Anthrax

[Phillip Allen]

It’s been quiet on the anthrax front and I wonder at it. It is apparent that there is someone (or more than one) out there who did it and I wonder when he will do something like it again…

[George.]

Probably as soon as it is politically useful... ;)

[Phillip Allen]

? (lost me)

[huisjen]

Well, lets see... It's a genetic match to stuff in inventory within control of our government. Somehow, it was moved from there to the postal system. Chances that it was mailed by iraqis, saudis, or afghanis are slim.

Dan

[LeeG]

barely related but interesting.

In 2000 Hatfill is commissioned by SAIC/David Kay to make mockup mobile bio weapons labs. After 2002 Hatfill is person of interest about anthrax letters and is hounded for years but never is convicted then case is dropped.
David Kay appointed head of Iraq Survey Group.
In May 25 suspected mobil bio-weapons labs are discovered in Iraq. May 27 preliminary report to DC says they aren't mobile bio-weapons labs. May 29 Bush says mobile bioweapons labs are found. Throughout summer of '03 adminstration says mobilebioweapons labs were found. July '03 complete report says they aren't mobil bio-weapons labs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hatfill


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kay
Kay worked as the UN Chief Weapons Inspector from 1991 to 1992. Following that, he was Vice President of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) from 1993 to 2002. While at SAIC, he worked alongside Steven Hatfill until March 2002. Then, he was appointed as a Special Advisor for Strategy regarding Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Programs. He received the International Atomic Energy Agency's Distinguished Service Award and the U.S. Secretary of State's Commendation. (SAIC was contracted by the U.S. to build prototype Mobile Weapons Laboratories in fall of 2001)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Survey_Group


for those who think "wmd" was sneaked out with the family jewels to Syria and Jordan

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/16/iraq/main643989.shtml

But intelligence and congressional officials say they have not seen any information — never "a piece," said one — indicating that WMD or significant amounts of components and equipment were transferred from Iraq to neighboring Syria, Jordan or elsewhere.
,,,
What I can tell you is that I believe we know a lot of materials left Iraq and went to Syria. There was certainly a lot of traffic across the border points," he said. "But whether in fact in any of these trucks there was WMD-related materials, I cannot say."

Last week, a congressional official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said suggestions that weapons or components were sent from Iraq were based on speculation stemming from uncorroborated information.

[CGrant]

Well, lets see... It's a genetic match to stuff in inventory within control of our government. Somehow, it was moved from there to the postal system. Chances that it was mailed by iraqis, saudis, or afghanis are slim.

Dan

Not all true. That lineage of anthrax has been shared all over the world w/researchers, as well. Maybe you'd be better informed if you read Ken Alibek's (Alibekov) book on the Russian bio-warfare program he was deputy director of.

And you have no way of knowing who mailed the stuff, either. Clearly mailed in the US. Just like the terrorists who flew the planes into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and that field in Pennsylvania were here in the US.

Let's not, in the name of political correctness or idiocy, in George's case above, close our eyes to all possibilities.

[Norman Bernstein]

Not all true. That lineage of anthrax has been shared all over the world w/researchers, as well.

Actually, this isn't quite true, from what I've learned. I'm working on some design stuff for a biotechnology startup that has more than a passing relationship to investigations into anthrax and similar biological agents... and from what the PhD researchers tell me, the mailed anthrax could be identified as of domestic origin, not by any particular DNA labelling, but by the way it had been processed. It seems that the spores were processed in a way which, while I can't specifically reveal how, is only done in the US. The same spores, reproduced and cultured elsewhere in the world, would show signs of a very different sort of processing.

[Phillip Allen]

I don't suppose we're any closer to finding out the perps?

[ljb5]

I don't suppose we're any closer to finding out the perps?


Probably not.

The anthrax was distributed by an educated, domestic terrorist with strong right-wing sympathies.

At the time, it was politically fashionable to pretend that all terrorists were either ignorant, foreign Muslims or Democrats.

