Rupert Murdoch's WSJ Set to Revive "Arab Muslims Sent Anthrax" Meme

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1 day ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Brooks Mick wrote:
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.How conveniently the FBI and others leap to conclusions. Theodore Sturgeon advised against that back around 1967.

http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/misc/question.html

His point was to never stop questioning just because you have reached a conclusion you like.

I've tried to keep the anthrax investigation open for many years, pointing out in various web sites that the anthrax found was weaponized, spread much more easily than simple anthrax spores, and was probably produced in a fairly sophisticated lab designed to produce WMD. That a physician had reported someone who looked like of the 9/11 hijackers was treated by him in the days immediately before the 9/11 attack for what he later considered could have been an anthrax skin lesion, and other inconclusive but thought-provoking occurrences that are food for thought. And just the timing of the 9/11 and anthrax attacks makes one doubt coincidence.

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1 day ago..Richard Fuller replied:
. I agree with you. There never has been an explanation/connection for the death of the older
Vietnamise women death. My opinion the 911 hijackers carried with them but the heat of
the crash did away with evidence. Just a theory based on the different cuts,same tape cutter
and the early case in the poor reporter in Florida for the National Inquirer

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Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion...1 day ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Zachariah Edwards replied:
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.How much of this is findings, and how much of this is political pressures. Over the last year, the CIA and FBI have been pressured many different way. Mainly they have been pressured to become softer and to treat all those detained as citizens of the US with all rights included. They have even gone past Geneva Convention regulations. These pressures came from the top and have effect their effectiveness throughout, softening these agencies with every major investigation. Could this be one of them.

SOURCE OF CLAIMS: www.americanparchment.com

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Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion...20 hours ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .John Merring replied:
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.Great. Score another for the anti-Bush crowd.

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Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion...18 hours ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Lucas Sarkisian replied:
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.At a guess, someone made a political decision that the Anthrax letters was the work of an American citizen. The fact is we have had only one wave of anthrax letters, and then the occasional hoaxter. It is as if someone tried it out as a terror weapon, and then decided Anthrax didn't generate enough of a body count to justify the effort. Given the resources needed to weaponize anthrax, there was only a handful of places that could do it. The FBI simply ignored what was going on in the rest of the world.

The non-american targets were newspaper reporters and editors in third world countries obscure to most Americans. While on different continents, these newsmen had in common anti-Al Qaeda stories and commentary to their credit. To me it looks like someone provided a sample of weaponized Anthrax to Al-Qaeda as a field test, and then cut off the supply when it looked like it generated too much retalitatory heat for the meager return in dead bodies.

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Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion....1 day ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Franklin Brock wrote:
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.So... They knew that there was silicon attached to the spores from the start... And they continued with their theory?

Can someone please explain why Robert Mueller is still Director of the FBI?!?!??!?!

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1 day ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Jeffrey Webster replied:
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.It would be easier to develop a credible unified field theory than to answer this question.

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Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion...1 day ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .michael fury replied:
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."Can someone please explain why Robert Mueller is still Director of the FBI?!?!??!?!"

Because he is still controlling numerous 9/11-related cover-ups, including these:

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/black-box/

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/the-ghost-in-the-machines-th...

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19 hours ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Paul Cooper replied:
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.With all due respect, Mr. Fury, Dan Rather is not a credible source on anything,

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Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion....23 hours ago..Biffle French replied:
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.We may not know who put the silicon into the spores, but we DO know who murdered the babies at Waco. Maybe we could get Janet Reno to replace Mueller after she gets finished defending Khalid.

From the cross-dressing Hoover to now, the FBI has had a very bad record regarding its leadership.

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Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion...18 hours ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Lucas Sarkisian replied:
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.Franklin, Robert Mueller is a Democrat. He was appointed Director of the FBI because when John Ashcroft came in as Attorney General, Mueller was the only person at Justice that didn't treat him as something unpleasant they stepped in and instead showed him arround the Justice Department. At a guess, the fact he hasn't been replaced by another appointee is either his term isn't up yet, or he borrowed a page from J Edgar Hoover's old book and had got something on Barry that would make him radioactive even to his own party. Or he is being very accomidating, or most likely, it hasn't dawned to anyone at the Obama White House that he can be fired and replaced at President Obama's whim, although the replcement would face congressional hearings.

