Posted on 12/03/2007 6:44:09 AM PST by RDTF
WASHINGTON — Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the subsequent anthrax mailings, top U.S. science advisors said the country "urgently needed" a new, improved anthrax vaccine.
The existing vaccine often caused swollen arms and muscle and joint pain. Inoculation required six injections over 18 months, followed by yearly booster shots. The estimated shelf life was just three years.
The scientists' report, issued by the Institute of Medicine, called for "an anthrax vaccine free of these drawbacks" -- a vaccine that would require only two or three injections, achieve protection within 30 days, stay potent for a long time and cause fewer adverse reactions.
-snip-
The manufacturer, Emergent BioSolutions Inc. of Rockville, Md., prevailed in a bitter struggle with a rival company that was preparing what federal health officials expected to be a superior vaccine. The episode illustrates the clout wielded by well-connected lobbyists over billions in spending for the Bush administration's anti-terrorism program.
Emergent's rival, VaxGen Inc. of South San Francisco, had spent four years developing a new anthrax vaccine and had won an $877.5-million federal contract to deliver enough doses for 25 million people. The contract threatened Emergent's very existence. The old vaccine, its only moneymaker, would likely be obsolete if VaxGen succeeded.
Emergent responded by mobilizing more than 50 lobbyists, including former aides to Vice President Dick Cheney, to make the case that relying on the new vaccine was a gamble and that the nation's safety depended on buying more of Emergent's product.
The company and its allies in Congress ridiculed VaxGen and impugned the competence or motives of officials who supported the new vaccine. The lobbying effort damaged VaxGen's credibility with members of Congress and the Bush administration, a Los Angeles Times investigation found.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Let me see: The Vax Gen product didn’t measure up-ergo it was treated “unfairly”.
Ho-———kay !
The ugly truth of this is that Clinton buddy, Admiral William Crowe, was the controlling interest opartner of former Bio Port which got the sole contract for the vaccine under BILL CLINTON and it was ORDERED upon the military AGAINST the military’s wishes. It is a failed and dangerous vaccine with 6 deaths attributed to it. The reactagenic rate was 175 times more than previously admitted and the whole Vax Gen issue was driven by the need to make the problem go away.
Now we have a bad vaccine, which does little to nothing and is highly reactive in may people (especially Women since it is a Cat D abortificient according to the only Navy Study) which soldiers are FORCED to take if they go into the CENTCOM AOR for 15 days or more.
Its a mess, and Vax Gen was getting expensive. but unlike its predecessor, it was being correctly and thoroughly tested.
Thanks Bill Clinton.
ping to post 5
The Sunday after the attacks was September 16, 2 days, I think, before the first letter was sent. Remarkable, no?
By the way today (Monday December 3) the court is meant to be unsealing all the Hatfill depositions of FBI officials. Will they contain anything interesting? Nah, probbaly not.
Link to Tommy’s stream comment:
http://chatterbyrondavis.blogspot.com/2006/11/tommy-thompson-hallucinates.html
TOMMY THOMPSON HALLUCINATES
Tommy Thompson, the former Health and Human Services Secretary in the Bush Administration, wants to be president. The Associated Press reports that Thompson “intends to form a committee to explore a possible run for the White House in 2008.”
When he was governor of Wisconsin, Thompson became known as the guy who reformed welfare in his state. But we remember him more fondly for his absolutely worthless leadership during the 2001 anthrax killings. Of special note is this quote from Thompson’s Oct. 4, 2001 press briefing, as he discussed how tabloid photo editor Robert Stevens contracted inhalation anthrax:
“We do know that he drank water out of a stream when he was traveling to North Carolina last week.”
We also know that White House staff were given the antibiotic Cipro starting the night of Sept. 11, 2001, three weeks before the first reported anthrax attack. Maybe they’d been drinking water from a stream in North Carolina, too.
So there are the dates:
Sunday, September 16, 2001: Tommy Thompson convenes an emergency meeting - a bioattack, probably with anthrax, is about to take place.
