Anthrax Mailings: Connecting the Dots [to al-Qaeda]

PHXnews.com ^ | 18 Jan. 2004 | Ross E. Getman

[flamefront]

[An extensive set of articles referred to lay out a definitive explanation on the source of the anthrax mailings.]

Link to story: http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com

"Dad," he whispered. His Dad could barely hear him. "'I've been arrested, I'm being taken, I don't know where or why." Moazzam Begg was in the trunk of a car being taken away from his apartment in Islamabad. He had been picked up by Pakistan and US agents. The Britoner had come to Pakistan with his wife and children after the US strikes began in Afghanistan.  It was February 2002. Months later, he would confess to being involved with an Al Qaeda plot to disperse weaponized anthrax using a drone.  His name had been found on a money transfer in the one-room chemical bunker of Egyptian scientist Midhat Mursi at a camp in Afghanistan.

In early June 2003, a Central Intelligence Agency ("CIA") report publicly disclosed that the reason for Mohammed Atta's and Zacarias Moussaoui's inquiries into cropdusters was for the contemplated use in dispersing biological agents such as anthrax. An early September 2003 Newsweek article included a rumor by a Taliban source that at a meeting in April 2003 Bin Laden was planning an "unbelievable" biological attack, the plans for which had suffered a setback upon the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed ("KSM") the previous month in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. In November 2003, a report by a UN Panel of experts concluded that Al Qaeda is determined to use chemical and biological weapons and is restrained only by technical difficulties.    

In November 2003, it was widely reported that a potential terrorist plot had been thwarted in late 2002 after a London-based group tried to buy half a ton of saponin. Saponin enhances the transmission of molecules through biological cell membranes. When combined with a potent toxin, it can ease the absorption of the poison through the skin, experts say. Midhat Mursi had worked on a chemical additive to increase skin absorption.

The CIA reportedly has been quietly building a case that the anthrax mailings were an international plot. This is old news. It's just no longer bureaucratically impolite to openly contest the FBI's (former) theory about a lone, American scientist. Many people have argued that a US-based Al Qaeda operative is behind the earlier Fall 2001 anthrax mailings in the US, and that the mailings served as a threat and warning. This would follow the pattern of letters they sent 1997 to newspaper branches in Washington, D.C. and New York City, as well as symbolic targets. The letters bombs were sent in connection with the detention of those responsible for the earlier World Trade Center bombing in 1993. Handwritten notes and files on a laptop seized upon the capture of KSM, Al Qaeda's #3, included a feasible anthrax production plan using a spray dryer and addressed the recruitment of necessary expertise. What your morning paper did not tell you, however, was that the CIA seized a similar disc from Ayman Zawahiri's right-hand, Ahmed Salama Mabruk, 5 years earlier. The computer disk was confiscated from him during his arrest by the CIA in Azerbaijan and reportedly handed over to the Egyptian authorities. Mabruk, at the time, was the head of Jihad's military operations. There is a risk that observers underestimate the time that Al Qaeda has had to make progress in such recruitment and research and development. 

Some may still think that even in the final stages of the 9/11 plot, Zacarias Moussaoui was going to fly a 5th plane into the Capitol or White House. There is an e-mail by Moussaoui, however, dated July 31, 2001 indicating that he sought to take a crop dusting course that was to last up to 6 months. Moreover, in March 2003, Mohammed, reportedly said that Moussaoui was not going to be part of 9/11 but was to be part of a "second wave." Accused September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui told his trial judge that he had an al Qaeda mission that would have come after the terrorist attacks. KSM explained that his inquiries about crop dusters may have been related to the anthrax work being done by US-trained biochemist and Al Qaeda operative, Malaysian Yazid Sufaat. Al Qaeda's regional operative, Hambali, who was at a key January 2000 meeting and supervised Sufaat, has been captured. Hambali reportedly is cooperating. Zacarias Moussaoui, never the sharpest tool in the shed and thought by his superiors to be unreliable, has told the judge at his trial in a filing that he wants "anthrax for Jew sympathizer only."

