apparently caught on surveillance video picking up a package in Dubai mailed by hijacker Mohammed Atta. On December 18, 2001, the Associated Press added further details, revealing that "Shaikh Saiid" was also the alias for bin Laden's brother-in-law, Sa'd al-Sharif. Both items, taken together, would mean that we would have an actual video of bin Laden's brother-in-law picking up a package from one of the hijackers - a smoking gun if ever there was one, and just one more example of the incredible carelessness by which these throwaway details were revealed as "evidence." In any case, the original smoking gun - the money trail story - was officially supplanted earlier in that week, on December 13, 2001, with the worldwide release of the Official Bin Laden Videotape Confession.
Now all that remained was to properly dispose of the Omar Saeed "legend." Whether a new "legend" was being crafted for Saeed right after October 9, or considerably later, is a fact that may never be known with certainty. What we do know, however, is that Saeed was later linked to a December 13, 2001 suicide attack on the Indian Parliament in addition to a January 22, 2002 attack on the American Cultural Center in Calcutta.
In fact, January 22, 2002 was a key date for the plan to carve out a new "legend" for Omar Saeed. As we will see, FBI Director Robert Mueller just happened to be on scene in India, awaiting his crucial role in the unfolding drama - just one day before Daniel Pearl disappeared off the streets of Karachi.
Enter Daniel Pearl
We may never know the true motivation that set Daniel Pearl on a quest that would ultimately lead to his grisly demise. However, thanks to an invaluable article by Robert Sam Anson in the August 2002 issue of Vanity Fair, we do know which key player was involved in guiding him on his quest for knowledge.
Mansoor Ijaz is not a man widely known outside his circle, but his intimate connections run deep in Washington's power circles. A counter-terror expert, a member of the Council On Foreign Relations, a Fox News analyst, as well as a business partner of former CIA Director James Woolsey, Ijaz is represented by the public relations firm of Benador Associates, whose client list reads like a "who's who" of the propaganda heavy-hitters who were pushing for a war in Iraq - Richard Perle (former Chairman of the Defense Policy Board), Woolsey (also a member of the Defense Policy Board), Iraqi scientist ( and chronicler of Saddam's weapons program) Khidir Khamza, former Washington Times publisher (and UPI chief) Arnaud De Borchgrave, anti-Saddam author Laurie Mylroie, Harvard professor/CIA associate Richard Pipes (mentor of Mylroie, and father of Daniel Pipes), and Frank Gaffney, president of the hard-right Center For Security Policy (of which Perle and Woolsey are on the advisory council).
The interlocking relationships of members of this clique - or "crew", in the parlance of organized crime - is indeed a testament to the power of networking, yet the astonishing scope of their most recent activities - both in the lead-up to and aftermath of 9/11 - is perhaps indicative of a more covertly sinister tint in the psychological makeup of some members of the political "power elite."
Ijaz's frequent writing partner, James Woolsey, for example, was one of just 17 participants in a July 2001 bio-warfare exercise dubbed "Dark Winter," a simulation of a mass smallpox attack, co-sponsored by the ANSER Institute of Homeland Security and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Among the other participants was Benador client Arnaud De Borchgrave and New York Times journalist Judith Miller, who had co-authored a book with Benador client Mylroie in the early '90's. Mylroie's book - an attempt at linking Iraq to 9/11 - was released just weeks after September 11 with a foreword written by James Woolsey. Around the same time, Judith Miller had just launched her own well-publicized book on the germ warfare threat - within a week or two of her own well-publicized role as one of the very few recipients of an "anthrax" mailing (which turned out not to be anthrax).
As for the anthrax threat, a major principal in the company that holds the exclusive license for the anthrax vaccine is former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff William Crowe, whose business associate in the consulting firm Global Options is - you guessed it - James Woolsey.
As for the present smallpox threat, the man charged with overseeing President Bush's mass vaccination policy was another "Dark Winter" alumnus, Jerry Hauer. Hauer, a former director of Kroll Associates - the security firm at the helm when the Twin Towers fell - is also the man who personally pulled strings in order to get senior FBI official John O'Neill his job as head of security at the World Trade Center. O'Neill, who had left a 30-year career in the FBI only two weeks before September 11, had perished in the rubble of the Twin Towers on his very first day at the post. Incidentally, O'Neill just happened to have been the main FBI official in charge of investigating all things bin Laden.
Given the above social contacts, from Daniel Pearl's point of view, Mansoor Ijaz was indeed the man to meet. "He [Pearl] wanted me to introduce him to people who could open doors for him," explained Ijaz in Vanity Fair. One of those doors opened to Khalid Khawaja, a former ISI agent whose militant credentials included a longstanding friendship with Osama bin Laden. But Khawaja was a liberal militant, counting among his acquaintances both Ijaz and Woolsey, with whom he carried on a lengthy correspondence.
With Ijaz's letter of reference in hand, Pearl established contact with Khawaja in Pakistan. As reported by Arshad Sharif in a February 14, 2002 item from Dawn, "Khawaja claimed that he introduced Mr. Pearl to his contacts and arranged interviews with Taliban diplomats and other people." According to the "official" record of Pearl's journalistic quest, he was on the trail of Richard Reid, otherwise known as the "shoe bomber." According to Anson, Pearl believed that Reid was a follower of Sheikh Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani, "a leader of an obscure Muslim militant group named Jamaat ul-Fuqra."
As Khawaja spins the tale, when Pearl asked for an introduction to Gilani in early January, Khawaja's militant toes went cold. With Khawaja now purportedly out of the picture, Pearl was left to scrounge up his own contacts. Eventually, Pearl found a "connected" militant who went by the name of Chaudry Bashir - but who was, in actual fact, Omar Saeed clothed in yet another alias. Or so that is the "official" version. If true, our man Saeed had his terrorist appointment book just about crammed with militant activities at the time, for he was, according to Indian intelligence, intimately involved with the man who took responsibility for the terrorist attack in Calcutta on January 22, 2002 - just one day before Pearl's disappearance.
On that very day, a militant/gangster by the name of Aftab Ansari called in his claim of responsibility for the carnage. As for his connection with Omar Saeed, here is how the Times of India reported it on January 22:
"[Indian] CBI Director P C Sharma told visiting FBI Chief Robert S Mueller that Ansari, who claimed responsibility for [today's Calcutta] attack, had taken a ransom of Rs 37.5 million to free shoe baron Parthapratim Roy Burman through hawala channels to Dubai, CBI sources said. Out of this amount, Omar [Saeed] ... had sent $100,000 to Atta through telegraphic transfer, CBI sources said."
What was going on here? Apparently, the January 22 Calcutta incident was the trigger for an update on the "legend" of 9/11 - and FBI Director Mueller was on scene to play his part in the unfolding drama. Within hours of the January 22 attack, the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was circulating news that the main suspect in the Calcutta attack, Ansari, had sent money to Omar Saeed, who then sent it on to Mohamed Atta in preparation for the September 11 attacks. No mention was made of the previously reported involvement of the chief of Pakistani intelligence. In fact, The Times of India would, within the next few weeks, back away from its October 9 article linking Omar Saeed to the Pakistani General - perhaps at the behest of Indian intelligence. The 9/11 money, in the CBI's new version, came from an August 2001 kidnapping masterminded by Ansari and Asif Reza Khan. Unfortunately, Khan was not around by this time to confirm it, as he had already been killed in what was believed to be a staged shootout with Indian police several weeks earlier.
The story at this point gets a bit murky, as it becomes difficult to distinguish fact from disinformation, but what is clear is the very real perception of a well-timed and coordinated set-up. The next day - on January 23, 2002 - Daniel Pearl disappeared off the streets of Karachi, Pakistan after setting up an appointment to meet Omar Saeed, alias "Bashir", for the first time. Meanwhile, on that very day, Aftab Ansari was arrested by UAE authorities at Dubai International Airport while attempting to board a plane bound for Islamabad. Also on the very day of Pearl's disappearance, the Los Angeles Times reinstated Omar Saeed back into "mainstream" view by citing a report by India Today, which mentioned the new Saeed/Ansari/9/11 Money Trail connection. The British Independent, on January 24, also gave voice to the Saeed revelations stemming from the Indian CBI, throwing in, for good measure, an extensive biography of Omar Saeed. This was followed by a January 27 item in the Telegraph that also touched upon Saeed's link to the Calcutta attack.
Why was Omar Saeed suddenly being "resurrected" worldwide within hours of the January 22 attack, after being mostly forgotten after October 9? It should be pointed out that Saeed's purported links to the Pearl kidnapping were not yet "known" until February 5, 2002. In that light, Robert Mueller's subsequent travel itinerary bears closer scrutiny. As reported by the Los Angeles Times on January 23, "FBI Director Mueller said Tuesday (i.e. January 22) that Indian authorities provided leads in the search for Al Qaeda members and cells, based on arrests in India." There was no word from Mueller, however, on his reported discussions with the CBI Chief concerning the 9/11 money trail.
The very next day - January 23 - Mueller was in Pakistan, just in time for the Pearl kidnapping by Omar Saeed. Of course, Mueller could not have known by then that the person who was mentioned to him the day before as being the 9/11 paymaster would be involved in the Pearl kidnapping the very next day. One might even chalk it up to coincidence - or maybe not. On January 24, Mueller reportedly took up the matter of Omar Saeed with Pakistan President Musharraf. Was he discussing CBI Chief Sharma's revelations about Omar Saeed and the 9/11 money trail? As later revealed by an "anonymous" Bush administration official, Mueller was formally requesting the extradition of Omar Saeed - for a 1994 kidnapping of an American tourist.
What, according to the "mainstream" media, prompted this sudden, rather overdue, request? According to the February 24, 2002 issue of Newsweek, Saeed was "secretly" indicted back in November 2001 for that obscure kidnapping. As reported by CNN on February 28, 2002: "Justice Department officials won't say what prompted that indictment, which came more than six years after the incident." It also came several weeks after Saeed was first outed as the 9/11 paymaster.
The possibility also exists that the November 2001 "secret" indictment was a late February fiction meant to explain Mueller's sudden interest in Omar Saeed. For good measure, timed with the Newsweek revelation, Wendy Chamberlin, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, revealed to CBS News that she had preceded Mueller's request with an informal approach to Musharraf concerning Saeed's extradition a few months before. The reader would be cautioned as to drawing any firm conclusions as to the true nature of the "secret" November indictment. Instead, one should focus on the compelling circumstantial evidence of a disinformation campaign that appears to be organized around a number of conveniently timed set-ups. According to CNN, Mueller was also the one who first informed Musharraf of the Pearl kidnapping. So, to recap: only two days after the Times of India reported Mueller's discussions with the CBI concerning the Omar Saeed link to 9/11, Mueller reportedly discussed Omar Saeed only in connection with an obscure 1994 kidnapping, while broaching a new kidnapping that occurred the day before, which, in a matter of weeks, would publicly be linked to...Omar Saeed.
Incidentally, the FBI also happened to be instrumental in coordinating Saeed's eventual capture as the Pearl kidnap mastermind. As the "official" story had it soon after Saeed's "official" arrest on February 12, the case was solved when the authorities successfully traced a series of e-mails back to one of Saeed's alleged accomplices, who then confessed that he was only acting under Saeed's orders. The government's case, as reported by Zarar Khan of the Associated Press on July 1, 2002, "rests heavily on technical FBI evidence, which traced the e-mails to fellow defendant Fahad Naseem."
Mueller, incidentally, also played a crucial role in arranging for the deportation of Aftab Ansari from the UAE to India. Ansari, by reason of the Calcutta bombing, was delivered to Indian custody on February 9, just three days before Omar Saeed was "officially" arrested for the Pearl kidnapping. In short, these two purported 9/11 partners had been arrested separately in the same week of February for crimes they had separately committed in the same week of January.
Meanwhile, Daniel Pearl's chaperone, the "militant" Khalid Khawaja, was beginning to feel the heat due to his involvement in managing Pearl's appointment book. For a presumed partisan of bin Laden, Khawaja seemed to be unduly concerned about the bad press that Pearl's disappearance was garnering him. According to a February 15, 2002 article in Dawn by Arshad Sharif: " Khawaja said it was on the intervention of [Mansoor] Ijaz that Newsweek toned down its article which was allegedly raising an accusing finger on him." In a typical example of post-9/11 news management, Khawaja - presumed friend of Osama bin Laden - shared his correspondence from editor Gretel Kovach of Newsweek:
"If it is of any consolation, you may have read in the e-mails I sent Mansoor that the Newsweek article would have been much stronger in pointing the finger at you as the person who led Danny into trouble. Thankfully, I spoke with Mansoor and was able to offer a contrary account - that you refused Danny's request, and that others tricked him into thinking he could meet Gilani."
Mansoor Ijaz - fellow propagandist and business partner of the ubiquitous James Woolsey - wasn't exactly a disinterested party in the matter, for if it was Khawaja who had led Pearl to his ultimate fate, so, too, by association, would suspicion lie with Ijaz, who had sent Pearl on to Khawaja.
Meanwhile, Omar Saeed appeared to be at the very broiling geo-political center of the Pakistan-India stand-off. With Indian authorities publicly highlighting Omar Saeed as the poster boy of Pakistani terrorism, using him as a cudgel to prod the reluctant Americans into action against the Pakistani ISI, one could read Mueller's trip to the region as an effort to broker the competing interests of these incompatible allies in the so-called War on Terror. Publicly, Mueller was in India on January 22 as part of a U.S.-Indo Working Group on Counter-Terrorism. But as we do not have access to the minutes of those meetings, we might surmise that, behind closed doors, Mueller was negotiating with his Indian counterparts the final dispensation of Omar Saeed within the overall 9/11 Legend. Not that negotiations were going particularly smoothly - as evidenced by the upsurge in daring attacks against Indian interests in the few months previous. Yet it seems that a quid-pro-quo had been worked out along the following lines: the Indian authorities would excise the ISI Chief from their version of 9/11 and instead splice in a less incriminating "gangster" from Dubai as the partner of paymaster Omar Saeed. In return, the Americans would redouble their efforts in moving against terror groups based out of Pakistan.
Mueller, for his part, would deal with this new version of the Omar Saeed/Money Trail Story in the same manner that he dealt with the older version - by ignoring it. With the Indian CBI now circulating this new version of the Omar Saeed/ Money Trail Story to various mainstream Western newspapers in the wake of the January 22 Calcutta attack, Mueller would publicly go on record as reserving judgment as to the true culprits and motives behind that incident - while assisting India behind-the-scenes in arranging for the deportation and arrest of Aftab Ansari. And while the Indian press was widely presenting the Calcutta attack as an Ansari/ISI production, according to the January 23, 2002 Indian Express, the Indian government was backing down on pushing an ISI link to Calcutta after consultation with the U.S. government. Why the apparent U.S. squeamishness concerning the ISI in regards to the Calcutta attack? Perhaps due to its proximity to the latest Omar Saeed/Ansari/Money Trail Story being marketed by the Indians - for if the American aim was to gradually erase Omar Saeed from the 9/11 paymaster role and place him in a post-9/11 context, Omar Saeed would have to come by his ISI connections through a different route, one that would in fact distance him from his reported role on September 11. In other words, the Americans would need to muddy the waters over Omar Saeed and the role of the 9/11 paymaster.
It wouldn't be easy. As reported by Paul Sperry of WorldNetDaily on January 30, 2002 (i.e. one week before Omar Saeed was first outed as a suspect in the Pearl kidnapping):
"India's Central Bureau of Investigation is turning up evidence that is proving inconvenient for the Bush administration as it tries to maintain its shaky alliance with Pakistan. As administration officials, led by State Secretary Colin Powell, praise Pakistan for its help in the war on terrorism, FBI agents responding to Indian leads are quietly investigating Pakistan-based terrorist groups connected to al-Qaida and the Sept. 11 hijacking."
In other words, India was apparently putting the screws to the Americans. If the Americans, for purely pragmatic reasons, had opted to cozy up to the Musharraf regime, India needed insurance to hedge against the possibility that its strategic interests would be harmed through this likely temporary alliance. In that context, it would be somewhat naive to assume that India just happened to "discover" the Omar Saeed/ ISI Chief/ 9/11 connection through one of those ubiquitous cell phone "intercepts" - for as early as September 23, 2001, the British government was reported as seeking India's help in locating Omar Saeed. Moreover, in view of the fact that the Mustafa Ahmad paymaster alias also made its debut on that very day through Bush's Global Terrorist Executive Order, there is perhaps another plausible explanation for India's apparent obsession with Omar Saeed and his activities.
Flashback: Assembling The Legend
As we shall see, the various elements of the 9/11 Legend were assembled with the help of a number of international players. Through the Pakistani ISI (an organization, in fact, with close historical ties to the CIA and British intelligence), the Taliban were armed and installed as the resident overlords of Afghanistan. Under the watchful eye of German intelligence, lead hijacker Mohamed Atta would set up his Hamburg "cell" of conspirators, sharing a flat with senior al-Qaida operative Ramzi Binalshibh. Through French authorities, particularly with the assistance of Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere (a friend of John O'Neill), Zacarias Moussaoui (arrested August 2001) and senior Al-Qaida leader Abu Zubaydah (the first "big fish" captured in March 2002) would work their way into the official 9/11 Legend. By way of Spanish Police Chief Juan Cotino (who was also a senior figure in Europol), other al-Qaida cells were discovered as further proof of bin Laden's global reach. In fact, as the 9/11 Legend would have it, Mohamed Atta had rendezvoused with Ramzi Binalshibh in Spain sometime in July 2001, where the two presumably made final preparations for September 11. Around the same time, the FBI's lead point man on al-Qaida, John O'Neill, was in Madrid to discuss counter-terror issues with Police Chief Cotino. Thereafter, O'Neill made his last public appearance (before his retirement the next month) at a counter-terror conference held at a three-star hotel in the Spanish resort town of Salou - coincidentally, only a few days before Mohammed Atta had checked into the very same hotel in his last international trip before September 11 (a curious fact reported in John Miller's book "The Cell"). Atta's previous trip to Madrid had been in January 2001, within days of the very first Europol Conference On Terrorism, also held in Madrid.
Finally, the United Kingdom served as a major transit point, educational center, and source of "evidence" pointing to the hijackers and various al-Qaida operatives - most notably, Omar Saeed, Zacarias Moussaoui, and Richard Reid, the so-called "shoe bomber." Thus, the very countries that were so prominent in furnishing the various elements of the 9/11 Legend - "burnishing" it with a globalized gloss - also happened to be the same countries that served as senior partners in the War On Terror.
The fact that France and Germany have since headed up opposition to the War In Iraq should not be taken as an irreconcilable contradiction in this regard. Rather, just the opposite. As we shall see, a strategy to cast doubt on the War In Iraq - fuelled by elements in the CIA and some of the more vociferous supporters of the War On Terror - has actually worked to strengthen the credibility of the overall 9/11 Legend. In counter-point to that strategy lies a fall-back option that "localizes" any potential conspiracy to a "rogue" clique of "hawks" holding President Bush in their ideological sway - the markedly Jewish and pro-Israeli neo-conservatives, an apparent CIA "cut-out" helmed by Richard Mellon Scaife during the Clinton years, then by Richard Cheney in the early months after 9/11 before he mostly disappeared from public view along with his defibrillator, and most famously now, by Richard Perle (a product of the RAND Corporation).
As I argued previously in The Propaganda Preparation For 9/11, the Saudis, Pakistanis, and Israelis were set up as the primary alternate foreign patsies to divert attention from the far more plausible (and obvious) involvement of the U.S./U.K./E.U., the very alliance which now spearheads the War On Terror even as it choreographs the Official 9/11 Legend. As we shall see, with the relatively recent prominence of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as 9/11 mastermind, Iraq now takes its place as a plausible patsy (particularly since Colin Powell's introduction of a new al-Qaeda leader by the name of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Baghdad-based Palestinian whose legend and motives will no doubt grow out of the recently completed War In Iraq). With regard to the Saudis, their actual involvement was more indirect - as they financed the various Pakistani madrassas (Muslim yeshivas) that served as a farming system for the hordes of wild-eyed Wahhabi idealists looking to set up camp in Afghanistan. Still, their domination of the Middle East media served to give an impression - to Western eyes - that bin Laden was more intimately known among the Arab/Muslim masses than he was by an insular clique in the Western security establishment.
Heading up that clique was Richard A. Clarke, who joined the National Security Council under the first President Bush, and stayed there under Clinton. As reported by Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker, "In the web of federal agencies concerned with terror, Clarke was the spider." Tim Weiner of the New York Times wrote of Clarke on February 1, 1999: "He has placed proteges in key diplomatic and intelligence positions, creating a network of loyalty and solidifying his power."
It was Clarke who, together with John O'Neill, "discovered" bin Laden as a global terrorist mastermind. Here, as reported by Lawrence Wright in The New Yorker, was Clarke's version of his discovery:
"We'd [O'Neill and I] see CIA reports that referred to 'financier Osama bin Laden' and we'd ask ourselves, 'Who the hell is he?' The more we drilled down, the more we realized he was not just a financier - he was the leader. John said, 'We've got to get this guy. He's building a network. Everything leads back to him.' Gradually the CIA came along with us."
Presumably, Clarke had help in marketing bin Laden - for bin Laden himself would soon enough make his high profile media debut as the declared enemy of American interests the world over, thereby giving the world's only superpower a plausibly sophisticated foe who would overshadow the efforts of one Muslim fanatic (Ramzi Yousef, World Trade Center '93) or one right-wing nutcase (Timothy McVeigh, Oklahoma '95). Meanwhile, the gregarious John O'Neill would make the global rounds, liaising with various counterparts as he shadowed the presumed activities of Osama bin Laden. In other words, if one were theoretically to posit the type of operatives who would be most suited to running a highly compartmentalized "op" to develop a global legend of Osama bin Laden, one could find no more conveniently placed men than Richard Clarke and John O'Neill. Where Clarke would manage the national security rank-and-file through his network of loyalists, O'Neill would be the globetrotter, coordinating the unfolding legend through his counterparts in various countries.
In short, Clarke and O'Neill would theoretically be conducting their activities in "plain sight." Under the cover of counter-terrorism, O'Neill would be building a terror legend fit for the New World Order - in the same manner that Oliver North in the '80s employed the cover of counter-terrorism to conduct, on behalf of Vice-President Bush, the illegal arms dealing operations popularly known as Iran-Contra (for which North took a decidedly light rap as the designated patsy). The main difference would be that where North would eventually be tagged as the moron of Iran-Contra, O'Neill would take his place as the martyr of 9/11.
In the few months leading up to September 11, O'Neill - for the first time in his 30-year career with the FBI - would make the headlines in two separate scandals. The first, reported in July 2001, concerned O'Neill's dispute with Ambassador Barbara Bodine in Yemen, where O'Neill was reportedly pursuing al-Qaida links to the U.S.S. Cole bombing. As the story had it, O'Neill was too much the cowboy for Bodine's tastes, and so she summarily banned him from returning to Yemen. The second scandal, reported in August 2001, concerned a briefcase of classified documents that O'Neill had misplaced during a convention in Tampa. Considering the resolution of the latter scandal - the documents were found, "untouched," a couple hours later - it seemed much ado about nothing. Yet in the light of O'Neill's subsequent death as head of security for the World Trade Center on September 11, the scandals began to take on a more suspicious tint. Was O'Neill digging too deep? A maverick who stepped on too many feet in his efforts to bulldog his way through the hierarchy? Put bluntly, had the maverick been taken down a notch by a bloated bureaucracy beholden to a "cover-your-ass" ethic? As Richard Clarke, Jerry Hauer, John Miller, Chris Isham, and O'Neill's friends/colleagues at Kroll Associates would spin it, O'Neill's was the lone voice shouting in the wilderness, warning all who would listen about the approaching bin Laden threat before falling himself, "ironically", at the hands of bin Laden.
It was an ingenious cover story - for if O'Neill was a crucial operative in assembling the al-Qaida elements that fed into the 9/11 Legend, then O'Neill's crystallized role as official 9/11 martyr would forever obscure the trail to September 11, and, by extension, leave his most intimate comrades and contacts out of the suspect category. In short, it would be like reconstructing the murder of Nicole Simpson without O.J. in the tale. With O'Neill cast as martyr, 9/11 critics would now be left with a mishmash of innuendos and bits and pieces of shadowy conspiracies: Israeli spy rings that trail off into the ether of Fox News; passenger lists with missing hijackers; and abandoned "put" options. If the shadowy conspiracy had a face, it was in the image of either Dick Cheney or Richard Perle. But then again, who marketed them as the latest powers behind the throne? Where were the folks who brought us BCCI, Iran-Contra, and the Warren Commission? Where were James Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski, David Rockefeller, Kissinger?
Assembling The 9/11 Counter-Legends (or, Stacking Your Patsies)
The events of September 11 gave birth to three parallel threads - or counter-legends - pointing the way to the culpability of three possible foreign suspects, or patsies - namely, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Israel. Of the three, the Saudis were the patsies of choice for the mainstream "critics", who were a motley assortment of neo-cons, FBI investigators, or "retired" national security types opposed to the war in Iraq. The Pakistan/ISI thread to 9/11 flared up most noticeably in the events surrounding the death of Daniel Pearl and the alleged involvement of Omar Saeed Sheikh - events which were used, in fact, to smother the Pakistani/ISI connection to the 9/11 money trail. As regards Israel, the most radical opponents of the War On Terror were nursed on the twin threads of an Israeli spy ring and a neo-con cabal supposedly at the helm of the Bush Administration.
It was not by accident that these three countries were chosen to play the role of second-tier patsies - for each of them contained insular cliques of operatives which had played seminal roles in the covert arms and drug trade - in cahoots with their more senior Anglo-American handlers - throughout the Reagan-Bush years. Moreover, these countries would make useful patsies for the very reason that they were essentially outside the "established" - i.e. Euro-American - ring of nations. In other words, if insular cliques of criminal operatives were to be ferreted out of Germany, France, or Italy, no one would think to brand these nations wholesale with the mark of Cain. The same could not be said of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Israel, whose very security - physical, political, and economic - would be staked to the publicized activities of their own respective political/criminal cliques.
Moreover, much of the political and corporate elites within these countries were integrally networked with their American counterparts - indeed, largely subservient to them - to such a degree that they would also serve as useful proxies in building their own counter-legends under Anglo-Euro-American supervision. In the early stages of the 9/11 Legend, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were employed as the central bases for building up a terrorist home front within the borders of Afghanistan. As for Israel - despite its aforementioned spy ring and its supposedly allied neo-con "cabal" - its most direct and public contribution to the 9/11 Legend in fact occurred after 9/11, with the November 2002 coordinated attack on an Israeli-owned hotel and airliner in Kenya - an attack for which Israeli investigators now marshaled evidence as proof of Osama bin Laden's opening shot against the State of Israel (which was more likely Israel's "buy-in" in return for a promised attack on the Saddam Hussein regime).
Thus, evidence could be amassed to cast aspersions on the activities of each of these three countries, depending on the intended audience. On another level, political elites within these countries could be assured that any aspersions would be relegated to insular "rogue" cliques. In the case of Saudi Arabia, a few princes of the Saudi royal family were thus eliminated within days of one another in 2002. In the case of Pakistan, "rogue" elements within the ISI were publicly purged in the months after 9/11. Yet in the case of Israel, its apparent "buy-in" through the 2002 Kenya attack served to strengthen, rather than weaken, the thread connecting Israel as a possible 9/11 culprit. If, in the context of this article, this would appear to be a short-sighted strategy by Israeli political elites, one can only surmise that these elites were blinded - or assured - by an apparent post-9/11 geo-strategic shift in favor of Israeli interests (i.e. an attack on Iraq) in conjunction with a publicly affirmed surge in influence among its supposed neo-con allies.
With three alternative counter-legends in place to co-exist with the Official (i.e. mainstream) 9/11 Legend, the stage was thereby set to muddy the real trail leading to the events of September 11. With the participation of a global network of well-connected spinmeisters - both passive and active - each of the 9/11 threads could thus be nurtured through a series of carefully calibrated revelations.
Of all the 9/11 spinmeisters, one of the most effective - and therefore damaging - was Jean-Charles Brisard, co-author with Guillaume Dasquie of The Forbidden Truth. Brisard burst on to the mainstream scene shortly after September 11 as one of the first "credible" critics of 9/11, weaving a trail of seemingly incriminating red herrings that will, in all probability, tie up a number of otherwise industrious conspiracy researchers for decades. In Brisard and Dasquie's version of 9/11, the main protectors of al-Qaida were the Saudis, who in turn were protected by greedy oil interests which sought - through the State Department - to obstruct any investigations that might unsettle their Saudi business associates. To nail down the point, Brisard recounted his summer 2001 meeting with John O'Neill, in which a frustrated, scandal-ridden O'Neill purportedly confided to Brisard that the "answer" to the al-Qaida riddle lay in Saudi Arabia. For good measure, Brisard had the well-timed implosion of Enron as a backdrop for his revelation, implicating this now-dead shell of a corporation in a stubborn push for an oil pipeline through Afghanistan (though senior Enron exec - and CIA offspring - Frank Wisner, Jr., was, as it happens, also one of the 17 elite "players" in the aforementioned "Dark Winter" exercise).
Through Brisard (in addition to Pakistani Foreign Minister Niaz Naik), we learned that the U.S. had made plans as early as June of 2001 to invade Afghanistan by October of that year. During that summer, as Brisard chronicled it, a number of nations - including Iran, Russia, and India - got together for a four-day conference in Berlin, where the dispute with the Taliban was broached by U.S. diplomats. The U.S. demanded that the Taliban hand over bin Laden (in addition to negotiating for pipeline rights). Otherwise, the Americans threatened to blanket Afghanistan with "a carpet of bombs."
Brisard's initial theory, then, was that this threat prompted bin Laden to launch a pre-emptive attack against the very nation that was now placing him in imminent peril. Brisard also seemed to implicate Bush, Sr. by way of his Carlyle Group interests. But in the end, as Brisard essentially kept bin Laden in place as the sole 9/11 culprit, the aspersions cast on the Bushes, the State Department, "oil interests", et al, would not amount to much - at least from a legal standpoint. At most, these parties could be judged as too blinded by greed to recognize - and pre-empt - the very real threat from al-Qaida. However you clothed Brisard's revelations, the "official" 9/11 Legend remained in place. Al-Qaida was still the defendant (albeit with a new excuse), O'Neill was still a martyr (albeit with a new Saudi gripe), and the Saudis were still suspicious (albeit with possibly a new gripe against Brisard). Brisard, incidentally, also happened to have written - for French intelligence - the first comprehensive report on the financial structure of al-Qaida, a copy of which was furnished to the Bush administration. Thus do national security types and their 9/11 critics have a deeper understanding of the 9/11 Legend courtesy of the efforts of Jean-Charles Brisard.
Brisard's co-author, Guillaume Dasquie, also comes by his own intelligence connections, by way of his role as editor of Intelligence Online. It was through Dasquie's efforts that Intelligence Online, in March 2002, announced that it had come into possession of a 61-page "secret" DEA report on a large Israeli spy ring of "art students" who were casing federal buildings several months before September 11. The "leaking" of this document, in conjunction with Carl Cameron's December 2001 Fox News report on the spy ring, ignited an online firestorm among 9/11 critics - pointing the way, for some, to the Israelis as the main operative agents behind September 11.
Yet, as we shall see, in the campaign to paint Israel as the main suspect, here was a case of mostly right wing sources doling out the goods for largely left wing consumption (with the obvious exception of Justin Raimondo, a political supporter of, and former speechwriter for, Pat Buchanan). Thus, while the likes of Stephen Emerson, Daniel Pipes, and John Loftus were doing the lecture circuit at Jewish Community Centers across North America, regaling this influential community with insinuations of possible Saudi and/or Iraqi involvement in 9/11, a more covert - and subtle - plan was afoot to plant the seeds of a new Jewish neocon/Zionist conspiracy among the left wing (i.e. the traditional foothold of the bulk of the American Jewish community).
This relatively recent campaign to subvert the left with visions of a Jewish neocon/Zionist conspiracy dovetailed nicely with a more longstanding covert campaign - dating back more than thirty years - to build up a small but powerful right wing contingent of Jews to wean the rest from their knee-jerk liberalism (and thereby sap the strength and vigor of the traditional Democrat wing). The species of the Jewish "neo" conservative is best represented by Irving Kristol, a self-admitted former Trotskyite who had been a member of the "left-wing" Congress of Cultural Freedom (later exposed as a CIA front) before making a "sudden" right turn in the late sixties, bringing along with him a few other like-minded "disillusioned" Jews from CIA-funded "leftist" groups. The typical neo-conservative was "neo" in the sense that he would continue to hold liberal social values while espousing hard right (i.e. pro-corporate) economic views and a hawkish foreign policy - pretty much the course that American society has taken in the thirty-odd years since Kristol made his ideological "shift."
Though the history is far more complex and detailed than indicated above, the crux of the point is this: in order to neutralize the influential American Jewish community on the subject of civil rights and domestic dissent (where they historically predominated), it was not sufficient only to wean the Jews from the left, but to turn the left against the Jews by now slurring them as right wing, Zionist "imperialists" (best exemplified by Richard Perle, who is actually more a product of the national security community than of the Jewish community).
In concert with this strategy was a plan - also dating back more than thirty years - to wean the South from the Democrats by promoting a fundamentalist Christianity that grew in counter-point to the overall loosening social values. The typical fundamentalist Christian Republican would hold conservative social views while espousing hard right (i.e. pro-corporate) economic views and a hawkish foreign policy (best exemplified by John Ashcroft, who is actually more a product of a deeply cynical political community than of the community of belief).
With that background in mind, we may now touch upon the national security/conservative clique which has furnished most of the information concerning Israeli perfidy and 9/11. For our purposes, the story begins on May 7, 1997, when Nora Boustany of The Washington Post first broached the existence of Mega, a suspected code name for a suspected Israeli mole within the upper echelons of the Clinton government. As reported by Boustany, the National Security Agency had intercepted a request from a Mossad operative to view a diplomatic letter from Yasser Arafat. When the operative was heard to ask his superior for the assistance of someone or something called Mega, he received the reply, "We don't use Mega for this."
The story, in fact, broke on the very day when South Korean spy Robert C. Kim was scheduled to deliver a guilty plea after a plea bargain - a similar bargain that was, in fact, dishonored in the case of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard in the mid-80's. Kim, like Pollard, had worked in the Office of Naval Intelligence, though Pollard had worked in the counter-terrorism section. A week before the Mega story broke - on April 30, 1997 - Pollard had petitioned the Israeli High Court to compel the Israeli government to reveal what it knew about his case. If a battle was brewing between Pollard supporters (Likud/ neocon elements) and opponents (the Bush/ Baker clique/ Woolsey/the national intelligence apparatus), the May 7 Mega leak by way of the National Security Agency seemed to head it off, publicly raising the specter of yet another Israeli mole. And then the story ultimately went cold, with no official resolution and - most crucially - no hard details by which to flesh out this possible mole hunt.
Yet Jeffrey Steinberg of Lyndon LaRouche's Executive Intelligence Review has attempted to draw a line between this morsel of an item and a Mega Group that was mentioned by Lisa Miller in the Wall Street Journal on May 4, 1998. In Steinberg's telling, the Mega Group is, in fact, the shadowy Mega from the Boustany article. As Steinberg put it, the Mega Group - a select group of Jewish billionaires including Bronfman, Steinhardt, Spielberg, Tisch, and others - had come together to influence U.S. security policy toward Israel. Yet that was a disingenous - and I dare say, dishonest - reading of the Miller article. In other words - and this was very clear from the Miller article - their main concern was assimilation and philanthropy, not Israeli national security issues, as Steinberg had reported. But Steinberg's technique was all too typical - mischievously weaving two totally disconnected items so as to give the impression that he was uncovering bona fide evidence of a fully known Jewish/Israeli conspiracy.
Yet taking the thread of a burgeoning Israeli spy conspiracy further, in May 2000, J. Michael Waller and Paul M. Rodriguez of Insight magazine (the sister publication of the ultra-right wing Washington Times, which is in turn owned by the Moonies) broke the story that the Israelis had possibly compromised U.S. government phone lines, giving them access to sensitive information. Carl Cameron of Fox News followed this up on May 5, 2000 by reporting on the investigation into the Israeli-founded company AMDOCS, describing "an alleged penetration of U.S. government phone systems."
This thread was also taken up by Gordon Thomas, the MI5 (British intelligence) connected editor of the website Globe-Intel. Thomas, in his book, Gideon's Spies, broached the subject of the Israeli infiltration of the Clinton White House by way of the Mega mole. He also had alleged that the Mossad had a possible role in the death of Princess Diana; that the Mossad tapped Monica Lewinsky's phone in order to pick up her conversations with President Clinton; and that the Israelis stole the sophisticated PROMIS software, which eventually ended up in the possession of Osama bin Laden. Incidentally, Gordon Thomas holds himself out as a friend and intimate confidant of Mossad insiders. We shall return to Thomas shortly, for he - like Brisard and Dasquie - has also played a significant part in lining up new alternate 9/11 suspects (most recently China, in his book Seeds of Fire).
Picking up the thread, in March 2001 - significantly, several months before September 11 - the U.S. National Counterintelligence Center sent out an advisory for federal employees to be aware that a number of young Israelis were approaching federal agents at their offices and at their residences throughout the country, passing themselves off as art students looking to sell their work - but more peculiarly, identifying themselves as Israeli art students, thereby "red-flagging" themselves for the benefit of the National Counterintelligence Center. A few months after September 11, Carl Cameron - in December of 2001 - once more visited the issue of Israeli penetration, this time naming a second Israeli company, Comverse Infosys, as having access to nearly all wiretaps placed by U.S. law enforcement. As part of a four-part series for Fox News, Cameron also cited a "secret" DEA report that chronicled the actions of the aforementioned Israeli "art student" spy ring. Soon after a transcript of Cameron's report was uploaded on the Fox News website, it was taken offline and purged from the archives - a presumed cover-up that actually raised far more suspicions over Israeli/Jewish influence than the report itself.
Perhaps that was the intended effect - as the purpose would be to "red flag" this item for an "alternative" online audience, not for the mainstream couch potatoes who were wedded to the Official 9/11 Legend in any case. Was Cameron simply a dedicated journalist who was muzzled by his conservative, pro-Israeli, employers at Fox? Or was he rather a passive disinformation asset, coyly nursing the Israeli thread when told to do so? On May 13, 2002, with government warnings of a follow-up terrorist attack seeding the media zeitgeist, Cameron red-flagged the Israelis once more, this time reporting that a rental truck with traces of TNT was pulled over near an army base in the State of Washington. Once again, suspicious Israelis were discovered as occupants, and once again, the news suspiciously disappeared from the airwaves.
There was a curious parallel to the manner by which various Israelis tended to be "pulled over" in the Israeli/9/11 Counter-Legend as opposed to the manner by which various al-Qaida operatives tended to incriminate themselves through those fortuitous cell phone and email "intercepts" in the al-Qaida/9/11 Legend. On June 23, 2002, ABC News picked up the earlier story of five "suspicious" Israelis celebrating on the roof of their van in the wake of September 11. When the police had pulled them over and searched the contents of the van, sure enough, they found...box cutters. And just as sure enough, this story also "suspiciously" vanished without a follow-up. It is also a curious fact that former CIA counterterror chief/ABC News consultant Vincent Cannistraro lent his own spin on that report. As I had pointed out in The Propaganda Preparation For 9/11, and as I will show further in this article, Cannistraro has "spun" a great deal of information on the 9/11 Legend.
While the spy ring story has been neglected by much of the mainstream media, it nevertheless remains in the background, ready to be "mainstreamed" if or when the "official" 9/11 Legend begins to show cracks (or if the resident Israeli government proves to be troublesome). As I have poin
Another article on Benador Associates the group of Jews that likely engineered the Anthrax attacks and helped to plant lies about 9/11.
=========
Benador Associates
Founded around the time of the 9/11 terrorist attacks by Eleana Benador, Benador Associates is a speakers bureau-cum-public relations firm whose core clientele consisted of neoconservatives and other proponents of an aggressive "war on terror." Among the firm's more well known speakers have been Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen and Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, and former CIA director James Woolsey.
Benador (who sometimes spells her first name "Eliana"), announced in 2007 that Benador Associates would be scaled back in "winter 2007" so that she could focus her efforts on a new endeavor, Benador Public Relations. Benador Associates " will become an independent intellectual platform that will continue posting writings by American and Western thinkers as well as thinkers and writers from other parts of the world, such as the Middle East, Asia, Southeast Asia, etc., while at the same time it will continue to facilitate the access to experts associated in one way or another with Benador Associates" (PR Newswire, November 19, 2007).
In a 2006 expose about Benador, a Swiss-American originally from Peru who had served as director of Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum, the New York-based magazine Bidoun reported: "Founded, with what Mrs. Benador calls 'serendipity,' on September 10, 2001, Benador Associates has ridden the rising demand for such strident voices. If you read something that advocates regime change in the New York Post, or if you see a 'political adviser' on Fox News suggesting that Israel hasn't gone far enough in its attacks on Hizbullah, there's a good possibility that the appearance has been engineered by Mrs. Benador. She arranges speaking events for her clients, places articles in newspapers for them, and helps them address problems with their public image. Which is good for them, as Mrs. Benador's fifty-plus clients are hardly a lovable bunch. Benador Associates' first member was the late A.M. Rosenthal, an executive editor at the New York Times, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who, in the wake of the attacks on September 11, called for the bombing of the capital cities of Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Sudan."
Other commentators have remarked on Eleana Benador's important role in promoting neoconservatives. Wrote Jim Lobe of the Inter Press Service (Asia Times, August 15, 2003): "When historians look back on the United States war in Iraq, they will almost certainly be struck by how a small group of mainly neoconservative analysts and activists outside the administration were able to shape the U.S. media debate in ways that made the drive to war so much easier than it might have been. ... But historians would be negligent if they ignored the day-to-day work of one person who, as much as anyone outside the administration, made their media ubiquity possible. Meet Eleana Benador, the Peruvian-born publicist for Perle, Woolsey, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney, and a dozen other prominent neoconservatives whose hawkish opinions proved very hard to avoid for anyone who watched news talk shows or read the op-ed pages of major newspapers over the past 20 months."
Indeed, in a 2007 press release Benador characterized herself and her firm thusly: "Ms. Benador has been the mastermind behind Benador Associates, which became the centerpiece of the neoconservative movement in the United States and the West in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11" (see "Announcing the Creation ...," Benador Public Relations).
Benador Associates' expert speakers have included Max Boot, Rachel Ehrenfeld, Hillel Fradkin, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Pipes, Dennis Prager, Paul Vallely, and Meyrav Wurmser. One controversial Benador client was Khidhir Hamza, an Iraqi nuclear scientist who fled to the United States in the early 1990s, where he wrote a book claiming that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear bomb. When pressed on the issue, he denied saying that Iraq had a bomb, despite the fact that he says exactly that in his book's opening pages (see Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 2001). Said Benador of Hamza and Iraqi National Congress figure Kanan Makiya in 2003: "[They are] really my most powerful voices right now" (Asia Times, August 15, 2003).
Explaining Benador's decision to found a new, supposedly non-political firm, a press release said that "Ms. Benador announced that in view of the uncertain political situation in America, she is to devote her undivided attention to her new public relations outfit" (see "Announcing the Creation ...," Benador Public Relations). The new Benador Public Relations, "whose areas of expertise—with absolute exclusion of politics—will include: international finance, with investment banking and infrastructure projects as the main chapters in that field; international real estate; science and culture," features photos of Benador with Gaffney and Perle.
http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/prof ... Associates (http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Benador_Associates)
Amir Taheri, "who published an op-ed in Canada's National Post about an Iranian law that forced Jews to wear a yellow stripe" that turned out to be a fabrication, this week "had a face-to-face with the President as one of a small group of 'experts' on Iraq that visited the White House."
-- Taheri was an Idiot Jew'd Benador Associate
I really don't know why this traitor and co-conspirator in mass murder known as the Iraq-war isn't in jail.... oh wait... she explains why... - CSR
QuotePosted by Eliana Benador at 6/27/2010 11:41 AM
I AM A JEW
<:^0
The television and the media make people think that the end of the
World is near. Only 65 years ago, Jews were brought to death like
Sheep to slaughter. NO country, NO army. Only 60 years ago,
Seven Arab countries declared war on little Israel, the Jewish State,
Just a few hours after it was established.
המצב שלנו, בישראל, מעולם לא היה טוב יותר מאשר עכשיו!
רק הטלוויזיה והתקשורת גורמים לאנשים לחשוב שסוף העולם קרב.
רק לפני 65 שנים, יהודים הובאו למוות כצאן לטבח. ללא מדינה, ללא צבא.
רק לפני 60 שנים, 7 מדינות ערב הכריזו מלחמה על ישראל הקטנה, מדינת היהודים, רק כמה שעות לאחר היווסדה.
We were 650,000 Jews against the rest of the Arab world.
No IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) or Air Force. We were only a
Small group of stubborn people with nowhere to go.
היינו 650,000 יהודים כנגד שאר העולם הערבי.
ללא צה"ל (צבא הגנה לישראל) או חיל אוויר. היינו רק קבוצה קטנה של אנשים עקשנים עם שום מקום לאן ללכת.
Remember: Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Libya, and
Saudi Arabia? They all attacked at once. The state that the
United Nations "gave" us was 65% desert. We started it from
Zero.
זכרו: לבנון, סוריה, עירק, ירדן, מצרים, לוב וערב הסעודית, כולם תקפו בעת ובעונה אחת.
המדינה שהאומות המאוחדות "נתנו" לנו הייתה 65% מדבר.
התחלנו את זה מאפס.
Only 43 years ago, we fought three of the strongest countries
In the Middle East, and we crushed them in the Six Day War.
רק לפני 41 שנים, נלחמנו נגד שלוש המדינות החזקות ביותר במזרח התיכון, וריסקנו אותם במלחמת ששת הימים.
Over the years we fought different coalitions of 20Arab countries
With modern armies and with huge amounts of Russian-Soviet
Ammunition, and we still won.
במהלך השנים נלחמנו בקואליציות שונות של 20 מדינות ערב עם צבאות חדשניים וכמות עצומה של תחמושת רוסית – סובייטית, ועדיין ניצחנו.
Today we have a beautiful country, a powerful Army, a strong
Air Force, an adequate Navy and a thriving high tech industry.
Intel, Microsoft, and IBM have all developed their businesses
Here.
היום יש לנו מדינה יפיפייה, צבא רב עוצמה, חיל אוויר חזק, חיל ים הולם ותעשיית הי-טק משגשגת.
אינטל, מיקרוסופט, ו- I.B.M פיתחו כולם את עסקיהם כאן.
Our doctors have won important prizes in the medical
Development field.
הרופאים שלנו זכו בפרסים חשובים בתחום הפיתוח הרפואי.
We turned the desert into a prosperous land.
הפכנו את המדבר לאדמה פורחת ומשגשגת.
We sell oranges, flowers, and vegetables around the world.
אנחנו מוכרים תפוזים, פרחים וירקות בכל רחבי העולם.
We launched our own satellite! Three satellites at once! We
Are in good company: together with the USA (280 million
Residents), Russia (220 million residents), China (1.3
Billion residents) and Europe (France, England and Germany
35 million residents), we are one of the few countries in the
World that have launched something into space!
שיגרנו את הלווין שלנו! שלושה לווינים בעת ובעונה אחת! אנחנו בחברה טובה: יחד עם ארה"ב (280 מיליון תושבים), רוסיה (220 מיליון תושבים), סין (1.2 ביליון תושבים) ואירופה (צרפת, אנגליה וגרמניה 35 מיליון תושבים), אנחנו אחת מהמדינות הבודדות בעולם ששיגרו משהו לחלל!
Israel today is among the few powerful countries that have
Nuclear technology & capabilities.
(We will never admit it, but everyone knows).
ישראל היום היא בין המדינות הבודדות החזקות, שהיא בעלת טכנולוגיה ויכולות גרעיניות. (אנחנו לעולם לא נודה בזה, אבל כולם יודעים).
To think that only 65 years ago we were disgraced and hopeless.
לחשוב שרק לפני 65 שנים היינו מבוישים וחסרי תקווה.
We crawled out from the burning crematoriums of Europe .
We won in all our wars. With a little bit of nothing we built an empire.
Who are Khaled Mashal (leader of Hamas) or Hassan Nasrallah
(leader of Hezbollah) trying to frighten us? They are amusing us.
זחלנו החוצה מהמשרפות הבוערות של אירופה.
ניצחנו בכל המלחמות שלנו. עם מעט מכלום בנינו אימפריה.
מי אלו חלאד משעל (מנהיג החמאס) או חסאן נסראללה (מנהיג החיזבאללה) המנסים להפחיד אותנו? הם משעשעים אותנו.
As we celebrate Independence Day, let's not forget what this
Holiday is all about; we overcame everything.
בזמן שאנחנו חוגגים את יום העצמאות, בואו לא נשכח מהי המהות של היום הקדוש הזה: התגברנו על הכל.
We overcame the Greeks,
התגברנו על היוונים,
We overcame the Romans,
התגברנו על הרומאים,
We overcame the Spanish Inquisition,
התגברנו על האינקוויזיציה הספרדית,
We overcame the Russians pogrom,
התגברנו על הפוגרום הרוסי,
We overcame Hitler , we overcame Germany and overcame the Holocaust,
התגברנו על היטלר, התגברנו על גרמניה והתגברנו על השואה,
We overcame the armies of seven countries..
התגברנו על הצבאות של 7 מדינות
Relax chevray (friends), we will overcome our current enemies.
הירגעו חבר'ה, אנחנו נתגבר גם על האויבים הנוכחים
Never mind where you look in human history. Think about it,
Jewish nation, our condition has never been better than now.
So let's lift our heads up and remember:
לא משנה לאן שנביט בהיסטוריה האנושית. תחשבו על זה, העם היהודי, מצבנו מעולם לא היה טוב יותר מאשר עכשיו.
אז בואו נישא ראשנו מעלה וזכרו:
Never mind which country or culture tries to harm us or erase us
From the world. We will still exist and persevere. Egypt ? Anyone
know where the Egyptian empire disappeared to? The Greeks?
Alexander the Great? The Romans? Is anyone speaking Latin
today? The Third Reich? Did anyone hear news from them lately?
לא משנה איזו מדינה או תרבות מנסה לפגוע בנו או למחוק אותנו מהעולם. אנחנו עדיין קיימים ושמורים.
מצריים? מישהו יודע לאן האימפריה המצרית נעלמה? היוונים? אלכסנדר מוקדון? הרומאים? האם מישהו מדבר לטינית היום? הרייך השלישי? האם מישהו שמע חדשות מהם לאחרונה?
And look at us, the Biblenation – from slavery in Egypt , we are
Still here, still speaking the same language .
Exactly here, exactlynow .
והסתכלו עלינו, העם התנ"כי – מעבדות במצרים, אנחנו עדיין כאן, עדיין מדברים את אותה השפה.
בדיוק כאן, בדיוק עכשיו.
Maybe The Arabs don't know it yet, but we are an eternal nation.
All the time that we will keep our identity, we will stay eternal.
אולי הערבים עדיין לא יודעים את זה, אבל אנחנו עם נצחי.
כל זמן שנשמור על זהותנו, נשאר נצחיים.
So, sorry that we are not worrying, complaining, crying, or fearing...
אז סליחה שאנחנו לא דואגים, מתלוננים, בוכים או פוחדים.....
Business here is beseder (fine). It can definitely be much better,
But it is still fine. Don't pay attention to the nonsense in the media,
they will not tell you about our festivals here in Israel or about the
people that continue living, going out, meeting friends.
העסקים כאן בסדר. זה בהחלט יכול להיות טוב יותר, אבל זה עדיין בסדר. אל תשימו לב לשטויות בתקשורת, הם לא יספרו לכם על החגיגות שלנו כאן בישראל או על האנשים שממשיכים לחיות, לצאת ולפגוש חברים.
Yes, sometimes morale is down, so what? This is only because we
are mourning the dead while they are celebrating spilled blood. And
this is the reason we will win after all.
נכון, לפעמים המורל נמוך, אז מה? זה רק בגלל שאנו מבכים את המתים בזמן שהם חוגגים על דם שנשפך. וזו הסיבה לכך שאנו ננצח למרות הכל.
Please forward this e-mail to all of your Jewish friends
Everywhere in the world. You are all part of our force to
keep our existence.
בבקשה העבירו מייל זה לכל חבריכם היהודים, בכל מקום בעולם. כולכם חלק במאמץ שלנו לשמור את קיומנו.
This e-mail may help some of us lift our heads up and be
proud to say:
מייל זה עשוי לעזור לחלק מאיתנו לשאת את ראשינו מעלה ולהיות גאים לומר:
I AM A JEW
אני יהודי
http://elianabenador.com/2010/06/24/i-am-a-jew.aspx (http://elianabenador.com/2010/06/24/i-am-a-jew.aspx)
Death of Dr David Kelly 'should be re-explored' doctors sayThe death of Dr David Kelly, the weapons inspector, should be explored in a full coroner's inquest to re-examine the key medical evidence, nine leading doctors have said.
By Andy Bloxham
Published: 6:30AM BST 13 Aug 2010
The nine include Dr Michael Powers QC, a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He has written to ministers reflecting their views.
The letter questioned "the adequacy of the investigation conducted by Lord Hutton" after the death of Dr Kelly, who died after being revealed as the source of a controversial BBC report on the grounds for war in Iraq.
Quote*
Doctors demand inquest to 'prove Dr David Kelly was murdered'
*
Tories call for review into death of Dr David Kelly
*
Lord Hutton allows doctors to see David Kelly post mortem report
*
David Kelly death evidence 'to be kept secret for 70 years'
*
Doctors suspect Dr David Kelly was murdered
*
Doctors demand inquest into death of Dr David Kelly
Coalition ministers are currently exploring how best to allay concern over shortcomings in the official version of Dr Kelly's death.
The scientist was found dead in woods near his Oxfordshire home in 2003 after he was exposed as the source for a BBC story disclosing anger within the intelligence service over use of Iraq arms data.
The then Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, suspended an inquest before an inquiry by Lord Hutton began, and it was never resumed.
Lord Hutton concluded "the principal cause of death was bleeding from incised wounds to his left wrist which Dr Kelly had inflicted on himself with the knife found beside his body".
But the signatories of another letter, sent to The Times, insist that the conclusion is unsafe. They argue that a severed ulnar artery, the wound found to Dr Kelly's wrist, was unlikely to be life-threatening unless an individual had a blood clotting deficiency.
"Insufficient blood would have been lost to threaten life," they write. "Absent a quantitative assessment of the blood lost and of the blood remaining in the great vessels, the conclusion that death occurred as a consequence of haemorrhage is unsafe."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... s-say.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/7942125/Death-of-Dr-David-Kelly-should-be-re-explored-doctors-say.html)
We overcame peace. We overcame reason. We overcame prudence and self-control.
התגברנו על השלום. התגברנו סיבה. התגברנו הזהירות ואת השליטה העצמית.
65 years later and we still don't listen to the Palestinians. Or the World.
שנים מאוחר יותר, ואנחנו עדיין לא להקשיב לפלסטינים. או העולם.65
We are israel and we do as we please.
אנחנו בישראל, ואנחנו עושים כרצוננו.
And we are fickle.
ואנחנו הפכפך.
And greedy.
וגם חמדן.
There isn't enough gold in the world to satisfy a heart made of hate.
אין מספיק זהב בעולם כדי להשביע לב גרם של שנאה.
There isn't enough suffering to satiate a soul from the void.
אין מספיק סבל כדי לספק את הנשמה מן הריק.
More Jew lies from Benador Associates fleshed out for the Iraq-War Effort by NeoCon Jews, the Israeli Mossad and their Propaganda Agents.
9/11 was first and foremost for the removal Saddam Hussein via Jew-Israeli Agents active in the US/UK ....like Laurie Mylroie. -- CSR
QuoteThe Bradley Foundation
The Bradley Foundation's former president, Michael S. Joyce, was instrumental in creating the Philanthropy Roundtable. The goal of the Roundtable's founders was to provide a forum where donors could discuss the principles and practices that inform the best of America's charitable tradition. Currently, there are more than 600 Roundtable Associates.
In the early 1990s the foundation helped support The American Spectator, which at the time was researching damaging material on President Bill Clinton. The Bradley Foundation has provided funding for the Project for a New American Century (PNAC). PNAC brought together prominent members of the (George W) Bush Administration (Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz) in the late 1990s to articulate their neoconservative foreign policy, including sending a letter to President Bill Clinton urging him to invade Iraq.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Foundation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Foundation)
--------------------------
QuoteMichael Ledeen -- Jewish NeoCon
Ledeen is probably the biggest influence behind Bush admin policies.
Ledeen is considered "Karl Rove's brain", he is one of the main philosophers of the Bush administration strategy. He's a colleague of Richard Perle (nickname, seriously: Prince of Darkness), and of Paul Wolfowitz one of the key architects and promoter of the Iraq War (Wolfowitz has now ascended to Ruler of the Universe as head of the World Bank).
