Anthrax Terror [CIA Building Case 2001 Anthrax Attacks were Terrorism]

The Washington Times ^ | 12-26-03 | Gertz/Scarborough

[Henchman]

There is a need to read the article before people jump off on CIA leaks etc. It was a UN COMMISSION.
Reference: http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring.htm
Excerpt:
A report last month to the U.N. Security Council by its Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission concluded that traces of anthrax recovered from a bomb in early 2003 were of the same strain Iraq declared in 1991 it had weaponized. Those were not the Ames strain, U.S. officials said.

[cgk]

Actually,guy , Howard Troxler is NOT Jewish. Thinking he was, like Judith Miller is, was the impetus for his "hoax" letter - written with the non-dominant hand - was it not?

A guy I'm not.

:) <----proof. Guys don't write that.

And well, I didn't give it much thought before you posed the question, and haven't given it much thought since posting the reply with his column references. I never really considered the religions or political parties of any of the targets. Did I miss that as a part of the hoax theories?

[cgk]

LOL - yes Debka is how it started but that story sure found it's way into the mass media this past week, didn't it...

[cgk]

Wow, that's pretty cool of you to do that. Thanks!

[oceanview]

Fox News (live right now with Tony Snow) has a segment coming up in a few minutes about this subject.

[oceanview]

Gertz on FNC live right now.

[polemikos]

I think my statement still stands ;-)

[oceanview]

Gertz: "the FBIs credibility on this issue is at an all time low".

[browardchad]

No, the Florida anthrax attack was an accident due to cross-contamination. The Sun's editor had his wife working as a landlord, and her mail got contaminated when the terrorists had to pay their rent to her.

I think you are confusing the identity of the "Sun's editor" wife with the wife of Bob Stevens, the first victim. Bob Stevens was a photo editor for the Sun, and his wife Maureen had nothing to do with the hijackers.

The woman who rented apartments to the hijackers was Gloria Irish, a real estate agent and wife of Sun editor-in-chief Michael Irish. Neither Irish contracted anthrax, but a mail room worker became seriously ill, and at least seven other AMI workers tested positive for anthrax exposure.

The statement that "*MOST* of the people who contracted anthrax got it when their own innocent mail was cross-contaminated with the anthrax letters as the envelopes touched each other in various post offices" is also inaccurate. The postal worker fatalities were caused by anthrax-laden letters that passed physically through their facilities; the NBC worker got it from opening Brokaw's anthrax letter; the NY Post employee, the same. Only the last two cases (both fatalities) -- the Vietnamese woman in NYC and the elderly woman in Connecticut -- were judged to have been the victims of cross-contamination, mainly because there has been no other explanation found.

I don't believe the extensive level of contamination at the AMI building could have been caused simply by cross-contamination of mail. The building is still closed and sealed, awaiting a decontamination procedure that's estimated to cost millions. (The building is valued at $12 to $15 million, but sold for $40,000 to the developer who contracted to clean it up.)

Something containing more than just a few anthrax spores entered that building.

[Shermy]

What else did Gertz say?

[oceanview]

not much more then what is being discussed here. for some reason, fox went to a live segment at 10PM ESt instead of re-runs. Also had Mansour Ijaz on who said that there was some new credible info that ben laden is in iran.

[Southack]

"The statement that "*MOST* of the people who contracted anthrax got it when their own innocent mail was cross-contaminated with the anthrax letters as the envelopes touched each other in various post offices" is also inaccurate. The postal worker fatalities were caused by anthrax-laden letters that passed physically through their facilities;"

Kid, that *is* cross-contamination.

"Only the last two cases (both fatalities) -- the Vietnamese woman in NYC and the elderly woman in Connecticut -- were judged to have been the victims of cross-contamination"

See above. All of the postal workers and facilities were cross-contaminated by the real anthrax letters, even though no postal worker or facility was the intended *target*.

Ditto for the Vietnamese woman in NYC and the elderly woman in Connecticut, and same again for the two AMI employees in Florida.

The cross-contamination is more insidious than would normally be intuitive, too. A more accurate view of anthrax cross-contamination would be somewhat like the spread of poison ivy. One person might contract a small amount of poison ivy in one location, for instance, but a second person may get an even larger afflicted area by rubbing all over the first afflicted person's poison ivy spot. Such that the first person might only have poison ivy in her hair, whereas the second might have poison ivy all over her hands and face if she had rubbed the first person's hair with her hands and brushed her face up against the infected person's hair, as well.