Sufaat, according to both KSM and Hambali, did not have the virulent US Army Ames strain that would be used. That would require someone who had access to the strain. But if experience is any guide, nothing would stand in the way of Dr. Ayman Zawahiri's decade-long quest to weaponize and use anthrax against US targets that was described by one confidante to an Egyptian newspaper reporter. The islamist had been released from Egyptian prison and had known Zawahiri well for many years. Zawahiri was the leader of a faction of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad known as the Vanguards of Conquest. He was seeking to recreate Mohammed's taking of mecca by a small band through violent attacks on Egyptian leaders. By the mid-1990s, Zawahiri had determined that the group should focus on its struggle against the United States and hold off on further attacks against the Egyptian regime. A key question is how they acquired the anthrax strain first isolated by the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab in 1980. According to senior counterterrorism officials, both here and abroad, among the supporters of these militant islamists were people who blended into society and were available to act when another part of the network requested it.

A few days before Christmas 2003, after a renewed audiotape threat by Zawahiri of attacks, to include in the US homeland, the threat level was raised to orange or "high." According to some reports, Zawahiri is thought by intelligence to be Iran, on the border adjacent to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Wherever he is, authorities need to focus on the traceable connection between him and those he recruited.

First, Al Qaeda has had anthrax, the raw seed product in its unweaponized form, since at least 1997, when it was purchased by Bin Laden through the Moro Islamic Liberation Front ("Moro Front" or "MILF"). Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's #2, is head of Al Qaeda's biochemical program. The CIA has known of Zawahiri's plans to use anthrax for a half decade. The confidante and right-hand man of Dr. Ayman Zawahiri admitted that Zawahiri succeeded in obtaining anthrax and intended to use it against US targets. Another senior Al Qaeda member (a shura or policy-making council member no less) was working for the Egyptian intelligence services and he confirmed the report in a sworn lengthy confession. Even Zawahiri's attorney in 1999 said that Bin Laden and Zawahiri were likely to resort to the biological and chemical agents they possessed given the extradition pressure senior Al Qaeda leaders faced. A recently released islamist who had been a close associate of Zawahiri said that Zawahiri spent a decade and had made 15 separate attempts to recruit the necessary expertise to weaponize anthrax in Russia and the Middle East. The US Army recipe was not used, and obtaining the unprocessed Ames strain of anthrax used does not pose much of an obstacle or warrant the weight given it by some press accounts. There was lax control over the distribution of the Ames strain that was used, especially in light of the fact that transfers were not even required to be recorded prior to 1997. Significantly, the individual who isolated it nearly a quarter century ago (now retired), upon being contacted, does not report that he sent the only copy of the strain to Ft. Detrick.

Al Qaeda's anthrax production plans on Khalid Mohammed's computer did not evidence knowledge of advanced techniques in the most efficient biological weapons. At least according to the public comments by bioweaponeer experts William Patrick and Kenneth Alibek, under the optimal method, there is no electrostatic charge; in the case of the anthrax used in the mailings, there was an electrostatic charge. Although there was a dominance of single spores and a trillion spore concentration, there were clumps as large as 40 - 100 microns. (Spores must be no bigger than 5 microns to be inhalable.) As Kenneth Alibek, the former head of Russia's anthrax production program, explained on March 31, 2003 in response to a written question, "This anthrax wasn't sophisticated, didn't have coatings, had electric charge and many other things." Many point to the trillion spore concentration as extraordinary. It is far simpler, however, to achieve a trillion spore concentration in the production of a few grams than in industrial processing typical of a state sponsored lab. The "trillion spore" issue was at the heart of a lot of mistaken theories of the matter concluding that state sponsorship was necessarily indicated. The reported finding at Dugway undermines the argument of both the "bomb Iraq" crowd and the liberals focused on Dr. Steve Hatfill who object to US biodefense research because they view it as being useful for offensive purposes.  

USDA employee Johnelle Bryant first told us, in sensational detail, of Atta's inquiries about purchasing and retrofitting a cropduster. Khalid Mohammed then told interrogators that Zacarias Moussaoui's inquiries about crop dusting may have related to Yazid Sufaat's anthrax manufacturing plans. Although the details of the documents on Mohammed's computer may (or may not) point to possible difficulties in aerial dispersal, they are fully consistent with the product used in the anthrax mailings. Al Qaeda had both the means and opportunity.