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Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion...16 hours ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Alex Temenid replied:
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.Because it was always crucial, even when George W Bush was president, to find a way to claim that this was not done by islamsts. That imperative is of even greater importance today, with the new administration. Therefore, they'll invent whatever story they need to meet the primary goal and then back-fill with facts generated, if necessary, to support the conclusion they've decided to have.

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15 hours ago..Michael Kennedy replied:
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.I tend to agree with this comment and have been suspicious of all these stories back to Hatfill.

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Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion.....1 day ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Ross Getman wrote:
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.The OpEd is mistaken. There was a Silicon Signature in flask 1030 (the next flask Dr. Ivins created of virulent Ames). As explained by the FBI, the source of the signature was not due to an additive added post-production to increase floatability. Instead, as Dr. Majidi explained, the silica-based substance could have been in the culture medium. Controlled experiments using an anthrax simulant showed it served a different purpose. The NAS has failed to hear testimony from relevant experts. The mistake in the OpEd serves only to set up a forthcoming bogus argument that the Silicon Signature in flask 1030 points to Dr. Ivins' guilt.

On a minor point, it is also mistaken to suggest that online porn is part of the FBI's narrative. Hundreds of Dr. Ivins' emails are now online. USAMRIID and FBI have wrongfully delayed in producing Dr. Ivins' emails from September and October 2001 in violation of the Government in the Sunshine Act.

There needs to be accountability for the government's continued failure to comply with FOIA procedure. If there was an exemption to production that applied, it needed to be invoked so that the failure to produce could have been appealed.

Anthrax and Al Qaeda: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.blurb.com/books/1114765

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Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion...1 day ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .michael fury wrote:
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.Ask Donald Rumsfeld about Gilead Sciences and Philip Zack:

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/culture-of-deception/

Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion...1 day ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Ross Getman wrote:
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.Bruce Ivins supplied the virulent Ames strain of anthrax to Ann Arbor researchers. One of the researchers, Dr. Hamouda, obtained his PhD in microbiology from Cairo Medical in 1994. He and his wife came to the United States to settle that year. By 1998, he was working on a DARPA-funded project involving nanoemulsions and a biocidal cream. In December 1999, he and two colleagues travelled to a remote military installation in Utah, Dugway, to test its effectiveness in killing aerosolized anthrax surrogates. An April 2001 report describing testing at Dugway concluded that the best performing decontamination agents were from University of Michigan, Sandia National Laboratories, and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (LLNL).

The FBI and CIA may have been concerned that there might have been unauthorized access to the Ames strain. That would explain their aggressive prosecution of various matters related to Al-Timimi's charity, IANA, which was based in Ann Arbor 1 mile from the NanoBio office. IANA promoted the views of Bin Laden's sheiks. Al-Timimi was IANA's most celebrated speaker. He was in active contact with one of those sheiks, who had been Ali's religious mentor at university in Saudi Arabia. Al-Timimi was actively coordinating with 911 imam Anwar Aulaqi.

Anthrax and Al Qaeda: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.blurb.com/books/1114765

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18 hours ago..George Hollister replied:
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.Interesting that Al Queda failed to take responsibility. They tend to do that for their own publicity. So if Al Queda did it, why have they been quiet?

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10 hours ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Ross Getman replied:
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.Why was Al Qaeda evasive on the question of responsibility for the anthrax mailings, dismissing the issue with a snicker, and falsely claiming that Al Qaeda did not know anything about anthrax? Simple. Bin Laden denied responsibility for 9/11 until it was beyond reasonable dispute. On September 16, 2001, he said: “The US is pointing the finger at me but I categorically state that I have not done this. I am residing in Afghanistan. I have taken an oath of allegiance (to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar) which does not allow me to do such things from Afghanistan.” Before that, Ayman had denied the 1998 embassy bombings too. On August 20, 1998, coincidentally on the day of strikes on camps in Afghanistan and Sudan, Ayman al-Zawahiri contacted The News, a Pakistani English-language daily, and said on behalf of Bin Laden that “Bin Laden calls on Moslem Ummah to continue Jihad against Jews and Americans to liberate their holy places. In the meanwhile, he denies any involvement in the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam bombings.”

