FBI Frame-up of Bruce E. Ivins Made Simple

On Wednesday, August 8, 2008, the Department of Justice held a news conference announcing that Bruce E. Ivins, a former anthrax researcher for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), was the sole person responsible for the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Headed by U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor and FBI Assistant Director Joseph Persichini, the presentation was noteworthy for often not answering relevant questions, but instead referring reporters to several dozen court documents they had just been provided. After hurriedly reading one of these documents I decided to hedge my strong conclusion in an essay that the FBI had persecuted and framed Ivins in order to protect the actual perpetrators until determining enough facts to decide the matter. I stated, "The most important question is whether Ivins was provided with fully weaponized cutting-edge anthrax that he could use by merely drying it out as the FBI case requires. If not, then the cover-up explodes in the face of the FBI." See "911 Plotters Bury the Evidence of Anthrax as their Follow-up Punch" http://tinyurl.com/694avu And, indeed, the cover-up had exploded in the face of the FBI and DOJ. Richard Spertzel, UNSCOM's biological weapons chief from 1994-199, had described an exquisitely weaponized anthrax contained in the letters to Senators Leahy and Daschle that "far exceeds that of any powdered product found in the now extinct U.S. Biological Warfare Program." These included anthrax spores of 1.5-3.0 microns necessary to make a pure spore mix, a polyglass that tightly bound hydrophilic silica to each particle (to prevent clumping) and a weak electrical charge to optimize dispersion by means of repulsion with no other propellant required. Spertzel concluded:

The multiple disciplines and technologies required to make the anthrax in this case do not exist at the Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Inhalation studies are conducted at the institute, but they are done using liquid preparation, not powdered products.

Furthermore, the FBI spent 12-18 months trying to "reverse engineer" the Daschle-Leahy anthrax without success. The FBI case against Ivins gives him 7½ hours in the evening over the course of three days to prepare his first concoction sent in letters postmarked September 18, 2001 and roughly 15½ hours over eight days to prepare the Senate anthrax letters postmarked October 9, 2001. But after reading the first DOJ document, that was suggestive and not apparently made from whole cloth, I was seized by the possibility that the FBI might have been concealing that Ivins had been working with fully weaponized anthrax in order to disguise a violation of the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention treaty to which the U.S. is a signatory, hence the hedge in my essay (made on the final day of OPEDNEWS window for editing one's essays.) Direct inspection of the BTWC rules out that concern. Apparently what matters is in the heart or mind: one can make fully weaponized materials so long as the purpose in doing so is in some part defensive or prophylactic, as was Ivins's purpose in testing the efficacy of anthrax vaccines.

The question is thus whether Ivins was working with fully weaponized materials. The answer is that he was not. Neither the DOJ oral presentation, nor anything in any of its documents states or implies this during a public presentation whose purpose was to convince the American public that the FBI "got the right man" this time. They cannot even bring themselves to say that the spores in Ivins's possession were of the same consistent tiny size of 1.5-3.0 microns that made them so deadly -- something they would surely say were it so. In fact, the topic is sedulously avoided even though -- or precisely because -- it is essential to making the case against Ivins. Better, Jeffrey Taylor, who seemed to have a weak grasp of the evidence, in his opening remarks gave away the fact that the anthrax in the letters did not come directly from the flask with the sample of spores "RMR-1029" that Ivins monitored and that were reportedly a genetic match to the anthrax that killed its victims. Mr. Taylor advised:

As the court documents allege, the parent material of the anthrax spores used in the attacks was a single flask of spores, known as "RMR-1029," that was created and solely maintained by Dr. Ivins at USAMRIID. This means that the spores used in the attacks were taken from that specific flask, regrown, purified, dried and loaded into the letters.

So, that's the game and the frame-up right there. Regrown spores don't weaponize themselves. They do not regrow super-small and covered with state-of-the-art anti-clumping silicon with a weak electrical charge for dispersion. And how do we know, aside from voluminous ongoing reports that we will soon examine, that there was such silica on the spores, and that it was cutting edge technology? Search Warrant Affidavit 07-534-M-01 (available at USDOJ: Amerithrax Court Documents), dated October 31, 2007, states in pertinent part, p.4: Microscopic examination of the evidentiary spore powders recovered from all four letters identified an elemental signature of Silicon within the spores. This Silicon signature had not been previously described for Bacillus anthracis organisms.

This fundamental problem with the FBI case has been around for a long time, and helps us understand how covert action can take place in front of the public without being noticed. Indeed, the entire emphasis of the DOJ and FBI is focussed on proving that there is a genetic match between the letter anthrax and the anthrax batch RMR-1029 allegedly in Ivins's possession while ignoring that RMR-1029 lacked the weaponized qualities found in the Senate anthrax letters. That focus is a deliberate red herring to make it seem possible that Ivins was the lone nutcase perpetrator. An October 2, 2002 Washington Post article by Guy Gugliotta and Gary Matsumoto underscores how committed the FBI has been to protecting the 911 plotters from the beginning, e.g., by starting with a conviction that the perpetrator had to be a lone nutcase:

A profile of the attacker issued by the FBI last November described an angry, "lone individual" with "some" science background who could weaponize the anthrax spores in a basement laboratory for as little as $2,500.

Instead, the scientists who understood the spores opined as follows: "In my opinion, there are maybe four or five people in the whole country who might be able to make this stuff, and I'm one of them," said Richard O. Spertzel, chief biological inspector for the U.N. Special Commission from 1994 to 1998. "And even with a good lab and staff to help run it, it might take me a year to come up with a product as good."

Instead, suggested Spertzel and more than a dozen experts interviewed by The Washington Post in recent weeks, investigators might want to reexamine the possibility of state-sponsored terrorism, or try to determine whether weaponized spores may have been stolen by the attacker from an existing, but secret, biodefense program or perhaps given to the attacker by an accomplice. ...

"Just collecting this stuff is a trick," said Steven A. Lancos, executive vice president of Niro Inc., one of the leading manufacturers of spray dryers, viewed by several sources as the likeliest tool needed to weaponize the anthrax bacteria. "Even on a small scale, you still need containment. If you're going to do it right, it could cost millions of dollars." ...

Several sources agreed that the most likely way to build the coated spores would be to use the fine glass particles, known generically as "fumed silica" or "solid smoke," and mix them with the spores in a spray dryer. "I know of no other technique that might give you that finished product," Spertzel said.

According to William C. Patrick III, the former chief of product development for the U.S. Army's now-defunct bioweapons program, U.S. government scientists made biological agents using spray dryers, but did not spray dry anthrax. ...

In spray drying, a technician mixes fumed silica and spores with water, then sprays the mist through a nozzle directly into a stream of superheated air shooting from a second nozzle into an enclosed chamber. The water evaporates instantly, leaving spores and additive floating in space.

What do the DOJ and FBI offer us for how Ivins could have done all this? Silence and disinformation. The aforementioned affidavit states: Culturing anthrax and working safely with dried anthrax spores requires specific training and expertise in technical fields such as biochemist or microbiology. It also requires access to particular laboratory equipment such as a lyophilizer or other drying device, biological safety cabinet or other containment device, incubator, centrifuge, fermentor, and various protective gear, all of which Dr. Ivins had readily accessible to him through his employment at USAMRIID.

The above paragraph is a carefully worded frame-up. Yes, a special drying device is needed to coat the anthrax with silicon in the right way; it is a spray dryer -- a device that works with intense heat to vaporize nearly instantly a water suspension of silicon particles that then is drawn to the anthrax. Ivins had access to a lyophilizer, but not to a spray dryer. A lyophilizer freeze dries liquid anthrax into a powder. So the affidavit slips the fact that Ivins lacks even the basic tools by including "or other drying device" and states (truly and deceptively) that Ivins had access to "all of which," i.e., the unhelpful lyophilizer but not the essential spray dryer, let alone the specialized silicon and team of colleagues to make it work. The Post continues about the requirements:

"Surface tension will pull those little [silica] particles together onto the big one," said California Institute of Technology chemical engineer Richard Flagan. "You will end up with some degree of coating." Whoever made such an aerosol would "need some experience" with aerosols and "would have to have a lot of anthrax, so you could practice," Edwards said. "You'd have to do a lot of trial and error to get the particles you wanted." It would also help to have an electron microscope to examine the results.

This would mean at least several hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment, several experts said. Niro's cheapest spray dryer sells for about $50,000. Electron microscopes cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. In all, said Niro's Lancos, "you would need [a] chemist who is familiar with colloidal [fumed] silica, and a material science person to put it all together, and then some mechanical engineers to make this work . . . probably some containment people, if you don't want to kill anybody. You need half a dozen, I think, really smart people."

The following year, Gary Matsumoto wrote an article for Science 28, November 2003, Volume 302 that stated that "a schism now exists among scientists who analyzed it for the FBI." Initially, there was consensus: Early in the investigation [once it took to heart the science needed to produce the spores], the FBI appeared to endorse the latter view: that only a sophisticated lab could have produced the material used in the Senate attack. This was the consensus among biodefense specialists working for the government and the military. In May 2002, 16 of these scientists and physicians published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association, describing the Senate anthrax powder as "weapons-grade" and exceptional: "high spore concentration, uniform particle size, low electrostatic charge, treated to reduce clumping" (JAMA, 1 May 2002, p. 2237). Donald A. Henderson, former assistant secretary for the Office of Public Health Preparedness at the Department of Health and Human Services, expressed an almost grudging respect: "It just didn't have to be that good" to be lethal, he told Science. As the [criminal] investigation dragged on, however, its focus shifted. In a key disclosure, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft revealed in August 2002 that Justice Department officials had fixed on one of 30 so-called "persons of interest":Steven J. Hatfill, a doctor and virologist who in 1997 conducted research with the Ebola virus at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick, Maryland. (Hatfill has denied any involvement in the anthrax mailing.)

