Domestic Anthrax Theories and Early Media Reports

April 6, 2004

[Shermy]

Article excerpts posted by me here on early anthrax reporting...something for your spare time only, it that. :)

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[muawiyah]

Looks like something I ought to get into so I'll tag it with a response.

[MizSterious]

Terrific research. Can't claim to have read all of it, but this will definitely be bookmarked. Thanks for all that work!

[Cold Heat]

Nicely done!

Bookmarked and saved.

[okie01]

Yeoman work. Important work.

The pattern you described is clear. Fascinating to watch how the domestic theory morphed to keep up with disclosures about the technology.

A relatively small group of people, with a well-defined agenda, were clearly driving the story -- almost from the outset. Makes one wonder just exactly what the source of that agenda was. Merely reflexive liberalism? Or was it something else, as you suggest?

Frankly, I'm suspicious...

[piasa]

Very, very nice work and thanks for posting it. Another thing you might want to take a look at is the effort prior to the anthrax attacks to create suspicion about the anthrz vaccination program. admittedly I didn't care for the forced vaccination program either, but on reflection I now wonder if the effort was orchestrated for a reason. I say this because of 'Dr. Meryl Nass,' the self-appointed anthrax expert who, like the associated Rosenberg, is part of the Fed of American scientists. Not only was she involved in the 'get Hatfill' stories, but apparently she has been busy trying to cast suspicion on the anthrax vaccines for years. She runs a huge website on anthrax, one that is used regularly by the press both in the vaccine controversy days and in the more recent anthrax days. She's tried to surround herself with 'Gulf War Syndrome victims' and assorted others in what looks like an effort to create mass hysteria about efforts to defend against biological weapons our personnel would likely encounter in an invasion of Iraq.

She has ties to the Cuban government and ties to groups which broke the sanctions/embargo on Iraq.

I have to wonder if her efforts were to deter any further action against Iraq after the Gulf War and all of its cease fire violations.

And, from your article above:

Jeanne Guillemin, who investigated an accidental release of spores from a Soviet biological weapons lab in 1979

I notice it doesn't say what Guillemin's conclusions were. The initial investigation by the experts declared the anthrax spore case in Russia to be caused by tainted meat. They were wrong. So was Guillemin one of those who erronously said it was due to tainted meat or did Guillemin say it was evidence of bioweapons research?

[piasa]

NOVEMBER 16, 2003 : (DR. DAVID KAY COMMENTS ON IRAQI SCIENTISTS' NEW 'SHOCKING' INFO ON IRAQ'S MILLING AND DRYING PROCESSES NEED TO WEAPONIZE ANTHRAX - SCIENTISTS CHARLIE & ALPHA) Two top Iraqi scientists, codenamed Charlie and Alpha, are helping the coalition to learn more about Iraq's anthrax programme, Kay said. The Iraqis had made shocking innovations in the milling and drying processes needed to weaponise anthrax. Almost every week there is a new discovery that boggles your mind, Kay said. - "Spies close in on Saddam's ailing terror mastermind," Sunday Times, London, UK see also "Alpha and Charlie Reveal Secrets of Iraq's Anthrax Weaponization Techniques ," a blog (* My note: were these the ones targeted in the assassination attempts on scientists?)

[piasa]

OCTOBER 2001 : (IRA TERRORISTS ARE ARRESTED IN COLUMBIA) - "CASTRO AND THE INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM, A CHRONOLOGY," by Eugene Pons with a foreword by Jaime Suchlicki , Institute for Cuban &Cuban-American Studies, Occasional Paper Series, September 2001

OCTOBER 25, 2001 : (COLUMBIA : IRA TERRORISTS REPORTEDLY TRIED TO BUY COCAINE; PLANNED TO MIX ANTHRAX WITH COCAINE) On October 25,2001, Univision’s Spanish T.V., "Primer Impacto' and in the late nightly international news, it was reported from Colombia that the IRA terrorists arrested this month in Colombia had their headquarters in Cuba and tried to buy 1,500 kilograms of cocaine in order to be mixed with anthrax for further distribution in the U.S. Although the Spanish TV channel interviewed the DEA agent who exposed the operation, the American media censored this important news that brings forward Castro’s involvement in bio-terrorism. - "CASTRO AND THE INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM, A CHRONOLOGY," by Eugene Pons with a foreword by Jaime Suchlicki , Institute for Cuban &Cuban-American Studies, Occasional Paper Series, September 2001

[piasa]