Ledeen is a member of the American Enterprise Institute and is friends with all the people over at PNAC.
(AEI is sister group to Heritage Foundation, and shares the same building. In the 1980s, Heritage sponsored or housed in it's offices THREE lobby groups for violent Afghan-Saudi mujahideen fighters -- who later became called "Al-Qaeda".)
A product of the Bradley Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) led the neo-con charge, but the real push for war came from the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) another organization helped by the Bradley Foundation.
"Ledeen's ideas are repeated daily by such figures as Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. He basically believes that violence in the service of the spread of democracy is America's manifest destiny. Consequently, he has become the philosophical legitimatimizer of the American occupation of Iraq."
-------------------------
Quote
Osama, Saddam, and the Bombs
By David Plotz
Posted Friday, Sept. 28, 2001, at 8:30 PM ET
The Iraq hawks are circling. Though Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Colin Powell insist that Saddam Hussein has not been linked to the Sept. 11 attacks, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and other administration conservatives are lobbying strenuously to make Hussein a prime target of the anti-terror war. Sen. Jesse Helms says we should strike Iraq soon. William Safire clamors for it in the New York Times. The cover of the current Weekly Standard shows a "Wanted" poster of Bin Laden and Hussein.
Much—though certainly not all—of the smash-Iraq sentiment is rooted in the idea that Iraq is responsible, either directly or indirectly, for Sept. 11. Why do some think Iraq is to blame? How strong is the evidence?
By far the most publicized theory of Iraqi guilt is championed by Laurie Mylroie, who publishes the newsletter Iraq News and has taught at the U.S. Naval War College. She believes that Iraq probably sponsored the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and thus should be suspect this time. "If Iraq is behind the 1993 bombing, it is highly suggestive that it may be behind this attack," she says.
Mylroie outlined her theory of the 1993 bombing in Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War Against America, published in 2000 by the American Enterprise Institute. She has strong supporters. Wolfowitz and conservative foreign policy svengali Richard Perle blurbed the book last year. Former CIA Director James Woolsey has adopted her cause since Sept. 11, writing an article about it for the New Republic and giving numerous interviews supporting her theory.
What is the essence of Mylroie's argument? Prosecutors and journalists blamed the 1993 WTC attack on a motley conspiracy inspired by blind Egyptian cleric Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman. But Mylroie believes that Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the plot, was in fact an Iraqi intelligence agent. Yousef escaped New York after the 1993 bombing and eventually relocated to the Philippines, where he schemed to bomb a dozen airliners over the Pacific Ocean and perhaps assassinate the pope. The airliner plot collapsed when bomb materials caught fire in a Manila apartment. Yousef fled to Pakistan, where he was arrested and extradited to the United States. He's serving a life sentence in federal prison. The Sept. 11 assault, notes Woolsey, is "an amalgam of Yousef's trade center bombing and his airliner bombing plot."
The key to Mylroie's theory is her contention that Ramzi Yousef is not who the U.S. government says he is. In the World Trade Center trials, prosecutors suggested that Yousef was probably Abdul Basit, a Kuwaiti of Pakistani origin who had been radicalized as a student before coming to America to plan the bombing. Yousef traveled on Basit's Pakistani passport when he fled the United States after the bombing.
Mylroie, after digging through very complicated passport and phone records, argues that Yousef is not Abdul Basit at all. Instead, she says, Yousef probably assumed Basit's identity, and Basit's passport and other papers were doctored to fit Yousef's history. (Yousef's fingerprints seem to have been inserted into Kuwaiti records, for example.) Why does this suggest Yousef is an Iraqi agent? Because, according to Mylroie, Basit's records were tampered with during the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, and the Basit family seems to have disappeared during the occupation. Mylroie and Woolsey speculate that Iraq, having trained agent Ramzi Yousef, searched Kuwaiti records to find someone who looked like Yousef. When Iraqi officials found that person, Abdul Basit, they made him and his family disappear, then altered his records in order to establish a credible fake identity for Yousef. But it was not a perfect match. Mylroie details apparent discrepancies between Basit and Yousef. Among the most telling ones: Yousef is apparently several inches taller than Basit was and probably significantly older.
Mylroie and Woolsey are urging the United States to test the theory by checking Ramzi Yousef's fingerprints against fingerprints of Abdul Basit's that may be available in England (where he was a student). They would also like to bring old friends of Abdul Basit's to visit Yousef in prison and confirm his identity.
Mylroie presents other evidence to buttress her theory. When Yousef fled the United States, he made his way to Baluchistan, a wild area divided among Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran that is home to several million ethnic Baluch. The Baluch, long at odds with Iran's leadership, have extremely close ties to the Iraqi government. Another clue: The World Trade Center bombing occurred on the anniversary of the Gulf War cease-fire. And, finally, the only bombing conspirator who hasn't been caught, Abdul Rahman Yasin, seems to be living comfortably in Baghdad. (Why did the United States overlook the evidence Mylroie cites? Click here for her explanation.)
Study of Revenge does not stop at the 1993 bombing. Mylroie also tries to link Hussein to the 1998 Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. Her evidence for this is much sketchier. The bombings occurred at a time convenient for Iraq. Hussein's rhetoric was extremely inflammatory right before the bombings. And Hussein and Bin Laden—who was directly responsible for those bombings—share close ties with Sudanese intelligence and thus may have collaborated.
The fact that no significant evidence yet exists linking Hussein to Sept. 11 does not daunt Mylroie and Woolsey. "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence," Woolsey says. They say it's possible Iraq and Bin Laden cooperated in ways we don't know yet. "There is nothing that requires terrorism to be pursued under an exclusive contract," says Woolsey.
Does the Mylroie hypothesis hold up? Even most of Mylroie's critics acknowledge the diligence of her research into Yousef's identity and travels. And most agree that she has cast significant doubt about Ramzi Yousef's identity. But there's skepticism about her conclusion that it can only mean Iraqi culpability. "It is a tour de force, but it's a tour de force of alchemy," says Daniel Pipes, editor of Middle East Quarterly. "It has a fundamentally wrong premise."
The sharpest critique of Mylroie is that she discounts evidence that Yousef worked not for Iraq but for Osama Bin Laden. Yousef's co-conspirator in the Philippines airliner plot was Waly Khan Amin Shah—a "big buddy of Osama's," according to CNN's Peter Bergen, author of the forthcoming Holy War, Inc. about Bin Laden. Bin Laden said in an interview that he was friends with Waly Khan and did not deny that he was Waly Khan's boss. Bin Laden biographer Yossef Bodansky, Time magazine, and other media outlets concur that Ramzi Yousef worked for a Bin Laden-funded operation in the Philippines. So does American intelligence, apparently. "The U.S. government, without saying it directly, believes that both Ramzi Yousef operations are traceable to Osama Bin Laden," says Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of counterterrorism for the CIA. Mylroie still says that Bin Laden has nothing to do with Yousef and dismisses Bin Laden's assertion of friendship with Waly Khan as just Bin Laden "blowing himself up and making himself seem important. There is nothing to corroborate the claim at all."
There are other criticisms of Mylroie's theory. Though Yousef fled the United States on Abdul Basit's Pakistani passport, he had entered the States with an Iraqi passport in the name Ramzi Yousef. Why would an Iraqi agent travel openly as an Iraqi?
Pipes also notes that Saddam Hussein's operatives tend to be "ham-fisted." The last terrorist act directly connected to Iraq was the incredibly clumsy 1993 assassination attempt on former President George Bush. By contrast, the 1993 WTC bombing, the 1998 embassy bombings, and the Sept. 11 attacks were all well-planned.
Mylroie offers no real evidence linking Hussein to the 1998 bombings.
Mylroie's strongest contention, that Ramzi Yousef is not Abdul Basit, does not confirm that Iraq bombed the World Trade Center in 1993. It just confirms that Ramzi Yousef is more mysterious than we suspect. It could still be that al-Qaida, not Hussein, provided Yousef with training, fake papers, and resources.
Finally, though few analysts dispute that Bin Laden and Hussein could work together on something like Sept. 11, evidence is scanty that they have cooperated successfully. Connections between Iraq and Bin Laden do not seem strong. Iraqi officials have intermittently met with al-Qaida reps, but to little effect. According to Cannistraro, Bin Laden refused Iraq's offer of refuge in the late '90s because he feared "he would become a tool of the Iraqis." Cannistraro and others agree "there is no strong evidence of any resources other than Bin Laden's being used in these attacks."
Mylroie's is not the only theory connecting Iraq to Sept. 11 or to Bin Laden. It has been much reported that hijacker Mohamed Atta may have met with one of Iraq's top intelligence officers in Europe. So far, no evidence has emerged publicly that the meeting was connected to the hijackings.
And Jane's Foreign Report, citing Israel military intelligence, floated the idea last week that the plot was a grand operation shared by Iraq, a Bin Laden lieutenant, and Imad Mughniyeh, a Hezbollah terrorist wanted for all kinds of nastiness (bombing the Israeli Embassy in Argentina, perhaps bombing the U.S. Marine barracks and Embassy in Lebanon, hijacking planes ...).
This theory is problematic. The head of Israeli military intelligence insisted several days later that Israel has no evidence linking Iraq to Sept. 11. And it is very hard to believe that Hezbollah's Mughniyeh would ever cooperate with a Bin Ladenite. Hezbollah is sponsored by Shiite Iran, which is a sworn enemy of Sunni militants like Bin Laden. The idea that Mughniyeh and Bin Laden would team up and then take instruction from Iraq is very far-fetched.
All this Iraq theorizing is important in determining what kind of military campaign the United States will pursue. So far, the Powellites seem to be winning the fight within the administration. The United States is concentrating on its anti-Bin Laden coalition and elaborately avoiding the Iraq question. The rest of the world, including the Arab world, is signing up for the anti-Bin Laden campaign because it's seen as a fair tit for tat. There is no such support for a broader war against Iraq. Other countries, especially Arab countries, would not wage war against Hussein just because he's a bad guy. Before the world will enlist against Hussein, American officials will need to prove that he was behind Sept. 11. To do that, they must find stronger evidence than Mylroie, Woolsey, and others have presented so far.
----------
Mylroie and Woolsey blame the criminal justice system and the Clinton administration for not pursuing the Iraq connection. Prosecutors, not intelligence officers, controlled the WTC bombing investigation. They were interested in convicting the guilty, not in wading into a geopolitical swamp that could only muddy the evidence. So prosecutors never sufficiently investigated whether or not Ramzi Yousef was Abdul Basit. (Jim Fox, the FBI's New York director, shared Mylroie's belief that Iraq was behind the attacks, but his views were not embraced by prosecutors and other investigators.) And, Mylroie and Woolsey allege, the Clinton administration downplayed evidence of Iraqi involvement in order to avoid a war with Hussein. The administration did not want to deal with the repercussions of discovering that Iraq was waging a terror war against the United States.
David Plotz is Slate's editor.
http://www.slate.com/id/116232/ (http://www.slate.com/id/116232/)
QuoteWhat does that mean that our entire media system is oblivious to un-secret public statements advocating for terror attacks on the United States?
Some stated that their plans for war were vital to American hegemony and to global "stability", i.e. elite control over other "rogue" populations and states. They wanted the USA to launch massive military operations, quickly. They stated that the window of opportunity was brief and closing. Their plans might never be implemented unless innocent American people (we, the Vulgar Many) were struck with a massive Shock and Awe terror event. They needed a frightened, cowering populace for their plans, so they needed many random innocent Americans needed to die on a sunny Tuesday morning, in a fierce display of pyrotechnics.
(Well .. to be fair, they were merely 'hoping' that happened. Do 'winners' rely on 'luck' or 'create their luck'?)
Stunned. Terrified. Helpless. Rage and Anger. Grief-stricken. Compliant. Obedient. Passive dependence on government protection from the "bad guys" and "evil ones", whoever they might be. They wanted approval and unquestioning support, total patriotism, for both our government leaders and our military leaders. You might remember when Ashcroft @ DoJ or was that Ari Fleischer warned us on TV against asking wrong questions or making rash statements -- people "need to watch what they say."
This was to be a very long war, so they needed to 'engineer' the American citizens into the right mood to consent to mass murder, vast spending, and willing "human sacrifice". Dissent needed to be silenced, as much as feasible, or broadly condemnned.
At least seven well-known interrelated groups were represented by these views back in 1999 - 2000:
* American Enterprise Institute (Reagan praised them heavily, launched with Bradley Foundation cash, sister org of Heritage Fnd)
* Brookings Institution (a 'liberal' think tank group, partnered with Harvard, AEI, etc)
* Heritage Foundation (younger or older sister of AEI, launched by Tim LaHaye who published "Left Behind" series feat. vigilante action against "Sinners" in US Cities, and Richard Vigurie, a Christian direct mailer) (backed Islamic Mujahideen Afghani warlords in the 80s,)
* Project for a New American Century (PNAC, neo-con pressure group, housed in same office as AEI, formed by William Kristol son of Irving Kristol, with money from Bradley Foundation)
* Trilateral Commission (co-founded by David Rockefeller and his handpicked political rep, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Rocks essentially 'own' Exxon-Mobil and JP Morgan-Chase.)
* Council on Foreign Relations (CFR, older sister of TLC, launched in the era of Woodrow Wilson)
* Foreign Affairs (publication arm of the CFR)
http://www.takeoverworld.info/proterrorism.html (http://www.takeoverworld.info/proterrorism.html)
QuoteBush I
The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations investigated BCCI from 1988 to 1992. Among its many findings, the committee report of its investigation criticized the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Office of the Controller of the Currency, all arms of the Treasury Department, for poor coordination and failing to act on information concerning BCCI's criminal intentions. For example, " Even after [BCCI] was indicted on drug money laundering charges, the Federal Reserve undertook only limited investigative efforts." In fact, the report states, "The Federal Reserve's extensive ... investigation of BCCI began after the Federal Reserve was notified by the New York District Attorney that BCCI had massive loans securing First American's stock which had never been disclosed to the Federal Reserve. As late as the spring of 1991, after the Federal Reserve understood that BCCI and many of First American's shareholders had lied to the regulators, and that BCCI itself was involved in massive fraud, the Federal Reserve still took no position as to whether BCCI should be closed globally, so long as the bank was shut down in the United States."
With regard to the overarching role of the Treasury Department in particular, the Kerry report found, " U.S. regulatory handling of the U.S. banks secretly owned by BCCI was hampered by lack of coordination among the regulators, which included the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, and the OCC, highlighting the need for further integration of these separate banking regulatory agencies on supervision and enforcement. It also noted, that in 1985 and 1986 the Treasury Department had received information from the CIA that BCCI was behind the takeover of Financial General Bankshares (renamed First America), but did not pass the information along to the Federal Reserve.
In 1985 and 1986, the Secretary of the Treasury was James A. Baker, III. When Bush Sr. became President, Baker became Secretary of State, and was recently in the public eye for his role as director of Bush campaign operations following the November 2000 election. During the Kerry committee investigation, the Secretary of the Treasury was Nicholas Brady. Brady had worked at the Wall Street firm of Dillon, Read before being tapped to fill out the term of Senator Harrison Williams of New Jersey who was indicted in the FBI's Abscam sting. Brady was part of the same social circles in which the Bushes traveled; for example, both belonged to the Bohemia Club of San Francisco. In 1985 financier T. Boone Pickens and Mesa Petroleum tried to takeover the oil company Unocal. Pickens et al. proposed a so-called "two-tiered tender offer," in which shareholders siding with the takeover would receive cash for their stocks, but any who did not would receive high-risk "junk" bonds after the takeover. Unocal called upon Dillon Read and Goldman Sachs to defend against the hostile takeover bid. Brady and his colleagues designed an anti-takeover defense for Unocal, in which the company offered to buy back much of it's own stock at a higher price than Pickens offered, while at the same time refusing any shares held by Pickens. Pickens fought the measure in the Delaware courts, but lost. The "self-tender" maneuver left Unocal with $3.6 billion of high interest debt, but was successful in warding off Pickens' takeover attempt.
In 1989 Michael Pillsbury became Special Assistant for Asian Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. His time in the defense department brought him into contact with three secretaries of Defense: Caspar Weinberger and Frank Carlucci (now chairman of the Carlyle Group) in the Reagan administration, and Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense in the administration of Bush Sr., and the current vice president. Pillsbury's BCCI associate, Mohammed Hammoud, allegedly died in Geneva in 1990, and, according to law enforcement documents viewed by the Kerry committee staff, Michael Pillsbury traveled to Geneva to identify the body. However, the body was found by insurance companies to be several inches shorter than Hammoud's last recorded height. Several BCCI officials told the Kerry committee that they did not believe Hammoud was dead. A video provided to Hammoud's lawyers by his family allegedly shows Syrian intelligence officials present at his funeral. In August 1992, Newsweek reported. "Intelligence officials now say that Mohammed Hammoud, an alleged BCCI front man, was taped saying over the telephone, 'If anybody knew how dirty the Americans are in this BCCI business, they'd be surprised -- they're dirtier than the Pakistanis.' He then said he was about to tell someone about the American role. Eight hours later he was found dead."
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan the Soviet army withdrew, but left a pro-communist leader installed in Kabul. During the previous year, Osama bin Laden had created Al Qaeda (The Base). Al Qaeda inherited from MaK a pan-Islamic as contrasted to pan-Arab ideology. Al Qaeda also benefited from the financial and technical resources that had been amassed during the long campaign against the Soviets. Bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia that year where he lent support to anti-establishment movements, and worked for his family business the Binladin Group. The same year Hasan al Turabi's National Islamic Front rose to power in Sudan, and sent a delegation to Pakistan. Bin Laden moved Al Qaeda's infrastructure to Sudan.
In the late 80's high-tech seismic surveys in the tiny emirate of Bahrain, which hadn't had a significant new oil discovery since 1932, identified a large likely undersea oil deposit between what the Asian Wall Street Journal called "two of the greatest oil and gas fields on the planet." The company chosen to drill exploratory wells would have to invest over $12 million, but could receive a payoff in the billions if oil was found. Amoco and three other oil companies entered into discussion with Bahrain in 1987. Amoco was optimistic at the directions discussions had taken, when suddenly in 1990 the contract was awarded to Harken Energy. Harken officials claim the Bahrainis wanted a small company that could focus on their country's project. The Bahrainis had enlisted help from Michael Ameen, a Houston oil consultant who had worked for Mobil and the Arabian American Oil company (Aramco). As head of government relations for Aramco, Ameen spent years dealing with members of the Saudi royal family and their associates, including Kamal Adham. As we've noted elsewhere Adham was the CIA's principal liason for the entire Middle East, from the mid-60s through 1979. The latter years overlapped with the period when George Bush Sr. was Director of the CIA.
According to the Kerry committee report, Adham "was the lead front-man for BCCI in its takeover
of First American, was an important nominee shareholder in BCCI, and remains one of the key players in the entire BCCI affair. On July 29, 1992, he reached a plea agreement with the District Attorney of New York, acknowledging that he had been a BCCI front-man in the United States, and agreeing to provide full
cooperation with U.S. law enforcement in BCCI-related investigations and prosecutions." Adham has been referred to as "the godfather of Middle East intelligence." The Kerry committee observes "It was impossible to determine where Saudi interests in these arrangements ended and American CIA interests began." For instance, in 1970 Adham was responsible for making payments on the CIA's behalf to Anwar Sadat, then Gamal Nasser's vice president.
Adham also reportedly played a significant behind-the-scenes diplomatic role during the Camp David accords. His role may have been to discourage Arab leaders from repudiating Sadat for agreeing to peace with Israel. While many Arab leaders nonetheless spoke out in opposition publicly, in private many supported the Camp David accords because they thought they would help the Saudi royal family maintain stability in the region. Quoting again from the Kerry committee report, "To recapitulate: Adham was at the same time in business with a retired CIA station chief whose activities caused people in the U.S. and Saudi governments to question whether he was truly 'retired,' acting as an intermediary for the U.S. in negotiations regarding Camp David, and acting as a phony 'lead shareholder' in a take-over of the largest bank in the nation's capital on behalf of BCCI."
Michael Ameen was also a close friend of the Pharaon family, and knew Sheikh Bakhsh for 25 years. During the Harken-Bahrain negotiations, Ameen was also working as a paid consultant to the State Department. In that role, he briefed incoming Ambassador to Bahrain, Charles Hostler. Hostler, a San Diego real-estate developer and major contributor to the Republican party met BCCI figure Mohammed Hammoud in the 60s when Hostler was stationed in Lebanon with the Air Force and Hammoud was a businessman in Beirut. Hostler admitted "giving financial advice" to Hammoud from time to time. Chris Hagen, a real estate broker who represented Hammoud reported after a meeting in NYC overhearing Hammoud tell Hostler that "there will be a Cadillac in your driveway, tomorrow morning." The Kerry committee was unable to determine whether Hostler had received the Cadillac.
The Harken contract was signed in January 1990. In August of that year Iraq invaded Kuwait. Sheikh Bakhsh's agent, Talat Othman, who six months earlier "didn't have the President's ear," according the the Asian Wall Street Journal, was one of 15 Arab Americans invited to the White House two days after the invasion, for a meeting with President Bush, National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft, and chief of staff John Sunnunu.
During the Gulf War, thousands of U.S. and other foreign troops were based in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi rulers had promised to expel foreign troops from the country after the war. When they reneged, bin Laden initiated a campaign of opposition. He labeled the royal family "false Muslims," and advocated a so-called "true" Islamic state. In 1992 bin Laden had a meeting with Interior Minister Prince Naif, during or after which he denounced Naif as a traitor. Bin Laden was declared persona no grata after Naif complained to King Fahd. Bin Laden left the country for Sudan that year -- widely reported as a deportation -- but retained ties to some members of the Saudi Royal family who also disliked Naif. Bin Laden also retained ties to Saudi Intelligence and Pakistan's ISI..
According to Pakistani investigators, Ramzi Youssef, convicted mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, lived at a Bin Laden-funded safe house in Peshawar during most of the three years before his capture in 1995. Youssef, whose real name according to Pakistani intelligence is Abdul-Basit Mahmud Abdul Karim, was implicated by his co-conspirators and eventually betrayed by a fellow follower of Abdurrab Rasul Sayyaf in Pakistan. Youssef and two co-conspirators were sentenced in 1998 to life in prison without parole for the WTC bombing and a plot to bomb airplanes in Manila, Phillipines.
A third co-conspirator, Wali Khan Amin Shah, was not sentenced initially, because he had agreed to cooperate with the FBI. Federal investigators hoped Shah would provide information about the financing of Youssef's activities. Shah was ultimately convicted, but apparently provided authorities with information linking bin Laden to the Alkifah Refugee Center in Brooklyn. An NY Times article that strangely does not identify Shah by name, reports that he told Federal authorities he met twice with Texan, Wadih el Hage, to buy weapons for associates in Brooklyn. Federal prosecutors reportedly link El Hage to several habitués of the Alkifah center, including El Sayyid A. Nosair, the Egyptian immigrant convicted on Federal charges in the slaying of Rabbi Kahane. El Hage, would later be convicted for the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.
When Youssef came to the U.S. in 1992, the Alkifah center, which had been founded by bin Laden's mentor Abdullah Azzam, was his first stop. Alkifah has been identified by an aide to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as a CIA front for transferring funds, weapons, and recruits to the anti-Soviet mujaheddin in Afghanistan. During one period, over $2 million annually was reportedly being transferred. A 1998 article in the New York Times referred to Alkifah as "the American outpost of Mr. bin Laden's international terrorist organization."
http://www.thedubyareport.com/bushbin.html (http://www.thedubyareport.com/bushbin.html)
Saudi Intelligence and 9/11 ConnectionsQuoteIn 1984, however, George W. Bush's oil exploration company, Bush Exploration (previously Arbusto Energy) was suffering financially as sources of investment disappeared in the face of uncertainty regarding oil prices. After one attempted bailout by an oil company called Spectrum 7 faltered, Harken Energy bought Spectrum 7 for $2 million. George W. Bush received stock worth approximately $500,000 and a consulting fee of $120,000. Harken Energy was run by Alan Quasha, a New York lawyer who was also a Republican Party fundraiser. Sheikh Abdullah Bahksh of Saudi Arabia, a 16% shareholder in Harken Energy at the time, was represented by a Palestinian-born Chicago investor named Talat Othman, who served with George W. Bush on the board of Harken Energy. Othman made at least three separate visits to the White House to discuss Middle East affairs with then President George Bush. At about the same time, and just prior to the Gulf War, Harken Energy, with no previous international or offshore drilling experience, was awarded a 35-year petroleum exploration contract with the emirate of Bahrain.
Sheikh Bahksh emerged as a co-investor in the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), a criminal enterprise since dissolved, that existed primarily as a mechanism for obtaining political influence using Middle Eastern oil money. Bahrain's prime minister, Sheik Khalifah bin-Sulman al-Khalifah, was a major investor in BCCI's parent company, BCCI Holdings, of Luxembourg. Through its commodities affiliate, Capcom, BCCI was used as a money laundering service by drug traffickers, arms dealers, etc. BCCI's front man in the U.S., and the person chiefly responsible for its takeover of First American Bank in the U.S., was Kamal Adham. Adham is referred to in the Kerry Committee report on BCCI as having been "the CIA's principal liaison for the entire Middle East from the mid-1960's through 1979." He was also the head of intelligence for Saudi Arabia during the time George Bush Sr. was Director of the CIA.
In August 1991, Ed Rogers, political director in the administration of George Bush Sr., left his White House position to start a "consulting firm." Rogers partner in the venture was Haley Barbour, political director during the Reagan administration, and later chairman of the Republican National Committee. Within a few weeks Rogers and Barbour received a $600,000 contract with Kamal Adham.
When interviewed by the Kerry Committee investigating the BCCI affair, Rogers indicated he had consulted two people concerning Adham's background and the advisability of representing him. One was a Palestinian-American businessman with connections in the Republican party and the Saudi royal family. The other was a National Security Council staffer named Linda Charles, who, at about the same time Rogers left the White House, left the NSC to join a the International Planing and Analysis Center, a "consulting group" headed by Frank Carlucci. Former Deputy Director of the CIA and Secretary of Defense. Carlucci is now, as noted above, chairman of the Carlyle Group.
Rogers subsequently registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent, and had three meetings with Adham's financial and legal team. Two meetings occurred after Rogers had received notice from Adham's defense attorney, Plato Cacheris, that Adham was under investigation for involvement in the BCCI scandal. The report of the Kerry committee suggests "With no background in business, in criminal law, or in any facet of the law for that matter, the 33 year old Rogers must have accompanied Cacheris for one reason only: his political skills and access."
The story of Rogers representing Adham was reported in the press on October 3, 1991. At a press conference later that month President Bush (Sr.) made an ambiguous statement that he "didn't know anything about the man." Rogers, of course, had been his political director, and Adham had been head of Saudi intelligence at the time Bush was Director of the CIA. Rogers reportedly resigned from the Adham account shortly thereafter, although he refused to discuss whether or not he returned his fee. Representative (now Senator) Charles Schumer called for an investigation by White House Counsel, C. Boyden Gray. Gray nominally mounted an investigation, but never met with Rogers himself. Instead, two assistants who were friendly with Rogers discussed the matter with him by phone. Gray wrote Schumer on November 1, 1991, that "Mr. Rogers was not responsible for and did not participate in any matters concerning to BCCI at the White House." This leaves open the question of whether Rogers may have negotiated his "consulting" contract with Adham while still at the White House. The Kerry committee report concludes its section on Rogers that while Rogers testimony was suspect" the greater failing and more worrisome aspect in the Rogers affair may be that of the White House inquiry. The columnist William Saffire predicted in November 1991 that Boyden Gray, charged by the President to investigate the Rogers affair, would 'pass along the
denials and the White House whitewash will continue.' There is nothing in the record that suggests Mr. Saffire's assessment was inaccurate."
On October 3, 2001 the Senate confirmed Dallas attorney Robert Jordan as ambassador to Saudi Arabia. With no diplomatic experience, Jordan's qualifications include having defended Dubya in an SEC insider trading probe of the sale of his Harken Energy Corp. stock. Jordan is a member of the lawfirm Baker Botts. Former Secretary of State James A. Baker III is the Baker in Baker Botts, and The Carlyle Group is a client.
Former director of the F.B.I.'s New York counterterrorism office, John P. O'Neill, is quoted in a new book by French security expert Jean-Charles Brisard as saying, "All the answers, everything needed to dismantle Osama bin Laden's organization can be found in Saudi Arabia." As reported in the Times the book, "Ben Laden: La Vérité Interdite," suggests that "Saudi support for Mr. bin Laden has been extensive." O'Neill was apparently frustrated at "the inability of American officials to get anything at all from King Fahd," of Saudi Arabia, and although the Times does not provide details, O'Neill reportedly ascribed this failure to "oil." During his term with the F.B.I, O'Neill worked on the investigations of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 1998 bombings of embassies in Africa, and was leading the investigation of the USS Cole in Yemen. O'Neill had complained to Brisard that the F.B.I. was hampered in its international investigations by State Department interference. O'Neill resigned from the F.B.I. in August of this year to become head of security at the World Trade Towers. He was killed in the the September 11 attack.
http://www.thedubyareport.com/txconnect.html#adham (http://www.thedubyareport.com/txconnect.html#adham)
QuoteThe Rothschilds and Mena ?
N.M. Rothschild is considered by City of London sources to be one of the most influential parts of the British intelligence establishment, tied to the Thatcher "free market" wing of the Tory Party. Rothschild and Sons made huge sums managing for Thatcher the privatization of billions of dollars of British state industry holdings during the 1980s, and today, for John Major's government. Rothschilds is also at the very heart of the world gold trade, being the bank at which twice daily the London Gold Fix is struck by a group of the five most influential gold trade banks. Gold constitutes a major part of the economy of drug dealings globally.
N.M. Rothschild and Sons is also implicated in some of the filthiest drugs-for-weapons secret intelligence operations. Because it is connected to the highest levels of the British intelligence establishment, Rothschilds managed to evade any prominent mention of its complicity in one of the more sordid black covert intelligence networks, that of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). Rothschilds was at the center of the international web of money-laundering banks used during the 1970s and 1980s by Britain's MI-6 and the networks of Col. Oliver North and George Bush, to finance such projects as the Nicaraguan Contras.
On June 8, 1993 the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Banking, Rep. Henry Gonzalez (D-Tex.), made a speech charging that the U.S. government, under the previous Bush and Reagan administrations, had systematically refused to prosecute the BCCI, and that the Department of Justice had repeatedly refused to cooperate with Congressional investigations of both the BCCI scandal and what Gonzalez claims is the closely related scandal of the Atlanta, Georgia Banca Nationale del Lavoro, which was alleged to have secured billions in loans from the Bush administration to Saddam Hussein, just prior to the Gulf War of 1990-91.
Gonzalez charged that the Bush administration had "a Justice Department that I say, and I repeat, has been the most corrupt, most unbelievably corrupt justice system that I have seen in the 32 years I have been in the Congress."
The BCCI violated countless laws, including laundering drug money, financing illegal arms traffic, and falsifying bank records. In July 1991, New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau announced a grand jury indictment against BCCI, charging it with having committed "the largest bank fraud in world financial history. BCCI operated as a corrupt criminal organization throughout its entire 19-year history."
The BCCI had links directly into the Bush White House. Saudi Sheik Kamal Adham, a BCCI director and former head of Saudi Arabian intelligence when George Bush was head of the CIA, was one of the BCCI shareholders indicted in the United States. Days after his indictment, former top Bush White House aide Edward Rogers went to Saudi Arabia as a private citizen to sign a contract to represent Sheikh Adham in the United States. ----------------------------------------------------
Rothschild, Bush, and Missiles for Iraq ?
But, what has never been identified in a single major Western press investigation, was that the Rothschild group was at the heart of the vast illegal web of BCCI. The key figure was Dr. Alfred Hartmann, the managing director of the BCCI Swiss subsidiary, Banque de Commerce et de Placement SA; at the same time, he ran the Zurich Rothschild Bank AG, and sat in London as a member of the board of N.M. Rothschild and Sons, Hartmann was also a business partner of Helmut Raiser, friend of de Picciotto, and linked to Nordex.
Hartmann was also chairman of the Swiss affiliate of the Italian BNL bank, which was implicated in the Bush administration illegal transfers to Iraq prior to the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The Atlanta branch of BNL, with the knowledge of George Bush when he was vice president, conduited funds to Helmut Raiser's Zug, Switzerland company, Consen, for development of the CondorII missile program by Iraq, Egypt, and Argentina, during the Iran-Iraq War. Hartmann was vice-chairman of another secretive private Geneva bank, the Bank of NY-Inter-Maritime Bank, a bank whose chairman, Bruce Rappaport, was one of the illegal financial conduits for Col. Oliver North's Contra drugs-for-weapons network during the late 1980. North also used the BCCI as one of his preferred banks to hide his illegal funds.
Soros and Tampering with European Monetary Stability
According to reports of former U.S. State Department intelligence officers familiar with the Soros case, Soros's Quantum Fund amassed a war chest of well over $10 billion, with the help of a powerful group of "silent" investors who let Soros deploy the capital to demolish European monetary stability in September 1992.
Among Soros's silent investors, these sources say, are the fugitive metals and oil trader Marc Rich, based in Zug, Switzerland; and Shaul Eisenberg, a decades-long member of Israeli Mossad intelligence, who functions as a major arms merchant throughout Asia and the Near East. Eisenberg was recently banned from doing business in Uzbekistan, where he had been accused by the government of massive fraud and corruption. A third Soros partner is Israel's "Dirty Rafi" Eytan, who served in London previously as Mossad liaison to British intelligence.
Rich was one of the most active western traders in oil, aluminum, and other commodities in the Soviet Union and Russia between 1989 and 1993. This, not coincidentally, is just the period when Grigori Luchansky's Nordex Group became a multibillion-dollar company selling Russian oil, aluminum, and other commodities.
Canadian real estate entrepreneur Paul Reichmann, formerly of Olympia and York notoriety, a Hungarian-born Jew like Soros, is a business partner in Soros's Quantum Realty, a $525-million real estate investment fund.
The Reichmann tie links Soros as well with Henry Kissinger and former Tory Foreign Minister Lord Carrington (who is also a member of Kissinger Associates, Inc. of New York). Reichmann sits with both Kissinger and Carrington on the board of the influential British-Canadian publishing group, Hollinger, Inc. Hollinger owns a large number of newspapers in Canada and the United States, the London Daily Telegraph, and the largest English-language daily in Israel, the Jerusalem Post. Hollinger has been attacking President Clinton and the Middle East peace process ever since Clinton's election in November 1992.
Soros and the Rothschilds, at Length (for those who are as suspicious as I am about the Rothschilds.)
Rather than use the powers of the state to achieve their geopolitical goals, a secret cross-linked holding of private financial interests, tied to the old aristocratic oligarchy of western Europe, was developed. It was in many ways modeled on the 17th-century British and Dutch East India Companies. The heart of this Club of the Isles is the financial center of the old British Empire, the City of London. Soros is one of what in medieval days were called Hofjuden, the "Court Jews," who were deployed by the aristocratic families.
The most important of such "Jews who are not Jews," are the Rothschilds, who launched Soros's career. They are members of the Club of the Isles and retainers of the British royal family. This has been true since Amschel Rothschild sold the British Hessian troops to fight against George Washington during the American Revolution.
Soros is American only in his passport. He is a global financial operator, who happens to be in New York, simply because "that's where the money is," as the bank robber Willy Sutton once quipped, when asked why he always robbed banks. Soros speculates in world financial markets through his offshore company, Quantum Fund NV, a private investment fund, or "hedge fund." His hedge fund reportedly manages some $11-14 billion of funds on behalf of its clients, or investors---one of the most prominent of whom is, according to Soros, Britain's Queen Elizabeth, the wealthiest person in Europe.
The Quantum Fund is registered in the tax haven of the Netherlands Antilles, in the Caribbean. This is to avoid paying taxes, as well as to hide the true nature of his investors and what he does with their money.
In order to avoid U.S. government supervision of his financial activities, something normal U.S.-based investment funds must by law agree to in order to operate, Soros moved his legal headquarters to the Caribbean tax haven of Curacao. The Netherlands Antilles has repeatedly been cited by the Task Force on Money Laundering of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as one of the world's most important centers for laundering illegal proceeds of the Latin American cocaine and other drug traffic. It is a possession of the Netherlands.
Soros has taken care that the none of the 99 individual investors who participate in his various funds is an American national. By U.S. securities law, a hedge fund is limited to no more than 99 highly wealthy individuals, so-called "sophisticated investors." By structuring his investment company as an offshore hedge fund, Soros avoids public scrutiny.
Soros himself is not even on the board of Quantum Fund. Instead, for legal reasons, he serves the Quantum Fund as official "investment adviser," through another company, Soros Fund Management, of New York City. If any demand were to be made of Soros to reveal the details of Quantum Fund's operations, he is able to claim he is "merely its investment adviser." Any competent police investigator looking at the complex legal structure of Soros's businesses would conclude that there is prima facie evidence of either vast money laundering of illicit funds, or massive illegal tax evasion. Both may be true.
To make it impossible for U.S. tax authorities or other officials to look into the financial dealings of his web of businesses, the board of directors of Quantum Fund NV also includes no American citizens. His directors are Swiss, Italian, and British financiers.
George Soros is part of a tightly knit financial mafia---"mafia," in the sense of a closed masonic-like fraternity of families pursuing common aims. Anyone who dares to criticize Soros or any of his associates, is immediately hit with the charge of being "anti-Semitic"----a criticism which often silences or intimidates genuine critics of Soros's unscrupulous operations. The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith considers it a top priority to "protect" Soros from the charges of "anti-Semites" in Hungary and elsewhere in Central Europe, according to ADL National Director Abraham Foxman. The ADL's record of service to the British oligarchy has been amply documented by EIR (e.g. The Ugly Truth About the Anti-Defamation League [Washington, D.C., Executive Intelligence Review: 1992]).
According to knowledgeable U.S. and European investigators, Soros's circle includes indicted metals and commodity speculator and fugitive Marc Rich of Zug, Switzerland and Tel Aviv; secretive Israeli arms and commodity dealer Shaul Eisenberg, and "Dirty Rafi" Eytan, both linked to the financial side of the Israeli Mossad; and, the family of Jacob Lord Rothschild.
Understandably, Soros and the Rothschild interests prefer to keep their connection hidden far from public view, so as to obscure the well-connected friends Soros enjoys in the City of London, the British Foreign Office, Israel, and the U.S. financial establishment. The myth, therefore, has been created, that Soros is a lone financial investment "genius" who, through his sheer personal brilliance in detecting shifts in markets, has become one of the world's most successful speculators. According to those who have done business with him, Soros never makes a major investment move without sensitive insider information.
http://www.seanscreenplays.com/BETENOIR ... lic%5D.htm (http://www.seanscreenplays.com/BETENOIRECD/Articles1/Soros,%20Rothschild,%20and%20Evil%20Incarnate%20%28Marc%20Rich%27s%20connections%29%20%5BFree%20Republic%5D.htm)
Quote
Dr David Kelly's body 'had obviously been moved': Paramedic at death scene reveals concerns over Hutton Inquiry
By: Matt Sandy (sent by Invictus) on: 14.09.2010 [01:08 ] (132 reads)
The paramedic who confirmed the death of Government scientist Dr David Kelly has claimed his body had 'obviously been moved' in the minutes after it was found.
David Bartlett was one of two medics called after the corpse of the weapons expert was discovered in woods near his Oxfordshire home seven years ago. They were among the first on the scene.
The testimony by the experienced paramedics once again brings into doubt the thoroughness of the Hutton Inquiry – in particular raising questions about why police officers were not asked whether they had touched or moved the body.
The former weapons inspector was found dead a week after he was outed as the source of BBC claims that the Government had 'sexed up' a document claiming Saddam Hussein's Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction in 45 minutes.
In his interview, 59-year-old Mr Bartlett discloses a further series of irregularities about that day's events, putting yet more pressure on the Government to agree to a full inquest into the scientist's death.
Earlier this month, Attorney General Dominic Grieve requested to see the report of Dr Kelly's post-mortem. He said he would need to see 'new evidence' before applying for a full inquest.
Like many of the witnesses expressing doubts about the Kelly case, Oxfordshire-born Mr Bartlett is far from a conspiracy theorist. A father of three, he has been a dedicated paramedic for 24 years.
His testimony – the first time he has talked in such detail – is crucial, as the civilian volunteer searchers who first found the body said it was leaning against a tree. He said: 'If earlier witnesses said that, then the body had obviously been moved' by the time he got there.
Mr Bartlett backs up claims made by DC Graham Coe – the first policeman on the scene – about how little blood there was around the body. The paramedic said: 'I've seen more blood at a nosebleed than I saw there.'
However, the Hutton Inquiry said that Dr Kelly had bled to death after cutting a small artery in his wrist.
A bizarre meeting with Kelly 'friend'
Mr Bartlett also said that after the body was found the police threw a 'blackout' around the scene – even banning him from speaking to his control room by radio. He says this is the only time it has happened in his long career.
The paramedic also reveals that, a year after the death, he was approached by a stranger in Oxford, who said he was a close friend of Dr Kelly. The man said he recognised Mr Bartlett from media coverage.
Mr Bartlett said: 'He said to me he'd known David Kelly since he was a boy. There was nothing to doubt about him. He told me how Dr Kelly had been a member of the Baha'i faith, and that suicide was against their religion.
'He said, "I'm telling you now, there's no way in the world that guy committed suicide." '
Mr Bartlett refuses to elaborate any further or reveal the man's identity but says he has no doubt he was genuine.
The paramedic gave evidence to the Hutton Inquiry, but said: 'I thought they'd already decided the outcome and wanted someone to confirm it for them. They'd decided it was going to be suicide and that was all cut and dried.
'I wasn't impressed with how it was conducted. It should have been under oath, the photographs of the scene should have been released and they shouldn't have sealed the documents for 70 years.'
First-hand evidence: David Bartlett and fellow paramedic Vanessa Hunt attended the body of Dr Kelly
Dr Kelly, 59, who was one of the world's leading experts on biological and chemical weapons, left his home in the village of Southmoor, Oxfordshire, on the afternoon of July 17, 2003, saying he was going for a walk. The next morning his body was found by volunteer Louise Holmes and a search dog, in nearby Harrowdown Hill woods.
Mr Bartlett and his professional partner, Vanessa Hunt, also a paramedic for many years, had just started their shift at Abingdon ambulance station when they got the emergency call at 9.40am on July 18.
As they arrived they found the area swarming with police – some in blue combats and others in plain clothes. 'You could tell immediately it was something high profile,' he said.
They were met at the scene by Sergeant Alan Dadd and several other officers.
He led them up a bridle path towards the woods, as they carried heavy oxygen cylinders and the equipment needed to treat cardiac arrest.
Eventually, the police led them off the path and into the woods, constructing a 'common approach path' with posts and blue police tape as they accompanied the paramedics.
'I asked the police if he'd fallen out of a tree'
Mr Bartlett said: 'As we approached the scene, it was obvious he was dead. He was lying flat out in the clearing with his bottle of water, knife and watch in line right next to his left arm.
'His left sleeve was rolled up and you could see a wound with some dried blood around it.'
The paramedics checked for a pulse and shone a light into his eyes to check for any pupil reaction. Then – as the police took photos – they unbuttoned his shirt and placed four electrodes on his chest to check his heart.
Having pronounced him dead at 10.07am, they made their way back to their ambulance. But in just a few minutes at the scene Mr Bartlett noted many things that have troubled him ever since.
He said: 'He was lying flat out some distance from the tree. He definitely wasn't leaning against it. I remember saying to the copper, "Are you sure he hasn't fallen out of the tree?"
'When I was there the body was far enough away from the tree for someone to get behind it. I know that because I stood there when we were using the electrodes to check his heart. Later I learned that the dog team said they had found him propped up against the tree. He wasn't when we got there. If the earlier witnesses are saying that, then the body has obviously been moved.'
Clues: Dr Kelly, who was one of the world's leading experts on biological and chemical weapons, left his home to go for a walk
Ms Holmes told the Hutton Inquiry: 'He was at the base of the tree with almost his head on his shoulders, just slumped back against the tree.'
Paul Chapman, who was searching with Ms Holmes, also said: 'He was sitting with his back up against a tree.'
The next man on the scene – DC Coe – told the inquiry: 'The body was laying on its back by a large tree, the head towards the trunk of the tree.'
In an interview with The Mail on Sunday last month, DC Coe added that he thought the head and part of the shoulders were leaning against the tree.
However, the next two police officers, PC Andrew Franklin and PC Martyn Sawyer, both said that when they arrived – just before the paramedics and after DC Coe had guarded the body alone for 25 minutes – Dr Kelly was on his back.
This was also the view given by Dr Nicholas Hunt, the pathologist who examined the body at the scene.
How did Kelly's upright bottle of water remain upright?
Despite the discrepancies, none of the three police officers were asked at the inquiry whether they touched or moved the body, although DC Coe has since denied doing so.
Lord Hutton made no mention of the contradictory evidence in his report's conclusions.
PC Franklin and PC Sawyer would not comment when approached by The Mail on Sunday.
Mr Bartlett has another concern. The Evian water bottle was standing upright no more than six inches from Dr Kelly's left upper arm, and he is amazed that he would have not knocked it over while dying.
He said: 'I said to the copper at the time, "Who stood the bottle of water up or has it been moved?" They said it hadn't been moved. 'For someone lying like that on leaf mould with a bottle of water there, he would have knocked it over while dying, I would have thought. It seemed very odd to me.'
Another point – and one that the two paramedics tried to raise at the Hutton Inquiry – was the lack of blood. Some experts have said for someone to die in the way Dr Kelly is said to have done, they would have to lose several pints of blood, which would most probably spray in all directions.
Death scene: Kelly's body was discovered by volunteer Louise Holmes and a search dog, in Harrowdown Hill woods
Mr Bartlett said: 'I've been to loads of slashed wrists and you always get loads of blood. I would have thought he would have got more blood over him. If he's going to bleed to death, you'll get a fair old bit.
'To me, people rarely commit suicide by slitting their wrists. They'll usually do it and end up in hospital.' But that was not the scene they found. He said: 'There was some blood on his left wrist, a few specks on his shirt and a spot the size of a 10p on his trousers. There was a bit on the nettles and grass but not a lot at all.
'We said at the time we doubted very much he would have died from that wound we saw. When it came out that the autopsy was from blood loss, we were really surprised. I've seen more blood at a nosebleed than I saw there.
'I'm not saying he didn't commit suicide. But there was very little blood for someone who allegedly bled to death.'
Dr Nicholas Hunt, the pathologist who carried out the post-mortem, broke his silence last month to claim there were clots of blood inside the sleeves of his jacket and that much blood soaked into the ground.
Mr Bartlett says he is not in a position to question those claims but said in the case of a slit wrist – even when the victim does not die – there tends to be blood 'everywhere'.
After leaving the woods, the paramedics found the police had implemented a 'news blackout' – meaning they were not even allowed to radio their control room for fear it would be intercepted.
In addition, they were told that as they had been near the body, they would have to wait for a machine to arrive that was able to take their boot prints so they could be ruled out of any future inquiry.
He was later surprised to hear at the inquiry that no footprints at all had been found at the scene.
Mr Bartlett said: 'It was only when we were walking back to the ambulance that we were told who the body was. One of the coppers told us it was going to be front-page news once it got out.
'We were there for an hour under a news blackout. We weren't able to radio our control or anything. That was the only time that happened to me in my 24-year career as a paramedic.'
Mr Bartlett has no doubts there should be a full inquest. He said: 'There are more than enough doubts surrounding the case. It would be interesting to see the photographs from the scene. If they had been shown at the inquiry it would have answered a lot of questions.
'It would have shown there was no blood on the top of him. It would have shown the position of him. It would have shown the distance of the tree from him.'
Kelly: vital report 'is lost'
EXCLUSIVE
By CHRIS HASTINGS
The controversy over the death of Government scientist Dr David Kelly has deepened after ambulance chiefs admitted that a vital medical record relating to the case has vanished.
The South Central Ambulance NHS Trust has lost the Patient Report Form (PRF) completed by paramedic Vanessa Hunt, who attended the scene of the former weapons inspector's death in 2003.
The disclosure will inevitably fuel demands for a full inquest into his death.
Lost record: A Patient Record Form like this was completed for David Kelly - but has since been 'mislaid' from archives
A leading coroner yesterday said that the form is one of the key documents at an inquest as it provides a record of any incident, as recorded at the time. Ambulance crews called upon to give evidence would normally rely only on the information contained in the document.
Dr Michael Powers QC, who is leading the group of doctors campaigning for an inquest into Dr Kelly's death, described the loss of the paperwork as 'quite frankly astonishing'.
He said: 'The fact that such an important document has gone missing simply strengthens the case for an inquest.
'It was clear to everyone at the time that Dr Kelly's death was a very significant event and the value of all contemporaneous documents should have been recognised. All documents should have been carefully copied.'
However, the trust says it can't find either the original document or a copy scanned into its computer system, even though it has a policy of storing such documents for ten years.
And Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, who has long maintained that Dr Kelly was murdered, last night described the loss of the file as 'unfortunate to say the least'.
At the Hutton Inquiry into Dr Kelly's death, Ms Hunt and her colleague David Bartlett confirmed that they examined Dr Kelly's body. They said they lifted his eyelids, felt his neck for a pulse and applied a heart monitor to his chest.
Probe: At the Hutton Inquiry into Dr Kelly's death paramedics Vanessa Hunt and David Bartlett confirmed they examined his body
All ambulance crews have to fill out the form for every call-out, irrespective of whether a patient is alive or dead. They record a wide range of medical information including pulse rates, blood pressure and any skin condition.
At the time, the paramedics worked for the Oxfordshire Ambulance Trust, which has since merged with three others to form the South Central Ambulance NHS Trust. A spokeswoman for the trust yesterday confirmed that a form was completed for Dr Kelly, but subsequently lost.
The admission follows a year-long wrangle over a Freedom of Information request for documents concerning Dr Kelly's death.
They included communications between the trust and the paramedics, minutes of any relevant meetings, and all correspondence with the coroner.
After waiting more than the statutory 20 working days deadline for replies, the trust eventually claimed it held no relevant information. A complaint was then lodged with the Information Commissioner. During the course of these follow-up inquiries the trust admitted it had mislaid the PRF.
In his ruling, which will be made public this week, the commissioner states: 'The trust explained that it would have expected to have had a PRF. It explained that this form would only include clinical assessment information about Dr Kelly and would not contain any other information. It explained that this form had been mislaid.
It explained that the information was usually digitised and held electronically by date in its PRF archives.
'However, having checked its system for all the entries on the date of the incident, and the dates one day either side to ensure it was not misfiled, it could not find the relevant form. It was supposed to keep this form for ten years in line with its policy. The Commissioner has checked what this form would contain and is satisfied that it would only contain clinical assessment information.'
The loss of the documents will increase pressure for an inquest into Dr Kelly's death. This week, campaigners will make a formal application to the Attorney General to go to the High Court and demand such an inquest.
The PRF was not listed in the register of evidence supplied to the Hutton Inquiry into Dr Kelly's death. The 2004 report, which concluded that Dr Kelly killed himself by slitting his wrists, was immediately branded a whitewash.
Unanswered concerns include the lack of blood at the scene, even though the inquiry concluded that Dr Kelly bled to death after slashing his wrists. It also recently emerged that Lord Hutton asked the Ministry of Justice to ensure documents relating to the case – including a post-mortem report – stay secret for 70 years.
A spokeswoman for the South Central Ambulance Trust said a PRF for Dr Kelly had been completed but she was under the impression it had been handed to Thames Valley Police. If that was the case the trust should still have kept a copy.
A spokesman for Thames Valley Police was unable to comment last night.
The ambulance spokeswoman said about 500,000 PRFs were completed each year, but it was impossible to say how many went missing.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... quiry.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1311255/Dr-David-Kellys-body-obviously-moved-Paramedic-death-scene-reveals-concerns-Hutton-Inquiry.html)
Quote9/11 and the Criminal Idiot Jew Spitzer
By: Crack_Smoke_Republican on: 12.03.2008 [00:46 ] (1579 reads)
QuoteStill another Insider Idiot Jew that covered up 9/11. He probably squawked the wrong thing to the wrong people about Israeli crimes (after not getting his cut of the E. European girl money ring). Disgusting, despicable Jews at their worst.
QuoteJewish Ghettos existed for a reason.
(11242 bytes) [nc] Print
Spitzer's Real Scandal
"Eliot Spitzer is like the good-looking bouncer in a bar, who is secretly dealing drugs," explained forensic microbiologist Mike Copass. We were in a San Diego bar this July, down near the water in Ocean Beach. Copass had acted as a facilitator of San Diego's 9/11 Citizen's Grand Jury, an extra-legal group which mounted a mock trial in April.
Copass has degrees from Stanford and Harvard, and an eager glint in his eye. Despite his preppy appearance, Copass makes some pretty radical allegations: that Eliot Spitzer acted as a firewall, preventing public disclosure of his friends' roles in the anthrax attacks that occurred shortly after 9/11, in addition to facilitating his associates' windfall from the bloated insurance pay-outs at the World Trade Center. He even accuses Spitzer of covering up the real perpetrators of the 9/11 attack itself.
Last fall, Eliot Spitzer was swept into the governor's mansion with 70 per cent of the vote. His public reputation was that of a heroic fighter of white collar crime. Earlier he bragged about being "very close" to Hillary Clinton. He hinted he wouldn't refuse an invitation to run for vice president, if his friend Hillary got the nomination.
But this summer in Albany, the Spitzer façade cracked. Instead of creating consensus, Spitzer's team spent its time plotting to unseat Republican rivals in the Legislature sometimes at the ballot box, sometimes using the police. His own attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, is now investigating the governor's office's misuse of state troopers to monitor political rival Joe Bruno. To minority leader James Tedisco, Spitzer recently snapped, "I'm a fucking steamroller, and I'll roll over you."
No major media outlet has paid attention to the San Diego Citizens Grand Jury's indictments of Rudy Giuliani, or his former "terror-expert" Jerome Hauer. The Megaphone received documents recently that indicate Eliot Spitzer's social connections may be preventing him from investigating 9/11. There's a scandal in Albany, but police spying on Bruno is just the tip of the iceberg.
Spitzer & Silverstein: The Amicus Brief
Prescient New York real estate baron Larry Silverstein became primary lease-holder on the World Trade Center a mere six weeks before 9/11. It had never changed hands before. For a down payment, Silverstein put up only $14 million of his own money, and his friends at the powerful investment bank Blackstone Group kicked in another $111 million. After 9/11, Silverstein demanded a whopping $7 billion insurance payout, in the form of two $3.5 billion payments. He argued the two different plane crashes were two separate "occurrences" of two separate attacks.
The Megaphone has now learned that as attorney general, Spitzer got involved behind the scenes, and in the courts, filing a amicus curiae ("friend of the court") brief on Silverstein's behalf on Jan. 15, 2003. For years, this brief languished in the files of the public records room on the 17th floor of the Second Circuit Court in Manhattan, until it was discovered and brought to The New York Megaphone by NYC attorney and author Carl Person. The court ended up agreeing with Spitzer and Silverstein, over-turning the decision of a lower court. Spitzer helped mid-wife a fat compromise and an eventual $4.5 billion payout for Silverstein. The Megaphone's multiple requests for comment from Governor Spitzer were ignored.
Attorney Carl Person told The Megaphone, "I was surprised to see that Spitzer had used his position as attorney general to support one private litigant over another. Normally, this is not done...Silverstein could well have been someone who destroyed evidence concerning the 9/11 events by apparently ordering or consenting to the tearing (pulling) down of 7 WTC and the removal of the debris from his multiple ground leased premises thereafter."
Silverstein's World Trade Center Building 7 collapsed at 5:20 p.m. on 9/11 without being hit by an airplane. Thirty seven eyewitnesses working on the ground as firefighters, EMTs, and reporters, recalled being warned in advance the tower was coming down. The official story however, claims a fire ignited a fuel tank in the building, hastening its sudden collapse.
WTC 7 was the NY headquarters of CIA and the SEC office investigating Enron. 9/11 skeptics believe the building was taken down by controlled demolition. Larry Silverstein himself said in a 2002 episode of PBS's Frontline that on 9/11 he recalled remarking, "Maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it...they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse." Silverstein later claimed that by "pull," he meant removing firefighters, not pulling the building down. However, all firefighters had been "pulled" from the building three hours earlier.
The Kroll Connection
This past August, another scandal radiated from the Spitzer circle. This time it was Nixon's arch-strategist Roger Stone leaving a threatening voice mail for Spitzer's dad, Bernard. Stone allegedly claimed he would subpoena the elder Spitzer for the $5 million in illegal loans Spitzer senior made to his son during his 1998 Attorney General campaign. Stone denied he had made the call. To prove he did, the Spitzer family hired Kroll Associates to trace the call. Why Kroll? Spitzer has a long relationship with this powerful, cryptic security company.
