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I’ve spoken and corresponded with Alibek about Amerithrax and spoken to a lot of GMU faculty and past employees.

Ken says the FBI suspected GMU graduate student Ali Al-Timimi of accessing the know-how used in the anthrax mailings. But he says Ali was more of a “numbers guy.” Timimi had a security clearance for mathematical support work for the Navy. His work was bioinformatics which Les Baillie explained to Rauf Ahmad in a lecture in the UK was important in understanding anthrax.

Timimi was known to be an islamic hardliner but most of the faculty I’ve spoken to about him rarely saw him around. Sergei Popov tells me he did not know him to ever have been involved in a biodefense project. Anna Popova says she rarely saw him. Dr. Alibek says he would see him occasionally in the hall. Victor Morozov who inherited Timimi’s phone number after Timimi left (and VM arrived), was just a few doors from Dr. Alibek and Dr. Bailey. Dr. Bailey referred me to counsel when I asked him to confirm Dr. Timimi’s room number. GMU Assistant General Counsel declined to confirm the room number. Virginia state FOIA requires the request be submitted by a state resident so I haven’t pursued it. But no one would dispute that Dr. Timimi had access to Center for Biodefense facilities and also the inventory of American Type Culture Collection. That had always been the hallmark of the program Timimi was in. Beginning in 2002, he was on the GMU payroll at $70k and had access to the computer system.

I contacted ATTC and they do not deny they had Ames in their patent repository, as distinguished from their online catalog. (Their information officer wrote by email) Dr. Bailey is a prolific researcher with the Ames strain. And of course Dr. Alibek is very knowledge about anthrax. Dr. A & B filed a March 2001 patent involving the concentration of biological agents using siliica. Then the fellow who inherited Timimi’s phone number co-invented the process with Dr. Bailey of removing the silica from the surface. This is what the forensics showed. The presence of sliica — on the EDX. But that detected silica was said by Alibek and Meselson, who saw some of the SEMS, not to be observable on the SEMS. The FBI has known this for a half decade. Timimi was raided on February 26, 2003 after intercepts showed in 2002 he was communicating with Bin Laden’s sheik al-Hawali.

Timimi drafted a letter for OBL’s sheik al-Hawali and had it hand-delivered to all members of Congress on the first anniversary of the anthrax letters to Daschle and Leahy. The strains put on the GMU program are illustrated by the limitations on technical education and training that were imposed without the reasons being communicated.

While I think the proliferation of know-how poses a great danger, and policy-making should not be guided by pork-fueled, revolving door practices typifying our government, it seems that all Ken is guilty of is becoming too adept at working within the American system.