18 days later - Thursday October 4, 2001: Tommy Thompson says don’t worry, the first man to die from inhlational anthrax in the US in 30 years is an isolated case. Did I mention he was an avid outdoorsman?
Of course, the far left wing America haters naturally have taken this to mean that an "insider" (possibly even George W. Bush himself) perpetrated the anthrax attacks with government approval.
The beauty of the anthrax attacks is that almost anyone of almost any political persuasion can construct their own pet theory to suit their needs.
I don’t think there’s a theory I haven’t heard - well, mamybe I haven’t heard anyone claim that UFOs sent the anthrax.
There’s a nut born every minute, this guy here just filed a lawsuit against Steven Hatfill -
http://news.justia.com/cases/jonathan-lee-riches/
http://news.justia.com/cases/featured/new-jersey/njdce/1:2007cv05061/207658/
This is great stuff - he even claims that when Hatfill was in Lousiana in 2002 he added acid to the levees, ensuring they would collpase years later during the hurricane.
Exactly...Follow the money. It leads to rules broken, Laws broken, pockets lined, instant green cards for some in the company, a defense secretary (Cohen) Ordered to make it happen, an INDEMNIFICATION letter given by Secretary of the Army (Under Clinton) Caldera (only the second in history) and many people kicked out, put in jail or fined or nothing happens except they get removed from the military. Millions of lost taxpayer monies to the program, the people trained and lost and now medical bills as the battle the Mysterious “Gulf war Illness” that only those who took the vaccine suffer yet they refuse to even study if it may be causal.
Oh yeah, Clinton has a legacy alright.
Actually, it's not remarkable. People had been talking for years about the danger of an anthrax attack. There were so many hoax anthrax letters being sent prior to 9/11 that a study was done in Canada about what would happen if a real anthrax-filled letter were opened.
9/11 simply caused a LOT of people to worry a lot more about an anthrax attack. But worrying doesn't accomplish much.
One of the people who was evidently worrying a great deal was the person who sent the anthrax letters through the mail to scare the hell out of everyone and to try to get someone to actually DO something about the danger.
His first letters to the media, as you may recall, told the recipients to take "penacilin" which is a good antibiotic for anthrax. In those letters to the media, he said that an anthrax attack was coming next and that they should get prepared.
And his second letters were addressed to two Senators who were fighting parts of the Patriot Act to protect civil rights at a time when a very worried person in New Jersey would probably want every Muslim within 500 miles locked up.
The microbiologist the WP says the FBI suspected, Ali Al-Timimi, would speak alongside the blind sheik’s son, the member of the AQ three-person WMD committee with Midhat Mursi. Ali arranged to work 15 feet from famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID head Charles Bailey, a prolific Ames anthrax strain researcher.
Mohammed Abdel-Rahman was captured in mid-February 2006. His arrest was associated with KSM’s capture along with the documents and laptop re anthrax spray drying. The feds are not telling where Mohammed is — best guess is he was rendered to Egypt.
Ali even supervised the founder of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. It just couldn’t be more obvious the infiltration that occurred.
The people who came up with the cockamie Truther theory advanced by BHR, Boyle, Foster and Ed never have learned anything about the infrastructure supporting the blind sheik in the US. Ed’s “bioevangelist” theory was first made by a lawyer for militant islamists abroad. Then it was picked up by BHR, Ed, Don Foster and others.
The documentary evidence, in contrast, shows that what happened is exactly what had been threatened (which was the reason there was “chatter” - it actually wasn’t chatter, it was express, credible and very public threats.)
The same sort of theory was raised with 9/11. It was first urged by militants and still widely believed by the muslim world abroad.
The theory would never have survived if there was not a need to keep secrecy in a national security and criminal investigation involving sympathizers in the US who gained access to US Army know-how.
The people who came up with the cockamie Truther theory advanced by BHR, Boyle, Foster and Ed never have learned anything about the infrastructure supporting the blind sheik in the US.
