Hatfill v. US - DOJ and FBI Statement of Facts (filed Friday)

US DOJ and FBI Memorandum In Support of Motion For Summary Judgment (Statement of Facts) | April 11, 2008 | Department of Justice

[ZACKandPOOK]

Ed, what did you think of Agents of Bioterrorism: Pathogens and Their Weaponization, Geoffrey Zubay (Columbia University Press 2005).

I get the impression that in the half decade you have been unrelentingly (in hundreds of posts) denying that silica was commonly used to weaponize anthrax, you haven’t actually read a book on the subject. Your argument that it is bizarre — that it would make the spores heavier and that the suggestion is , absurd etc. — is the result of you not researching the subject or reading even widely available books.

“Tiny spore particles — optimally between 1 and 5 mm - must then be separate, purified, and concentrated. Following the isolation of the spores, the powder must be combined with fine dust particles to maintain spore separation and to increase the time that they will remain suspended in the air.

This process, while seemingly simple, has many complicating pitfalls and thus necessitates a high level of expertise in processing bacterial spores. Following the fermentation procedure, the slurry often has the consistency of peanut butter, which makes the drying process very difficult. The resulting product is often a solid brick that is very unwieldy to work with. When it is milled down to fine particles on the order of 1 mm, the spores will obtain a surface charge, which causes the spores to form small clumps that are useless for weapons purposes. To deal with the surface charge, the spores are usually coated with some sort of silica gel or other product that can neutralize the charge (understandably, the exact materials used are kept secret). As a result, the spores, when combined with the dust, maintain their separation and are less likely to stick to surfaces.”

[ZACKandPOOK]

The wife of the key expert you rely upon says this (in her book “From
the Invention of State-Sponsored Programs to Contemporary
Bioterrorism,” (2005)] of the Dugway anthrax simulant you called “horse and
buggy” recently on your webpage:

“In 2000, after hoax anthrax letters were mailed to the Canadian
Parliament, scientists from the Defense Research Establishment at
Suffield (DRES) used B. globigii (BG) spores in experiments on how
anthrax spores might disperse from an envelope opened in an ordinary
office setting. The DRES scientist scientists found that even a tenth
of a gram of BG dispersed into the air throughout the office space far
beyond all previous predictions, and that a person breathing the air
would have inhaled spores in numbers thousands of times the estimated
LD50 (the lethal dose for half an exposed population). Such a letter
also might, the report suggested, leak spores from unsealed edges.
This initially classified information was shared with the FBI and US
military but the CDC was unaware of it. On hearing about the first
Florida case of anthrax, the DRES scientists emailed the report to the
CDC, where officials were too understaffed to read it until the
anthrax postal crisis was nearly over. [This is silly — something
like 2,000 people at the CDC were working on anthrax at one point.
Rule of thumb: if someone has just done a study of the threat of
mailed anthrax in letters and then someone sends of anthrax in letters,
you take 10 minutes to read the report.]

The DRES report speculated about spores leaking from the unsealed
corners of an envelope.”

[EdLake]

I get the impression that in the half decade you have been unrelentingly (in hundreds of posts) denying that silica was commonly used to weaponize anthrax

The clearly you cannot read and just have crazy hallucinations. I have NEVER said that silica wasn't used to weaponize anthrax.

I have said that silica was not used to COAT anthrax. I was wrong about that -- technically. I've made it clear endless times that silica is commonly MIXED with spores to help weaponize them. I've stated again and again that the silica is MIXED with spores to keep them from absorbing moisture and clumping during long periods of storage. Alibek's process MIXES spores with silica and balls of resin.

Even in the Dugway anthrax they MIX silica with spores AFTER the milling process. That is evidently for purposes of keeping the spores from absorbing moisture. The silica that was MIXED with the spores prior to milling was crushed during the milling process and probably wouldn't be much good for absorbing moisture.

The problem with you and TrebelRebel is that neither of you can focus on any single aspect of this subject. If I try to talk about the attack anthrax, you go off into some irrelevant fantasy about Alibek's patent, and TrebelRebel goes off into some irrelevant discussion of Dugway's process. NEITHER have anything to do with the attack anthrax.

MY focus is on the attack anthrax which was neither COATED with silica nor MIXED with silica. So, I never bothered to really dig into all the details of Dugway's process. That's why I didn't realize that the milling process would end up coating the spores with crushed silica due to the effects of static electricity. It was irrelevant to what I'm focused upon: The anthrax attacks of 2001.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[ZACKandPOOK]

You say I haven’t focused on the attack anthrax.

To the contrary, I’ve shared what the thesis supervised by Alibek and Patrick has said as to the reason for detection of silica in the anthrax attack and she is very specific. The reason is encapsulation such as has been developed in other fields outside bioweapons.

And I’ve shared in great detail what my consulting military scientist who makes anthrax for a living has said (and has SEMS etc. to match what the Daschle SEMS are thought to look like to back it up).

They have the same opinion. Both are authoritative. Your pontificating without even the benefit of reading books on the subject is exhausting and a distraction from the true crimes of Amerithrax (of which the reason silica was detected is only a small part). But you only focus on Hatfill’s civil litigation and silica.

