The Anthrax Fiasco

Wall Street Journal ^ | June 30, 2008

[ZACKandPOOK]

jpl and TrebleRebel,

There are several developments this past week that bear on the Al-Timimi prosecution. There also was an NPR story about how surveillance teams operate — an indirect effort by the FBI to recover from a disastrous week of PR.

1.

http://www.dailygazette.com/weblogs/strock/2008/jul/03/appeal-denied/
Appeal denied (Albany imam Stinger sting)
By Carl Strock

“For legal beagles, of greatest interest, perhaps, is the Court of Appeals’ agreement that it was OK for the trial court to keep classified information away from Aref and his lawyer, since that information was not used as evidence against him in the trial.

It was in all likelihood transcripts of phone calls that were wiretapped by the National Security Agency in defiance of federal law, though we’ll never know for sure. All we know is that Judge Thomas McAvoy, at the trial, assured the jurors the government had “good and valid reasons” for going after Aref and the jurors were not to concern themselves with what those reasons were.
Suit accusing Bush of acting illegally tossed (wiretapping)”

2.

“Suit accusing Bush of acting illegally tossed,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 3, 2008

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/02/BAFJ11J6VT.DTL

3. Dr. Sami Al-Arian Indicted on Two Counts of Criminal Contempt
http://jonathanturley.org/2008/06/26/dr-sami-al-arian-indicted-on-two-counts-of-criminal-contempt/

4. Dina Temple-Raston, “FBI Surveillance Team Reveals Tricks Of The Trade,” July 5, 2008
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92207687

[ZACKandPOOK]

Cicero,

Yesterday, al-Hawsawi, KSM’s assistant who was the 911 logistics person who had anthrax spraydrying documents on his laptop (although it is commonly referred to as KSM’s laptop, yesterday asked to be represented by an Egyptian attorney and a London attorney. The Egyptian attorney is presumed to be the prominent islamist defender, Montasser Al-Zayat, who has represented blind sheik Abdel-Rahman and was among the first to announce in March 1999 that Ayman Zawahiri intended to use weaponized anthrax against US targets in retaliation for the rendering of EIJ leaders. Al-Zayat at the time was defending key defendants in the trial of the Albanian returnees.

The CIA has known of Zawahiri’s plans to use anthrax since July 1998, when the CIA seized a disc from Ayman Zawahiri’s right-hand, Ahmed Mabruk, during his arrest outside a restaurant in Baku, Azerbaijan. At the time, Mabruk was the head of Jihad’s military operations. Mabruk was handed over to Egyptian authorities. A close associate and former cellmate in Dagestan in 1996, Mabruk was at Ayman’s side while Ayman would fall to his knees during trial and weep and invoke Allah. Their captors reportedly did not know the true identity of the prisoners.

After Mabruk’s capture in Baku, Azerbaijan, the CIA refused to give the FBI Mabruk’s laptop. FBI’s Bin Laden expert John O’Neill, head of the FBI’s New York office, tried to get around this by sending an agent to Azerbaijan to get copies of the computer files from the Azerbaijan government. The FBI finally got the files after O’Neill persuaded President Clinton to personally appeal to the president of Azerbaijan for the computer files. FBI Special Agent Dan Coleman would later describe the laptop as the “Rosetta Stone of Al Qaeda.” O’Neill died on 9/11 in his role as head of World Trade Center security. He died with the knowledge that Ayman Zawahiri planned to attack US targets with anthrax — and that Zawahiri does not make a threat that he does not intend to try to keep.

Mabruk claimed that Zawahiri intended to use anthrax against US targets. At the time, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (”DTRA”) set up a program at Lawrence Livermore to combat the Bin Laden anthrax threat. The CIA also snatched Egyptian Al-Najjar, another senior Al Qaeda member (a shura or policy-making council member no less) who had been working for the Egyptian intelligence services. Al-Najjar confirmed Ayman’s intent to use weaponized anthrax against US targets in connection with the detention of militant islamists in a sworn lengthy confession. Even Zawahiri’s friend, Cairo lawyer Montasser al-Zayat, who was the blind sheik’s attorney, in March 1999 said that Bin Laden and Zawahiri were likely to resort to the biological and chemical agents they possessed given the extradition pressure senior Al Qaeda leaders faced. That week, and thoughout that year, Al-Zayat was in touch by telephone with US Post Office employee Sattar and Islamic Group leaders about the group’s strategy to free the blind sheik. An islamist who had been a close associate of Zawahiri later would explain that Zawahiri spent a decade and had made 15 separate attempts to recruit the necessary expertise to weaponize anthrax in Russia and the Middle East.