To Ayman, “war is deception.”

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Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion.....1 day ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Ross Getman wrote:
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.In a filing unsealed in United States v. Al-Timimi, Dr. Ali Al-Timimi's lawyer, Professor and MSNBC commentator Jonathan Turley, explained that his client "was considered an anthrax weapons suspect." Al-Timimi was a computational biologist who came to have an office 15 feet from the leading anthrax scientist and the former deputy commander of USAMRIID. A motion filed in early August 2008 seeking to unseal additional information in federal district court was denied. The ongoing proceedings are highly classified.
Dr. Al-Timimi's counsel summarizes:
"we know Dr. Al-Timimi:
* was interviewed in 1994 by the FBI and Secret Service regarding his ties to the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing;
* was referenced in the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing ("Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US") as one of seventy individuals regarding whom the FBI is conducting full field investigations on a national basis;
* was described to his brother by the FBI within days of the 9-11 attacks as an immediate suspect in the Al Qaeda conspiracy;
* was contacted by the FBI only nine days after 9-11 and asked about the attacks and its perpetrators;
*was considered an anthrax weapons suspect;
[redacted]
* was described during his trial by FBI agent John Wyman as having "extensive ties" with the "broader al-Qaeda network";
* was described in the indictment and superseding indictment as being associated with terrorists seeking harm to the United States;
* was a participant in dozens of international overseas calls to individuals known to have been under suspicion of Al-Qaeda ties like Al-Hawali; and
* was associated with the long investigation of the Virginia Jihad Group.
***
The conversation with [Bin Laden's sheik] Al-Hawali on September 19, 2001 was central to the indictment and raised at trial. ***
[911 imam] Anwar Al-Aulaqi goes directly to Dr. Al-Timimi's state of mind and his role in the alleged conspiracy. The 9-11 Report indicates that Special Agent Ammerman interviewed Al-Aulaqi just before or shortly after his October 2002 visit to Dr. Al-Timimi's home to discuss the attacks and his efforts to reach out to the U.S. government.

Anthrax and Al Qaeda: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.blurb.com/books/1114765

Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion...1 day ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Ross Getman wrote:
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.Among the supporters of these militant islamists were people like US scientist Ali Al-Timimi and Pakistan scientist Rauf Ahmad who blended into society and were available to act when another part of the network requested it. Two letters — one typed and an earlier handwritten one — written by a scientist named Rauf Ahmad detailed his efforts to obtain a pathogenic strain of anthrax. He attended conferences on anthrax and dangerous pathogens such as one in September 2000 at the University of Plymouth co-sponsored by DERA, the UK Defense Evaluation and Research Agency. In October 2009, historian Christopher Andrew published an official history of MI5 in which he reported that MI5 had found money and equipment in Rauf Ahmad's luggage as he left the September 2000 conference.

A handwritten letter from 1999 is written on letterhead of the oldest microbiology society in Great Britain. The 1999 documents seized in Afghanistan by US forces by Rauf describe the author’s visit to the special confidential room at the BL-3 facility where 1000s of pathogenic cultures were kept; his consultation with other scientists on some of technical problems associated with weaponizing anthrax; the bioreactor and laminar flows to be used in Al Qaeda’s anthrax lab; a conference he attended on dangerous pathogens cosponsored by UK’s Porton Down and Society for Applied Microbiology, and the need for vaccination and containment. Rauf had arranged to take a lengthy post-doc leave from his employer and was grousing to Zawahiri that what the employer would be paying during that 12-month period was inadequate. Malaysian Yazid Sufaat, who told his wife he was working for a Taliban medical brigade, got the job instead of Rauf.