When I pointed out the Alibek supervised thesis — which is too big to email — you never even bothered to get a copy.

[ZACKandPOOK]

In connection with measures proposed governing contractors prosecuting the war, this week it has been noted that Leahy is a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and chairs the panel’s subcommittee on State and Foreign Operations. He is also the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ed on his webpage concluded that a “bioevangelist” was targeted because Leahy was a democrat. Yet Ed nowhere even so much as disclosing or addressing his key role on the issue nearest and dearest to Ayman Zawahiri: the rendering and torture of his friends. While the Al Qaeda jihad manual instructs detainees to claim they were tortured, there is no denying that in a number of cases they were, especially in Egypt. For example, there is a new book about Egypt out that details the imprisonment of Mamdouh Habib (now in Australia) that is inexcusable. It’s not enough for the FBI to step out of the room (as in today’s news). Appropriations have to be cut-off for security units participating in torture. Cut-off could target specific units just as debarment might be targeted with respect to a large corporation. Don’t think of it as a human rights issue — think of it as a national security issue. Half the battle is a public relations battle and depriving the murderers of the justifications they use in garnering support.

   The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy would not support Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey because Mukasey hasn’t taken a firm enough stand against torture. Leahy said: “No American should need a classified briefing to determine whether waterboarding is torture.” Separately, Patrick Leahy at last report is very dissatisfied with the briefing the former US Attorney General Gonzales had promised to give him on why he had been sent mailed anthrax. He repeatedly criticized Gonzales for allowing waterboarding. Judge Mukasey was in a difficult spot through no fault of his own. Senator Leahy, one of my favorite Senators, was targeted in Fall 2001 precisely because of this issue of torture, and the folks connected to the WTC 1993 prosecution overseen by Judge Mukasey were responsible.

    After the assassination of Anwar Sadat, Cairo attorney Montasser al-Zayat first met blind sheik Abdel-Rahman after Montasser had been tortured for 12 hours. He was near a mental breakdown. Abdel-Rahman came over to where he was huddled in a corner of a cell, bent over and whispered: “Rely on God; don’t be defeated.” Mohammed had spoken the words in the Koran. Al- Zayat would become one of Sheik Omar’s most trusted legal advisers and a lawyer on the defense team of El Sayyid Nosair. Nosair was the Egyptian who served as Abdel-Rahman’s bodyguard and was tried in New York in 1990 for the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane. In March 1999, attorney al-Zayat was representing defendants in a massive prosecution of jihadists in Cairo. He told the press that Ayman Zawahiri would use weaponized anthrax against US targets because of the continued extradition pressure and torture faced by Egyptian Islamic Jihad members. Two senior EIJ leaders then on trial were saying the same thing to the press and in confessions.

    US Postal employee Sattar, who had been the blind sheik’s spokesman after his 1993 arrest, in a 1999 Frontline interview spoke of the role of appropriations and torture in fueling the islamist rage:

“this is the same old story happening again, and again, and again. American government don’t get it. The American government [is] deceiving the American people. They’re not telling them what’s really going on. You can kill Osama bin Laden today or tomorrow. You can arrest him and put him on trial in New York or in Washington.”

“Tomorrow you will get somebody else, his name probably will be different, Abdullah, or Muhammad. It’s not going to end. Until you, take a hard, and a good look at your policies in the Islamic world and the Muslim world, as long as you’re supporting dictators like Mubarak as long as you are giving aid to regimes that [are worse] to their people than Saddam Hussein, things will get ugly, and you cannot control the emotion of people when you are tortured in Egyptian prison by an American trained Egyptian officer. He is torturing you, and he is bragging that he was in the United States getting his training, when the equipment that he is using is American made.”

    The founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad Kamal Habib (who wrote for the quarterly magazine of the US charity Islamic Assembly of North America) told scholar Fawaz Gerges:

“The prison years also radicalized al-shabab [young men] and set them on another violent journey. The torture left deep physical and psychological scars on jihadists and fueled their thirst for vengeance. Look at my hands — still spotted with the scars from cigarette burns nineteen years later. For days on end we were brutalized — our faces bloodied, our bodies broken with electrical shocks and other devices. The torturers aimed at breaking our souls and brainwashing us. They wanted to humiliate us and force us to betray the closest members of our cells.

I spent sleepless nights listening to the screams of young men echoing from torture chambers. A degrading, dehumanizing experience. I cannot convey to you the rage felt by al-shabab who were tortured after Sadat’s assassination.”

While Kamal Habib wrote for the jihad-supporting Assirat, Al-Timimi was on the Board of Advisers.

    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. America has a CIA station as well as an FBI office and a huge embassy in Egypt, and it closely follows what happens in that country. Therefore, America is responsible for everything that happens.”

    An August 29, 2001 opinion column on Islamway, the second most read site for english speaking muslims, illustrates that the role of “Leahy Law” was known by educated islamists:

“There is an intolerable contradiction between America’s professed policy of opposition to state-sponsored terrorism, exemplified by the Leahy Law, and the U.S. Congress’ continuing sponsorship of Israeli violence against Palestinians.” The article cited “References: CIFP 2001. “Limitations on Assistance to Security Forces: ‘The Leahy Law’” 4/9/01 (Washington, DC: Center for International Foreign Policy) Center for International Foreign Policy Accessed 8/28/01.Hocksteader, Lee 2001.