US-trained Malaysian biochemist Yazid Sufaat met with 9/11 plotters and two hijackers in January 2000. Sufaat was a member of Al Qaeda and a member of Jemaah Islamiah ("JI"). JI has ties with the Moro Front. Sufaat used his company called Green Laboratory Medicine to buy items useful to Al Qaeda. (Green symbolizes "Islam" and Prophet Mohammed's holy war). Zacarias Moussaoui, who had a crop dusting manual when he was arrested, stayed at Sufaat's condominium in 2000 when he was trying to arrange for flight lessons in Malaysia. Yazid Sufaat provided Moussaoui with a letter indicating that he was a marketing representative for Infocus Technologies and allegedly provided him $35,000. The crop dusters were to be part of a "second wave."

After 9/11, Yazid Sufaat traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to work for the Taliban Medical Brigade and to continue his work with anthrax. As described in US News, a former reporter from the Kabul Times apparently actually met Sufaat, without realizing it, while traveling near Kabul in October 2001, perceiving him as Filipino. The fellow was carrying papers from Zawahiri and bragging about his ability to manipulate anthrax. Sufaat was arrested in December 2001 upon his return to Malaysia. Newsweek reported that a "second wave" involving biological attacks had been thwarted upon the arrest of Al Qaeda members who had been intended to provide logistical support.

Various doctors, both foreign and American, are associated with Al Qaeda leaders or operatives, to include the doctors Abdul Qadoos Khan, a bacteriologist from Rawalpindi and Aafia Siddiqui, PhD, from Karachi. Microbiologist Abdul Qadoos Khan was charged along with his son, Ahmed, for harboring the fugitives. As of March 28, 2003, he was in a hospital for a cardiac problem and had been granted "pre-arrest bail." Yet all you read about at the time was the arrest of the son Ahmed Abdul Qadoos, who receives a stipend from the UN for being officially low-IQ due to lead poisoning.

It was  Khalid Mohammed who told authorities about MIT-trained biologist Aafia Siddiqui, who at one time was thought to be traveling with a Florida "Atta level" pilot. All the Pakistani press reported that she was nabbed in Karachi after being spotted at the international airport on March 29. For the longest time, no US newspaper had yet reported that she was captured and instead stories continued to state that the FBI is seeking her for questioning. If the sources relied upon by these journalists did not even know (or would not reveal) that Aafia had been caught, why do these reporters think they know what's going on in the Amerithrax matter? Amerithrax is a confidential investigation. The Pakistan ISI and CIA rarely grant press interviews in connection with an ongoing manhunt. The CIA did not even allow the FBI access to KSM for 10 days after his arrest. As agent Van Harp, then head of the Amerithrax investigation said, the information coming from Khalid Mohammed is classified with the authorities releasing only certain limited information. According to the Pakistan reports, Aafia Siddiqui was spotted at the international airport and detained (after she was followed to a relative's house).  Some reports say she was coming from abroad, but the original report the others are all copying say she was coming from "upcountry." (Karachi is in the south). The reports say she is suspected of having been a member of Al Qaeda's "Chemical Wire Group." Perhaps something got lost in the translation, but the phrase "Chemical Wire Group" has appeared in all the english Pakistan and India papers.  

Officials have not publicly confirmed anything about the detention or interrogation.  There still is a very hot pursuit of the "Atta-level" Florida pilot that Siddiqui is thought to have known and been assisting.  He is said by one FBI agent to be "very, very, very" dangerous. The United States truly no longer has time for faulty analysis or politically-based preconceptions. In early June 2003, a CIA report concluded that the reason for Atta's and Zacarias Moussaoui's inquiries into cropdusters was in fact for the contemplated use in dispersing biological agents such as anthrax. It has long been known Osama Bin Laden was interested in using cropdusters to disperse biological agents (since the testimony of millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam).

The hijacker Ahmed Alhaznawi appears to have contracted cutaneous anthrax in Afghanistan. It's reasonable to credit his statement that he got the lesion after bumping into a suitcase he was carrying at a camp in Afghanistan. The lesion is further evidence of Al Qaeda's anthrax production program in Afghanistan.

One potential lead concerned a Fort Lee New Jersey $100,000 processor possibly of a type that could have been used to weaponize the anthrax. The processor was paid for in cash after a check-kiting scheme. The processor was delivered to a business front in Ft. Lee at 215 Main St. The address was 1 mile from pilot Nawaf al-Hazmi at 96 Linwood Plaza, one of the two hijackers who had attended the January 2000 meeting with anthrax technician Yazid Sufaat. Nawaf Al-hamzi and Khalid Almidhar stayed at Yazid Sufaat's condominium outside Kuala Lumpur. It eventually was determined that these two were on a level comparable to Atta for planning purposes.

