You wrote: Your scenario is based on this hypothetical easy method of weaponization, so easy that a person can get it right the first time he tries it on anthrax spores, without going through a normal cycle of prototypes and testing. I doubt that this is possible. (If it is possible, I certainly agree that it changes the whole picture.
Actually, I said he didn't get it right the first time. The first mailing had spores that were not as well refined. He had to work on it for another three weeks to get it right.
Why wasn't a mail box contaminated? The same question exists with any scenario.
Not quite. I explain why the mail boxes weren't contaminated in detail on my GloveBox/MailBox page. The American scientist most likely took the letters straight to the mail box from the lab. That's a lot different from packing them away in a suitcase that goes aboard flight after flight (with pressurization and de-pressurization) and through customs search after customs search and then are stored away somewhere for months.
The choice of targets seems strange no matter who did it.
Not really. The media was a natural target for someone wanting to awaken America to the dangers of bioterrorism - particularly someone with "right wing" attitudes. Targets are always very carefully selected by terrorists. While al Qaeda would probably have picked The New York Times, the American terrorist chose The New York Post probably because it's the newspaper he reads. And Patrick Leahy was targeted because between the two mailings Leahy opposed AG Ashcroft's plans to trash all laws preventing illegal search and seizure. For someone deathly afraid of a bioweapons attack, Leahy's actions probably seemed traitorous. Al Qaeda would probably have seen it as a good move and gone after Ashcroft.
your own theory implies that you have very strong evidence for the American scientist theory. What is this evidence? It's all explained in detail on my web site, but the key items are the fact that the recipients of the letters were told to take precautions, the anthrax was carefully enclosed in the letter in a pharmaceutical fold, the targets were typical "right wing" targets and NOT typical al Qaeda-type targets.
Ed at anthraxinvestigation.com
You: It's all explained in detail on my web site, but the key items are the fact that the recipients of the letters were told to take precautions, the anthrax was carefully enclosed in the letter in a pharmaceutical fold, the targets were typical "right wing" targets and NOT typical al Qaeda-type targets.
I've enumerated a list of connections between the hijackers and the anthrax mailings, generally circumstantial but nevertheless connections. You haven't presented any specific evidence, even circumstantial, for this domestic theory.
The key items you list above do not in any sense point to an American scientist in New Jersey. The fact that "the recipients of the letters were told to take precautions" points to an American scientist in New Jersey? The use of a pharmaceutical fold points to an American scientist in New Jersey? There's no connection at all, not even circumstantial.
In fact, your key items are totally consistent with the military deterrence theory. (I agree that this was not an al-Qaeda attack as such, and I'm not claiming that it was. Al-Qaeda attacks look very different -- they don't include warning letters, and they set things up to try to murder many. This was something different -- a warning statement, warning us that the other side has a weapon of mass destruction and possesses both the ability and the willingness to use it, so we had better watch our step.)
By the way, the New York Post and American Media are hardly right-wing targets. Characterizing the recipients in that way is misleading. Even the other targets aren't the high-profile liberal icons that the "right wing extremists" focus on. (I'm not sure why you think the hypothetical American scientist would target liberals, but it's not even true that the recipients all fit that description.)
Regarding Atta's meeting with Iraqi agents, an important point is that the military deterrence theory does not rely on this being true. (I'm not even necessarily convinced that Iraq is the foreign power involved, although it seems fairly likely.) There are enough connections fitting together into a coherent explanation that the theory does not depend on the validity of any one of them.
But don't write off the story of Atta meeting Iraqi agents yet. See this FR thread for discussion of it. The Newsweek report is basically unsourced. How reliable is it? There has been a whole series of media reports that Atta met with two different Iraqi agents in several different European cities, and also that one of the other hijackers met with an Iraqi agent in the United Arab Emirates. Just because somebody decides to leak a denial a year later doesn't mean that all the older reports are suddenly invalidated. It may be that this latest report is true; I obviously don't know, but it's much too early to say that the earlier reports are "turning out to be totally bogus." Maybe it's the latest report which is bogus; we don't know. [But do notice that the only reason given for not believing the original stories is that there is no known travel record for Mohamed Atta under his name at the time of one of the reported visits. Maybe a person carrying anthrax would travel under a false identity? Maybe one of the reported visits didn't happen but the others did? Maybe the INS and Customs just don't have very good records? This whole denial is very weak. Why did Czech intelligence report this in the first place? They were following al-Ani; they must have taken photographs.]
The "pharmaceutical fold" is a pretty dang lazy one, if it is that. More likely the letter was just folded in at the sides to keep the powder from falling out while the envelope was loaded. Do you see any diagonal fold in of the edge folds? I do not.
Taken in combination with the blinders-on "evil right wing Dr Strangelove nut case" body of your argument, yet more than anything else you've said, this trumpeting of "pharmaceutical fold" makes me discount you.