The next day, in the same publication, there was an article describing the 21-page document released in Ottawa on August 29, 2001, in which the CSIS claimed that Canadian detainee Jaballah had contacts with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader Shehata and sought to deport Jaballah. Shehata was in charge of EIJ’s Civilian Branch and in charge of “special operations.”The nominal President of the Syracuse-based Help the Needy IANA spin-off was moderator of islamway for women. It would be seven more years — not until February 2008 — before the Canadian government for the first time revealed that after coming to Canada in 1996, Jaballah would contact Ayman regularly on Ayman’s Inmarsat satellite phone.

    “They [Senators Daschle and Leahy] represent something to him,” says James Fitzgerald of the FBI Academy’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. “Whatever agenda he’s operating under, these people meant something to him.” 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 has been the head of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, the panel in charge of aid to Egypt and Israel. 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).

    Within a couple weeks after September 11, a report in the Washington Post and then throughout the muslim world explained that the President sought a waiver that would allow military assistance to once-shunned nations. The militant islamists who had already been reeling from the extradition of 70 “brothers”, would now be facing much more of the same. President Bush asked Congress for authority to waive all existing restrictions on U.S. military assistance and exports for the next five years to any country where the aid would help the fight against international terrorism. The waiver would include those nations who were currently unable to receive U.S. military aid because of their sponsorship of terrorism (such as Syria and Iran) or because of their nuclear weapons programs (such as Pakistan).

    In late September 2001, the Washington Post quoted Leahy: “We all want to be helpful, and I will listen to what they have in mind.” The article noted that he was chairman of both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, which were considering the legislation. “But we also want to be convinced that what is being proposed is sound, measured and necessary and not merely impulsive,” said Leahy. “Moral leadership in defense of democracy and human rights is vital to what we stand for in the world. Acts of terrorism are violations of human rights. Now is the time to show what sets us apart from those who attack us,” he said.

    The options being considered in response to the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington included potential cooperation with virtually every Middle Eastern and South and Central Asian nation near Afghanistan. “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists” would be the only test for foreign aid. The “Leahy Law” plays a key role in the secret “rendering” of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Al Qaeda) operatives to countries like Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Algeria where they are allegedly tortured. Richard Clarke, counterterrorism czar during the Clinton Administration, has quoted Vice-President Gore saying: “Of course it’s a violation of international law, that’s why it’s a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.” Although humanitarian in its intent, the Leahy Law permits continued appropriations to military and security units who conduct torture in the event of “extraordinary circumstances.”

    In an interview broadcast on al-Jazeera television on October 7, 2001 (October 6 in the US) — 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.”

    A month after 9/11, late at night, a charter flight from Cairo touched down at the Baku airport. An Egyptian, arrested by the Azerbaijan authorities on suspicions of having played a part in the September 11 attack, was brought on board. His name was kept secret. That same night the plane set off in the opposite direction. Much of the Amerithrax story has happened at night with no witnesses, with the rendering of University of Karachi microbiology student Saeed Mohammed merely one example. Zawahiri claims that there is a US intelligence bureau inside the headquarters of the Egyptian State Security Investigation Department that receives daily reports on the number of detainees and those detainees who are released. At the time Ayman Zawahiri was getting his biological weapons program in full swing, his own brother Mohammed was picked up in the United Arab Emirates. He was secretly rendered to Egyptian security forces and sentenced to death rendered in the 1999 Albanian returnees case.

    Throughout 2001, the Egyptian islamists were wracked by extraditions and renditions. CIA Director Tenet once publicly testified that there had been 70 renditions prior to 9/11. At the same time a Canadian judge was finding that Mahmoud Mahjoub was a member of the Vanguards of Conquest and would be denied bail, Bosnian authorities announced on October 6, 2001 they had handed over three Egyptians to Cairo who had been arrested in July. In Uruguay, a court authorized the extradition to Egypt of a man wanted in Egypt for his alleged role in the 1997 Luxor attack. Ahmed Agiza, the leader of the Vanguards of Conquest (which can be viewed as an offshoot of Jihad), was handed over by Sweden in December 2001.

    One islamist, a Hamas supporter, summarized why the anthrax was sent 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!” In an interview that appeared in the Pakistani paper, Dawn, on November 10, 2001, Bin Laden explained that “The American Congress endorses all government measures, and this proves that .. [all of] America is responsible for the atrocities perpetrated against Muslims.”

    At a December 2002 conference held by “Accuracy in Media,” former State Department analyst Kenneth Dillon noted that Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), the key component of al Qaeda under Dr. Ayman Zawahiri, head of al Qaeda’s biowarfare program, likely targeted Senator Leahy because of his role as head of a panel of the Senate Appropriations Committee that had developed the so-called “Leahy Law” in 1998. Dillon explained, “According to the wording of the Leahy Law, the U.S. Government was authorized to ‘render’ suspected foreign nationals to the government of a foreign country, even when there was a possibility that they would be tortured, in ‘exceptional circumstances.’ When the Leahy Law was applied to send EIJ members captured in the Balkans back to Egypt, Zawahiri fiercely denounced the United States. So Leahy was a high-priority target.”