Below is some of what was in the public domain as to why John O’Neill told Jerome Hauer on 9/10 that he expected an anthrax attack — and why he told the same to WTC Director earlier in the summer. With the cropduster inquiries known and pounded on by all major media outlets after 9/11, there was no need for anyone to “sound the alarm.”
The sending of letters to NYC and DC newspapers and people in symbolic positions was the signature of Ayman’s Vanguards of Conquests. Moreover, the targeting of Leahy and Daschle was exactly what they had done in Egypt.
Sources:
FBI 302 Interview Statement of Ali Al-Timimi in 1994 in connection with WTC 1993.
“No Return Address: Who Is Mailing Letter Bombs to America?” TIME, January 13, 1997
“Transcript: State Dept. Briefing on Letter-Bomb Case (Big Reward to be offered in case by State Dept.),” August 14, 1997
“Mail bombs sent to Arab newspaper,” Associated Press, January 14, 1997
“Soviet Defector Warns of Biological Weapons,” New York Times, February 25, 1998
“Islamic Jihad Vows Revenge,” BBC News, August 7, 1998
“SCIENTIST AT WORK: BILL PATRICK: Once He Devised Germ Weapons; Now He Defends Against Them,” New York Times, November 3, 1998
Bernard Lewis, “License to Kill, Usama Bin Ladin’s Declaration of Jihad,” Foreign Affairs, November 1998, p. 14(1)
“Islamic Jihad ‘Confessions’ Described,” London Al-Sharq al-Awsat, (FBIS translation) March 3, 1999 [Ayman plans on using weaponized anthrax against US)
“Bin-Laden Men Reportedly Possess Biological Weapons,” Al-Sharaq al-Awsat, March 6, 1999 (FBISFTS 19990306000273)
“Counterterrorism Analysts Take Note of New Threats From Egyptian Terrorist Group,” ERRI Daily Intelligence Report, April 20, 1999 [Ayman plans on using weaponized anthrax against US)
“US Said Interrogating Jihadist Over CBW,” Al-Hayat, April 21, 1999 [Ayman plans on using weaponized anthrax against US)
“Islamist Lawyer on Bin Ladin, Groups,” Al-Sharq al-Awsat, July 12, 1999 FBIS-NES-1999-0712 [Ayman plans on using weaponized anthrax against US S in retaliation for detention of leaders)
“Muslim Calls for Bio-Weapon Holy War.” Sunday Times , September 5, 1999 [Ayman plans on using weaponized anthrax against US)
“Cleric Urges Osama to Launch Biological War Against West,” Hindustan Times, September 6, 1999
Undated typed correspondence from Pakistan scientist Rauf Ahmad to Ayman Zawahiri (produced under FOIA) [Ayman plans on using weaponized anthrax against US)
Undated handwritten correspondence from Pakistan scientist Rauf Ahmad to Ayman Zawahiri (and associated notes) (produced under FOIA) [Ayman plans on using weaponized anthrax against US)
“Bacterial envelope mailed to minister,” Medicine Hat News, February 1, 2001 [Ayman plans on using weaponized anthrax against US in retaliation for detention of leaders)
“Hoax highlights vulnerability to bioterrorism,” The Globe and Mail, February 2, 2001
“Risk Assessment of anthrax threat letters,” Defence R&D Canada, September 2001
FBI 302 Interview Statetment of Ali Al-Timimi shortly after 9/11 (not yet made public)
“Chemical and Biological Weapons Pose Threat,” Associated Press, September 17, 2001
“Officials Fear US Is Ill-Equipped to Deal With Biological or Chemical Terrorism,” Wall St. Journal, September 18, 2001
“David Siegrist: The threat from biological terrorism,” CNN, September 20, 2001
“Bioterrorism: Next Threat?”, Time Magazine, September 24, 2001
“Crop-Dusters Thought to Interest Suspects,” Washington Post, September 24, 2001, A1
“WHO warns of biowarfare threat,” MSNBC, September 24, 2001
“Cropdusters grounded in poison alert: Toxic threat Pesticide planes could be used to spray cities,” Guardian, September 24, 2001
“Airborne biological weapon attacks are serious concern,” New Scientist, September 24, 2001
etc.