One typed memo reporting on a lab visit, which included tour of a BioLevel 3 facility, where there were 1000s of pathogenic samples. The memo mentioned the pending paperwork relating to export of the pathogens. The documents were provided to me by the Defense Intelligence Agency (”DIA”) under the Freedom of Information Act.

An earlier handwritten letter from Rauf Ahmad to Dr. Zawahiri from before the lab visit described in the typed memo. The handwritten letter was reporting on a different, earlier visit where the anthrax had been nonpathogenic. Finally, there are handwritten notes about the plan to use non-governmental-organizations (NGOs), technical institutes and medical labs as cover for aspects of the work, and training requirements for the various personnel at the lab in Afghanistan. Ayman codenamed his project to weaponize anthrax Zabadi or "Curdled Milk."

Taliban supporter Al-Timimi was a graduate student in the same building where famed Russian bioweapon Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID head Charles Bailey worked at George Mason University. The three worked at the secure facility at Discovery Hall at the Prince William 2 campus. Dr. Alibek and Dr. Bailey headed a biodefense program funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (”DARPA”). Al-Timimi had a top security clearance and had worked for SRA International doing mathematical support work for the Navy. In 2000 and 2001, Timimi was a graduate student in computational sciences. His field was bioinformatics.

Years earlier, the blind sheik’s son, Mohammed Abdel-Rahman was scheduled to come from Afghanistan to speak at the IANA 1993 conference alongside Ali Al-Timimi and former EIJ member Gamal Sultan. Al-Timimi was scheduled to speak alongside the blind sheik’s son again in 1996, the year Bin Laden issued his Declaration of War against the United States. In July and August 2001, Ali was scheduled to speak in Toronto and London alongside “911 imam” Anwar Awlaki and Ali's mentor Bilal Philips, who has publicly explained his role in recruiting members of the US military to jihad.

Anthrax and Al Qaeda: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.blurb.com/books/1114765

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Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion...1 day ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Lewis Weinstein wrote:
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.Readers of the CASE CLOSED blog (http://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/) have been aware of everything in Mr. Epstein’s article, and much more, for months.

The FBI’s case has always been unfounded, and the FBI’s insistence that Dr. Ivins was the sole perpetrator does a disservice to our nation.

It’s time for Director Mueller to fess up. Either the FBI doesn’t know who perpetrated the attacks, or they do know and they’re covering up the truth.

Which is worse?

Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion...1 day ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Ross Getman wrote:
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.The University of Michigan researchers presented in part at various listed meetings and conferences in 1998 and 1999. The December 1999 article titled "A Novel Surfactant Nanoemulsion with Broad-Spectrum Sporicidal Activity of against Bacillus Species" in the Journal for Infectious Diseases states: "B. anthracis spores, Ames and Vollum 1B strains, were supplied by Bruce Ivins (US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases [USAMRIID], Fort Detrick, Frederick, MD) and were prepared as described elsewhere. Four other strains of B. anthracis were provided by Martin Hugh-Jones (Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge)." Dr. Baker reports the work NanoBio's research with virulent Ames was "done at USAMRIID by a microbiologist under Dr. Ivins' direct supervision and at LSU under the direction of Dr. Hugh Jones."

In the acknowledgements section, the University of Michigan authors thank:
Shaun B. Jones, Jane Alexander, and Lawrence DuBois (Defense Science Office, Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) for their support.
Bruce Ivins, Patricia Fellows, Mara Linscott, Arthur Friedlander, and the staff of USAMRIID for their technical support and helpful suggestions in the performance of the initial anthrax studies.
Martin-Hugh-Jones, Kimothy Smith, and Pamela Coker for supplying the characterized B. anthracis strains and the space at Louisiana State University (Baton Rouge).
Robin Kunkel (Department of Pathology, University of Michigan) for her help with electron microscopy and a couple of others for technical assistance and manuscript preparation.
The researchers found that their nanoemulsion incorporated into the growth medium completely inhibited the growth of the spores. Transmission electron microscope was used to examine the spores.