    That aid goes to the core of Al Qaeda’s complaint against the United States. (The portion going to Egypt and Israel constituted, by far, the largest portion of US foreign aid, and most of that is for military and security purposes.) Pakistan is a grudging ally in the “war against terrorism” largely due to the US Aid it now receives in exchange for that cooperation. The press in Pakistan newspapers regularly reported on protests arguing that FBI’s reported 12 agents in Pakistan in 2002 were an affront to its sovereignty. There was a tall man, an Urdu-speaking man, and a woman — all chain-smokers — who along with their colleagues were doing very important work in an unsupportive, even hostile, environment. The US agents — whether CIA or FBI or US Army — caused quite a stir in Pakistan along with the Pakistani security and intelligence officials who accompanied them. In mid-March 2003, Washington waived sanctions imposed in 1999 paving the way for release in economic aid to Pakistan. Billions more would be sent to Egypt, Israel and other countries involved in the “war against terrorism.”

    The commentators like Ed who suggest that Al Qaeda would have had no motivation to send weaponized anthrax to Senators Daschle and Leahy as symbolic targets — 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.

    Zawahiri likely was surprised that the plainly worded message of the letters accompanying the anthrax was not deemed clear. Perhaps the talking heads would not have been so quick to infer an opposite meaning if no message had been expressed using words at all. Perhaps the public the sender had relied only on what KSM describes as the language of war — the death delivered by the letters — the pundits would not have been so misdirected. But 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.” For immunology professor Clark to assume that because Zawahiri has never admitted the anthrax attacks means the Salafi-Jihadis are not responsible is naive. The perpetrators are under the FBI’s thumb and intensive surveillance — where not in physical custody. Ayman doesn’t dare.

    The targeted Senators have another connection pertinent to the Egyptian militants. The United States and other countries exchange evidence for counterterrorism cases under the legal framework of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (”MLAT”). Egypt is signatory of such a treaty that was ratified by the United States Senate in late 2000. For example, when the Fall 2001 rendition of Vanguards of Conquest leader Agizah was criticized, the US explained that it was relying on the MLAT. In the prosecution of Post Office worker Ahmed Abdel Sattar, the MLAT was described. Sattar’s attorney Michael Tigar, at trial in December 2004 explained: “Now, that might be classified, it’s true, but we have now found out and our research has just revealed that on, that the State Department has reported that it intends to use and relies on the mutual legal assistance treaty between the United States and Egypt signed May 3, 1998, in Cairo, and finally ratified by the United States Senate on October 18th, 2000. The State Department issued a press report about this treaty on November 29th, 2001 and I have a copy here.” He explained that “Article IV of the treaty provides that requests under the treaty can be made orally as well as under the formal written procedures required by the treaty, that those requests can include requests for testimony, documents, and even for the transfer to the United States if the treaty conditions are met.”

    Vanguards of Conquest spokesman Al-Sirri was a co-defendant in the case against post office worker Sattar. In the late 1990s Sattar and he often spoke in conversations intercepted by the FBI. Al-Sirri’s fellow EIJ cell members in London were subject to process under those treaties at the time of the anthrax mailings. Those London cell members had been responsible for the faxing of the claim of responsibility which stated the motive for the 1998 embassy bombings. A group calling itself the “Islamic Army for the Liberation of the Holy Places” took credit for the bombings listing as among their demands “the release of the Muslims detained in the United State[s] first and foremost Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (the spiritual guide of the Gama’a Islamiya) who is jailed in the United States.” As reason for the bombings, in addition to the rendition recent EIJ members to Cairo and the detention of Blind Sheik Abdel-Rahman, the faxes pointed to the detention of dissident Saudi Sheik al-Hawali . Al-Hawali was the mentor of GMU microbiology student Al-Timimi who spoke in London in August 2001 alongside 911 Imam Awlaki (also from Falls Church) and unindicted WTC 1993 conspirator Bilal Philips. Al-Timimi was in contact with Saudi sheik Al-Hawali in 2002 and arranged to hand deliver a message to all members of Congress he had drafted in al-Hawali’s name on the first anniversary of the anthrax mailings to Senator Leahy and Daschle.

    Michael Scheuer the former chief, Bin Laden Unit, eruditely defended the extraordinary rendition program he had launched at the request of President Clinton and his advisors before Congress in April 2007. There’s always been a huge irony in Michael Scheuer’s emphasis on how OBL is attacking the US for its policies without publicly acknowledging the importance of the rendition policy is to those planning the attacks. For the purpose of true crime analysis, it’s not rendition as a policy or human rights issue — or even a tactical issue — that is the question presented. It is walking in the shoes of your adversary (as expert Scheuer first taught us to do in his wonderful 2002 book). The key is seeing things in terms of what motivates them to act. Sometimes it’s the only way to catch the bad guys — so that you then have the luxury of deciding how well you are going to treat them.  