Thus, the FBI had begun with the "backyard biokiller" profile, then was forced to abandon it by the advanced design of the anthrax that points the finger where it belongs at state-sponsored terrorism, and then embraced it again once it felt that Steven Hatfill could be made to fill the role of "patsy." But in order to convict Hatfill, the FBI would need to demonstrate how Hatfill could have produced the anthrax in the Daschle-Leahy letters, hence their effort to "reverse engineer" the process. One lovely comparable historical example is the FBI's fantasy that the WTC was car-bombed in 1993 by dozens of committed Arabs urinating to generate the "uric acid" needed for its imaginary "home-made" bomb in order to conceal that high-grade military explosives provided by FBI mole Emad Salem were used in that event. But those were Muslim "terrorists," easy to convict with the help of Judge Michael Mukasey, since promoted to Attorney General. Something better was needed for Hatfill, so the FBI tried, and failed: Although the FBI did not spell out its theory [about Hatfill], this announcement and leaks to the media from federal investigators indicated that the inquiry had embraced the idea that a lone operator or small group with limited resources could have produced the Senate anthrax powder.

This premise now appears to have run its course. In September 2003, the FBI's Michael Mason admitted that the bureau failed to reverse engineer a world-class anthrax powder like the Senate material and expressed regret that Hatfill had been called a "person of interest."

Hatfill's story remains instructive for many reasons. The FBI violated normal investigative procedures by leaking Hatfill's name to the press and keeping politicians informed about the ongoing investigation. When Hatfill found a university position, the FBI forced the university to fire him. The FBI deliberately informed the press in advance of their searches of Hatfill's residence, both when he voluntarily submitted to a search and when the search was done under warrant, in order to create a media circus and to antagonize and intimidate Hatfill. The FBI harassed Hatfill by following him everywhere under the pretext that he would strike again if let out of their sight. The wave of propaganda against Hatfill was so pervasive and effective that when Hatfill reported to D.C. police that the FBI had run over his foot while surveilling him, he was ticketed for "walking to create a hazard." FBI sources stated that the Bureau had focused on Hatfill until 2006, but when a federal judge reviewed the case in 2008, including still-secret FBI summaries, he opined "There is not a scintilla of evidence that would indicate that Dr. Hatfill had anything to do with this." http://tinyurl.com/5zfho7

Former FBI counter-terrorism agent Brad Garrett, now working for the ABC network whose Brian Ross broadcast the manufactured leaks from four "well placed" sources that Iraq planted the anthrax and that now refuses to identify these plotters, is happy to tell us what went wrong with the Hatfill investigation in a June 30, 20008 "EXCLUSIVE: How the FBI Botched the Anthrax Case." According to Garrett:

The anthrax investigation, almost from the beginning, was hampered by top-heavy leadership from high ranking, but inexperienced FBI officials, which led to a close-minded focus on just one suspect and amateurish investigative techniques that robbed agents in the field the ability operate successfully. http://tinyurl.com/6ojel2 Garrett ignores the obvious implications of the fact that there was not a scintilla of evidence against Hatfill, viz., that the FBI modus operandi against Hatfill -- and Ivins as well -- was "frame 'em and break 'em." Garrett notes that "The original complaint accused several government officials, including Ashcroft, of deliberately leaking information about the criminal probe into Hatfill in order to harass him and to hide the FBI's lack of hard evidence," but he also states that the $5,825,000 settlement included no such admissions without seeming to understand that so much money was paid to avoid having to make that admission or having a jury so find. One wishes for more hard facts, but instead of taking the convenient route that the FBI investigation of this crucial act of domestic terrorism was hamstrung by stupid, incompetent and inexperienced high-ranking officials, the better interpretation in this case is that the FBI's wild goose chase was grand political theater to keep the public confused and distracted from the actual terrorists.

You mentioned Assistant FBI Director Michal Mason who was head of the Amerithrax investigation as head of the DC Field Office. He explained that he regretted that Dr. Hatfill’s name had ever surfaced and noted that they could not replicate the powder — they could not replicate the silicon signature.

Joining the bureau in 1985, Special Agent Mason handled narcotics violations, violent crimes, white-collar crimes and public corruption. He was especially relieved the time he did not have to shoot the suicidal Elvis impersonator in a Sears parking lot. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he served as special assistant to FBI Director Robert Mueller. He assumed responsibility for Amerithrax as assistant director in charge of the Washington, D.C., field office. He oversaw the office’s massive counterintelligence efforts against foreign intelligence agents based in Washington, D.C.

While in Buffalo, harking back to his days watching Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. on television, he addressed the portrayal of the FBI in “X-Files”, suggesting that reality was just as interesting.

Mason was in the Syracuse office, when 2:15 a.m. one night, a 115,000-volt transmission tower came crashing down not far down the street from me. Mason investigated when the tower on the nearby Onondaga Indian reservation came 50 feet from crashing on a cigarette shop, near where the local residents buy their smokes.

“This is a serious felony. It is more than just criminal mischief,” Mason said. The Niagara Mohawk spokesperson declined to comment on what caused the tower to fall. But a local Onondaga businessman Oliver Hill said he knew. The tower missed crushing his cigarette shop, which had been opened without the permission of the local Onondaga tribal leaders. “There has been sabotage on that tower because on each leg there are 20 to 30 bolts,” said Hill. “All the bolts were taken out on all four legs. So when the bolts are taken out, there’s nothing to hold it up so it fell over. Yes, it was sabotage.”

I didn’t call the local FBI office about the tower incident. After all, smoking kills 400,000 people a year.

Instead, I called the FBI office to tell them that a Ronald Reagan mask had been found along with a bank bag where the man lay in wait with a semi-automatic — first for my brother, and then the next week my father. The FBI agent in the small local office, who did not identify himself, said something to the effect: “We killed the Closing Time Bandit who used a Ronald Reagan mask in robbing banks. So this guy can’t be responsible for those robberies.”

Ronald Petersen had been killed Aug. 15, 1996 by FBI agents in the Rochester suburb of Henrietta while plotting another heist. The rightist, who had been tracked by a miniature television camera on a telephone pole outside his home, died in a hail of bullets. When police searched his house in Liverpool, a Syracuse suburb, they recovered 20 guns, including two Uzis, 20,000 rounds of ammunition and a cache of explosives.

“I know. “ I said, “This guy’s parole officer says his apartment in Watertown is covered with newspaper articles glorifying famous New York State criminals. He’s trying to make you fellows look foolish. By being a copycat and making it look like you killed the wrong guy..”

The ex-convict and three-time loser who tried to take my Dad away at gunpoint that night before Christmas got 25 years to life, with no possibility of parole. Robbery was the apparent motive. That night, the police siren had come on in within seconds of the 911 call coming in. The gunman spent the night holed up in a nearby garage and was captured after a psychiatrist/hostage negotiator came from Syracuse and talked him out of the garage. He asked that they kneel and pray together. (I never said the gunman was very bright).

So why have I always been such a booster of the FBI and local law enforcement until US Attorney Jeff Taylor’s recent performance at the press conference and Daniel Seikaly’s calculated leaks about Hatfill before that. (Attorney Seikaly of Taylor’s same office pled the Fifth Amendment in connection with such leaks; his daughter then came to represent Ali Al-Timimi, the “anthrax weapons suspect” of the other investigative squad). Why have I always been such a fan of Director Mueller and Agent Michael Mason in particular? Because it is their job to protect our loved ones.

Sam Stanton of the Sacramento Bee provides relevant background on Mason:

“He has a friend in Syracuse, N.Y., who’s a felon, and when he talks about his favorite case - the successful recovery of a 2-year-old girl kidnapped at Christmas - tears come to his eyes.

The son of a truck driver whose mother died when he was a baby, Mason knew he wanted to be in law enforcement early in childhood. As an African American growing up in Chicago, he said, he knew that many minorities said they had trouble with Chicago cops. But he said he never had a negative law enforcement experience.

He shifted his goal from joining the Chicago police force to the FBI after seeing the old Efrem Zimbalist Jr. series “The FBI” on television.

Mason knew many FBI agents came to the bureau with law degrees, but that wasn’t realistic given his family’s finances. So he ended up with an accounting degree from Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington.

After graduation, he went into the Marine Corps, serving at Camp Pendleton and ending up a captain. But he still dreamed of joining the FBI, and when his tour of duty was up with the Corps he decided the time was right.

“I remember when I called I didn’t have any idea how one becomes an FBI agent,” Mason said. “I called and said, ‘Can I have an application?’ And the lady, an old-timer there, said, ‘Sure, honey, we’ll send you one right out.’ “ ***

People who have worked with him before say Mason’s nice-guy image is genuine, and a sign of that is his friendship with community activist Kathleen Rumpf in Syracuse.