The present evidence relating to Atta's travel to Prague does not warrant a conclusion that Al Qaeda obtained the Ames strain from Iraq. Iraq, however, remains a possible source of the Ames. Former Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek has said that a key Russian scientist assisted Iraq and that Russia had the Ames strain. Zawahiri traveled to Baghdad in 1998 with an entourage to attend the birthday party of Saddam's son. The papers found at headquarters of the Mukhabarat, Iraq's secret police, show that an entourage from Al Qaeda group was sent to the Iraqi capital in March 1998 from Sudan. According to at least some reports, Bin Laden rejected the suggestion of a closer alliance -- preferring to pursue his own concept of jihad. Two top Iraqi scientists, code named Charlie and Alpha, are helping the coalition to learn more about Iraqi's anthrax program, according to Dr. David Kay, head of the Iraq survey group in charge of the hunt for WMD. He has said that the Iraqis made surprising innovations in the milling and drying processes needed to weaponize anthrax.

Second, the media coverage has been seriously confused on the issue of motive and the reason Senators Daschle and Leahy would have been targeted -- tending to simplistically view them as "liberals." Zawahiri likely targeted Senators Daschle and Leahy to receive anthrax letters, in addition to various media outlets, because of the appropriations made pursuant to the "Leahy Law" to military and security forces. That money has prevented the militant islamists from achieving their goals. Al Qaeda members and sympathizers feel that the FBI's involvement in muslim countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Philippines interferes with the sovereignty of those countries. Indeed, the "Leahy Law" had one of its most well-known applications in Indonesia. Senator Leahy was Chairman of both the Judiciary Committee overseeing the FBI and Appropriations Subcommittee in charge of foreign aid to these countries. In late September 2001, it was announced that the President was seeking a blanket waiver that would lift all restrictions on aid to military and security units in connection with pursuing the militant islamists. This extradition and imprisonment of Al Qaeda leaders, along with US support for Israel and the Mubarak government in Egypt, remains foremost in the mind of Dr. Zawahiri. At the height of the development of his biological weapons program, his brother was extradited and executed pursuant to a death sentence in the "Albanian returnees" case. It's hard to keep up with the stories about billion dollar appropriations, debt forgiveness, and loan guarantees to countries like Egypt and Israel and now even Pakistan -- and those appropriations pale in comparison to the $87 billion in a "Supplemental" appropriation relating to the invasion of Iraq. Al Qaeda had a motive in mind.

In his Fall 2001 book titled "Knights under the Banner of the Prophet," Zawahiri argued that the secular press was telling "lies" about the militant islamists -- to include the suggestion that the militant islamists were somehow the creation of the United States in connection with expelling the Russians from Afghanistan. Zawahiri argued instead that they have been active since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in Egypt because of the treaty between the Camp David Accord and the resulting peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. The anthrax letters were sent on the date of the Camp David Accord and then the date Anwar Sadat was assassinated as if to underscore the point to anyone paying attention. Most of the "talking heads" on television, however, knew only that Daschle and Leahy were liberal democrats and did not know anything of Al Qaeda beyond what they read in the newspapers. The FBI's profile includes a US-based supporter of the militant islamists. Attorney General Ashcroft has always said that an "either-or" approach is not useful. The media has tended to overlook the fact that when the FBI uses the word "domestic" the word includes a US-based, highly-educated supporter of the militant islamists.

There is an emerging consensus that anthrax was contained in a letter to AMI, the publisher of the National Enquirer -- in a goofy love letter to Jennifer Lopez enclosing a Star of David. A report by the Center for Disease Control of interviews with AMI employees (as well as detailed interviews by author Leonard Cole) supports the conclusion that there were not one, but two, such mailings containing anthrax. (The letters apparently were to different AMI publications -- for example, one may have been to the National Enquirer and another to The Globe.)