[ZACKandPOOK]

Ed, what did you think of Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Containing and Preventing Biological Threats (2008) , by Jeffrey Ryan and Jan Glarum. I have to say I agree with Dr. Rebel’s view of its discussion.

What did you think of Ryan and Glarum’s discussion of weaponization (at p. 16 et. seq.), discussion of anthrax (p. 42 et seq.), the case study of Sverdlosk (which involves prominently your key expert (p. 138), or its discussion of “Amerithrax, USA, 2001: Intentional Release of a Formulated Agent.” (p. 144 et seq.) Each chapter lists web sites and references.

My concern is that you are not aware of the literature and think you are contributing or advancing understanding — when actually you are mucking things up by discussion not even informed by readily available treatises. There is no need for your to read deeply on the subject of weaponized anthrax or Amerithrax. But a good man knows his limitations. Given the truly excellent job you’ve done in the Hatfill matter (in defense of an innocent man), I encourage you to read the literature, using interlibrary loan at your local public library and extend your good works. Libraries are truly great. But go light on the science and leave that to qualified experts. And you and Dr.Rebel should not even be belaboring discussion of how to best weaponize anthrax in the first place (it makes no sense at all).

[ZACKandPOOK]

Ed,

After denying silica served to coat for all these years but being undaunted on your quest to dispute the numerous references in the literature TrebleRebel has cited to you, you remind me of the photographer who in today’s news photographed the spearing of his leg by his javelin.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/more/05/19/photog.javelin.ap/index.html?cnn=yes

At the same time, by your most recent posts on the science, I’m reminded me of the coach who said:
“One of the first things that came to my mind was, ‘Good thing we brought a second javelin.”’

You haven’t even bothered to try to read the secret Grand Jury testimony against the fellow whose lawyer says the FBI has considered an “anthrax weapons suspect” with long ties to Al Qaeda.

Transcript and Clarification
13 Apr 2008 by Abdur-Rahman Muhammad
Below I have the actual transcript of the sworn testimony of Randall “Ismail” (I am sorry about the previous misspelling of his name) Royer in a secret Grand Jury against Ali Al-Timimi. I want to make a point few points here. ...
A Singular Voice - http://singularvoice.wordpress.com

[TrebleRebel]

Baghdad Ed - July 11, 2007



http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1859182/posts

The idea of coating spores to make them more "flyable" is absolute and total nonsense. It's beyond that. It's ridiculous and absurd. It's just plain STUPID.

Silica is not used to COAT spores. It's MIXED WITH SPORES as a drying agent to keep the spores from absorbing moisture. If spores absorb moisture, they'll clump, just the way your instant coffee crystals will clump if you leave the jar open and they absorb moisture from the air.

Baghdad Ed - May 19, 2008



http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2000927/posts?q=1&;page=751

I have said that silica was not used to COAT anthrax. I was wrong about that -- technically.

[TrebleRebel]

THE FACTS



Matthew Meselson - 1998.

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/21stC/issue-3.2/osullbio.html

"People who say that you can make these weapons in your kitchen just don't understand what's involved," says Meselson. He points out that the U.S. chemical weapons program developed during World War II demanded huge facilities (at sites like Pine Bluff, Ark., Camp Detrick [now Fort Detrick], Md., and Dugway, Utah) and immense amounts of water and electricity. "Then they say, Well, what about Saddam Hussein? He must have done it on the cheap.' Nonsense! If you read the UNSCOM [United Nations Special Commission] reports, there's something like 14 facilities they knew were connected with the program, the biggest of which was Al Hakam, with enormous equipment--fermenters and the like. So as far as we know, he didn't even get all the way there. Maybe some genius has a way of doing it in his garage, but that's not the way anybody's ever tried to do it--including Saddam."

"If anthrax is stirred incorrectly it may clump," notes Meselson, "and if the cells clump you can't make an aerosol weapon. They stick together like glue. Who would have thought of that? And I imagine that there are hundreds of little wrinkles like that. All the nonsense about ease of production ignores these facts."



THE SPIN



Matthew Meselson - October 19, 2001

http://www.sptimes.com/News/101901/news_pf/Worldandnation/Little_needed_to_grow.shtml

Meselson said talk of the source of anthrax for the recent attacks is all speculation.

"One has to understand the background that anthrax is a very common microorganism, very common worldwide, and scientists over the years have collected hundreds of strains that are virulent, from animals and people," Meselson said.

"Once you have a strain, if you have any training in microbiology and have read the literature, you could get it to sporalate."

[TrebleRebel]

THE FACTS



Ken Alibek - 1998.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/bioweapons/redlies.html

In the years since the Sverdlovsk accident, Alibek and a research team had taken the Soviet military's anthrax and made it even more deadly. He developed a process to take ground up anthrax spores and coat each particle in plastic and resin. It kept the anthrax aloft four times longer, increasing its ability to infect people.

http://cryptome.org/bioweap.htm

Alibek has a Doctor of Sciences degree in anthrax. It is a kind of superdegree, which he received in 1988, at the age of thirty-seven, for directing the research team that developed the Soviet Union's most powerful weapons-grade anthrax. He did this research as head of the Stepnagorsk bioweapons facility, in what is now Kazakhstan, which was once the largest biowarfare production facility in the world. The Alibekov anthrax became fully operational in 1989. It is an amber-gray powder, finer than bath talc, with smooth, creamy particles that tend to fly apart and vanish in the air, becoming invisible and drifting for miles. The Alibekov anthrax is four times more efficient than the standard product.