Rumpf, who calls herself a “felon for peace,” recently spent several months in prison for trespassing during a demonstration against the School for the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga. She has spent years in Syracuse fighting for prisoner rights and other issues, and when Mason showed up there one of the first things he did was meet with her.

“I’ve been treated very badly in the past by the FBI because I’m an activist,” Rumpf said.

But Mason was different.

“He’s quite wonderful,” Rumpf said in an interview from the Syracuse offices of the American Civil Liberties Union. “He was incredibly responsible and treated me with great respect.

“He said to me if he ever had to arrest me he would do it, and I said, ‘Be my guest.’ But I knew I could trust this man to be professional.”

Local law enforcement officials echo that sentiment.

‘He is an outstanding individual,’ said Gary Miguel, chief deputy of investigations for the Syracuse Police Department. ‘You’re fortunate to have him.’

In Syracuse, Miguel said, Mason worked hard to get to know the community and to cooperate with local authorities.” *** [Mason said,] “I’m not complicated enough to be political. It’s too hard.”

Once told there was CIA involvement, he responded that his superiors might not like to hear that. Attorney Seikaly, to whom the head of the investigation and Mason reported the status of the investigation, came over from the CIA to the DC US Attorney’s Office on September 29, 2001. But a student of history likely would conclude that any suppression of information is for old-fashioned reasons: CYA.

The question of the hour is how did Ali Al-Timimi come to have the mail drop at the Center for Biodefense that for example received issuance of the patent for concentrating anthrax using silicon dioxide in the culture medium. That is the best explanation that the FBI WMD head offers for the silicon signature. Ali Al-Timimi worked for 2 months for the former White House Chief of Staff in 1996. Did he list Mr. Card on his resume? He worked with the former deputy USAMRIID Charles Bailey at SRA in 1999. Ali did mathematical support work for the Navy and had a high security clearance. What was his security clearance for? Ali then came to work 15 feet from the leading anthrax scientist in the world, Ken Alibek, and the former deputy USAMRIID, Charles Bailey. They co-invented the method using silica in the culture medium to concentrate anthrax. The silica can then be removed through repeated centrifugation or an air chamber (according to a related patent).

I’ve always argued that the key, I said, to achieve the best balancing of interests was to have an informed debate. (For example, when I see Sarah Palin touted as in favor of transparency I ask questions like: Why when she launched the small city’s website in 2002, did she not think to require meeting minutes online as is commonly done?) I’ve always argued that with people like Michael Mason advising Director Mueller, I felt both secure and confident that authorities would always continue to strive to strike an appropriate balance.

For his part, Director Mueller said, in a vintage comment, that it would be mistaken to suggest that the FBI has made a mistake. Well, respectfully, I disagree. The US DOJ made a mistake in allowing itself to be politicized. Men like Mason and Mueller should be among the first to agree — and to do something about it. Bring back the US DOJ that stands for the rule of law.

I think they will. We are better than the US DOJ of the past 8 years.

In a filing unsealed this Spring, Dr. Ali Al-Timimi’s lawyer explained that his client, a computational biologist who had worked in the building housing the “Center for Biodefense” funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (”DARPA”), was “considered an anthrax weapons suspect.”

Dr. Al-Timimi’s distinguished counsel summarizes:

“we know Dr. Al-Timimi:

* was interviewed in 1994 by the FBI and Secret Service regarding his ties to the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing;

* was referenced in the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (”Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”) as one of seventy individuals regarding whom the FBI is conducting full field investigations on a national basis;

* was described to his brother by the FBI within days of the 9-11 attacks as an immediate suspect in the Al Qaeda conspiracy;

* was contacted by the FBI only nine days after 9-11 and asked about the attacks and its perpetrators;

* was considered an anthrax weapons suspect;

[redacted]

* was described during his trial by FBI agent John Wyman as having “extensive ties” with the “broader al-Qaeda network”;

* was described in the indictment and superseding indictment as being associated with terrorists seeking harm to the United States;

* was a participant in dozens of international overseas calls to individuals known to have been under suspicion of Al-Qaeda ties like Al-Hawali; and

* was associated with the long investigation of the Virginia Jihad Group.

***

The conversation with Al-Hawali on September 19, 2001 was central to the indictment and raised at trial. Al-Timimi called Dr. Hawali after the dinner with Kwon on September 16, 2001 and just two hours before he met with Kwon and Hassan for the last time on September 19, 2001.

[911 imam] Anwar Al-Aulaqi goes directly to Dr. Al-Timimi’s state of mind and his role in the alleged conspiracy. The 9-11 Report indicates that Special Agent Ammerman interviewed Al-Aulaqi just before or shortly after his October 2002 visit to Dr. Al-Timimi’s home to discuss the attacks and his efforts to reach out to the U.S. government.

[IANA head] Bassem Khafagi was questioned about Dr. Al-Timimi before 9-11 in Jordan, purportedly at the behest of American intelligence. [redacted ] He was specifically asked about Dr. Al-Timimi’s connection to Bin Laden prior to Dr. Al-Timimi’s arrest. He was later interviewed by the FBI about Dr. Al-Timimi. Clearly, such early investigations go directly to the allegations of Dr. Al-Timimi’s connections to terrorists and Bin Laden — [redacted]”

The letter by Al-Timimi’s counsel attached as an exhibit is equally meaty. An example of an additional detail is that in March 2002, Dr. Al-Timimi spoke with Dr. Al-Hawali (Bin Laden’s sheik who was the subject of OBL’s “Declaration of War”) about assisting Moussaoui in his defense.

The filing and the letter exhibit each copy defense co-counsel, the daughter of the lead prosecutor in Amerithrax. That prosecutor has pled the Fifth Amendment concerning all the leaks hyping a “POI” of the other Amerithrax squad, Dr. Steve Hatfill.

In an e-mail obtained by FOX News written by Bruce Ivins to Patricia Fellows titled “HOT News”, Ivins reported to his former Fort Detrick colleague a colleague’s report that the anthrax powder they were asked to analyze after the attacks was nearly identical to that made by one of their colleagues.

“Then he said he had to look at a lot of samples that the FBI had prepared ... to duplicate the letter material.” “Then the bombshell. He said that the best duplication of the material was the stuff made by [name redacted]. He said that it was almost exactly the same — his knees got shaky and he sputtered, ‘But I told the General we didn’t make spore powder!’”

FOX News reports:

“The FBI has narrowed its focus to ‘about four’ suspects in the 6 1/2-year investigation of the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, and at least three of those suspects are linked to the Army’s bioweapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, FOX News has learned.

Among the pool of suspects are three scientists — a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist — linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID.”

I submit to you that regardless of the recent report about sorority panty raids and the like, the FBI knows that it was more than a happy coincidence for Ayman Zawahiri and Mohammed Islambouli that an active supporter of the Taliban and supporter of jihad was a US biodefense insider.

Al-Timimi worked in the same building as famed Russian bioweapons scientist Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID Deputy Commander and Acting Commander Charles Bailey, who would publish a lot of research with the “Ames strain” of anthrax.

Al-Timimi was a current associate and former student of Bin Laden’s spiritual advisor, dissident Saudi Sheik al-Hawali. Ali would speak along with the blind sheik’s son at charity conferences — the blind sheik’s son served on Al Qaeda’s WMD committee. Al-Timimi’s mentor Bilal Philips was known for recruiting members of the military to jihad. The first week after 9/11, FBI agents questioned Al-Timimi. He was a microbiology graduate student in a program jointly run by George Mason University and the American Type Culture Collection (”ATCC”). Ali, according to his lawyer, had been questioned by an FBI agent and Secret Service agent in 1994 after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had a high security clearance for work for the Navy in he late 1990s and in 1996 for two months had worked for the White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card. As time off from his university studies permitted, Ali was an active speaker with the charity Islamic Assembly of North America.

Folks who assume that Al-Timimi and his colleagues would have claimed responsibility are not taking into account that Bin Laden denied responsibility for 911 initially until it became beyond denying. Zawahiri thinks that war is deception. US Attorney Jeff Taylor, former counsel to Attorney Gonzalez, may also think that. (Alternatively, he just has not mastered the facts because of his wide range of responsibilities and heavy workload).

Al-Timimi was interviewed 7 or 8 time before indictment. He was indicted a few days before the FBI’s self-imposed deadline of October 1, 2004 for bringing an indictment in Amerithrax passed. Mueller announced in July 2004.

Al-Timimi is not thought by the DOJ officials as being the processor or mailer, which means it is still a very active investigation.

But after Labor Day, let’s turn our attention to a different ring in the circus — an amended indictment of Aafia Siddiqui in a few days. She knows the identity of US-based operatives.

Ali Al-Timimi worked at George Mason University’s Discovery Hall throughout 2000 and 2002 period. The Mason Gazette in “Mason to Pursue Advanced Biodefense Research” on November 17, 2000 had announced: “The School of Computational Sciences (SCS) and Advanced Biosystems, Inc., a subsidiary of Hadron, Inc., of Alexandria, are pursuing a collaborative program at the Prince William Campus to enhance research and educational objectives in biodefense research. The article noted that the program was funded primarily by a grant awarded to Advanced Biosystems from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). As a 2007 GMU PhD thesis “An Assessment of Exploitable Weaknesses in Universities” by Corinne M. Verzoni offices and research located in Discovery Hall, making this an attractive building on the Prince William Campus to target for information and technology.” The 2007 PhD student biodefense student explained: “Discovery Hall currently has BSL 1, 2 and 2+ labs in which students work with attenuated and vaccine strains of Fracella tularemia, anthrax and HIV. GMU will eventually have new biological labs featuring a BSL-3 lab which will have anthrax and tularemia.”