Al-Timimi’s Connection to AQ WMD Comm. member Mohammed Abdel-Rahman -DRAFT
Conclusion
While Al-Timimi was recruiting with the Taliban, he was also connected to one of the principals on Al Qaeda’s WMD Committee, Mohammed Abdel-Rahman.
The CIA and FBI apparently have known this for years but have kept it secret as part of their ongoing confidential national security and criminal investigation.
Support:
1. Mohammed Abdel-Rahman spoke at the first conference of the Islamic Assembly of North America (”IANA”) in 1993 and was noted to be from Afghanistan. The December conference was after his father, blind sheik Abdel-Rahman, had been indicted. Ali Al-Timimi was one of the other speakers.
CITE
2. Mohammed Abdelrahman spoke again alongside Ali Al-Timimi, for example, in 1996 in Toronto.
http://groups.google.com/groups/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&num=50&q=%22Mohammed+AbdelRahman%22++&qt_s=Search
3. Mohammed Abdel-Rahman was close to bin Laden and was engaged in planning key operations. OBL considered him like a son.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/03/05/walqa05.xml
4. Mohammed was on the three member WMD committee with Midhat Mursi.
http://www.trackingthethreat.com/zsearch/rel.jsp?relId=1542
CITE
5. Mohammed Abdel-Rahman ran a training camp that was part of the larger ____________. He was an explosives trainer.
CITE
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57963-2002Jun15?language=printer
6. On February 12, 1997, with Mohammed Abdelrahman back in Afghanistan, a statement issued in the name of the Islamic Group threatened, “The Islamic Group declares all American interests legitimate targets to its legitimate jihad until the release of all prisoners, on top of whom” is Abdel Rahman.
United States v. Ahmed Abdel Sattar et al., “Superseding Indictment,”
http://news.lp.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/uslstwrt111903sind.html
7. On May 5, 1997, a statement issued in the name of the Islamic Group threatened, “If any harm comes to the [S]heikh … al-Gama al-IsIalamiy[y]a will target … all of those Americans who participated in subjecting his life to danger.” The statement also said that “A1-Gamaa al-Islamiyya considers every American official, starting with the American president to the despicable jailer … partners endangering the Sheikh’s life,” and that the Islamic Group would do “everything in its power” to free Abdel Rahman.
United States v. Ahmed Abdel Sattar et al., “Superseding Indictment,”
http://news.lp.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/uslstwrt111903sind.html
8. The same person who posted notice of the 1996 conference where Al-Timimi, Bilal Philips and Mohammed Abdel-Rahman spoke, then posted notice of a protest titled
“STOP RAILROADING OF SHEIKH OMAR ABDEL RAHMAN -
PROTEST US POLICIES AGAINST ISLAM”
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.culture.somalia/browse_thread/thread/375587d8a044a171/b5009660c803d45f?hl=en#b5009660c803d45f
The Rally was to take place on June 20, 1997 in front of the US Bureau of Prisons in Washington DC. (See the link for the listed contact numbers.)
[ 9. On one occasion in the late 1990s, US Post Office employee Sattar, the Blind sheik’s chief aide, sent Mohammed Abdel-Rahman money in Afghanistan.
CITE]
10. An FBI affidavit, drafted in support of a warrant for the search of Post Office employee Sattar’s Staten Island apartment, explains that Sattar was the communications hub to and from the imprisoned Abdel-Rahman. The 42-year-old postal worker who worked as a paralegal during the blind terrorist’s federal trial. Sattar was in frequent contact with IG leaders worldwide, including Rifa’i Taha Musa (”Taha”) and WMD Committee member Abdel-Rahman’s son Mohammed.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/lynnestewart1.html
11. Al Qaeda continued to seek religious approval from blind sheik Abdel-Rahman for its attacks.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57963-2002Jun15?language=printer
Peter Berger, The Bin Laden I Knew.