One day, Ken Alibek and I were sitting in a conference room near his office talking about the anthrax he and his research team had developed. "It's very difficult to say if I felt a sense of excitement over this. It's very difficult to say what I felt like," he said. "It wouldn't be true to say that I thought I was doing something wrong. I thought I had done something very important. The anthrax was one of my scientific results -- my personal result."

I asked him if he'd tell me the formula for his anthrax.

"I can't say this," he answered.

"I won't publish it. I'm just curious," I said.

"Look, you must understand, this is unbelievably serious. You can't publish this formula," he said. When I assured him I wouldn't, he told me the formula for the Alibekov anthrax. He uttered just one sentence. The Alibekov anthrax is simple, and the formula is somewhat surprising, not quite what you'd expect. Two unrelated materials are mixed with pure powdered anthrax spores. It took a lot of research and testing to get the trick right, and Alibek must have driven his research group hard and skillfully to arrive at it. "There are many countries that would like to know how to do this." he said.



THE SPIN



Ken Alibek - December, 2004

http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/Update-History2004.html#041226

Alibek: It was Soviet type principle. Nobody would ever pay attention to silica. Nobody actually analyzed whether or not the silica was distributed well, so on and so forth. Because it was not a big deal. It was just for improving parameters, not in terms of flyability. In terms of just to prevent … ah … to prevent ah, what you say, to prevent clomming.

Lake: Clumping, right.

Alibek: Yeah, clumping. To prevent agglomeration in the process of storage.

Lake: Right. Is it true to say that spores are not actually COATED with silica, they are MIXED with silica?

Alibek: (laughing) Yeah, because there is no principle for coating. This is one mistake, hopefully, which just comes from the media.

Lake: (laughing) Right.

Alibek: The talk about coating spores is just ridiculous.

Lake: Yeah, to me, if you coat a spore you prevent it from germinating.

Alibek: Yeah, but I would put it a different way: Spores do not require coating.

Lake: Right.

[ZACKandPOOK]

You needn’t read Lia’s ARCHITECT OF GLOBAL JIHAD for the purpose of Amerithrax after all even though it is very thoroughly researched and expert account of Abu Mus-ab-al-Suri and his writings. The redheaded Abu Mus-ab-al-Suri’s alleged close work with Midhat Mursi (abu Khabab) on poisons is of note but there is nothing to contradict Scheur’s understanding that Abu Khabab limited himself to chemical weapons. Various instructions relating to this or that pathogen are said by CBW experts to be unworkable recipes (e.g., plague). And the author explains that in the 1998 embassy bombings the witness misspoke and was referring to Mohammed Bayazid (another al-Suri) in connection with a plan to obtain uranium. So Abu Musab al-Suri wrote a fair amount about WMD but does not seem to have had any role bearing on the weaponization of anthrax, even though dating back years he had extensive contact with Zawahiri. His time in London in 1996 was notable and his connection to the London cell members there who were central to the claim of responsibility of the 1998 embassy bombings (and who have been subject to extradition requests). Certainly, if in lecturing occasionally in London Al-Timimi had contact with Abu Musab al-Suri, it is a big black mark in the ledger as al-Suri was definitely urging WMD as a moral duty. Steve Coll and Susan B. Glasser wrote about what “Biological weapons” document found in a link titled “the Military Bureau of Abu Musab al-Suri. “Terrorists Turn to the Web as Base of Operations,’ Washington Post, August 7, 2005, A1

[ZACKandPOOK]

Administrative Recall: Jihadist Website Posts Illustrated Instructions for Making Anthrax, April 7, 2008.

Notice: An OSC Report with the above headline and Document ID (serial number) was issued on 03/31/2008. The item is being recalled because of policy issues. Please remove all copies of this report from all computer and file holdings. Consumers will wish to ensure that any analytic publications which drew on this report are purged or edited as appropriate.

[TrebleRebel]

THE FACTS



Michaeal Mason - asst dir of FBI Washington DC - September 2003 - 2 years after attacks.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-29-anthrax_x.htm

Two years after the nation's deadly anthrax attacks, the FBI still has not been able to re-create the process the killer used to produce the substance sent through the U.S. mail, a top FBI official said Monday.

But Michael Mason, the new assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington field office, said testing has helped investigators "narrow" some aspects of the investigation and convinced them that the culprit has special expertise.

"We would not have that if reverse engineering had completely failed to provide us with any information or valuable leads," Mason said.

The FBI had hoped that by now, "reverse engineering," working backward from the end result to determine how something was made, would have re-created the process used to produce the anthrax.

THE SPIN

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attack

According to Chemical & Engineering News, December 4, 2006[6], there was never any attempt to "reverse engineer" the attack anthrax. (this comment added to Wikipedia by Ed Lake - note Michael Mason above is specifically quoted saying that the FBI attempted to reverse engineer the powder)

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/09/28/america/NA_GEN_US_FBI_Anthrax.php

September 2006 - response by FBI to Congressman Holt

Bureau officials say the early reports of weaponized anthrax were misconceptions, and more recent reports misunderstood how early the FBI was able to analyze the spores accurately.