Instead of starting a center from scratch, GMU chose to join forces with Dr. Alibek and Dr. Bailey’s existing research firm, Hadron Advanced Biosystems Inc. Hadron was already working under contract for the federal government, having received funding from DARPA. Dr. Alibek told the Washington Post that he and Bailey had spent their careers studying an issue that only recently grabbed the country’s attention, after the anthrax mailings the previous fall. Dr. Bailey and Alibek met in 1991, when a delegation of Soviet scientists visited the USAMRIID at Ft. Detrick. Dr. Bailey explained that the purpose of the tour was to show the Soviets that the US was not developing offensive biological weapons. Bailey said he tried to engage Alibek in conversation but Alibek remained aloof. Alibek, for his part, explains that he was suspicious of this American smiling so broadly at him. A year later, Alibek would defect to the US and reveal an illegal biological program in the Soviet Union of a staggering scope. Alibek says that one reason he defected was that he realized that the Soviet intelligence was wrong — that the US research was in fact only defensive.

Former USAMRIID Deputy Commander and Acting Commander Ames researcher Bailey coinvented, with Ken Alibek, the process to treat cell culture with hydrophobic silicon dioxide so as to permit greater concentration upon drying. He was in Room 156B of GMU’s Discovery Hall at the Center for Biodefense. The patent application was filed March 14, 2001. Rm 154A was Victor Morozov’s room number when he first assumed Timimi’s phone number in 2004 (and before he moved to the newly constructed Bull Run Hall). Morozov was the co-inventor with Dr. Bailey of the related cell culture process under which the silica was removed from the spore surface.

One ATCC former employee felt so strongly about lax security there the scientist called me out of the blue and said that the public was overlooking the patent repository as a possible source of the Ames strain. ATCC does not deny they had virulent Ames in their patent repository pre 9/11 (as distinguished from their online catalog). The spokesperson emailed me: “As a matter of policy, ATCC does not disclose information on the contents of its patent depository.”

George Mason University, Department Listings, accessed August 17, 2003, shows that the National Center For Biodefense and Center for Biomedical Genomics had the same mail stop (MS 4ES). The most famed bioweaponeer in the world was not far from this sheik urging violent jihad in an apocalyptic struggle between religions. Dr. Alibek’s office was Rm. 156D in Prince William 2. The groups both shared the same department fax of 993-4288. Dr. Alibek advises me he had seen him several times in the corridors of GMU and was told that he was a religious muslim hard-liner but knew nothing of his activities. At one point, Timimi’s mail drop was MSN 4D7.

BIODEFENSE, THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR
3-8545
FAX 993-4288 . . . . . . . . MS 4E3
www.gmu.edu/centers/biodefense

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
KEN ALIBEK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156D Prince William II . . . . . . . . 3-8545

Deputy Director
Charles Bailey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
156B Prince William II . . . . . . . . 3-4271

Partnerships and Education Assistant
Mary-Margaret Flannery . . . . . . . .
182B Prince William II . . . . . . . . 3-4263
Research

Kathryn Crockett . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Prince William II . . . . . . . . . 3-4297

Anne Keleher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156A Prince William II . . . . . . . . 3-8396

Research Assistant Professor

Monique Van Hoek . . . . . . . . . . . .
156E Prince William II . . . . . . . . 3-4273

BIOMEDICAL GENOMICS, CENTER FOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-2674
FAX 993-4288 . . . . . . . . MS 4E3

www.gmu.edu/centers/genomics

DIRECTOR

VIKAS CHANDHOKE . . . . . . . . . .
181B Prince William II . . . . . . . . 3-2674
*Christina Largent . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182F Prince William II . . . . . . . . 3-2674

Assistant Director of Operations

Tom Huff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
225D Prince William II . . . . . . . . 3-1255

George Mason University - Department Listings 12

Al-Timimi, Ali . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-4294

DelGiacco, Luca . . . . . . . . . 3-4041

Dols, Shellia . . . . . . . . . . . . 3-3768

Fortney, Amanda . . . . . . . . 3-4289

Gandreti, Vijaya . . . . . . . . . 3-4580

Gorreta, Francesco . . . . . . . 3-2672

Schlauch, Karen . . . . . . . . . 3-4269

Charles Bailey at 3-4271 was the former head of USAMRIID and joined the Center in April 2001. He continued to do research with Ames after 9/11. Dr. Alibek reports that shortly after the mailings, he wrote FBI Director Mueller and offered his services but was advised that they already had assembled a large group. A 2004 report describes research done by Dr. Alibek and his colleagues using Delta Ames obtained from NIH for a research project done for USAMRIID. There were two grants from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency from 2001. One $3.6 million grant dated to July 2001 and the other was previous to that.

Ali Al Timimi had the same telephone number that Dr. Victor Morozov of the Center for Biodefense would later have when he joined the faculty and occupied the newly constructed Bull Run Building, which opened in late 2004 (Rm. #362). Dr. Morozov focuses on the development of new bioassay methods for express analysis, high-throughput screening and proteomics. He has recently developed a new electrospray-based technology for mass fabrication of protein microarrays. Dr. Morozov is currently supervising a DOE -funded research project directed at the development of ultra-sensitive express methods for detection of pathogens in which slow diffusion of analytes is replaced by their active transport controlled and powered by external forces (electric, magnetic, gravitational or hydrodynamic). His homepage explains that: “A variety of projects are available for students to participate in 1. Develop methods for active capturing of viruses and cells. 2. AFM imaging of macromolecules, viruses and cells. 3. Develop active immunoassay. 4. Analyze forces operating in the active assay of biomolecules and viral particles. 5. Develop immobilization techniques for antibodies and other biospecific molecules. 6. Study crystallization dynamics and morphology of organic and inorganic crystals in the presence of protein impurities. 7. Develop software to analyze motion of beads. 8. Develop software to analyze patterns in drying droplets. 9. Develop an electrostatic collector for airborne particles.”

Al-Timimi obtained a doctorate from George Mason University in 2004 in the field of computational biology — a field related to cancer research involving genome sequencing. He successfully defended his thesis 5 weeks after his indictment. Curt Jamison, Timimi’s thesis advisor, coauthor and loyal friend, was in Prince William II (Discovery Hall) Rm. 181A. The staff of Advanced Biosystems was in Rm. 160, 162, 177, 254E and several others. Computational sciences offices were intermixed among the Hadron personnel on the first floor of Prince William II to include 159, 161, 166A, 167, 181 B and 181C. Rm. 156B was Charles Bailey, former commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, who was head of the Center for Biodefense. Defense contractor Hadron had announced the appointment of Dr. Bailey as Vice-President of Advanced Biosystems in early April 2001. “Over 13 years, Dr. Bailey had served as a Research Scientist, Deputy Commander for Research, Deputy Commander and Commander at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute. As a USAMRIID scientist, he designed and supervised the construction of BL-3 containment facilities. His hands-on experience with a wide variety of pathogens is chronicled in 70 published articles. During his 4 years with the Defense Intelligence Agency, he published numerous articles assessing foreign capabilities regarding biological weapons.” When I asked Dr. Bailey to confirm Al-Timimi’s room number relative to his own, his only response was to refer me to University counsel. Counsel then never substantively responded to my inquiry regarding their respective room numbers citing student privacy. Ali’s friend and thesis advisor, Dr. Jamison never responded to an emailed query either. GMU understandably is very nervous about losing the $25 million grant for a new BL-3 regional facility to be located very near our country’s capitol.

The reports on the study on the effectiveness of the mailed anthrax in the Canadian experiment was reported in private briefings in Spring and Summer of 2001. An insider thus was not dependent on the published report later that Fall. (The date on the formal report is September 10, 2001).

Dr. Charles Bailey for DIA wrote extensively on the the biothreat posed by other countries (and presumably terrorists). He shared a fax number with Al-Timimi. What came over that fax line in Spring and Summer of 2001? At some point, Dr. Al-Timimi, Dr. Alibek and Dr. Bailey also shared the same maildrop. It certainly would not be surprising that the two directors who headed the DARPA-funded Center for Biodefense — and had received the biggest defense award in history for work with Delta Ames under a contract with USAMRIID — would have been briefed on the threat of mailed anthrax. The 1999 short report by William Patrick to Hatfill at SAIC on the general subject was far less important given that it did not relate to actual experimental findings.

Plus, it is common sense that while someone might use as a model something they had surreptitiously learned of — they would not use as a model something in a memo that they had commissioned. Thus, it was rather misdirected to focus on the 1999 SAIC report commissioned by Dr. Hatfill rather than the 2001 Canadian report. The Canadian report related to the anthrax threat sent regarding the detention of Vanguards of Conquest #2 Mahjoub in Canada. Mahjoub had worked with al-Hawsawi in Sudan (the fellow with anthrax spraydrying documents on his laptop). The anthrax threat in late January prompted the still-classified PDB in early February 2001 to President Bush on the subject.