Kroll's CEO on 9/11 was one of Spitzer's old mentors from the Manhattan DA's office, Michael Cherkasky. Cherkasky investigated bank BCCI (which had links to both Islamic terror and the CIA), and the mysterious 1993 World Trade Center (WTC) bombing. Cherkasky's 2002 book Forewarned: Why the Government is Failing to Protect Us, and What We Must Do to Protect Ourselves is a confused mix of fear-mongering and insider's analysis. He sheepishly admits that the CIA was in part culpable for the 1993 WTC bombing, since they helped pull known terrorist "Blind Sheikh" Abdel bin-Rahman into the country. Cherkasky admits the FBI had a mole inside Rahman's 1993 WTC bombing cell, and lays blame for the bombing on the FBI.
After observing the 1993 WTC bombing as an operation penetrated by CIA and FBI, Cherkasky he became head of Kroll, the "the CIA of Wall Street." Kroll took on the management of WTC after the 1993 bombing. Blackstone Group, the same financiers who backed the Larry Silverstein, have also been involved with Kroll, owning big chunks of Kroll stock on occasion, according to SEC reports.
Cherkasky has donated $14,500 to Eliot Spitzer's political campaigns.
The Anthrax Connection
Eliot Spitzer's connection to key 9/11 players extends to fellow life-long Democrat, Jerome Hauer, managing director of Kroll on 9/11. Only Jerome Hauer and his former boss, Rudolph Giuliani, were indicted by the San Diego Citizens Grand Jury.
According to Bay Area News (a San Francisco-bay based publication) and Wikipedia, Jerome Hauer warned the Bush White House to go on Cipro, the anti-anthrax drug, on 9/11/01. Hauer denied this allegation to The Megaphone. The White House did go on Cipro. Six days later, the anthrax attacks started, and sent the country back into paroxysms of terror.
Government watchdog group Judicial Watch demanded to know who warned the Bush White House, but not the public, about anthrax. The White House stonewalled their Freedom of Information Act requests.
"I read that the White House did know, and they went on the anti-biotics," says Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman. He got involved because, "African American employees at Brentwood US Postal Facility were basically left out there to twist in the wind when the white guys up on Capitol Hill got immediate treatment."
Post-9/11, Jerome Hauer went on to be Coordinator of the National Institute of Health's investigation of anthrax deaths. His report blamed Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. That assertion has been widely discredited, since the five deaths in 2001 were from a fine, "weaponized" form of anthrax, the "Ames Strain" that only the U.S. military and U.S. federal government possessed.
On 9/11, Jerome Hauer appeared on television with Dan Rather. Rather posited that the 9/11 attacks must have had state sponsorship. Hauer urged Rather to blame Bin Laden only. When Rather voiced suspicions about the way the buildings fell, Hauer offered that they simply came down because they were hit by a plane. Without an investigation, Hauer somehow knew two major parts of 9/11's official story before it emerged.
Hauer is biological terrorism expert whose resume includes time at Science Applications International Corp (SAIC), a military contractor doing work in nuclear issues and psy-ops, and Bioport, manufacturer of the controversial anthrax vaccine.
Jerry Hauer and anthrax go way back. In May of 1998, he spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations on the topic of "Building a 'Biobomb': Terrorist Challenge." That evening Hauer co-presented on the topic Steven Hatfill. Yes, that Steven Hatfill, the one who later became the FBI's prime suspect in the anthrax mailings. A year after their CFR presentations, Hatfill and Hauer would become coworkers at SAIC's Center for Counterterrorism Technology and Analysis.
Hatfill had worked at Ft. Detrick, the U.S. Army's bio-weapons lab in Maryland. Hatfill was never convicted, nor even prosecuted, for anything. Today he's suing reporters for defamation. On Aug. 15, a judge ruled that five top national reporters would have to reveal confidential government sources who fingered Hatfill.
In his interview with The Megaphone, Hauer repeatedly referred to the Grand Jury as "a bunch of nutjobs" and he defended Steven Hatfill. But when asked directly if Hatfill was innocent, Hauer was less than clear:
"I think that the FBI should not have said anything about Hatfill until they knew more. I do not believe Hatfill is a murderer. And I think Steve Hatfill is very passionate, but I don't think he's a murderer, and I don't believe he did it."
Hauer was not willing to conclusively say that Hatfill was uninvolved in the anthrax attacks, stating, "I'm not going to get into those details."
Of the five people who died from anthrax exposure, one was a New Yorker. Kathy Nguyen, a hospital worker in the Bronx, was a victim of inhalation anthrax. She died alone in a hospital on October 31, 2001.
A 2004 petition gathered 100,000 signatures begging then-Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to investigate the real source of the 2001 attacks. A Zogby poll that year likewise found that 66 per cent of voters wanted Eliot Spitzer, to tackle these tough questions. What those poll respondents didn't know is that Spitzer can't investigate 9/11 or anthrax. He would have to indict his friends from Kroll, Jerry Hauer and Michael Cherkasky. That's the real scandal.
To listen to Sander Hicks's interview with Jerry Hauer, or see the Spitzer/Silverstein Amicus Brief in full, log onto the new http://www.nymegaphone.com (http://www.nymegaphone.com). Your comments are welcome.
© 2007 The New York Megaphone
http://www.nymegaphone.com/node/24 (http://www.nymegaphone.com/node/24)
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http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/158919 (http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/158919)
Anthrax Revisited
Filed under: Human Experimentation,Modern History,Psychological War,anthrax,genocide,manufacturing consent — jenniferlake @ 6:18 pm
Tags: anthrax, anthrax attack, biological warfare, September 11
On the seventh day after September 11, 2001, two letters filled with an unusual powder were mailed in central New Jersey, bound for the New York City offices of NBC, addressed to Tom Brokaw and an Editor at the New York Post. At that time, only the perpetrator(s) knew that the second wave of domestic horror begun on 9-11 was underway. Public attention to the "anthrax attacks" did not accrue for another two weeks when a Florida photo-editor, working for American Media Incorporated in Boca Raton, collapsed into a coma and died within 3 days after his admission to the hospital (Oct. 2-5).
On October 7, 2001, the U.S. declared war on Afghanistan's Taliban for harboring Public Enemy #1, Osama bin Laden. Two days after that, on the 9th, another pair of powdery missives were stamped by the automated sorting machines in the Hamilton, NJ, mail center outside Trenton. These two envelopes were headed for Washington, D.C. bearing the names of Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. They arrived for processing at the USPS's Brentwood Road distribution center where at least one of them, the Daschle letter, was confirmed to have passed through at 7am on Oct.12, three days after mailing. From Brentwood, mail going to Capitol Hill was merely a few hours away from personalized delivery.
Perhaps the Daschle letter went unnoticed nestled in a stack of mixed material, awaiting the hands of a staffer who fatefully sliced it open on Monday the 15th and released a cloud of aerosolized spores that spilled onto the carpet and even into the neighboring office suite. In the minutes and hours that followed, garbage bag-wielding agents demanded the return of unopened Congressional mail which was whisked away to an impromptu quarantine facility where it sat in isolation for weeks to come. It was not until mid-November that the unopened Leahy letter was found among the quarantine collection, "leaking like a sieve" with a needle-like hole through its paper sheath. Deadliest of the four "recovered" envelopes, the Leahy letter was said to contain a super-weaponized grade of highly refined spores –a powder so dangerous, in fact, that a robot was required to handle it. The 'opening' proceedure was delayed an additional month, to mid-December, until it could be done remotely in a special-made vacumn containment – a box within a box within a box.
But something more was not right with the Leahy letter. CDC investigator Jim Hayslett had been dispatched to Washington with the task of tracking down this letter which had been "misread" by the Brentwood scanning machine and redirected to the State Department's mail center. It should have received a coded State Department stamp as it returned into the automated routing system –it did not– but spores from the envelope allegedly dirtied the State's mailroom and severely sickened a worker there. It was Hayslett who later learned that the "undelivered" Leahy letter actually did arrive in the Senator's office. A staffer remembered it, he said, and handed it in for collection. Not one single spore was left behind in Leahy's suite.
Florida's American Media Inc., similarly, showed no anthrax spores in the likeliest of places: the air ducts leading directly from the mailroom "hot zone". The victims's homes were free of spores. It was reported that the attack's last fatality of five, in Connecticut, died as a result of thrice cross-contamination, emanating from the Leahy letter as it entered the system in New Jersey. A federal panel of medical experts, who were stymied in their deliberations, finally concurred that the 94-year-old must have exposed herself by tearing up her junk mail. They had no evidence, but seldom do inconvenient facts stop official panels from constructing conclusions: that's why we pay them.
The official story goes something like this:
Four (4) anthrax-laden letters were sent through the U.S. mail; two, post-marked September 18, went to newsmedia outlets in NYC and two, post-marked October 9, went to Washington Democratic senators. Three of them 'hit the mark' and one was intercepted on its way.
Does this scenario sound like the planes on 9-11?
A great deal of effort was expended by the feds to forge connections between the hijacking terrorists of September 11 and the anthrax attacker(s). In the months immediately post-911, anthrax became the leading suspect highlighting complicity on the part of Iraq, but it could not be proven –so, it must have been an inside job! Months turned into years, the investigation was dubbed with a catchy name (Amerithrax), and the circus focused on a bioweapons researcher who worked for the government and had helped the investigators track the source of the pathogen. The FBI launched the largest investigation in its history –over 9,000 interviews and 5,000 subpeonas– and Dr. Bruce Ivins was the last man standing scrutiny until his suicide on July 29, 2008, on the cusp of a federal indictment. Shortly after, his guilt was posthumously declared and the case was officially closed.
End of story, almost.
Details of how the bureaucratic negligence of U.S. agencies and contractors which led to the anthrax attacks could be forthcoming any year now. The 'wrongful death' lawsuit concerning photo-editor Robert Stevens, filed on behalf of his family in 2003, has been permitted to proceed by the courts and is scheduled for another round at the bench sometime in 2011. If Armageddon and the Dimension Shift don't interrupt the court proceedings, we might get to hear the bitter end of this (approved) tale.
Review the evidence at http://thirdring.wordpress.com/case-by-case-2/ (http://thirdring.wordpress.com/case-by-case-2/)
_______________________________
CHALLENGING THE BASIC ASSUMPTIONS
The most basic assumption of all is that "powerfully poisoned" anthrax-filled death threats were sent through the U.S. mail "to kill the American people", as Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer announced. But is it true?
Weighing in on the reported news highlights a very strong probability that it is not! A U.S. Postal Inspection Service chief, Roy W. Geffen, said on October 24 that forensic analysis gave them "confidence that only three letters" were circulated by mail. Details are unavailable in this embarassing circumstance of having four letters officially in hand. But, if the PO was right, which one should we delete?
LETTER #1– (mailed 9-18-01 to the New York Post) The "index patient", who was exceptional among victims for a startlingly brief incubation time, had no memory of the letter. Nobody at the Post knew anything about it until it was "found in the trash", unopened, on October 19. Two more people acquired cutaneous infections 4-6 days later, for a total of 3 victims at the Post.
LETTER #2– (mailed 9-18-01 to Tom Brokaw at NBC, Rockefeller Plaza) was the most confirmed to have arrived but nobody said when or how. Two employees were made sick, and the staffer who opened it was also an exceptional victim in the attack for having her home contaminated.
LETTER #3– (mailed 10-09-01 to Sen. Daschle), opened Monday 10-15 in the Senator's Hart Bldg. office, bore the automated stamps from the Brentwood Rd. center in Washington, and was called "the Face of Satan" by the Ft. Detrick examiner John Ezzell, but was curiously included in this remark: the "tiny amount of material in the first three letters makes the task [of identifying the spore source] even tougher...". There was no illness among Daschle staffers.
LETTER #4– (mailed 10-09-01 to Sen. Leahy), referred to above, and in continuing the remark of the expert investigator on the Daschle letter: ..."That's where the letter to Senator Patrick Leahy could come in handy". Indeed. The Leahy letter was full of anthrax, none of it left behind in his office but officials said there was enough powder to infect tens of thousands of people.
Can they explain why there were 22 victims (5 fatalities) and the closure of 22 post offices?
Review the evidence at www.thirdring.wordpress.com/the-letters/ (http://www.thirdring.wordpress.com/the-letters/)
"Tiny amounts" of anthrax, usually called "trace" and "medically insignificant" amounts, were all over the place except, in many cases, where they should have been! The situation was absurd. A positive test one day was negative the next. A confusing series of on-and-off listings ensued. Washington DC mail should have been generally "hot" with spores, but none was reported. Exceptionally, again, were claims of contaminated mail overseas from Washington but not within it. A low-intensity kind of pandemonium settled over the District of Columbia as scattered "trace" amounts appeared here and there, disrupting the functions of government in the immediate aftermath of 9-11 and the Afghani invasion.
Track along with the reports: www.thirdring.wordpress.com/contamination-trail/ (http://www.thirdring.wordpress.com/contamination-trail/) .
___________________________
WHY SHOULD WE CARE NOW?
Disruption in DC during the anthrax scare overlayed the critical days of passage for the Patriot Act which passed the House of Representatives on October 12, 2001 and was signed into law on October 26. Senators complained that they had no time to peruse the weighty legislation. Building closures and displacement only exacerbated the overly daunting task and we live with this "temporary" legislation now, as many knew we would.
Perhaps more than any other potential threat, "health" emergencies can disposess the citizens of all their civil rights including the right to refuse bodily invasion in the form of medical treatment. The anthrax attack increased the likelihood of bio-attacks in the future, concentrating resources on the (said) countermeasures of necessarily created biowarfare agents. Truckloads of cash and incentives have since poured into bio-research to refurbish biomedical infrastructure and hire pharmaceutical contractors...and they've cleaned up, tightened security, improved data-processing, streamlined protocols and communication, they swear...and this is precisely why we should be paying attention.
Among the many victories gained since 2001 by police powers, achieved through the 'election' process, was the right of agencies to take DNA samples upon arrest. There are no protections for the taking of DNA – there never were. The protection, it turns out, has always been for the "scientific utopia" that was boldly envisioned in the 1920s and '30s. Restrictive laws against biological experimentation were seen as potentially hamstringing scientific "progress" and actually do not exist. When technology advanced to the point where "cells" were amply substituted for "humans" –sometime in the 1950s– new legal arguments for the definition of "human experimentation" were safely docketed for debate. It is a form of "false antithesis" that was deeply deceptive and misleading in its time. The field of medical ethics was promoted and expanded to sketch out the differences between "you" and the stuff from which you are made. In short, "you" are not your stuff. So when they take your stuff, and you fight back –will they let you fight them?– it wouldn't surprise me if significant reversals to the present policing occurs. They will have already won. Look for the false antithesis.
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www.jenniferlake.wordpress.com/ (http://www.jenniferlake.wordpress.com/)
QuoteDoubts cloud closing of anthrax case
By Peter J Brown
Feb 25, 2010
An investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, described by the Department of Justice as the largest investigation into a bioweapons attack in the country's history, has come to a close. [1]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation released 2,728 pages of its documents on the case, which it undertook with the department and the US Postal Inspection Service. [2]
Five Americans died and 17 others fell ill as the result of exposure to anthrax, shortly after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The person the FBI identified as the perpetrator, Dr Bruce Ivins, committed suicide in 2008 before charges were filed. Ivins worked at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), based at Fort Detrick in Maryland.
In the days after his death, many people who knew Ivins or had unusual encounters with him came forward. One was Ellen Byrne, a wife of one of his colleagues. In an interview with National Public Radio, she related an exchange with Ivins at a party, which took place after some suspect anthrax arrived at USAMRIID for analysis. Apparently, he found the perfect powder fascinating.
"He was leaning over the table, and I was on the other side of the table," Byrne said. "And he leaned forward and was just really excited at how finely milled the powder was."
Ivins gestured with his hands like he was trying to weigh it on a scale and told Byrne: "It couldn't even be weighed - it just hovered. That was the word he used - hovered." [3]
FBI Director Robert Mueller made it clear right from the beginning that the FBI was not ruling out any possibilities [4], while at the same time he explained the enormous scope of the investigation.
"As most of you know, the FBI is investigating anthrax exposures and suspected anthrax exposures in Florida, in New York, here in Washington, DC, and elsewhere around the country where such exposures have been reported," Mueller said in mid-October, 2001. "While organized terrorism has not been ruled out, so far we have found no direct link." Since October 1, the FBI had responded to more than 2,300 incidents or suspected incidents involving anthrax or other dangerous agents, Mueller said. "And as all of you know, an overwhelming majority of these incidents have been false alarms or practical jokes. The FBI will devote whatever resources are necessary to investigate each of these situations." [5]
More than eight years later, there are many critics who do not agree with the FBI's conclusions.
One is Norman Covert, public affairs officer and historian at Fort Detrick from 1977 to 1999, who wrote a column, "White Powder and 007" in 2008. Asked by Asia Times Online if this 2008 column needed updating in light of the FBI's release, Covert said: "With the FBI's latest decision, my words are still apropos."
Here is an excerpt [6]:
Quote# The government mobilized its team of Double-oh (uh-oh!) secret agents seven years ago to identify a villainous mad scientist, who, without genuine motive or opportunity, single handedly: Used a Bio-Containment Level Three lab suite at Fort Detrick's US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), to develop a highly bred, weapons-grade strain of Bacillus anthracis (a scientific achievement not accomplished before, except perhaps in the biological warfare laboratories of the former Soviet Union);
# Manipulated this super bacillus with a silica coating and a slight electrical charge so that, when opened in the containment cabinet, each particle repelled others in a brilliant display;
# Ensured each particle was no more than five microns in size so that it would penetrate the fabric of a normal No 10 paper envelope, a product sold by the US Postal Service in the District of Columbia, Northern Virginia, West Virginia and Central Maryland;
Managed to remove the material from the laboratory with it already placed in at least one envelope, also likely encased in an impermeable container, which would be obscured from the security guard;
# Managed to avoid leaving any evidence on his clothing, his two automobiles and van, his house, garage, office and other personal items despite the extremely "dirty" potential of the dry agent;
# Managed, in a fashion unknown to the Department of Homeland Security and the "Double-Ohs", to have the envelopes placed in a mailbox in Princeton, NJ, with a note in a handwriting that cannot be identified with any known person;
# Managed to obscure this cutting-edge science from a host of colleagues for the entire development period - a major feat in itself!
# Simultaneously he managed to significantly improve an old anthrax vaccine to protect our troops during Operation Desert Storm; then was a key developer of the new recombinant DNA-based anthrax vaccine that was undergoing efficacy trials at USAMRIID.
By September of 2006, the FBI had 17 special agents assigned to a multi-agency task force that included 10 US Postal Service inspectors. The investigation covered six continents, logged interviews with more than 9,000 witnesses, conducted about 70 searches, and issued 6,000 grand jury subpoenas.
In parallel with its massive field investigation, the FBI spent millions of dollars on a team of US genome experts to undertake a revolutionary new approach to DNA fingerprinting so that the strain of anthrax used in the attacks could be identified and isolated.
Still, this investigation was badly tarnished as a result of the treatment of Dr Steven Hatfill, who had once conducted bioweapons research for the US Army and was identified as "person of interest" yet ultimately was cleared off all charges. Hatfill sued former US Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Department of Justice and the FBI in 2003 for violations of his constitutional rights. In the end, he was paid more than $4 million.
"Dr Hatfill had nothing to do with the horrific anthrax attacks," his attorney Thomas Connolly said at the time. "No evidence links Dr Hatfill to the crime, yet the attorney general and his subordinates have attempted to make him a scapegoat. In the process, they have trampled his constitutional rights and destroyed his life." [7]
The FBI website set up specifically to document the investigation makes no mention of this episode.
Another critic of the FBI findings is Dr Meryl Nass, a leading expert on anthrax and bioterrorism, who first met Ivins in the early 1990s and was in contact with him until 2002. She has testified before the US Congress, but not about the investigation. A Maine-based physician, she runs a blog site - http//anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com - and raises serious questions about what the FBI is presenting.
"There is no question that Ivins was mentally ill. What role the intense surveillance and bullying played to tip him over the edge will never be known. However, multiple reports of highly unprofessional FBI tactics used against Ivins and other scientists - simultaneously - tell me it is important that the defense side of the story be reported," said Nass. "A hoax letter was sent from the UK while Hatfill was there, in what may have been a further attempt to implicate him as the anthrax mailer. I have heard no evidence linking Ivins to the hoax letters that were sent in close proximity to the anthrax-containing letters. Like [US Senator Leahy], I think that if Ivins had something to do with the letters; he was not alone."
Her recent critique of the FBI report includes these four following elements:
Quote# The FBI's Summary states that "only a limited number of individuals ever had access to this specific spore preparation" and that the flask was under Ivins' sole and exclusive control. Yet the body of the report acknowledges hundreds of people who had access to the spores, and questions remain about the location of the spore prep during the period in question;
# The FBI says that only a small number of labs had Ames anthrax, including only three foreign labs. Yet a quick Pub Med search of papers published between 1999 and 2004 revealed Ames anthrax was studied in at least Italy, France, the UK, Israel and South Korea as well as in the US. By failing to identify all labs with access to Ames, the FBI managed to exclude potential domestic and foreign perpetrators;
# The FBI claims that "drying anthrax is expressly forbidden by various treaties", therefore it would have to be performed clandestinely. Actually, the US government sponsored several programs that dried anthrax spores. Drying spores is not explicitly prohibited by the Biological Weapons Convention, though many would like it to be;
# The FBI report claims the anthrax letters envelopes were sold in Frederick [Maryland]. Later it admits that millions of indistinguishable envelopes were made, with sales in Maryland and Virginia." [8]
US Representative Rush Holt of New Jersey sees the investigation's abrupt end as questionable at best.
"This has been a closed-minded, closed process from the beginning. Arbitrarily closing the case on a Friday afternoon should not mean the end of this investigation," Holt said. "The evidence the FBI produced would not, I think, stand up in court. But because their prime suspect is dead, and they're not going to court; they seem satisfied with barely a circumstantial case. The National Academies of Science review of the FBI's scientific methods in this case won't be released until summer, but the FBI doesn't seem to care." [9]
This investigation as well as that of the 9/11 attacks coincided with the evolution of blogging and social networking. Via the rapid proliferation of blogs worldwide, the Internet provided multiple fora for uninformed conspiracy buffs and experts alike. The identities of the participants are masked sometimes, and yet are often out in the open.
On Nass' blogsite, for example, an entry appears in the comments section from Dr Drew Richardson, who retired after a 25-year career as an FBI agent and former scientist in the FBI Laboratory. Richardson was head of the FBI's chemical biological counter-terrorism response unit (known as the HMRU), and he was also involved in "lie detection", or polygraph, research for the FBI.
Contacted by Asia Times Online to verify that he had written the comments, he also made a few additional comments, which he requested not be included here.
"Because I have not participated in this investigation and have not read the bureau's final reporting on the matter, I do not know which matters have been addressed and which have not," Richardson had said. "I do categorically believe that this investigation should remain open as long as there is but a single relevant and outstanding matter having any bearing on who and how many individuals were involved in the commission of these crimes.
"Having been an FBI agent for a quarter of a century and having been involved in case investigations large and small, I can with complete assurance tell you that such conspiracy theories are complete nonsense. It is not that there is no possibility that a single individual might not have some misguided notion or motive that might lead to such, but I can tell you with assurance that there were hundreds of principled individuals working on this case. Any seed of misguided activity would not be hidden from the light of exposure for a single day, let alone for months or years," he added.
Back in November 2001, a New York City Police Department detective named Lucas Miller wrote in the New York Times about the investigation: "Mistakes can be overcome; crime-solving is a long and painstaking process. In the end, it depends a lot on the ability to follow new leads, even as old ones go stale." [10]
He specifically mentioned Kathy T Nguyen, a Vietnamese hospital worker at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, who was the only New Yorker to succumb to anthrax. She died, aged 61, on Halloween night in 2001.
"She might have inhaled random airborne spores somewhere in her travels - in fact, the city has started testing the subways regularly for traces of anthrax - but it's possible she somehow happened on the terrorist's anthrax stash. Perhaps the terrorist intentionally exposed her to spores as an experiment. It's a long shot, but reconstructing her last days might lead FBI agents to a killer," said Miller. "This is typical homicide work. Witnesses and friends have been interviewed. Her phone records and her MetroCard record have been subpoenaed. Video surveillance systems in places she visited will be searched to see if anyone accompanied her."
According to Miller, "success in this investigation - as in any investigation - depends on three variables: the perseverance of the investigators, the resources available, and luck.
"Luck includes the quality of the evidence as well as some cops' talent for 'stumbling' across the perpetrator. As many New Yorkers know, David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam killer, was caught due in part to the discovery of a parking ticket issued to his car near the scene of one of his crimes," said Miller. "The FBI and local police departments working on these cases are expending resources and manpower not available in ordinary murder cases. But in this crime, as in others they solve, they will still need a good amount of luck.
By the way, the title for Miller's submission more than eight years ago is one that resonates today: "On the Trail of the Anthrax Killers."
Notes
1.) See Justice Department and FBI Announce Formal Conclusion of Investigation into 2001 Anthrax Attacks, February 19, 2010
2.) See Amerithrax Investigation, FBI
3.) See Anthrax Victims' Family Have Questions For FBI , npr, August 5, 2008
4.) See Amerithrax Investigation, FBI
5.) See FBI, Statement of Director Mueller on FBI Investigations into Anthrax Exposures and Suspected Anthrax Exposure, October 16, 2001
6.) See White Powder and 007, Norman M. Covert, The Tentacle, August 27, 2008
7.) See Anthrax 'person of interest' sues Ashcroft, FBI, CNN, August 27, 2003
8.) See Anthrax Vaccine - posts by Meryl Nass, MD, February 19, 2010
9.) See HOLT: AMERITHRAX INVESTIGATION SHOULD CONTINUE, February 19, 2010
10.) See On the Trail of the Anthrax Killers, New York Times, Published February 20, 2010 from archive of November 10, 2001
This article has been updated to include relevant links to cited material.
Peter J Brown is a freelance writer from the US state of Maine.
(Copyright 2010 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/LB25Aa01.html (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/LB25Aa01.html)
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Interesting Jewish Academic person of interest much like the other Jews surrounding the Anthrax attacks... --CSR
--------------------------------
Meryl Nass, M.D.Physician specializing in chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and Gulf War Illnesses
(http://www.ahrp.org/cms/images/board/mnass.jpg)
Dr. Nass is also an expert on anthrax and biological terrorism, and a US authority on adverse reactions due to anthrax vaccine. Dr. Nass has testified on anthrax before three congressional committees and the National Academy of Sciences, and consults widely on bio-terrorism issues. An additional interest focuses on the ways scientific research becomes perverted for political and economic ends. Her weekly column appears in http://www.RedFlagsWeekly.com (http://www.redflagsweekly.com) ; her own web site is http://www.anthraxvaccine.org (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org)
Read more about Dr. Nass
http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/28/88/ (http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/28/88/)
QuoteMeryl Nass, M.D.
Overview of Professional Areas
• Complex disorders: treated over 700 multi-symptom syndrome (fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, Gulf War syndrome) patients since 1999; treated dozens of patients referred for difficult-to-diagnose disorders
• Internal Medicine: 12 years' inpatient and outpatient management
• Emergency Medicine: 12 years' prior experience
• Expert: bioterrorism, biodefense, anthrax, anthrax vaccine injuries
Consulting and Advising (chronologic from the present)
• Chairperson, Maine Legislative Commission to Protect the Lives and Health of Members of the Maine National Guard
• Microsoft Research Laboratory
• Brighton Collaboration
• Member, Director of National Intelligence's 2008 Summer Hard Problem Program
• MedaCorp
• Office of Human Research Protection, National Institutes of Health
• Unsolved Mysteries (television program)
• Epotec
• Inter-American Development Bank (World Bank affiliate)
• Medcases Inc.
• General Accounting Office/ Government Accountability Office
• Citizen Soldier
• Member, Federation of American Scientists' Working Group on Investigation of Alleged Use or Release of Biological or Toxin Weapons Agents
• Cuban Ministry of Health
• Physicians for Social Responsibility
• Council for Responsible Genetics
• Traprock Peace Center
Medical Advisory Board Member
• Alliance for Human Research Protection, New York, NY
• Center for Human Genetics, Bar Harbor, ME
• Institute for Molecular Medicine, Huntington Beach, CA
• National Military and Biodefense Vaccine Project, Vienna, VA
• National Vaccine Information Center, Vienna, VA
• Protecting Our Guardians, Birmingham, AL
• United Movement to End Child Soldiering, Washington, DC
Reviewer
• American Hospital Formulary Service Drug Information Yearbook
• BioMedCentral
• Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy
• Expert Opinion on Pharmacotherapy
• Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons
• Journal of Clinical Pharmacology
• Nature Reviews Immunology
• SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) Yearbook
• The Lancet
• The Medical Letter
Testimonies
Meeting, VA Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses. "Symptom Patterns and Treatment Methods for Gulf War Syndrome." June 29, 2009. (Oral and powerpoint/ handouts). http://www1.va.gov/rac-gwvi/docs/Minute ... ation6.pdf (http://www1.va.gov/rac-gwvi/docs/Minutes_June2009_Appendix_Presentation6.pdf)
Hearing, Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. "Gulf War Illnesses." September 25, 2007. (Oral and written). http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dc3wqmd7_286w6z99 (http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dc3wqmd7_286w6z99)
Hearing, House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Health. "Gulf War Illnesses, Anthrax Vaccine, and Steps Toward Improving DVA Healthcare and Research for Gulf War Veterans." July 26, 2007. (Oral and written). http://merylnass.googlepages.com/writte ... -26-07.doc (http://merylnass.googlepages.com/writtentestimony7-26-07.doc)
Hearing, Senate HELP Subcommittee on Health and Bioterrorism, "Bioshield 2: Next Steps." February 8, 2005. (Written). http://www.ahrp.org/testimonypresentati ... se0205.php (http://www.ahrp.org/testimonypresentations/NassBiodefense0205.php)
Hearing, Independent Inquiry on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses. "Anthrax Vaccine and Gulf War veterans' illnesses." September 1, 2004. London, England. (Oral and written). http://www.lloyd-gwii.com/admin/Managed ... 202004.doc (http://www.lloyd-gwii.com/admin/ManagedFiles/2/M%20Nass%20presentation%20for%20GWS%20inquiry,%20Sept%201%202004.doc)
Meeting, Office of Human Research Protection, Department of Health and Human Services "Ethical and Scientific Concerns in an ARDS Network Trial." June 10, 2003. (Oral and written). http://www.ahrp.org/testimonypresentati ... /nass.html (http://www.ahrp.org/testimonypresentations/ARDSNet0603/nass.html)
Joint Hearing, Massachusetts State Legislature. "Mandatory National Guard Vaccinations." May 15, 2003. (Oral)
Hearing, House Committee on Government Reform. "Preparing a Medical Response to Bioterrorism." November 14, 2001. (Written) http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/response.htm (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/response.htm)
Meeting, Institute of Medicine Committee on Anthrax Vaccine Safety and Efficacy. October 3, 2000. (Oral and written). http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/IOMtalk.htm (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/IOMtalk.htm)
Meeting, Institute of Medicine Committee on Health Effects Associated with Exposures During the Persian Gulf War. December 15, 1999. (Oral and written).
Hearing, House Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations. "Executive Order 13139: Strengthening Oversight of Investigational Products." November 9, 1999. (Written). http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/doc1.htm (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/doc1.htm)
Hearing, House Military Personnel Subcommittee. "Anthrax Vaccine Issues: Clearing the Air." September 30, 1999. (Written). http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/Testimonies.html (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/Testimonies.html)
Hearing, House Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations. "Anthrax Vaccine: Safety, Efficacy and Legality." April 29, 1999. (Oral and written). http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/Testimonies.html (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/Testimonies.html)
Publications
1. Nass M. Letter. Data vs. Conclusions in the Optic Neuritis Vaccination Investigation. Arch Neurol, 2006; 63: 1809-1810.
2. Schumm WR and Nass M. The FDA's acceptance of Brachman's 1950's anthrax research: Good politics? Maybe. Good science? No. Medical Veritas 2006; 3: 747-52.
3. Nass M. Letter. Safety of the smallpox vaccine among military recipients.
JAMA., 2003; 290:2123-4.
4. Nass M. Anthrax Vaccine: Caveat Emptor (Let the Buyer Beware). Current Treatment Options in Infectious Disease, 2003; 5: 361-4.
5. Nass M and Nicholson G. Anthrax Vaccine: Historical Review and Current Controversies. Journal of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine, 2002; 12: 277-86. http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_ ... 002ss.html (http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_war_illness/2JNEM_Nass_Nicolson2002ss.html)
6. Nicholson GL, Berns P, Nasrall MY, Haier J, Nicholson NL and Nass M. Gulf War Illnesses: Chemical, Biological and Radiological Exposures Resulting in Chronic Fatiguing Illnesses Can Be Identified and Treated. J Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, 2003; 11:135-154. http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_ ... _JCFS.html (http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_war_illness/netaGWI_JCFS.html)
7. Nass M. Author Reply. American Journal of Public Health, 2002; 92: 1708-9. http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/CV/AJPH_l ... hange.html (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/CV/AJPH_letter_exchange.html)
8. Nass M. Anthrax Vaccine Not Safe and Effective (letter). Emergency Medicine News, July 2002; 24: 44. http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/emn.html (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/emn.html)
9. Nass M. The Anthrax Vaccine Program, and an Analysis of the CDC's Recommendations for Vaccine Use. American Journal of Public Health, 2002; 92: 715-21. http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/CV/AJPH_May2002.html (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/CV/AJPH_May2002.html)
10. Nass M. Who is Protecting the Public Health? Z Magazine, April 2002; 14: 7-10. http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/april02nass.htm (http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/april02nass.htm)
11. Nass M. Anthrax Threat is Real (letter). Technology Review, October 2001; 104: 2 MIT. http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/CV/Techno ... etter.html (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/CV/Technology_Review_Letter.html)
12. Nicholson GL, Nass M, Nicholson NL. The Anthrax Vaccine Controversy—Questions about its Efficacy, Safety and Strategy. Medical Sentinel, 2000; 5: 97-101. http://www.haciendapub.com/article43.html (http://www.haciendapub.com/article43.html)
13. Nicholson GL, Nass M, Nicholson NL. Anthrax Vaccine: Controversy Over Safety and Efficacy. Antimicrobics and Infectious Disease Newsletter, 2000; 18:1-6. http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_ ... 18-00.html (http://www.immed.org/publications/gulf_war_illness/anthrax3-18-00.html)
14. Nass M. Should the Military Suspend Its Anthrax Vaccine Program? Physicians Weekly, June 19, 2000; 17:1.
15. Nass M. The Anthrax Dilemma: Safety Issues Revisited. Medicine and Global Survival, 1999; 6: 54. http://www.ippnw.org/MGS/V6N1AnthraxUpdate.html (http://www.ippnw.org/MGS/V6N1AnthraxUpdate.html)
16. Multiple Chemical Sensitivity: A 1999 Consensus. Archives of Environmental Health, 1999; 54, 147–149. http://www.scienceblog.com/community/ol ... 01461.html (http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/1999/B/199901461.html)
17. Nass M. Biological Warfare and Vaccines: Anthrax. Applied Science and Analysis Newsletter, April 15, 1999: 10-11, continued in later issues.
18. Nass M. Anthrax vaccine: Model of a response to the biological warfare threat. Infectious Disease Clinics of North America, 1999; 13: 187-208. http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/AVmodel.htm (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/AVmodel.htm)
19. Sidel V, Nass M, Ensign T. The Anthrax Dilemma. Medicine and Global Survival, 1998; 5: 97-104. http://www.ippnw.org/MGS/V5N2Anthrax.html (http://www.ippnw.org/MGS/V5N2Anthrax.html)
20. Nass M. Will anthrax vaccine help prevent biological warfare? Defense Systems International, Fall 1998. 35-39. (reprint of number 21). http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/CV/Defens ... ional.html (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/CV/Defense_Systems_International.html)
21. Nass M. Biological Warfare (letter). The Lancet, 1998; 352: 491-2. http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/CV/Lancet_1998.html (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/CV/Lancet_1998.html)
22. Nass M. Anthrax Vaccine and the Prevention of Biological Warfare? Applied Science and Analysis Newsletter, April 30, 1998: 1, 23-25, 32.
23. Report of the Subgroup on Investigation of Alleged Use or Release of Biological or Toxin Weapons Agents. Federation of American Scientists Working Group on Biological Weapons Verification, April 1996. http://www.fas.org/bwc/papers/report.html (http://www.fas.org/bwc/papers/report.html)
24. Nass M. The Choice is Between Arms Control and Abolition. Medicine and Global Survival, 1995; 2: 180-181. http://www.ippnw.org/MGS/V2N3CWForum.html (http://www.ippnw.org/MGS/V2N3CWForum.html)
25. Nass M. Germ Warfare: Time Now for Verifiable Disarmament (Op-Ed). Interpress News Service (syndicated), March 1993.
26. Nass M. Anthrax Epizootic in Zimbabwe 1978-1980: Due to Deliberate Spread? PSR Quarterly, 1992; 2: 198-209. http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/zimbabwe.html (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/zimbabwe.html)
27. Nass M. Zimbabwe's Anthrax Epidemic. Covert Action Information Bulletin, 1992; 43: 12-18, 61.
28. Nass M. Can Biological, Toxin, and Chemical Warfare Be Eliminated? Politics and the Life Sciences, 1992; 11: 30-32. http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/CV/Pol_Life_Sci_1992.html (http://www.anthraxvaccine.org/CV/Pol_Life_Sci_1992.html)
29. Nass M. Author reply. PSR Quarterly, 1991; 1: 230.
30. Nass M. The Labyrinth of Biological Defense. PSR Quarterly, 1991; 1: 24-30.
31. Nass M, Langford HG, Jackson JF, Parent AD. Acromegaly. Journal of the Mississippi State Medical Association, 1985; 26: 251-255.
32. Zeitlin M, Masangkay M, Consolacion M, Nass M. Breastfeeding and Nutritional Status in Depressed Areas of Greater Manila, Phillippines. Ecology of Food and Nutrition, 1978; 7: 103-113.
33. Grant CK, Adams EP, Nass M. Appearance of Cytolytic Antibodies in Sheep Lymph Following Immunisation with Tumour Cells: Identification of Antibody Subclasses. Australian Journal of Experimental Biology and Medical Science, 1976; 53: 381-387.
Dr. Nass' papers have been included in the curricula at Stanford Medical School, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and other graduate and undergraduate programs.
Books that have discussed Dr. Nass' work:
1. Coen, Bob and Eric Nadler. Dead Silence. Counterpoint Press, 2009.
2. Benedict, Helen. The Lonely Soldier. Beacon Press, 2009.
3. Nikiforuk, Andrew. Pandemonium: How Globalization and Trade are Putting the World at Risk. University of Queensland Press, 2007.
4. Wheelis, Mark, Lajos Rózsa and Malcolm Dando. Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945. Harvard University Press, 2006.
5. Mwaura, Ndirangu. Kenya Today: Breaking the Yoke of Colonialism in Africa. Algora Publishing, 2005.
6. Schneider BR and Davis JA, Eds. The War Next Time: Countering Rogue States and Terrorists Armed with Chemical and Biological Weapons. USAF Counterproliferation Center, Maxwell AFB, Alabama, 2004. (See Chapter 5: "Pointing the Finger: Unclassified Methods to Identify Covert Biological Warfare Programs." Dorothy L. DuBois).
7. Swiderski RM. Anthrax: A history. McFarland & Company, Inc., 2004.
8. Frese, Pamela R and Margaret C. Harrell. Anthropology and the United States Military: Coming of Age in the Twenty-first Century. Macmillan, 2003. (See Capter 2: Guillemin J. Medical Risks and the Volunteer Army.)
9. Graysmith R. Amerithrax: the hunt for the anthrax killer. Berkley 2003.
10. Gould C and Folb P. Project Coast: Apartheid's Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme. United Nations Publications, 2002.
11. Heemstra, Thomas S. Anthrax: A Deadly Shot in the Dark. Crystal Communications, 2002.
12. Weintraub, Pamela. Bio-terrorism: How to Survive the 25 Most Dangerous Biological Weapons. Citadel Press, 2002.
13. Burgess, Steven and Helen Purkitt. The Rollback of South Africa's Biological Warfare Program. US Air Force Institute for National Security Studies, 2001.
14. Carus, W. Seth. Bioterrorism and Biocrimes. Center for Counterproliferation Research, National Defense University, 2001.
15. Parents' Committee for Public Awareness. Anthrax, A Practical Guide for Citizens. Harvard Perspectives Press, 2001.
16. Johnson, Alison. Gulf War Syndrome, Legacy of a Perfect War. MCS Information Exchange, 2001.
17. Diodati, Catherine. Immunization: History, Ethics, Law and Health. Integral Aspects Incorporated, 2000.
18. Mangold, Tom and Jeff Goldberg. Plague Wars: The Terrifying Reality of Biological Warfare. St. Martin's Press, 1999.
19. Scientific Aspects of Control of Biological Weapons. The Royal Society, 1994.
http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/ (http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/)
Quote
A lone anthrax mailer? Skeptics question FBI case
By Matt Apuzzo
Associated Press Writer / August 13, 2008
WASHINGTON—The story has all the ingredients for a good conspiracy theory: a killer germ created in a secret government lab, a government on the brink of war, a murder investigation with unanswered questions and a suspect who committed suicide before he could be charged.
The Justice Department considers the 2001 anthrax attacks solved, but for skeptics and conspiracy theorists, it's far from over.
It has been a week since authorities laid out much of their case against Bruce Ivins, a psychologically troubled Army scientist who killed himself as prosecutors prepared to charge him as the lone anthrax killer. Since then, armchair investigators, bloggers and scientists have pored over hundreds of pages of documents and circulated their own ideas about what happened.
"I think it's going to be one of the great conspiracy theories, like whether we landed on the moon or whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone" in assassinating President Kennedy, said Edward Lake, a retired Wisconsin computer specialist whose Web site has for years been one of the most comprehensive repositories for analysis on the anthrax case.
The ideas being kicked around run from the slightly suspicious to the farfetched. Some are meticulously researched, others thrown together with little if any documentation. For the most part, they fit into one of three categories, which sometimes overlap:
--Scientific skeptics want to know more about the DNA analysis the FBI used to focus on Ivins and exactly how investigators ruled out others in the biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md. Some former co-workers who question whether Ivins could have carried out the anthrax letter attacks, which killed five people in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Others simply believe Ivins was an easy target, and they want more evidence from the FBI.
"There are a lot of people in science who are weird or unstable," said Courtney Hodges, a biophysics graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley who blogs about science and culture at HodgesLab.org. "I don't consider myself among the hardcore conspiracy theorists, that this is a total cover-up. It looks more like bungled investigation."
--Watchdogs and others recall the Bush administration asserting a rock-solid case for war in Iraq, only to find glaring holes in the intelligence. They note that the anthrax attacks helped drum up support for war and they question whether Ivins is a convenient way to make the case disappear.
Glenn Greenwald, a columnist at Salon.com, has tugged at the holes in the government's evidence and called for a full accounting of the case. Meryl Nass, a Maine doctor who runs an anthrax-related Web site, says she doesn't know whether Ivins was involved but says she knows who benefited: biotech and pharmaceutical companies, neoconservatives and those who supported more wartime executive authority.
"These are people with what appears to be a potential significant motive," Nass said. "Were I an FBI agent, I would be investigating them to see whether they actually had means and opportunity to carry out an attack like this."
--Conspiracy theorists believe the government was behind the attacks. Some believe the anthrax letters were part of a "false flag" covert operation, in which the U.S. government plotted against its citizens to win public support for war. Often, that story line ends with the government killing Ivins to cover its tracks and close the case.
"They didn't decide to pin the job on Bruce Ivins after they sent out the anthrax letters, they had already decided on using him beforehand," Ken Adachi, editor of the site Educate-Yourself.org, wrote last week in a posting entitled, "Bruce E. Ivins, The Government's Latest Fall Guy."
Others, especially anti-Jewish writers, blame the attack on a Zionist plot, with the anthrax being smuggled out a decade earlier by a Jewish scientist caught sneaking into the lab late at night. (...like start the Iraq War for Israel with Benador Associates promoting the bogus Jewish Yellow Cake--CSR)
One flaw in that theory is that the scientist is not Jewish -- at least not according to his wedding announcement, which said he was Catholic. Another is that, according to the FBI's genetic analysis, the deadly anthrax wasn't created until years later -- by Ivins.
University of Florida law professor Mark Fenster, an author of a book on conspiracy theories, said the anthrax case is perfect for conspiracy theorists because it is "as dangerous as it could possibly be and also deeply mysterious." The Bush administration's penchant for secrecy doesn't help, nor does its intelligence failures on Iraq, he said.
There are also several unanswered questions that the FBI can only theorize about. For instance, investigators can't place Ivins in New Jersey when the letters were mailed. And they can't say for sure how he could have converted the anthrax into a powder, a process other scientists said would have been difficult to perform without being noticed.
And then there's Ivins, who cannot defend himself.
"It's almost a generic aspect of conspiracy theories that some of the most important witnesses, or the fall guy for that matter -- think Lee Harvey Oswald -- is now dead because they can't contradict or complicate a conspiracy theory," Fenster said.
Hodges, the graduate student, said the Ivins case reminds him of the mysterious death of another Army former Fort Detrick scientist, Frank Olson. The official explanation was that in 1953, Olson unwittingly took LSD in a CIA experiment and leaped to his death from a 13th-floor window. His family says he was murdered to maintain secrets about government weapons programs.
As for Ivins, Hodges said a biologist would have known that a Tylenol overdose is a long and painful way to commit suicide.
Capitol Hill lawmakers have pledged to investigate the anthrax attacks and the FBI's response to them. Congressional hearings will answer some questions. Others may never be answered.
Lake, who runs the Web site AnthraxInvestigation.com, says the evidence so far suggests Ivins was the anthrax killer, even though it runs counter to his long-held theory that two men acted together.
But he wants to know more about the genetic analysis. He wants to know whether the anthrax really was "weaponized" as suggested early in the case and, if so, how Ivins learned how to do it. Those questions will silence some critics, he said, but not all.
"I've seen the theories that he was a pawn like Lee Harvey Oswald. That's going to be hard to disprove," he said. "How do you disprove that a dead man was not a puppet being manipulated by the CIA? You're talking about proving a negative. You can't prove aliens didn't mail the letters."
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On the Net:
Justice Department documents: http://www.usdoj.gov/amerithrax/ (http://www.usdoj.gov/amerithrax/)
Analyzing the Anthrax Attacks: http://www.AnthraxInvestigation.com (http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com)
Educate Yourself: http://educate-yourself.org/cn/fbianthr ... ug08.shtml (http://educate-yourself.org/cn/fbianthraxevidencequestioned05aug08.shtml)
HodgesLab: http://www.HodgesLab.org (http://www.hodgeslab.org)
Dr. Meryl Nass' Blog: http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/ (http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/)
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washi ... ?page=full (http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2008/08/13/a_lone_anthrax_mailer_skeptics_question_fbi_case/?page=full)
This story was low on the radar but likely ties back to Benador affiliated and Pro-NeoCon spokesman (and likely agent) Mansoor Ijaz. -- CSR
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QuoteMansoor Ijaz
(born in 1961) is a prominent businessman of Pakistani ancestry, a financier, and a media commentator on terrorism, mostly in relation to Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan.[1] He is the founder and chairman of Crescent Investment Management LLC, a New York investment partnership since 1990 that includes James Alan Abrahamson, former director of President Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative.
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QuotePart 2 of Truth, Lies, and The Legend of 9/11: Truth Lies Legend
We may never know the true motivation that set Daniel Pearl on a quest that would ultimately lead to his grisly demise. However, thanks to an invaluable article by Robert Sam Anson in the [WWW]August 2002 issue of Vanity Fair, we do know which key player was involved in guiding him on his quest for knowledge.
Mansoor Ijaz is not a man widely known outside his circle, but his intimate connections run deep in Washington's power circles. A counter-terror expert, [WWW] a member of the Council On Foreign Relations, a Fox News analyst, as well as a business partner of former CIA Director Woolsey,James, Ijaz is represented by the public relations firm of Benador Associates, whose client list reads like a "who's who" of the propaganda heavy-hitters who were pushing for a war in Iraq - Richard Perle (former Chairman of the Defense Policy Board), Woolsey (also a member of the Defense Policy Board), Iraqi scientist ( and chronicler of Saddam's weapons program) Khidir Khamza, former Washington Times publisher (and UPI chief) Arnaud De Borchgrave, anti-Saddam author Laurie Mylroie, Harvard professor/CIA associate Richard Pipes (mentor of Mylroie, and father of Daniel Pipes), and Frank Gaffney, president of the hard-right [ [WWW] CSP Center For Security Policy] (of which Perle and Woolsey are on the advisory council).
The interlocking relationships of members of this clique - or "crew", in the parlance of organized crime - is indeed a testament to the power of networking, yet the astonishing scope of their most recent activities - both in the lead-up to and aftermath of 9/11 - is perhaps indicative of a more covertly sinister tint in the psychological makeup of some members of the political "power elite."
Ijaz's frequent writing partner, James Woolsey, for example, was one of just 17 participants in a July 2001 bio-warfare exercise dubbed DarkWinter, a simulation of a mass smallpox attack, co-sponsored by the [WWW] ANSER Institute of Homeland Security and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Among the other participants was Benador client Arnaud De Borchgrave and New York Times journalist Judith Miller, who had co-authored a book with Benador client Mylroie in the early '90's. Mylroie's book - an attempt at linking Iraq to 9/11 - was released just weeks after September 11 with a foreword written by James Woolsey. Around the same time, Judith Miller had just launched her own well-publicized book on the germ warfare threat - within a week or two of her own well-publicized role as one of the very few recipients of an "anthrax" mailing (which turned out not to be anthrax). (See Anthrax Attacks -ed.)
As for the anthrax threat, a major principal in the company that holds the exclusive license for the anthrax vaccine is former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff William Crowe, whose business associate in the consulting firm Global Options is - you guessed it - James Woolsey.
As for the present smallpox threat, the man charged with overseeing President Bush's mass vaccination policy was another "Dark Winter" alumnus, Jerome Hauer. Hauer, a former director of Kroll Associates - the security firm at the helm when the Twin Towers fell - is also the man who personally pulled strings in order to get senior FBI official John O'Neill his job as head of security at the World Trade Center. O'Neill, who had left a 30-year career in the FBI only two weeks before September 11, had perished in the rubble of the Twin Towers on his very first day at the post. Incidentally, O'Neill just happened to have been the main FBI official in charge of investigating all things bin Laden.
http://911review.org/Wiki/TruthLiesPearl.shtml (http://911review.org/Wiki/TruthLiesPearl.shtml)
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Quote
Islamabad confirms two anthrax letter attacks
War on Terrorism: Bioterrorism
By Richard Lloyd Parry
Saturday, 3 November 2001
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 15758.html (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/islamabad-confirms-two-anthrax-letter-attacks-615758.html)
There have been at least two confirmed cases of anthrax-laden letters in Pakistan, officials in Islamabad said yesterday.
Anthrax found in letter sent to Pakistani paper
Two incidents of anthrax-laden letters have been confirmed in Pakistan, officials in Islamabad said yesterday.
The latest was sent to the country's biggest newspaper, the Urdu language Daily Jang in Karachi. The editor, Mehmood Shah, said: "We have received a press release envelope which contained white powder. It has tested positive for containing anthrax spores."
Dr Mohammed Tasleem, of the Aga Khan Hospital in Karachi, said the white powder, received by the Daily Jang on 23 October, tested positive. The newspaper has received other suspicious powder but none tested positive. None of the staff has shown signs of anthrax and those who were near by when the letter was opened have been put on antibiotics.
Major-General Rashid Qureishi, a government spokes-man, said there had been one other case at a computer business. Reuters reported another confirmed case at a Pakistani bank in Karachi. The envelopes were delivered at least a week ago but details appear to have been covered up to avert panic.
Two weeks ago, Pakistani employees at the British High Commission in Islamabad were sent to a clinic after an envelope containing white powder arrived there. There was no sign that it contained anthrax.
One floor of the Daily Jang's office has been closed and signs reading "Anthrax Zone" taped to the doors. Employees in the newspaper worked in surgical masks and plastic gloves.
The Pakistani government of General Pervez Musharraf has come in for outspoken criticism from pro-Taliban Muslims for giving its support to the US-British bombing of Afghanistan. There have been isolated incidents of violence and a few deaths but yesterday the regular Friday demonstrations attracted the smallest numbers of protesters since the bombing.
Also:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asi ... ory=102970 (http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=102970)
QuoteRiddle of missing fingerprints on Dr David Kelly's 'overdose' pill packs
By: Miles Goslett (sent by Invictus) on: 10.12.2010 [00:30 ] (85 reads)
Article image
(3979 bytes) [nc] Print
Fresh doubts have been raised over how Dr David Kelly died after police admitted no fingerprints were found on the packs of pills he supposedly overdosed on.
The public inquiry into Dr Kelly's death found the weapons expert killed himself by slashing his wrist with a pruning knife and taking 'an excess amount of co-proxamol tablets'.
Three blister packs of the painkiller, each able to hold ten pills, were retrieved from Dr Kelly's coat pocket when his body was found in woods near his home.
Enlarge
Fresh controversy: Dr Kelly is said to have killed himself after being named as the prime source of a BBC report accusing Tony Blair's government of lying to take Britain into war. But the lack on fingerprints on the pill packets cast fresh doubt
Only one tablet remained, leading his post mortem examination report to state he may have taken up to 29 pills.
Co-proxamol ingestion is listed as a cause of death on his death certificate.
But Thames Valley Police has now revealed that when it tested two of the blister packs for fingerprints there were 'none recovered'.
More...
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The development is doubly significant because police have already said the knife which Dr Kelly is said to have used to cut his wrist did not have fingerprints on – nor did an open bottle of water found beside his body.
The lack of fingerprints on these items is particularly difficult to explain given that Dr Kelly was not wearing gloves when his body was recovered on July 18, 2003. No gloves were found at the scene.
Dr Kelly is said to have killed himself after being named as the prime source of a BBC report accusing Tony Blair's government of lying to take Britain into war.
Uniquely, for an unexpected death such as his, no coroner's inquest has ever been held.
Confusion: None of the exhibits - the water bottle nor the pill packets - was presented as evidence to the inquiry headed by Lord Hutton, pictured
The idea that Dr Kelly took pills of any description has long been contested by those who knew him.
Mai Pederson, a U.S. military official who worked with Dr Kelly in Iraq in the 1990s, has told the Mail he suffered from 'unexplained dysphagia' – a syndrome that can make it almost impossible to swallow pills. Friends have confirmed this.
Police have also revealed the half litre bottle of water found next to Dr Kelly's body had 111ml of water left in it, triggering questions about the likelihood that he could have swallowed 29 pills with the aid of 389ml of water – about half a pint.
Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act show that the third co-proxamol blister pack was not subjected to a fingerprint search but was 'reserved for DNA' with a 'full profile of Dr Kelly obtained'.
But this unspecified DNA evidence – which could for example be blood or sweat – does not explain the lack of prints on the first two packs.
Fingerprint expert Peter Swann, said: 'Fingerprint testing is a complex area. It is surprising no prints were found on any of these items.
'It is possible there were no prints but it would be advisable to have the exhibits re-examined by an independent expert.'
It is not known if any of the exhibits have been destroyed. None of the exhibits was presented as evidence to the Hutton Inquiry.
Attorney General Dominic Grieve is currently considering whether there is sufficient new evidence to apply to the High Court for an inquest into Dr Kelly's death.
Dr Michael Powers QC, who represents a group of doctors campaigning for an inquest, said: 'The fact no fingerprints were recovered is odd to say the least.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ed-on.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1335961/Dr-David-Kelly-No-fingerprints-pack-pills-supposedly-overdosed-on.html)
It was all orchestrated by the NeoCons. Reminds me of Colin Powell's attempted cover up of the My Lai massacre which failed. --CSR
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Colin Powell demands answers over Curveball's WMD lies
Former US secretary of state asks why CIA failed to warn him over Iraqi defector who has admitted fabricating WMD evidence
* Ed Pilkington in New York, Helen Pidd in Berlin and Martin Chulov
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 February 2011 21.45 GMT
Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi aka Curveball Curveball or Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi who gave dubious information on Iraq's secret biological weapons programme. Photograph: David Levene
Colin Powell, the US secretary of state at the time of the Iraq invasion, has called on the CIA and Pentagon to explain why they failed to alert him to the unreliability of a key source behind claims of Saddam Hussein's bio-weapons capability.
Responding to the Guardian's revelation that the source, Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi or "Curveball" as his US and German handlers called him, admitted fabricating evidence of Iraq's secret biological weapons programme, Powell said that questions should be put to the US agencies involved in compiling the case for war.
