Scientist's anthrax claim was bogus

Milwaulkee Journal Sentinel ^ | October 4, 2001 | GRETCHEN SCHULDT

[Alamo-Girl]

I agree the FBI has probably done this, but I haven't seen the Atta diaries at all...

[Mitchell]

I've seen photos of the statements (diaries?) he left behind. They're in Arabic, on lined paper. I'll see if I can find the link. Everything was in the Arabic alphabet.

[Nogbad]

Although I prefer to stick to facts and not speculate,
my personal hunch is that Atta was the mastermind
in charge of all details of the operation,
though he might have sent back reports to uncle Osama
(and uncle Saddam?)
from time to time.

[Clinton's a rapist]

Uncle Osama may not even have been in the loop on the anthrax. He always had the option to run and hide somewhere else once we came after him. Uncle Saddam, OTH, is in a much tighter spot.

[Alamo-Girl]

I'm not qualified to analyze them, but I'm verrrry curious what they look like!

[Clinton's a rapist]

Check out this thread: U.S. not ready to go after Hussein

Can you say "stalemate"? I knew you could.

[Robert357]

An interesting story, but there are too many holes. Any individual, who is trying to grow and mill anthrax is likely to become contaiminated if he is handling the quantities in the two congressional letters in anything less than a specialized laboratory. That would mean that source of the anthrax, has to be someone on an anti-biotic regiment that is pretty strict for an extended period of time. Also the place where the work is being done is likely contaminated.

An alternative is that the anthrax was from a military lab or country sponsored lab. In that case it could have been transported in a sealed container and carefully transferred to the very few letters (2 congressional, two news related) that were the cause of so much harm. If that was the case then the anti-clumping binding agent should be a real clue as to the source of the anthrax.

On the other hand, if the binder is not recognized by the FBI, the anthrax could be totally home grown by someone like this. Earlier information on the Dashel letter indicated it was likely a bentonite quantity (which is associated within Iraqu.)

[Clinton's a rapist]

Of course it's baloney. What's interesting is that the government is pushing a third course of baloney. First we had the "mountain stream" angle (lasted about a month), then we switched to the "right-wing homebrew" line (lasted about a month), and now we have this "renegade scientist" nonsense (shall we give it about a month?). The real story here is, why do they keep BS-ing us about the anthrax? Not that I blame them, mind you -- I don't think they have much choice, under the circumstances -- but that's the question you have to ask yourself if you want to understand what's really going on.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the flag.

Tracking down the source of the anthrax letters seems to be very difficult.

To find all articles tagged or indexed using Anthrax_Scare_List

Go here: Anthrax_Scare_List

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I seem to recall there were some photographs of Atta's diaries.
Does anyone have them or a link to them?

Were they written in English?

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I see the answer to my question at post # 22 by Mitchell

[Clinton's a rapist]

Tracking down the source of the anthrax letters seems to be very difficult.

"Seems" is the operative word. Actually, it looks like we've had one of the mailers -- perhaps the mailer -- in custody for about six weeks. His name is Allah Rakah, and he was arrested by the FBI on November 2.

Unfortunately, he was almost certainly just a mule. If the "real thing" is out there, the chances are we have no idea where the would-be human ICBM(s) are, and there is practically nothing we can do about it.

[John H K]

Of course it's baloney. What's interesting is that the government is pushing a third course of baloney. First we had the "mountain stream" angle (lasted about a month)

No, that lasted about 1 or 2 days. But hey, when you need to invent strawmen to argue against, what does the truth matter?

[Mitchell]

...the very few letters (2 congressional, two news related) that were the cause of so much harm.

In addition to these, there are at least two unexplained anthrax incidents, and therefore two undiscovered letters (assuming all the anthrax was delivered by letter).

These were at American Media in FL (the first incident, in which two people got inhalation anthrax and one of them died) and ABCNews in NY (where a visiting baby contracted cutaneous anthrax).

People remembered a couple of strange letters at American Media, although it's not known if one of those was actually the anthrax letter. I haven't read that there's even a clue about the ABCNews incident, although the supposition would be that a letter to ABC was mailed at the same time as the Tom Brokaw and NY Post letters.

[Mitchell]

Can you say "stalemate"? I knew you could.

I caught part of an interview with Tom Daschle earlier today. He was asked what he thought of the idea of going to war with Iraq. He said that now wasn't the time, that it would have unfortunate consequences that he wasn't sure we could endure. (This is from memory, so it's not an exact quote. But it's the gist of what he said, and, in particular, I was struck by his unusual use of the word "endure", which he definitely said.)

Interpretation: A person who receives as much anthrax in the mail as he did, with a warning letter, understands the implicit threat.

[Clinton's a rapist]

Actually, eleven days. Then we went through the "criminal but not terrorist-connected" phase of BS, transitional between the "mountain stream" BS and the "right-wing homebrew" BS -- a stage I elided for the sake of brevity. Why don't you ever address the arrest of Allah Rakah? Why don't you address the coincidence in location of the first anthrax victims and the 9/11 hijacker nest? Why do you think the ABC News story you were crowing over earlier today touts a two-and-a-half-month old red herring like this inebriated scientist's lawn mower incident? Why do you always run away from these threads whenever anybody asks you a difficult question?

[Clinton's a rapist]

Interesting. Someone here mentioned that Charles Krauthaummer also made some statements along those lines in a TV interview a few weeks ago. Saddam has motive, means, and opportunity. His deterrence plan seems close to foolproof, as far as I can see. My predictions stand: we won't be arresting a "domestic" anthrax culprit or attacking Iraq anytime soon.

[Clinton's a rapist]

The claims for precise genotyping of Ames sub-strains seem to be evaporating, too, as well as the initially impressive suggestion that the FBI has a credible "rogue scientist" suspect, debunked above. See Scientists say genetic analysis not likely to crack anthrax investigation.

[Mitchell]

I found it, at the FBI web site -- here's a link to the Arabic writings that three of the hijackers left behind.

However, it turns out that this is probably not a sample of Atta's handwriting. First of all, there were 3 of these documents; according to a newspaper article, these 3 were similar but not identical; I don't know which of these 3 is pictured in the FBI page above -- it doesn't seem to say (the FBI page implies that the 3 are identical).

The newspaper article also gives an analysis of one of the writings (Alhazmi's). What the article says is quite surprising -- I'll find it and post it also. Supposedly these writings were dictated to a woman by either a non-native speaker of Arabic or an uneducated Arab. They're said to be confused in nature, not exactly suicide notes or instructions for terrorists; it's not clear what they are.

[Mitchell]

Here's the post I promised on the Arabic documents. I don't think these are, in fact, relevant to the anthrax letters, but the analysis provided by the three Arabic scholars borders on bizarre. It's worth taking a look at.