In Fall 2001, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (”AFIP”) had detected silicon dioxide (silica) in the attack anthrax — with a characteristic big spike for the silicon. The reason for the silicon dioxide/silica claimed to have been detected by AFIP has never been explained (and it’s been nearly a half decade). No silica was observable on the SEMs images that Dr. Alibek and Dr. Matthew Meselson saw. The Daschle product was “pure spores.” Was silicon dioxide used as part of a microdroplet cell culture process used prior to drying to permit greater concentration? As explained in a later related patent, the silica could be removed from the surface of the spore through repeated centrifugaton or an air chamber.

Dr. Alibek and Dr. Bailey had filed a patent application in mid-March 2001 involving a microdroplet cell culture technique that used silicon dioxide in a method for concentrating growth of cells. The patent was granted and the application first publicly disclosed in the Spring of 2002. Weren’t the SEMS images and AFIP EDX finding both consistent with use of this process in growing the culture? It’s been suggested informally to me that perhaps the silicon analytical peak was more likely due to silanol from hydrolysis of a silane, used in siliconizing glassware. But didn’t the AFIP in fact also detect oxygen in ratios characteristic of silicon dioxide? Wasn’t the scientist, now deceased, who performed the EDX highly experienced and expert in detecting silica? Hasn’t the AFIP always stood by its report. In its report, AFIP explained: “AFIP experts utilized an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (an instrument used to detect the presence of otherwise-unseen chemicals through characteristic wavelengths of X-ray light) to confirm the previously unidentifiable substance as silica.” Perhaps the nuance that was lost — or just never publicly explained for very sound reasons — was that silica was used in the cell culture process and then removed from the spores through a process such as centrifugation.

Dr. Morozov is co-inventor along with Dr. Bailey for a patent “Cell Culture” that explains how the silicon dioxide can be removed from the surface. Perhaps it is precisely this AFIP finding of silicon dioxide (without silica on the SEMs) that is why the FBI came to suspect Al-Timimi in 2003 (rightly or wrongly, we don’t know). The FBI would have kept these scientific findings secret to protect the integrity of the confidential criminal/national security investigation. There was still a processor and mailer to catch — still a case to prove. After 9/11, intelligence collection takes precedence over arrests. As Ron Kessler explains in the new book, Terrorist Watch, many FBI officials feel that they are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. Outside observers are constantly second-guessing them about how to proceed rather than trusting that they are in the best position to balance the competing considerations of national security, intelligence gathering, the pursuit of justice, and the safeguarding of civil liberties. Above all, in disclosing the theory of access to know-how, the FBI has needed to protect the due process rights of Al-Timimi while he defended himself on other charges.

An example from October 2006 of equipment that went missing from GMU’s Discovery Hall was a rotissery hybridization oven belonging to the Center for Biomedical Genomics. “This equipment can be used to manufacture biological agents and genetically modified agents, which could potentially be used as biological weapons,” the Corinne Verzoni explained in her PhD 2007 thesis. “Upon hearing about instances or missing equipment in Discovery Hall, the author contacted campus security who was unaware of instances of missing equipment. Missing equipment should be reported to the equipment liaison. Missing equipment may not be reported to campus security because labs tend to share equipment. Equipment also goes missing because it is not inventoried if it is under $2,000.

One of her other examples was equally dramatic:

“A DI system is a de-ionized water system, which removes the ions that are found in normal tap water. The assistant director for operations noticed the DI system in Discovery Hall was using the entire 100 gallons in two days, which is an enormous amount of water for the four DI taps in the whole building. According to the assistant director for operations, it is difficult to calculate the reason for that much water since no leak was found. A large amount of water used over a short period of time for unknown reasons could indicate that the research is being conducted covertly.”

“A student with legitimate access to Discovery Hall,” she explained, “has easy accessibility to equipment. A student with access to the loading dock could steal equipment on the weekend when campus security is not present in Discovery Hall. A student could also walk out of the entrance with equipment on the weekend without security present.” She concluded: “The events at GMU demonstrate opportunity to create a clandestine lab, the ability to sell items illegally, or the ability to exploit school equipment.” In a late September 2001 interview on NPR on the anthrax threat, Dr. Alibek said: “When we talk and deal with, for example, nuclear weapons, it’s not really difficult to count how much of one or another substance we’ve got in the hands. When you talk about biological agents, in this case it’s absolutely impossible to say whether or not something has been stolen.” A spokesman at the GMU “Office of Media Relations” emailed me in mid-December 2007 noting: “While working toward a doctorate in bioinformatics here at George Mason University, Mr. Al-Timimi had no access to any sensitive or secure materials or matter. If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to let me know.” When I emailed him questions, he did not know of the answers and then never got back to me.

William Clark, author of Bracing for Armaggedon (2008) describes the Dark Winter exercise from Summer 2000
“In what looks like a potential coup, the FBI has worked with Russian police and intelligence agencies to arrange a ‘sting’ operation that netted a senior Al-Qaeda operative as he was attempting to purchase fifty kilograms of plutonium in Russia. This individual had also made inquiries about obtaining certain biological warfare weapons produced some years earlier by Soviet Union laboratories. The United States needs to craft a careful plan about how much of this to make public and how much to keep under wraps. The Russians are already beginning to leak information that many on the U.S. side want kept classified.”
***

“The security advisor signals for the TV to be turned off. He sits down, and the President stands up and looks around the table.

“In view of the potential extreme urgency of the situation, I am setting tonight’s agenda temporarily aside. I talked just a few minutes ago with Secretary of the Health and Human Services, who confirms that we do indeed have smallpox in Oklahoma City. In fact the latest word I have is that there may be cases up in Pennsylvania and in Georgia as well, although these cases have not yet been confirmed to me by the Secretary. *** We are considering this a bioterrorist attack on the United States.”

Question: Did Ali Al-Timimi know the Dark Winter exercise scenario by reason of being at Discovery Hall of the DARPA-funded Center for Biodefense and sharing a fax and maildrop and water fountain with the leading anthrax scientist and the former deputy commander of USAMRIID?

Presently, Al-Timimi’s prosecution is on remand while the defense is given an opportunity to discover any documents that existed prior to 9/11 about al-Timimi and to address an issue relating to NSA intercepts after 9/11. In May 2007, Ali’s defense counsel has explained to the federal district court, upon a remand by the appeals court, that Mr. Timimi was interviewed by an FBI agent and a Secret Service agent as early as February 1994 in connection with the first World Trade Center attack. The agents left their business cards which the family kept. Defense counsel Turley further explained that “We have people that were contacted by the FBI and told soon after 9/11 that they believed that Dr. Al-Timimi was either connected to 9/11 or certainly had information about Al Qaeda.” The federal prosecutor, Mr. Kromberg responded: “I’d like to clarify something. Mr. MacMahon (Timimi’s earlier defense counsel) never said that the document that he saw showed that there was electronic surveillance. If there was an interview of Ali Timimi in 1994 and he did not say anything exculpatory about what happened in 2001, it’s hard to imagine how that, how that conceivably could be discoverable in 2003 or 2004.” Kromberg continued: “The same thing with the interview after 9/11. The government never denied that the FBI interviewed Al-Timimi nine days after 9/11. Our position was that there was nothing discoverable about that interview.” The court, for its part, weighed in: “Yes, but I think, I think most prosecutors err on the side of caution on that one, because who determines what is relevant? I mean, again, that’s why we have an adversary system.” According to Al-Timimi’s defense counsel in a court filing, Ali “was described to his brother by the FBI within days of the 9-11 attacks as an immediate suspect in the Al Qaeda conspiracy.”

At a conference on countering biological terrorism in 1999 sponsored by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. Dr. Alibek was introduced by a former colleague of Dr. Bailey:

“Dr. Llewellyn: This is rather strange because I just met Dr. Alibek today. He was introduced to me by Dr. Charlie Bailey, who now works for SRA. But Charlie and I were associated with the Army Medical Research and Development Command Defense Program for over 20 years.
***
Dr. Alibek: Thank you very much for your attention.”

Isn’t SRA who Al-Timimi worked for 1999 where he had a high security clearance for work for the Navy? See Milton Viorst’s article “The Education of Ali Al-Timimi. Did Dr. Bailey also work there at SRA in 1999? Did they work together? When I emailed Dr. Bailey in December 2007 to confirm Ali had the room right near his at Discovery Hall he politely referred me to counsel and took no questions. Dr. Alibek and Dr. Popov have told me that Ali is not known to have worked on any biodefense project. Dr. Popova told me I should direct any such questions to Dr. Bailey. Dr. Bailey told me I should direct any questions to University counsel. University counsel declined to answer any questions.

This is one of those uncomfortable questions that Condoleeza Rice in 1999 in writing about bioterrorism the public might have to ask about intelligence matters relating to bioterrorism. Unfortunately, it is easier to ask the question than get any answers from this Administration.

For those interested in reading relevant background material, I recommend Peter Lance’s XXX which addresses an analogous instance of infiltration and the failure of the CIA, US Army and FBI to properly avoid it, and then upon it being discovered, forthrightly address it.

