Look, James Dean Cubed,
Did a ballerina from a Russian ballet company fall off the stage and crush you as a child? Deal with the pertinent facts. Intercepts in 2002 show Salafist, Taliban-supporting, end of Western civilization-hoping Ali Timimi was working with Bin Laden’s sheik. Take out Gert’z BREAKDOWN on intelligence failures and look up al-Hawali in the index. He gives the example of the bombing in the mid-1990s where intercepts calling London and explaining to his colleague that it was all to get al-Hawali out of jail, only to take Ayman’s incoming call on the other line passing on his congratulations. Ali had a threatening letter to Congress hand-delivered to all members of Congress on the first anniversary of the anthrax mailngs. At 6:00 A.M. February 26, 2003, as part of the codenamed OPERATION IMMINENT HORIZON, the FBI not only raided al-Timimi’s townhouse looking for materials relating to WMD (see warrant) but conducted searches of two drying experts. So start focusing on some relevant questions and get over the ballerina incident. First, what mathematical support work did Al-Timimi do for the Navy in bioinformatics that required a high level security clearance. Second, is it true he had a room just two doors down from both Ken and the former USAMRIID head — both accomplished in anthrax weaponization? Third, don’t the patents I’ve described point to precisely the silica detected by the AFIP and the reason it very possibly did not appear on the surface of the spore? (having been removed by repeated centrifugation). Now, if you find out the SRA International work involved secret methods for cleaning out bilge water, or if you find he didn’t have the office I suggest he did, or if you conclude the patents (as used by someone “skilled in the art” to invoke the phrase from the patents) would not result in the product, then do tell me. I’m here to learn something. The same day they searched al-Timimi’s townhouse — at 6:00 A.M. EST , 100 federal agents came to my hometown and simultaneously interviewed 150 people before 9 A.M. The public may have been fooled, but I wasn’t. And neither was Ayman. And Ayman is one dangerous SOB. Think Godfather on a bad day. I’m not interested in spending another 4 years while Ed insists that the FACTS show the anthrax letters were written by a First Grader or others argue that just because a Japanese cult couldn’t get it right, it means Ayman couldn’t successfully infiltrate the US biodefense establishment.
Of course, if Ken told Ali over a vodka drinking game how to weaponize the anthrax, then we can hang him. But Ali doesn’t drink vodka so that theory is shot.
And of course the guy killed by polonium claimed Ayman was working for the FSB — that instead of being jailed for 6 months in 1996/97 without the jailers knowing his identity, his identity was actually known and he agreed to cooperate against the Chechen rebels in exchange for his freedom. But look where such talk got that Russian guy who ate the polonium.
If Ken has DARPA’s confidence, that’s good enough for me.
But Ali doesn’t have DARPA’s confidence, so let’s start with him.
First - check and see how long Dr. Bailey was head of USAMRIID and under what circumstances he came to that position and left that position. When learning that, take into consideration how the military works (I used to be an MP so I can say that).
second - USAMRIID is a lab like any other lab except that they have some hot agents. Just because a person works there doesn’t mean they know ANYTHING about biological weapons. It only means that they know about biological agents. Be careful on that assumption.
third - for those of you who don’t work in academia, people who are not involved in research projects do sometimes get listed on publications just because of their administrative responsibilities rather than their scientific expertise and contribution. Always ask the authors to tell you their contributions. If they can’t explain, then you know they are only on there either out of courtesy (it does happen) or because they inserted themselves before publication (that happens too).
Dr. Bailey is an entomologist and studied Rift Valley Fever (I believe) and probably some other microbes too but you’d have to ask him what they were. It does not make him a BW expert anymore than being the senior Mason biodefense education program administrator makes him a BW expert. In some areas, he has far more knowledge than I do and he has my respect in those areas but I seriously doubt that he knows how to make anthrax biological weapon much less any biological weapon. Why would he?