Third, this tactic of letters is not merely the modus operandi of these militant islamists inspired by Zawahiri, it is their signature. The islamists sent letter bombs in January 1997 to newspaper offices in New York City and Washington, D.C. in connection with the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center and the imprisonment of the blind sheik, Sheik Abdel Rahman. The former leader of the Egyptian Al-Gamaa al-Islamiya ("Islamic Group"), he was also a spiritual leader of Al Qaeda. The letter bombs were sent in connection with the treatment of the Egyptian islamists imprisoned for the earlier attack on the WTC and a related plot. The purpose of the letter bombs -- which resulted in minimal casualty -- was to send a message. (There is an outstanding $2 million reward). There was no claim of responsibility. There was no explanation. Once one had been received, the next ten, mailed on two separate dates, were easily collected. Sound familiar? Two bombs were also sent to Leavenworth, where a key WTC 1993 defendant was imprisoned, addressed to "Parole Officer" (a position that does not exist).

Abdel Rahman's son was captured in Quetta, Pakistan in mid-February 2003. That arrest in turn led to the dramatic capture of Khalid Mohammed, Al Qaeda's #3. Mohammed was hiding in the home of the Pakistani bacteriologist Dr. Abdul Qadoos Khan. Along with Zawahiri, Abdel Rahman and his two sons have long had considerable influence over Bin Laden. He reportedly treated them like sons. Zawahiri and OBL are Rahman's friends. The imprisoned WTC 1993 plotter Yousef was KSM's nephew. Thus, the leaders in charge of Al Qaeda's anthrax production program had a close connection to those imprisoned in connection with the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center. Osama Bin Laden had asked Iraqi intelligence for technical assistance in sending letter bombs a half year before the Al Hayat letters were sent.

A sender purporting to be islamist sent cyanide in both early 2002 and early 2003 in New Zealand and ingredients of nerve gas in Belgium in 2003. There's even a chapter titled "Poisonous Letter" in the Al Qaeda manual. Just because Al Qaeda likes its truck bombs and the like to be effective does not mean they don't see the value in a deadly missive. As Brian Jenkins once said, "terrorism is theater."

The mailer's use of Greendale School is revealing. Documents establish that Zawahiri used "school" as a code word for Al Qaeda in his correspondence. Green symbolizes Islam and was the Prophet Mohammed's color. By Greendale School, the anthrax perp was being cute, just as Yazid Sufaat was being cute in naming his lab Green Laboratory Medicine. "Dale" means "river valley." Greendale refers to green river valley -- i.e., Cairo's Egyptian Islamic Jihad or the Islamic Group. The sender is announcing that he is of either Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Egyptian Islamic Group or Jihad-al Qaeda, which is actually the full name of the group after the 1998 merger of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and al Qaeda.

Fourth, as to opportunity, though seldom reported, there is a wealth of "open source" information about possible Al Qaeda or Egyptian Islamic Jihad or Islamic Group in the United States and Canada. The public information mostly relates to those suspected sleepers who have been detained or who are at large and are being sought. Zawahiri's mission in the United States in 1995 was to do spadework for terrorism, not fundraising. He traveled under an alias and was accompanied by a US Army sergeant anemd Ali Mohammed. What mosques exactly did they visit and who did they meet?

Whatever your political persuasion (mine is Naderite), the FBI and CIA deserve our support. We are, after all, in this together. First, the nature of such an investigation is that we lack sufficient information to second-guess (or even know) what the FBI is doing. Media reports are a poor approximation of reality because of the lack of good sources. Second, hindsight is 20/20. Third, with the "new age" Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. in charge of the investigation, it is not likely we could do better in striking the appropriate balance between due process and national security.

Finally, the "Hatfill theory" seems to have been exhausted or at least lost public favor. The "Hatfill theory" accusing Dr. Stephen Hatfill was always highly dubious. The suspicion was founded on many false premises, and there was no reliable evidence indicating his guilt. The FBI's fixation on Hatfill (at least as rumored by some reporters) may have stemmed from a warning by one Senator that careers hung in the balance. Leahy's chief of staff started with the strong predisposition that some right-winger was involved because two liberal democrats had been targeted. The Hatfill theory -- to include ongoing interviews and ongoing 7/24 surveillance by 8 surveillance specialists -- is now the subject of a pending civil rights claim of uncertain merit. The statute of limitation for the libel suit threatened against the New York Times expired in most jurisdictions the first week in July 2003. The Hatfill theory ironically may best be understood as an Al Qaeda theory, with a coincidental Malaysian connection adding to the other circumstances. Given the regrettable leaks that he was under suspicion, it is only fair that the FBI leak with equal enthusiasm the fact that Dr. Hatfill has now been dropped as a suspect.

[TrebleRebel]

When you LOOK at ALL the evidence, you will see that BLANCO left a TRAIL of anthrax spores along his mail route, including a trail right to the mailbox area of Bob Stevens.