The patent explained that "The nanoemulsions can be rapidly produced in large quantities and are stable for many months *** Undiluted, they have the texture of a semisolid cream and can be applied topically by hand or mixed with water. Diluted, they have a consistency and appearance similar to skim milk and can be sprayed to decontaminate surfaces or potentially interact with aerosolized spores before inhalation."

A March 18, 1998 press release had provided some background to the novel DARPA-funded work. It was titled "Novavax Microbicides Undergoing Testing at University of Michigan Against Biological Warfare Agents; Novavax Technology Being Supplied to U.S. Military Program At University of Michigan as Possible Defense Against Germ Warfare." The release stated that "The Novavax Biologics Division has designed several potent microbicides and is supplying these materials to the University of Michigan for testing under a subcontract. Various formulations are being tested as topical creams or sprays for nasal and environmental usage. The biocidal agent's detergent degrades and then explodes the interior of the spore. Funding, the press release explains, was provided by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense.

In a presentation at the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC) on September 26, 1998, Michael Hayes, a research associate in the U-Michigan Medical School, presented experimental evidence of BCTP's ability to destroy anthrax spores both in a culture dish and in mice exposed to anthrax through a skin incision. "In his conference presentation, Hayes described how even low concentrations of BCTP killed more than 90 percent of virulent strains of Bacillus anthracis spores in a culture dish." Its website explains that the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy is the "[p]remier meeting on infectious diseases and antimicrobial agents, organized by the American Society for Microbiology."

An University of Michigan Medical school, Medicine at Michigan, (Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 1999) explained:
"In studies with rats and mice in the U-M Medical School under the direction of James R. Baker, Jr., M.D., professor of internal medicine and director of the Center for Biologic Nanotechnology, the mixture, known as BCTP, attacked anthrax spores and healed wounds caused by a closely related species of bacteria, Bacillus cereus. (The letters BCTP stand for Bi-Component, Triton X-100 n-tributyl Phosphate.)
Baker describes the process as follows: "The tiny lipid droplets in BCTP fuse with anthrax spores, causing the spores to revert to their active bacterial state. During this process, which takes 4-5 hours, the spore's tough outer membrane changes, allowing BCTP's solvent to strip away the exterior membrane. The detergent then degrades the spores' interior contents. In scanning electron microscope images, the spores appear to explode." The rapid inactivation of anthrax bacteria and spores combined with BCTP's low toxicity thus make the emulsion a promising candidate for use as a broad-spectrum, post-exposure decontamination agent.
***

The research is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the central research and development organization for the U.S. Department of Defense."

Dr. Baker, by email, advises me that Ivins did the studies involving Ames for them at USAMRIID. He reports: "We never had Ames and could not have it at our UM facilities." Before September 2001, it's office was described as in the basement of a downtown bank which seems to describe 912 N. Main St., Ann Arbor, just west of the University of Michigan campus.

An article in the Summer of 2000 in Medicine at Michigan explains:
"Victory Site: Last December [December 1999] Tarek Hamouda, Amy Shih and Jim Baker traveled to a remote military station in the Utah desert. There they demonstrated for the U.S. Army Research and Development Command the amazing ability of non-toxic nanoemulsions (petite droplets of fat mixed with water and detergent) developed at Michigan to wipe out deadly anthrax-like bacterial spores. The square vertical surfaces shown here were covered with bacterial spores; Michigan's innocuous nanoemulsion was most effective in killing the spores even when compared to highly toxic chemicals."

An EPA report explains:
"In December 1999, the U.S. Army tested a broad spectrum nanoemulsion and nine other biodecontamination technologies in Dugway, Utah, against an anthrax surrogate, Bacillus globigii. Nanoemulsion was one of four technologies that proved effective and was the only nontoxic formulation available. Other tests against the vaccine strain of B. anthracis (Sterne strain) were conducted by the John Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and by the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research."