In particular he singled out the CIA and the Defence Intelligence Agency – the Pentagon's military intelligence arm. Janabi, an Iraqi defector, was used as the primary source by the Bush administration to justify invading Iraq in March 2003. Doubts about his credibility circulated before the war and have been confirmed by his admission this week that he lied.
Powell said that the CIA and DIA should face questions about why they failed to sound the alarm about Janabi. He demanded to know why it had not been made clear to him that Curveball was totally unreliable before false information was put into the key intelligence assessment, or NIE, put before Congress, into the president's state of the union address two months before the war and into his own speech to the UN.
"It has been known for several years that the source called Curveball was totally unreliable," he told the Guardian . "The question should be put to the CIA and the DIA as to why this wasn't known before the false information was put into the NIE sent to Congress, the president's state of the union address and my 5 February presentation to the UN."
On 5 February 2003, a month before the invasion, Powell went before the UN security council to make the case for war. In his speech he referred to "firsthand descriptions of biological weapons factories on wheels and on rails ... The source was an eyewitness who supervised one of these facilities". It is now known that the source, Janabi, made up the story.
Curveball told the Guardian he welcomed Powell's demand. "It's great," he said tonight. "The BND [German intelligence] knew in 2000 that I was lying after they talked to my former boss, Dr Bassil Latif, who told them there were no mobile bioweapons factories. For 18 months after that they left me alone because they knew I was telling lies even though I never admitted it. Believe me, back then, I thought the whole thing was over for me.
"Then all of a sudden [in the run up to the 2003 invasion] they came back to me and started asking for more details about what I had told them. I still don't know why the BND then passed on my information to the CIA and it ended up in Powell's speech.
"I want there to be an inquiry so that people will know the truth. So many lies have been told about me over the years. I finally want the truth to come out."
Powell has previously expressed regret about the role he unwittingly played in passing on false information to the UN, saying it had put a blot on his career. But his latest comments increase pressure on the intelligence agencies and their former chiefs to divulge what they knew at the time and why they failed to filter out such a bad source.
George Tenet, then head of the CIA, is particularly in the firing line. He failed to pass on warnings from German intelligence about Curveball's reliability.
Tenet put out a statement on his website in response to Curveball's admission. He said: "The handling of this matter is certainly a textbook case of how not to deal with defector provided material. But the latest reporting of the subject repeats and amplifies a great deal of misinformation."
Tenet refers to his own 2007 memoir on the war, At the Centre of the Storm, in which he insists that the first he heard about Curveball's unreliability was two years after the invasion – "too late to do a damn thing about it".
In the light of Curveball's confession, politicians in Iraq called for his permanent exile and scorned his claim to want to return to his motherland and build a political party. "He is a liar, he will not serve his country," said one Iraqi MP. In his adopted home of Germany, MPs are demanding to know why the BND, paid Curveball £2,500 a month for at least five years after they knew he had lied.
Hans-Christian Ströbele, a Green MP, said Janabi had arguably violated a German law which makes warmongering illegal. Under the law, it is a criminal offence to do anything "with the intent to disturb the peaceful relations between nations, especially anything that leads to an aggressive war", he said. The maximum penalty is life imprisonment, he added, though he did not expect it would ever come to that.
Curveball told the Guardian he was pleased to have finally told the truth. He said he had given the Guardian's phone number to his wife and brother in Sweden "just in case something happens to me".
Further pressure on the CIA came from Lawrence Wilkerson, Powell's chief of staff at the time of the invasion. He said Curveball's lies raised questions about how the CIA had briefed Powell ahead of his fateful UN speech.
Tyler Drumheller, head of the CIA's Europe division in the run-up to the invasion, said he welcomed Curveball's confession because he had always warned Tenet that he may have been a fabricator.
Tenet has disputed Drumheller's version of events, insisting that the official made no formal warning to CIA headquarters.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/fe ... -curveball (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/16/colin-powell-cia-curveball)
===============
Curveball doubts were shared with CIA, says ex-German foreign minister
Joschka Fischer accuses former CIA chief George Tenet over his knowledge of Iraqi defector's sketchy background
* Helen Pidd in Berlin
* guardian.co.uk, Thursday 17 February 2011 14.08 GMT
Joschka Fischer at the launch of his Iraq war memoir, I Am Not Convinced, in Berlin. Joschka Fischer at the launch of his Iraq war memoir, I Am Not Convinced, in Berlin. Photograph: Wolfgang Kumm/AFP/Getty Images
Germany's former foreign minister Joschka Fischer has accused the former head of the CIA George Tenet of making implausible claims about the handling of the Curveball case by the US.
On Wednesday Tenet, the director of central intelligence between 1997 and 2004, issued a statement on his website saying he discovered "too damn late" that Curveball – the Iraqi defector who became a key source for the CIA and the German secret service (BND) – might be a fabricator.
Reprinting an extract from his autobiography, Tenet claimed he only found out in 2005, two years after the Iraq invasion, that the BND had doubts about Curveball's claims to have witnessed first-hand Saddam Hussein's bio-weapons programme.
Asked by the Guardian whether Tenet's claims were plausible, Fischer said: "No. I don't think so."
Fischer said the BND realised some time before the war that Curveball was not a watertight source, and passed on his testimony to the CIA with warnings attached.
"Our position was always: [Curveball] might be right, but he might not be right. He could be a liar but he could be telling the truth," said Fischer at a press conference in Berlin to promote his memoir about the Iraq war.
Fischer said Germany was put in a "very difficult position" when the CIA asked whether they could "have" Curveball, or at least use his evidence to justify a war in Iraq. Germany's official position was that it would not join the coalition of the willing. Fischer himself famously told Donald Rumsfeld in February 2003 that he was "not convinced" about the case for war.
"On the one hand we didn't want to withhold from the US any bit of relevant information we had about possible WMD in Iraq. On the other hand, we did not want to take part in any propagandistic exploitation of material, which was far from proven, to justify a war," Fischer writes in his new autobiography, I Am Not Convinced.
He added: "We decided, therefore, that we would do our duty by sending the Americans all the information we had, together with our assessment that that information came from a deserter and that we had not verified or substantiated it ourselves, and that it could be completely wrong."
Fischer said today: "We, the German government, decided to pass on the evidence, and I think that was the right thing to do."
He said the then head of the BND, August Henning, wrote a letter to the CIA outlining the possible problems with Curveball. Fischer also pointed out that it was common practice in security circles – then, as now – to not rely on a single source, but to get at least three independent sources that corroborate each other.
Asked what he thought about Colin Powell demanding answers as to why the CIA and its military arm, the DIA, never told him about Curveball possibly being a liar, Fischer said he couldn't comment.
"[Powell] is a very good friend of mine, but we have never ever spoken about this phase," he said. "If there is something to discuss, he has to initiate the conversation."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/fe ... NETTXT3487 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/17/curveball-doubts-cia-german-foreign?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487)
In many ways, the death of Bruch Ivins is not much different than the death of Dr. David Kelly -- both were likely murdered because they both could legitimately expose the Jews/NeoCons/Puppets behind the Anthrax attacks.
Much of the evidence behind both murders is blantantly covered up by Jew led "investigations". -- CSR
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Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Was FBI too quick to judge anthrax suspect the killer?
By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Scouring the anthrax-laced mail that took five lives and terrorized the East Coast in 2001, laboratory scientists discovered a unique contaminant — a tiny scientific fingerprint that they hoped would help unmask the killer.
One senior FBI official wrote in March 2007, in a recently declassified memo, that the potential clue "may be the most resolving signature found in the evidence to date."
Yet once FBI agents concluded that the likely culprit was Bruce Ivins — a mentally troubled, but widely regarded Army microbiologist — they stopped looking for the contaminant, after testing only a few work spaces of the scores of researchers using the anthrax strain found in the letters. They quit searching, despite finding no traces of the substance in hundreds of environmental samples from Ivins' lab, office, car and home.
It's been two and a half years since Ivins committed suicide in the face of prosecutors' threats to charge him with five murders, each carrying a potential death sentence. It's been more than a year since the Justice Department, despite lacking hard proof, formally declared that Ivins "perpetrated the anthrax letter attacks."
But the FBI's decision not to fully test for the distinct bacterial contaminant, pieced together by McClatchy in interviews with scientists, federal law enforcement officials and in a review of recently declassified bureau records, could reignite the debate over whether its agents found the real killer.
The Justice Department closed the eight-year investigation, said to cost as much as $100 million. However, none of the circumstantial evidence it found showed that Ivins prepared the deadly powder, scrawled "Death to America" in a seeming mimic of al Qaida, or twice sneaked away on six and a half hour roundtrip drives to drop them in a Princeton, N.J., mailbox.
If the FBI got the right man, then there is no consequence to its decision to stop hunting for bacillus subtilis, a harmless bacterial contaminant that resembles anthrax. But if Ivins was innocent, then the killer is at large, and the bureau may have missed a big opportunity.
Some scientists and ex-colleagues of Ivins, who spent 27 years studying anthrax at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., remain convinced of his innocence and believe the FBI erred in limiting the testing.
"This was not an incidental finding," said Martin Hugh-Jones, a retired professor of veterinary medicine at Louisiana State University and one of the world's foremost anthrax experts. "The FBI had what I would call an institutional fingerprint. Whoever had that strain of (bacteria) has to answer to the investigators."
Hugh-Jones, who knew Ivins, believes he lacked the expertise to make the anthrax powder. He contends that the bureau "dismissed" the importance of the contaminant, but concedes that "a bit of housekeeping" could have made it untraceable by the time testing began years later.
One of four federal anthrax investigators, made available to McClatchy on the condition of anonymity, described the contaminant as a clue that "didn't pan out." The official said that the bureau tested "thousands" of samples for the substance, but that included 1,057 anthrax samples submitted by various labs. He wouldn't say how many researchers' work areas were tested.
Some 12,000 pages of bureau records made public to date reflect tests on hundreds of samples gathered in searches surrounding Ivins, but little evidence of tests on other researchers' lab spaces or their stocks of the contaminant.
"They've got thousands of samples?" Hugh-Jones echoed. "But were they thousands of the right samples?"
The mysterious mailing of five anthrax-filled letters to media firms and politicians in New York, Washington and Boca Raton, Fla., sickened 22 people, five fatally, and forced 32,000 others to take antibiotics for weeks. Letters sent to Democratic U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Tom Daschle of South Dakota contained a purer, especially deadly anthrax powder, causing lengthy shutdowns of a Senate office building and a major postal facility.
Occurring shortly after al Qaida hijackers seized and crashed four passenger jets on Sept. 11, 2001, the mailings ignited fears that Osama bin Laden or Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (or Jews-Israeli-NeoCon Scams) had loosed a deadly biological weapon.
Lab tests, however, soon showed that the anthrax in the letters was a strain used solely at 18 U.S., Canadian and European bio-weapons facilities.
Searching for a domestic perpetrator, FBI agents, postal inspectors and lab scientists seemed to spare nothing in their push to narrow a huge suspect list. Initially, they paid up to $1 million for a single genetic lab test, hastening the development of a new field of microbial forensics.
FBI agents locked on Ivins after 2007 tests showed a genetic match between the mailed anthrax and spores in a flask in his lab. He'd shared the contents with others. Testing all samples submitted by labs, the FBI found eight with mutations matching those in Ivins' anthrax, and soon eliminated all suspects but Ivins.
Colleagues and friends knew Ivins as a first-rate scientist who played the organ at church and livened parties with juggling routines, music and limericks. Even after learning of his decades-long obsession with a college sorority and his threat shortly before his suicide to carry out a mass shooting, some of them challenge the FBI's decision, after his death, to elevate him from prime suspect to killer.
"It's irresponsible," said Gerry Andrews, who was Ivins' boss at the time of the mailings.
"I'd rather have a fallible, but more honest FBI, where they say he's our number one suspect, but we really don't know."
Andrews insisted, however, that Ivins and his colleagues "didn't have anything to do with it."
Retired Army Lt. Col. Jeffrey Adamowicz, who supervised Ivins in 2003 and 2004, expressed dismay that the search for the contaminant was cut short.
Adamowicz said that anyone with access to spores from Ivins' flask — or to anthrax he shipped to other labs — needed only "a teeny tiny microscopic drop of that culture to grow their own."
Despite the FBI's cutting-edge work, controversy has followed the "Amerithrax" inquiry.
One person close to the investigation, who requested anonymity to avoid harming relationships, suggested that FBI officials felt "trapped" by Ivins' suicide.
"If they ever had any doubts, once he committed suicide, they had to unite," this person said. "Otherwise, you've driven an innocent man to suicide. And that's a terrible thing."
The law enforcement officials bristled at such assertions, saying that they were seeking Justice Department approval to indict Ivins in the days before he died, but also had risked exposing witnesses to alert his lawyer that he might be a danger to himself or others.
In February, a National Academy of Sciences panel challenged the bureau's finding that a genetic match meant that the wet anthrax in Ivins' flask was the "parent" of the dry powder in the envelopes. The panel said that link wasn't definitive.
Meantime, at the request of skeptics in Congress, the Government Accountability Office recently began an extensive review of the FBI's handling of the inquiry, in which a former Army microbiologist, Steven Hatfill, collected a $5.8 million court settlement after he was mistakenly targeted and publicly identified.
The law enforcement officials stressed that they agreed Ivins was the mailer based on "the totality of the evidence" gathered in gumshoe investigating, not just lab tests.
In a 91-page summary of the inquiry last year, the Justice Department alleged that Ivins: feared that Congress might discontinue an anthrax vaccine program to which he'd devoted his career; misled FBI agents in 2002 by providing anthrax samples that weren't from his flask; had the ability to use the lab's equipment to dry anthrax into fine powder, and was a night owl in his lab in the weeks before the letters were mailed.
The FBI got some corroboration last month when an expert panel concluded that Ivins was the killer, after conducting an unusual, posthumous, court-approved review of his psychiatric records.
Lab scientists didn't identify the genetically unique strain of B. subtilis until December 2005. It was in letters sent to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post, but wasn't in the Senate letters.
B. subtilis is harmless, but looks and behaves so much like anthrax that researchers have used it to simulate how anthrax spores would act if made into an airborne spray.
Its presence in the letters, LSU's Hugh-Jones said, suggests that somebody grew anthrax using equipment contaminated during earlier B. subtilis experiments.
In March 2007, an FBI advisory panel of six scientists recommended expansive testing for both the mutations in the anthrax and the B. subtilis strain, describing the latter as perhaps the most promising clue to date.
One of the unnamed law enforcement officials said that the FBI arranged for extensive studies of B. subtilis. It also tested for, but didn't find the contaminant in a lab at the Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, which years earlier grew anthrax that went into Ivins' flask and which also received anthrax from him, the official said. Tests also were conducted in work areas of unidentified parties who were under "under investigation," but weren't anthrax researchers, he said.
But once the four mutations in the mailed anthrax were linked to Ivins' flask, there seemed little value to testing the equipment, countertops and B. subtilis stocks in the labs of researchers whose anthrax didn't match Ivins' spores, another of the law enforcement officials said.
Jacques Ravel, a lab scientist who aided the FBI while with the Institute for Genomic Research in Rockville, Md., shrugged off the B. subtilis lead as "a long shot," saying that the contaminant is found "everywhere" in the air and soil and wasn't used much at the time by bio-weapons labs.
However, a 2004 paper in a science journal described a study of B. subtilis by researchers at Dugway, the Battelle Memorial Institute's operations at Dugway, and the Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. Unlike Ivins, researchers at Dugway and Battelle both worked with dry anthrax powder.
Nonetheless, the National Academy of Sciences' panel accepted the FBI's finding that the incomplete testing for B. subtilis lead "did not provide useful forensic information." But, the panel said deep in its report, such clues "should be investigated to their fullest" in the future.
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
Panel supports FBI's findings in anthrax letters case
Posted on Thursday, May 19, 2011
FBI lab reports on anthrax attacks suggest another miscue
Did the FBI get the real anthrax killer?
By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Buried in FBI laboratory reports about the anthrax mail attacks that killed five people in 2001 is data suggesting that a chemical may have been added to try to heighten the powder's potency, a move that some experts say exceeded the expertise of the presumed killer.
The lab data, contained in more than 9,000 pages of files that emerged a year after the Justice Department closed its inquiry and condemned the late Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins as the perpetrator, shows unusual levels of silicon and tin in anthrax powder from two of the five letters.
Those elements are found in compounds that could be used to weaponize the anthrax, enabling the lethal spores to float easily so they could be readily inhaled by the intended victims, scientists say.
The existence of the silicon-tin chemical signature offered investigators the possibility of tracing purchases of the more than 100 such chemical products available before the attacks, which might have produced hard evidence against Ivins or led the agency to the real culprit.
But the FBI lab reports released in late February give no hint that bureau agents tried to find the buyers of additives such as tin-catalyzed silicone polymers.
The apparent failure of the FBI to pursue this avenue of investigation raises the ominous possibility that the killer is still on the loose.
A McClatchy analysis of the records also shows that other key scientific questions were left unresolved and conflicting data wasn't sorted out when the FBI declared Ivins the killer shortly after his July 29, 2008, suicide.
One chemist at a national laboratory told McClatchy that the tin-silicone findings and the contradictory data should prompt a new round of testing on the anthrax powder.
A senior federal law enforcement official, who was made available only on the condition of anonymity, said the FBI had ordered exhaustive tests on the possible sources of silicon in the anthrax and concluded that it wasn't added. Instead, the lab found that it's common for anthrax spores to incorporate environmental silicon and oxygen into their coatings as a "natural phenomenon" that doesn't affect the spores' behavior, the official said.
To arrive at that position, however, the FBI had to discount its own bulk testing results showing that silicon composed an extraordinary 10.8 percent of a sample from a mailing to the New York Post and as much as 1.8 percent of the anthrax from a letter sent to Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, far more than the occasional trace contamination. Tin — not usually seen in anthrax powder at all — was measured at 0.65 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively, in those letters.
An FBI spokesman declined to comment on the presence of tin or to answer other questions about the silicon-tin connection.
Several scientists and former colleagues of Ivins argue that he was a career biologist who probably lacked the chemistry knowledge and skills to concoct a silicon-based additive.
"There's no way that an individual scientist can invent a new way of making anthrax using silicon and tin," said Stuart Jacobsen, a Texas-based analytical chemist for an electronics company who's closely studied the FBI lab results. "It requires an institutional effort to do this, such as at a military lab."
Martin Hugh-Jones, a world-renowned anthrax expert who teaches veterinary medicine at Louisiana State University, called it "just bizarre" that the labs found both tin — which can be toxic to bacteria such as anthrax during lab culturing — and silicon.
"You have two elements at abnormally high levels," Hugh-Jones said. "That reduces your probability to a very small number that it's an accident."
The silicon-tin connection wasn't the only lead left open in one of the biggest investigations in FBI history, an inquiry that took the bureau to the cutting edge of laboratory science. In April, McClatchy reported that after locking in on Ivins in 2007, the bureau stopped searching for a match to a unique genetic bacterial strain scientists had found in the anthrax that was mailed to the Post and to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, although a senior bureau official had characterized it as the hottest clue to date.
FBI officials say it's all a moot point, because they're positive they got the right man in Ivins. A mentally troubled anthrax researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., Ivins overdosed on drugs not long after learning that he'd soon face five counts of capital murder.
In ending the inquiry last year, the Justice Department said that a genetic fingerprint had pointed investigators to Ivins' lab, and gumshoe investigative techniques enabled them to compile considerable circumstantial evidence that demonstrated his guilt.
Among these proofs, prosecutors cited Ivins' alleged attempt to steer investigators away from a flask of anthrax in his lab that genetically matched the mailed powder — anthrax that had been shared with other researchers. They also noted his anger over a looming congressional cut in funds for his research on a new anthrax vaccine.
However, the FBI never found hard evidence that Ivins produced the anthrax or that he scrawled threatening letters seemingly meant to resemble those of Islamic terrorists. Or that he secretly took late-night drives to Princeton, N.J., to mail them.
The FBI declared Ivins the killer soon after paying $5.8 million to settle a suit filed by another former USAMRIID researcher, Steven Hatfill, whom the agency mistakenly had targeted earlier in its investigation.
Anthrax is one of the deadliest and most feared biological weapons. Once inhaled, microscopic anthrax spores germinate into rapidly multiplying, highly toxic bacteria that attack human tissue. The resulting illnesses are lethal within days if untreated.
The letters, mailed just weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, not only went to the New York Post, Leahy and Brokaw, but also to American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, Fla., and to Democratic then-Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota. Five people died, 17 were sickened and about 31,000 were forced to take powerful antibiotics for weeks. Crews wearing moon suits spent several weeks eradicating the spores from a Senate office building and a central Postal Service facility in Washington.
The FBI guarded its laboratory's finding of 10.8 percent silicon in the Post letter for years. New York Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler asked FBI Director Robert Mueller how much silicon was in the Post and Leahy letters at a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in September 2008. The Justice Department responded seven months later that silicon made up 1.4 percent of the Leahy powder (without disclosing the 1.8 percent reading) and that "a reliable quantitative measurement was not possible" for the Post letter.
The bureau's conclusions that silicon was absorbed naturally drew a gentle challenge in February from a panel of the National Academy of Sciences, which evaluated the investigation's lab work.
While finding no evidence that silicon had been added to the mailed anthrax, the panel noted deep in its report that the FBI had provided "no compelling explanation" for conflicts in silicon test results between the Sandia National Laboratories and its own lab.
Sandia — which used electron microscopes, unlike the FBI — reported only a tenth as much silicon in the New York Post letter as the bureau's lab did. Sandia said it was all embedded in the spore coatings, where it wasn't harmful.
The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology ran a third set of tests and found pockets of heavy silica concentrations, but it couldn't say whether they were inside or outside the spores.
Jacobsen, the Texas chemist, suspects that the silica pockets represented excess material that went through a chemical reaction and hardened before it could penetrate the spores.
The National Academy of Sciences panel wrote that the varying composition of the powder might have accounted for the differing findings.
While finding no evidence that silicon was added, the panel said it "cannot rule out the intentional addition of a silicon-based substance ... in a failed attempt to enhance dispersion" of the New York Post powder.
Tufts University chemistry professor David Walt, who led the panel's analysis of the silicon issue, said in a phone interview that "there was not enough silicon in the spores that could account for the total silicon content of the bulk analysis."
He said it was unclear whether the "trace" levels of tin were significant.
During the FBI's seven-year hunt, the Department of Homeland Security commissioned a team of chemists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California to grow anthrax-like spores under varying conditions to see how much silicon would end up naturally in the final product.
They found little, if any, silicon in most cases, far less than was in the New York Post letter, said Stephan Velsko, one of the two researchers. He called the tin readings from the FBI's anthrax data "baffling."
Peter Weber, Velsko's co-researcher, said the academy panel's focus on the conflicting data "raises a big question," and "it'd be really helpful for closure of this case if that was resolved."
He suggested that further "micro-analysis" with a highly sophisticated electron microscope could "pop the question marks really quickly."
In a chapter in a recently updated book, "Microbial Forensics," Velsko wrote that the anthrax "must have indeed been produced under an unusual set of conditions" to create such high silicon counts. That scenario, he cautioned, might not be "consistent with the prosecution narrative in this case."
About 100 tin-catalyzed silicone products are on the market, and an even wider array was available in 2000 and 2001, before the mailings, said Richie Ashburn, a vice president of one manufacturer, Silicones Inc., in High Point, N.C.
Mike Wilson, a chemist for another silicone products maker, SiVance, in Gainesville, Fla., said that numerous silicon products could be used to make spores or other particles water-repellent. He also said that the ratios of silicon to tin found in the Post and Leahy samples would be "about right" if a tin-catalyzed silicone had been added to the spores.
Jacobsen, a Scottish-born and -educated chemist who once experimented with silicon coatings on dust particles, said he got interested in the spore chemistry after hearing rumors in late 2001 that a U.S. military facility had made the killer potions. He called it "outrageous" that the scientific issues haven't been addressed.
"America, the most advanced country in the world, and the FBI have every resource available to them," he said. "And yet they have no compelling explanation for not properly analyzing the biggest forensic clue in the most important investigation the FBI labs had ever gotten in their history."
As a result of Ivins' death and the unanswered scientific issues, Congress' investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office, is investigating the FBI's handling of the anthrax inquiry.
(Tish Wells contributed to this article.)
MORE FROM MCCLATCHY
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/05/19/1 ... tacks.html (http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/05/19/114467/fbi-lab-reports-on-anthrax-attacks.html)
Another "Anthrax" story by CIA Jew Scam artist "Edward Jay Epstein". He likely is covering for Spertzel and high level Jews who created the "Weaponized in a Lab" Anthrax. This guy was mentioned earlier in this thread. He mentions the plain obvious for Goyim consumption... and hides the Jew factor in all of it. --CSR
viewtopic.php?f=14&t=10072&start=45#p39410 (http://theinfounderground.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=10072&start=45#p39410)
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The Anthrax Attacks Remain Unsolved
The FBI disproved its main theory about how the spores were weaponized.
JANUARY 24, 2010, 7:33 P.M. ET
By EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN <:^0
The investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks ended as far as the public knew on July 29, 2008, with the death of Bruce Ivins, a senior biodefense researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Md. The cause of death was an overdose of the painkiller Tylenol. No autopsy was performed, and there was no suicide note.
Less than a week after his apparent suicide, the FBI declared Ivins to have been the sole perpetrator of the 2001 Anthrax attacks, and the person who mailed deadly anthrax spores to NBC, the New York Post, and Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. These attacks killed five people, closed down a Senate office building, caused a national panic, and nearly paralyzed the postal system.
The FBI's six-year investigation was the largest inquest in its history, involving 9,000 interviews, 6,000 subpoenas, and the examination of tens of thousands of photocopiers, typewriters, computers and mailboxes. Yet it failed to find a shred of evidence that identified the anthrax killer—or even a witness to the mailings. With the help of a task force of scientists, it found a flask of anthrax that closely matched—through its genetic markers—the anthrax used in the attack.
This flask had been in the custody of Ivins, who had published no fewer than 44 scientific papers over three decades as a microbiologist and who was working on developing vaccines against anthrax. As custodian, he provided samples of it to other scientists at Fort Detrick, the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, and other facilities involved in anthrax research.
According to the FBI's reckoning, over 100 scientists had been given access to it. Any of these scientists (or their co-workers) could have stolen a minute quantity of this anthrax and, by mixing it into a media of water and nutrients, used it to grow enough spores to launch the anthrax attacks.
Consequently, Ivins, who was assisting the FBI with its investigation, as well as all the scientists who had access to the anthrax, became suspects in the investigation. They were intensely questioned, given polygraph examinations, and played off against one another in variations of the prisoner's dilemma game. Their labs, computers, phones, homes and personal effects were scrutinized for possible clues.
As the so-called Amerithrax investigation proceeded, the FBI ran into frustrating dead ends, such as its relentless five-year pursuit of Steven Hatfill, which ended with an apology in 2007 and Mr. Hatfill receiving a $5.8 million settlement from the U.S. government as compensation. Another scientist, Perry Mikesell, became so stressed by the FBI's games that he began to drink heavily and died of a heart attack in October 2002.
Eventually, the FBI zeroed in on Ivins. Not only did he have access to the anthrax, but FBI agents suspected he had subtly misled them into their Hatfill fiasco. A search of his email turned up pornography and bizarre emails which, though unrelated to anthrax, suggested that he was a deeply disturbed individual.
The FBI turned the pressure up on him, isolating him at work and forcing him to spend what little money he had on lawyers to defend himself. He became increasingly stressed. His therapist reported that Ivins seemed obsessed with the notion of revenge and even homicide. Then came his suicide (which, as Eric Nadler and Bob Coen show in their documentary "The Anthrax War," was one of four suicides among American and British biowarfare researchers in past years). Since Ivins's odd behavior closely fit the FBI's profile of the mad scientist it had been hunting, his suicide provided an opportunity to close the case. So it held a congressional briefing in which it all but pronounced Ivins the anthrax killer.
But there was still a vexing problem—silicon.
Silicon was used in the 1960s to weaponize anthrax. Through an elaborate process, anthrax spores were coated with the substance to prevent them from clinging together so as to create a lethal aerosol. But since weaponization was banned by international treaties, research anthrax no longer contains silicon, and the flask at Fort Detrick contained none. (NOTE: NO MENTION OF ISRAEL AS A SOURCE -- CSR)
***
Yet the anthrax grown from it had silicon, according to the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. This silicon explained why, when the letters to Sens. Leahy and Daschle were opened, the anthrax vaporized into an aerosol. If so, then somehow silicon was added to the anthrax. But Ivins, no matter how weird he may have been, had neither the set of skills nor the means to attach silicon to anthrax spores.
At a minimum, such a process would require highly specialized equipment that did not exist in Ivins's lab—or, for that matter, anywhere at the Fort Detrick facility. As Richard Spertzel, a former biodefense scientist who worked with Ivins, explained in a private briefing on Jan. 7, 2009, the lab didn't even deal with anthrax in powdered form, adding, "I don't think there's anyone there who would have the foggiest idea how to do it." So while Ivins's death provided a convenient fall guy, the silicon content still needed to be explained.
The FBI's answer was that the anthrax contained only traces of silicon, and those, it theorized, could have been accidently absorbed by the spores from the water and nutrient in which they were grown. No such nutrients were ever found in Ivins's lab, nor, for that matter, did anyone ever see Ivins attempt to produce any unauthorized anthrax (a process which would have involved him using scores of flasks.) But since no one knew what nutrients had been used to grow the attack anthrax, it was at least possible that they had traces of silicon in them that accidently contaminated the anthrax.
Natural contamination was an elegant theory that ran into problems after Congressman Jerry Nadler pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller in September 2008 to provide the House Judiciary Committee with a missing piece of data: the precise percentage of silicon contained in the anthrax used in the attacks.
The answer came seven months later on April 17, 2009. According to the FBI lab, 1.4% of the powder in the Leahy letter was silicon. "This is a shockingly high proportion," explained Stuart Jacobson, an expert in small particle chemistry. "It is a number one would expect from the deliberate weaponization of anthrax, but not from any conceivable accidental contamination."
Nevertheless, in an attempt to back up its theory, the FBI contracted scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Labs in California to conduct experiments in which anthrax is accidently absorbed from a media heavily laced with silicon. When the results were revealed to the National Academy Of Science in September 2009, they effectively blew the FBI's theory out of the water.
The Livermore scientists had tried 56 times to replicate the high silicon content without any success. Even though they added increasingly high amounts of silicon to the media, they never even came close to the 1.4% in the attack anthrax. Most results were an order of magnitude lower, with some as low as .001%.
What these tests inadvertently demonstrated is that the anthrax spores could not have been accidently contaminated by the nutrients in the media. "If there is that much silicon, it had to have been added," <$> Jeffrey Adamovicz <:^0 , who supervised Ivins's work at Fort Detrick, wrote to me last month. He added that the silicon in the attack anthrax could have been added via a large fermentor—which Battelle and other labs use" but "we did not use a fermentor to grow anthrax at USAMRIID . . . [and] We did not have the capability to add silicon compounds to anthrax spores."
***
If Ivins had neither the equipment or skills to weaponize anthrax with silicon, then some other party with access to the anthrax must have done it. Even before these startling results, Sen. Leahy had told Director Mueller, "I do not believe in any way, shape, or manner that [Ivins] is the only person involved in this attack on Congress."
When I asked a FBI spokesman this month about the Livermore findings, he said the FBI was not commenting on any specifics of the case, other than those discussed in the 2008 briefing (which was about a year before Livermore disclosed its results). He stated: "The Justice Department and the FBI continue working to conclude the investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks. We anticipate closing the case in the near future."
So, even though the public may be under the impression that the anthrax case had been closed in 2008, the FBI investigation is still open—and, unless it can refute the Livermore findings on the silicon, it is back to square one.
<$> Mr. Epstein is currently completing a book on the 9/11 Commission. <:^0
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 15284.html (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704541004575011421223515284.html)
Jew ZioPuppets in the Whitehouse working for their Jew Masters... --CSR
-----------
FBI was told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials
BY James Gordon Meek (Goyim?)
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Saturday, August 2nd 2008, 6:32 PM
WASHINGTON - In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda, but investigators ruled that out, the Daily News has learned.
After the Oct. 5, 2001, death from anthrax exposure of Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, Mueller was "beaten up" during President Bush's morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide.
"They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official told The News.
On October 15, 2001, President Bush said, "There may be some possible link" to Bin Laden, adding, "I wouldn't put it past him." Vice President Cheney also said Bin Laden's henchmen were trained "how to deploy and use these kinds of substances, so you start to piece it all together."
But by then the FBI already knew anthrax spilling out of letters addressed to media outlets and to a U.S. senator was a military strain of the bioweapon.
"Very quickly [Fort Detrick, Md., experts] told us this was not something some guy in a cave could come up with," the ex-FBI official said. "They couldn't go from box cutters one week to weapons-grade anthrax the next." http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... _on_a.html (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2008/08/02/2008-08-02_fbi_was_told_to_blame_anthrax_scare_on_a.html) --(Jew Mag with Goy Reporter?)
What's Really Going On at the Israeli Institute for Biological Research?
Exposing Israel's Most Dangerous Secret
By SALEH EL-NAAMI
June 24, 2011
Drivers will only dart a glance at that mammoth structure nestled in the dunes south of Rishon Litsion southeast of Tel Aviv as they speed on their way. It is forbidden to turn off the Tel Aviv-Rishon Litsion highway onto the side road leading up to that building, which is barricaded by cement walls equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance and warning systems developed by Israel's military industries.
That fortress-like structure is the Israeli Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) where Israel develops its biological and chemical weapons and prepares for any eventuality of biological or chemical warfare. It is the most top-secret military installation in Israel. So tightly is it guarded by military censorship that the Israeli press has to turn to Western sources for scraps of information made available to them, very intermittently, by special contacts inside the institute.
Only once has the Israeli press been given leeway to discuss what goes on behind those high security walls. That was last month when Avisha Klein filed a suit against the IIBR administration for harassment and emotional abuse. A long-term employee at the institute, Klein has served in various positions, one of which was as part of a team to develop an ointment to protect the skin from mustard gas. But this is only one of the many details that have come to light in the course of the proceedings, which have shed considerable light on the nature and scope of the institute's work.
The IIBR is staffed by some 300 scientists and technicians employed in one or more of its many departments, each of which specialises in a specific area of chemical or biological research generally aimed at the production of chemical or biological weaponry. One of these departments, for example, is reported to have developed the poison that was used by the notorious Mossad assassination unit, Kidon, in its botched attempt to eliminate Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal in 1997. Nevertheless, if there remains some question over the accuracy of this information, which was reported in Haaretz, no one disputes that the first time the institute's products were used in an assassination operation was in late 1977 when then prime minister Menachem Begin ordered Mossad to eliminate Wadie Haddad.
A leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Haddad was accused by Israel of responsibility for several terrorist operations, the last of which was the hijacking of an Israeli passenger plane en route to Entebbe in 1976. According to a recently published book by the Israeli journalist Aharon Klein, Haddad had a great fondness for Belgian chocolates. Mossad obtained some of these special chocolates, coated them with a slow-acting poison, and had them delivered to Haddad, who was then living in Baghdad, by an Iraqi official who was a Mossad agent and who had struck up a friendship with Haddad. Klein relates that the deadly substance was first developed in the IIBR and that its slow-acting and undetectable properties ensured that the agent and the instrument of death would not be discovered.
And indeed, following a gradual but severe deterioration in his health, Haddad was flown to a hospital in East Germany where he was diagnosed with leukaemia and eventually died on 28 March 1978. It was not until 32 years later that the truth came to light: that the real cause of death was a poison produced by IIBR.
It is not unlikely that Mossad conducted many assassination operations in this way, so as not to leave its fingerprints. In other words, the seemingly accidental deaths of many individuals that Israel regarded as a threat may have actually been caused by substances produced by IIBR. Most likely, the poison that Mossad agents injected into Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai in February 2010 came from IIBR.
According to information that has recently come out, the institute contains a department specialising in the production of vaccines against biological weapons. One of the chief focuses of research and development, here, was anthrax, which Israel fears the Arabs and resistance organisations will use against it in a confrontation. The institute also has a department for developing remedies to minimise and counter the effects of chemical weaponry. The whole presents a gruesome picture of a curious chemical and biological race, with the institute virtually competing with itself to produce antidotes to weapons that it, itself, is producing, or that it fears others will use against Israel in an eventual confrontation.
The IIBR works closely and in full coordination with the Israeli army and intelligence, which furnish the institute with their lists of priorities in light of their strategic threat forecasts. For example, information that has come to light during the coverage of Klein's suit reveals that many years ago the Israeli military establishment was concerned that Arab states might use such chemical agents as mustard gas in an potential assault against Israel and, therefore, instructed the institute to develop a chemical substance to minimise the effects of the gas. Not surprisingly, the institute coordinates closely with the Israeli army's medical corps, which receives the antidotes and distributes them to its branches in the military in accordance with demand.
The institute also works closely with Mossad and Shin Bet, the agencies primarily responsible for most of the assassination and liquidation operations against Arab and Muslim targets. Also, since Mossad and the military intelligence unit "Aman" are responsible for gathering enemy intelligence and presumably monitor nonconventional weapons programmes in Arab countries, they would instruct IIBR to develop the necessary biological or chemical responses to these programmes.
However, the IIBR has another purpose on top of developing and producing biological and chemical weapons and antidotes. It is also a major hard currency income-generator. The Hebrew Haaretz website reports: "The institute has received a grant of hundreds of millions of dollars to develop an anthrax vaccine." The grant followed an attack in the US by a home-grown terrorist group that developed a concentrated strain of anthrax spores and delivered them to several individual targets in US; the vaccines that IIBR was commissioned to develop were destined for use in the US.
More importantly, we learn from the website that Israeli soldiers have been used to test the vaccines, causing some permanent physical damage. Reports of the internationally banned use of human guinea pigs raised moral hackles in Israel and sharpened suspicions that the lives of Israeli soldiers had deliberately been put to risk for the sake of financial gain received for promoting the security of another country, namely the US in this case.
The IIBR has a live animals department, where rabbits, pigs, monkeys and other animals are used in experiments. And perhaps human beings as well, judging by the suits soldiers filed against the Israeli Ministry of Defence after they were used in the anthrax experiments. The soldiers demand that they be officially recognised as disabled veterans and receive compensation accordingly. The case remains in the courts, but the IDF, caving into pressure from the families of the soldiers and public opinion, recently announced that it would no longer conduct experiments on soldiers.
It was Israel's first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, who ordered the construction of the IIBR on the basis of the advice of a number of Jewish scientists. Throughout his rule, from 1948 to 1963 (with the exception of the years 1953-1955 when �Moshe Sharett served as prime minister), Ben-Gurion was directly responsible for the institute and every detail in it. The staff were forbidden to disclose to anyone even the smallest tid-bit of data or information without first obtaining Ben-Gurion's approval. That continued to apply even during that interstice when Sharrit was in power, for when this prime minister visited the institute in 1954 scientists had to apologise for not being able to show him the programmes they were working on at the time.
Although many scientists have taken a turn to direct the IIBR, it is generally believed that the one to have left the greatest imprint is its current director, Avigdor Shafferman. Shafferman, who has been named in Klein's suit, has the reputation of being something of a powerhouse but also being very strict and quick to fire staff members on disciplinary grounds.
Nevertheless, as significant as the details that have come to light in this rare glimpse into the workings of the IIBR may be, little attention has focused on a larger truth. As the international community hounds a host of countries for pursuing conventional weapons programmes that pale in scale next to Israel's, it refuses to budge an inch to deter Israel, which only encourages Tel Aviv's belligerent and tyrannical behaviour.
Saleh El-Naami writes for Al-Ahram, where this article originally appeared.
sent on 24-jun-2011 23:06 ECT
www.uruknet.info?p=78931 (http://www.uruknet.info?p=78931)
======================
Israeli Kidon Assassination Teams Loose on America Soil
Bush-Clinton Crime Family Syndicate Stooge Bishop Bookings Fingered, i.e. Unmasked
by Tom Heneghan,
International Intelligence Expert
Right photo Israeli MOSSAD wearing Star of David while posing as Arab terrorist
Saturday, August 16, 2008
United States of America -- It can now be reported that the outlaw neo-Nazi ZIONIST State of Israel has activated their worldwide assassination teams, code name "Kidon".
http://www.haaretz.com/hasite/images/ih ... 607_ap.jpg (http://www.haaretz.com/hasite/images/iht_daily/D210607/300bibihilary210607_ap.jpg)
Hillary Clinton admires MEGA ZIONIST Bibi Netanyahu (AP photo)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasite/images/ih ... 607_ap.jpg (http://www.haaretz.com/hasite/images/iht_daily/D210607/300bibihilary210607_ap.jpg)
The major contingent of these assassination teams, commanded by former Prime Minister of Israel , ZIONIST KHAZARIAN Jew Benjamin Netanyahu, have been sent to the United States and are now operational.
The Israeli MOSSAD decision to resort to violence on U.S. soil comes on the heals of ISRAELI-U.S. dual citizen Dr. Philip M. Zackerie aka Dr. Zack being identified as the major culprit in the post 9/11 anthrax attacks on the United States.
Kidon is reference to a military bayonet.
The REAL perpetrator who mailed the post 9/11 anthrax letters, MOSSAD agent ISRAELI-U.S. dual citizen Dr. Philip M. Zackerie aka Dr. Zack
Note: Attempts by the MOSSAD-controlled U.S. Justice Department, FBI and their media stooges to frame a dead man, i.e. Dr. Bruce E. Ivins, have failed as the Federal Grand Jury (We the People) continues to pursue indictments against Zackerie, U.S. government officials and ABC News journalist Brian Ross.
The Israeli Kidon assassination teams are on orders to eliminate ALL witnesses, whistleblowers and U.S. Military officers that want to bring the Israeli MOSSAD and its front operation, the Bushfraud Administration, to justice for the 9/11 and post 9/11 HIGH TREASON.
http://www.stewwebb.com/israeli_kidon_a ... n_soil.htm (http://www.stewwebb.com/israeli_kidon_assassination_teams_loose_on_american_soil.htm)
Neoconservative Think Tank Influence on US Policies
James Woolsey
Project: Neoconservative Influences on US Policies (JewTards... active... <$> )
Open-Content project managed by blackmax
Summer 1972 and After: Neoconservatives Work to Toughen US Policy towards Soviet Union
Neoconservatives see Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern's floundering campaign and eventual landslide defeat (see November 7, 1972) as emblematic of, in author Craig Unger's words, everything that is wrong with the "defeatist, isolationist policies of the liberals who had captured the Democratic Party." If the neoconservatives had had their way, their favorite senator, Henry "Scoop" Jackson (see Early 1970s), would have won the nomination. But the Vietnam War has put hawkish Cold Warriors like Jackson in disfavor in the party, and Jackson was set aside for the disastrous McGovern candidacy. The Republicans offer little interest themselves for the neoconservatives. Richard Nixon is enamored of one of their most hated nemeses, National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, whose "realpolitik" did nothing to excite their ideological impulses. And under Nixon, the icy Cold War is slowly thawing, with summit meetings, bilateral commissions, and arms limitations agreements continually bridging the gap between the US and the neoconservatives' implacable foe, the Soviet Union. In Nixon's second term, the Coalition for a Democratic Majority (CDM)—populated by Democratic neoconservatives like Jackson, Irving Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, Midge Decter, Daniel Patrick Moynihan (Nixon's domestic adviser), Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ben Wattenberg, and James Woolsey, and joined by 1968 Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey, will pressure Nixon to adopt a tough "peace through strength" policy towards the Soviet Union. Although it will take time, and the formation of countless other organizations with similar memberships and goals, this group of neoconservatives and hawkish hardliners will succeed in marginalizing Congress, demonizing their enemies, and taking over the entire foreign policy apparatus of the US government. (Unger 2007, pp. 47-48)
After August 2, 1989: Chalabi Forges Strong Ties with US Neocons
Ahmed Chalabi, the charismatic, MIT-educated head of Jordan's Petra Bank, flees to London before charges can be filed against him in regards to the collapse of his bank (see August 2, 1989 and April 9, 1992). Unworried about the Jordanian charges, Chalabi, whose formerly wealthy family fled Iraq in 1958, establishes a loose grouping of Iraqi exiles called the Iraqi National Congress, with the aim of overthrowing Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Chalabi has already forged ties with some US neoconservatives like Albert Wohlstetter and Richard Perle. Now he begins cultivating ties with other influential neoconservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz, James Woolsey, Douglas Feith, and Perle's protege, David Wurmser. Chalabi makes the rounds of the symposia and conferences, and wins new allies in pro-Israeli think tanks such as the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). Chalabi's appeal to the neoconservatives is directly linked to his support for Israel as a regional power. The new Iraq he will build, he promises, will have strong relations with Israel. He even declares his intention to rebuild the oil pipeline from Kirkuk to Haifa, which has been inoperative since the 1940s. The neoconservatives ignore his close ties with the Iranian Shi'ite theocracy, as well as the Petra Bank's funding of the Lebanese Shi'ite militia Amal. Instead, the neoconservatives view Chalabi as a potential savior of the Middle East. Patrick Clawson of WINEP says, "He could be Iraq's national leader." (Unger 2007, pp. 123-125)
February 18, 1998: Former CIA Director Says First Gulf War Motivated by Oil
Former CIA director James Woolsey participates in an online discussion on Time's weekly forum on the topic of Iraq. At one point, he is asked if he thinks the US is capable of launching a successful military attack against Iraq given the lack of support from US allies. Woolsey responds: "It will be harder but perhaps not impossible. The key holdout is Saudi Arabia—and it is indeed aggravating that even though we went to war in 1991 principally to protect its oil, they are unwilling to let us launch air strikes from their country." (Time 2/18/1998)
1999: US NGO Formed to Promote Peace in Chechnya
The American Committee for Peace in Chechnya (ACPC) is founded by Freedom House. Its mission is to promote a "peaceful resolution of the Russo-Chechen war." Board members include Zbigniew Brzezinski, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., Steven J. Solarz, and Max Kampelman. ACPC's regular members include Richard Perle; Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, Midge Decter, Frank Gaffney, Bruce Jackson, Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, James Woolsey, Robert Kagan, William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, among others. The APC is closely tied to the American Enterprise Institute and the Jamestown Foundation and National Endowment for Democracy and other US democratization initiatives. (Laughland 9/8/2004; American Committee for Peace in Chechnya 11/15/2005)
2000: Former CIA Director Woolsey Works With Chalabi's INC
Former CIA director James Woolsey serves as a corporate officer for the Iraqi National Congress Support Foundation which manages the Iraqi National Congress' US funding. Also during this time, Woolsey and his former law firm, Shea and Gardner, provide the INC and Iraqi exiles with pro bono work. (Landay and Strobel 7/16/2004)
February 2001: Former CIA Director Attempts to Link Iraqi Government to 1993 WTC Bombing
Former CIA director James Woolsey visits Britain to look for evidence tying Saddam Hussein to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. He is looking to support the theory (see Late July or Early August 2001) that Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the 1993 WTC bombing, was actually an Iraqi agent who had assumed the identity of a Pakistani student named Abdul Basit. This theory was proposed in a 2000 book praised by Woolsey (see October 2000). He will also make a visit for the same purpose in the weeks after 9/11 (see Late September 2001). On at least one of the trips, Woolsey visits the Swansea Institute, where Basit studied, to see if Basit's fingerprints match those of Yousef, who is now serving a life sentence in a Colorado prison. Matching fingerprints would discredit the theory. According to Knight Ridder, "Several of those with knowledge of the trips said they failed to produce any new evidence that Iraq was behind the attacks." (Strobel 10/11/2001) But despite a lack of evidence, politicians in Washington interested in the theory will manage to reopen the files into Yousef around August 2001 anyway (see Late July or Early August 2001). An article by Woolsey pushing the theory about Yousef will be published just two days after 9/11 (see September 13, 2001).
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September 13, 2001: Former CIA Director Suggests Saddam Hussein May Have Been Behind the 9/11 Attacks
In an op-ed piece published in the New Republic, former CIA director James Woolsey calls on the Bush administration to re-examine evidence that could potentially tie Iraq to the 1993 bombing of the WTC. He cites a theory (see Late July or Early August 2001) that Iraqi intelligence helped bomber Ramzi Yousef steal the identity of a Kuwaiti student studying at a college in Wales. If this theory is correct, he says, "then it was Iraq that went after the World Trade Center last time. Which makes it much more plausible that Iraq has done so again." In light of this, he argues, US authorities should consider the possibility that Saddam Hussein had a hand in the 9/11 attacks. "ntelligence and law enforcement officials investigating the case would do well to at least consider another possibility: that the attacks—whether perpetrated by bin Laden and his associates or by others—were sponsored, supported, and perhaps even ordered by Saddam Hussein," he writes. "As yet, there is no evidence of explicit state sponsorship of the September 11 attacks. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." (Woolsey 9/13/2001) Woolsey went to Britain in February 2001 and failed to find evidence to support this theory (see February 2001). But a few days later, the US Defense Department will send Woolsey to Britain again (see Late September 2001) to investigate the alleged Iraq link to the 1993 bombing.
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Mid-September-October 2001: Neoconservatives Attempt to Link Iraqi Government to 9/11 and Anthrax Attacks
Former CIA Director James Woolsey makes a secret trip to Europe to find evidence that could link the Iraqi government to various terrorist attacks. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz funds and supports his trip. He visits Wales in a fruitless search for evidence to link Iraq to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (see Late September 2001). But he also looks for evidence tying Iraq to 9/11 and the anthrax attacks once they become publicly known in early October (see October 5-November 21, 2001). The Village Voice will later report, "Woolsey was also asked to make contact with Iraqi exiles and others who might be able to beef up the case that hijacker Mohamed Atta was working with Iraqi intelligence to plan the September 11 attacks, as well as the subsequent anthrax mailings." (Vest 11/21/2001) In late October, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), the exile group opposed to Saddam Hussein, says it recently held meetings in London with him. (Harden 10/26/2001) Woolsey is a prominent neoconservative and already has extensive links with the INC (see 2000). It is unknown exactly what Woolsey does in Europe, but his trip has an apparent effect on the media. In addition to numerous articles about Atta's alleged Prague visit, some articles appear attempting to tie Atta and the Iraqi government to the anthrax attacks as well. For instance, on October 14, 2001, The Observer will report, "According to sources in the Bush administration, investigators are talking to Egyptian authorities who say members of the al-Qaeda network, detained and interrogated in Cairo, had obtained phials of anthrax in the Czech Republic." (Rose and Vulliamy 10/14/2001) And in late October, the London Times will not only report that Atta was given a vial of anthrax in Prague, but that he met with Iraqi agents numerous times all over Europe (see October 27, 2001). But no hard evidence will emerge supporting any of these allegations pushed by Woolsey.
Late September 2001: Neoconservatives Look to Tie Iraq to 1993 WTC Bombing, but Evidence Contradicts Their Theory
At the behest of Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, former CIA Director James Woolsey and a team of Justice and Defense Department officials fly to London on a US government plane to look for evidence tying Saddam Hussein to the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Woolsey's trip is in part the idea of neoconservative author Laurie Mylroie (see Late July or Early August 2001). It is the second such mission undertaken by Woolsey this year, as he made a similar trip in February (see February 2001). Woolsey is looking for evidence to support the theory (see Late July or Early August 2001 and Mid-September-October 2001) that Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind behind the 1993 WTC bombing, was actually an Iraqi agent who had assumed the identity of a Pakistani student named Abdul Basit. Woolsey visits the Swansea Institute, where Basit studied, to see if Basit's fingerprints match those of Yousef, who is now serving a life sentence in a Colorado prison. Matching fingerprints would discredit the theory. (Strobel 10/11/2001; Rose and Vulliamy 10/14/2001; Harden 10/26/2001; Lang 6/2004) While in Europe, Woolsey also attempts to link the Iraqi government to 9/11 and the October 2001 anthrax attacks (see Mid-September-October 2001). But according to Knight Ridder, "Several of those with knowledge of the trips said they failed to produce any new evidence that Iraq was behind the attacks." (Strobel 10/11/2001) Newsweek will similarly report in 2004 that "the results of the Woolsey mission were exactly what the FBI had predicted: that the fingerprints were in fact identical." (Isikoff and Hosenball 4/21/2004) The local police in Swansea are curious about Woolsey's visit and they call the US embassy in London to clarify if Woolsey is visiting in an official capacity. This alerts the State Department and CIA of Woolsey's trip for the first time, and apparently both agencies are upset. One intelligence consultant familiar with the trip will say, "It was a stupid, stupid, and just plain wrong thing to do." (Strobel 10/11/2001; Vest 11/21/2001) It is through this contact that Secretary of State Colin Powell and CIA Director George Tenet learn of Woolsey's mission (see September 19-20, 2001). (Lang 6/2004)
February 11, 2002: Former CIA Director Arranges Meeting Between Defense Intelligence and Iraqi Defector
Former CIA Director James Woolsey telephones Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Linton Wells to arrange a meeting between Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analysts and Mohammad Harith, an Iraqi defector being supplied by the Iraqi exile group, the Iraqi National Congress. (Landay and Strobel 7/16/2004 Sources: Classified Pentagon report) After the phone call, Wells issues an "executive referral," requesting that the Iraqi National Congress (INC) introduce Harith to the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). (Landay and Strobel 7/16/2004) Later in the day, two DIA officers meet with Ahmed Chalabi to arrange an interview with Harith. In an email to Knight Ridder Newspapers, Wells will later recall, "I discussed the issue of an individual with information on Iraq weapons of mass destruction with intelligence community members. They said they would follow up. I never met with any member of the INC." (Landay and Strobel 7/16/2004)
September 2002: Woolsey: Use Iraqi Oil to Entice Cooperation from France, Russia
Former CIA director and noted neoconservative James Woolsey tells the Washington Post: "It's pretty straightforward. France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq toward decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies work closely with them.... If they throw in their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraqi government to work with them." (Morgan and Ottaway 9/15/2002)
Late 2002: Coalition for Democracy in Iran Formed; Advocates Regime Change
Michael Ledeen joins with Morris Amitay, vice-president of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs; ex-CIA head James Woolsey; former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney; former senator Paul Simon; and oil consultant Rob Sobhani to set up a group called the Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI). (Sunday Herald (Glasgow) 6/1/2003) CDI says it "fully agrees with President Bush's inclusion of Iran in the 'axis of evil' and supports congressional initiatives to bring about needed change in Iran." (Coalition for Democracy 1/16/2004) The group has strong ties to Reza Pahlavi, the son of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the US-backed leader of Iran who was removed from power by the 1979 Iranian Revolution. (Kamran 6/6/2003)
September 14, 2007: Disgraced Media Source Has Neoconservative Ties
Former ABC News source and sometime reporter Alexis Debat, whose career as a media commentator and information source is in shambles due to his exposure as a fabricator of numerous interviews with US political and business figures (see September 12, 2007), has a number of close ties with US neoconservatives, according to research by Philadelphia Daily News reporter Will Bunch. Debat has had a strong influence on the US media's slant on both the Iraq occupation and the envisioned war with Iran, particularly with his frequent contributions to ABC News reports and commentary. Debat has also provided sensational, and often unconfirmed, "information" about the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Several "scoops" from Debat and published by ABC News about Pakistan had to be either corrected or suffered contradiction by Pakistani officials. Debat also has close, if murky, ties with a number of prominent neoconservatives and right-wing Middle East figures. Iranian-born Amir Taheri was listed as an editor of Debat's primary European press outlet, Politique Internationale, from 2001 through 2006. Taheri's work has been promoted by a New York public-relations firm, Benador Associates, which specializes in Middle Eastern affairs and boasts a number of neoconservatives on its website, including former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and former CIA director James Woolsey. Taheri is often published in newspapers owned by conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch. And, like Debat, Taheri's work has been called into question in recent years. A May 2006 column printed in a Canadian newspaper that alleged Iran was forcing Jews and other religious minorities to wear colored badges was proven false. And a 1988 book by Taheri, Nest of Spies, purporting to give inside details about Islamic terrorism, has been shown to contain a raft of inaccuracies and misstatements. Taheri's connections with Benador gives him prime entry to conservative media outlets, which seem to sometimes ignore the rampant problems with his reporting. (Bunch 9/14/2007) <$> <$> <$> <$>
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline. ... endly=true (http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?neoconinfluence_prominent_neoconservatives=neoconinfluence_james_woolsey&timeline=neoconinfluence&printerfriendly=true)
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
The Anthrax Killer? Richard Spertzel :^)
Is this is the man who made the anthrax that killed five people soon after 9-11? I think so.
Of course, the FBI are protecting him by pointing the finger at others. And Spertzel himself is busy weighing in with his expert opinion to confuse the media, and using his high-level contacts to confuse investigations, just to muddy the waters.
But I think this is the guy. Richard Spertzel.