"The FBI and its partners in this investigation have never been under any misconceptions about the character of the anthrax used in the attacks," Assistant FBI Director Eleni P. Kalisch wrote Holt on Thursday. "On the contrary, since the earliest months of this investigation, we have consulted with the world's foremost scientific experts on anthrax and relevant bio-forensic sciences, both inside and outside the FBI. While there may have been erroneous media reports about the character of the 2001 anthrax, the FBI's investigation has never been guided by such reports."

[EdLake]

He developed a process to take ground up anthrax spores and coat each particle in plastic and resin. It kept the anthrax aloft four times longer, increasing its ability to infect people.

That is NOT what Alibek did. Just because some Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporter misunderstood something doesn't mean his misunderstanding becomes a fact because he works for the CBC.

I discussed this subject with Ken Alibek, and he explained exactly how his formula worked.

The idea that spores were coated with resin and silica (I believe you translated this to mean that the resin was a glue to glue the silica to the spores) is preposterous. It is scientific nonsense.

It's almost as dumb as believing that silcia particles were glued to the spores with "polymerized glass." And that belief is just plain IDIOTIC.

The silica clinging to the spores in the Dugway process is a SIDE EFFECT of milling. The silica is stuck to the spores as a result of static electricity. It reduces the ability of the spores to "fly," and it reduces the ability of the spores to germinate. BUT, that doesn't mean that the process doesn't produce a deadly weapon. It does.

THE FACTS:

Milling generates great amounts of static electricity. The static electricity even causes mill explosions from time to time.

The Dugway process uses a ball mill to break down large pellets of spores into individual spores. The friction of such milling generates static electricity.

Some information about static electricity can be found HERE

Cause of static electricity

Static electricity is usually caused when certain materials are rubbed against each other, like wool on plastic or the soles of your shoes on the carpet. The process causes electrons to be pulled from the surface of one material and relocated on the surface of the other material.

Rubbing a balloon on a wool sweater creates charges on the surfaces

The material that loses electrons ends up with an excess of positive (+) charges. The material that gains electrons ends up an excess of negative (-) charges on its surface.

Silica and spores are affected differently by static electricity resulting from friction in a ball mill because they consist of very different substances.

Check HERE for details about which substances tend to get a positive charge from friction and which tend to get a negative charge. That web site says,

Some materials cause or create more static electricity than others. Since static electricity is the collection of electrically charged particles on the surface of a material, various materials have a tendency of either giving up electrons and becoming positive (+) in charge or attracting electrons and becoming negative (-) in charge.

The web site lists various substances.

Spores are similar to dried skin and leather, which means they will easily release electrons and get a positive charge.

Silica is made from silicon which is listed on that site as a substance that easily attracts electrons and gets a negative charge.

In a ball mill, negatively charged particles of silica will be attracted to the positively charged spores, and the end result will be spores covered with silica due to static electricity.

Van der Waals forces are not involved in any significant way.

Your belief that silica has to be glued to spores in order to prevent spores from sticking together due to van der Waals forces is SCIENTIFIC NONSENSE. It's always been SCIENTIFIC NONSENSE. And it will always remain SCIENTIFIC NONSENSE.

If you would have just discussed the science instead of just mindlessly attacking people who disagree with you and mindlessly quoting from misinformed sources who appear to agree with you, we could have solved this debate years ago.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[ZACKandPOOK]

William Clark in BRACING FOR ARMAGEDDON is trained as an immunology professor. I would definitely rely on him in determining whether to have my child vaccinated for measles for summer camp as well as all manner of immunology and epidemiology. But I would not rely on him as to the key question whether Ayman Zawahiri would lie about being behind the anthrax. Instead, I would ask an expert such as Mark A. Gabriel, PhD who has a doctorate and taught at Al-Azhar. He wrote a very lucid book JOURNEY INTO THE MIND OF AN ISLAMIST TERRORIST: WHY THEY HATE US AND HOW WE CAN CHANGE THEIR MINDS published in 2006. He discusses a booklet Zawahiri wrote titled COVERT OPERATIONS which is available online in Arabic. If you want to know how Zawahiri views deceit on such issues as battle plans and spying, read his own words online.

Gabriel writes:

“Ayman al-Zawahiri leads a busy terrorist organization, and he must solve practical problems. For example, he may want some Al-Qaeda members to blend in and live in the United States. If these men wore full beards and went to ultraconservative mosques to pray, they they would arouse suspicion and get put on a watch list. Instead, al-Zawahiri would want these operatives to go undercover and blend into society. However, these devout Muslims will not go undercover unless they believe they have permission to do so from the teachings of Islam. As a result, al-Zawahiri wrote a booklet titled COVER OPERATIONS, which goes deep into Islamic teaching and history to describe how deceit can be a tool in Muslim life.