12. A US indictment of the Post Office worker in contact with Mohammed Abdel-Rahman alleged: “On or about June 19, 2000, one of Abdel Rahman’s sons, Mohammed Abdel Rahman, spoke by telephone with SATTAR and asked SATTAR to convey to Abdel Rahman the fierceness of the debate within the Islamic Group about the initiative, and said that “even if the other side is right,” SATTAR should tell Abdel Rahman to calm the situation by supporting “the general line of the Group.”
United States v. Ahmed Abdel Sattar et al., “Superseding Indictment,”
http://news.lp.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/uslstwrt111903sind.html
13. The indictment of the US Post Office worker Sattar further alleges: “On or about June 20, 2000, SATTAR spoke by telephone with Mohammed Abdel Rahman and advised him that a conference call had taken place that morning between Abdel Pahman and some of his attorneys and that Abdel Rahman had issued a new statement containing additional points which made clear, among other things, that Abdel Rahman was not unilaterally ending the initiative, but rather, was withdrawing his support for it and “stating that it was up” to the “brothers” in the Islamic Group now to reconsider the issue.
United States v. Ahmed Abdel Sattar et al., “Superseding Indictment,”
http://news.lp.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/uslstwrt111903sind.html
14. The indictment of the US Post Office worker Sattar further alleges: “On or about September 21, 2000, an Arabic television station, Al Jazeera, televised a meeting of Usama Bin Laden (leader of the al Qaeda terrorist organization), Ayman al Zawahiri (former leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jiha organization and one of Bin Laden’s top lieutenants), and Taha. Sitting under a banner which read, “Convention to Support Honorable Omar Abdel Rahman,” the three terrorist leaders pledged “mad to free Abdel Rahman from incarceration in the United States. During the meeting, Mohammed Abdel Rahman, a/k/a “Asadallah,” who is a son of Abdel Rahman, was heard encouraging others to “avenge your Sheikh” and “go to the spilling of blood.” (para. 21)
United States v. Ahmed Abdel Sattar et al., “Superseding Indictment,”
http://news.lp.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/uslstwrt111903sind.html
15. In January 2001, a threat to use anthrax was made upon the announcement of a bail hearing for a detained Egyptian Islamic Jihad shura leader who had been Bin Laden’s farm manager (and whose supervisor had been in charge of WMD procurement).
16. After the anthrax threat in January 2001, upon announcement of the bail hearing, a Presidential Presidential Daily Brief in early February 2001 explained to President Bush’s Bin Laden’s interest in anthrax. The PDB is still classified.
CITE
17. The anthrax to the Senators was sent the day after bail was denied the manager of OBL’s farm on October 5, 2001 — just as had been threatened.
18. It was testing done related to that threat, using a simulant made by the American Army facility at Dugway, that showed anthrax leaked from envelope. CDC never read the report e-mailed, and thus underestimate the threat to Postal workers. Postal workers died.
CITE
19. The same folks had sent the al-Hayat letter bombs to newspapers in late 1996 and people in symbolic positions to protest the detention of the blind sheik and other WTC plotters. The lethal letters were not only the modus operandi of the militant supporters of Sheik Abdel-Rahman, but it was their signature.
CITE.
20. A different blind sheik’s son, Omar, in late November 2001.
CITE
21. In December 2001, the blind sheik’s lawyer Montasser Al-Zayat — the fellow who claimed in March 1999 was in touch with US Post Office employee Sattar and said that Zawahiri was going to use weaponized anthrax against US targets — claimed that Mohammed Abdel-Rahman, 29, had died about two weeks ago from wounds received during the bombardment of the Tora Bora caves in eastern Afghanistan. He said his information came from an Islamic activist in London. The report was false.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-49191446.html
22 Mohammed Abdelrahman was captured in mid-February 2003 — on either February 13 or February 14. KSM apparently had just narrowly escaped.
http://books.google.com/books?id=lVaRkVnp9HUC&pg=PA89&dq=%22Mohammed+Abdel-Rahman%22&sig=Uk8_gTDdkgutjD9TKDyiSczqGz8#PPA89,M1
23. Two weeks later, authorities raided microbiologist Ali Al-Timimi’s townhouse, and searched the residence of a couple of PhD level drying experts and various others associated with IANA.