He is on the books at Benador Associates (with Amir Taheri, Charles Jacobs, Charles Krauthammer, Dennis Prager, Herbert London, James Woolsey, Laurie Mylroie, Meyrav Wurmser, Michael Ledeen, Michael Rubin, Natan Sharansky, Richard Perle and others), he's a regular on Murdoch's FOX News, he writes articles for the Murdoch WSJ. You get the picture?
Zionist. Neocon.
Of course, he was not working alone.
More articles from Spertzel here and more investigation ongoing at Glenn Greenwald's blog, where a highly informed commenter recently said:
"Spertzel is really scary and seems to just taunt the world from the neocon perspective."
Spertzel has repeatedly insisted that the anthrax sent to Daschle and Leahy was very highly sophisticated:
"In my opinion, there are maybe four or five people in the whole country who might be able to make this stuff, and I'm one of them," said Richard O. Spertzel, chief biological inspector for the U.N. Special Commission from 1994 to 1998. "And even with a good lab and staff to help run it, it might take me a year to come up with a product as good."
One the one hand that is a boast. On the other hand it is a threat.
Now ask yourself why the head of the FBI has been protecting this man for nearly seven years?
UPDATE: Spertzel is of course loudly telling people that he doesn't believe that Bruce Ivins was the killer. Given that the FBI has not been able to make a strong case against Ivins, and they know it, that's not really surprising. It helps give Spertzel some much-needed credibility in the public eye.
The DoJ has just released documents (PDFs here) related to the case but are not going to close the case yet "because of incomplete administrative details". Yeah, like a motive! And proof!
This is the motive currently being bandied about:
Authorities were looking at whether Ivins may have released anthrax to test a vaccine he was working on, another official said.
I don't have time to read through all the docs today, but details emerging don't indicate any bombshell of proof. It's hard to believe the FBI really thought they could charge and convict Ivins on this evidence alone.
According to one affidavit made public, Ivins submitted false anthrax samples to the FBI, was unable to give investigators "an adequate explanation for his late laboratory work hours around the time of" the attacks and sought to frame an unnamed co-worker.
He was also said to have received immunizations against anthrax and yellow fever in early September 2001, several weeks before the first anthrax-laced envelope was received in the mail.
Um, wouldn't everybody working in an anthrax lab be taking immunizations regularly? But that bit about framing an unnamed co-worker is interesting: was that Assaad, or Hatfill?
Then there's the corporate element, and an email that much is being made of:
[Ivins] was under pressure to assist a private company that had lost federal approval to produce an anthrax vaccine and sent a suspicious e-mail a few days before the anthrax attacks.
The e-mail warned that Osama bin Laden's terrorists "for sure have anthrax and sarin gas" and had "just decreed death to all Jews and all Americans." The affidavit said the language in the e-mail was similar to warnings in the anthrax letters, such as: "WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX. . . . DEATH TO AMERICA . DEATH TO ISRAEL."
Note how WaPo reproduced that text in the original CAPS, just to make sure you saw it. But what's new? It's already been established (e.g. his letter to the local paper) that Ivins was a Christian Zionist, but so was the whole Fort Detrick lab (see Camel club antics). And no doubt half the USA had similar thoughts after 9-11. I mean, Bin Laden hates Jews? Duh!
And if Ivins really believed, as many others did, that Al Quaeda might have anthrax, surely that would explain his late nights in the lab after 9-11. OTOH:
The spike in his evening hours began in mid-August, almost a month before the Sept. 11 attacks, investigators said.
That's a little harder to explain. But it's still not incriminating evidence.
And then there's this:
Moreover, the envelopes that held the letters were "federal eagle" envelopes, so-named because of the eagle perched on a bar bearing the initials "USA" in the upper right-hand corner, and bore tiny but tell-tale defects that searchers determined were bought from a post office in Maryland or Virginia, the official documents relate.
And of the 16 government, commercial and university laboratories that had virulent anthrax strains like the one used in the deadly mailings, only one was located in Maryland or Virginia — the Fort Detrick lab where Dr. Ivins worked before his July 29 suicide, the documents say.
Yeah, real tight evidence right there. Not.
One search warrant doc indicates the Feds seized a copy of "The Plague" by Albert Camus from Ivins' home. That's ironic: the "surface" story is about a doctor battling to stop a plague, but Camus wrote it as an allegory of how one decent man can stand up to the spreading influence of tyrants, especially based on his experiences in the French underground combating the Nazis.
posted 23:02
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JAVMA Online News
Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association December 15, 2001
AVMA Journals Home | JAVMA online
The Anthrax Detectives
Unlike most people, Dr. Martin Hugh-Jones looks forward to getting bloody swabs in the mail. He collects them to track anthrax. Dr. Hugh-Jones, a professor of epidemiology at Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine, and collaborator Paul Keim, PhD, a professor of microbiology at Northern Arizona University, have built and maintain one of the largest anthrax databases in existence today. Databases such as theirs, and another at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, are the ones that investigators are turning to as they attempt to identify anthrax samples used in recent bioterrorist attacks.
Russian roots
Dr. Hugh-Jones is no stranger to bioterrorism. In 1979, when a human anthrax epidemic broke out in Sverdlovsk, a city of the former Soviet Union, the England-educated veterinarian participated in the investigation. He was also in Russia in 1992 when its government finally admitted that the outbreak was caused by an accidental spore emission from a biological warfare facility. Dr. Hugh-Jones, along with other American scientists, befriended Russian pathologists involved in the investigation and managed to obtain tissue samples from people infected in the outbreak. These samples were the start of the Midwestern and Los Alamos databases.
After returning from Russia, Dr. Hugh-Jones sought out Dr. Paul Keim, whom he calls a genius at analyzing genes, and a team effort began. "I am the collector," explained Dr. Hugh-Jones. "I find out where the outbreaks are happening worldwide, contact the people concerned, and get the cultures. I then send them to Paul Keim's laboratory and he does the genetic analysis." Dr. Keim's laboratory is also involved in collecting some samples.
Usually, people send specimens for the Midwestern database to Dr. Hugh-Jones, but he also obtains the specimens himself from bloody swabs or dirt. The epidemiologist keeps track of outbreaks by monitoring the literature and doing good, old-fashioned detective work. He is also moderator for correspondence concerning anthrax for Promed mail, a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases. This Internet collaboration of international doctors, academics, public health workers, and government officials tracks outbreaks of infectious diseases.
Cutting edge
Thus far, the Midwestern database has roughly 1,200 isolates, which include specimens from most parts of the world. The Los Alamos database has had similar success, and the two groups collaborate. Each isolate can be tied to a specific geographic area, using genetic fingerprinting. On the basis of similarities in the bacteria's DNA, anthrax can be organized into categories. These categories are called strains by some researchers, but other scientists prefer to define them as different genotypes.
Investigators rely mainly on two techniques to create genetic fingerprints of Bacillus species in the databases. One technique, known as AFLP (amplified fragment length polymorphism), relies on analyzing short DNA sequences that contain genetic information. Using AFLP, scientists extract DNA from bacteria and cut it into small fragments, using nature's natural scissors—restriction enzymes that recognize and cut specific stretches of DNA. After being amplified to improve the interpretation process, these fragments are analyzed and compiled into a fingerprint that is added to a database.
The second genetic fingerprinting technique, MLVA (multiple locus variable number of tandem repeats analysis), relies on analyzing the pieces of DNA that don't code for proteins. Although believed to be functionally useless, these strands contain repeated sequences of base pairs that are more highly variable from strain to strain than "useful DNA." The repeated sequences are usually surrounded by specific markers, which allow researchers to find and cut them. These fragments are then fingerprinted and added to a database.
Ames strain
On Oct. 25, Office of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge announced that investigators had made progress in identifying anthrax samples used in the October bioterrorist attacks.
"Department of Defense DNA tests show the anthrax samples from Florida, New York, and Washington are indistinguishable, meaning that they all come from the same strain of anthrax or the same family of anthrax," announced Ridge—"Ames strain."
Using DNA analysis, investigators had created genetic fingerprints of the samples from affected people, sifted through the vast databases, and found a match.
Army records showed that the Ames strain had originally come from a sick cow in Iowa and was sent to the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in 1980. The Army, determining that the strain was unique, named it Ames, simply because of its origin.
Since then, the Army has supplied it to various laboratories in the United States, and the strain has been disseminated by other routes to facilities around the world. Because of the strain's popularity, the initial identification did not uncover the senders of the contaminated letters.
24/7
Many people investigating the bioterrorist attacks have been instructed to refrain from directly commenting on the progress of the investigation. Dr. Kimothy Smith, is a veterinarian and an associate professor of epidemiology in Dr. Keim's laboratory at Northern Arizona University. Dr. Smith says he cannot confirm or deny working on the bioterrorism case, but when asked about his workload in early November, he responded, "I've been working 24/7 in the last month."
Dr. Smith is hopeful that science will provide a break in the case. All genetic markers, the veterinarian said, are not created equal; some allow for the differentiation of very closely related isolates better than others, especially when investigators are using MLVA.
As of early November, work at NAU was showing that, using ultra-sensitive markers, one could trace strains of a different type of anthrax, called Sterne, to a particular laboratory. Sterne has also been disseminated all over the world. "We can go into old strains like Sterne, [and] theoretically Ames, look much closer into those strain types, and differentiate types from different laboratories," Dr. Smith says.
This promising sleuthing ability is made possible by three factors: bioterrorists need to grow large batches of anthrax for it to be useful as a biological weapon, anthrax undergoes genetic mutations every 1,000 generations, and mutations lead to different fingerprints.
For a given sample of anthrax, Dr. Smith says, "We can go back and estimate the number of generations that separate two isolates. We can build a tree of relatedness, saying this strain is so many generations from this laboratory strain and this many generations from this other one, etcetera."
As of Nov. 5, investigators had not traced the anthrax strain used in the October attacks to a specific laboratory. Workers involved with the Midwestern database and the Los Alamos database continued to toil. But, one thing was certain: the databases, started almost 10 years ago, have played an important role in the investigation.
Kate O'Rourke
http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/dec01/s121501a.asp (http://www.avma.org/onlnews/javma/dec01/s121501a.asp)
The Jews at Benador must have been watching the FBI labs...IMHO--CSR
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Dr. Meryl Nass Shreds The FBI Evidence About Dr. Ivins
From Patricia Doyle, PhD
3-5-10
Hello Jeff -- I still believe that Ivins is a patsy. Israel was one of the countries that had the Ames strain of anthrax, as did Italy, France, UK and across the US. We do know that the perps wanted to blame an Islamic perp. Israel would have no qualms about releasing anthrax. I still think that it was a conspiracy and those in power knew and even ordered it.
Ivins made a really good patsy. He did have mental problems that were compounded by the FBI harassment. Dr. Nass also mentioned that the FBI was monitoring and watching Ivins at the time he killed himself. They had his house bugged and probably had hidden cameras. They knew exactly what Ivins was doing and probably even knew what he took. As Dr. Nass points out, the FBI could have notified the doctors about the Tylenol and they could have given him an antidote. Dr. Ivins death was convenient for the FBI. Who knows if they didn't lace his drinks or food with it.
Then there was the therapist. Dr. Ivins therapist, herself, under multiple charges of DUI was accompanied by the FBI to get a restraining order against Dr. Ivins. After that, she is never heard from again. Who knows, maybe she was killed also.
In any event the FBI closed the case...but a week later Congress demanded the FBI continue the investigation. Dr. Nass' investigation of this case is remarkable...
Patty
Federal Bureau Of Invention?
Microbiologist Meryl Nass Responds To The FBI 'Closing' The Anthrax Case
By Dr. Meryl Nass, MD
The FBI's report, documents and accompanying information (only pertaining to Ivins, not to the rest of the investigation) were released on Friday afternoon. which means the FBI anticipated doubt and ridicule. The National Academies of Science (NAS) is several months away from issuing its $879,550 report on the microbial forensics, suggesting a) asking NAS to investigate the FBI's science was just a charade to placate Congress, and/or b) NAS' investigation might be uncovering things the FBI would prefer to bury, so FBI decided to preempt the NAS panel's report.
Here are today's reports from the Justice Department, AP, Washington Post and NY Times. The WaPo article ends,
The FBI's handling of the investigation has been criticized by Ivins's colleagues and by independent analysts who have pointed out multiple gaps, including a lack of hair, fiber other physical evidence directly linking Ivins to the anthrax letters. But despite long delays and false leads, Justice officials Friday expressed satisfaction with the outcome.
The evidence "established that Dr. Ivins, alone, mailed the anthrax letters," the Justice summary stated.
Actually, the 96 page FBI report is predicated on the assumption that the anthrax letters attack was carried out by a "lone nut." The FBI report fails to entertain the possibility that the letters attack could have involved more than one actor. The FBI admits that about 400 people may have had access to Ivins' RMR-1029 anthrax preparation, but asserts all were "ruled out" as lone perpetrators. FBI never tried to rule any out as part of a conspiracy, however.
That is only the first of many holes in FBI's case. Here is a sampling of some more.
1. The report assumes Ivins manufactured, purified and dried the spore prep in the anthrax hot room at US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). His colleagues say the equipment available was insufficient to do so on the scale required.
2. But even more important, the letter spores contained a Bacillus subtilis contaminant, and silicon to enhance dispersal. FBI has never found the Bacillus subtilis strain at USAMRIID, and it has never acknowledged finding silicon there, either. If the letters anthrax was made at USAMRIID, at least small amounts of both would be there.
3. Drs. Perry Mikesell, Ayaad Assaad and Stephen Hatfill were 3 earlier suspects. All had circumstantial evidence linking them to the case. In Hatfill's case, especially, are hints he could have been "set up." Greendale, the return address on the letters, was a suburb of Harare, Zimbabwe where Hatfill attended medical school. Hatfill wrote an unpublished book about a biowarfare attack that bears some resemblance to the anthrax case. So the fact that abundant circumstantial evidence links Ivins to the case might be a reflection that he too was "set up" as a potential suspect, before the letters were sent.
4. FBI fails to provide any discussion of why no autopsy was performed, nor why, with Ivins under 24/7 surveillance from the house next door, with even his garbage being combed through, the FBI failed to notice that he overdosed and went into a coma. Nor is there any discussion of why the FBI didn't immediately identify tylenol as the overdose substance, and notify the hospital, so that a well-known antidote for tylenol toxicity could be given (N-acetyl cysteine, or alternatively glutathione). These omissions support the suggestion that Ivins' suicide was a convenience for the FBI. It enabled them to conclude the anthrax case, in the absence of evidence that would satisfy the courts.
5. The FBI's alleged motive is bogus. In 2001, Bioport's anthrax vaccine could not be (legally) relicensed due to potency failures, and its impending demise provided room for Ivins' newer anthrax vaccines to fill the gap. Ivins had nothing to do with developing Bioport's vaccine, although in addition to his duties working on newer vaccines, he was charged with assisting Bioport to get through licensure.
6. FBI's report claims, "Those who worked for him knew that Nass was one of those topics to avoid discussing around Dr. Ivins" (page 41). The truth is we had friendly meetings at the Annapolis, Maryland international anthrax conference in June 2001, and several phone conversations after that. Bruce occasionally assisted me in my study of the safety and efficacy of Bioport's licensed anthrax vaccine, giving me advice and papers he and others had written. I wonder if I was mentioned negatively to discourage Ivins' other friends and associates from communicating with me, since they have been prohibited from speaking freely? Clever.
7. The FBI's Summary states that "only a limited number of individuals ever had access to this specific spore preparation" and that the flask was under Ivins' sole and exclusive control. Yet the body of the report acknowledges hundreds of people who had access to the spores, and questions remain about the location of the spore prep during the period in question. FBI wordsmiths around this, claiming that no one at USAMRIID "legitimately" used spores from RMR1029 without the "authorization and knowledge" of Bruce Ivins. Of course, stealing spores to terrorize and kill is not a legitimate activity.
8. FBI says that only a small number of labs had Ames anthrax, including only 3 foreign labs. Yet a quick Pub Med search of papers published between 1999 and 2004 revealed Ames anthrax was studied in at least Italy, France, the UK, Israel and South Korea as well as the US. By failing to identify all labs with access to Ames, the FBI managed to exclude potential domestic and foreign perpetrators.
9. FBI claims that "drying anthrax is expressly forbidden by various treaties," therefore it would have to be performed clandestinely. Actually, the US government sponsored several programs that dried anthrax spores. Drying spores is not explicitly prohibited by the Biological Weapons Convention, though many would like it to be.
10. The FBI report claims the anthrax letters envelopes were sold in Frederick, Md. Later it admits that millions of indistinguishable envelopes were made, with sales in Maryland and Virginia.
11. FBI emphasizes Ivins' access to a photocopy machine, but fails to mention it was not the machine from which the notes that accompanied the spores were printed.
12. FBI claims Ivins was able to make a spore prep of equivalent purity as the letter spores. However, Ivins had clumping in his spores, while the spores in the Daschle/Leahy letters had no clumps. Whether Ivins could make a pure dried prep is unknown, but there is no evidence he had ever done so.
13. FBI asserts that Bioport and USAMRIID were nearly out of anthrax vaccine, to the point researchers might not have enough to vaccinate themselves. FBI further asserts this would end all anthrax research, derailing Ivins' career. In fact, USAMRIID has developed many dozens of vaccines (including those for anthrax) that were never licensed, but have been used by researchers to vaccinate themselves. There would be no vaccine shortage for researchers.
14. Ivins certainly had mental problems. But that does not explain why the FBI accompanied Ivins' therapist, Ms. Duley (herself under charges for multiple DUIs) and assisted her to apply for a peace order against him. Nor does it explain why Duley then went into hiding, never to be heard from again.
15. FBI obtained a voluntary collection of anthrax samples. Is that the way to conduct a multiple murder investigation: ask the scientists to supply you with the evidence to convict them? There is no report that spores were seized from anyone but Ivins, about 6 years after the attacks. This is a huge hole in the FBI's "scientific" methodology.
16. FBI claims it investigated Bioport and others who had a financial motive for the letters attack, and ruled them out. However, FBI provides not a shred of evidence from such an investigation.
FBI gave this report its best shot. The report sounds good. It includes some new evidence. It certainly makes Ivins out to be a crazed, scary and pathetic figure. If you haven't followed this story intently, you may be convinced of his guilt.
On the other hand, there are reasons why a conspiracy makes better sense. If the FBI really had the goods, they would not be overreaching to pin the crime on a lone nut.
JFK, RFK, George Wallace, Martin Luther King, all felled by lone nuts. Even Ronald Reagan's would-be assassin was a lone nut. Now Bruce Ivins. The American public is supposed to believe that all these crimes required no assistance and no funds.
Does the FBI stand for the Federal Bureau of Invention?
_____
Dr. Meryl Nass, MD is a leading expert on anthrax and anthrax vaccine. She has offered her research and expert testimony at several Congressional hearings in the U.S. Dr. Nass's website anthraxvaccine.org offers in depth insight into anthrax, anthrax vaccine, biological warfare and related topics.
Patricia A. Doyle DVM, PhD Bus Admin, Tropical Agricultural Economics Univ of West Indies Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message board at: http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php (http://www.emergingdisease.org/phpbb/index.php) Also my new website: http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/ (http://drpdoyle.tripod.com/) Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa Go with God and in Good Health
http://www.rense.com/general90/drm.htm (http://www.rense.com/general90/drm.htm)
Looks like somebody was working intensively with the Ames strain in Feb. 2001 on a vaccine.... --CSR
QuoteInfect Immun. 2003 August; 71(8): 4563–4579.
doi: 10.1128/IAI.71.8.4563-4579.2003
PMCID: PMC165985
Copyright © 2003, American Society for Microbiology
Genome-Based Bioinformatic Selection of Chromosomal Bacillus anthracis Putative Vaccine Candidates Coupled with Proteomic Identification of Surface-Associated Antigens
N. Ariel,1* A. Zvi,1 K. S. Makarova,2 T. Chitlaru,1 E. Elhanany,1 B. Velan,1 S. Cohen,1 A. M. Friedlander,3 and A. Shafferman1* <:^0
Israel Institute for Biological Research, Ness Ziona 74100, Israel,1 National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health, Bethesda Maryland 20894,2 United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick, Maryland 217023 <:^0
*Corresponding authors. Mailing address for Naomi Ariel: Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, Israel Institute for Biological Research, P. O. Box 19, Ness Ziona 74100, Israel. Phone: 972-8-9381529. Fax: 972-8-9401404. E-mail avigdor@iibr.gov.il (mailto:avigdor@iibr.gov.il).
Received January 14, 2003; Revised March 19, 2003; Accepted May 1, 2003.
Abstract
Bacillus anthracis (Ames strain) chromosome-derived open reading frames (ORFs), predicted to code for surface exposed or virulence related proteins, were selected as B. anthracis-specific vaccine candidates by a multistep computational screen of the entire draft chromosome sequence (February 2001 version, 460 contigs, The Institute for Genomic Research, Rockville, Md.). The selection procedure combined preliminary annotation (sequence similarity searches and domain assignments), prediction of cellular localization, taxonomical and functional screen and additional filtering criteria (size, number of paralogs). The reductive strategy, combined with manual curation, resulted in selection of 240 candidate ORFs encoding proteins with putative known function, as well as 280 proteins of unknown function. Proteomic analysis of two-dimensional gels of a B. anthracis membrane fraction, verified the expression of some gene products. Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization-time-of-flight mass spectrometry analyses allowed identification of 38 spots cross-reacting with sera from B. anthracis immunized animals. These spots were found to represent eight in vivo immunogens, comprising of EA1, Sap, and 6 proteins whose expression and immunogenicity was not reported before. Five of these 8 immunogens were preselected by the bioinformatic analysis (EA1, Sap, 2 novel SLH proteins and peroxiredoxin/AhpC), as vaccine candidates. This study demonstrates that a combination of the bioinformatic and proteomic strategies may be useful in promoting the development of next generation anthrax vaccine.
Anthrax is a zoonotic disease, caused by the spore forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis (58). The disease occurs mostly in wild or domestic mammals and may occur in humans when exposed to infected animals, or upon direct exposure (1). B. anthracis is considered to be one of the most likely biological warfare agents due to the ability of its spores to be transmitted by the respiratory route, the high mortality associated with inhalation anthrax, and spore stability. Primary and secondary aerosolization of B. anthracis spores have been recently shown to be of major concern in bioterrorist acts involving deliberate release of B. anthracis spores (34, 70).
Fully virulent forms of B. anthracis carry two large plasmids: pXO1 and pXO2. The plasmids are considered major virulence determinants, as strains lacking either one are attenuated in animal hosts (58, 67, 68). Most of the documented B. anthracis virulence factors identified so far are encoded by plasmid derived genes including the two major virulence factors: the tripartite toxin and the antiphagocytic capsule, respectively. The tripartite toxin is encoded by the genes pagA, lef, and cya, which code for protective antigen (PA) and the lethal and edema factors, respectively (located on pXO1), whereas the genes encoding for the antiphagocytic capsule are located on pXO2. A battery of as-yet-undefined virulence factors probably resides on the B. anthracis chromosome (8, 9, 12, 58), the sequence of which has been recently completed (78).
The licensed human vaccine consists of the PA component of the anthrax toxin as the principal protective immunogen. However, for effective long-term protection, multiple immunizations are required. Studies in experimental animal models indicated that the efficacy of PA vaccines is far below that of the Sterne live spore vaccine (105). Therefore, it has been suggested that additional somatic antigens and/or cellular immunity may be required for full protection. Recent studies report that immune response directed against spore antigens, either through live vaccines (17) or by supplementing PA-based vaccine with formalin-inactivated spores (11), is indeed involved in enhanced protection. Identification of spore antigens or additional vegetative antigens as possible enhancers of vaccine efficacy, could permit development of improved vaccines for human use (8, 9, 17, 58).
Until recently, the major barrier to target-based screening of potential vaccine candidates has been the limited number of cloned and characterized bacterial genes. The currently available genomic sequences of numerous human pathogens facilitates the identification, analysis and cloning of genes of interest. Genome-based selection of vaccine candidates has been recently coined "reverse vaccinology" (73-75). In silico gene selection, in combination with functional genomics studies, have been applied towards novel vaccine generation for several human pathogens (e.g., Neisseria meningitis (69), Streptococcus pneumoniae (109), and Chlamydia pneumoniae (59) and recently also to the selection of potential vaccine candidates from the B. anthracis virulence plasmid pXO1 (7).
Here we describe results of a genome-based bioinformatic screening of the entire B. anthracis draft chromosome (sequenced by The Institute for Genomic Research [TIGR], Rockville, Md.; Feb. 2001 version, 460 contigs, 98% coverage [9], following its translation and function assignments), for putative vaccine candidates. This screening process comprised of search for gene products with recognizable sequence or structural features characteristic of proteins, which either confer protective immunity (consisting mostly of surface exposed or exported proteins), or are similar to documented microbial virulence factors. The in silico approach allowed for identification of 520 B. anthracis open reading frame (ORF) products (240 with putative function and 280 hypothetical proteins or proteins of unknown function), mostly exhibiting features of surface exposed or exported proteins. Proteomic analysis of a B. anthracis membrane fraction allowed for validation of the selection process, verifying the expression of several membrane-associated candidate ORF products, and assessment of their immunoreactivity (by immunoblotting with B. anthracis immune animal sera). The employed complementary strategies could provide the basis for subsequent experimental evaluation of a future generation of anthrax vaccines.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Computational analyses.
Computational analyses were conducted on an SGI server (Silicon Graphics, Inc.) at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) and on a Sun Enterprise 420R server equipped with a Sun Solaris operating system at the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR). The DNA draft sequence of the B. anthracis chromosome (Ames strain, version of February 2001, 460 contigs) was downloaded upon agreement from TIGR (http://www.tigr.org (http://www.tigr.org)).
Translation and assignment of ORFs was accomplished using the Wimklein module (SEALS package; NCBI [103]) a naive translator based on intrinsic properties of the sequence. A minimal length of 75 amino acids (aa) per ORF was imposed. The translation of the February version yielded 5,045 ORFs, with various lengths ranging from 75 to 5,017 aa.
Sequence similarity searches were conducted by running Blast analyses (3, 4), using the splishpgp module (SEALS package; NCBI), against the following databases: nonredundant (NCBI), unfinished microbial genomes (NCBI), Clostridium acetobutylicum genome (prior to its publication [65]), Bacillus halodurans genome (upon its publication [96]), and Bacillus cereus ATCC 14579 draft genome (Integrated Genomics, Ill.). The filtering program SEG (110) was applied to mask sequence segments exhibiting low compositional complexity. However, for ORFs longer than 200 aa, a nonfiltered analysis was carried out as well. Blast results were mapped according to taxonomy using the module tax_collector (SEALS, NCBI). Paralogs were identified by Blast analysis of each ORF against the B. anthracis genome database. ORFs were defined as paralogs, in cases where sequence similarity extends over 80% mutual coverage and the expectation value of the alignment is smaller than e−10. The Blast results were tabulated by the Btab program (NCBI) and further parsed by in-house Perl scripts.
Analyses of protein domains was carried out by searching against the Pfam (89), SMART (85), and CDD databases (107), using the HMM program installed on the NCBI SGI server. Orthology was assigned through analyses of the 5,045 ORFs (February version) against the COGs database (100) (carried out by R. Tatusov [NCBI]).
Cellular localization predictions, for each ORF, were carried out as follows: prediction of presence and location of signal peptides in the N-terminal 70 aa of an ORF, using the program SignalP (63) (run locally on the NCBI server; prediction of membrane-spanning regions, using the program Tmpred [29], run via the BCM Launcher batch client [87]); recognition of lipoprotein signatures by the Lipop program of the PSORT package (60) (installed locally on the IIBR server); identification of the presence of a typical sequence signature (32, 92), as well as identification of gram-positive specific anchoring motifs (13, 62), using the GREF module (SEALS, NCBI) and in-house scripts. Anchoring motifs probed include the tripartite sortase motif (32), a refined motif with increased sensitivity and specificity which includes the traditional LPXTG motif, iron-dependent sortase motif (48), choline-binding motifs (identified using the Pfam HMM PF01473), PKD (Pfam HMM PF00801), LysM (Pfam HMM PF01476) and SLH domains (Pfam HMM PF00395), (13). The draft chromosome-derived ORFs generated in this study were compared to ORFs derived from the full sequence of the B. anthracis Ames strain chromosome, obtained from TIGR (78), and to the recently deposited draft sequence of the Bacillus anthracis A2012 strain (79) (GenBank accession number NC_003995, gi|21397375), by Blast analysis. Table Table11 incorporates the equivalent of TIGR ORF number and annotation, as well as the gi number of the A2012 strain ORF equivalent, for of each of our selected draft chromosome ORFs. Throughout the text, ORF products are referred to as the draft chromosome ORF number, and listed in Table Table11.
TABLE 1.
...
RESULTS
In silico selection strategy.
Preliminary function assignment ("rough" annotation) to the 5,045 ORFs of the B. anthracis chromosome (draft sequence, February 2001 version) was the first step towards the selection of vaccine candidate genes. The steps employed were: sequence similarity searches against public databases as well as against genomic databases of interest (B. cereus ATCC 14579 draft genome, C. acetobutylicum annotated genome [prior to its publication]), and B. halodurans genome domain assignments and protein localization prediction studies (see Materials and Methods). The rationale for candidate selection was based on a rational approach comprising of the following criteria: (i) surface-exposed proteins, whether secreted and/or membrane-anchored (see below), as potential immunogens; (ii) ORF products with putative known function, similar to documented virulence factors in other bacteria or containing motifs known to affect virulence, such as repeats; (iii) ORF products with no sequence similarity to proteins present in a nonpathogenic bacteria, particularly bacilli-related, as proteins potentially responsible for the unique attributes of B. anthracis virulence.
Sequence similarity searches and taxonomical classification.
Blast analysis against the nonredundant database (NCBI) resulted in a preliminary categorization of the 5,045 ORF products into three groups. The first group comprised of ∼3,000 ORF products (Fig. (Fig.1,1, right lane), for which a putative function could be assigned based on significant similarity (expectation values smaller than e−3) to a known protein in the databank. The second group comprised of ∼800 ORF products assigned as hypothetical, uncharacterized or putative proteins (Fig. (Fig.11 middle lane). The third group included ∼1,200 ORF products for which no function could be assigned (including ORF products similar to a protein with an unknown function as well as B. anthracis unique ORFs, Fig. Fig.11 left lane).
FIG. 1.
FIG. 1.
Strategy for reductive selection of vaccine candidates from the B. anthracis chromosome draft sequence (version of February 2001). Flowchart of the computational analysis and the filtering steps, of the B. anthracis chromosome candidate selection (left (more ...)
As the first step toward defining chromosome-derived vaccine candidates, the Blast results of the 5,045 ORF products were mapped according to the taxon of hits with expectation value <e−3. This mapping enabled us to perform a first round of subtraction of ORF products for which the similarity to a protein in a nonpathogenic organism (e.g., B. subtilis and B. halodurans) and/or an organism unrelated in terms of evolution (e.g., Aquificales, Thermotogales, and Cyanobacteria) was more significant than the hits to other taxa (expectation values at least 100 times lower than that of the nearest competitor). However, ORF products with hits to pathogenic bacteria from unrelated taxa or from eukaryotic organisms were retained.
Selection of potential vaccine candidates and virulence factors, from the ORF product set with putatively assigned function.
Taxonomy-based subtraction of B. anthracis ORFs exhibiting sequence similarity to proteins from nonpathogenic bacteria, from the 3,000 "known" ORFs (first group) resulted in ∼2,000 ORF products with sequence similarity to known proteins from pathogenic or eukaryotic organisms. We initially scanned the list of the 2,000 ORFs (Fig. (Fig.1)1) for putative housekeeping genes; all genes representing ribosomal proteins, phage proteins and fragmented genes, were subsequently removed. Due to possible future experimental restrictions, which may be imposed by the presence of more than one copy of a selected gene (complementation), ORF products with more than two paralogs in the genome were excluded as well. Similarly, in order to avoid possible cloning problems, putative proteins with more than four predicted trans-membrane segments were also removed. ORF products predicted by protein localization algorithms to code for surface associated or secreted components were selected, as well as proteins with sequence similarity to those described as surface exposed proteins in other bacteria, independent of the in silico prediction. ORF products resembling virulence-associated proteins, irrespective of their cellular location, were retained. The resulting ∼450 ORF products were subjected to comparative genomics analysis, removing ORF products with significant similarity (not necessarily as first Blast hit) to proteins from the nonpathogenic bacilli B. subtilis and B. halodurans (upon completion and publication of the genome sequence). The remaining ORF products were inspected individually by manual curation, leaving 240 putative ORF products with potential vaccine and/or virulence relevance as listed in Table Table1.1. For a schematic representation of the reductive strategy, see Fig. Fig.11.
The B. anthracis chromosome-derived list of putative vaccine candidates or virulence factors (Table (Table1)1) includes, as expected, multiple virulence-related subfamilies, namely, toxins, S-layer homology domain proteins, repeat proteins, adhesions/colonization factors, lytic enzymes, and zinc proteases, etc. All subfamilies were implicated in microbial pathogenesis in different organisms.
S-layer homology domain proteins.
The B. anthracis cell surface, in the vegetative nonencapsulated state as well as the capsulated state, is covered by a cell wall polymer, known as the surface layer (or S-layer [23, 50, 52, 84]). Various functions have been assigned to the S-layer, ranging from shape maintenance to virulence, host recognition evasion, cell adhesion and resistance to phagocytosis (52, 58, 84). B. anthracis is known to synthesize two surface layer (S-layer) proteins, EA1 (extractable antigen 1) and Sap (surface array protein), which account for 5 to 10% of total cellular proteins (52). Both proteins contain a standard signal-peptide followed by three SLH (S-layer homology) anchoring motifs (50). Both proteins are considered major surface antigens and vaccine carriers in vivo (50, 52, 53). Mock and Fouet (58) were the first to report that the B. anthracis genome harbors additional genes coding for SLH proteins (other than the two SLH proteins on pXO1 previously identified by Okinaka [66]) which may constitute potential vaccine candidates (7); an amidase on pXO2 (51) and several unidentified genes located on the bacterial chromosome (58)). Inspection of the B. anthracis draft version of the chromosome for ORFs containing at least one SLH domain, revealed the presence of 20 putative S-layer homology domain proteins (including Sap and EA1, products of ORFs 2 and 3). These include cell surface-targeted enzymes such as N-acetyl-muramoyl-l-alanine-amidases (e.g., products of ORFs 4 and 10) and proteins of unknown function (Table (Table1,1, 1st category).
Adhesins.
Adhesins, bacterial surface proteins which interact with receptors on the eukaryotic cell, have been studied as targets for vaccine development for many years, since blocking the primary stages of infection could be an effective strategy to prevent bacterial infections (19, 37, 108). Whole-genome sequence of a pathogen could allow for identification of putative novel adhesins based on sequence and/or structural properties shared by bacterial and intracellular human adhesins. Examples for known adhesin families include fibronectin or fibrinogen-binding proteins, collagen adhesins, etc. The B. anthracis draft chromosome was found to contain several putative fibronectin-binding proteins, ranging in size from 213 to 1,102 aa (Table (Table1).1). The product of ORF 38 is the only member of the group identified as COG 1293 (COGs database [99]) fibronectin-binding proteins and is similar to a fibronectin-binding protein from Streptococcus pyogenes, reported to confer protective immunity in mice (35). It also exhibits sequence similarity to putative fibronectin-binding proteins from B. subtilis, B. halodurans as well as the S. pneumoniae adherence and virulence protein A (42% identity). Streptococcal fibronectin-binding proteins (in particular pavA from S. pneumoniae) were shown to be essential for extra-cellular targeting and efficient cellular invasion (2, 30, 47, 49, 97, 102, 104).
...
DISCUSSION
The efforts directed towards the development of an improved human anthrax vaccine have been, so far, limited to vaccines based on anthrax toxin components. Availability of the B. anthracis chromosomal draft sequence (Ames strain chromosome), allows for in silico identification of putative antigens selected from the complete protein repertoire, thus overcoming preceding limitations, in terms of antigen number and nature, of target based screening for vaccine candidates.
In the study reported herein, B. anthracis putative vaccine candidates, representing proteins likely to be surface exposed, and/or similar to documented virulence related proteins, and/or contain sequence motifs characteristic of virulence factors or immunogens, were selected by a multistep computational analysis (Fig. (Fig.1)1) of the draft version of the B. anthracis Ames strain chromosome (February 2001, 460 contigs). Integration of the results, together with careful manual curation, resulted in identification of 520 potential antigenic proteins (240 proteins with putatively assigned function and 280 unknown/hypothetical proteins). As shown in Table Table1,1, the 240 proteins with putatively assigned function and relevance to virulence/pathogenicity, could be grouped to several functional categories: SLH proteins, adhesins, repeat proteins, enzymes and "others." Obviously, the assignment of an ORF product to a specific group is not always unequivocal, as larger proteins frequently comprise of more than a single functional domain. However, grouping of the candidates by their putative function, facilitates selection of candidate ORF products from each group, as representatives of families documented to be involved in microbial pathogenesis. For example, the protein products of ORF 1 and ORF 4 are amidases, anchored to the peptidoglycan layer of the bacterial membrane via their SLH domains. These ORF products could be grouped either as SLH proteins or as enzymes. The rationale behind choosing these putative proteins as vaccine candidates, lies in the fact that amidases and autolysins have been shown to be involved in virulence, confer protective immunity and/or act as adhesins (e.g., see reference 109). Moreover, amidases and autolysins are modular enzymes, which probably make use of different membrane anchoring modalities (SLH and choline binding, etc.) as a means of adaptation to a particular biological niche and thus may also act as adhesins (55).
Certain microbial pathogens produce virulence factors expressed only during infection (phase variation), which harbor in their primary sequence patterns known collectively as tandem repeats (Table (Table1).1). This group of repeat proteins contains both surface anchored proteins and proteins without obvious secretion and/or anchoring signals (e.g., the most recently documented group of gram-positive virulence determinants named anchorless adhesins [16]). In addition to their reported participation in adhesion, invasion or immune-evasion, repeat proteins have been recently implicated to be involved in Fe3+ siderophore regulation (NEAT [near transporter repeat] repeat proteins [5]) and thus may affect the survival of the bacteria within the host. Examples of such putative Fe3+ siderophore regulatory proteins are the B. anthracis NEAT protein products of ORF 70, ORF 71, ORF 234, and probably also ORF 6. In particular, the products of ORFs 70 and 71, which are anchored proteins harboring several copies of the NEAT domain, are the best matches to the siderophore regulatory proteins described by Andrade et al. (5), to be present in gram-positive organisms (mostly pathogenic). As mentioned by Andrade et al., in the B. anthracis chromosome, these ORFs are indeed located adjacent to iron ABC transporters.
The candidate gene list also includes proteins of unknown function, which are anchored to the bacterial membrane by diverse gram-positive specific anchoring modes. Representatives include sortase-anchored proteins (both iron dependent and independent [13, 18, 48]). Sortases are membrane proteins, which cleave the polypeptide chain between two amino acids within a characteristic C-terminal motif and subsequently catalyze the formation of an amide bond between the carboxyl group of the cleaved polypeptide and the amino group of peptidoglycan cross-bridges. Since most sortase-anchored proteins are considered essential for bacteria to establish successful infection (39), such proteins could be relevant candidates. An example for this group is the product of ORF 228, an anchored repeat protein, relatively unique to B. anthracis, exhibiting weak similarity to a protein involved in immune evasion of Mycoplasma.
The remaining large number of candidates, selected by the bioinformatic analyses (520 putative proteins), necessitates implementation of additional filtering strategies. Reducing the number of candidates to be evaluated experimentally, to a manageable number, would involve application of a high throughput biological screening system (such as proteomic-based analysis of in vivo-expressed immunogens or in vitro-in vivo expression systems [7, 14, 25]); and/or application of additional computational steps directed toward selection of microorganism-specific genes.
B. anthracis, B. cereus, and B. thuringiensis are considered essentially one genetic species and members of the B. cereus group of bacteria (28). In spite of the overall genetic similarity, the fact that these species differ significantly in pathogenesis may imply the presence of B. anthracis-specific virulence determinants. Subtraction of genes common to B. anthracis and B. cereus 14579 (gapped genome, Integrated Genomics, Inc.) could reveal the presence of B. anthracis-specific genes. Preliminary subtraction, from the group of putative proteins with assigned functions (known proteins), of ORF products exhibiting significant overall sequence similarity to B. cereus orthologs, results in ∼80 B. anthracis-specific ORF products, leaving out most of the classical B. cereus group virulence factors. As for the unknown protein subgroup, ∼100 ORF products did not exhibit extensive sequence similarity to B. cereus 14579 proteins. Such subtraction was not performed only on the basis of threshold values (mutual coverage of 85%, expectation values smaller than e−10), but included other considerations regarding specific sequence variations (e.g., extent of insertions, divergence etc). In view of the fact that differences may also be ascribed to differences in genomic context, and in view of the limitations imposed by the quality of draft genomes versus complete genomes, this reduction should be carried out more carefully once sequencing of the more closely related B. cereus 10987 is finished. One should also keep in mind that effective immunogens may not necessarily be B. anthracis specific; thus, this type of subtraction should be probably applied only as an optional reductive measure.
In order to demonstrate the expression and cellular location of the in silico selected chromosomal gene products and in order to expedite the identification of B. anthracis immunogenic membrane and/or outer surface proteins, a direct proteomic inspection of B. anthracis membrane protein fraction was carried out. The proteomic analysis involved separation of a B. anthracis Δ14185 (pXO1−, pXO2−) subcellular membranal fraction by 2-DE, and identification of the most abundant protein spots by MALDI-TOF MS analysis of their fingerprint tryptic digestion products. Close to 100 spots from the 2-DE gel were analyzed and found to represent 32 proteins (detailed results of the analysis are documented in another report [Chitlaru et al., submitted]). In interpreting the proteomic data, one should take into account the fact that the proteomic approach is characterized by inherent underestimation of gene products due to (i) bias toward identification of abundant proteins (this effect is even more pronounced when one particular protein species prevails in the preparation as is the case in the membrane fraction of B. anthracis and the S-layer protein EA1 (e.g., Fig. Fig.1,1, box B); (ii) differential proteins expression, depending on the origin of the membrane fraction (culture conditions and in vitro versus in vivo gene expression); (iii) sample preparation procedure. Membrane proteins are notoriously difficult to separate by 2-DE due to solubilization constraints and may not be represented in the two-dimensional map, despite their abundance. It should be noted that the bioinformatic approach may circumvent the above limitations and therefore may result in identification of gene candidates representing the complete gene repertoire of each organism, which following further individual exploration of their immunogenic potential will aid in developing improved protective and therapeutic measures.
Here we report on a serological proteome analysis carried out in order to address the issue of in vivo immunogenicity of the B. anthracis membrane proteins identified. Thirty-eight spots were found to cross-react with sera from B. anthracis infected animals (Fig. (Fig.2).2). The analysis also established that the cross-reactive spots, which represent the products of 8 ORFs, are indeed expressed in vivo (in guinea pigs) during exposure to B. anthracis, and are able to elicit an immune response (Fig. (Fig.22 and Table Table2).2). Most notably, five out of these eight proteins (four SLH proteins and the AhpC/peroxiredoxin) were predicted to be potentially antigenic by the present independent in silico survey. It is worth noting that although antibodies against S-layer proteins EA1 and Sap (ORFs 3 and 2, respectively) were described before in infected animals (22, 58), neither the expression nor the in vivo immunogenicity of the other 2 novel SLH proteins (ORFs 8 and 19) was noted before. Humoral response against AhpC (ORF 82) was reported in other virulent bacterial systems such as Legionella pneumophila and Helicobacter pylori (27, 72, 91) but not for B. anthracis or B. cereus. The seropositive methylcitrate dehydrates MngE/PrpD (gi|21400220, Table2) was not previously invoked as a potential immunogen in other systems, yet it was shown to be necessary for survival of Legionella in the macrophage (72, 91). It is worth noting that about 50% of the immunogenic proteins identified in the Western blot of the 2-DE gel, are S-layer homology domain proteins (Table (Table2).2). Nevertheless, comparison of the Coomassie blue-stained 2-DE gels and their respective Western blots (Fig. (Fig.2),2), appears to reveal a differential order of immunopotencies among these seropositive proteins. For example, AhpC (spots 34 to 36) appears to be an exceptionally strong immunogen, since in the Coomassie blue-stained gel it appears as a weak signal while in the Western blot it appears as an intense signal.
In conclusion, as demonstrated in this study, combining bioinformatic chromosome screening with serological proteome analysis allows for judicious selection of in vivo immunogens. While the bioinformatic strategy resulted in identification of 240 vaccine candidates with putative functions (out of the 5,045 assigned and annotated ORFs derived from the chromosome B. anthracis draft sequence), the serological proteome analysis enables to focus on putative anthrax vaccine candidate genes by confirming their in vivo expression and antigenicity.
Acknowledgments
We thank E. V. Koonin for fruitful scientific discussion and D. Lipman, S. Bryant, A. Marchler-Bauer, A. Panchenko, and J. Fleshman from the NCBI for their interest and support. We are deeply indebted to T. D. Read (TIGR, Rockville, Md.) for his cooperation from the beginning of this project and for providing access (prior to publication) to TIGR's complete genome derived chromosomal ORFs sequence (78). We also thank Menachem Lion and Dror Bar-Natan from the IIBR for their help in genome-based tryptic peptide fingerprint screening and for performing local and remote computational analyses.
Notes
Editor: D. L. Burns
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QuoteMicrob Pathog. 2005 Jan ;38 (1):1-12 15652290 Cit:14
Construction of a rhamnose mutation in Bacillus anthracis affects adherence to macrophages but not virulence in guinea pigs.
Joel A Bozue, Narayanan Parthasarathy, Lawrence R Phillips, Christopher K Cote, Patricia F Fellows, Itai Mendelson, Avigdor Shafferman, Arthur M Friedlander
Bacteriology Division, United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, 1425 Porter Street, USAMRIID, Ft. Detrick, MD 21702, USA. http://lib.bioinfo.pl/auid:40913 (http://lib.bioinfo.pl/auid:40913)
Friedlander (Israeli Jew Researcher?) appears often and apparently worked with Ivins --CSR
QuoteVaccine. 2001 Sep 14;19 (32):4768-73 11535328 Cit:115
In vitro correlate of immunity in a rabbit model of inhalational anthrax.
M L Pitt, S F Little, B E Ivins, P Fellows, J Barth, J Hewetson, P Gibbs, M Dertzbaugh, A M Friedlander
United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick, Frederick, MD 21702-5011, USA. welkos@ncisun1.ncifcrf.gov (mailto:welkos@ncisun1.ncifcrf.gov)
Vaccines which are efficacious against anthrax, such as the human vaccine, Anthrax Vaccine Absorbed (AVA), contain the protective antigen (PA) component of the anthrax toxins as the major protective immunogen. Although AVA protects against inhalational anthrax, the immune responses to and role in protection of PA and possibly other antigens have yet to be fully elucidated. Sera from animals immunized with a toxin-producing, unencapsulated live vaccine strain of Bacillus anthracis have been reported to have anti-spore activities associated with the antitoxin humoral response. The authors performed studies to determine whether anti-PA antibody (Ab)-containing preparations stimulated spore uptake by phagocytes and suppressed the germination of spores in vitro. AVA- and PA-immune sera from several species enhanced the phagocytosis by murine peritoneal macrophages of spores of the virulent Ames and the Sterne vaccine strains. Antitoxin Abs appeared to contribute significantly, although not solely, to the enhanced uptake. Rabbit antisera to PA purified from either Sterne or a PA-producing pX01-cured recombinant, affinity-purified anti-PA IgG, and monkey antisera to AVA were used to assess the role of anti-PA ABS: Rabbit anti-PA Abs promoted the uptake of spores of the PA-producing strains Sterne, Ames and RP42, a mutant of Sterne producing only PA, but not of the pX01-Sterne-1 strain, Ames strain, or RP4, a mutant of Sterne with deletions in the loci encoding PA and the oedema factor (EF) toxin component and producing only the lethal factor toxin component. Rabbit anti-PA and monkey anti-AVA Abs also significantly inhibited spore germination in vitro compared to preimmune serum or medium. Spore-associated proteins recognized by anti-PA Abs were detected by electron microscopy and confirmed by immunoblotting of spore coat extracts. Thus, the anti-PA Ab-specific immunity induced by AVA has anti-spore activity and might have a role in impeding the early stages of infection with B. anthracis spores.
J Immunol Methods. 2004 Mar ;286 (1-2):111-22 15087226 Cit:75
Tracking human antigen-specific memory B cells: a sensitive and generalized ELISPOT system.
Shane Crotty, Rachael D Aubert, John Glidewell, Rafi Ahmed
Emory Vaccine Center and Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University School of Medicine, 1510 Clifton Road, Rm G-211, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA.
In the interest of better understanding the role of human memory B cells in protection against disease, we developed an assay to quantitate antigen-specific memory B cells in human blood. This assay utilizes a 6-day polyclonal stimulation of PBMC followed by an antigen-specific ELISPOT for the detection of memory B cells that have differentiated into antibody secreting cells (ASC) in vitro. We have used this assay to demonstrate that the anthrax vaccine (AVA; BioThrax) elicits a substantial population of protective-antigen (PA) specific memory B cells, and these B cells satisfy the canonical surface phenotype of human memory B cells: CD19(+)CD20(+)Ig(+)CD27(+). These anti-PA antigen-specific memory B cells are IgG(+) and represent up to 2% of circulating IgG(+) B cells. Furthermore, these results confirm that vaccine-elicited memory B cells reside in the CD27(+) B cell population. This ELISPOT-based system has been designed in a generalized manner, such that the assay can be rapidly adapted to detect human antigen-specific memory B cells of any given specificity. This method should be useful for quantitatively assessing the potency of vaccines and the longevity of B cell immunological memory to various vaccines or infectious diseases.
Infect Immun. 2001 Jul ;69 (7):4509-15 11401993 Cit:69
Protection against anthrax lethal toxin challenge by genetic immunization with a plasmid encoding the lethal factor protein.
B M Price, A L Liner, S Park, S H Leppla, A Mateczun, D R Galloway
Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43017-1292.
The ability of genetic vaccination to protect against a lethal challenge of anthrax toxin was evaluated. BALB/c mice were immunized via gene gun inoculation with eucaryotic expression vector plasmids encoding either a fragment of the protective antigen (PA) or a fragment of lethal factor (LF). Plasmid pCLF4 contains the N-terminal region (amino acids [aa] 10 to 254) of Bacillus anthracis LF cloned into the pCI expression plasmid. Plasmid pCPA contains a biologically active portion (aa 175 to 764) of B. anthracis PA cloned into the pCI expression vector. One-micrometer-diameter gold particles were coated with plasmid pCLF4 or pCPA or a 1:1 mixture of both and injected into mice via gene gun (1 microg of plasmid DNA/injection) three times at 2-week intervals. Sera were collected and analyzed for antibody titer as well as antibody isotype. Significantly, titers of antibody to both PA and LF from mice immunized with the combination of pCPA and pCLF4 were four to five times greater than titers from mice immunized with either gene alone. Two weeks following the third and final plasmid DNA boost, all mice were challenged with 5 50% lethal doses of lethal toxin (PA plus LF) injected intravenously into the tail vein. All mice immunized with pCLF4, pCPA, or the combination of both survived the challenge, whereas all unimmunized mice did not survive. These results demonstrate that DNA-based immunization alone can provide protection against a lethal toxin challenge and that DNA immunization against the LF antigen alone provides complete protection.
http://lib.bioinfo.pl/meid:16452/citpmid (http://lib.bioinfo.pl/meid:16452/citpmid)
Jennifer has a great post below!
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Jennifer Lake's Blog
September 11, 2011
Anthrax, Ten Years After
Filed under: anthrax,police state,Psychological War — jenniferlake @ 1:47 am
Tags: 2001 anthrax attacks
In the spring of 2010, I put together a blog of news and commentary, scraped together from what had been published in the news about the anthrax attacks. It didn't take long to find contradictions and inconsistencies but it took weeks and months of scouring the sources to pull out a narrative about what did and did not happen, and after all that there was still less than half a story– just enough to say with certainty that the first victim in five deaths could not have been contaminated at his Florida tabloid office by an anthrax letter. There was enough evidence to say that none of the next four fatalities had plausibly traceable infections either. Survivors each had anomalous details of time and place in their individual accounts that made the sequence of events impossible. The executive staff at the Florida tabloid were allowed to come and go in hazmat suits and do their own cleanup at the "crime scene" before the FBI started their investigation 10 months later. The contaminated letters that the government took into custody, it turns out, could not have been the source of lethal infections, and these are just a few of the problems.
The missing half of the "Amerithrax" picture, which leaves only an impression that the biological attacks were calculated murders, hovers like a phantom over the memorials of September 11. If you turn and look for it, nothing is there. The propaganda about anthrax from Iraq, with Colin Powell holding up his little vial of powder, also seems to have vanished with it. Bruce Ivins, the 'lone nut' who suicided the day before his official indictment (in 2008, while under surveillance), was posthumously declared guilty. Case closed. No public memorials for the anthrax victims. Nothing sexy here. Flush it all down the memory hole. Who wants to be reminded of how dirtied we felt by the uncontrolled spread of disease and mental filth after the shock of watching the towers fall again? Not me.
–but this is not really about that.
I learned from 9-11 and the anthrax attack how easily the public can be hoaxed –how willingly we take the word of authority in times of confusion, even if that authority is the 'because I said so' kind making claims to analyses and logic. What I saw was the whole 2001 anthrax story running desperately short on information and because of the anthrax attacks, lawmakers were hustled around in Washington during those critical days of passing the Patriot Act and a phony link was forged between Iraq and the hijackers. Because of anthrax, airports are shoving people through bodily x-rays. Because of anthrax, biological reality is divorcing medical expedients and becoming a way of life.
In a speculative moment of comprehension, I'd say the anthrax attacks were the largest and longest case of hearsay ever broadcast over the national media. There was no perp video, no audio, no testimony about credible threats. Just the slow, rumor-ridden dropping of The Other Shoe. Bad things must come in twos.
*
*
According to the CDC final report, "22 cases of anthrax (11 inhalational, 11 cutaneous) were identified.. in..seven states" http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/10/0 ... rticle.htm (http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/10/02-0353_article.htm)
*
The half-story is still hanging at www.thirdring.wordpress.com (http://www.thirdring.wordpress.com) . If I can find the time, I'll amend this post with a review.
http://jenniferlake.wordpress.com/ (http://jenniferlake.wordpress.com/)
The Corbett Report -- Interview 383 – Dr. David Halpin
In this exclusive interview, Dr. David Halpin, a retired orthopedic surgeon and one of a group of doctors who has been campaigning for a coroner's inquest into the mysterious death of Dr. David Kelly joins The Corbett Report to discuss his appeal for a judicial review of UK Attorney General Dominic Grieve's decision earlier this year to deny such an inquest. We discuss the medical anomalies that lead Dr. Halpin and other doctors to conclude that Dr. Kelly did not commit suicide, the history of the government cover-up about the case, and The Dr. David Kelly Inquest Fund through which people can help to cover the legal cost of the upcoming review.
http://www.corbettreport.com/interview- ... id-halpin/ (http://www.corbettreport.com/interview-383-dr-david-halpin/)
http://www.corbettreport.com/mp3/2011-1 ... Halpin.mp3 (http://www.corbettreport.com/mp3/2011-10-04%20David%20Halpin.mp3)
Do Jews Scam? --CSR
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Was man accused of post-9/11 anthrax attacks innocent?
Research disputes FBI's forensic evidence against scientist who committed suicide
By Guy Adams in Los Angeles
Tuesday, 11 October 2011
The man held responsible for the post-9/11 anthrax attacks may have had a secret accomplice, or been completely innocent of his alleged crimes, according to research into the FBI's investigation of the affair.
Bruce Ivins, an army bio-defence expert, committed suicide in 2008 after learning that murder charges were about to be filed against him in connection with the high-profile terrorist campaign, in which five people were killed and another 17 injured.
But an article published this week in the Journal of Bioterrorism & Biodefence highlights several inconsistencies in the forensic evidence against Dr Ivins, raising speculation that the FBI got the wrong man, and then prematurely closed their investigation following his death. The report, co-authored by three scientists, says that detectives failed to properly analyse the dried anthrax spores that were used in the attacks, which took place over several weeks following the September 11 bombings in 2001.
Analysis of the white powder, which was sent through the postal service to news organisations and politicians, showed that it contains unexpected traces of tin. That suggests a high degree of manufacturing skill, contrary to official conclusions that the attacks were part of a relatively-unsophisticated campaign carried out by Dr Ivins alone.
Agency scientists initially described the tin as an "element of interest" in the case, according to internal FBI documents uncovered by The New York Times. Early on in their investigation, they regarded it as a crucial clue which suggested that the anthrax – which had been mailed in envelopes containing the message: "Death to America ... Death to Israel... Allah is great" – had come from a relatively-professional source.
