Posted on 01/16/2002 12:22:02 PM PST by Who is George Salt?
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The recent spate of potentially deadly anthrax mailings is being investigated chiefly as suspected U.S. domestic terrorism, not a foreign plot, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said on Sunday.
"I believe the direction of the investigation has gone ... more toward internal, domestic terrorists than external," he said on the CNN program "Late Edition."
"I think our natural inclination was to look to external terrorists, but the primary direction of the investigation is turned inward," Ridge added. He said he himself initially suspected a link to the terror attacks on Sept. 11.
Mailed anthrax spores have killed five people in the United States since October, including a Florida photo editor, two Washington postal workers, a New York City hospital worker and an elderly Connecticut woman.
Ridge predicted foreign guerrillas would remain a threat even after the crushing of Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, prime suspect in the suicide airline hijacks that killed about 3,100 people.
"We will get Osama bin Laden and we will dismantle al Qaeda, but I'm afraid that there will be successor organizations, and we have to be prepared to deal with them," he said.
Ridge said Richard Reid, a 28-year-old Briton accused of trying to destroy a transatlantic flight by setting off explosives in his shoes last month, appeared to have been linked to a group, not acting on his own.
"He had some support," Ridge said. "And time will tell if we can directly link him to a specific organization or not."
"I believe they've made some connections" to Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent who was the first man charged in connection with the Sept. 11 plot, Ridge said.
Responding to a New York Times report on the government's sale of documents on turning germs into weapons, Ridge suggested the Bush administration was moving toward curbing access to such materials.
"So that's a priority for us, and we're working on it," he said.
U.S. research on offensive germ warfare agents was ended in the late 1960s. But months into the declared U.S.-led war on terrorism, the government still makes available on the Internet hundreds of once-secret documents on building biological weapons.
-- Martin Lindstedt,
-- Director of Political Warfare, 7th Missouri Militia
"My view of the future is that we are facing now a biological apocalypse. It is coming. The Bible says that it is coming."
-- Larry Wayne Harris
-- "Lieutenant" (1990-1995), Aryan Nations
"Why pay to recruit troops and build factories to wage war and kill for you when nature can do it for free? Or, if you can make Jell-O, you can wipe out cities. Enjoy!"...
"... If this government continues to do this to people, they're going to have a lot more Tim McVeighs and Tim Tobiasons."
-- Timothy W. Tobiason, author of Scientific Principles of Improvised Warfare and Home Defense Volume 6-1: Advanced Biological Weapons Design and Manufacture
A much more likely connection is to good old bill clinton and his pals in the anthrax-defense industry, such as Bioport. Clinton, Crowe, and company have a big interest in selling anthrax vaccine to the government.
I expect Tom Ridge and the clintonoids at the top of the FBI will continue to mutter about Jerry Falwell, right-to-lifers and right-wing Christians, while failing to find the actual culprit--since I suspect that the actual culprit has much too good political connections to be caught.
I'm guessing, of course, based in part on the rumors floated in Geneva and the biologist convention. But I fail to see how any of the organizations you name could possibly get their hands on that kind of anthrax.
1. They stole it.
2. They got it from their neo-Nazi brethern in Europe.
Or, it could have come from a lab worker. I hadn't seriouly entertained this possibility until I read that as a matter of course, all government employees working on anthrax projects received vaccinations, which makes it a lot harder to find them by looking for someone who is sick from accidental exposure. Right now, I seriously think this is the most likely possibility.
Hate to shoot the theory about the wonders of this vaccine, but the anthrax vaccine is not for inhalation anthrax. Now, protective gear is something to consider.
I just wanted you to get the right FACTS.
Not true. I direct you to the U.S. Military web site on the topic:
Of course, there is no ethical way to put the hypothesis of its efficacy to the test. The primate data, however, would strongly indicate that the vaccine would have a positive impact in humans, and in this case, the primate model looks pretty solid.
I realize that you may be against the vaccine for any number of reasons, but to say flat out that it has no effectiveness against inhalation anthrax would be incorrect. Efficacy against inhalation anthrax in humans has not been proved or disproved.
I agree! They will be testing again but don't force protect. If someone wants to be a guinea pig, they have that right. But to continue in the lie and tell everyone it is safe and effective has no meaning. This is the mantra and people believe it until they are given the real facts. On one hand groups such as the military are told one thing and the postal members are told something different. In other words, they don't know.
I haven't seen any government documents claiming that it was effective for inhalation anthrax in humans. They do note (rightly) that there seems to be excellent protection in primates.
As for safety, the bulk of the research I've read suggests that the vaccine is safe for most people in most instances. I think the site I directed you to earlier provides pretty good documentation of established risks. Again, if we go by what the studies have shown in controlled environments, the vaccine has a pretty good safety profile.
DoD doesn't have the facts on their side, just the rhetoric and the funding.
Please review the the facts straight out of the Citizens Petition and the Declaratory Judgement lawsuit. The facts are they've broken the law.
You can find them at the sites I listed. Over and out!
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