Posted on 10/18/2001 10:03:26 AM PDT by FresnoDA
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| Saddam Hussein |
LONDON - The hunt for the source of the weapons grade anthrax that shut down the heart of the United States political establishment yesterday has already produced many false trails.
Much of the focus has been on Iraq, but the world's leading germ warfare experts say the finger of suspicion points more directly at Russia's rundown military industrial complex.
If the finger of suspicion falls on any one country "the obvious one is Russia, it's a league ahead of Iraq", said one senior adviser to United Nations weapons inspectors for Iraq.
Other countries thought to be working on a biological weapons programme include Iran, North Korea, Libya, Cuba, Egypt and Pakistan.
Unemployed top Russian scientists who helped run the Soviet Union's illegal and secret germ warfare programme appear to be a likely source of the anthrax outbreak in the US. It is known that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network has tried to buy ingredients for weapons of mass destruction in Russia.
The secret Russian germ warfare programme was set up in the 1970s to allow Moscow to cheat on its treaty commitments to destroy all its anthrax and other germ warfare stocks. Experts believe that parts of that vast programme are still operating.
The scientists who worked on the programme at the Biopreparat agency - and who were thrown out of work when it was officially disbanded in 1992 - may have sold their secrets on the open market.
The full extent of Russia's cheating was revealed to the CIA by the deputy director of Biopreparat, Ken Alibek, when he defected in 1992.
Alibek has described how the Soviet Union churned out two tonnes of anthrax a day at Stepanagorsk in his native Kazakhstan, and how the Russians covered up an 1979 anthrax outbreak in the Urals.
He told a US Congressional committee last week that "there are pieces of Biopreparat that are still running - some with a very high level of secrecy".
He also said that no one knows where up to 50 Russian scientists with anthrax weaponisation secrets might be now.
"Any dedicated individual can learn how to make weapons-grade anthrax. If they had an adviser, it would be easier," said Dick Spertzl, a biowarfare expert in the US. But turning the laboratory-produced liquid into the powder spores is much more tricky. "The knowledge of drying is not that common."
Experts said Iraq had concentrated on the liquid variety of anthrax, which could infect its victims via so-called "drop tanks" or aerosols. Only three countries, Iraq, the US and Russia, have weaponised anthrax. Britain said in 1956 that it was ending its offensive anthrax programme.
A highly potent, finely milled anthrax powder has infected almost 30 staff of the US Senate.
Sources have variously described the powder which has hit four US cities as "weapons grade", "high quality" and "professional".
The US abandoned its own offensive programme in 1969, and says it is concentrating on bio-defence.
Iraq is believed to possess at least 8.4 tonnes of concentrated anthrax in liquid form, despite telling UN weapons inspectors that all stocks had been destroyed in 1991. Like Russia, it has a concealment programme to hide its germ warfare programme.
The spokesman for the UN inspectors charged with disarming Iraq, Ewen Buchanan, said: "We had concerns that Iraq was attempting to store it as a dry product, but no hard evidence."
Three of the 19 hijackers of the September 11 attacks have been linked to Chechnya and the ringleader, Mohamed Atta, twice met an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague. But US officials said such meetings did not prove Iraq's involvement.
Why might Saddam Hussein cooperate with terrorists bent on attacking the US, in the knowledge that the Americans would retaliate with a devastating strike?
One UN adviser said that Iraq, which has won widespread Arab support in its bid to break out of the 10-year-old UN sanctions, had "too much at stake" to take part in such action.
NewsMax.comWEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- On the advice of President Vladmir Putin, Russian officials and prominent Russian citizens have been canceling travel plans to the United States.
Thursday, Oct. 18, 2001
The advisory prompts concerns about whether the Russian government knows of more terrorist attacks planned against America.
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev has postponed a U.S. speaking tour at the urging of President Putin's office, citing security concerns, the Palm Beach Post reported Wednesday.
"Russian President Vladimir Putin apparently is prohibiting nearly all government officials from flying to the United States during the next three weeks," the Omaha World-Herald said Oct. 10.
Omaha is another city where Gorbachev has canceled a planned speaking engagement.
NewsMax.com's Russia expert Col. Stanislav Lunev told us: "It's very interesting and could mean that Russian intelligence received information about new terrorist attacks against America, which could come anytime soon and include attacks against U.S. civilian airplanes as well as Americans in the areas which could be visited by Russian and other officials.