The entire book by al-Zawahiri is posted in the Arabic language website for al-Tawheed Jihad (The Pulpit of Monotheism and Jihad). Zawahiri concluded that “hiding one’s faith and being secretive was allowed especially in time of fear from prosecution of the infidels.” Indeed, his student group in Cairo in the 1970s was known as the “shaven beards.” The founder of one of the cells merged with Ayman’s to form the Egyptian Islamic Jihad then wrote for Al-Timimi’s charity IANA.

Al-Zawahiri discussed two specific ways Muhammad used deceit in battle: (1) keeping battle plans secret, and (2) spying. The author writes: “Al-Zawahiri specifically gave radicals permission not to pray in the mosque or attend Friday sermons if it would compromise their position.” He noted that Al-Zawahiri sealed his argument with a very important quote from Ibn Taymiyyah (who was quoted by Al-Timimi upon his his indictment).

Ever the practical man, Muhammad approved lying in 3 circumstances (1) during war, (2) to reconcile between two feuding parties, and (3) to a spouse in order to please her. :0)

[TrebleRebel]

That is NOT what Alibek did. Just because some Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reporter misunderstood something doesn't mean his misunderstanding becomes a fact because he works for the CBC.

Just a teensy weensy misundersatnding - that's all it was !! Incredible how so many media reports of "coatings" are just the same type of teensy weensy misunderstandings, isn't it?

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/detect/antdetect_letters_a.htm

The anthrax spores in the Daschle and Leahy envelopes were uniformly between 1 and 3 microns in size, and were coated with fine particles of frothy silica glass.

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/anthraxpowdernotroutine.html

Extensive lab tests of the anthrax powder have revealed new details about how the powder was made, including the identity of a chemical used to coat the trillions of microscopic spores to keep them from clumping together.

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/unusualcoating.html

Official: Unusual coating in anthrax mailings

From Kelli Arena, CNN Washington Bureau

Washington (CNN) -- Scientists have found a new chemical in the coating on the anthrax spores mailed to journalists and politicians last fall, a high-ranking government official said Wednesday.

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/sophisticatedstrainanthrax.html

Government sources tell NEWSWEEK that the secret new analysis shows anthrax found in a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy was ground to a microscopic fineness not achieved by U.S. biological-weapons experts. The Leahy anthrax -- mailed in an envelope that was recovered unopened from a Washington post office last November -- also 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.

[EdLake]

According to Chemical & Engineering News, December 4, 2006[6], there was never any attempt to "reverse engineer" the attack anthrax. (this comment added to Wikipedia by Ed Lake - note Michael Mason above is specifically quoted saying that the FBI attempted to reverse engineer the powder)

Who would be in a better position to KNOW what Dugway did? Michael Mason at the FBI or the scientists at Dugway who did the actual work?

And why do you always need to distort facts in order to make your point. Here's what was in Chemical & Engineering News:

Daniel Martin, a microbiologist in Dugway's Life Sciences Division, tells C&EN that Dugway was asked "to produce materials to see how they compared with the materials the FBI had in its possession." But, Martin says, Dugway did not reverse or back engineer the attack powder. "Back engineering implies that you know exactly what the material is and can replicate the material exactly, step by step." That isn't what Dugway did, he says.

Instead, Martin says, Dugway 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. Dugway, he says, never analyzed the Leahy powder and did no comparative analyses between the preparations made and the Leahy powder.

When you have two different "experts" saying two different things, you need to determine which "expert" is making scientific sense. You can't just mindlessly believe the "expert" who says something that you can twist and distort to fit your beliefs.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[EdLake]

Incredible how so many media reports of "coatings" are just the same type of teensy weensy misunderstandings, isn't it?

It's easy to understand when you realize that most of those media sources just mindlessly repeated crap from other media sources.

All you are proving is that the media was full of absolute nonsense about the attack anthrax from day one.

Why don't you quote the articles about the attack anthrax containing bentonite?

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[ZACKandPOOK]

Rebel, Ed is right.

Michael Mason used the “reverse engineering” but the scientist at Dugway who actually did the work says the phrase is inapt and describes what they did. Same difference though. We now know the closest match was the one made by REDACTED. See email pictured by Fox News. Although not the author of the email, I suspect Dr. Jahrling was the one in the position, because of his higher security clearance and access to the vault with old formulas, to have told General Parker they didn’t make it but then realize that in the past it had been made and the closest match was what had been made by REDACTED.

[TrebleRebel]

Who would be in a better position to KNOW what Dugway did? Michael Mason at the FBI or the scientists at Dugway who did the actual work?

You are choosing to spin the Dugway statement to encompass a total "no reverse engineering" of the powder. That's your usual tactic - take one statement and twist it to suit your purpose.

The FBI obviously contracted someone to truly reverse engineer the powder. There are DIRECT quotes from Mason and Mueller that say this in very clear and plain English.
And by September 2003 at least - these attmepts had FAILED.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-29-anthrax_x.htm

"We would not have that if reverse engineering had completely failed to provide us with any information or valuable leads," Mason said.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=24286&ref=rellink

The bureau has been working for months to reconstruct the spores, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Nov. 1, according to The Washington Post. “We’re replicating the way or ways it might be manufactured, but it is not an easy task,” the Post quoted Mueller as saying. “We are going into new territory in some areas,” he added.