They later dropped that line of inquiry, however, and never mentioned the tin publicly. Following the death of Dr Ivins, who killed himself as the FBI were preparing to indict him, the agency failed to provide any detailed explanation of how the anthrax was manufactured.
The Journal's article will add to speculation that Dr Ivins was innocent of his alleged crime. An eccentric, with a history of erratic behaviour and some circumstantial links to the attacks, sceptics say he made a convenient scapegoat for investigators under pressure to close what became a long-running case.
Dr Ivins had an office near the New Jersey post box where two of the contaminated letters originated, and worked unusually late hours on the nights before they had been sent. He had also spent much of his career studying anthrax and had sometimes referred to a schizophrenic alter ego called "Crazy Bruce."
There was, however, no concrete evidence linking Dr Ivins to the crime. A report published last year by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that the FBI did not have enough scientific evidence to produce a conviction, had the case gone to trial.
Among their many criticisms, the authors found that the link between the anthrax used in the attacks and a supply which Dr Ivins kept in his lab was "not as strong" as the agency suggested.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... vice=Print (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/was-man-accused-of-post911-anthrax-attacks-innocent-2368643.html?service=Print)
Israel's Role in UK Nuclear Murders
Did Mossad Murder Hilda Murrall?
By T Stokes on November 22, 2011
Nuclear power is an inherently dangerous source of energy, as events at Fukushima recently revealed. So it goes without saying that nuclear weapons are all the more so.
Israel's arsenal has been substantially enlarged since Mordechia Vannunu first heroically blew the whistle on it. Nonetheless a Sunday Times article that appeared in the wake of Vannunu's disclosures featured interviews with several Nuclear Authority policemen about the threat posed by Israel's nuclear arsenal.
Significantly it was never published and has since been kept under wraps: becuase what they discussed was considered more inflammatory than Vannunu's disclosures.
More than revealing concerns about Israel's nuclear arsenal suspicions were voiced over the deaths of two prominent anti-nuclear activists.
In April 1985 a Scottish Nationalist SNP activist and lawyer William Mcrae who was vehemently opposed to Scotland's involvement in the nuclear industry was found shot dead in his car in the Scottish highlands.
Mcrae claimed he was under MI5 surveillance and at the time of his death he was due to give testimony at public hearing on waste processing at Dounray,
In 2005 a lad called Andrew George who was a 16 year old in foster care with learning difficulties at the time of the killing, was found guilty of Hilda Murrall's 1984 murder. But as Hilda Murrell's nephew and former Royal Navy commander, Robert Green writes in his book "A Thorn in Their Side, The Hilda Murrell Story" George was obviously not responsible for his aunt's death.
For the British security services have a record of colluding with police to set up naïve and trusting locals, as in the Jill Dando murder, where the killing has all the hallmarks of a professional hit.
Significantly however, for the killings to succeed they first have to be sanctioned by senior figures within the British security establishment.
The general opinion in informed circles is that the killing was authorised by Sir Colin Figures, the Jewish Chief of MI6 who worked closely with Prime Minister Thatcher's security advisor Lord Victor Rothschild. And here it's worth recalling that Rothschild was instrumental during Harold Wilson's years in office for the secret export of plutonium to Israel.
Rothschild pushed for further British investment in the nuclear industry for his own ends, and he allegedly also helped orchestrate the miner's strike, which crippled the country and put huge numbers on the dole. Defectors have suggested that the Russians assisted the industrial disruption while the murder of those people opposed to the nuclear industry has Rothschild fingerprints all over it.
There are another 6 murders whose names can be found on the Hilda Murrel website, and 4 more unlisted.
Hamish Watt a medical man who examined William Mcrae's body told the Aberdeen Journal that he found two bullet holes in the back of Mcrae's head, close together and fired from point blank range: a clear indication of an execution style killing. Despite this and the fact that Mcrae's two brief cases were found some distance down the road together with a pistol that was found later even further away, the official verdict was still that of suicide.
Beyond the obvious pointing finger to MI5, who would usually farm the job out, the real killers would appear from other sources to be Mossad.
Former MP Tam Dalyell claimed that an MI5 operative told him Hilda Murrell disturbed two men ransacking her house, and although her body was dumped on the Wednesday we are supposed to believe that her body lay there in open land undiscovered until Saturday, despite a search with dogs having started on the Thursday.
The following is taken whole from the Aangirfan website:
The author Gary Murray, also investigated the death of Hilda Murrell, and found at least 14 similarities between Mcrae and Hilda Murray:
1. Red Escort observed at scene
2. Activities of interest to M15, Special Branch, Atomic Energy Police
3. About to appear at public hearing dealing with nuclear issues
4. Passionate antinuclear campaigner
5. Under surveillance by Security Services
6. Witnesses overlooked by police investigators
7. Drove/driven to death scene in own vehicle
8. Death scene: quiet country spot outside of town
9. Victim was said to have discovered something specific about nuclear industry
10. Authorities refused Enquiry into death and murder investigation wound up
11. Conflict in official statements about evidence
12. Victim's property broken into and burned down
13. Anomalies concerning nuclear papers
14. Associates and friends attempting to pursue the case become victims of burglary and/or acts of violence or damage to property
Enemies of the State: A Sensational Exposé of the Security Services by a former MI5 Undercover Agent. Gary Murray, Simon and Schuster, London, England, 1993, p210
As a recently resigned British police chief said; "we have untouchable foreign assassins working this country and the police's hands are tied"
So while our forces are away fighting wars over fictitious Weapons of Mass Destruction, foreign agents are here killing with impunity
Russian multi-millionaire and mafia boss Ivan Lukaszewski now resident in Britain, says the KGB has much info on this and that Israelis were behind the mass killings of intellectuals, scientists and educated people from the foundation of the Jewish state up to and including Iraq and now Iran.
Not many people doubt now that Princess Diana, Dr. David Kelly, Robin Cook and Christopher Shale were all murdered to silence them. So it's no coincidence that the popular but outspoken UKIP political leader, Nigel Farage who was challenging Commons speaker John Bercow for his constituency was involved in a plane crash that nearly killed him on election day 2010.
Nigel Farage after the plane crash
The pilot Justin Adams has subsequently been charged by the police for bragging he would kill the UKIP leader.
Nigel Farage had made two big mistakes: he upset the powerful Jewish lobby by taking a political seat away from puppet John Bercow and he promised to pull Britain out of the EU.
*With thanks to Shrewsbury archives, Aberdeen news reporters, Shropshire meals on wheels, neighbourhood watch papers, Telegraph archives and various others.
T Stokes, London
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http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=38203 (http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=38203)
(From our buddy ZCF... ;) )
CNN recently just aired a new clip supposedly shedding new light on the alleged suspect of the Anthrax mailings that happened back in late 01' right after 9/11. A woman claiming to have known Bruce Ivins (the accused mastermind) personally, spews all kind of unsubstantiated claims about him being "insane, a drunk, a drug addict and having anger problems." This is typical character assassination of a patsy. Her demeanor in the interview is that of a liar. Bruce Ivins did not orchestrate the anthrax mailings. It took the FBI (Fucking Belligerent Idiots) SEVEN YEARS to finally target this guy as the lead suspect in 2008 even though they had no evidence against him. The anthrax mailings were the tail end of the 9-11 false flag operation, and were a concerted effort to scare the shit out of the American public so they support this fake war on terror out of abject fear. The Anthrax scare convinced Americans that they could die by simply opening their mail, therefore they need the governments protection, right?
Bruce Ivins is nothing more than an opportune patsy who conveniently committed suicide right before he could be brought to trial. Since the FBI had no evidence against him they had to kill him; then they could just officially blame him for the attack without proving it in a trial -- case closed. Typical intelligence work!
Here are some details about the anthrax attacks that make the accusations against Ivins completely ridiculous:
1) Bruce Ivins worked at Fort Detrick USAMRIID weapons lab and had a stable career as a micro biologist, vaccinologist, and senior bio-defense researcher.
2) He worked there for 28 years with no problems and had received a commendation from Fort Detrick lab for helping solve technical problems in the manufacture of an Anthrax vaccine.
3) Ivins initially AIDED the FBI in the anthrax investigation. He helped them by analyzing samples taken from the contaminated letters and the hoax letters.
4) Initially, the FBI's chief suspect in the Anthrax case was Dr. Steven Hatfill, a CIA asset. Dr. Hatfill was discovered to have been taking CIPRO, the antidote to anthrax for months leading up to the mailings.
5) In 2006, FBI director Robert Mueller abruptly CHANGED LEADERSHIP of the Anthrax investigation. IMMEDIATELY after the personnel change at the FBI, investigation into Hatfill abruptly ended and now Ivins was targeted as the lead suspect. Clearly the honest FBI investigators were swapped with co-opted agents tasked with framing Ivins and taking attention away from Steven Hatfill.
6) A patsy is born. Soon after this the FBI and media began painting Ivins as "insane, paranoid, delusional, suicidal and dangerous." The FBI supposedly releases emails written by Ivins and claims they show signs of anxiety, paranoia, depression.
7) On July 27, 2008 -- shortly before the FBI was to bring a case against Ivins to trial -- he apparently commits suicide by taking an overdose of Tylenol. NO AUTOPSY WAS ORDERED. LOL.
8) No charges are filed but the FBI assigns him full responsibility for the attacks. Case closed. LOL!
9) The letters used in the Anthrax mailings appear as if they were written by Muslim extremists, but Bruce Ivins was a Roman Catholic.
Why would a Roman Catholic with no motive whatsoever to perpetrate this outrageous act of terrorism, write notes impersonating an Islamic terrorist? Answer: HE WOULDN'T! This is another false flag operation.
10) The U.S. government originally tried to blame Iraq and Al Qaeda as being behind the Anthrax mailings. The idiots didn't realize the type of Anthrax used was of the Ames strain which is only produced by a few American weapons labs.
Since the Al-Qaeda/Iraq accusation didn't fly too far the FBI decides an American Roman Catholic should be a sufficient patsy :D. Nobody will tell the difference ;)
11) Israeli intelligence claimed to have witnessed Iraqi intelligence give Mohamed Atta a flask of anthrax at a meeting in Prague before 9-11. This meeting never took place, Israel made the whole thing up.
12) The anthrax letters were all mailed from locations in New Jersey and Florida; the same states where some of the alleged 9-11 hijackers lived prior to the attacks. Also the same two states in which Israeli Mossad agents were living NEXT DOOR to the patsy 9-11 hijackers. How did the perpetrators of the Anthrax false flag know to send the letters from these locations? Gee since Israel was living next to the said hijackers and since Israel lied and said that Atta got anthrax from Iraqi intelligence it kind of looks like Israel might have been the ones behind this frame up doesn't it?
13) A Zionist Jew named Dr. Philip Zack had been fired from USAMRIID back in 1991 for his harassment of an Arab co-worker named Dr. Assad. Zack also stole Anthrax from the lab back in 1992. He was a "person of interest" in the 2001 Anthrax case but the FBI doesn't follow up on it even though he had previously stolen Anthrax from the same lab and had shown his utter racism towards his Arab co-worker. That would perfectly explain why the Anthrax letters look like they were written by Muslims. Because Zionist Zack wrote them and tried to frame his former Egyptian co-worker Dr. Assad.
Qui Bono?
Who benefited from the Anthrax scare? Obviously not Muslims or Mr. Ivins. It was a horribly botched Mossad-CIA false flag operation used to incite more fear of terrorism after 9-11 and continue to paralyze the nation in fear so they bow down and accept all the U.S. governments wishes (i.e. Massively escalating the defense budget and going to war in the Middle East on behalf of Israel).
http://terrorofzion.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... posed.html (http://terrorofzion.blogspot.com/2010/03/cnn-anthrax-attacks-propaganda-exposed.html)
Good ole' history commons:
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October 2, 2001: Letter Calling Muslim Scientist Potential Biological Warfare Terrorist Arrives Days before First Signs of Anthrax Attacks
Ayaad Assaad.Ayaad Assaad. [Source: Salon]Three days before the anthrax attacks are first made public, a letter is received by the FBI in Quantico, Virginia, warning that Dr. Ayaad Assaad, employed until 1997 (see May 9, 1997) as an anthrax researcher at USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland, is a "'a potential terrorist,' with a grudge against the United States and the knowledge to wage biological warfare against his adopted country." This is the latest in a series of verbal attacks against Assaad since the early 1990s, which includes anonymous, long hateful and derogatory poems about him (see 1991-1992). The author of the letter says he is a former colleague of Assaad. The letter seems like a not-very-subtle attempt to frame Assaad for the anthrax attacks about to come. The letter strongly suggests the attacks could have been by someone at USAMRIID with a long time grudge against Assaad. [Hartford Courant, 12/9/2001; Salon, 1/26/2002] The FBI questions Assaad about the letter one day later (see October 3, 2001).
October 3, 2001: FBI Interviews Possible Anthrax Attacks Patsy Assaad
Scientist Ayaad Assaad is interviewed by the FBI. Just one day before, the FBI received a letter that was mailed to an FBI office on September 26 (see September 26, 2001) and seems to point the blame for the upcoming anthrax attacks at Assaad. He is living in Washington, DC, at the time, and is interviewed by FBI agents Mark Buie and Gregory Leylegian at the FBI's Washington field office. His lawyer, Rosemary McDermott, is also present. The agents read him the entire letter aloud and briefly show it to him, but will not allow him to make a copy of it.
The one page, single-spaced letter says "Dr. Assaad is a potential biological terrorist," and he is planning to mount a biological attack against the US. It adds he has the "means and will" to succeed.
It continues, "I have worked with Dr. Assaad, and I heard him say that he has a vendetta against the US government and that if anything happens to him, he told his sons to carry on."
Assaad worked at USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapon laboratory, until he was laid off in 1997, and the letter gives accurate details about Assaad's security clearances when he worked there.
Since 1997, Assaad has worked at the Environmental Protection Agency, and the letter gives accurate details about his job there as well.
The letter mentions slightly inaccurate details about Assaad's commute from his home in Frederick, Maryland, to his EPA job in Virginia.
It states that Assaad is a "religious fanatic." (Assaad is a Christian but many assume he is Muslim due to his Egyptian ancestry.) [Washington Times, 2/26/2002; Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/28/2002; Hartford Courant, 2/17/2004]
It makes reference to "further terrorist activity" by Assaad without mentioning what his supposed previous terrorist activity was. [Vanity Fair, 9/15/2003]
The letter is not signed.
Several days later, after the anthrax attacks are made public, Assaad contacts the FBI and gives a list of the former co-workers he suspects could have been behind the letter. It is not clear if the FBI does anything with this however, as they rebuff his repeated attempts to be interviewed. Despite the obvious potential connection to the anthrax attacks, which first become known two days after this interview, the FBI will not interview Assaad again on the matter until May 2004 (see May 11, 2004). [Washington Times, 2/26/2002; Philadelphia Inquirer, 2/28/2002]
October 5, 2001: Scientist Confirms Deadly Anthrax Is Ames Strain
On October 3, 2001, doctors determine that Robert Stevens in Florida has been infected with anthrax (see October 3, 2001). A culture of anthrax bacteria is grown from a sample of his spinal fluid and quickly flown by corporate jet to Paul Keim. Keim is a geneticist at Northern Arizona University who had recently developed a means to distinguish between strains of anthrax. He and his team gets the sample on October 4 and work all night. By Friday morning, they tell investigators that it is the Ames strain of anthrax. [Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/1/2008] The media will first report that the anthrax was the Ames strain on October 10. [Associated Press, 10/10/2001] Despite Keim's findings, the FBI will approve the destruction of a vital repository of Ames samples, also on October 10 (see October 10-11, 2001).
October 5-November 21, 2001: Anthrax Letters Kill Five, Heighten Terrorist Attack Fears
The five fatal victims of the anthrax attacks, from to right: Josep Curseen Jr., Thomas Morris, Ottilie Lundgren, Robert Stevens, and Kathy Nguyen. The five fatal victims of the anthrax attacks, from to right: Josep Curseen Jr., Thomas Morris, Ottilie Lundgren, Robert Stevens, and Kathy Nguyen. [Source: Reuters and Associated Press] (click image to enlarge)Two waves of letters containing anthrax are received by media outlets including NBC and the New York Post (see September 17-18, 2001), and Democratic senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy (see October 6-9, 2001). The letters sent to the senators both contain the words "Death to America, Death to Israel, Allah is Great." Five people die:
October 5: Robert Stevens, 63, an employee at the Sun, a tabloid based in Florida.
October 21: Thomas Morris Jr., 55, a postal worker in Washington, DC.
October 22: Joseph Curseen Jr., 47, a postal worker in Washington, DC.
October 31: Kathy Nguyen, 61, a hospital employee in New York City.
November 21: Ottilie Lundgren, 94, of Oxford, Connecticut.
At least 22 more people get sick but survive. Thirty-one others test positive for exposure. As a result of these deaths and injuries, panic sweeps the nation. On October 16, the Senate office buildings are shut down, followed by the House of Representatives, after 28 congressional staffers test positive for exposure to anthrax (see October 16-17, 2001). A number of hoax letters containing harmless powder turn up, spreading the panic further. [South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 12/8/2001; Associated Press, 8/7/2008] Initially it is suspected that either al-Qaeda or Iraq are behind the anthrax letters (see October 14, 2001, October 15, 2001, October 17, 2001, and October 18, 2001). [Observer, 10/14/2001; BBC, 10/16/2001] However, by November, further investigation leads the US government to conclude that, "everything seems to lean toward a domestic source.... Nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist type operation (see November 10, 2001)." [Washington Post, 10/27/2001; St. Petersburg Times, 11/10/2001]
Shortly After October 5, 2001: White House Officials Pressure FBI to Prove Link between Anthrax Attacks and Al-Qaeda
In August 2008, the New York Daily News will report that after Robert Stevens is the first to die in the anthrax attacks on October 5, 2001 (see October 5-November 21, 2001), White House officials repeatedly press FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove the attacks were conducted by al-Qaeda. According to an unnamed retired senior FBI official, Mueller was verbally "beaten up" during President Bush's daily intelligence briefings for not producing proof linking the attacks to al-Qaeda. "They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," this FBI official will say. But within days, the FBI learned the anthrax was a difficult to make weapons-grade strain. "Very quickly, [experts at Fort Detrick, Maryland] told us this was not something some guy in a cave could come up with. [Al-Qaeda] couldn't go from box cutters one week to weapons-grade anthrax the next." But several days after this conclusion is reached, Bush and Cheney nonetheless make public statements suggesting al-Qaeda was the culprit (see October 15, 2001 and October 12, 2001). [New York Daily News, 8/2/2008]
October 10-11, 2001: FBI Permits Destruction of Original Batch of Ames Strain Anthrax
The FBI allows the original batch of the Ames strain of anthrax to be destroyed, making tracing the type of anthrax used in the recent anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001) more difficult. The Ames strain actually originates from a dead cow in Texas, but Iowa State University in Ames has kept many vials of Ames and other anthrax strains collected over more than seven decades. This entire collection is destroyed. It is unclear who wanted the collection destroyed or why. The FBI learned the anthrax used in the attack letters was the Ames strain on October 5 (see October 5, 2001), but this will not be publicly confirmed until October 25. The FBI denies it approved the destruction and say they only did not oppose it, but university officials say the FBI gave explicit approval. [New York Times, 11/9/2001; South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 12/8/2001] The Ames strain is one of 89 known varieties of anthrax and is commonly used in US military research. The Washington Post will later report that "The [Ames strain identification], as compelling as a human fingerprint, shifted suspicion away from al-Qaeda and suggested another disturbing possibility: that the anthrax attacks were the work of an American bioweapons insider." The identification of the Ames strain focuses much attention on two top US Army bioweapons laboratories in particular that have heavily used Ames: USAMRIID in Maryland and Dugway Proving Ground in Utah (see Late 2001). [Washington Post, 9/14/2003]
After October 9, 2001: Government Response to Anthrax Attacks 'Ineffectual,' 'Farcical,' Author Later Claims
Despite the fact that two US senators, Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), had letters laced with anthrax mailed to their offices (see October 6-9, 2001), the Bush administration's response is, as later characterized by author Frank Rich, lackadaisical. "Bush said little about it," Rich will write in 2006, instead "delegating the problem to ineffectual Cabinet members like [Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy] Thompson and the attorney general, John Ashcroft. The rank incompetence of these two Cabinet secretaries, at most thinly disguised by a veneer of supercilious officiousness, was farcical. They were Keystone Kops, in the costumes of bureaucrats, ready at any time to slip on a banana peel." [Rich, 2006, pp. 34-35]
October 14, 2001: 'Strange Coincidence' Briefly Increases Suspicions Al-Qaeda Is behind Anthrax Attacks
Gloria Irish.Gloria Irish. [Source: AP / St. Petersburg Times]The FBI confirms that Gloria Irish rented an apartment to two of the 9/11 hijackers. Her husband is Michael Irish, who is an editor of the Sun, a Florida tabloid newspaper, and the first victim of the anthrax attacks earlier this month. Bob Stevens, who also worked at the Sun, and several others at the tabloid offices were injured. The FBI says that Irish rented different apartments in Delray Beach, Florida, to hijackers Marwan Alshehhi and Saeed Alghamdi during the summer of 2001. But one FBI spokesperson says, "Right now it looks like a coincidence," and another calls it a "strange coincidence." Two of the hijackers, including Mohamed Atta, also had subscriptions to the Sun. [Knight Ridder, 10/14/2001; Guardian, 10/16/2001] But Irish says "there is no way" the hijackers could have known about any Sun connection through her. [Washington Post, 10/15/2001] Michael Irish is a licensed pilot who was a member of the Civil Air Patrol based at Lantana Airport. Atta reportedly rented a plane at that airport in August (see August 16-19, 2001). Stevens, who died of anthrax on October 5, also lived in Lantana. But there is no evidence that Irish or Stevens crossed paths with Atta. [St. Petersburg Times, 10/15/2001] The story will quickly die after nothing more is found to the connection.
Mid-October 2001: Future Anthrax Attacks Suspect Ivins Helps Handle Anthrax Letters for FBI Investigation
Not long after people start dying from the anthrax attacks in October 2001 (see October 5-November 21, 2001), future suspect Bruce Ivins works with the FBI team investigating the attacks. Ivins works at USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory. He and about 90 USAMRIID colleagues work long hours to test thousands of samples of suspect powder to see if they contain real anthrax. [New York Times, 8/7/2008; Wall Street Journal, 8/7/2008] There are about 100 people in USAMRIID's bacteriological division, including technicians and assistants. [New York Times, 8/9/2008] Within days of the attacks being discovered, there are about six people crowded at Ivins's desk working on the anthrax, and other desks at USAMRIID are similarly crowded. Ivins helps analyze one of the letters containing real anthrax, the one sent to Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD), and goes to the Pentagon to discuss the results of his testing with officials there. Court documents will later claim that Ivins also repeatedly offers the FBI names of colleagues at USAMRIID who might be potential suspects in the attacks. The FBI will later claim he was attempting to mislead the investigation. [New York Times, 8/7/2008; Wall Street Journal, 8/7/2008]
October 19, 2001: New York Times Suggests Link between Anthrax Attacks and 9/11 Hijackers, despite Lack of Evidence
The contents of the anthrax letter to the New York Post.The contents of the anthrax letter to the New York Post. [Source: FBI]The New York Times suggests there could be a link between the recent anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001) and the 9/11 hijackers. The Times reports that investigators "say they suspect that the rash of contaminated letters is related to the Sept. 11 attacks and are investigating the possibility that al-Qaeda confederates of the hijackers are behind the incidents.... Senior government officials said investigators were focusing on the ability of the hijackers or their accomplices to obtain highly refined anthrax from a foreign or domestic supplier. While they have not ruled out the possibility that another criminal could be behind the anthrax attacks, investigators are looking intensely at evidentiary threads linking the letters to the hijackers."
Little to No Evidence behind this Theory - FBI agents are said to have recently searched the Jersey City home of three men arrested on suspicion of links to the 9/11 attacks after learning they kept some magazines and newspaper articles about biological warfare there. These men include Ayub Ali Khan and Mohammed Azmath. Both men will later be cleared of having any al-Qaeda ties (see October 20, 2001). The hijackers did show some interest in crop dusters, which could be used in a biological attack, but a senior government official says no actual evidence has appeared linking any of the hijackers to the anthrax attacks in any way.
Domestic Loner Theory - The article notes that the FBI is also pursuing a competing theory, "that a disgruntled employee of a domestic laboratory that uses anthrax carried out the attacks." However, no evidence has emerged yet to support this.
Iraq Not Likely - The article is dismissive of theories that Iraq or another foreign government was behind the attacks. It notes that the anthrax letters used the Ames strain of anthrax, and experts say the Iraqi government never obtained that strain. For instance, former UN weapons inspector Richard Spertzel says, "The Iraqis tried to get it but didn't succeed." [New York Times, 10/19/2001]
October 25-29, 2001: Top Government Officials Claim Some Anthrax Letters Were 'Weaponized'
Maj. Gen. John Parker.Maj. Gen. John Parker. [Source: Public domain]On October 25, 2001, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge tells reporters that the anthrax used in a letter sent to Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) was "highly concentrated" and "pure" and that a binding material was used, resulting in small spore clusters that are more easily spread. In contrast, the anthrax in a letter sent to the New York Post was coarser and less concentrated. Both letters used the same Ames strain of anthrax bacterium. (The Post letter was part of a less sophisticated first wave of letters (see September 17-18, 2001) and the Daschle letter was from the second wave (see October 6-9, 2001).) On October 29, Major General John Parker, commanding general of USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory, makes similar comments at a White House briefing. He says silica was found in the Daschle letter anthrax and the anthrax spore concentration in the Daschle letter was ten times that of the New York Post letter. The presence of a binding agent like silica supports theories that the anthrax used in the attacks was "weaponized" (highly sophisticated and deadly) and more likely made by a government team than a single individual. But in 2006, the FBI will reverse course and say there was no silica or any other type of binding agent in any of the anthrax letters (see August 2006). An anonymous former government official will later claim, "Those judgments were premature and frankly wrong." He will say that top government officials with no scientific background received briefings from people who also were not scientists and "the nuances got lost." [Chemical and Engineering News, 12/4/2006] But the idea of the data being lost in translation does not jibe with Parker's comments at the time, especially since Parker is a qualified scientist. For instance, he says, "I have looked at the specimen under the microscope, both the electron microscope and the scanning microscope, and I can say that the sample was pure spores." [ABC News, 11/1/2001]
October 27, 2001: US Government No Longer Considers Al-Qaeda Likely Suspect in Anthrax Attacks
The US government no longer thinks al-Qaeda is behind the anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). The Washington Post reports in a front-page story: "Top FBI and CIA officials believe that the anthrax attacks... are likely the work of one or more extremists in the United States who are probably not connected to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist organization, government officials said yesterday." An unnamed senior official adds, "Everything seems to lean toward a domestic source... Nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist type operation." The Post suggests neo-Nazi and/or right-wing hate groups could be behind it. [Washington Post, 10/27/2001] Not long after, the FBI releases a profile of the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks. He is suspected of being a lone, male domestic terrorist, with a scientific background and laboratory experience who could handle hazardous materials. [St. Petersburg Times, 11/10/2001]
November 10, 2001: FBI Thinks Anthrax Attacks Were Caused by American Loner, Not Al-Qaeda or Iraq
Th Los Angeles Times reports, "The FBI is increasingly convinced that the person behind the recent anthrax attacks is a lone wolf within the United States who has no links to terrorist groups but is an opportunist using the Sept. 11 hijackings to vent his rage..." The FBI is said to base this conclusion on "case studies, handwriting and linguistic analysis, forensic data and other evidence." FBI investigators say they are looking for "an adult male with at least limited scientific expertise who was able to use laboratory equipment easily obtained for as little as $2,500 to produce high-quality anthrax." They believe he is an "anti-social loner" who "has little contact with the public and carries deep-seated resentments but does not like direct confrontation." However, these investigators admit that psychological profiling is a rough science, especially since they have little more than a small number of words written on the anthrax-laced letters. The letters appear to have tried to frame Muslims for the attacks. For instance, each letter contains the phrase "Allah is great." Investigators say they are not completely ruling out an overseas connection to the letters, such as an Iraqi or Russian connection, but they consider it very unlikely. Investigators have not explained why they are so confident the attacks were caused by only one person. [Los Angeles Times, 11/10/2001]
November 12, 2001: FBI Publicly Suspect Three Muslims over Anthrax Attacks Due to Dubious Tip
Asif Kasi.Asif Kasi. [Source: New York Times / Jessica Kourkounis]The FBI investigates three Pakistani-born city officials in Chester, Pennsylvania, for possible roles in the recent anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). The three are Asif Kazi, an accountant in the city's finance department, Dr. Irshad Shaikh, the city's health commissioner, and his brother Dr. Masood Shaikh, who runs the city's lead-abatement program. Kazi is in his city hall office when FBI agents burst in and interrogate him. He is questioned for hours about an unknown liquid he had been seen carrying out of his house. In fact, the dishwasher had broken down and he was bailing out his kitchen. Meanwhile, agents with drawn guns knock down the front door to his house while his wife is cooking in the kitchen. Dozens of boxes are carried out of the house. Agents in bioprotection suits also search the Shaikh brothers' house and carry away their computers. None of the three ever had any connection to anthrax and none of them are arrested. The searches are national news for several days, severely damaging their reputations. Three days after the raid, an FBI agent tells the Washington Post that the raid did not pan out. The FBI learns that a disgruntled employee had called in a bogus tip. But the FBI never publicly clears them. [Washington Post, 11/15/2001; Newsweek, 8/4/2002; New York Times, 8/9/2008] Even a year later, an FBI spokesperson says the raids are still "a pending matter." [Associated Press, 9/5/2002] Trouble for the three men will continue. The Shaikh brothers' applications for US citizenship is blocked, their visas run out, and they both eventually have to leave the US. Kazi is already a US citizen, but he is put on a no-fly watch list. He is searched and interrogated for a couple of hours every time he travels in or out of the US. His name will finally be taken off the list in 2007. [New York Times, 8/9/2008]
Mid-November 2001: Harmless Second Anthrax Letter Sent to Sen. Daschle, Increasing Attention on Suspect Hatfill
In mid-November 2001, a second anthrax letter appears in Senator Tom Daschle's office. According to a later Washington Post article, "This [letter] had passed through irradiation equipment to kill anthrax spores, and the powdery material packed in the envelope tested benign." Details about the letter are scanty, but it is known that it is postmarked in mid-November from London. The white powder apparently is harmless talc. The letter contains similar language to the real anthrax letters, except the phrase "Stop the bombing" is added. Scientist Steven Hatfill, who is already starting to come under suspicion for the anthrax attacks (see Late 2001), is in Britain at the time, attending a specialized training course to become a UN weapons inspector in Iraq. The course takes place about 70 miles from London. This increases suspicions on Hatfill and the FBI asks British police to help retrace his every move. But it is never shown that he had anything to do with the letter. It is unknown if the letter contains any writing or other clues that would match the deadly anthrax letters. [Associated Press, 1/4/2002; Washington Post, 9/14/2003]
Late 2001: FBI Anthrax Investigation Begins Focusing on about 50 to 100 US Scientists as Suspects, Including Steven Hatfill
After investigators discover in mid-October 2001 that the anthrax used in the anthrax attacks comes from the Ames strain (see October 10-11, 2001), the FBI investigation largely discards theories that al-Qaeda or Iraq was behind the attacks and begins to focus on domestic suspects. Within weeks, FBI investigators draw up lists of thousands of suspects who have access to anthrax or the scientific knowledge to work with it. Much of the initial investigation focuses on the US military's bioweapons program, and especially the two US Army bioweapons laboratories, USAMRIID (in Maryland) and the Dugway Proving Ground (in Utah) which have heavily used the Ames strain. Mark Smith, a veteran handwriting analyst, studies the anthrax letters and speculates that the suspect has worked for or had close ties to US military intelligence or the CIA. An FBI agent who is also a microbiologist is sent to the Dugway Proving Ground and spends weeks questioning more than 100 employees there. Scientists there are repeatedly asked who they think could have committed the attacks. Several people suggest Steven Hatfill. There is no actual evidence against Hatfill, but he is a larger than life figure with a curious background. The Washington Post will later comment: "Hatfill was not some mild-mannered, white-coated researcher who'd spent his career quietly immersed in scientific minutiae. With his thick black mustache, intense eyes and muscular, stocky build, he looked—and behaved—more like a character in a Hollywood action flick." He is a serious scientist, but colleagues call him "flamboyant," "raunchy," and "abrasive." He has worked with a number of US agencies, including the CIA, FBI, DIA, and Defense Department, on classified bioweapons projects. He has a mysterious background working and studying in South Africa and Zimbabwe for a number of years. For instance, a South African newspaper will report that he carried a gun into South African medical laboratories and boasted to colleagues that he had trained bodyguards for a white separatist leader. He is one of a core group of about 50 to 100 people that the FBI begins focusing on. [Washington Post, 9/14/2003]
Late 2001: Security Records Point Suspicion at Scientist Bruce Ivins
Security records indicate that Bruce Ivins, a scientist at USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory, extensively uses a "hot suite" laboratory in the evenings and at weekends around the times when the 2001 anthrax attacks letters are mailed (see Mid-August-October 2001). The security records are based on swipes of magnetized plastic access cards, and Ivins is the only one out of a handful of anthrax researchers at USAMRIID make such use of the laboratory. The Los Angeles Times will later note that these records were easily available to investigators in late 2001, but it is unknown when investigators first make note of them. [Los Angeles Times, 8/15/2008] Ivins will not be questioned about his after hours lab work until 2005 (see March 31, 2005).
Winter 2001: Future Anthrax Attacks Suspect Ivins Passes at Least One Polygraph Test, Continues to Work with FBI
Bruce Ivins handling the Ames strain of anthrax. The timing of the photo is unknown, but he sent this picture to a friend in an e-mail on November 14, 2001. Bruce Ivins handling the Ames strain of anthrax. The timing of the photo is unknown, but he sent this picture to a friend in an e-mail on November 14, 2001. [Source: Associated Press]At some point in the winter of 2001, the FBI has Bruce Ivins take a polygraph test over the recent anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). Ivins is a microbiologist with expertise in anthrax, and works at USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory. The FBI's investigation soon focuses on the possibility that the anthrax attacks could be caused by a single person working at a US lab such as USAMRIID (see November 10, 2001), so Ivins is a likely suspect. But at the same time, he is also assisting the FBI with the anthrax investigation (see Mid-October 2001). Ivins passes the test and retains his role assisting with the investigation. In 2002, more and more USAMRIID employees are given polygraph tests, but Ivins is not tested again. Gerry Andrews, Ivins's boss at the time, will later explain that Ivins is already considered to be in the "safety zone" of cleared suspects. According to the Wall Street Journal, Ivins is never polygraphed again. [Wall Street Journal, 8/7/2008] However, WorldNetDaily will claim that Ivins is given a second polygraph test years later, after he becomes a prime suspect, and he passes that as well. The FBI will later grow so frustrated at the polygraph results that in October 2007 they will ask a judge for permission to search his home and cars specifically to look for any materials, such as books, that could have helped him "defeat a polygraph." FBI handwriting analysts also are unable to match samples of Ivins's handwriting with the writing on the anthrax letters. When this analysis is made is unknown. [WorldNetDaily, 8/7/2008] Justice Department official Dean Boyd will later say, "[Ivins] was told he had passed [the polygraph] because we thought he did." But after Ivins comes under increased suspicion, the FBI had experts re-examine the polygraph results and concluded he had used "countermeasures" such as controlled breathing to cheat the test. However, the FBI has not publicly released the polygraph results and details of the testing remain murky. [Newsweek, 8/9/2008]
December 2001: FBI Questions USAMRIID Scientists about Anthax Attacks
FBI agents begin questioning scientists at USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory, about the recent anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). One person apparently questioned at this time is Bruce Ivins. [Los Angeles Times, 8/4/2008]
December 2001-May 2002: Anthrax Attacks Suspect Ivins Cleans Up Anthrax Traces near His Desk, Delays Report on It
Shortly after the October 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001), suspicions focus on USAMRIID, the US Army's top biological laboratory, as one of the few places where people would have the skills to make the anthrax. In December 2001, one USAMRIID scientist raises the issue of possible anthrax contamination in the lab. Another USAMRIID scientist, Bruce Ivins, takes it upon himself to investigate. He discovers traces of anthrax near his desk, which is away from the lab facilities where he and others work with anthrax and other dangerous substances. He swabs the area clean and decontaminates it. Then he delays filing a report about this for three months. The FBI is suspicious of this, and begins to consider Ivins as a possible suspect. But in sworn statements to the Army in May 2002, Ivins says he avoided filing a report because he did not want to cause an uproar in the facility with people worrying that they were contaminated. He also suggests that a sloppy lab technician could have spread anthrax from secured work spaces to unsecured ones including the desk area. The Army finishes a 300-plus page report that same month. The report concludes the anthrax contamination was accidental and not potentially deadly, and no discipline is recommended against anyone. But after Ivins's death in 2008, the unnamed officer who wrote the report will say: "Of course I think [Ivins's cleaning of the area] was a cover-up.... He was trying to clean up the material" used in the anthrax letters. The report is made available to the FBI, but it is unknown if the FBI makes use of it at the time. By this time, the FBI is more interested in investigating former USAMRIID scientist Steven Hatfill and they put aside their concerns about Ivins. Instead, Ivins remains deeply involved in assisting the FBI's anthrax investigation (see April 2002). [ABC News, 8/1/2008; Los Angeles Times, 8/15/2008]
December 9, 2001: FBI Still Has Not Questioned Some Possible Anthrax Attacks Suspects and Witnesses
On October 3, 2001, Ayaad Assaad was questioned by the FBI because a letter written by an unnamed former colleague of his said he was a potential biological terrorist who could attack the US (see October 3, 2001). Just days later, the anthrax attacks became publicly known, and there is speculation that the letter may have been an attempt to frame Assaad for the attacks. Assaad worked at USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory where many believe the anthrax used in the attacks originated. Before Assaad left USAMRIID in 1997, some of his colleagues in an informal group called the Camel Club harassed him due to his Middle Eastern background (even though he is Christian and a US citizen—see 1991-1992). In the early 1990s, some members of the Camel Club were found to be working on unauthorized projects at USAMRIID even after no longer being employed there, at a time when anthrax and other deadly germs went missing from the lab (see Early 1992). On December 4, 2001, a military spokesman says that FBI investigators are seeking to question current and former USAMRIID employees. However, on December 9, the Hartford Courant reports that most of the members of the (apparently defunct) Camel Club say they have yet to be questioned by the FBI. An FBI spokesman also says that the FBI is not tracking the source of the anonymous letter blaming Assaad. [Hartford Courant, 12/9/2001] Don Foster is a professor and linguistic analyst helping with the FBI's anthrax investigation. Foster will only find out about the letter after the Courant publishes their December 9 article. He will also discover that many others in the FBI's investigation know nothing of it, either. For instance, top FBI profiler and threat-assessment expert James Fitzgerald, who hired Foster to work on the investigation, has never heard of it. Foster will later comment, "What, I wondered, has the anthrax task force been doing?" [Vanity Fair, 9/15/2003] The FBI will not question some of Assaad's co-workers until 2004 (see February 11-March 17, 2004), and will not question him again until 2004 as well, even though officials say off the record that the Assaad letter remains intriguing (see May 11, 2004).
Shortly After December 9, 2001: Expert Possibly Identifies Author of Letter Blaming Assaad for Anthrax Attacks, but FBI Is Uninterested
Ayaad Assaad.Ayaad Assaad. [Source: Public domain]In mid-October 2001, the FBI hires professor Don Foster to help with the anthrax attacks investigation because he is an expert at discovering the authors of unknown texts by an analysis of word usage. He has already helped the FBI with many cases. In early December 2001, he reads a newspaper article about a letter mailed shortly before the anthrax attacks became publicly known that accuses former USAMRIID scientist Ayaad Assaad of planning to launch a biological attack on the US (see October 3, 2001). FBI investigators are largely ignorant of this letter, even though the FBI already strongly suspects that the anthrax used in the attacks came from USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory (see December 9, 2001). Foster asks for and receives a copy of the letter, known as the Quantico letter because it was mailed to a government office in Quantico, Virginia. He looks through documents written by about 40 USAMRIID employees and finds "writings by a female officer that looked like a perfect match." He writes a report to the FBI about this, but the FBI fails to follow through, as the Quantico letter has already been declared irrelevant even though few FBI investigators are even aware of it yet. Foster will write of his experience with the letter in a September 2003 article in Vanity Fair. [Vanity Fair, 9/15/2003] Apparently, this will lead to a renewed interest in the letter. The FBI will finally question Assaad about the letter in 2004, and will express their knowledge of Foster's Vanity Fair article when they talk to him. [Associated Press, 5/16/2004] However, it is unknown if the woman Foster identified is ever questioned. The FBI does show particular interest in questioning one person about the letter in early 2004, but that person is a man (see February 11-March 17, 2004).
December 2001-Early August 2002: FBI Takes Seven Months to Test which Mailbox Was Used to Mail Anthrax Letters
The FBI claims the anthrax letters were sent from the middle mailbox of these three mailboxes on Nassau Street, Princeton.The FBI claims the anthrax letters were sent from the middle mailbox of these three mailboxes on Nassau Street, Princeton. [Source: Richard Smith]In mid-October 2001, investigators mistakenly believe that the anthrax letters were mailed from somewhere in West Trenton, New Jersey and are said to have narrowed down the location of the mailbox to a one square mile radius. [New York Times, 10/19/2001] But around December 2001, contamination at a New Jersey postal processing center indicates that the letters in the anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001) had been mailed on one of a limited number of routes near Princeton, New Jersey. However, seven months pass before FBI investigators test hundreds of mailboxes and identify the mailbox where the letters were mailed from. Congressman Rush Holt (D-NJ), whose congressional district includes the area where the letters were mailed from, will later say that he was surprised by how slow and shoddy the investigation was. He will point out, "Within two days they could have dispatched 50 people to wipe all those mailboxes." He will also say that he was surprised when anthrax was found in his Congressional office in October 2001, but investigators never returned to conduct systematic testing to trace the path of the anthrax spores. [New York Times, 8/4/2008] The FBI tests about 600 mailboxes for several weeks and finds and removes the right one in early August. It is located in Princeton, New Jersey, on the corner of Nassau and Bank Streets and opposite the Princeton University campus. [New York Times, 8/14/2002] However, there are doubts that the right mailbox was identified (see August 14, 2002).
December 17, 2001-January 13, 2002: Government Officials Confirm FBI Believes Domestic Loner Caused the Anthrax Attacks
On December 17, 2001, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer speaks of the anthrax attacks investigation and says that it is "increasingly looking like it was a domestic source." On January 13, 2002, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge similarly states, "the primary direction of the investigation is turned inward." [Salon, 2/8/2002] This is confirmation of earlier reports that the investigation is focusing on the profile of a disgruntled American scientist acting alone (see November 10, 2001).
December 21, 2001: FBI Investigating Profit Motive for Anthrax Attacks
The FBI is now investigating "whether potential profit from the sale of anthrax medications or cleanup efforts may have motivated" the anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). Battelle, a company doing anthrax work for the CIA, mostly at the Battelle Memorial Institute in Ohio, is the company most discussed in a Washington Post story about this. Dozens of scientists at Battelle have been interviewed by the FBI already because it is one of only a few places where weaponized anthrax has been made. [Washington Post, 12/21/2001] The story comes one day after ABC News reported a Battelle scientist is under investigation for the anthrax attacks, but that story is quickly denied (see September 18-28, 2001).
December 22, 2001: New York Times: Bush Administration Tried but Failed to Pin Anthrax Attacks on Iraq
The New York Times reports, "Shortly after the first anthrax victim died in October, the Bush administration began an intense effort to explore any possible link between Iraq and the attacks and continued to do so even after scientists determined that the lethal germ was an American strain, scientists and government officials said." However, the effort eventually fizzled out when no evidence was found to back up the claim. A top federal scientist involved in the investigation says, "I know there are a number of people who would love an excuse to get after Iraq." An unnamed senior intelligence official says: "We looked for any shred of evidence that would bear on this [Iraq connection], or any foreign source. It's just not there." As a result of this Iraq focus, only recently have FBI investigators concentrated on suspects within the US. The anthrax used in the attacks was from the Ames strain, which is a strain most commonly used in US bioweapons programs. Initial evidence strongly suggested that the Iraqi government was never able to obtain the Ames strain, but investigators nonetheless spent a considerable amount of time looking into the issue. Investigators promoted the idea that the anthrax spores were coated with bentonite, an additive supposedly used by Iraqi scientists. But the anthrax used in the attacks actually did not have bentonite coating. The Times notes that investigators say they are not close to identifying any suspect, and, "Some senior Bush administration officials have begun to worry privately that the case might take decades to solve..." [New York Times, 12/22/2001]
Early-Late 2002: Scientists Map Anthrax Genome to Help Anthrax Attacks Investigation, but Make No Breakthroughs
Claire Fraser-Liggett.Claire Fraser-Liggett. [Source: University of Maryland]In late 2001, the FBI decides to try to decode the entire DNA sequence of the anthrax genome in an attempt to generate new leads for its anthrax attacks investigation. There are about five million units in the genome. The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), a leader in decoding microbe genomes, is given this task. TIGR director Claire Fraser-Liggett forms a small team of scientists. By early 2002, this TIGR team completes the genome. Then they compare the anthrax used in the letter sent to the Sun tabloid to a sample of the same strain, the Ames strain, maintained at Porton Down, the British biological weapons facility. The team finds several differences between the samples, raising the possibility that they could learn exactly which laboratory the anthrax used in the attacks came from. The team then looks at the original Ames strain, taken from a dead cow in Texas in 1981, to attempt to see how the anthrax in the letter evolved from the original. By late 2002, this task is finished but investigators are disappointed to learn that there are almost no noticeable differences between the original Ames strain and the anthrax used in the attacks. [New York Times, 8/20/2008]
January 2002: FBI Begins Subpoenas of Anthrax Labs After Substantial Delays
The FBI finally begins subpoenaing laboratories that worked with the Ames strain of anthrax used in the attacks. But when the labs start to send their samples, they are told to wait another month because a new storage room for the sample needs to be built. The Hartford Courant reports, "The FBI's delay in requesting the samples - and the government's lack of readiness to receive them - is part of a pattern." Other examples include taking seven months to begin testing mailboxes surrounding Princeton, New Jersey, where the anthrax letters were postmarked (see December 2001-Early August 2002), and nearly a year to go back into the American Media building in Boca Raton, Florida, to hunt for the source of anthrax that killed the first victim there. [Hartford Courant, 9/7/2002]
January 2002: FBI Interviews Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill for First Time
Steven Hatfill, later to emerge as a suspect of the anthrax attacks, is interviewed by FBI investigators for the first time. He is then given a lie-detector test as part of a wide-ranging FBI review of the scientific community. Hatfill is later told he gave satisfactory answers on the test. The FBI returns for a two-hour interview in March. [Washington Post, 8/11/2002]
February-April 2002: Writing Analyst Encourages FBI to Investigate Hatfill for Anthrax Attacks
Don Foster.Don Foster. [Source: Al Novak]October 12, 2001, the FBI contracted Don Foster to help with the newly formed anthrax attacks investigation. Foster is a professor of English literature at Vassar College who has been advising the FBI and other government agencies for years due to his expertise in writing analysis. He has sometimes correctly guessed the identities of anonymous authors by analyzing their word usage, not their handwriting styles. By studying news reports of hoax anthrax letters, Foster begins to get interested in Steven Hatfill as a potential suspect. Hatfill had appeared as an expert on biological attacks in some articles dating back to 1998, and he has a curious history while living in Zimbabwe and South Africa in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a time when the racist white government of Zimbabwe (then known as Rhodesia) possibly launched an anthrax attack on their own black citizens. Foster will write in 2003, "When I lined up Hatfill's known movements with the postmark locations of reported biothreats, those hoax anthrax attacks appeared to trail him like a vapor cloud." Around February 2002, Foster suggests Hatfill's name to FBI headquarters as a candidate suspect. But he is told that Hatfill has a good alibi. A month later, he puts forward Hatfill's name again but is told that people in the Defense Department, State Department, and the CIA have vouched for Hatfill. William Patrick, one of the most respected bioterrorism experts, is Hatfill's mentor and also vouches for him (see Early March 2002). In April 2002, Foster meets with Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a professor and biological arms control expert, who has been publicly putting forth theories on who she thinks is behind the anthrax attacks (see February-June 2002). He learns that she has independently come to the same conclusion, that Hatfill should be the prime suspect. Foster will later write that the FBI was "prodded publicly by Rosenberg and privately by myself" to investigate Hatfill more closely. Foster will apparently be eased out of the FBI's anthrax investigation when he requests some documents to analyze and the FBI does not show them to him. He will write an article in Vanity Fair in 2003 that will strongly imply Hatfill could be behind the anthrax attacks. [Vanity Fair, 9/15/2003]
February-June 2002: Professor's Theories Help Drive FBI's Interest in Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill
Barbara Hatch Rosenberg.Barbara Hatch Rosenberg. [Source: Public domain]In February 2002, Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg claims in a public speech at Princeton University that she knows the identity of the killer behind the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). Rosenberg is a professor of molecular biology at the State University of New York at Purchase, and a biological arms control expert. She states: "There are a number of insiders—government insiders—who know people in the anthrax field who have a common suspect. The FBI has questioned that person more than once... so it looks as though the FBI is taking that person very seriously." She also claims that the FBI is not that interested in going after this suspect because "[t]his guy knows too much, and knows things the US isn't very anxious to publicize" (see February 8, 2002). In June 2002, she puts out a paper that details her theory about this suspect. She states that "a number of inside experts (at least five that I know about) gave the FBI the name of one specific person as the most likely suspect." That same month, she presents her ideas to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, both of whom had been targeted in the anthrax attacks. She also is invited to brief the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee (see June 24, 2002). Immediately after this, the FBI searches Hatfill's home while reporters watch, putting him in the public eye as a possible suspect (see June 25, 2002). Rosenberg later denies ever mentioning Hatfill by name. However, one reporter later claims that Rosenberg had specifically given Hatfill's name as the lead suspect. Furthermore, the description of her suspect exactly matches Hatfill. Hatfill will later blame Rosenberg for the FBI's interest in him. He will say: "She's crazy. She caused it." [Washington City Paper, 7/25/2003] In 2008, Hatfill will be officially cleared of any involvement in the anthrax attacks (see August 8, 2008).
February 8, 2002: FBI's Anthrax Investigation Casts Wide Net, Despite Relatively Small Number of Likely Suspect Laboratories and Scientists
Salon exposes details about the FBI's anthrax investigation. The FBI appears to be casting a very wide net, for instance approaching all 40,000 members of the American Society of Microbiologists and putting out flyers all over New Jersey asking for information. Yet nearly all the evidence so far suggests that the Ames strain of anthrax used in the attacks was only given to about 20 laboratories in the US, and most likely only four US laboratories have the capability for "weaponizing" dry anthrax. Two of these labs are the US Army's USAMRIID in Fort Detrick, Maryland, or the US Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. There are probably less than 50 scientists in the US with the necessary skills. Meanwhile, the FBI has not yet subpoenaed employee records of the few labs that used the strain of anthrax used in the attacks. Numerous anthrax experts express puzzlement. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a professor and biological arms control expert, believes the FBI is dragging its heels for political reasons. She is convinced the FBI knows who mailed the anthrax letters, but is not arresting him, because he has been involved in secret biological weapons research that the US does not want revealed. "This guy knows too much, and knows things the US isn't very anxious to publicize. Therefore, they don't want to get too close." It will later turn out that she is referring to anthrax suspect Steven Hatfill (see February-June 2002). [Salon, 2/8/2002]
February 22-27, 2002: Anthrax Attacks Suspect Ivins Submits Anthrax Sample to FBI Investigators
Anthrax under magnification.Anthrax under magnification. [Source: T. W. Geisbert / USAMRIID]Scientist Bruce Ivins submits a sample of the anthrax he has been using to FBI investigators. Ivins works at USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory, and is helping with the anthrax investigation even though the FBI has reason to believe the anthrax could have come from USAMRIID (see Mid-October 2001 and Winter 2001). Ivins is using a variety of the Ames anthrax strain known as RMR-1029. A subpoena dated February 22, 2002 is issued to Ivins and other scientists, telling them to submit samples of their anthrax. Ivins submits his sample on February 27, apparently before he receives the subpoena. He is the only scientist to submit a sample before getting the subpoena. He had been discussing with investigators what kind of protocol to use for the samples, so he is familiar with the desire for the samples and how to submit them, but he does not completely the protocol with his sample. The FBI will soon destroy the sample he submits because it has not been prepared using the protocol, which is necessary for it to be used as valid evidence in trial. In April 2002, Ivins will submit a second anthrax sample. Around 2004, scientists will discover some unique genetic markers to the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks and will start comparing that anthrax to other anthrax. No match will be found between Ivins's April 2002 sample and the anthrax used in the attacks. However, Paul Keim, a biologist at Northern Arizona University and an expert at distinguishing various strains of anthrax, keeps duplicates of all the anthrax samples sent to the FBI. In early 2007, it will be discovered that he still has a copy of Ivins's February 2002 sample. A match will be discovered between that RMR-1029 sample and the sample from the attacks (see Early 2007). However, at least 100 scientists had access to this sample (see Late 2005-2006). [US Department of Justice, 8/18/2008; New York Times, 8/20/2008]
March-April 2002: Some Report Possible 9/11 Hijacker Link to Anthrax Attacks, Despite Thin Evidence
In June 2001, Ahmed Alhaznawi visited the emergency room of Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and was treated for a skin lesion. He was accompanied by Ziad Jarrah. In October 2001, after a series of mysterious anthrax attacks in the US became front-page news (see October 5-November 21, 2001), the treating doctor told the FBI he recognized the two hijackers and thought the wound was consistent with cutaneous anthrax exposure. However, the FBI discounted the possibility that the anthrax attacks originated with the hijackers or al-Qaeda. In March 2002, the New York Times reports that FBI spokesman John Collingwood "said the possibility of a connection between the hijackers and the anthrax attacks had been deeply explored. 'This was fully investigated and widely vetted among multiple agencies several months ago... Exhaustive testing did not support that anthrax was present anywhere the hijackers had been.'" [New York Times, 3/23/2002] The FBI is criticized by the neoconservative Weekly Standard for focusing its investigation on a possible domestic perpetrator rather that Iraq or al-Qaeda: "Based on the publicly available evidence, there appears to be no convincing rationale for the FBI's nearly exclusive concentration on American suspects. And the possibility is far from foreclosed that the anthrax bioterrorist was just who he said he was: a Muslim, impliedly from overseas." [Weekly Standard, 4/29/2002] In March 2002 it is also reported that US forces in Afghanistan have discovered installations that could have been used by al-Qaeda to produce biological weapons. "US forces recently discovered a site near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar that appeared to be an al-Qaeda biological weapons lab under construction. At the lab, 'there was evidence of the attempt, by bin Laden, to get his hands on weapons of mass destruction, anthrax, or a variety of others,' Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the US Central Command, said... in an interview." [CBS News, 3/23/2002] However, little new evidence will subsequently come out suggesting al-Qaeda was behind the October 2001 anthrax attacks.