24. Mohammed Abdelrahman then provided information that led authorities to the home of the bacteriologist that harbored KSM, at which anthrax documents were found, both on a computer and in hard copy.
One report says Mohammed Abdelrahman provided the information under duress.
http://books.google.com/books?id=9zwtzcfLYTQC&pg=PA183&dq=%22Mohammed+Abdel-Rahman%22&sig=XuXX6Ec4rrySUGWW25ae6xBzfmA#PPA183,M1
25. Another report indicate that authorities, with the help of American communications experts, traced an email that Mohammed Abdel-Rahman had sent to an email associated with the home of bacteriologist Qadoos in Rawalpindi.
http://books.google.com/books?id=9zwtzcfLYTQC&pg=PA183&dq=%22Mohammed+Abdel-Rahman%22&sig=XuXX6Ec4rrySUGWW25ae6xBzfmA#PPA183,M1
26. Yet another report says that some unidentified Egyptian collected a $27 million reward for informing on KSM and then relocated first to Great Britain and then to the US. (Perhaps this is a different Egyptian or perhaps the intelligence officials are seeking to cause turmoil among the blind sheik’s supporters).
27. I believe that according to Amnesty, Abdel-Rahman Jr. was “whereabouts unknown” as of 2006. I’m advised by a knowledgeable researcher that he’s not on the list of Gitmo detainees.
28. In June 2003, a UN report explained that Al-Qaeda has a “WMD Committee,” which according to the report, “is known to have approached a number of Muslim scientists … to assist the terrorist network with the creation and procurement of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.”
http://www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/newswires/2003_6_27.html
29. Ali Al-Timimi conducted a summer camp at a park in Frederick, Maryland over the years. The kids liked the outdoors and ponds. The FBI searched the park’s ponds more than once claiming that Dr. Hatfill had once suggested that someone could weaponize anthrax and discard the equipment in a pond.
Mohammed Abdel-Rahman is one of the missing prisoners whose absence from Guantanamo leads human rights researchers to believe that the CIA is still operating secret prisons. There is a possibility that he was rendered to Egypt, but the US has refused to comment on where he is. This is the possibliity I favor. (He is one of the subjects of the FOIA lawsuit filed by NYU, HRW, etc.)
The very well-informed Pakistani journalist Zahid Hussain says in his book, Frontline Pakistan, (p.130-133) that KSM was actually captured in February from a house in Quetta — presumably the same one where Abdel-Rahman was. Supposedly he had been tracked for four weeks before that. Zahid Hussain says that they did not make his arrest public because they wanted to capture other al-Qaeda members or sympathizers, such as the Qadoos family. This would be consistent with the strident denials by the bacteriologist’s family that KSM was captured at the home. The arrest of KSM’s other nephew, Musaad Aruchi, for example, is supposed to have led them to many others. Aruchi is another of the missing prisoners.
The timing of the raid on Al-timimi’s house two weeks later — and the arrest of animal geneticist and experienced PhD researcher expert at mixing with silica — certainly suggests that it was connected. They had been engaged in surveillance and “trashing” and interception of targets related to the charity for many months. The timing may have been two weeks after KSM was arrested and told authorities about, for example, Aafia Siddiqui, connected to the blind sheik’s Al Kifah organization. An AUSA has said that Aafia was prepared to participate in an anthrax attack if asked. She opened up a mailbox in Gaithersburg, Maryland as part of operations.
The FBI feels that they are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. They are criticized for making arrests too soon — other times they are criticized for not acting sooner. They are criticized when they don’t give out any info. They are criticeized when they do.
All the while, the public is seldom well-positioned to second-guess the issue.
typo -
Mohammed Abdel-Rahman was captured on February 13, 2003 (not 2006).
bttt
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