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
SCIENCE ANTHRAX PRESS BRIEFING

Monday, August 18, 2008
2:05 p.m.

1. At the same time that the DOJ and FBI are moving toward making more documents available, it’s still an open investigation and we remain limited today what we can discuss, which will be emphasized, I’m sure, time and time again; and that for a number of reasons. And when that status changes, obviously, there’ll be more information available to you.

***
The attribution process and identification of the specific perpetrator relies on the confluence of intelligence, investigations, and forensic information.

2. DR. BURANS: It’s known that Bacilli are capable of mineralizing different types of elements including silicon, so as early as 1982 Bacilli species Bacilli species have been shown to localize silica within their spore coat.

QUESTION: Can I ask a follow-up?

DR. MAJIDI: It could have been within the growth media.

3. QUESTION: I appreciate that, but can you please tell me what the dry weight percentage was of the silicon?

BACKGROUND OFFICIAL: It was high.

QUESTION: It was high?

BACKGROUND OFFICIAL: Yes.

QUESTION: Which was, according to Dr. Frank Johnson of APHID, consistent with the silica signature, because they did a reference sample of silica before they examined the spores.

4. DR. MICHAEL: They have no indication of exactly where that silica or that silicon oxygen signal — I hesitate to call it silica, because we don’t know how it’s bound together, and EDS does not tell us how it’s bound together.

5. QUESTION: Of the silicant — that gentleman over there, who has not identified himself, said that it was a very significant spike, which is what Maj. Gen. John S. Parker, the commander, former commander, of USAMRMC said upon seeing the APHID analysis.

DR. MICHAEL: It was a significant peak in the x-ray spectra. Yes.

QUESTION: Right. But can you translate that into a number for us, please?

DR. MICHAEL: I would not translate that into a number from an SEM identification. There are significant pitfalls and problems of doing quantitative analysis —

6. QUESTION: Can you explain — did you develop a working theory as to how each of the 22 victims actually came into contact with the attack strains? And in particular, I’m thinking of the elderly woman in Connecticut was a bit of a mystery. What was your working theory as to how the dispersals happened?

DR. MAJIDI: You know, that again, you know, it’s really —the answer is we — some are just, you know, truly unknown to us. We have never found the Florida letter, for example.

7. DR. MAJIDI: You know we really — we really don’t have the — we don’t really have any answers for what process was used to grow additional spores or what methodology was used to dry them. I think that a lot of folks focus on the issue of lyopholizer. You can ask any of the folks and the panel members, and they will tell you that you can dry biological samples in one of dozens of ways. Lyopholizer is one of them. You can let the samples heat-dry. You can let the samples — the water evaporate. You can —

8. QUESTION: And then along those lines, was the subtilies contamination that was in the post —

DR. MAJIDI: Yeah.

QUESTION: Is that found in any of the other — anything else?

DR. MAJIDI: No. Again, you know, the bacillus contamination showed up in one batch, not in the other one, and it really didn’t drive us any place specific.

QUESTION: It didn’t show up in any of the eight matches, any of those samples?

DR. MAJIDI: Pardon?

QUESTION: So the stuff from the letter that matched eight samples — none of those had bacillus —

DR. MAJIDI: No. No.

9 QUESTION: Was he the only person submitted before the subpoena was sent out?

BACKGROUND OFFICIAL: Yes. He was the only one.
***
BACKGROUND OFFICIAL: Let me clarify something first here. The first sample that he submitted was rejected because it was outside of the subpoena process. It didn’t comply with the full instructions of the subpoena.

10. DR. MAJIDI: The total body — the total universe of people at some point were associated with RMR-029 — I’ll qualify that. Roughly, about 100-plus.

QUESTION: Hundred-plus. Were those all at Detrick, or other labs —

DR. MAJIDI: No, they were at Detrick and other labs.

11. DR. MAJIDI: So a hundred people are within the universe of this RMR-1029 sample, and everyone was investigated. We looked a number of different factors that go into the investigation, and we were able to include and exclude specific individuals in that list.

QUESTION: So the forensic evidence narrowed you down to about a hundred people and then other types of evidence —

DR. MAJIDI: Forensic data — to RMR-1029, looking at people who have had access to RMR-1029 reduced that universe to a hundred-plus people, and then as we investigated every individual, we narrowed down our focus.

12. QUESTION: Just dried and then it just — you crumble it somehow? How do you —

DR. HASSELL: You got to understand, there are some national security implications if we give you all the details of the many possible ways to do this. So if we’re hedging a little bit, that’s —

QUESTION: Were the things available to Dr. Ivins? All the devices, were they in his lab, that would have been required to do this?

DR. MAJIDI: It would have been easy to make these samples at RID.

13. QUESTION: All right. But were you —

The reason I’m asking is because of 2004, a Michael Mason, who was the head of, I believe, the Washington Office of the FBI, went on the record and said that the FBI attempt to reverse-engineer the powders at Dugway failed —

DR. MAJIDI: Yeah. He was exclusively talking about the silicon signal.

QUESTION: So — he was exclusively talking a about the silicon signal, not the powders?

DR. MAJIDI: That’s right.

14. QUESTION: If it’s not clear if it was a deception, why did the affidavit label this as a failure to cooperate?

DR. HASSELL: Affidavit is a snapshot in time of what the investigative picture brings to bear. And this should really be looked at only as that. As we develop the case throughout, we may find information post-affidavit that may either support or nullify what’s in an affidavit.

August 30, 2008 at 22:01:56

Kristof Still Doesn’t Get the Anthrax Story: The Justice Department, Bush Science & Our Sorry Media

In his unapologetic apology to Steve Hatfill yesterday, The Media’s Balancing Act, Nicholas Kristof warned that the press should err on the side of sharing what it knows over the consequences to an individual should that report be printed. His premise seems to be that the problem in the anthrax reporting has been caused by the press printing “what it knows.” Kristof appealed to the need for journalistic balance in order to serve the public good.

I don’t know how an employee of the New York Times can still cling to such an idea, let alone, forward it in public. Judith Miller was not a public servant — can we agree on that? I still have the email former Public Editor Okrent sent to hundreds of us when we asked why the Times would not cover election theft in Ohio 2004. He assured us the Times would cover the story if one developed. Of course, he said that while the Times sat on the Bush Administration’s illegal wiretapping and to my knowledge, the Times has not covered the layers of corruption since peeled off of that election and the paper has not apologized in any way for either our stolen election or for shrugging off readers who asked for the paper to do its job.

The problem in our press is not that it prints what it knows. In the case of Dr. Ivins, the trial in the press has been replete with the press sharing what it does not know. The L.A. Times printed that Ivins stood to gain monetarily from the vaccine he was fixing and that he broadcast anthrax to save his job. That turns out to be a massive distortion coupled to an outright falsehood. Ivins’ job was secure and he didn’t stand to gain much if we used that vaccine or the one he had in development. The AP printed that Dr. Ivins suspiciously did not report a spill in his lab. Untrue, he reported it to his Ethics officer. The Washington Post printed that he had taken time off on 9/17/01 to mail the deadly envelopes. That turned out to be physically impossible: he was in Frederick at the time. Where is the balance in this reporting?

So, it’s not a matter of “humanizing” the so called suspect or of adopting his viewpoint, as Kristof says, but of doing basic due diligence before running with these very serious allegations. Dr. Ivins has been prosecuted in the press with more impunity than Steve Hatfill was, although the FBI’s case against him is even more flimsy. The larger question here isn’t what the press knows but if the press can learn to distinguish a fact from a smear, no matter where that smear originates. In my reading about this case in our press, I’ve been struck with the repetition of talking points the FBI has put out. Here’s one example of the career of the meme “compelling”:

NPR August, 6, 2008: Jeff Taylor, US Attorney, Gonzalez appointee and host for the FBI briefing: “So, again, circumstantial evidence? Sure, some of it is. But it’s compelling evidence and our view is we are confident it would have helped us prove this case against Dr. Ivins beyond a reasonable doubt.”

AP August 18, 2008: Daschle said the most compelling evidence to him is the odd, extended hours that the Army scientist kept shortly after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

New York Times August 16, 2008: In its case against Dr. Ivins, the F.B.I. developed a compelling profile of an erratic, mentally troubled man who could be threatening and obsessive, as in his odd fascination with a sorority from his college days. But investigators were never able to place him at the New Jersey mailboxes where the anthrax letters were dropped, and the case against him relied at its heart on the scientific evidence linking the anthrax in Dr. Ivins’ laboratory to the spores used in the attacks.

Star Ledger: “I am persuaded, unless I’m missing something, there is a compelling case they at least got the one right guy,” Smith said. “They claim there’s no evidence whatsoever that there was an accomplice, but our hope is that they still keep looking to make sure there wasn’t.” click here

AP August 8, 2008: Mark Cunningham, a New York Post op-ed editor, one of three staffers there who were sickened by an anthrax-tainted letter, said he also was convinced about the government’s case against Ivins. . . “The case is circumstantial but compelling,” Cunningham wrote. “I’m glad they’re keeping the case open, to tie up loose ends, make absolutely certain he acted alone, and all the rest. But I have my closure.”