As Fortune magazine explained in November 2001 about NanoBio: "Then bioterror struck.... It moved to a bland corporate park where its office has no name on the door. It yanked its street address off its Website, whose hit rate jumped from 350 a month to 1,000 a day." NanoBio was part of the solution: "in the back of NanoBio's office sit two dozen empty white 55-gallon barrels. A few days before, DARPA had asked Annis and Baker if they could make enough decontaminant to clean several anthrax-tainted offices in the Senate. NanoBio's small lab mixers will have to run day and night to fill the barrels. 'This is not the way we want to do this,' sighs [its key investor], shaking his head. 'This is all a duct-tape solution.' " James Baker, founder of Ann Arbor's NanoBio's likes to quote a Chinese proverb: "When there are no lions and tigers in the jungle, the monkeys rule."

It's naive to think that Al Qaeda could not have obtained Ames just because it tended to be in labs associated with or funded by the US military. US Army Al Qaeda operative Sgt. Ali Mohammed accompanied Zawahiri in his travels in the US. (Ali Mohamed had been a major in the same unit of the Egyptian Army that produced Sadat’s assassin, Khaled Islambouli). Ali Al-Timimi was working in the building housing the Center for Biodefense funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ("DARPA") and had access to the facilities at both the Center for Biodefense and the adjacent American Type Culture Collection. For example, Michael Ray Stubbs was an HVAC system technician at Lawrence Livermore Lab with a high-level security clearance permitting access; that was where the effort to combat the perceived Bin Laden anthrax threat was launched in 1998. Aafia Siddiqui, who attended classes at a building with the virulent Vollum strain. She later married a 9/11 plotter al-Balucchi, who was in UAE with al-Hawsawi, whose laptop, when seized at the home of a bacteriologist, had anthrax spraydrying documents on it. The reality is that a lab technician, researcher, or other person similarly situated might simply have walked out of some lab that had it.

Anthrax and Al Qaeda: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.blurb.com/books/1114765

Please Join this Group to participate in Discussion...1 day ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Ross Getman wrote:
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.After the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology detected silica, [USAMRIID Major General John] Parker reported that the anthrax in question contained silica, a common substance found in sand and quartz. At the August 18, 2008 Science Briefing On The Anthrax Investigation, in his opening statement Dr. Vahid Majidi explained "First of all, let me dispel some frequently repeated erroneous information. For example: There were no intentional additives combined with the bacillus anthracis spores to make them any more dispersible." He noted that the Silicon Signature may have been due to a silica-based substance in the culture medium used to grow the anthrax. Another department colleague of Bin Laden's sheik's protege -- Dr. Alibek's co-director of the Center for Biodefense at GMU -- told a reporter that the presence of silica is significant, but he declined to say why, citing national security concerns. "I don't think I want to give people -- terrorists -- any information to help them, said Dr. Charles Bailey, a scientist at Advanced Biosystems Inc. at George Mason University and former deputy USAMRIID commander. The problem was that a microbiologist trained in computer science and actively communicating with Bin Laden's sheik and the 911 imam was working just feet away from both famed Russian anthrax bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and Dr. Bailey. Bin Laden's supporters already had access to the information. Dr. Bailey and Dr. Alibek in mid-March 2001 filed a confidential patent application relating to the use of silica in the culture medium. One of the two applicants for the international patent was a leading aerosol scientist and innovator in dry powder inhalations used in the pharmaceutical industry and the founder of Aerosol Techniques in 1955.

Former Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and Harvard biologist Matthew Meselson have reported that they saw no special silica coating observable in the Scanning Electron Microscope ("SEM") images they were given. The FBI's scientist at Sandia confirms that no silica was observed on the exosporium and that instead it was below the exosporium, absorbed in the coats. The presence of any silica, Drs. Meselson and Alibek say, may have come from the environment because of the special tendency of anthrax spore coats to attract silicon. (The lead FBI scientist Dwight Adams relied on the study provided the FBI by Meselson in briefing the Congress in November 2002.) Indeed, the silica may have been in the culture medium and then removed as described by a mid-March 2001 and related patent filed by researchers at Dr. Alibek's Center for Biodefense at GMU.

