On October 24, 2001, the day before Tom Geisbert went to AFIP, Peter Jahrling attended a briefing at the White House where he showed around some Polaroids he took of "goop" oozing out of the chemical-saturated spores he had examined under the TEM. They still didn't realize the "goop" was the chemicals they used to kill the spores. It was their own "goop", but they were still thinking it was some kind of additive put there by terrorists.
At that White House meeting, the FBI asked if there were any chemicals in the anthrax which might indicate a "signature" for the lab that made the spores. That's why Tom Geisbert went to AFIP, and he almost certainly took the Polaroids with him, since they showed an "unidentifiable substance."
In Richard Preston's book he describes how, after the visit to AFIP, they were thinking the "goop" was explained by the detection of silicon and oxygen in the spores. That was the "unidentifiable substance." There was NO OTHER UNIDENTIFIABLE SUBSTANCE. All they saw was "pure spores" when they looked at spores which hadn't been soaked in chemicals.
"This was a key component," Mullick said.
What is her definition of "a key component"? Scientific reports from 1980 show that silicon representing lab contamination showed up on EDX graphs just like the AFIP graph. It was the largest spike on the graph. Did that make lab contamination "a key component"?
The FACTS say they detected silicon and oxygen. The FACTS say everything else is ASSUMPTIONS, NOT FACTS.
You need to understand the difference between ASSUMPTIONS and FACTS.
Ed
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! Silicon and Oxygen are known together as "silica."
Did that make lab contamination "a key component"?
Er, no.... Why would lab contamination be a "key component" for aerosolization? Do you actually read English, or do you see things in written English that others don't?
She did actually say: "This was a key component," Mullick said. "Silica prevents the anthrax from aggregating, making it easier to aerosolize.
Are you perhaps seeing this when you read the sentence?:
"This was a key contamination component," Mullick said. "It had nothing to do with aerosolization".