“The scientific evidence is compelling,” says Rita R. Colwell, former director of the National Science Foundation, which funded some of the research behind the investigation. It is impressive how all the different scientific aspects came together, she says. http://pubs.acs.org/cen/n ews/86/i34/8634notw1.html

Nature Magazine August 21, 2008: “Haigwood said FBI agents were “very ethical and above board.” And reading their case files convinced her they have the right suspect. “The evidence was compelling,” she said.”

Did our press know this “evidence” was compelling? Even if the phrase is a direct quote, the fact that it went unchallenged so often argues a kind of innocence no reporter should aspire to. No one included the caveat, for example, “Nancy Haigwood has not seen Dr. Ivins in twenty-five years and her outfit depends on millions of dollars in annual federal grants.” The FBI’s phrase was just churned out, over and over, as if the language was somehow losing syllables.

In other words, Nick, please share your fears and facts with your public. But clearly label your fears so they don’t get spammed all across the country in factual drag as the report that Bruce Ivins was a homicidal sociopath was spammed when the source was a low level mental health worker/recovering addict/FBI witness. It was never interrogated by anyone in the press before being broadcast and it still hasn’t been questioned in any substantive manner. Only Bruce Ivins’ life as he led it contradicts the hundreds of repetitions of “what the press knew”.

There’s something else here, too, that is so huge we can’t see it. I’ve yet to see a single caveat in the press regarding the FBI’s scientific “findings” in the Ivins case that no scientist outside the government will validate and in the context of the documented manipulation of science itself by the Bush Administration. This administration’s suppression, falsifying and censoring of science has been read into the Congressional Record. Surely the press has access to that body of facts. Surely as a mere civilian I’m not the only one that has read or heard or witnessed the iron control the Bush Administration has exerted over government scientists in the last eight years? Anyone with access to a search engine can search “Bush censors scientists” and come up with hundreds of hits such as this one:

SCIENCE-US: Top Scientists Want Research Free From Politics
By Adrianne Appel

BOSTON, Feb 14 (IPS) - Leading U.S. scientists called on Congress Thursday to make sure the next president does not do what they say the George W. Bush Administration has done: censor, suppress and falsify important environmental and health research.

NPR reported that the Department of Justice is going to amend its indictment against Aafia Siddiqui, perhaps on the occasion of her September 3, 2008 bail hearing. We have heard vague unsubstantiated allegations that she wanted to kill former Presidents with an unspecified biological pathogen.

When the Department of Defense recently issued formal charges against Al Qaeda members who were involved in plotting 9/11, former CIA Director George Tenet noted in his 2007 book: “The most startling revelation from this intelligence success story was that the anthrax program had been developed in parallel to 9/11 planning.” It is interesting, therefore, to consider what an operative like Aafia knew or thought about anthrax. It is worth keeping in mind the background of that case to see if there was an intersection between this Al Qaeda supporter and the stream of genetically matching “Ames strain” isolates downstream from Ivins’ flask.

When various non-pilot hijackers purchased their tickets in late May 2001 and June 2001, they listed the phone number of Al-Baluchi, the future husband of Brandeis PhD Aafia Siddiqui, as their contact number. He was in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Later in June 2001, other hijackers listed al Hawsawi. Al-Hawsawi’s was KSM’s assistant. KSM says it was al-Hawsawi’s computer that had the anthrax spraydrying documents.

Al-Hawsawi was in Dubai with Aafia’s future husband. In the formal charges, the Department of Defense alleges that Al Hawsawi and Al-Baluchi (Ali Abdul Aziz Ali) both assisted the non-pilot hijackers by buying clothes, food, lodging, rental cars, traveler’s checks and making travel arrangements. Al-Baluchi (Ali Abdul Aziz Ali) returned to Karachi from Dubai on June 26, 2001. Al-Baluchi told KSM, who was his uncle, that he was willing to do anything to help the Planes Operation. KSM advised him to also apply for a visa. In late August 2001, he applied for travel to the US on September 4, 2001 but his visa was rejected. On September 10, 2001, al-Baluchi flew from Dubai, United Arab Emirates to Karachi. If his travel visa for travel to the US had been accepted, what would have been his role? He later married the pious Aafia Siddiqui, a Brandeis PhD, in the spring of 2003, shortly before his capture.

Al-Hawsawi had taken over for KSM upon KSM’s capture a couple months earlier. Had al-Baluchi known Aafia Siddiqui prior to 9/11? Did Aafia have foreknowledge of 9/11? Is it true she met anthrax planning head Atef in June 2001 in Africa? Aafia’s attorney once said she could prove Aafia was in the US in June 2001. Aafia’s family, however, prevailed upon the attorney not to subpoena Aafia’s credit card records as she had planned. Aafia left the US for Pakistan in a hurry on September 19, 2001, booking the first available flight. Was Aafia in US custody at Bagram as Aafia’s family and lawyer claims (picked up in May 2003)? Was she instead in ISI custody in Pakistan? Or was she instead on the lam? Why was ISI refusing to cooperate with the CIA as happened with Ayman Zawahiri’s anthrax infiltrator Rauf Ahmad, the scientist who infiltrated the UK biodefense establishment?

As I’ve said for years, the forensic evidence most useful in proving the source of the acquisition of the Ames strain was going to be the inverted plasmid and mixed strain. Dr. Read, a scientist helping with the Amerithrax investigation in the DNA sequencing, long ago published the news that the anthrax was a 50/50 mixture of genotype 62 (Ames) and genotype 62 with an inversion on the plasmid. At Houston, where Aafia has a connection, graduate student Melissa Drysdale at Theresa Koehler’s lab in Houston in Spring 2001 — just as the lab was ramping up to BL-3 — rendered a strain virulent from avirulent by inserting the virulent plasmid into an avirulent strain. Did Aafia visit Houston in June 2001 after she finished her PhD? There was a massive flood at the lab then and the doors were left propped open. Alternatively, did she have access at Brandeis where they were doing research with virulent anthrax?

In early November 2005, an Assistant United States Attorney said in his opening argument in the prosecution of Uzair Paracha, that an unnamed woman, if asked would “help carry out a deadly Anthrax attack against the United States.’” It earlier had been reported that the defendant, Uzair Paracha, had agreed to help KSM and an operative in connection with some ID documents. The AUSA was referring to Al Qaeda supporter Aafia Siddiqui. One ACLU lawyer representing the family described the doe-eyed Aafia as a soccer mom driving a Volvo.

In early 2002, Aafia Siddiqui had opened up the Post Office box that was to be used in connection with the documents. In January 2002, she was still married to her husband when she came back to the US, interviewed at SUNY and John Hopkins, and opened up a PO Box in Maryland for operative Majid Khan. She filed for divorce from her husband in 2002. Her divorce came through in August 2002.

Aafia Siddiqui studied neurological science and has studied at MIT and Brandeis University in Massachusetts, as well as at Houston, Texas. The Wall Street Journal has reported that according to witnesses discussed in a UN dossier, Aafia Siddiqui reportedly met with Al Qaeda’s military commander, Atef, in Liberia in June 2001. There is a difference of opinion as to whether the key witness is credible. Although he drove the woman around, perhaps chis desire for a visa to the US influenced his recollection when he saw Aafia’s picture in the paper. Aafia’s attorney emphasizes that witness identifications are inherently unreliable.

In Maryland, Aafia visited a cousin in Gaithersburg and helped Majid Khan in connection with possible attacks by opening a mailbox in his and her name. Her family argues that it is her husband, Mohammed Ahmad Khan, who has made her look guilty — for example, by using her e-mail account to bcuy night goggles and a book on how to make explosives. According to one report, Aafia left for Pakistan on September 19, 2001 and so was not in the country at the time of the second mailing. She returned from Pakistan briefly for interviews. At last report, she had 3 children.

She and her ex-husband, a Harvard-trained anesthesiologist at last report living in Karachi, were officers of Institute of Islamic Research and Teaching Inc. In the mid-1990s, she worked for the United Islamic Organization (”UIO”), an education and relief organization. Her mother was President and her sister also volunteered. Through the group, for example, Siddiqui raised money for Bosnian refugees and the widows and orphans from that conflict. The organization was founded in Zambia in 1974 by Ismat Siddiqui. Its head office is in Karachi, Pakistan and on paper has branches in the United States, Canada, and Saudi Arabia. Perhaps the reality is as the family’s first attorney described to me: Aafia’s father set up the charity as something for the mom to do, who ran it out of her home. Any branch offices were run out of residences. In addition, Siddiqui was found to be active with the Al-Kifah Refugee Center, the Boston branch of an Islamic charity that was ostensibly raising funds for Bosnian orphans but which also was under scrutiny by federal investigators as a front for Al Qaeda and whose Brooklyn office was associated with the Blind Sheikh.

In April 2003, Aafia’s mom, Ismat, said she last saw her daughter on March 30, 2003 before Aafia left in a minicab along with her three children to go to the capital Islamabad. She was going to visit a friend and uncle. She called her mom from the train station — she did not have money for plane tickets. (Rail by far is the easiest and most efficient means of traveling to Islamabad, far in the north). She never made it to see her uncle. Pakistani government officials tried to calm her fears — telling her to be “patient and not rely on media reports” about Aafia’s fate. The authorities have denied having Siddiqui in custody prior to last month. Then they took her to a conference room and shot her in the gut. Let the marine explain that one to his mom.