Ayman Zawahiri had numerous Salafist supporters who were highly educated, including an expert on polymerization who studied in North Carolina and had the keys to the apartment where the 7/7 London bomb was made. His field was the use of functional polymers to protect drugs until they reach the intended organ.
Montasser Al-Zayat was the lawyer in the Spring of 1999 who said that Ayman Zawahiri planned to use anthrax against US targets to retaliation for the rendering and mistreatment of senior Movement leaders. “Montasser al-Zayat, a lawyer and a former cellmate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, said Mr. Zawahiri excels at finding recruits with no previous records who can be easily planted in the West.”

Kathryn Crockett, Ken Alibek’s assistant — just a couple doors down from Ali Al-Timimi — addressed these issues in her 2006 thesis, “A historical analysis of Bacillus anthracis as a biological weapon and its application to the development of nonproliferation and defense strategies.” She expressed her special thanks to Dr. Ken Alibek and Dr. Bill Patrick. Dr. Patrick consulted with the FBI and so the FBI credits his expertise. “I don’t want to appear arrogant. I don’t think anyone knows more about anthrax powder in this country,” William Patrick told an interviewer. Dr. Alibek’s access to know-how regarding anthrax weaponization, similarly, seems beyond reasonable dispute.

On the issue of encapsulation, she reports that “many experts who examined the powder stated the spores were encapsulated. Encapsulation involves coating bacteria with a polymer which is usually done to protect fragile bacteria from harsh conditions such as extreme heat and pressure that occurs at the time of detonation (if in a bomb), as well as from moisture and ultraviolet light. The process was not originally developed for biological weapons purposes but rather to improve the delivery of various drugs to target organs or systems before they were destroyed by enzymes in the circulatory system.”

“The US and Soviet Union, however, ” she explains, “used this technique in their biological weapons programs for pathogens that were not stable in aerosol form… Since spores have hardy shells that provide the same protection as encapsulation would, there is no need to cover them with a polymer.“ She explains that one “possible explanation is that the spore was in fact encapsulated but not for protective purpose. Encapsulation also reduces the need for milling when producing a dry formulation.” She wrote: “If the perpetrator was knowledgeable of the use of encapsulation for this purpose, then he or she may have employed it because sophisticated equipment was not at his disposal.”

One military scientist who has made anthrax simulants described the GMU patents as relating to an encapsulation technique which serves to increase the viability of a wide range of pathogens. More broadly, a DIA analyst once commented to me that the internal debate seemed relatively inconsequential given the circumstantial evidence — overlooked by so many people — that US-based supporters of Al Qaeda are responsible for the mailings. Most of Dr. Ivins’ colleagues have thought Al Qaeda was responsible.

For years, Dr. Alibek’s theme has been: “‘[J]ust because you have a sophisticated product doesn’t mean the technique has to be sophisticated.’ ” Silica in the culture medium would not be a sophisticated “additive” added post-production that aided dispersability (Majidi’s definition of “weaponization”). But it did serve a purpose and is exculpatory of Dr. Ivins. But for that matter, so is the Tin Signature, the Iron Signature and lots of other forensic evidence. The genetics only served to narrow the known number of people with access to virulent Ames from 1,000 to 100-300.

Anthrax and Al Qaeda: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.blurb.com/books/1114765

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21 hours ago..Edward Burns replied:
.

.Mr. Getman,
Can I buy your book here in the USA ? Borders perhaps ? Do you have an ISDN number ?

Fascinating stuff...

I'm tempted to ask you a question but am reluctant to do so online

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10 hours ago.Nonsubscriber comments are set to "Hide" Show this comment + .Ross Getman replied:
.
.My email is at
http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com

The book can be purchased at
http://www.blurb.com/books/1114765
but I would hold off given the imminent developments in the near future (at which point it will be revised that day).

I have never believed the FBI's stated case against Dr. Bruce Ivins. It seems to me that either the FBI has not solved the case or they are covering up for the true perpetrators. I'm not sure which is worse.

I have written a novel about this (see http://www.amazon.com/Case-Closed-Lewis-M-Weinstein/dp/1595943188/ref=sr...) and I manage an active blog which features daily discussion of the 2001 anthrax attacks and the FBI investigation ... (http://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/)

LEW WEINSTEIN