Early March 2002: Bioweapons Expert Finally Interviewed by the FBI, Invited to Join Anthrax Investigation despite Close Ties to Main Suspect
William Patrick.William Patrick. [Source: Public domain]William Patrick is interviewed by the FBI in relation to the anthrax attacks. He is the inventor of the US anthrax weaponization process. He retired from decades of government employment in 1986, but continues with private consulting work. Patrick is surprised that the FBI did not interview him earlier. He is also a former superior to Steven Hatfill, who is emerging as the FBI's prime suspect around this time (see February 1999). [BBC, 3/14/2002] Additionally, Hatfill is considered Patrick's main protege. One bioterrorism expert says their close relationship is "like father and son." [Washington Post, 9/14/2003] After passing a lie detector test, the FBI invites Patrick to join the inner circle of technical advisers to the anthrax investigation. [Baltimore Sun, 6/27/2002] Later in 2002, the FBI searches Patrick's house with bloodhounds, but apparently fail to gain any leads. [Washington Post, 9/14/2003] It is later noted that "many of the experts the FBI has turned to for help are also, almost by definition, potential suspects. That has put FBI agents in the uncomfortable position of having to subject their scientist-consultants to polygraph tests, and then, afterward, ask those same experts to help analyze evidence." [Hartford Courant, 9/7/2002]
In February 2002, scientist Bruce Ivins submitted a sample of the anthrax he has been using to FBI investigators, but it was destroyed because it was not submitted according to strict protocols. As a result, he is asked to submit a second sample in April 2002, and does. Ivins works at USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory, and is helping with the anthrax investigation even as the FBI has reason to believe the anthrax could have come from USAMRIID (see Mid-October 2001 and Winter 2001). Ivins is using a variety of the Ames anthrax strain known as RMR-1029. Around early 2004, scientists will discover some unique genetic markers to the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks and will start comparing that anthrax to other anthrax. No match will be found between Ivins's April 2002 sample and the anthrax used in the attacks. As a result of this discrepancy, the FBI will raid Ivins's lab in July 2004 and seize more samples of RMR-1029 (see July 16, 2004). Additionally, Paul Keim, a biologist at Northern Arizona University and an expert at distinguishing various strains of anthrax, keeps duplicates of all the anthrax samples sent to the FBI. In early 2007, it will be discovered that he still has a copy of Ivins's February 2002 sample. A match will be discovered between that RMR-1029 sample and the sample from the attacks (see Early 2007). However, at least 100 scientists had access to this sample (see Late 2005-2006). [New York Times, 8/20/2008] It remains unknown if Ivins altered the sample he submitted. Keim will later say that the genetic markers found in other samples of RMR-1029 should have been found in Ivins's sample. He will note that "the FBI is implying he did it on purpose." However, he will say that "Ivins may simply have failed to collect a representative sample." [Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/1/2008] In an August 2008 press briefing (see August 18, 2008), a government official will be asked if the sample submitted was not RMR-1029. The official will reply, "I don't want to speculate that far." [US Department of Justice, 8/18/2008]
April 2002: FBI Supposedly Suspects Ivins for Anthrax Attacks, but Allows Him to Continue Helping Anthrax Investigation
ABC News will later report that the FBI begins suspecting scientist Bruce Ivins for the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001) in early 2002. The FBI first begins to suspect Ivins in April when it is discovered he had failed to quickly report anthrax had been found near his desk, away from the laboratory area where he usually works with anthrax. Ivins claims he did not report the leak in a timely manner because he did not want to cause an uproar (see December 2001-May 2002). One of Ivins's colleagues will later confirm that Ivins knew he had been under suspicion for years, and hired a criminal defense lawyer not long after the attacks. However, the FBI is already focusing their suspicions on a different scientist, Steven Hatfill (see February-June 2002), and largely dismisses concerns about Ivins. Ivins had passed a polygraph test (see Winter 2001), and directly assists the FBI with the anthrax investigation (see Mid-October 2001). Not only does he help analyze the anthrax letters, but he participates in strategy meetings on how to find the person responsible. [ABC News, 8/1/2008] Court documents will later claim that Ivins also repeatedly offers the FBI names of colleagues at USAMRIID who might be potential suspects in the attacks. In a 2007 search of his house, the FBI will find an e-mail from 2002 in which he names two fellow scientists and gives 11 reasons for their possible guilt. He sent the email from a personal account to his Army account, but it is not known if he sent it to anyone else. The FBI will later claim he was attempting to mislead the investigation. [New York Times, 8/7/2008; Wall Street Journal, 8/7/2008] Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent involved in the anthrax investigation, will later say, "If he in fact was the correct person, he was actually put in charge of analyzing the evidence of his own crime." [ABC News, 8/1/2008]
April 7, 2002: Government Sources Claim Some Anthrax Used in 2001 Attacks Was Very Sophisticated and Hard to Produce
The envelope to the Patrick Leahy letter.The envelope to the Patrick Leahy letter. [Source: FBI]Newsweek reports that "government sources" say a "secret new analysis shows anthrax found in a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy was ground [or milled] to a microscopic fineness not achieved by US biological-weapons experts." The letters to Leahy and Sen. Tom Daschle are believed to have contained a more sophisticated form of anthrax than those in the other letters. Newsweek says these two letter were "coated with a chemical compound unknown to experts who have worked in the field for years; the coating matches no known anthrax samples ever recovered from biological-weapons producers anywhere in the world, including Iraq and the former Soviet Union." [Newsweek, 4/7/2002] The belief that these two anthrax letters used a very sophisticated form of anthrax is widespread by this time (see October 25-29, 2001). However, from 2006 onwards, the FBI will assert there was no coating or milling on any of the anthrax letters at all (see August 2006).
May 2, 2002: DNA Sequencing Shows Anthrax Used in Attacks Most Likely Came from USAMRIID
USAMRIID.USAMRIID. [Source: Public domain]After extensive testing, the DNA sequence of the anthrax sent through the US mail in 2001 is deciphered, and it strongly supports suspicions that the bacteria originally came from USAMRIID, the US Army's biological laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Furthermore, analysis of genetic drift determines that the attacker's anthrax was not separated from the source anthrax at USAMRIID for many generations. It suggests that USAMRIID or USAMRIID samples given to Dugway Proving Ground in Utah and/or Porton Downs in Britain are the most likely sources of the anthrax used in the attacks. [New Scientist, 5/2/2002]
May 21-24, 2002: Pressure Mounts on FBI to Solve Anthrax Case
A New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof says it's time to "light a fire under the FBI in its investigation of the anthrax case. Experts in the bioterror field are already buzzing about a handful of individuals who had the ability, access, and motive to send the anthrax." [New York Times, 5/24/2002] Similarly, the Guardian suggests that the FBI investigation is moving deliberately slow because the federal authorities have something to hide, stating "there is surely a point after which incompetence becomes an insufficient explanation for failure." [Guardian, 5/21/2002]
May 24-August 13, 2002: New York Times Columnist Repeatedly Suggests Hatfill Was Responsible for Anthrax Attacks
Nicholas Kristof.Nicholas Kristof. [Source: Publicity photo]Columnist Nicholas Kristof writes a series of articles in the New York Times suggesting that Steven Hatfill could be responsible for the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). His columns start out vague. In his first column on the subject on May 24, 2002, he speaks of an unnamed "middle-aged American who has worked for the United States military bio-defense program and had access to the labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland. His anthrax vaccinations are up to date, he unquestionably had the ability to make first-rate anthrax, and he was upset at the United States government in the period preceding the anthrax attack." [New York Times, 5/24/2002] Kristof writes in his next column: "Some in the biodefense community think they know a likely culprit, whom I'll call Mr. Z. Although the bureau has polygraphed Mr. Z, searched his home twice and interviewed him four times, it has not placed him under surveillance or asked its outside handwriting expert to compare his writing to that on the anthrax letters." [New York Times, 7/2/2002] His next column suggests Mr. Z could have been behind a fake anthrax scare in 1997 (see April 24, 1997). [New York Times, 7/12/2002] In his final column, he reveals that Mr. Z is in fact Steven Hatfill, the FBI's prime suspect at the time. Kristof writes: "There is not a shred of traditional physical evidence linking him to the attacks. Still, Dr. Hatfill is wrong to suggest that the FBI has casually designated him the anthrax 'fall guy.' The authorities' interest in Dr. Hatfill arises from a range of factors, including his expertise in dry biological warfare agents, his access to Fort Detrick labs where anthrax spores were kept (although he did not work with anthrax there) and the animus to some federal agencies that shows up in his private writings. He has also failed three successive polygraph examinations since January, and canceled plans for another polygraph exam two weeks ago." [New York Times, 8/13/2002] Many of the allegations in Kristof's articles will turn out to be incorrect. The US government will finally clear Hatfill of any connection to the anthrax attacks in 2008 (see August 8, 2008).
Summer 2002: FBI Allegedly Harrasses Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill's Girlfriend
Steven Hatfill, the FBI's prime suspect in the anthrax attacks at the time, has an unnamed Malaysian-born girlfriend that he has been involved with for several years. According to a complaint by Hatfill's lawyer, in the summer of 2002 the FBI shows up at her Pacific Northerwest condominium with a search warrant and tells her that Hatfill has "killed five people." They reportedly tear her home apart, leaving it "look[ing] like a war zone." [Washington Post, 9/14/2003] These tactics will closely parallel how the FBI will pressure relatives of anthrax attacks suspect Bruce Ivins several years later. In early 2007, FBI agents will reportedly confront Ivins's wife and son in public and ask his wife, "Do you know he killed people" (see March 2008)?
June 2002: Scientists Determine Anthrax Used in Attacks Is Two Years Old or Less
Scientists working with the FBI's anthrax attacks investigation determine that the anthrax used in the attacks was relatively new. A series of nuclear weapons tests in the US in the 1950s left traces of carbon-14. Every year, the quantity of carbon-14 diminishes at a predictable rate. So, by "calculating the ratio of carbon-14 to the normal kind in residue of plants eaten by the cow from which the [anthrax] was made," investigators learn that the anthrax had been grown within the last two years. The anthrax is no more than two years older than when it was sent, which would mean the anthrax cannot be older than roughly September 1999. [New York Times, 6/23/2002; New York Times, 8/5/2008]
June 23, 2002: Lax Security Alleged at USAMRIID; Scientists There Inexperienced with Dry Anthrax
Arthur Friedlander.Arthur Friedlander. [Source: Defense Department / Larry Otsby]The New York Times reports that the FBI is investigating the possibility that the anthrax used in the 2001 anthrax attacks was smuggled out of USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland. Arthur Friedlander, a senior USAMRIID scientist, says that researchers at USAMRIID use wet anthrax only and have no idea how to make dry powders (the anthrax used in the attacks was a dry powder). But FBI agents are questioning USAMRIID scientists about the possibility that someone could smuggle out some of the anthrax and refine it elsewhere. Luann Battersby, a microbiologist who worked at USAMRIID from 1990 to 1998, says FBI agents interviewed her for three hours on June 12 about the smuggling theory. She says: "I said it was extremely easy to do.... A quarter-million micro-organisms fit in the period at the end of a sentence. It doesn't take any great strategy to take this stuff out." [New York Times, 6/23/2002]
June 24, 2002: Professor's Congressional Briefing Precedes FBI's Public Focus on Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill
A curious Congressional briefing takes place on June 24, 2002. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a professor and biological arms control expert, has been publicly hinting that she knows who is behind the 2001 anthrax attacks. She has been describing a profile that perfectly matches Steven Hatfill without actually naming him or giving any other name (see February-June 2002). On this day, she takes part in a closed door meeting with congressional staffers from the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss her theories. Van Harp, the head of the FBI's anthrax investigation, Robert Roth, a top manager of the investigation, and other FBI officials also attend the meeting. Rosenberg lays out her theories but fails to name her sources or give any hard evidence. At one point, Harp asks her in frustration: "Do you know who did this? Do you know?" She say she does not. Harp has a private conversation with Rosenberg after the meeting. [Washington Post, 9/14/2003] It is unknown what is said, but the next day, the FBI searches Hatfill's apartment and tips off the media to the search, beginning a public focus on Hatfill as the FBI's main suspect (see June 25, 2002).
June 25, 2002: FBI Searches Home of Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill; Tips Off Media in Advance
Brad Garrett.Brad Garrett. [Source: ABC News]The FBI search the home of a scientist who worked at USAMRIID, the US Army's biological laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland. [Associated Press, 6/25/2002] This scientist remains anonymous in most stories, but some name him as Steven Hatfill. The search comes just one day after professor Barbara Hatch Rosenberg briefed a senate committee and FBI officials on her theory that Hatfill was responsible for the anthrax attacks (see February-June 2002 and June 24, 2002). The FBI announces that the search found nothing and Hatfill is not a suspect. In the wake of all these stories, one microbiologist states, "Their intent was clearly to put [Hatfill's] name in the public eye. The only question is why." [Hartford Courant, 6/27/2002]
Media Tip Off - The media is tipped off in advance to the search. Even as Hatfill is signing a search authorization, news helicopters are already seen flying towards his apartment. Within minutes, droves of reporters arrive. FBI agent Robert Roth, who is part of the search, will later admit in court that "probably several hundred" people knew in advance about the search. Hatfill will continue to cooperate with the FBI.
Tip Off Called Inappropriate - But FBI agent Brad Garrett, also involved in the search, will later comment, "I wouldn't have spoken to us after that [media tip off]." Asked if it was appropriate to tip off the media beforehand, he will reply, "Absolutely not..... t's clearly not appropriate or even responsible to do that in reference to the person you are searching. He's not been charged. He has not gone to court." Additionally, it could forewarn "people you are coming to search" and tip off accomplices. [Los Angeles Times, 6/29/2008]
July 2002-Late 2003: FBI Openly and Constantly Monitors Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill
An FBI agent checking a dumpster near Steven Hatfill's apartment.An FBI agent checking a dumpster near Steven Hatfill's apartment. [Source: WUSA]In July 2002, anthrax attacks suspect Steven Hatfill is put under 24-hour surveillance. The surveillance comes after bloodhounds allegedly link Hatfill to the anthrax letters at some point in July. (This bloodhound evidence will be quickly debunked by the media, but apparently this does not dissuade the FBI (see August 4, 2002)). [Vanity Fair, 9/15/2003] The surveillance is quite open and obvious at times. In December 2002, Hatfill alleges that a virtual caravan of unmarked vans and cars are keeping him under constant surveillance, following him on errands and to restaurants, and driving past his house with a video camera pointed out the window. He also believes that his telephone is being wiretapped. [United Press International, 12/23/2002] In May 2003, Hatfill walks up to one of the agents following him attempts to videotape him. The agent drives into Hatfill and runs over his foot. Remarkably, the driver is not punished but Hatfill gets a five-dollar ticket for "walking to create a hazard." Mike Hayes, a retired 20-year FBI agent specializing in surveillance, says to a reporter regarding the FBI's behavior with Hatfill, "What you're describing—really obvious surveillance—doesn't make a lot of sense." [Baltimore Sun, 5/20/2003] Shortly after the incident, USA Today reports, "FBI officials believe they can't risk the embarrassment of losing track of Hatfill, even for a few hours, and then being confronted with more anthrax attacks." Privately, Hatfill's lawyer suggests that Hatfill could be outfitted with a satellite-guided tracking device and allow an FBI agent to stay with him at all times, but the FBI rejects the offer. [Los Angeles Times, 6/29/2008] The surveillance continues until late 2003 and is very intermittent after that. [Baltimore Sun, 7/21/2004] The FBI will later admit that this type of open surveillance of a suspect is against FBI guidelines. However, when the FBI's focus turns to Bruce Ivins in 2007, they will use the same technique on him (see Autumn 2007-July 29, 2008).
July 21, 2002: Time Magazine: FBI Anthrax Investigation Still Hasn't Narrowed
In an article titled, "Anthrax: the Noose Widens," Time magazine reports, "Despite recent claims by some in the bioterrorism community that the investigation should be homing in on one particular American bioweapons expert, the FBI appears to be moving in the opposite direction. US government officials say the investigation is still ranging far and wide and that the FBI has not ruled out a foreign connection." [Time, 7/21/2002] The unnamed expert is a clear reference to Steven Hatfill. The FBI will name him a "person of interest" in the investigation days later (see August 1, 2002).
August 1, 2002: FBI Names Hatfill as 'Person of Interest'; Other FBI Agents Speculate Hatfill is Being Framed
The FBI names Steven Hatfill as a "person of interest" in the anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001), the first person to be so named. The same day, the FBI conductis a second search of his house after tipping the media off in advance (see August 1, 2002). [Associated Press, 8/1/2002; London Times, 8/2/2002] CBS News initially reports: "Federal law enforcement sources told CBS News that Dr. Steven Hatfill was 'the chief guy we're looking at' in the probe. The sources were careful not to use the word suspect, but said they were 'zeroing in on this guy' and that he is 'the focus of the investigation.'" But later in the day their story is changed and that text is removed. Instead, Hatfill is referred to as "a bio-defense scientist on the FBI's radar screen for months who's now emerged as a central figure in the anthrax investigation." [CBS News, 8/1/2002] On the same day, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, one of the world's top anthrax specialists, is interviewed by FBI agents who ask her whether a team of government scientists could be trying to frame Hatfill. Rosenberg has been very publicly critical of the FBI investigation. [Washington Times, 8/3/2002] She actually appears to be a key figure in getting the FBI to focus on Hatfill in the first place (see February-June 2002). Newsweek follows with a lengthy article purporting to detail the entire anthrax investigation, but it focuses entirely on Hatfill and fails to mention others involved in suspicious activities. [Newsweek, 8/4/2002] The Washington Post does a similar story focusing on Hatfill only, and even claims the US biowarfare program ended decades ago, despite revelations in late 2001 that it is still continuing. [Washington Post, 8/4/2002] Attorney General John Ashcroft calls Hatfill a "person of interest" on August 6. [Los Angeles Times, 6/29/2008]
August 1, 2002: FBI Sends Email to LSU: Cease and Desist Employing Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill on Government Programs
A Justice Department grants administrator sends an e-mail to Louisiana State University's biomedical research and training center, telling it to "immediately cease and desist" from employing researcher and 2001 anthrax attacks suspect Steven Hatfill on department-funded programs. The next day Hatfill is placed on administrative leave. [CNN, 9/5/2002; Los Angeles Times, 6/29/2008] On September 4, he is fired. [Associated Press, 9/4/2002] A day after that, the person who hired him is fired as well. [Associated Press, 9/5/2002] The LSU center relies on funding from the Justice Department for 97 percent of its money. [Weekly Standard, 9/16/2002] The New York Times will later report that "several senior law enforcement officials expressed embarrassment over the e-mail incident, saying the domestic preparedness office acted improperly because Mr. Hatfill has never been charged with any wrongdoing and has not been [officially] identified as a suspect." [New York Times, 9/5/2002] Attorney General John Ashcroft and five FBI officials will later testify that they knew of no other instance in which the government had forced an investigative target out of a non-governmental job. [Los Angeles Times, 6/29/2008]
August 1, 2002: FBI Conducts Second Search of Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill's Apartment, Tips Off Media in Advance Again
A television film crew at Steven Hatfill's apartment on August 1, 2002.A television film crew at Steven Hatfill's apartment on August 1, 2002. [Source: Alex Wong / Getty Images]The FBI conducts a second search of Steven Hatfill's apartment on the same day he is officially named a "person of interest" in the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). FBI agents are seen investigating his trash. [Associated Press, 8/1/2002; London Times, 8/2/2002] As with the first search of his apartment in June (see June 25, 2002), the media is tipped off in advance. An FBI agent involved in the search, Brad Garrett, will later say, "Obviously, someone told them we were going to do that search." FBI agent Robert Roth, also part of the search, will call the tip offs "just ridiculous." The fact that the search is made with a court issued warrant is also leaked to the media, implying that Hatfill is no longer cooperating with investigators when in fact he still is. [Los Angeles Times, 6/29/2008]
August 1, 2002 and After: FBI Neglects Other Leads after Publicly Naming Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill
After the FBI publicly names Steven Hatfill as a "person of interest" in the anthrax investigation on August 1, 2002 (see August 1, 2002), FBI leaders become increasingly fixated on him and fail to follow up on other leads. One anonymous FBI agent involved in the case will later say: "They exhausted a tremendous amount of time and energy on him... I'm still convinced that whatever seemed interesting or worth pursuing was just basically nullified in the months or year following when 'person of interest' came out about Hatfill." Other possibilities are neglected because it is assumed in the FBI that "sooner or later they'll have this guy nailed." Another anonymous FBI investigator will say: "Particular management people felt, 'He is the right guy. If we only put this amount of energy into him, we'll get to the end of the rainbow.' Did it take energy away? It had to have. Because you can't pull up another hundred agents and say, 'You go work these leads [that] these guys can't because they're just focused on Hatfill.'" The Los Angeles Times will later comment, "The preoccupation with Hatfill persisted for years, long after investigators failed to turn up any evidence linking him to the mailings." [Los Angeles Times, 6/29/2008]
After August 1, 2002: FBI Director Mueller Prevents Criminal Probe of Media Leaks in Anthrax Attacks Investigation
On June 25, 2002, and again on August 1, 2002, the FBI conducts searches of Steven Hatfill's apartment, and the media is tipped off in advance. Some FBI agents are upset at the lax security allowing the leaks (see June 25, 2002 and August 1, 2002). At some point after the second search, an unnamed FBI official recommends a criminal probe of the leaks with mandatory polygraph tests. However, according to later court testimony by FBI agent Robert Roth, FBI Director Robert Mueller opposes the idea. Mueller says: "I don't want to do that.... It's bad for morale to go after these people." Apparently, no action is taken and the leaks continue. [Los Angeles Times, 6/29/2008] In at least one media leak in August 2002, it will later be found that one of the leakers was Van Harp, the head of the FBI's anthrax investigation (see August 4, 2002).
August 4, 2002: FBI Smears Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill with Improbable Bloodhound Story
Roscoe Howard Jr.Roscoe Howard Jr. [Source: Associated Press]Newsweek reports that bloodhounds have recently been used in the search for the killer in the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). Supposedly, the dogs were presented with "scent packs" lifted from anthrax-tainted letters mailed the year before, even though the letters had long since been decontaminated. The dogs reportedly showed no reaction wherever they were sent, except when taken to the apartment of anthrax suspect Steven Hatfill, where the dogs reportedly become agitated and go "crazy." It is said they showed similar reactions at the apartment of Hatfill's girlfriend and a Denny's restaurant in Louisiana where Hatfill had eaten the day before. [Newsweek, 8/4/2002] However, three days later, the Baltimore Sun reports that managers at all 12 of the Denny's in Louisiana say they have not been visited by federal agents with bloodhounds. Furthermore, three veteran bloodhound handlers are interviewed and say they are skeptical that any useful scent could have remained on the letters after so much time, as well as after the decontamination. Former officer and bloodhound handler Weldon Wood says, "Anything is possible. But is it feasible, after this length of time and what the letters have been through? I would doubt it." The Sun suggests, "the possibility exists that the story was a leak calculated to put pressure on Hatfill." [Baltimore Sun, 8/8/2002] Investigators will later conclude that the dogs' excitement is useless as evidence. Van Harp, the FBI official in charge of the anthrax investigation, and Roscoe Howard Jr., the US attorney for Washington, DC, will later admit they leaked the bloodhound story to Newsweek. [Los Angeles Times, 6/29/2008]
August 11, 2002: FBI Concedes Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill Does Not Have Skills to Make Anthrax Used in Attacks
It is reported on ABC World News Tonight that Steven Hatfill is "known as a person who has worked around anthrax experts, although the FBI concedes he could not himself make anthrax, does not have what they call 'the bench skills' to make it." Hatfill is the FBI's only publicly named suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks at this time (see October 5-November 21, 2001 and August 1, 2002). [ABC News, 8/11/2002] But despite this, the FBI will continue to focus on Hatfill for years and apparently will not even consider the possibility of accomplices.
August 11, 2002: Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill Publicly Claims He Is Being Set Up as 'Fall Guy'
Hatfill holding a press conference on August 11, 2002.Hatfill holding a press conference on August 11, 2002. [Source: Associated Press / Rick Bowner]Anthrax suspect Steven Hatfill defends himself in a public speech and Washington Post interview. He claims that he is being set up as the "fall guy" for the anthrax attacks. He says his life "has been completely and utterly destroyed," and he has twice lost a job due to the allegations. His lawyer also accuses the FBI of leaking documents to the press and conducting searches of Hatfill's residence in a highly visible way when a more discreet method could have been arranged. [Washington Post, 8/11/2002; Fox News, 8/12/2002]
August 14, 2002: FBI's Identification of Mailbox Used in Anthrax Attacks May Be Incorrect
The FBI claims the anthrax letters were sent from the middle mailbox of these three mailboxes on Nassau Street, Princeton.The FBI claims the anthrax letters were sent from the middle mailbox of these three mailboxes on Nassau Street, Princeton. [Source: Jill Becker / The New York Times]The Times of Trenton, a Trenton, New Jersey, newspaper, reports that there are doubts about the FBI's recent claim that the mailbox where the anthrax letters were sent has been found (see December 2001-Early August 2002). The newspaper reports, "nvestigators say it is impossible at this point, and might never be determined, whether the Nassau Street mailbox was a point of origin for one of the letters or if it became contaminated through contact with other mail or equipment containing traces of anthrax." FBI agent Ken Shuey, in charge of the FBI's temporary field office based in Trenton, says, [W]e can't say with certainty where the letters entered the mail system until we have some other corroboration or someone confesses." The difficulty is that the mailbox served two purposes: members of the public could drop letters in it, but it was also used to hold sorted mail for letter carriers to deliver. The mailbox is the only one out of about 650 mailboxes in the area to test positive for anthrax, but there seems to be no way to tell if the anthrax was from letters placed directly into it or cross-contamination by letters from other nearby mailboxes that were passing through it. State Health Commissioner Clifton Lacy says he suspects cross-contamination is to blame for the anthrax detection. FBI spokesperson Bill Evanina says: "We have no idea. It could be something that was placed in the box or it could be cross-contamination. It is way, way too early to tell." [Times of Trenton, 8/14/2002] Other newspapers fail to report on the cross-contamination problem and, as of September 2008, the FBI has yet to make public information explaining any solution to the problem.
August 15, 2002: Seeking Witnesses to Anthrax Mailing, FBI Shows Only Hatfill's Photo
Trace elements of anthrax have been found in a post office box across the street from Princeton University in New Jersey. [MSNBC, 8/12/2002] The FBI declares Steven Hatfill has not "received any more attention than any other person of interest in the investigation." [Fox News, 8/12/2002] Yet Hatfill is the only named "person of interest," and his photo is the only one being shown by the FBI to residents of the neighborhood near the mailbox. [Associated Press, 8/15/2002] The New York Times will later report, "Criminologists said that only by showing photos of a number of people could investigators have confidence in an eyewitness identification of Dr. Hatfill or any other suspect." [New York Times, 8/4/2008] Several months later, a law enforcement official admits to the Los Angeles Times that, "to be honest, we don't have anybody that is real good [as a possible anthrax suspect]. That is why so much energy has gone into Hatfill—because we didn't have anybody else." [Weekly Standard, 9/16/2002]
August 18, 2002: Washington Post Criticizes FBI's Hatfill Treatment, Media Coverage
A Washington Post editorial blasts the FBI's treatment of anthrax attacks suspect Steven Hatfill. "Each slipshod case whittles away our collective liberties, our self-respect, our confidence in the legal system." The Post also blasts the media's coverage: "Wittingly or unwittingly, reporters and government investigators may collude, creating the appearance of a posse mentality that discredits them both." [Washington Post, 8/18/2002]
August 18, 2002: FBI Linguistics Expert Expresses Frustration at Anthrax Investigation Problems
An FBI forensic linguistics expert says the anthrax mailer was probably someone with high-ranking US military and intelligence connections. He says he has identified two suspects who both worked for the CIA, USAMRIID, and other classified military operations. He expresses frustration about accessing evidence. "My two suspects both appear to have CIA connections. These two agencies, the CIA and the FBI, are sometimes seen as rivals. My anxiety is that the FBI agents assigned to this case are not getting full and complete cooperation from the US military, CIA, and witnesses who might have information about this case." He also says the killer seems to have tried implicating two former USAMRIID scientists who had left the laboratory in unhappy circumstances by posting the letters from near their homes in New Jersey. [BBC, 8/18/2002]
August 26, 2002: Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill Releases Photos; Claims FBI Trashed his Apartment
A picture of Steven Hatfill's apartment after the FBI went through it.A picture of Steven Hatfill's apartment after the FBI went through it. [Source: Alex Wong / Getty Images]Anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001) suspect Steven Hatfill releases photos he claims show that the FBI "trashed" his girlfriend's apartment. The photos "evoked an uneasy sense of recognition among law enforcement experts," who have seen these kinds of strong armed tactics when the FBI is desperate for a conviction. "Veteran FBI-watchers suggest the Bureau, looking at Steven Hatfill off and on for nearly a year, does not have the goods on him. Law enforcement sources confirm he passed a polygraph test administered by the FBI last fall... Apparent absence of evidence suggests either incompetence at the level of false accusations in the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park bombing—or something worse." [New York Post, 8/3/2002]
Autumn 2002: Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill Helps Train US Special Forces while FBI Investigates Him
In autumn 2002, US Delta Force units train on a mobile biological weapons factory to prepare them for dealing with mobile biological weapons factories in Iraq. The factory is just like the factories the US accuses the Iraqi government of having but which it does not have. The chief designer of the factory is Steven Hatfill, who is also the FBI's main suspect at the time for the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). Hatfill began designing the factory while working for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a contractor for the US military and the CIA. He begins gathering parts to build it in 2000, and construction began in September 2001, at a metalworking plant near Fort Detrick, Maryland. SAIC fired him in March 2002, after he failed to get a high-level security clearance and he came under suspicion for the October 2001 anthrax attacks. But Hatfill continues to work on the half-built factory on his own, for no pay, until it is finished later that year. Once it is done, Hatfill continues to advise the US military about it, and sometimes supervises Delta Force training exercises on it at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. However, at the same time, the Justice Department and the FBI is heavily investigating Hatfill for the anthrax attacks, and there is a conflict between agencies over Hatfill's continued role with the factory. The FBI wants to confiscate the factory, but the military will not give it up. Its equipment includes a fermenter, a centrifuge, and "a mill for grinding clumps of anthrax into the best size for penetrating human lungs," according to experts familiar with it. However, its components are not connected and it is never used to make lethal germs. The FBI examines the unit but finds no anthrax spores or any other evidence linking it to the anthrax attacks. [New York Times, 7/2/2003] Hatfill will be cleared of any connection to the anthrax attacks in 2008 (see June 27, 2008).
September 10, 2002: FBI Searches Hatfill's House Third Time for Anthrax Residue
The FBI searches Steven Hatfill's house for anthrax residue for a third time. Hatfill had moved out several weeks earlier. He is the FBI's main suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). [MSNBC, 9/11/2002]
October 22, 2002: FBI Is 'Very Confident' Hatfill Is Responsible for Anthrax Attacks
Peter Jennings reports on ABC News' World News Tonight, "The FBI tells ABC News it is very confident that it has found the person responsible" for the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). Reporter Brian Ross explains, "That's right, Peter, Steven Hatfill. And while there's no direct evidence, authorities say they are building what they describe as a growing case of circumstantial evidence." [Salon, 8/10/2008] In 2008, Hatfill will be exonerated and given a large cash settlement after a federal judge states there "is not a scintilla of evidence" linking him to the anthrax attacks (see June 27, 2008).
October 28, 2002: Many Scientists and Experts Believe One Person Could Not Have Caused Anthrax Attacks; Suggest State Sponsor Such as Iraq Instead
The Washington Post reports in a front-page story, "A significant number of scientists and biological warfare experts are expressing skepticism about the FBI's view that a single disgruntled American scientist prepared the spores and mailed the deadly anthrax letters that killed five people last year." More than a dozen experts suggest investigators should "reexamine the possibility of state-sponsored terrorism, or try to determine whether weaponized spores may have been stolen by the attacker from an existing, but secret, biodefense program or perhaps given to the attacker by an accomplice." These experts suggest that making the type of anthrax used could take a team of experts and millions of dollars. The article focuses on the possibility that Iraq could be to blame, and mentions that unnamed senior Bush administration officials believe Iraq was behind the attacks (see October 28, 2002). However, even though the Post claims "a consensus has emerged in recent months among experts," only one expert, Richard Spertzel, is named who supports the Iraq theory. Spertzel was the chief biological inspector for the UN Special Commission from 1994 to 1998. He says: "In my opinion, there are maybe four or five people in the whole country who might be able to make this stuff, and I'm one of them. And even with a good lab and staff to help run it, it might take me a year to come up with a product as good." [Washington Post, 10/28/2002] Although the article doesn't mention it, the other scientists Spertzel say could make the anthrax are renowned bioterrorism expert William Patrick and several unnamed scientists at Dugway Proving Ground, the US Army's bioweapons laboratory in Utah, that Patrick trained in anthrax production in 1998. [Vanity Fair, 9/15/2003] This renewed focus on an Iraq-anthrax link coincides with the US push to go to war with Iraq, and will fade after the Iraq war starts. <$> <:^0 <:^0 <:^0 <:^0 <:^0 <:^0 <:^0 <:^0 <:^0 :^)
Late October 2002: Anthrax Attacks Suspect Drinks Himself to Death
In 2002, microbiologist Perry Mikesell came under suspicion as the anthrax attacker. Mikesell is an anthrax specialist who worked with Bruce Ivins and others at USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory, in the 1980s and 1990s. Since then, he had worked at the Battelle Memorial Institute, a private contractor in Ohio working on classified government bioweapons programs. According to family members, he begins drinking heavily after the FBI starts suspecting him, consuming up to a fifth of hard liquor a day. One relative will later say, "It was a shock that all of a sudden he's a raging alcoholic." He dies in late October 2002. The relative will say, "He drank himself to death." His connection to the anthrax investigation will not be revealed until 2008, and it still is completely unknown why the FBI was focusing on him. Two weeks before his suicide (see July 29, 2008), Ivins will liken the pressure he is facing from the FBI to the pressure that had been put on Mikesell. He will reportedly tell a colleague, "Perry [Mikesell] drank himself to death." [New York Times, 8/9/2008]
Late 2002: Head of FBI's Anthrax Attacks Investigation Changes, but Focus on Suspect Hatfill Remains
On October 15, 2001, FBI Director Robert Mueller appointed Van Harp, a 32-year FBI veteran, head of the anthrax attacks investigation. By late 2002, Harp is ready for retirement and senior FBI agent Richard Lambert takes over as the new head. However, like Harp, Lambert seems focused on suspect Steven Hatfill and little interested in other potential suspects. Eventually, some FBI agents will seek a review of Lambert's administration. One agent will later say: "There were complaints about him. Did he take energy away from looking at other people? The answer is yes." [Los Angeles Times, 6/29/2008] The FBI will finally drop its interest in Hatfill in late 2006, when Lambert is replaced (see Autumn 2006).
December 12-17, 2002: Future Anthrax Suspect Ivins Mingles with FBI Investigators During Search
Bruce Ivins working as a Red Cross volunteer in 2003.Bruce Ivins working as a Red Cross volunteer in 2003. [Source: Associated Press]During a several day search of a pond near Frederick, Maryland, by FBI investigators for clues to the anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001), Scientist Bruce Ivins is there with the investigators, working as a Red Cross volunteer. Ivins will commit suicide in 2008 after coming under scrutiny as the FBI's main suspect in the anthrax attacks (see July 29, 2008). The pond search is highly publicized at the time, and is an unsuccessful effort to find evidence connecting the attacks to Steven Hatfill, the FBI's main suspect at the time (see December 12-17, 2002). The pond is near USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory where Ivins works and Hatfill used to work. As a Red Cross volunteer, Ivins serves coffee, donuts, and snacks to FBI agents and other investigators in a military tent. He is eventually removed after officials realize he is an anthrax researcher who could compromise the investigation. Apparently, Ivins is a regular Red Cross volunteer at the time. Miriam Fleming, another Red Cross volunteer working at the pond search, will later recall that Ivins "was kind of goofy, but he was always in a good mood. He seemed so normal." [New York Times, 8/7/2008]
Early 2003-2005: Scientists Gradually Able to Identify Unique Signiature to Anthrax Used in 2001 Attacks
Jacques Ravel.Jacques Ravel. [Source: New York Times / Brendan Smialowsk]In 2002, scientists mapped the anthrax genome in an attempt to generate new leads for the anthrax attacks investigation. Initially, the results are disappointing because the anthrax used in the letters, which is from the Ames strain, do not seem to differ in any way from the original Ames strain used in many laboratories (see Early-Late 2002). But around early 2003, an unnamed US Army microbiologist at USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory, makes a breakthrough. He discovers a morph (also known as a morphotype) that allows scientists to detect differences between the genetic structure of the anthrax used in the attacks and other anthrax. Jacques Ravel, a leading member of the scientific team at the The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) that is decoding the anthrax genome, is asked to decode more morphs. After two years, the team is able to decode a total of eight morphs. The head of TIGR will later comment that it was not clear why the FBI did not ask other laboratories to share the task and speed up the process. Other scientists working with the FBI select four of the morphs as having the most reliable unique genetic differences, known as indels. All of the anthrax letters used anthrax containing these four indels. The FBI finally has a unique signature for the anthrax used in the attacks and starts looking for laboratories that have used an exact match. [New York Times, 8/20/2008] Apparently, by early 2004 scientists already know enough to notice a discrepancy with a sample scientist Bruce Ivins has submitted to the investigation, and the FBI raids Ivins's lab in July 2004 to seize more samples from him (see Early 2004 and July 16, 2004).
June 9-28, 2003: FBI Searches Pond for Evidence Against Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill, but Finds Nothing
The pond drained by investigators.The pond drained by investigators. [Source: Tom Fedor / Maryland Gazette]From June 9 until June 28, 2003, the FBI conducts a highly public search of a pond near Frederick, Maryland. Investigators completely drain 1.45 million gallons of water from the pond and then search in the mud for clues. This search is said to be based on a comment by anthrax attacks suspect Steven Hatfill, who once spoke hypothetically about how he might dispose of contaminated materials in water. The pond is located about eight miles from USAMRIID, the US Army's top biological laboratory, where Hatfill worked in the late 1990s. Once the search is over, the FBI admits that nothing of interest was found in the pond. Investigators say they knew the search was a long shot, but did it just to be thorough. The pond search is expected to cost about $250,000. [Washington Post, 6/29/2003; Washington Post, 8/1/2003] The Washington Post will comment later in the year, "[F]or days this past June, the prospect of what this pond might contain had captivated much of America." But the pond search is the end of the FBI's high profile activity targeting Hatfill. [Washington Post, 9/14/2003]
July 18, 2003: FBI Refuses to Release Letter Possibly Linked to Anthrax Attacks
The FBI refuses a third request to release a letter possibly connected to the anthrax attacks, suggesting they will never release it. The letter was sent to the FBI in late September 2001 and said a scientist named Ayaad Assaad was likely to launch a biological attack on the US. The letter was anonymous and there has been speculation that the author was connected to the anthrax attacks and was attempting to set up Assaad as a patsy. The government denies Assaad's request to release the letter on the ground that it has a regular policy not to "disclose the identities of confidential sources and information furnished by such sources." The government asserts that the letter is just a strange coincidence and has no link to the anthrax attacks. However, former FBI Assistant Director Oliver Revell says the discussion of possible confidential sources indicates the FBI has not ruled out a link between the letter and the attacks. "There has to be some rationale for wanting to keep it secret," he says. "If there is any possible nexis between the two, then the general rule is to keep it silent." [Hartford Courant, 7/18/2003] The letter has yet to be made public.
August 26, 2003: Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill Files Lawsuit against Justice Department and FBI
Scientist Steven Hatfill files a lawsuit against Attorney General John Ashcroft, the Justice Department, and FBI, saying his constitutional rights have been violated. Hatfill has been named by the FBI as a "person of interest" in the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001), but has not been charged or officially declared a suspect. His attorneys claim the FBI deliberately tipped off the media to searches of his house to hide the fact that the anthrax investigation was making little progress. They say 24-hour surveillance and wiretaps violated his privacy (see July 2002-Late 2003). [CNN, 8/26/2003] In 2008, Hatfill will settle out of court and receive nearly $6 million in compensation from the government (see June 27, 2008).
September 29, 2003: Some FBI Officials Do Not Like 'Person of Interest' Label for Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill, but Only One Speaks Out
Michael Mason.Michael Mason. [Source: Washington Post]Beginning August 1, 2002, the FBI started routinely calling Steven Hatfill a "person of interest," and even Attorney General John Ashcroft publicly used the term (see August 1, 2002). Some in the FBI were concerned about the use of the term. Van Harp, the head of the FBI's anthrax attacks investigation, will later claim that he viewed the label "improper," but he did not mention this to others at the time. [Los Angeles Times, 6/29/2008] But on September 29, 2003, FBI Executive Assistant Director Michael Mason tells reporters: "In my mind, there is absolutely zero value to coming forward with names or definitions of persons of interest.... It's very hard to take that back if you're wrong." He says people should only be publicly identified when they are formal suspects. He also regrets that the investigation had been "beset by leaks" about Hatfill. [Washington Post, 9/29/2003] Afterwards, FBI Deputy Director Bruce Gebhardt privately rebukes Mason and says his comments "did not go over well in the front office." [Los Angeles Times, 6/29/2008]
Early 2004: Conflict with Anthrax Samples Leads FBI Investigators to Bruce Ivins
Between 2003 and 2005, scientists working with the FBI's anthrax investigation have been developing a system to compare the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks with other anthrax samples they have completed (see Early 2003-2005). By early 2004, the system apparently still is not complete, but scientists have discovered enough to focus their attentions on USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory (see Early 2004). They also note a discrepancy. In 2002, USAMRIID scientist Bruce Ivins had submitted a sample of a variety of the Ames anthrax strain known as RMR-1029 (see April 2002). The FBI had also collected some other samples of RMR-1029 from other scientists. All the samples of RMR-1029 had genetic markers that match the anthrax used in the attacks except for Ivins's sample. As a result, in July 2004, the FBI will raid Ivins's lab and seize more of his RMR-1029. These samples will also have the genetic markers matching the anthrax used in the attacks, raising more questions as to why the sample Ivins submitted does not (see July 16, 2004). [Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/1/2008]
Early 2004: Early Scientific Results Suggest Anthrax Used in Attacks Came from USAMRIID
USAMRIID.USAMRIID. [Source: Skip Lawrence / Frederick News-Post]Scientists working with the FBI have been trying to identify unique genetic markers in the anthrax used in the 2001 anthrax attacks so that other anthrax samples can be compared to it (see Early 2003-2005). By early 2004, their work is not done, but they have been able to identify two unique genetic markers (eventually they will identify four). The investigators begin comparing anthrax samples based on these two markers. Preliminary results strongly suggest the anthrax came from USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory. [US Department of Justice, 8/18/2008] As a result, USAMRIID laboratories are raided to get more samples (see July 16, 2004). Some early results point suspicion at USAMRIID scientist Bruce Ivins (see Early 2004).
February 2, 2004: Real Ricin Poison Found in Sen. Frist's Mailroom, Case Remains Unresolved
On February 2, 2004, the deadly toxin ricin is detected on an automatic mail sorter in the Senate office building mailroom that serves the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN). Subsequent tests confirm the substance is ricin. No one gets ill. Some buildings are closed, but Senate business continues as usual. It is presumed that the ricin arrived in a letter, but the letter is not found, leaving few clues. [CNN, 2/4/2004] About two months later, it is reported that laboratories are continuing to analyze the ricin in an attempt to determine where it came from, but no suspects or likely motives have been identified. In October 2004, two letters were intercepted in South Carolina and Tennessee containing real ricin. Letters were found with the ricin objecting to new rules for truckers. One letter was intended to go to the Department of Transportation and another to the White House. But it is unknown if there is any connection between those letters and the ricin in Frist's office, although Frist represents Tennessee. It is also unknown if there is any connection to the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). According to the Associated Press, "Unlike anthrax spores, ricin requires little scientific training to engineer and is not nearly as dangerous to handle." [Associated Press, 3/31/2005]
February 11-March 17, 2004: FBI Interviews Scientists, Asks If They Wrote Anonymous Letter Possibly Linked to Anthrax Attacks
On February 11, 2004, the FBI interviews at least one scientist from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in connection with the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). The name of the person interviewed is not known, but he is asked whether he wrote an anonymous letter to the FBI that possibly set up scientist Ayaad Assaad as a patsy for the attacks just before they occurred (see October 3, 2001). Assaad worked at USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory, until 1997, and has worked at the EPA since then. The unnamed scientist says that he had nothing to do with the letter. It appears this person is possibly subjected to a polygraph test after this, but if so the results are not known. [Hartford Courant, 2/17/2004] On March 17, 14 additional EPA employees are interviewed about the letter. The interviews are said to focus on trying to find out who wrote it. [Washington Times, 3/30/2004]
May 11, 2004: FBI Re-interviews Possible Anthrax Attacks Patsy Assaad
The FBI re-interviews Ayaad Assaad, who was the target of a letter sent just before the 2001 anthrax attacks that seemed to point to him as being responsible for those attacks (see October 2, 2001). Assaad was interviewed about this shortly after the letter was sent (see October 3, 2001), and this is the second time the FBI has questioned him. The FBI tells him that he is not a suspect but they are interested in where he was when the anthrax letters were mailed. He gives documentation showing that he was in the Washington, DC, area at the time. He is also asked about his knowledge of producing anthrax. Assaad, who has been working at the Environmental Protection Agency since 1997 (see May 9, 1997), is an expert on the toxin ricin, and says he has never handled anthrax. He also says he has never been vaccinated against anthrax. He believes the FBI indeed is not interested in him as a suspect but as someone the anthrax attacker or attackers may have tried to frame. [Associated Press, 5/16/2004] Officially, the government has consistently claimed that the letter had nothing to do with the anthrax attacks and was just a strange coincidence. But CNN reports, "government sources said the interest in Assaad centers on the [anonymous] letter and the theory that whoever mailed it could have also been involved in sending the anthrax letters. 'It is one of several out there,' one source said when asked how accepted that theory is. 'No one has been ruled out.'" [CNN, 5/17/2004] Assaad claims that prior to this interview, he had contacted the FBI four times over the past two and a half years, offering to tell what he knows about his former colleagues who might have sent the letter. But he says he was rebuffed all four times. [Hartford Courant, 5/16/2004]
July 16, 2004: Anthrax Investigators Search USAMRIID and Seize Anthrax Samples from Bruce Ivins
The FBI closes some high-security laboratory suites at USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland. The FBI apparently is searching for evidence related to the anthrax attacks investigation, although what the target of their search is remains unclear. For several days, investigators shut off access to bacteriology labs in two USAMRIID buildings where anthrax research is done or has been done. Numerous employees at USAMRIID were questioned by the FBI in the first months after the anthrax attacks, but then investigative activity targeting USAMRIID died down. In recent months, the FBI has seized medical records and computer hard drives there. Several days after the search, authorities say it failed to lead to any important breakthrough. The Baltimore Sun notes that USAMRIID's labs were used extensively after the attacks to study the letters, so if trace amounts of anthrax are found it would very hard to prove if they came from the attacks or the subsequent investigation of the attacks. [Baltimore Sun, 7/21/2004] It will later emerge that the raid takes place at least in part to seize anthrax samples from scientist Bruce Ivins. In April 2002, Ivins had given investigators a sample of anthrax known as RMR-1029 (see April 2002). In early 2004, investigators determined that the sample did not match the anthrax used in the attacks, but other samples of RMR-1029 did (see Early 2004). So Ivins's flasks of RMR-1029 are seized in the raid. These do show a match with the anthrax used in the attacks, raising questions why the sample Ivins had submitted in 2002 did not. [Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/1/2008] However, it appears the FBI will not begin to seriously focus on Ivins as a suspect until after the head of the FBI's investigation is replaced in late 2006 (see Autumn 2006).
August 5, 2004: FBI Anthrax Attacks Investigators Raid Medical Doctor's Residences, but Quickly Lose Interest in Him
Kenneth Berry.Kenneth Berry. [Source: Public domain]On August 5, 2004, FBI agents target Dr. Kenneth Berry for a role in the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). Agents raid his home and former apartment in Wellsville, New York, as well as his parents' apartment in New Jersey. Agents cordon off streets and search the residences wearing biochemical protective suits. This becomes a highly publicized media spectacle. But Berry is not charged or arrested. The raids are the culmination of an 18-month investigation. For instance, in July, dozens of his associates were interviewed. Berry apparently panics and gets in a fight with his wife and stepchildren. A restraining order prevents him from returning home and he is eventually divorced. He also loses his job. By October 2004, government officials say their investigation has uncovered nothing that would implicate him in the anthrax attacks, but he is not officially cleared of suspicion.
Unusual Background as WMD Expert - Berry is a licensed physician working in a hospital. But in 1997, he formed an organization named Preempt, which promoted training for first responders to protect against a WMD attack. By 1999, Berry had risen in prominence and was meeting with prominent experts and politicians about WMD threats, including some US senators and former CIA Director James Woolsey. He was also working on inventions for systems to detect the release of germ weapons, but none of his inventions are successfully developed. In late 2000, he attended a two-day course on using anthrax and other germs as weapons, taught by bioweapons expert William Patrick. His organization Preempt slowly fizzled in importance, but he continued to consider himself a freelance WMD expert. [New York Times, 10/3/2004]
Investigators Lose Interest, but Name is Never Cleared - The Associated Press will comment in 2008, "investigators seemed to lose interest in Berry quickly," but he lost his job and his wife in the process. He has never spoken about the experience, but a friend will say, "Since things quieted down, he's put his life back together again and he's in a stable environment right now.... As far as I know, he just wants his name cleared as publicly as it was smeared." [Associated Press, 8/7/2008]
October 7, 2004: Federal Judge Lambasts FBI for Leaving Anthrax Attacks Suspect Hatfill's Status in Limbo
Anthrax attacks suspect Steven Hatfill has sued the FBI and Justice Department for violating his privacy and other charges (see August 26, 2003), but the government has been trying to stall the court case, saying it would interfere with the FBI's anthrax investigation. Responding to the latest request for a delay, US District Court Judge Reggie Walton says the government has stalled enough already. Walton says that Hatfill has "the right to vindicate himself, so he doesn't have this taint hanging over his head." He tells a federal prosecutor: "If you don't have enough information to indict this man, you can't keep dragging him through the mud. That's not the type of country I want to be part of. It's wrong!" Walton is a Republican appointed to the bench by the President Bush. [MSNBC, 10/7/2004] The FBI declared Hatfill a "person of interest" in August 2002 (see August 1, 2002) and will not officially clear him of any link to the attacks until August 2008 (see June 27, 2008 and August 8, 2008).
March 31, 2005: Anthrax Attacks Suspect Ivins Is Questioned about His After Hours Laboratory Work in 2001
The FBI questions scientist Bruce Ivins about a marked increase in his after hours laboratory work from mid-August through October 2001 (see Mid-August-October 2001). Ivins tells investigators that he was working late at the time to escape troubles at home. The FBI is unable to find evidence of legitimate work Ivins performed during those visits. He is also asked to explain the differences in anthrax samples he submitted to the FBI in 2002 (see April 2002) and those seized in 2004 (see July 16, 2004). [Washington Post, 8/7/2008; Associated Press, 8/7/2008]
April 2005-July 10, 2008: Anthax Attacks Suspects Keeps USAMRIID Lab Access despite FBI Suspicions
An aerial view of USAMRIID in 2005.An aerial view of USAMRIID in 2005. [Source: Sam Yu / Frederick News-Post]By the end of March 2005, the FBI clearly suspects Bruce Ivins for the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001). Ivins works at USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory, and his lab was raided by the FBI to find Ivins' anthrax samples (see July 16, 2004). He has been questioned about suspicious behavior around the time of the attacks and since (see March 31, 2005). Yet Ivins is still allowed to work with anthrax and other deadly germs at USAMRIID. McClatchy Newspapers will report in August 2008, "[A] mystery is why Ivins wasn't escorted from [USAMRIID] until last month when the FBI had discovered by 2005 that he'd failed to turn over samples of all the anthrax in his lab, as agents had requested three years earlier." In 2003, USAMRIID implemented a biosurety program that required all scientists working there to undergo regular intrusive background checks, which includes disclosure of mental health issues. They also have to undergo periodic FBI background checks to retain their security clearances. Jeffrey Adamovicz, head of USAMRIID's bacteriology division in 2003 and 2004, will later say that USAMRIID officials knew at least by late 2006 that Ivins was a suspect, yet he maintained his lab access and security clearances until July 10, 2008, shortly before his suicide later that month (see July 10, 2008 and July 29, 2008). Adamovicz will say, "It's hard to understand if there was all this negative information out there on Bruce, why wasn't it picked up in the biosurety program or by law enforcement." [McClatchy Newspapers, 8/7/2008] By contrast, anthrax attacks suspect Steven Hatfill lost his security clearance in 2001 after it was discovered he had misrepresented some items on his resume (see August 23, 2001).
September 16, 2005: FBI's Anthrax Investigation Has Gone Cold
The Washington Post reports that four years after the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001), the FBI investigation is growing cold. [Washington Post, 9/16/2005] A New York Times article from the same day also concludes the investigation has stalled. The FBI has found itself on the defensive amid claims that they publicly smeared Steven Hatfill when lacking other viable suspects. [New York Times, 9/16/2005]
Late 2005-2006: Investigators Determine about 100 Scientists Used Anthrax Matching that in 2001 Attacks, Including Bruce Ivins
After years of work, by 2005, a scientific team working with the FBI has identified four genetic markers, known as indels, that make the anthrax used in the 2001 anthrax attacks unique (see Early 2003-2005). The anthrax is from the Ames strain, and the FBI has been slowly building a repository of 1,070 Ames anthrax samples from around the world. By late 2005 to 2006, it is discovered that only eight samples match the anthrax used in the attacks. Seven of these eight samples come from USAMRIID, the US Army's top bioweapons laboratory, and the eighth sample comes from another unnamed laboratory in the US. One of these samples is the ancestor of all eight, and this is a flask known as RMR-1029 kept by USAMRIID scientist Bruce Ivins (see Early 2004). The FBI soon determines that about 100 scientists had access to this flask and its seven descendants. Investigators begin a new phase, using traditional criminology techniques to narrow down the possible suspects. [New York Times, 8/20/2008]
August 2006: FBI Scientist Claims Anthrax Used in 2001 Attacks Was Not Weaponized
Magnified anthrax cells.Magnified anthrax cells. [Source: T. W. Geisbert / USAMRIID]In August 2006, an article by Douglas Beecher is published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, a well-respected peer-reviewed scientific journal. Beecher is a microbiologist in the FBI's hazardous materials response unit who has been working on the FBI's investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks since the investigation began. His article represents the first official FBI explanation about the anthrax used in the attacks. Releasing the evidence in a peer-reviewed journal will give it more credence if cited in a later court trial. [Chemical and Engineering News, 12/4/2006] At first, the article is little-noticed by the media, but the Washington Post will highlight it in a front-page story a month later. The Post will also say that others in the FBI have come to the same conclusions Beecher has. [Washington Post, 9/25/2006]
Controversial Paragraph - Beecher focuses on the anthrax letter mailed to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), since it had never been opened and thus remained the least contaminated. The anthrax in the Leahy letter and the letter to Sen. Tom Daschle (D-SD) has been considered deadlier than the other anthrax letters because victims were infected by inhalation and not just by touch. Most controversially, Beecher states that a "widely circulated misconception is that the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapon production." Up until this time, it had been widely reported that these two letters had been "weaponized," meaning the anthrax in them had been coated with a substance (usually reported as silicia) to make it float in the air and thus deadlier to handle.
No Supporting Evidence - But while Beecher makes this surprising claim, he gives no evidence to back it up. The comment is made in passing in the discussion section of the article and there are no footnotes or explanation related to it. Several months later, L. Nicholas Ornston, editor-in-chief of the microbiology journal, says, "The statement should have had a reference. An unsupported sentence being cited as fact is uncomfortable to me. Any statement in a scientific article should be supported by a reference or by documentation." Beecher and the rest of the FBI make no further public comments to support his assertion, but the FBI begins describing the anthrax as non-weaponized from this point onwards.
Highly Pure Anthrax, but No Coating or Milling - Several months later, two scientists will claim they saw the anthrax from one of these letters not long after the attacks and did not see any signs of coating or milling. However, what they did see was an exceptionally high purity to the anthrax, in which the high level of debris in the earlier anthrax letters was removed, making it deadlier and possibly more able to float through air. [Chemical and Engineering News, 12/4/2006]
Autumn 2006: FBI Anthrax Investigation Finally Stops Suspecting Only Hatfill
According to a later report by the Los Angeles Times, the FBI's investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001) remains "fixated" on suspect Steven Hatfill into late 2006. Senior FBI agent
Likely killed by -> <$>
QuoteSuicide riddle of weapons expert who worked with David Kelly: Scientist tells wife he is going for a walk, then takes his life in a field... just like his friend
QuoteBody of Dr Richard Holmes discovered in a field four miles from the Porton Down defence establishment
Police said there were no suspicious circumstances in latest case but revealed scientist was 'under a great deal of stress'
He resigned from Porton Down last month, but it is unclear why
By Nick Constable and Ian Gallagher
PUBLISHED: 16:58 EST, 21 April 2012 | UPDATED: 17:45 EST, 21 April 2012
A weapons expert who worked with Dr David Kelly at the Government's secret chemical warfare laboratory has been found dead in an apparent suicide.
In circumstances strongly reminiscent of Dr Kelly's own mysterious death nine years ago, the body of Dr Richard Holmes was discovered in a field four miles from the Porton Down defence establishment in Wiltshire. It is not yet known how he died.
Mr Holmes, 48, had gone missing two days earlier after telling his wife he was going out for a walk – just as Dr Kelly did before he was found dead at an Oxfordshire beauty spot in July 2003.
'Stressed': The cause of Richard Holmes's death is still unknown
Inquest demand: David Kelly, who was found dead nine years ago
'Stressed': The cause of Richard Holmes's (left) death is still unknown. David Kelly (right) was found dead nine years ago
Police said there were no suspicious circumstances in the latest case but revealed that Dr Holmes had 'recently been under a great deal of stress'.