“Rest assured, my daughter has nothing to do with al-Qaeda or any other organization,” Ismat said. In April 2003, when reporting the disappearance, she said neither Khan nor any member of his family had been in touch since she vanished. She claims Aafia’s husband abused her, a charge that the husband’s brother and father denies.

Her family has an explanation that this is all a case of mistaken identity.
Even as recent as this month, the young boy established by DNA to be her son was claimed not to be related.

Back in 2003, Ismat Siddiqui, Aafia’s mother, reported that a stranger came to her house and told her that her daughter was safe and that she should not raise a “hue and cry” for her release. She says he told her not “make too much noise about Aafia if you want her to return safely.” He also threatened her that if she made the matter public, her daughter would meet the “same fate as Asif Bhuja met.” (Bhuja was a suspect in the murder of Danny Pearl but was found dead when police arrived to question him; Saud Memon, the man who owned the property where Pearl was kept was later reported to have been involved in financing Al Qaeda’s anthrax efforts and years after being captured was left for dead on his family’s doorstep.)

A family member in the US hired an attorney who has inquired of the FBI as to Aafia’s whereabouts but the FBI reported that they did not have her in custody. Aafia Siddiqui’s family has long-standing ties with the family of Pakistan religious affairs minister Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq. Ul-Haq’s late father — Gen. Zia ul-Haq — gave Izmat Siddiqui, Aafia’’s mother, a government post after he seized power in 1977 and set up a new court system to enforce sharia. The religious affairs minister Ijaz ul-Haq told The New Yorker that his family respected Aafia’s mother because she “is a religious scholar.” When ul-Haq’s own son attended college in Boston, Aafia Siddiqui fixed him home-cooked meals. Hopefully, if experience is a guide, we may learn that the Pakistan ISI had her in custody and treated her well — and that any questioners were respectful and merely subjected her to secondhand smoke.

An Interior Ministry spokesman confirmed in late May 2004 that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, allegedly involved in terrorist activities, had been arrested in 2003 from Karachi and handed over to the US authorities. Just three days later on May 26, 2004, Director Mueller and Attorney General Ashcroft held a press conference announcing she was an Al Qaeda operative and they were looking for her (even though some were suggest the ISI or CIA already had her in custody for over a year). Aafia’s mother and sister at last report no longer communicated with the uncle who wrote an intriguing pair of letters to a Pakistan paper. The ACLU lawyer advised me that Aafia’s mom and sister deemed that his actions — in raising a fuss — were not in Aafia’s best interests.

Aafia has spent a lot of time in front of a keyboard and so she may have left quite a paper trail. Her mom said she had gone to Rawalpindi and elsewhere in Pakistan. Her mother blames her son-in-law but the FBI’s interest is greater in Aafia. When told by someone at the Roxbury mosque that the FBI did not know her as they knew her, the agent responded “You don’t know her like we know her.”

In the Fall of 2003, Fowzia left her position at John Hopkins in neurology to return to Pakistan. In the Spring, she inquired of a government official as to Aafia’s whereabouts and was told she had already been released and should go home and wait for a call — but the call never came. The Pakistan Interior Minister has said: “You will be astonished to know about the activities of Dr Aafia (Siddiqui).”

According to this report, Aafia was with her three children when detained. The family’s attorney denies that the three children are with relatives.

In 1995, Aafia wrote this:

“Pakistani govt. has officially joined the gang of our typical contemporary govts. of Muslim countries. I mean Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and the likes of them… Here’s what I read in this Friday’s issue of the “Muslim News,” something that was confirmed a few days earlier by some articles in local papers like The Boston Globe and the New York Times etc: “BENAZIR ASKS FOR THE WEST’S HELP AGAINST ‘EXTREMISM’. Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan’s prime minister, called on the west to help eradicate religious opposition. She said that Pakistan is a “moderate” Islamic country and it is the first defense line against “terrorism,” and hence needs international support. She added that the arrest of Ramzi Yousef and giving him to the United States is a simple proof. [Ramzi Yousef was the mentor of al-Baluchi, Aafia’s future husband]. She added that Pressler’s amendment deprived Pakistan from U.S. aid and helped strengthen ‘religious violence.’”

“That was before she became a house frau,” the family’s ACLU attorney pointed out to me. But is it accurate to suggest that just because someone has primary responsibility for child care that they suddenly are no longer political?

Aafia’s sister Fowzia, a respected neurologist involved in diagnosing and treating epilepsy, was at John Hopkins until her concern for Aafia’s welfare became too pressing a matter. She too, along with her mom, for a time was locked inside the family home incommunicado even as to a distraught uncle. The Pakistan Interior Minister once said at a press conference: “You will be astonished to know about the activities of Dr Aafia (Siddiqui).” Her uncle wrote two informative letters to the editor at a Pakistan paper. His sister and niece were not under house arrest as he speculated — which leaves the inference they just didn’t hear the knocking at the door, weren’t at home, or just weren’t interested in communicating on the subject.

At last report in 2003, the ex-husband is alive and well in Karachi according to the ACLU attorney. At last report, Aafia’s mom, sister and brother reportedly did not know the whereabouts of Aafia’s children. The ACLU Attorney Lamoreaux advised me that she knows of no basis to the suggestion, first made by a Southern Florida television station, that Aafia knew “Jafar the Pilot.” (The civil rights attorney who represented Muhammad reports that although the Pakistan press has said she was a member of the “Chemical Wire Group,” Aafia in fact does not know anything about chemicals.)

In US News & World Report, attorney Lamoreaux is quoted as saying that Siddiqui doesn’t fit the profile. “A woman with children, wearing a hijab, driving a Volvo,” scoffs Lamoreaux. “Is that how al Qaeda is recruiting, now, at playgrounds?” The US News story noted “The FBI says the information from those early investigations is classified.” Lamoreaux adds: “The FBI often fans sparks into flames. But it looks to me like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed knew enough about her to know her name. It wasn’t Jane Doe or Jane Smith. That does strike me as odd.”

Did Aafia have potential access to the collection of anthrax strains at Brandeis and did that long-held collection include Ames? On March 11, 2002, the Brandeis General Counsel sent an email advising that the federal authorities had subpoenaed records in connection with the investigation of the anthrax crimes.

In November 2001, the Hazmat Team and the State Department of Health was called after three researchers were doing research with anthrax and Administration officials were concerned there might be contamination. The scientists were confident all scientific protocols had been followed but Hazmat was called nonetheless. The research had been done after the anthrax mailings seeking means to detect anthrax spores. The anthrax used had been at Brandeis a long time, acquired at a time before federal regulations in 1997 required that transfers be recorded. The lab was in the Kalman Building, part of the complex of buildings adjoining the Volen Center. Brandeis researchers Daniel Perlman and Inga Mahler had “decided to focus on developing a solid growth medium for cultivating B. anthracis that might be usable in the field with a minimum of equipment. They further developed the growth medium for use at room temperature thereby obviating the need for equipment such as incubators for sustaining an elevated temperature.” The pair obtained a patent issued March 2004 titled “Selective growth medium for Bacillus anthracis and methods of use.” The FBI WMD head has said that the silicon dioxide may have been in the culture medium.

Dr. Perlman has been innovative on a wide range of consumer products; Dr. Mahler had published on the subject of gram positive and gram negative bacteria (the subject underlying the patent) in the Journal of Bacteriology in 1989. Dr. Mahler advises me that the strain of Bacillus anthracis they used in December 2001 was ordered by her group at Brandeis almost 40 years ago. It came from the American Type Culture Collection and was kept viable, together with other stock strains. She explains that before 9/11 you could simply obtain the organism from culture collections or colleagues. Their offices are in Abelson-Bass-Yalem, adjoining the Volen Center where Aafia’s lab was located. The strain used, Dr. Mahler advises (referred to in the paper as MC 607) — MC stands for Rosenstiel Center — was Vollum, not Ames. Vollum is a strain that like Ames is used to challenge vaccines. It is less lethal but was used by the US in the 1950s in making anthrax weapons. Dr. Mahler reports she knows of no Ames on campus. Dr. Perlman did not respond to an email query. The anthrax was autoclaved, or inactivated in a pressure cooker, before the inspectors arrived at the scene.

Aafia obtained her PhD from Brandeis in 2001, having graduated from MIT with a degree in biology in 1994. The Visual Lab at which Aafia worked had rules: “No Hitting, No Punching, No Pushing, No Grabbing, No Biting.” Judging from its internet page, the lab seems to have been a pleasant place to work. The operating manual instructed that if you don’t know “ask.” The lab’s work under Robert Sekuler, mainly funded by a grant from the NIH, related to how we remember, forget, or misremember things. Aafia’s 2001 183-page thesis “Separating the components of imitation,” which concerns visual learning and visual discrimination, was very far removed from questions like the Palestinian conflict or creating a fine powder using a mini-spraydryer.

In the first year of their Ph.D. program, students do 4 nine-week rotations in different laboratories of their choosing. First-year course work includes a core class in principles of neuroscience, and intensive graduate level seminars that give students experience in reading original research literature and making oral presentations. Graduate research advisors are typically chosen at the end of the first year. So one question is: what different labs did Aafia work in during her first year? It is related to the question: what is the origin of the anthrax spraydrying documents on the laptop of the colleague of Aafia’s future husband al-Balucchi?