Lunev, the highest-ranking spy ever to defect from Russia's GRU Directorate (military intelligence), noted that Putin promised, in the aftermath of Sept. 11, to fully cooperate with the U.S.
The advisory suggests, Lunev said, that Putin may have information not being shared with the U.S. government. His advisory also undermines international confidence in the U.S.
A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington told the Post he had no idea why Gorbachev's visits were canceled.
Cities on the itinerary included West Palm Beach -- near the anthrax infections at American Media Inc. in Boca Raton -- and Omaha and Lincoln, Neb.
Gorbachev's booking agents in New York City tried but could not persuade him to go ahead with the trip, the World-Herald said.
Lunev noted that the idea Russia has advanced, significant knowledge of terrorist acts should come as no surprise. Russia has been the key backer for almost all nations identified by the State Department as state sponsors of terrorism, including Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria.
Reports in several papers have already tied bin Laden's network to Russian "mafia" groups. Lunev believes that such groups are merely fronts for Russian intelligence agencies.
Another indication of Russia's knowledge of terrorist acts was the Pravda report this July revealing the prediction of a key economic adviser in Putin's circle who claimed the U.S. economy would collapse after a "financial attack."
After Sept. 11, the same adviser warned of new and unusual attacks that would further weaken the U.S. economy.
"One more point," stated Lunev. "According to the Russian press -- ORT channel on Oct. 16 -- limited acts of bioterrorism in the U.S. could be considered as a field test of anthrax’s combat use by terrorists, who began their preparations for a massive attack against America using biological weapons.
"They will learn lessons from the present field test and could use anthrax and other weapons of mass destruction in the U.S. ORT also didn't exclude the possibility that terrorists are using anthrax because they do not have any other biological weapons in their arsenal, as well as because practical use of anthrax is the simplest technically."
The Soviet Union produced hundreds of tons of anthrax at its sprawling biological weapons plants, the Associated Press reported Tuesday.
Gorbachev told CNN the same day: "I would like to refer to today's statement by Russian officials, the minister of public health and another official in charge of chemical weapons -- it's very important what they both said -- that there are no programs for the development of biological weapons in Russia. There is only research for medical purposes."
Gorbachev also said he hoped that from the present crisis a "new, international world order" would be created.
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Russia 'can't allow' U.S. |
MOSCOW — Russia has already signalled its opposition to a U.S. offensive against Iran and Iraq.
Russian officials said Moscow would help Washington with the war on terrorism. But they said President Vladimir Putin would not allow the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein or Iran to become a U.S. target in such a war.
Moscow has sent weapons and troops to help the opposition Northern Alliance overthrow the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Russia has also agreed to U.S. troops and combat planes in neighboring Uzbekistan, Middle East Newsline reported.
Both Iran and Iraq are on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist sponsors. The Bush administration has been engaged in a debate over making Iraq a target in Washington's war on terrorism.
Moscow has indicated that this is where it would draw the line. Russia has emerged as an ally of both Baghdad and Teheran.
"We can't allow the United States to wield its club the way it wants," Col. Sergei Goncharov, a leading Russian military analyst, said. "We are on good terms with Iran. We have tremendous economic investments in and expectations of Iraq. We can't afford to sever all these ties in one stroke. I foresee a major debate along these lines."
Arab diplomatic sources said Moscow has relayed assurances to Washington that it will oppose a strike against Iraq.
But Goncharov said Moscow might not oppose a surgical strike on Iraq should Washington bring proof that Saddam was involved in the Sept. 11 Islamic suicide attacks on New York and Washington.
"It's quite obvious: if there is proof that, say, Iraq harbors terrorists, then action is fair," Goncharov said. "But if they want to start carpet bombings, like in Yugoslavia, and then see what happens, it can't be allowed."
Reports in several papers have already tied bin Laden's network to Russian "mafia" groups. Lunev believes that such groups are merely fronts for Russian intelligence agencies.
While I have never bought into the "Russians are our friends." pabulum regurgitated frequently by the "useful idiots", it hadn't occurred to me that the Russian mafia groups might simply be "KGB" fronts.
This would be bad, as would his other contentions later in the article.
Do some think Lunev is a plant?
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