He resigned from Porton Down last month, although the centre yesterday refused to explain why.
Inevitably, the parallels between the two cases will arouse the suspicions of conspiracy theorists.
Despite Lord Hutton's ruling eight years ago that Dr Kelly committed suicide, many people – among them a group of doctors – believe his inquiry was insufficient and have demanded a full inquest.
Some believe Dr Kelly, who kept an office at Porton Down right up until his death, was murdered. He was outed as being the source of a BBC report that Downing Street 'sexed up' evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to justify going to war.
More...
British expat Neil Heywood left his family so broke a business associate had to pay for plane tickets for them to attend his funeral
Although it is not clear if the two scientists were close, one source told The Mail on Sunday that they were friendly when they worked at Porton Down in the Nineties.
At the time, Dr Holmes ran a project organising the installation of chemical protection equipment in RAF Sentinel spy planes, while Dr Kelly was head of microbiology and frequently toured the former Soviet Union as a weapons inspector.
After the first Gulf War, Dr Holmes is also thought to have worked on the production of chemical protection suits for troops. In 1991 he was the joint author of a scientific paper about an RAF chemical and biological protection system.
Yesterday, a Porton Down spokesman confirmed Dr Holmes had quit his job but declined to comment further. 'It is not our policy to speak openly about any individual who works for us,' she said.
Riddle: The Porton Down establishment, where Dr Holmes had recently resigned from his post
Riddle: The Porton Down establishment, where Dr Holmes had recently resigned from his post
Before finding his body, Wiltshire Police made a public appeal for information but warned people not to approach Dr Holmes for their own safety because they believed he had been 'looking at information on the internet regarding self-harm and the use of toxic substances'.
Friends of Dr Holmes say this disclosure irritated his family, who questioned why a scientist engaged in chemical warfare research would 'need to Google toxic substances'.
Dr Holmes's widow, Susan, is a chemist who also works at Porton Down as head of business administration.
One of the Government's most sensitive and secretive military facilities, the site has long been the focus of controversy.
Three years ago hundreds of ex-servicemen who were used as chemical warfare guinea pigs there between 1939 and 1989 were given compensation and an apology from the Ministry of Defence.
Grim discovery: The scene at Harrowdown Hill, where the body of Dr David Kelly was discovered in 2003
Grim discovery: The scene at Harrowdown Hill, where the body of Dr David Kelly was discovered in 2003
They were tested with the nerve agent sarin, but some of those involved claimed they had been told they were taking part in cold-remedy trials.
Many suffered serious illnesses after exposure to the gas, which was developed by the Nazis during the Second World War.
An inquest into Dr Holmes's death was opened and adjourned by Wiltshire Coroner David Ridley last week. Coroner's officer Paul Tranter said Dr Holmes's family had grown concerned for his wellbeing after he failed to return from a walk on April 11.
A search party involving police and members of the other emergency services began combing waste ground close to his home in the Bishopsdown area of Salisbury.
Police discovered his body half a mile away in a field used regularly by dog-walkers and joggers in the village of Laverstock.
Mr Tranter said the results of tests carried out to establish the cause of death would not be known for several weeks.
He added: 'Police do not consider this death to be suspicious in any way, nor do they believe there was any third-party involvement.'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... Kelly.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2133201/Dr-Richard-Holmes-Suicide-riddle-weapons-expert-worked-David-Kelly.html)
Scam Jews in the Puppet White House, still denying everything, as their fellow Israeli agents in the White House-Pentagon prepare for Iran... ---CSR
Quote"The reason why I want to tell this story now is, we may be going down a path, helped along by the American Jewish community, and maybe even Israel, that is going to be worse even than the one we're on now - some sort of military confrontation with Iran. That worries me. Because they will be able to blame [it] on the Jews, to a great extent," says Weissman, who worked at AIPAC from 1993 until 2005, much of that time as the group's deputy director of foreign policy. Though Weissman disagrees sharply with those who say that AIPAC played a critical role in pushing for the 2003 U.S. decision to invade Iraq, he believes a war with Iran -- which he says "would be the stupidest thing I ever heard of" -- might well be blamed on AIPAC's leaders and their constituents. "What the Jews' war will be is Iran," he says. "Not Iraq."
AIPAC from the Inside | Part 1: Isolating Iranby ROBERT DREYFUSS in Washington, D.C.
11 Jun 2011 23:13Comments
Keith Weissman on joining AIPAC, the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, and the BTC pipeline.
weissman.jpg[ feature ] In August 2005, two lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman, were indicted on charges of illegally conspiring to collect and disseminate classified secrets to journalists and to Israeli diplomats. The case, in which the two men were charged under a World War I-era espionage law along with Larry Franklin, a midlevel Iran analyst at the Department of Defense, was intimately linked to efforts by the AIPAC officials and others to improperly influence U.S. policy toward Iran, said prosecutors, and it caused a political firestorm in Washington. However, in 2009, the case fell apart, and the Justice Department withdrew all charges.
QuoteNow, for the first time, one of the two AIPAC officials, Keith Weissman, is speaking out. In a series of extended interviews with Tehran Bureau, Weissman tells his story. He's come forward, he says, because he's concerned that if a confrontation between the United States, Israel, and Iran leads to war, it will be a disaster -- one that Weissman fears will be blamed on the American Jews.
(Too late for that...) "The reason why I want to tell this story now is, we may be going down a path, helped along by the American Jewish community, and maybe even Israel, that is going to be worse even than the one we're on now - some sort of military confrontation with Iran. That worries me. Because they will be able to blame [it] on the Jews, to a great extent," says Weissman,
who worked at AIPAC from 1993 until 2005, much of that time as the group's deputy director of foreign policy. Though Weissman disagrees sharply with those who say that AIPAC played a critical role in pushing for the 2003 U.S. decision to invade Iraq, he believes a war with Iran -- which he says "would be the stupidest thing I ever heard of" -- might well be blamed on AIPAC's leaders and their constituents. "What the Jews' war will be is Iran," he says. "Not Iraq."
Although Weissman's comments might seem startling to those who don't know him, they're part and parcel of who he is, he says. From his days in college at the University of Chicago in the late 1970s, Weissman was in sympathy with a wide range of progressive causes, and, unusually for a man who'd end up working at AIPAC, he sported a "Free Palestine" bumper sticker on his car back then. (Last month, at a conference held by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank founded with support from AIPAC, I mentioned to Steve Rosen that I'd talked to Weissman. "Of course!" replied Rosen, who knows that I usually write for progressive publications. "He thinks just like you do!") During much of his tenure at AIPAC, Weissman served as a kind of unofficial liaison to various Palestinian officials, diplomats, and academics. Later, when he became AIPAC's chief Iran specialist, he insists that he quietly did what he could to steer the group away from direct calls for regime change in Iran, even though AIPAC was working hard to push the United States into ever stronger action against the Islamic Republic, including diplomatic isolation and tough sanctions to dissuade Iran from pursuing its nuclear program and supporting Hamas, Hezbollah, and other anti-Israel groups.
Quote"What the Iranians feared most, and what the neoconservatives wanted most, was a policy of propaganda, of assisting groups against the government, to foster regime change," says Weissman. "I kept AIPAC away from that."
Back in 1978, as a history student at U.C., Weissman made his first and only visit to Iran, aided in parts by grants from the Department of Defense and from the Pahlavi Foundation, the then Shah's family fund. He flew to Kabul, traveled over land to Mashhad and then to Tehran, coincidentally arriving just as the first rumblings of the revolution that would topple the Shah were getting under way. "In Mashhad, they put us the floor of a dorm that was under construction at the edge of the city. Apparently, a week before we got there, we'd been scheduled to be in a dorm downtown, and before we got there the school had exploded in riots, and the school was shut down for final exams, and they put us in this dorm on the outskirts," he recalls.
Among Weissman's friends and acquaintances who were traveling back and forth to Iran at the same time were Zalmay Khalilzad, later a RAND Corporation analyst and, more recently, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, and Harold Rhode, a polyglot Middle East specialist who worked at the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, an in-house think tank. That office was run by Andrew Marshall, a neoconservative strategist and acolyte of Bernard Lewis, a British academic and historian of the Ottoman Empire who is currently a professor at Princeton University. Though friends for a time, Weissman and Rhode had a falling-out. Says Weissman:
Quote"[Lewis] was one of Harold Rhode's advisers. Harold was very close to him, and Lewis helped him get a job at the Pentagon, where he worked for Andy Marshall. We stopped speaking to each other in the early 1980s. I don't know what it was. I certainly wasn't an ardent Zionist, and I felt that Harold had adopted a very racist posture toward Middle Eastern people."
Later, Rhode would be a key player during the run-up to the war in Iraq, as an official working alongside Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith at DOD. When the espionage case built around Franklin, Rosen, and Weissman erupted in 2004, Rhode would be one of several U.S. officials who were forced to hire legal counsel in the face of the FBI investigation, according to Weissman. Rhode, along with Michael Ledeen, who was then a neoconservative strategist at the American Enterprise Institute, was part of a quixotic effort to enlist a discredited wheeler-dealer, Manucher Ghorbanifar, in an ill-starred regime change plan for Iran in the early 2000s.
After his visit to Tehran, Weissman traveled to Israel and Egypt, and then returned to the United States, teaching in colleges around Chicago, where he struck up a casual acquaintance with Rashid Khalidi, the Palestinian scholar. When his wife, who'd been an attorney with Sidley and Austin in Chicago, landed a job at the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Weissmans settled in the Washington area. Needing a job, Weissman started networking.
"Eventually somebody set me up with a guy at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the deputy there, Rob Satloff, just back from Oxford, and he was working for Martin [Indyk], and I gave my resume to him," recalls Weissman. "And a couple of weeks later I get a call from a guy named Jack Lew. Jack Lew had [been] the legislative director for the speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill." Indyk, the vice president for policy at the Brookings Institution, served as AIPAC's deputy director of research in the early 1980s and helped found the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) in 1985. Jacob (Jack) Lew is today President Obama's director of the Office of Management and Budget. Satloff is now the executive director of WINEP.
"And there were a couple of Jewish financial guys, philanthropists, who were really pissed off because they thought that the media were pro-Arab, pro-Palestinian, and they wanted to set up a small publication, a place that translated stuff, that provided journalists with mostly translated stories from the Middle East, Middle East Week. And they hired someone to do Hebrew, and they hired me to do Arabic," says Weissman. "It was really fun, and I got to know lots of people. Jack [Lew] was the overall editor."
"This is right when the [Oslo] peace talks started, people coming in and out of Washington, and I got to know all these Arabs, Arab journalists, Israelis, and I was this left-wing Jewish guy, who became friends with Akiva Eldar, Hisham Melham, Raghida Dergham, who wrote from the U.N. for Al-Hayat. I got to know all these people! I got to learn a lot. And because of Rashid Khalidi, who for the first year was an adviser to the Palestinian delegation, I got very friendly with a lot of the Palestinians, with Said Hammad, who was the number two there, and I got to know Saeb Erekat."
Middle East Week folded, and after a stint working for a small publication called Middle East Insight, Weissman found himself without a job. But soon afterward, despite, or perhaps because of, his connections with Arab and Palestinian figures, Weissman landed an opportunity to work at AIPAC.
"I was unemployed for six months. The last month of unemployment, I get a call from Rafi Danziger, [AIPAC's] director of research, who I knew, who says, 'How'd you like to come work at AIPAC?' He said, 'People are leaving, and we'd like to combine their salaries and give it to you.' And my title would be chief Middle East analyst," he recalls.
"And the week after I started at AIPAC, Oslo happens. And here I am, this left-wing guy, I find myself at AIPAC. It was unbelievable. Imagine the reaction from my friends, my family! And I didn't know anyone there, except for Rafi Danziger, I didn't know much about them, I mean, I knew they were the pro-Israel lobby, that's about it. I hadn't paid them much attention, and I didn't agree with their position. But I got hired by them the week that the Israeli-Palestinian talks break out! I said to Rashid [Khalidi], 'Would you rather have me there, or someone who doesn't know anything about the Palestinians?' No one else had the entrée that I had. I went to meetings and lunches where me and Jerry Siegel, this radical, left-wing professor, were the only non-Arab, non-Palestinians there. Bernard Lewis's son worked down the hall from me, Michael Lewis, actually a wonderful person. He used to joke that he kept a file on everyone in my Rolodex! But it was really an asset to have that entrée. I could call up Faisal Husseini, Saeb Erekat, and it was quite fun.
"I could get information that no one else could get about the Palestinians. I became very close to Steve Rosen, who was my boss. He liked me. And he liked that I was able to go places that no one else could go. He thought that was a great addition to the work."
Though the advent of Oslo raised hopes among Israelis and Palestinians alike that a peace accord might work, inside AIPAC there was strong discontent with Oslo and its implications, and a lot of sympathy for hardliners in Israel, including Benjamin Netanyahu, the bitterest opponent of Oslo and its backers, including Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister. As M. J. Rosenberg, a former AIPAC official, has documented, AIPAC moved steadily to the right from the 1980s onward. According to Weissman, that happened mostly because the group's biggest donors were right-wing American Jews who identified with Likud rather than the Labor Party and other liberal Israelis. Many of its donors and some its staff split from AIPAC during the Rabin-Oslo era to work with more right-wing groups such as the Zionist Organization of America, says Weissman. After Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli extremist opposed to giving up the occupied territories, an increasingly right-leaning Israel and AIPAC moved more and more into sync. As Weissman tells the story:
"So Rabin is shot. I mean, he won Oslo in the Knesset by one vote! You could imagine that in America there was similar opposition [to Oslo].... AIPAC had spent the last 15 years helping the Likud, so you've got people there that were sucking at the teat of Likud, that was how they viewed things. That's why so many people left AIPAC. A lot of them went to join ZOA and a lot of them also contributed to the work of Daniel Pipes. When Rabin came in, they had taken their money and left, and there was a lot of turmoil. At the time, I remember, they'd send me around the country, to fundraisers, with a lot of older people, and I would be yelled and screamed at, 'I can't believe you're doing this!' Donors were leaving, taking the money, and that's really their bread and butter, the lay leadership. AIPAC's donors were very active in the organization. Very. They were major elements in making policy, in determining the agenda, who the leadership was.
"AIPAC did not have a lot of people who you would call Labor, the Israeli Labor Party. The ideological war that went on, over the AIPAC agenda, was unbelievable. I was involved in creating the annual AIPAC agenda. I used to write it. And then it would be debated in a meeting, right before the policy conference. You wouldn't believe what went on, people getting up, denouncing this and that, they would put things in the policy agenda to make sure that no money went to the Palestinian Authority, to move the American embassy to Jerusalem.
"I tried my best to sell the peace process. But I tried to sell it in the context of what AIPAC was, that this was the way that Israel could become a permanent Middle East country. But the ideological war inside the Israel lobby, collectively, was extremely bitter -- and very close, you know, the tally of votes was very close. I would argue that while most American Jews are probably center-left, the rich ones, the ones who give to organizations, the ones who are involved in politics, tend to be more to the right. Those are the ones who were close to the Israeli government when it was run by the Likud."
Rabin, in his last years, was angry at AIPAC's obstructionism, says Weissman. (According to M. J. Rosenberg, in New York Rabin met with liberal Jewish donors and asked them to help finance what become the Israel Policy Forum as a very small but not ineffective counterweight to AIPAC.)
Quote"Because of AIPAC, with the assistance of the right wing in Israel, who -- even though they weren't the majority in Israel then -- they'd come over and have very close contacts with AIPAC's leaders, prominent financiers, and donors, in order to influence policy.... It was all because of the money that would go from the American Jewish community to politicians in the United States. The pro-Israel bloc in Congress has nothing to do with parties. It had to do with friendship and loyalty. I learned this over time. This is the secret of AIPAC's power, its ability to fund campaigns. When people got together, they'd find ways, even if they'd given a ton of money to AIPAC, they'd still find ways to get money to candidates, Republican or Democrat."
QuoteIn the mid-1990s, Weissman began to work on issues related to Iran. Before that, at AIPAC, Iran was "an afterthought," he said. But as German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and President Bill Clinton began to discuss ideas about isolating and reducing trade with Iran -- at the time, according to Weissman, the United States was Iran's biggest trading partner and Germany was second -- AIPAC saw an opening to start working on Iran, and from that the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) emerged. According to Weissman, it was originally designed by AIPAC to be focused solely on Iran, but Libya was added to the mix during the legislative process.
"I started to work on Iran in 1995. We had a new legislative director named Brad Gordon, who'd worked for [then Senator] Rudy Boschwitz [of Minnesota], and he'd been at the CIA for a while and worked on Iran, so he had a clue. We found a little-known, much-ridiculed law that [then Senator] Al D'Amato [of New York] had supported. D'Amato was Mr. Ass-Kissing of all the Orthodox in New York. Right before this, I'd been invited to lunch by the executive director of AIPAC, a guy named Neil Sher. He took us to lunch and he said, 'I'm thinking about what we can do about Iran. Maybe we could, like, model something on the Arab boycott.' Now, the Arab boycott is what is called a secondary boycott, and it's illegal under world trade rules. It's not allowed, and don't forget, one of the victories for Israel during Oslo was the ending of the Arab boycott by the Arab League. 'Why don't we try to find something, or invent some laws?' And there was this law that D'Amato had proposed a year earlier that would sanction anybody who bought Iranian oil.
"It opened up a whole world for me. Going from a guy working on, you know, talking to the Palestinians, I became a star! On Iran! And we began to work closely with D'Amato's staff, and we formulated the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act."
With Weissman's help, Rosen and a host of congressional staffers got the ball rolling on ILSA. AIPAC helped convince Clinton to cancel a deal that Conoco had struck with Iran, even though doing so angered Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, then Iran's president, who backed the Conoco arrangement. "Rafsanjani still says, to this day, that canceling that deal ruined relations, and I believe him," says Weissman. "We [AIPAC] became the bitter enemies of the oil companies." ILSA passed overwhelmingly.
With the victory in 1997 of Mohammad Khatami's reformist candidacy, however, the Clinton administration backed away from AIPAC's hard line and sought to develop an opening to the new Iranian government. Weissman says that he never believed that talking to Iran's reformists would work, in the end, and that power instead remained in the hands of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the hardliners around him. AIPAC, meanwhile, was dismayed by the tentative opening to Iran that began in the late Clinton years. The organization concentrated a lot of its work then on trying to isolate Iran economically, in part by pushing Congress and the White House to support an oil pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan that bypassed Iran and ran through Turkey to the Mediterranean Sea. Ironically, despite the enmity between AIPAC and the oil industry, the group would manage to work closely with the oil companies, especially BP -- and, surprisingly, AIPAC would even pocket financial contributions from the oil companies for its work facilitating what became the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
Formally launched in 1998 and completed in 2005, the 1,100-mile long BTC pipeline was a $4 billion project that crossed Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, with BP, Chevron, and other U.S. companies as major shareholders. From the start, it was controversial politically, not least since the three transit countries viewed the pipeline as a geopolitical counterbalance to both Iran and Russia, and for that reason they each wanted U.S. backing. And the oil companies, still angry at AIPAC for its role in creating ILSA and blocking the Iran-Conoco deal, realized that they'd be better off cooperating with the group than confronting it.
Not only did AIPAC and the oil companies cooperate, but according to Weissman the oil companies actually funded the group's work and AIPAC officials gave John Browne, then BP's chief executive, a guided tour of Washington's Holocaust Museum. During these years, one of Weissman's main preoccupations was the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan deal:
"So we get ILSA. It passes overwhelmingly. That same year I brought some Conoco guys to AIPAC's policy conference, where half the House and half the Senate usually attend, and they knew that night that they would never win anything against us. So they began to cooperate. A lot of the oil companies realized, 'We're not gonna beat these guys in Congress, so we might as well try to tailor their activities, where we at least have some room to work.' And I was the go-between. I was the guy. I mean, BP still credits me with being the guy who greased the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, because of my work with them. That was originally designed as an anti-Iran project.
Quote"I also became the guy who was reaching out to the Iranian Jewish community here. AIPAC thought that the Iranian Jewish community thought our way, and that they'd be a great source of funds. So I began to go regularly to Los Angeles, to have meetings with Iranian Jews. The guy from Qualcomm was one of the guys we talked to, people in Bel Air and Beverly Hills. I got to know a whole cross section of them, I appeared on Persian radio, and you know what's funny? I got a call one day from [BP].
"During the Khatami period, when Clinton was reaching out to Iran, they had a lot of support from the Iranian business community, exporters, against sanctions. I can't remember how many oil conferences I spoke at, telling them that ILSA wasn't so bad for them, which went over like a lead balloon. But I got a free education in the oil business, from BP and so on. Every time somebody from BP would come to town, their chief economist, their chief geologist, I would always get an hour with them. They'd give us money, like $10,000 or whatever. What they did was very smart. They turned me into someone who saw the world through their eyes. They started, BP, and then Amoco, giving AIPAC money. You know what? One time Steve Rosen guided John Browne through the Holocaust Museum.
John Browne, the head of BP. His mother was actually Jewish. He grew up with her, alone. So he was coming to the United States and he really wanted to go to the Holocaust Museum. So we cooked up this thing, we would have Steve Rosen and Browne and his mother tour the Holocaust Museum together. It was great!"Even Prince Bandar ibn Sultan, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, and Adel al-Jubeir -- then the Saudi embassy spokesman and currently the ambassador -- welcomed AIPAC's work in helping to support the BTC pipeline and isolating Iran, its Persian Gulf rival, economically. Remembers Weissman:
"Prince Bandar used to send us messages. I used to meet with Adel al-Jubeir a couple times a year. Adel used to joke that if we could force an American embargo on Iranian oil, he'd buy us all Mercedes! Because Saudi [Arabia] would have had the excess capacity to make up for Iran at that time."
Keith Weissman on resisting the regime change agenda, espionage charges, and making a living.
With the election of George W. Bush, the events of 9/11, and the invasion of Iraq, Iran became front and center for Weissman at AIPAC. "Iran came back in a big way after the invasion of Iraq, because you had all these guys running around saying, 'Next stop Tehran!' and all that," says Weissman. Many within AIPAC, and some of Israel's top Iran-watchers, wanted to push hard for Iraq-style regime change in Iran, too, beginning with overt and covert support for dissidents, minority groups, and exile militia such as the Mojahedin-e Khalgh (MKO).
"You should see the people who crawled out of the woodwork to talk to me! I talked to monarchists, to socialists, to communists, everybody. And they all wanted AIPAC to support regime change," remembers Weissman. "Israel was also trying to unduly influence the United States, too. They were sending a lot of Iranian exiles to the United States from Europe to give talks, purporting to be Iranian leaders. A lot of times, I remember, when I went to Israel Uri Lubrani would take me to meet these people who were stashed in various hotels all over Tel Aviv and he would always make me switch cabs on the way, that kind of thing! This culture of regime change was very strong, very powerful, inside elements in Israel, and the Pentagon, the neoconservatives, a lot of pundits here."
But Weissman says that AIPAC and other organized Jewish groups in the United States avoided direct calls for regime change, and he takes credit for restraining AIPAC in that regard. "A Jewish organization would not so much get up and say, 'We want regime change.' They might say, 'We need to contain Iran,'" says Weissman.
"[Support for regime change] was the personal opinion of many people in AIPAC, but it never uttered the words 'regime change.' And I think my efforts were part of the reason why they never did," he says, adding: "How would it look anyway? This is what makes it so stupid! The American Jewish community choosing the next government of Iran? Helping to change the next government of Iran? How can that government have any legitimacy? It's completely ridiculous. And I think the arguments that I raised against it convinced AIPAC, no matter what they personally thought, they realized that what I was saying was right."
It was at this time that the AIPAC-Franklin espionage controversy erupted. What happened and why? Perhaps the full story of the Rosen-Weissman case, Franklin's involvement, and what role was played by AIPAC and by Israel will never be known. So far, it's never been proven that either of the two AIPAC officials either received or passed on any classified documents, either to Israeli intelligence or anyone else. According to Weissman, they merely engaged in what every Washington insider does, namely, meeting with and sharing gossip with U.S. officials, embassy officials, and journalists. Franklin, the Pentagon Iran analyst, never gave Rosen or Weissman any actual documents, Weissman says, though he did try to get the support of AIPAC and a handful of neoconservative outsiders for the Pentagon's battle with the State Department over policy toward Iran.
There's a clear difference between spying and trading information, of course. If the FBI and the Justice Department had evidence that Franklin, Rosen, or Weissman were engaged in classical espionage, they presumably would have said so, and charged them accordingly. Had Rosen and Weissman conspired with the Mossad, Israel's intelligence service, in a scheme to ferret out U.S. secrets, and had that scheme been uncovered by the FBI, then the two AIPAC officials would have been charged with spying. But there's no evidence that anything like that happened. Instead, if Rosen and Weissman simply met with Franklin -- and other U.S. officials -- and then shared what they learned with Israeli embassy officials and others, including think tank types, then it's hard to argue that any laws were broken. That's what Rosen and Weissman's lawyers argued, and in any event the case was eventually dropped.
So what does Weissman think was going on? He believes that U.S. law enforcement officials, including the FBI, and CIA officials were so angry over the role of neoconservatives in backing the war in Iraq that they launched an investigation that sought to link Wolfowitz, Feith, and other Jewish Pentagon officials to Israeli intelligence, AIPAC, and a panoply of neocons at the American Enterprise Institute, the Hudson Institute, and other think tanks in Washington.
"I don't think it had that much to do with Iran," says Weissman. "It had to do with Iraq." The FBI and the CIA believed, according to Weissman, that neoconservatives, AIPAC, and others were responsible for the Iraq debacle, and that they were out for payback. "This investigation was part of a much larger effort aimed at neoconservatives and AIPAC, not just Steve Rosen. Everybody in Doug Feith's office had to hire an attorney: [David] Schenker, Rhode, Michael Rubin, Mike Makovsky, all those people had to hire attorneys." They were being investigated, Weissman says, especially because many of them had ties to and contacts with Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi wheeler-dealer who led the Iraqi National Congress (INC) and who was a principal advocate for regime change in Iraq from the 1990s onward. "They were being investigated because of Chalabi," he says.
Chalabi and AIPAC did have relations before the invasion of Iraq, of course. But Weissman was highly skeptical of Chalabi. "Chalabi came to AIPAC in the late 1990s," he recalls. "I'll never forget sitting across the table from him, and he said, 'If I ever become president of Iraq, one of the first things I'll do is to recognize Israel.' And I think to myself, 'The second thing you'll do is, you'll get a bullet in the back of your head.' And I walked out of the room. I knew he was a complete idiot. Or a liar."
But he adds: "There were a lot of contacts between the Jewish community and the INC. In 2000, 2001, the INC spoke at the AIPAC policy conference. So there were links between the Jewish community groups and the Iraqi exiles, and also between the neocons and the Iraqi exiles." But Weissman insists that even so, the FBI and the Justice Department erred in believing that the contacts amounted to anything like espionage or a national security threat that required an FBI inquiry. Instead, he says, the FBI launched an investigation to go after what they saw as a conspiracy to support war in Iraq and, after that, regime change in Iran. Personally, Weissman believes that both the war in Iraq and regime change in Iran were wrongheaded. "I think that they were all bad policies, policies that a lot of people in the U.S. government badly wanted to discredit," he says.
The FBI's investigation of AIPAC, including Rosen and Weissman, apparently went back to at least 1999, half a decade before the inquiry became public and charges were filed against Franklin and the two AIPAC officials. And although the CIA wasn't overtly involved in the FBI investigation, Weissman says that there is clear evidence that the CIA was indirectly involved.
"Don't forget, the head of the office that was investigating us had just come back there from two years helping the CIA with counterintelligence," says Weissman. That was David Szady, the FBI's assistant director for counterintelligence from 2001 to 2006. During the period of the run-up to the war in Iraq, the CIA itself was virtually at war with the Pentagon, clashing over a wide range of intelligence issues. At the Defense Department, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, along with Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary, and Doug Feith, the head of the Pentagon's policy shop, argued forcefully that Saddam Hussein was in league with al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups and that Iraq maintained an aggressive program to develop and stockpile weapons of mass destruction. At the CIA, however, there was a great deal of skepticism over Iraq's purported involvement with terrorism and WMD. And the fact that Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith -- along with a passel of other DOD officials, including Rhode, Schenker, Rubin, and Makovsky -- had allied with Richard Perle and other neoconservatives at the American Enterprise Institute alarmed the CIA.
Not only that, but since the early 1980s many CIA and FBI officials believed that Israel and AIPAC were engaged in gray-area espionage to acquire U.S. secrets and to obtain and pass around leaked information from classified files, says Weissman, citing a long list of past allegations. "I think the FBI counterintelligence people were just so frustrated that they could never bring a case against these people," he says.
And then the invasion of Iraq brought things to a head. "Now remember, at this time Iraq started to go really bad," says Weissman. "So by then a lot of these agencies were saying, 'We told you so. We gotta stop these guys. They're bringing us down. The Arab world is against us. They're destroying American interests everywhere.' They're seeing all this stuff, they remember that after 9/11 the United States had the sympathy of the world, and they focused the blame on the neocons."
Weissman doesn't dispute that the FBI, CIA, and others were correct in blaming the neocons for the debacle in Iraq. "I do," he says. "I agree with them."To the extent that the Rosen-Weissman case was about Iran, not Iraq, it had to do with Franklin's efforts to win support from AIPAC and others for a tougher U.S. policy toward Iran.
feith_and_franklin.jpg"Larry Franklin was the Pentagon Iran analyst," says Weissman. He was a fellow traveler with the neoconservatives, often appearing in the front row of the audience at American Enterprise Institute events on Iraq, sitting alongside Harold Rhode and other DOD officials. According to Weissman, Franklin (pictured whispering to Feith) was one of a handful of U.S. officials who felt that after what they saw as the successful toppling of Saddam Hussein, Iran was next on the list, not least because Iran was interfering in Iraq in a way calculated to undermine the U.S. presence there. "At that time American triumphalism was ridin' high! And all those guys could see was Iranian interference with Iraq, backing of elements that were killing Americans. All they could see was an unpopular regime that was doing things that harmed American interests," says Weissman.
"One of the things that Larry came to realize, during the wars between the Pentagon and the CIA, was that they were the only ones who wanted to go after Iran. The Pentagon viewed the State Department [as] panty-waists who were gonna appease [Iran], always trying to undercut whatever the Pentagon did. Larry got the idea that he would bring AIPAC into that, trying to enlist AIPAC's help in support of a much tougher policy toward Iran than the administration was pursuing at that time."
So far, Weissman says, Secretary of State Colin Powell had been able to steer American policy away from a showdown with Iran. "The neocons were so frustrated about this," Weissman says. "They hated Powell more than they hated anybody."
By 2004, Weissman says, the Bush administration hadn't settled on a concrete policy toward Iran. "The White House never did anything about this because there was so much fighting about Iran. They were trying to write a policy document about Iran from the first day they started in power to, oh, the first day I met Larry Franklin in '03. And they never actually wrote one, because neither side could ever agree."
Continues Weissman: "Larry thought he needed more ammunition in his holster, in his belt, to move the administration away from Powell and closer to Rumsfeld-Cheney. And he must have thought that AIPAC could help because of our power in Congress. So he sought us out.
He pushed for the meeting and he asked a mutual friend of ours to set it up."
QuoteThat friend, Weissman says, was Michael Makovsky, who worked in the Department of Defense. Currently, Makovsky is the project director at the Bipartisan Policy Center, an organization that has taken a hawkish position on policy toward Iran. Makovsky's brother, David Makovsky, is a top official at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
For his part, Weissman was on Powell's side. "There's no question that I agreed with Powell's set of beliefs, that we should try to encourage dialogue, to see if we could build on cooperation over Iraq," he says. "I thought that Powell was right." In response to Franklin's entreaties, he says, neither he nor AIPAC provided any help.
"He wanted us to push for the creation of a document that would become U.S. policy," says Weissman. "The Pentagon was writing a draft of it, the State Department was writing a draft of it. The State Department finished its draft in the summer of '02. The Pentagon was still writing its draft in the spring of '03, right around the time of Iraq, and they were using Iran and Iraq as part of their ideological bombardment against what Powell wanted."
At the time, Weissman remembers, Iran was being especially cooperative with the United States. "There was a period of time, right after the war, when the Iranians though that they really were next," he says. "Remember, they asked if they could help pick up the downed pilots, there were whispers that there might be something to build on."
Ironically, Iran also sent to the United States the rough outline of a proposal for improved relations, often described as the Grand Bargain approach, in which Iran promised to suspend its nuclear program and modify its Middle East policies in exchange for recognition and security guarantees from the United States. The proposal, prepared by Sadegh Kharrazi, an Iranian diplomat, was forwarded to the United States through the offices of the Swiss ambassador. The arrival of the Kharrazi memo coincided exactly with Rosen's and Weissman's second meeting with Larry Franklin. "The second time we met Larry Franklin, Rosen and I had to cut the lunch a little short because we were meeting with the Swiss ambassador, who was bringing the Kharrazi initiative with him."
Weissman isn't sure if the Iranian proposal was legitimate or not, that is, whether it was written with the concordance of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme Leader, or whether it was more of a freelanced peace offering from an Iranian faction. Since then, there has been a lot of debate about the proposal, though most analysts believe that at the very least it was worth a formal U.S. response. Instead, it was ignored. Soon afterward, Weissman believes, the whole thing was overtaken by events. "In a matter of weeks, when the United States got more and more bogged down in the insurrection in Iraq, [Iran] started to realize that they could tweak us anytime they wanted, in Iraq," he says. "And probably did."
Weissman believes that at the time, and to this day, Iran is less concerned about a U.S. attack than it is about an aggressive American policy aimed at toppling the regime through support to dissident groups and ethnic minorities and propaganda beamed into Iran.
Weissman says that Iran was alarmed at the possibility that the United States might engage in overt and covert efforts to instigate opposition inside Iran. He says that many in AIPAC, especially among its lay leadership and biggest donors, strongly backed regime change in Iran. "That was what Larry [Franklin] and his friends wanted," he says. "It included lots of different parts, like broadcasts, giving money to groups that would conduct sabotage, it included bringing the Mojahedin[-e Khalgh], bringing them out of Iraq and letting them go back to Iran to carry out missions for the United States. Harold Rhode backed this.... There were all these guys, Michael Ledeen, 'Next stop Tehran, next stop Damascus.'"
But when Franklin asked Weissman for help, he turned him down. "We didn't do anything. We chose not to do anything. I told Rosen it was a terrible idea, and it wouldn't work, and all it would do would be to make more trouble."
Unbeknownst to Rosen and Weissman, of course, their contacts with Franklin were being monitored by the FBI.
At the end of our interview, I asked Weissman how he managed to operate at AIPAC for so long with so many contradictions in his head. He was sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, and he had Palestinian and other Arab friends, yet he worked for an organization that single-handedly undermined the possibility that Palestine might emerge as a nation. Ideologically, he was much closer to Israeli doves and to progressives within the Labor Party, yet he was employed by a group that was hand in glove with the Likud and other far-right elements in Israel. And he was opposed to the war in Iraq and to confrontation with Iran,
yet his bosses at AIPAC hobnobbed with Ahmed Chalabi and joined with neoconservatives to push for a showdown with Iran.
"They were doing it out of patriotism," Weissman says, even as he disagrees with their choices. "They thought they were doing it for the right reasons."
And Weissman? Why didn't he just quit, and do something else? It turns out that sometimes the simplest explanation is the one that rings most true. It was a job. "Well," he says. "Two kids in college. I finally got up to over a hundred thousand dollars. I got to work on issues that I liked, and I was able to have some influence. I was listened to. I was able to keep AIPAC away from the Iraqi opposition in the 1990s, and to keep AIPAC away from regime change later on. Those were the things I liked, and those were the things I thought I did good on."
Finally, he says, "And I was looking for another job when all this happened."
Copyright © 2011 Tehran Bureau
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... hange.html (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2011/06/aipac-from-the-inside-part-2-wrangling-over-regime-change.html)
The Jew Murkovsky (his brother is Israeli ... so likely a traitor...all of them still wanting a war with Iran. --CSR)
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QuoteBrookings Institution senior fellow Justin Vaisse, author of Neoconservatism: A Biography of a Movement, argues that because neocons never had the degree of influence that opponents credited them with, and also because of a general unawareness of their history, observers don't fully understand the trajectory of the neoconservative movement that began long before the Iraq invasion and one continues today.
"Neoconservatism remains, to this day, a distinct and very significant voice of the Washington establishment," Vaisse insists. In May he published the report Why Neoconservativism Still Matters.
Stephen Walt, professor of international affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School and co-author of The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, says that the most obvious place the neocons are still influential is in U.S. policy toward Iran, where the Obama administration is "continuing the Bush administration's basic approach, albeit with a 'kinder, gentler' face."
Walt's assessment squares with a number of recent op-eds in the pages of the Wall Street Journal by Richard Perle, Abram Shulsky, Douglas Feith and Danielle Pletka, the latter of whom also testified on Iran before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs earlier this month.
Walt calls attention to two major reports produced by the Bipartisan Policy Center on Iran, where neoconservative Michael Makovsky was staff director for the studies and Dennis Ross — whose role "in the administration remains something of a mystery," according to Walt — was directly involved. The studies, Walt says, "are quite hawkish" and promote the use of force against Iran if diplomacy doesn't work. Walt also points out that Ross has argued that diplomacy is necessary in part to win international support for military action later.
http://visibility911.com/ford/2010/06/0 ... der-obama/ (http://visibility911.com/ford/2010/06/09/report-neocons-remain-strong-under-obama/)
A couple of Jew professors write on the Anthrax attacks. Take all with a grain of salt. They point to the fact that this was military grade and top secret work. There are likely only Zio-Jews in the US Govt. labs like Spertzel or Israelis that can really do this at this level. With a massive war to start, like the Iraq-war, nothing was left to "Goy" chance. --CSR
----------------------
QuoteEvidence for the Source of the 2001 Attack Anthrax
Martin E. Hugh-Jones1*,
Barbara Hatch Rosenberg2, <:^0
and Stuart Jacobsen3 <:^0
1Professor Emeritus, Louisiana State University; Anthrax Moderator, ProMED-mail, USA
2Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research and State Univ. of NY-Purchase (retired), USA
3Technical Consultant Silicon Materials, Dallas, TX, USA
*Corresponding author: Martin E. Hugh-Jones
Professor Emeritus
Environmental Sciences Department
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
Tel: +1-225-578-5599
Fax: +1-225- 578-4286
E-mail: http://www.omicsonline.org/2157-2526/21 ... S3-001.pdf (http://www.omicsonline.org/2157-2526/2157-2526-S3-001.pdf)).
2Sets of FBI Documents identified by B (Batch) and M (Module) numbers were provided by the FBI to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee on the Review of the Scientific Approaches Used During the FBI's Investigation of the 2001 Bacillus anthracis Mailings Investigation; the documents are listed in the NAS Report issued February 15, 2011, pp. 133ff, Index of Documents Provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; the documents were released to the public in February 2011 and were available from the NAS at that time.
3FBI Document B1M7, Leahy sample p. 9, NY Post sample p. 12 (p. 1 identifies the samples).
4The only exception, a set of 10 "reverse engineered" samples made at Dugway, is discussed in a later section.
5Hugh-Jones et al., op. cit.
6See Hugh-Jones et al. (op. cit.) for details of the proposed siliconization procedure, which requires moisture from within the spores and results in deposition on the spore coat, not on the exterior surface of the spore (the exosporium).
7Michael J, Kotula P (2009) [Sandia National Laboratory]. Elemental Microanalysis of Bacillus anthracis Spores from the Amerithrax Case, presentation in September 2009 to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Committee studying the FBI's scientific approaches; also, FBI document B1M6 (Sandia National Laboratory Report), pp. 4ff. Tin and silicon were also found in extrasporular debris in the NY Post sample (see discussion in Hugh-Jones et al., op. cit.).
8Stewart M, Somlyo AP, Somlyo AV, Shuman H, Lindsay JA, et al. (1980) Distribution of calcium and other elements in cryosectioned Bacillus cereus T spores, determined by high-resolution scanning electron probe x-ray microanalysis. J Bacteriol 143: 481-491.
9Michael, J, Kotula P (2009), and FBI document B1M6, op. cit.
10Preparation of the "reverse engineered" samples is described in FBI Document B1M13 (DPG Production Methods).
11Ibid.
12Elemental analyses of the 10 samples are given in FBI Document B1M7 (FBI Laboratory Reports), Samples from Dugway, pp. 26-28; the data are repeated at B1M7, Elemental Analysis Summary, pp. 92-94. The ten Dugway samples studied by the FBI are labeled NDLB, NPLB,SDLB, SPLB, SDOB, NDOB, SPVB, NPVB, NDLM, NPLM, indicating their preparation methods (those ending with "B" were ball-milled; see FBI Document B1M13 (Dugway), p.72 or 27, for the significance of these labels).
13The milling methods used by Dugway for the 36 samples are described in FBI Document B1M13, p. 71.
14The mortar-and-pestle- milled samples, labeled NDLM (0.3 wt% silicon) and NPLM (0.2 wt%), can be compared to their ball-milled counterparts differing only in milling method: NDLB (5 wt% silicon) and NPLB (0.5 wt%). Note that NDLB was one of the two samples for which the analytical results were questionable, according to the FBI laboratory report (B1M7, p. 28); the other was SPVB (2 wt%). These two are the samples with the highest analytical results for silicon.
15FBI Document B1M7, FBI Elemental Analysis Summary, p. 93.
16FBI Document B1M13 (Dugway), pp. 23 and 84-85, where it can be seen that all 12 of the ball-milled Dugway samples, not just those analyzed by the FBI, exhibited clumping.
17FBI Document B1M7 (FBI Laboratories), p. 28.
18NAS Report "Review of the Scientific Approaches used during the FBI's Investigation of the 2001 Anthrax Letters," Feb. 15, 2011, p. 67 (analysis) and p. 70 (identity of the samples studied).
19Michael J, Kotula P (2009), op. cit.; also Sandia reports to the FBI in FBI documents B1M6 and B1M1 (in these reports, samples are coded and it is sometimes difficult or impossible to find their identities).
20FBI Document B1M13 (Dugway), p. 93.
21FBI Document B2M13 (Battelle), p. 151.
22FBI Document B1M13 (Dugway), Test Plan, p. 15.
23FBI Document B1M13 (Dugway), p. 79.
24Amerithrax Investigative Summary, February 19, 2010, p. 75.
25B1M13 (Dugway), pp. 70 and 74-5. The two fermentation products, grown in 2003 at the same time and from the same stock as the agar samples, were stored until 2005, when they were irradiated and processed (methods not disclosed) under the designations "Lot 05AUG05" for one grown with Antifoam 204 and "Lot 01SEP05" for one grown with Antifoam C.
26FBI document B1M1(Technical Review Panels), Sandia report on elemental mapping of Amerithrax Samples, pp. 109, 110, 100, 106. The data for this sample, coded 040255-1, in Sandia's Table on page 109 are the same as those for the "Dugway surrogate (fermentation using Leighton-Doi media)" in the NAS Report "Review of the Scientific Approaches Used During the FBI's Investigation of the 2001 Anthrax Letters," Feb. 15, 2011, pp 67 and 70, indicating that the FBI must have identified the coded material to the NAS Committee as a Dugway fermentation sample, but evidently did not specify which one.
27FBI Document B1M1, Sandia report on elemental mapping, pp. 109, 110, 100, 106.
28NAS Report (op. cit.), p. 67.
29FBI Science Briefing, August 18, 2009; Amerithrax Investigative Summary, Feb 19, 2010, page 14, footnote 5.
30FBI Document B2M13 (Chemical and Physical Characteristics, Battelle), Summary of Sample Analyses, pp. 146ff.
31FBI Document B2M13 (Chemical and Physical Characteristics, Battelle), The Analysis of Surrogate Dry Powder Bacillus Spore Product, pp. 92ff. The "unwashed" preparation had a titer of 9×1011 cfu/g, an indication of its high quality (compare to the titer of the pristine Daschle sample, 2.1×1012, which had been determined at USAMRIID just after the material was received from the Capitol Police (FBI Document B1M2 (USAMRIID), Anaytical Test Report, pp. 36ff; note pp. 37 and 42). The titer of spores in the Leahy letter has never been reported.
32FBI Document B2M13 (Chemical and Physical Characteristics, Battelle), Summary of Sample Analyses, pp. 146ff. Analysis of the Leahy sample was done in February 2002, after the Leahy letter had been stored in a mail bag for a number of months; it is therefore possible that the Leahy spores were no longer in their original condition.
33FBI Document B1M2 (USAMRIID), Report of Electron Microscopic Examination of Powder Obtained from the Daschle Letter, pp. 4-5.
34FBI Document B2M13 (Battelle), Summary of Sample Analyses, pp. 148ff.
35FBI Document B2M13 (Battelle), "Sample B," pp.11ff and 35ff.
36Names and origins of various Daschle samples are given in FBI document B1M2 (USAMRIID), pp. 36-38.
37FBI document B2M13 (Battelle), pp. 6, 31, 35; note that "Sample A" (p. 12) is sometimes incorrectly identified in the Battelle report as SPS.57.01, rather than SPS.57.03 (corrected on p. 105); "Sample B" is SPS.57.08 (p. 11).
38See, e.g., the Naval Surface Treatment Center, US Navy, Silicone Coatings. (http://www.nstcenter.biz/writeup.aspx?t ... ings&page= (http://www.nstcenter.biz/writeup.aspx?title=Silicone%20Coatings&page=) TechResourcesSiliconeCoatings.html).
39Gerhardt P, Black SH (1961) Permeability of Bacterial Spores. II. Molecular Variables Affecting Solute Permeation. J Bacteriol 82: 750-760; Nicholson WL, Munakata N, Horneck G, Melosh HJ, Setlow P (2000) Resistance of Bacillus endospores to extreme terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments. Microbiol Mol Biol Rev 64: 548-572.
40See, for example, Biological and Toxin Weapons Today, ed. Geissler E, p. 32 (Oxford University Press, NY, 1986); and Report of the Secretary General on Chemical and Bacteriological (Biological) Weapons and the Effects of their Possible Use, p. 64 (UN Document A/75/75/Rev.1, 1969).
41Weapons of Mass Destruction: An Encyclopedia of Worldwide Policy, Technology, and History, ed. Croddy EA and Wirtz JJ, Volume 1: Chemical and Biological Weapons, ed. Croddy EA, pp. 184-5 (ABC-CLIO, 2004).
42Ibid.
43Balkundi SS, Veerabadran NG, Eby DM, Johnson GR, Lvov YM (2009) Encapsulation of Bacterial Spores in Nanoorganized Polyelectrolyte Shells. Langmuir 25: 14011- 14016; Fakhrullin RF, Lvov YM (2012) "Face-lifting" and "make-up" for microorganisms: layer-by-layer polyelectrolyte nanocoating. ACS Nano 6: 4557-4564.
44Yang SH, Lee KB, Kong B, Kim JH, Kim HS, et al. (2009) Biomimetic encapsulation of individual cells with silica. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl 48: 9160-9163.
45Donlon M and Jackman J (1999) DARPA Integrated Chemical and Biological Detection System. Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest 20: 320-325; Suter JJ (2005) Sensors and Sensor Systems Research and Development at APL with a View Toward the Future. Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest 26: 350-355.
46Hathout Y, Demirev PA, Ho YP, Bundy JL, Ryzhov V, et al. (1999) Identification of Bacillus Spores by Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization-Mass Spectrometry. Appl Environ Microbiol 65: 4313-4319. Note that dry B. anthracis Sterne spores from USAMRIID were used in developing this identification technique, which was employed in the DARPA project for analysis of aerosol samples collected on tapes.
47On August 28, 2000, forty ml were removed from flask RMR 1029 at USAMRIID "for DARPA mass spec project with JHU-APL" (inventory control sheet, www.vault.fbi.gov/ (http://www.vault.fbi.gov/) amerithrax, part 24, p. 8); see also, FBI interview believed to be of Dr. Joany Jackman, a major participant in the DARPA project working at USAMRIID under John Ezzell from 1997-2000 and then at Johns Hopkins APL: B. anthracis, grown from an inoculum (about 1012 cfu/ml) provided by Bruce Ivins and purified on a gradient, was used at USAMRIID for the aerosol work (http://vault.fbi.gov/Amerithrax/ (http://vault.fbi.gov/Amerithrax/) part 21, pp 19-22; Jackman's corroborating biographical details are at http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/ (http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/) medicine/std/team/Jackman.html).
48Frederick News Post, Ivins' Lawyer, Colleague share details FBI left out, December 5, 2010.
49Personal communications from individuals present at the December 5, 2010 seminar.
50Ezzell also stated that he never prepared live virulent dry spores--the only dried spores he ever produced were sterilized first, before drying (ibid.).
51The plan is contained in DOD Budget Justifications issued in February 1999, February 2000 and June 2001: DOD RDT&E Budget Item Justification Sheet (R-2 Exhibit) for BA2 Applied Research, R-1 Item Nomenclature Biological Warfare Defense PE 0602383E, R-1 #14, dated February 1999; DOD RDT&E Budget Item Justification sheet (R-2 Exhibit) for BA2 Applied Research, R-1 Item Nomenclature: Biological Warfare Defense PE 0602383E, R-1 #15, dated February 2000; DOD Amended Budget Submission, RDT&E Budget Item Justification sheet (R-2 Exhibit) for BA2 Applied Research, R-1 Item Nomenclature: Biological Warfare Defense PE 0602383E, R-1 #16, p. 93, dated June 2001.
52DOD RDT&E Budget Item Justification Sheet (R-2 Exhibit) for BA2 Applied Research, R-1 Item Nomenclature: Biological Warfare Defense PE 0601383E, R-1 #16, dated February 2002.
53Chemical/Biological Defense Program projects cited here are found in the following documents: DOD CBDP Budget Item Justification Sheet (R-2A Exhibit) for BA2 - Applied Research, 0602384BP Chemical/Biological Defense, Project CB2, dated February 1999; and DOD CBDP Budget Item Justification Sheet (R-2A Exhibit) for BA2- Applied Research, 0602384BP Chemical/Biological Research, Project CB2, dated June 2001.
54Koblentz GD, Living Weapons: Biological Warfare and International Security (Cornell University Press, NY, 2009).
55DOD RDT&E Budget Item Justification Sheet for Biological Warfare Defense, dated February 2000 (op. cit.).
56Discussed in Hugh-Jones et al., op. cit.
57FBI document B2M1, p. 21, Report from Novozymes Biotech, Inc.
58Gibbons HS, Broomall SM, McNew LA, Daligault H, Chapman C, et al. (2011) Genomic signatures of strain selection and enhancement in Bacillus atrophaeus var. globigii, a historical biowarfare simulant. PLoS One 6: e17836.
59FBI documents B1M5, p. 83, p. 98 and B2M2, p. 138ff. The B. subtilis strain isolated from the NY Post powder was designated GB22.
60FBI document B2M4 (FBI Chemical Biological Sciences Unit), p. 13 and B1M5 p. 100.
61The genetic sequence of B. subtilis 168 became available in 1997: Kunst F, Ogasawara N, Moszer I, Albertini AM, Alloni G, et al. (1997) The complete genome sequence of the gram-positive bacterium Bacillus subtilis. Nature 390: 249-256.
62Nicholson WL, Galeano B (2003) UV resistance of Bacillus anthracis spores revisited: validation of Bacillus subtilis spores as UV surrogates for spores of B. anthracis Sterne. Appl Environ Microbiol 69: 1327-1330.; Greenberg DL, Busch JD, Keim P, Wagner DM (2010) Identifying experimental surrogates for Bacillus anthracis spores: a review. Investig Genet 1: 4.
63Nicholson WL, Munakata N, Horneck G, Melosh HJ, Setlow P (2000) Resistance of Bacillus endospores to extreme terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments. Microbiol Mol Biol Rev 64: 548-572.
64New York Times, US Recently Produced Anthrax in a Highly Lethal Powder Form, December 13, 2001.
65FBI Document B2M10 (Statistical Analysis), especially Appendix V of the Report on Statistical Analysis, where the names of some specific laboratories that submitted repository samples of interest are handwritten next to the sample data: DPG (Dugway Proving Ground); BMI (Battelle Memorial Institute); DRES (Defense Research Establishment, Suffield, Canada); NMRC (Naval Medical Research Center); USAMRIID. See also the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Report "Review of the Scientific Approaches used during the FBI's Investigation of the 2001 Anthrax Letters," February 15, 2011, pp. 110-112, and FBI Document B2M10, p. 25. From information in these documents it appears that seven repository samples from USAMRIID and one from Battelle tested positive in all four genetic assays; one sample each from USAMRIID and Northern Arizona University (an FBI contractor in the anthrax case) had three positives; a samples from DRES had two positives; and samples from six other laboratories, including Dugway and the Naval Medical Research Center plus four unnamed laboratories, tested positive in one or two assays, as did additional samples from some of the laboratories already mentioned.
66NAS Report (op. cit.), p. 108 gives reasons why all four markers probably originated at Dugway; the Report also discusses the probability of false negatives and presents a Table of assay results on 30 repeat samplings of flask RMR 1029 (the putative parental source of the attack anthrax) as an illustration (p. 117).
67Personal communication January 11, 2002 from David Lore, Columbus Dispatch Science Reporter, author of article "Labs deny use of letter anthrax: Powdered spores not part of stocks, Battelle official says" in Columbus Dispatch, January 9, 2002.
68FBI Document B3D16. One Ames repository sample from Battelle tested positive in all 4 assays; another from Battelle, known to have originated from an RMR 1029 sample, tested positive in 2 of 3 assays (FBI Document B2M10, p. 25).
69Maureen Stevens et al. vs United States of America: Notice of Errata, Document 162, entered on FLSD Docket 07/19/2011, submitted by the Defendant United States in US District Court, Southern District of Florida, Case Number: 03-81110-CIV-Hurley/Hopkins.
70Columbus Dispatch, Labs deny use of letter anthrax: Powdered spores not part of stocks, Battelle official says, January 9, 2002.
71See FBI/Dugway plan for the reverse engineering work in FBI Document B1M13.
72Elemental analyses of the 10 samples, measured by ICP-OES in an FBI laboratory, are given in FBI Document B1M7 (FBI Laboratory Reports), Samples from Dugway, pp. 26-28; the data are repeated at B1M7, Elemental Analysis Summary, p. 93.
73Problems in the FBI laboratory's analysis of the Dugway surrogates, particularly sample NDLB (5 wt% silicon, 0.0265 wt% tin), and sample SPVB (2 wt% silicon, 0.0132 wt% tin) are stated in FBI Document B1M7, p. 28 (see Table 1).
74FBI Document B1M7, p. 27.
75FBI Document B1M1 (Technical Review Panels), p. 83, gives the elemental analysis of the Standard, together with averages for the elements in the ten Dugway samples (presented at a Chemistry Review Panel in August 2005).
76FBI Document B1M7 (FBI laboratory), ICP-OES analyses, pp. 15-22, 29-37, also pp. 92-94.
77The preparation methods were reported by Dugway in fair detail: FBI Document B1M13 (Dugway Production Methods).
78See Table 1, note c.
79Brewer LN, Ohlhausen JA, Kotula PG, Michael JR (2008) Forensic analysis of bioagents by X-ray and TOF-SIMS hyperspectral imaging. Forensic Sci Int 179: 98-106.
80ScienceInsider, New Challenge to FBI's Anthrax Investigation Lends an Ear to Tin, 11 October 2011.
81For sensitivities of the analytical methods see Table 1.
82The finding, via stable isotope analysis (B1M9, p.44), that Dugway water is unlikely to have been used to grow the attack spores is probably not relevant; Dugway's report (B1M13) on preparation of the surrogate samples mentions the use of "sterile water for irrigation" and "sterile water for injection," which are generally purchased in small bottles from distant providers. The FBI laboratory, in analysing media components (B1M7), included "Baxter sterile water for irrigation".
83M. Wilson, chemist at a silicone products company, quoted in Miami Herald, "FBI lab reports on anthrax attacks suggest another miscue," May 19, 2011.
84DOD CBDP Budget Item Justification Sheet dated June 2001 (op. cit.).
85"Clear Vision" project (Miller J, Engelberg S, Broad, W, Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War (Simon and Schuster, NY, 2001) pp. 290ff, 295ff.
86USA Today, Army says labs not necessarily source of Hill spores, December 17, 2001; Washington Post, Capitol Hill Anthrax Matches Army's Stocks, December 16, 2001.
87NY Times, Terror anthrax resembles type made by US, December 3, 2001.
88BBC, March 14, 2002.
89Wall Street Journal, Anthrax Probe Was Complicated By Muddled Information, FBI Says, March 25, 2002.
90An appropriately targetted investigation would seek to determine whether Bacillus anthracis had been microencapsulated prior to the letter attacks, and, if so, by whom, where, when, and the amounts, strains and dispositions of the resulting materials. Parts of such an investigation might still need to be classified.
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