This is even more true for anthrax, where the target anthrax letter might not disperse anthrax as widely as a cross-contaminated envelope, even though the cross-contaminated envelope would usually have less total amount of anthrax spores.

So again, the *only* explanation for the contamination of the AMI building that stands up to the facts that have been made public so far is that it was *not* the intended target, but rather merely a victim of cross-contamination due to the terrorists having to pay their landlord their rent.

[JustPiper]

Bumping! I posted this at the ongoing thread also

[GOPJ]

BINGO:

There is a strong whiff of pre-emptive CYA here, as if they suspect there is more coming soon and they want to be on record as not agreeing with the FBI theory. Gulp.

[GOPJ]

Troxler's letter had powder, but not anthrax powder. I thought the fake stuff came from St. Pete, but not any of the real stuff. Is that true? Some of this information seems totally new. What's it from?

One was sent to New York Times reporter Judith Miller, a co-author of Germs: Biological Weapons and America's Secret War, and the other to Howard Troxler, a columnist for the St. Petersburg Times. Troxler opened his powder-packed letter on Tuesday, October 9. Miller opened hers at her office on Friday the 12th"the same day the NBC infection was diagnosed.

[GOPJ]

If those letters were sent by Islamic terrorists, why did they send them--what did they expect those letters to accomplish?

The letters have that same whiny quality some of the more recent threats have. It's "we have to do this, but it's not our fault ... it's your fault" type crap. Sounds like the ranting of an overly religious person who senses they are doing great evil, but can't emotionally handle the reality of doing that evil. Hence the warnings - we had our chance, and the nutcase terrorist washes his hands of the issue. ( no pun intended) His "warnings" absolves him of guilt. Twisted logic, but within the twisted mind of a terrorist, internally consistent.

[GOPJ]

Works for me:


Various reasons for FBI, um, "disinformation," include:
- Smarts: the FBI, at the behest of the admin, is sowing disinfo while we prepare for checkmate.
("disinformation" is a comforting possibility, but highly unlikely at this late date)
- Liberalism: FBI management, promoted during the 90s, really believe the RW nut scenario.
(unfortunately, this is at least as likely as the "disinfo" campaign)
- Organizational vanity: The FBI, pop-psych profile in hand, is forcing the case to fit the profile.
(profiles have media glamour, but are easily subjected to political forces)
- Bureaucratic entropy: The FBI's mission and training focus is on domestic crime-fighting.
(when all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail)
- Revisionism: FBI's focus on domestic extremists led to disasters at Ruby Ridge and Waco.
(therefore, a domestic, RW, anthrax nut would prove the FBI was "correct" all-along)
- Policy Problems: Faulty evidence rules and case policies from the 90's badly affect investigations.
(Rank-and-file grumblings: Trie; Wen-Ho Lee; Moussaoui; flight schools; OKC; etc.)
- Stoolie: The FBI is attempting to protect a mole or some other source of info.
(maybe they have someone on the inside, but it seems unlikely)
- CYA: They're covering for some yet-unknown, internal lapse or action.

[bonesmccoy]

GADS! It's about time that somebody in the National Security structure started talking rationally about the anthrax bio attacks!

Anybody remember Hans Blix and UNMOVIC's discussion about WMD in Iraq?

To see the full report go to: http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/Bx27.htm
_________STARTING QUOTE of report by Dr. Blix____________

Biological weapons

I have mentioned the issue of anthrax to the Council on previous occasions and I come back to it as it is an important one.



Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 litres of this biological warfare agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991. Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.



There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared, and that at least some of this was retained after the declared destruction date. It might still exist. Either it should be found and be destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to show that it was, indeed, destroyed in 1991.



As I reported to the Council on 19 December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650 kg, of bacterial growth media, which was acknowledged as imported in Iraq’s submission to the Amorim panel in February 1999. As part of its 7 December 2002 declaration, Iraq resubmitted the Amorim panel document, but the table showing this particular import of media was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.



In the letter of 24 January to the President of the Council, Iraq’s Foreign Minister stated that “all imported quantities of growth media were declared”. This is not evidence. I note that the quantity of media involved would suffice to produce, for example, about 5,000 litres of concentrated anthrax.

[Freedom of Speech Wins]

The letters were received on 10/10/01 or the immediately preceeding days.