It would have cramped Ashcroft's style if he pursued it.

[George.]

...idiocy, in George's case...

You must be referring to the George whose administration made NO PROGRESS in solving the anthrax case - although they certainly used it to whip other idiots into a frightened frenzy over "WMD"... :p

[PatCox]

It was mailed from a mailbox not half a mile from where I sit. The mailbox was taken away and people invesitigated. There is also an Amtrak station nearby, and the perpetrator could have travelled from anywhere between Boston and DC with ease, stopping here to erase his trail.

But, on the other hand, Hatfill does have family about 35 miles away in Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey, and the last time I saw mention of him in the papers he was arrested there for getting in a fight with a family member in a restaurant.

The president and White House staff started taking Cipro before the mailings.

[PatCox]

Another thing that bothers me; this country has a thriving literary industry dealing in "true crime" books. Seems ya can't throw your wife down a well without 10 books being written about it (actually, it seems that a white person can't kill in blonde woman in a planned scenario involving sex without a book and movie coming out of it). How many books are out there on the JonBenet Ramsey murder?

But there is really nothing about 9/11, just a few survivors stories and stories of the towers fall, but nothing which describes the subsequent investigation, and nothing about the anthrax investigation, as well.

I hate the idea that such things are being censored.

[Keith Wilson]

The anthrax was distributed by an educated, domestic terrorist with strong right-wing sympathies. Educated and domestic I'll buy, but "strong right-wing sympathies" is pure speculation. Not unreasonable, but speculation nonetheless.
The president and White House staff started taking Cipro before the mailings.Reference please?

[PatCox]

References? We got references; no need to disparage the source, the White House spokesman admits the staff was given cipro.


White House Faces Disclosure Suit
Group Says Government Had Braced for Anthrax Attacks
Associated Press
Saturday, June 8, 2002; Page A11


A conservative group is suing the Bush administration for access to documents about last fall's anthrax attacks, asserting that top officials might have known the bioterrorist attack was coming.

Judicial Watch said yesterday it has yet to receive documents from several agencies after filing requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The group says the documents will show who knew what, and when.


Judicial Watch, which also has sued for documents about Vice President Cheney's energy task force, represents U.S. postal workers at the Brentwood post office in the District. Two workers from Brentwood died of inhalation anthrax before officials closed the site, which had handled anthrax-laden letters headed to Capitol Hill.

Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch, said administration officials said last fall that some White House staff members had begun taking the antibiotic Cipro on Sept. 11, weeks before the anthrax attacks were made public.

"We believe that the White House knew or had reason to know that an anthrax attack was imminent or underway," Klayman said. "We want to know what the government knew and when they knew it."

"We did not know about the anthrax attacks. Period!" said Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman.

Johndroe said he did not know why staffers were given Cipro but guessed it was "a precautionary measure in the early hours of Sept. 11 before the situation could be fully assessed."

He said he has not seen the lawsuit and had no comment on whether the administration would release the documents.

Judicial Watch is suing the U.S. Postal Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FBI, the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Federal agencies have come under fire for failing to realize that the postal workers at Brentwood were at risk for anthrax even after an anthrax letter was discovered on Capitol Hill and treatment had begun for Senate staffers. Health officials have said they did not realize then that anthrax could have escaped a sealed envelope.

Klayman said the mistake goes beyond a bad judgment call.

"They deliberately withheld information," he said. "The political elite, they'll be protected from day one. The ordinary folks will be treated in a lesser fashion."

[Keith Wilson]

Oh, no intent to disparage the source, I just wondered how reliable the information was - not that I don't trust you or anything - ;) and it looks very reliable. Weird, damned weird. I don't normally give any credence to conspiracy theories, but that sure doesn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling.

[George.]

Oh, I am sure they all got smallpox shots, NBC suits, duct tape, and tin-foil helmets on the same day... ;)

[PatCox]

Did Peter Jennings get an anthrax letter? Strange he would die of lung cancer not long after.