Mabruk was in regular contact with Mahmoud Jaballah, who was in Toronto beginning May 1996. Although Mabruk changed his location every few months, Jaballah kept aware of his whereabouts through his contacts with Jaballah’s brother-in-law Shehata. Shehata was in charge of EIJ’s “special operations.” When Mabruk was arrested and imprisoned in Dagestan along with Zawahiri, Jaballah was told, on December 13, 1996 that Mabruk was “hospitalized.” That is established code for “in jail” and, for example, is the code used by Zawahiri in emails on the same subject. Jaballah raised funds for Mabruk’s release and coordinated these collection efforts with Shehata. Indeed, it was Jaballah’s brother-in-law Shehata who brought the money to Dagestan to arrange for Zawahiri’s and Mabruk’s release. Correspondence between Mabruk and Jaballah in 1997 reports on Jaballah’s recruitment efforts. Mabruk, EIJ’s military commander, was pleased. Jaballah confirmed with Shehata and Mabruk his view of the reliability of the individuals he had recruited. His recruits were affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Zawahiri and the Vanguards of Conquest were seeking to recreate Mohammed’s taking of mecca by a small band through violent attacks on Egyptian leaders. By the late 1990s, Zawahiri had determined that the Egyptian Islamic Jihad should focus on its struggle against the United States and hold off on further attacks against the Egyptian regime.

While I don’t think he could ever be allowed access to classified evidence (not presented to the jury), I hope they allow Attorney Al-Zayat to participate in Al-Hawsawi’s defense, notwithstanding his regular contact with IG and EIJ leaders.

[Cicero]

Thanks for the info. It’s always hard to tell whether the FBI is incompetent, or whether there are people at high levels who don’t want to find out these things, or whether they are rather foolishly trying to protect the public from getting scared, or whether they are waiting for a change of administrations to someone friendlier to them, or . . . .

There are still a lot of clintonoids at the top levels, and Mueller seems to be on good terms with them, having given some of them medals early in his tenure. Now that hillary seems to be relegated to the background, I wonder what they are thinking. If they are half-way smart, maybe it’s wait and see.

[ZACKandPOOK]

“Microbial forensics: DNA fingerprinting of Bacillus anthracis (anthrax),” Analytical Chemistry, 2008 Jul; 80 (13): 4791-9

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/ancham/80/i13/html/0708feature_keim.html

[ZACKandPOOK]

Excerpt from:

“Microbial forensics:  DNA fingerprinting of Bacillus anthracis (anthrax),” Analytical Chemistry, 2008 Jul; 80 (13): 4791-9

Although mathematical confidence limits are intrinsic to statistical analyses, they are somewhat tangential to logical phylogenetic approaches. However, several methods have been suggested. Lenski and Keim suggested that random matching across polymorphic sites was highly improbable (34). Indeed, when highly mutable loci are used, perfect matches may be elusive even from closely related isolates. “Near matches” are always problematic, especially when scientists and investigators try to explain relatedness to a jury!
***
Comparisons of whole-genome sequences from multiple isolates of a single species can increase our knowledge of the evolutionary pathway that separates the sequenced genomes. Although many types of genetic differences may accumulate among isolates as a result of mutation, some happen relatively quickly such that two unrelated isolates may contain the same mutation by chance alone. To reduce the confusion caused by such independent mutations that are not the result of inheritance, we search for marker types that have a low probability of change and thus can be assumed to have mutated only once during the evolutionary history of the organism. Single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) have very low mutation rates in the B. anthracis genome and thus provide a very stable evolutionary signal.