NOVEMBER 2001 mid-late : (CHILE : DOCTOR RECEIVES ANTHRAX LETTER WITH ZURICH POSTMARK & A FLORIDA RETURN ADDRESS) The doctor in Chile who received an anthrax-contaminated letter last week said the envelope doesn't resemble those sent to two senators and to media outlets in the U.S. -- adding another mystery to those already surrounding the anthrax investigation. Antonio Banfi, a pediatrician in Santiago, Chile, said the envelope bore the return address of a medical publishing house in Orlando, Fla., that regularly sends him material. A spokeswoman for Mosby Inc., a unit of Reed Elsevier PLC, confirmed it was listed as the return address and said the company was "fully cooperating" with investigators. The address was typed, rather than handwritten, with a clear plastic window for the address. Dr. Banfi said he didn't open the letter; he was suspicious because it bore a Zurich postmark even though it had the Orlando return address. He said he didn't know why he would receive such a letter. "Fate," he said. ...- "Special Report: Aftermath of Terror- Anthrax Puzzle Persists as Letter in Chile Looks Different From Those Found in U.S.," By JOSE DECORDOBA and MARK SCHOOFS. Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, November 27, 2001.

[Shermy]

I don't recall Meryl Nass being quoted about suspects in the case. But everyone had an opinion of some sort. As for the vaccine, that's a different issue which many people have strong opinions about and its dangers have not been resolved IMO...

Guillemin was involved with the post-Gorby reassessment of the Sverdlovsk affair with her husband Matthew Meselson. (I don't know when they married). Mr. Meselson previously contended that the Sverdlovsk event was related to meat or such non-bio-weapon cause.

[Shermy]

RE January 4, 2002 article. Kristof seems to have connections to "spookdom"

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0506-02.htm


Missing in Action: Truth
by Nicholas Kristof

When I raised the Mystery of the Missing W.M.D. recently, hawks fired barrages of reproachful e-mail at me. The gist was: "You *&#*! Who cares if we never find weapons of mass destruction, because we've liberated the Iraqi people from a murderous tyrant."

But it does matter, enormously, for American credibility. After all, as Ari Fleischer said on April 10 about W.M.D.: "That is what this war was about."

...Consider the now-disproved claims by President Bush and Colin Powell that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger so it could build nuclear weapons. As Seymour Hersh noted in The New Yorker, the claims were based on documents that had been forged so amateurishly that they should never have been taken seriously.

I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.

The envoy reported, for example, that a Niger minister whose signature was on one of the documents had in fact been out of office for more than a decade. In addition, the Niger mining program was structured so that the uranium diversion had been impossible. The envoy's debunking of the forgery was passed around the administration and seemed to be accepted — except that President Bush and the State Department kept citing it anyway.

"It's disingenuous for the State Department people to say they were bamboozled because they knew about this for a year," one insider said.

....

Now something is again rotten in the state of Spookdom.

(Later admitted to be Joe Wilson)

[Mitchell]

Interesting collection of articles, Shermy. Thanks for collecting and posting them.

From the Kristof article (my emphasis in boldface):

As Seymour Hersh noted in The New Yorker, the claims were based on documents that had been forged so amateurishly that they should never have been taken seriously....

The envoy reported, for example, that a Niger minister whose signature was on one of the documents had in fact been out of office for more than a decade.

I know this is how it's been reported, and maybe it really was an amateurish job. But would somebody who would go to the trouble of creating the forgery really be so amateurish? Maybe it was done on purpose that way, and was intended to be discovered?

[piasa]

MARCH 7, 2003 : (UN : IAEA SAYS LETTERS APPEARED TO BE FABRICATED) A key piece of evidence linking Iraq to a nuclear weapons program appears to have been fabricated, the United Nations' chief nuclear inspector said yesterday in a report that called into question U.S. and British claims about Iraq's secret nuclear ambitions. ..... Knowledgeable sources familiar with the forgery investigation described the faked evidence as a series of letters between Iraqi agents and officials in the central African nation of Niger. The documents had been given to the U.N. inspectors by Britain and reviewed extensively by U.S. intelligence. The forgers had made relatively crude errors that eventually gave them away -- including names and titles that did not match up with the individuals who held office at the time the letters were purportedly written, the officials said. "We fell for it," said one U.S. official who reviewed the documents.
A spokesman for the IAEA said the agency did not blame either Britain or the United States for the forgery. The documents "were shared with us in good faith," he said.
- "Some Evidence on Iraq Called Fake: U.N. Nuclear Inspector Says Documents on Purchases Were Forged," By Joby Warrick, Washington Post Staff Writer, Saturday, March 8, 2003; Page A01

Question : has anyone published the 'forged' letters? I mena, if they are just forgeries, what harm would there be in simply publishing them?

[piasa]

Seemed like I ran across some articles she wrote in Red flags weekly about the case but I'll have to look them up again to see if she names names.

Here's some info on her role- perhaps unwitting role, perhaps not- in Rosenberg's theory:

1978- 1980 : (RHODESIA : ANTHRAX OUTBREAK- CUTANEOUS- KILLS 182) The Nass report [1992 article by longtime Rosenberg associate Meryl Nass] purported to explain the 1978-80 anthrax outbreak that affected 10,000 black farmers, predominantly with cutaneous anthrax, killing 182. In her "explanation," Nass leaped from one politically loaded speculation to another without any evidence.- "Media Manufacture Cloud of Suspicion Over Hatfill," Posted July 22, 2002, By Nicholas Stix, Insight On The News , InsightMagazine, http://www.insightmag.com/news/2002/08/12/FairComment/Media.Manufacture.Cloud.Of.Suspicion.Over.Hatfill-258774.shtml

1992 : (MERYL NASS WRITES PAPER ON 1978-1980 ANTHRAX OUTBREAK IN RHODESIA) The Nass report [1992 article by longtime Rosenberg associate Meryl Nass] purported to explain the 1978-80 anthrax outbreak that affected 10,000 black farmers, predominantly with cutaneous anthrax, killing 182. In her "explanation," Nass leaped from one politically loaded speculation to another without any evidence.- "Media Manufacture Cloud of Suspicion Over Hatfill," Posted July 22, 2002, By Nicholas Stix, Insight On The News , InsightMagazine, http://www.insightmag.com/news/2002/08/12/FairComment/Media.Manufacture.Cloud.Of.Suspicion.Over.Hatfill-258774.shtml

JULY 22, 2002 : (INSIGHT MAGAZINE REPORT : KRISTOF, ROSENBERG & MERYL NASS : NASS'S 1992 RHODESIA STORY) In seeking to convince readers of Hatfill's guilt in last fall's attacks, Kristof and the other journalists claimed that in the late 1970s, Rhodesian special forces attacked black-owned farms with anthrax, and sought to link Hatfill to these "attacks."
No one ever has provided any evidence showing that the Rhodesian army carried out anthrax attacks, much less that Hatfill participated in them. Kristof and company merely are regurgitating a tainted 1992 article by longtime Rosenberg associate Meryl Nass. The Nass report purported to explain the 1978-80 anthrax outbreak that affected 10,000 black farmers, predominantly with cutaneous anthrax, killing 182. In her "explanation," Nass leaped from one politically loaded speculation to another without any evidence. - "Media Manufacture Cloud of Suspicion Over Hatfill," Posted July 22, 2002, By Nicholas Stix, Insight On The News , InsightMagazine, http://www.insightmag.com/news/2002/08/12/FairComment/Media.Manufacture.Cloud.Of.Suspicion.Over.Hatfill-258774.shtml.

[piasa]

Check this out for an Australian radio show transcript (in two parts) which featured both Rosenberg and Nass on the anthrax investigation, with Nass coming in on page two:

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/politicalwhodunit_1.html

Rosenberg's all over Hatfill in this one while Nass takes a much less specific stance.

[piasa]

Does anyone know what timeframe it was that Hatfill was an UNSCOM inspector?

[Shermy]

Piasa, thanks for the link at #17. Lots of interesting things there, and Nass' insights are interesting. Here's a short 'n' sweet one from Scott Shane

"...Scott Shane: The combination of intense competition on a huge national story, a very unfamiliar topic, you know there were a lot of people posing as anthrax experts early on who some of us found didn’t know all that much about anthrax, and why would they, you know who knows that much about anthrax? So maybe that was the fatal combination, a topic that was unfamiliar to many supposed experts combined with intense pressure of a very competitive national story..."

[Shermy]

I know this is how it's been reported, and maybe it really was an amateurish job. But would somebody who would go to the trouble of creating the forgery really be so amateurish? Maybe it was done on purpose that way, and was intended to be discovered?

It's an amazing story. But even better is how the bogus documents have been used to frame Blair and Bush as lying about Iraqi uranium quests.

Did they lie? Did they mean Niger? Or South Africa?

Does Joe Wilson still claim Bush meant Niger in the State of the Union speech? Did he really ever make such a claim?

Does he still?