Unfortunately, this important characteristic means that SNPs are very rare, requiring whole-genome comparisons for their discovery. A comparison of five whole-genome B. anthracis sequences predicted ~3500 SNPs, 990 of which were used for genotyping 26 diverse strains of anthrax (32). The resulting phylogenetic analysis yielded only a single example of the same mutation occurring more than once, that is, 1 in 25,000 measurements. Therefore, when a mutation arose in a lineage, the new state was passed along to all the descendants of that isolate. Descendants from other lineages did not contain the novel state but rather retained the ancestral state. These results suggest that once B. anthracis was established as a species, its genotype was inherited in a completely clonal manner, with no evidence that DNA has been exchanged between individuals or acquired from the environment. This is in opposition to what has been observed in many other bacterial species.

The clonality of this species, coupled with the extreme evolutionary stability of SNPs, means that any single synapomorphic SNP can be used to define an entire lineage (35, 36).
***
Similarly, particular strains, such as the Ames strain (used in the 2001 anthrax letter attacks in the U.S.), can be identified by single or sets of autapomorphic canSNPs (38).
***
These studies demonstrate a whole-genome sequencing approach to the discovery and application of highly specific, forensic-quality SNP signatures for any B. anthracis isolate. The hierarchical approach can place any isolate into phylogenetically correct subgroups and can provide significant resolution among the isolates that belong to 1 of the 12 original canSNP subgroups. But the ultimate DNA signature may be in the comparative analysis of the entire genome sequence of a target isolate with its closest known relative.

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/ancham/80/i13/html/0708feature_keim.html

[EdLake]

These studies demonstrate a whole-genome sequencing approach to the discovery and application of highly specific, forensic-quality SNP signatures for any B. anthracis isolate. The hierarchical approach can place any isolate into phylogenetically correct subgroups and can provide significant resolution among the isolates that belong to 1 of the 12 original canSNP subgroups.

The article seems to be about what CAN be done. The questions are: What HAS been done. Were they able to determine (beyond any reasonable doubt) which lab the attack anthrax came from? If so, which lab was it?

It seems very clear that the science of microbial forensics is now ready for court -- as far as the authors of this article are concerned.

Is everything and everyone else ready?

Thanks for bringing this article to our attention, ZACKandPOOK.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[EdLake]

Were they able to determine (beyond any reasonable doubt) which lab the attack anthrax came from? If so, which lab was it?

Of course, that would only let them point at a lab. They would still need solid evidence of other types to point at an individual in that lab.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[Shermy]

Thanks. Meaning?

Anyway, you guys have websites. How about this—tell Holt’s people to ask for microscope photos of the attack anthrax. It’s only photos. If released this can finally end the “additive or not” argument you guys have running on very long.

[EdLake]

tell Holt’s people to ask for microscope photos of the attack anthrax.

EVERONE has been trying to get a look at those photos for years. No luck. The FBI considers them to be "evidence."

The closest anyone has gotten is the photo in Richard Preston's book "The Demon In the Freezer." Here it is:

However, some new information about the anthrax and the photos was recently released somewhere, since people were talking about who saw the photos and the fact that the media powder contained more silicon and oxygen than the senate powder. That's new information. It could mean that more new information is coming.

Or maybe not.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[ZACKandPOOK]

You mean TrebleRebel and Ed have been running.

I have no part in the debate except to report it.

[Battle Axe]

Meaning?

IMHO, this needs to be published so that it can be referred to in the future. When they announce that the theft occurred at ISU in 1990, the liberal media will ask for proof. This article sets the stage for discussion of mutations and replication of the mutations.

It is a necessary step between Hatfill did it and Hatfill didn't do it.

[ZACKandPOOK]

Even when they publish peer-reviewed scholarly articles written in careful English people either don’t read the article or don’t read it carefully.

They have no reason to publish the SEMS. None at all.

Moreover, there are national security reasons to withhold information that might affect the capability of current biodetection devices. Special Agent Lambert and Director Mueller (one or both) have talked about how disclosure of information might allow bad guys to “spoof” such equipment.

Battle Axe, a fax to an Iowa State Professor enclosing the mailing label showed a Navy research lab. That is where the USAMRIID scientist Knudsen who collected Ames went. There is a Navy article from June 2008 on this general subject.

[Tribune7]

bump for later

[Tribune7]

bump for later

[Gritty]

BTTT