The most obvious conclusion is that Blanco was infected by the September 19 letter. Bob Stevens was also infected by this letter - and that is what the CDC concluded.

But you need to look at ALL the FACTS, and you are not willing to look at ALL the FACTS. You simply wish to twist and pervert everything to prove, under any circumsatnces, that the September 19 letter did NOT contain anthrax.

Too bad the rest of the world don't agree with you. Have you ever wondered why? It's becasue the rest off the world have looked at ALL the FACTS.

[EdLake]

By the way, I'm STILL WAITING for your evidence on the Patrick "no silica" question.

No, what you are doing is demonstrating once again that you cannot read. It's not a "no silica" question, it's a "no coating" question. No one ever said there was no silica. That's just your interpretation because you seem unable to read. And the question was answered in message #124.

Ed

www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[TrebleRebel]

Post your evidence that Patrick said there was no silica coating here:

---

We've already seen the evidence from your "star witness" Meselson. He apparently disagrees with scientists at Detrick, AFIP and the EPA. He was shown a couple of SEMs whilst all the other scientists at the Detrick, AFIP and the EPA had FULL access to ALL of the FACTS and DATA. Also, all of these scientists don't have VERY SERIOUS credibilty issues, like Meselson does.

But I'm sure if Patrick has cleary stated somewhere, like you claim he has, that there was no silica coating, we might be willing to listen.

I've already provided a quote where he unambiguously declares he will NOT talk about silica.

Did he change his mind? Where's your evidence?

[EdLake]

I say the CDC date is September 24. That's when Blanco got sick. The Septemebr 24 date is CLEARLY the correct date. The September 28 is CLEARLY wrong.

Okay. So, you do not believe the CDC? Interesting. You prefer your own interpretation? Also very interesting.

I believe the CDC. Blanco's onset date was September 28.

I think you should go back and look at all the messages where you accused me of not believing the CDC. I think you'll now find them as amusing as I found them.

Ed

www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[TrebleRebel]

So, you do not believe the CDC?


I do believe the CDC - they give his onset date as September 24. They say he got really sick on September 28. I believe that as well.

If you knew anything about inhalational anthrax you might understand that.

[TrebleRebel]

So you admit you lied in your statememt that Meselson, Alibek and Patrick said there was no silica?

That's just YOUR INTERPRETATION of what Patrick said. Yours and yours alone.

I assume you are going to change the text in your website now, since I have shown that Patrick has clearly stated that he refuses to talk about silica.

That leaves you with one less person who says there was no special silica coating. Now you just have Meselson and Alibek. And we all know about Meselson's credibilty, don't we?

[EdLake]

When you LOOK at ALL the evidence, you will see that BLANCO left a TRAIL of anthrax spores along his mail route, including a trail right to the mailbox area of Bob Stevens.

Really. Well, it so happens that I have the charts on my web site which show how the AMI building was contaminated. Here they are:

First Floor

Second Floor

Third Floor where Bob Stevens had his office.

Note that the third floor is the least contaminated floor in the building. Note that the mailroom area is the most contaminated area, and that's where Stephanie Dailey's desk was located. That's where she opened the real anthrax letter.

Note that on the third floor where Bob Stevens' office was located there is very little contamination. And this is the area where the J-Lo letter was opened and passed around to be examined by various people.

These floor charts, by the way, came from the CDC. So, I guess you can disbelieve them, too, in order to retain your absurd conclusions that the J-Lo letter contained anthrax.

Ed

www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[TrebleRebel]

You know you really ought to try looking at ALL the FACTS. If you look at ALL the FACTS you will find that the September 19 letter was one that contained anthrax. The september 25 letter may also have contained anthrax. Indeed the CDC officially concluded that BOTH letters contained anthrax, but they also OFFICIALLY concluded that Bob Stevens got sick from the September 19 letter.

They reached these conclusions by looking at ALL the FACTS. That's something you should try - try looking at ALL the FACTS.

[EdLake]

I do believe the CDC - they give his onset date as September 24.

They may have been mistaken and at one time gave his onset date as September 24. If you want to use obsolete data to make your interpretations, I guess that is up to you. But everyone can see that it is obsolete data. Just look at the last time it was reviewed by the CDC.

They clearly state in their official up-to-date data that his onset date was September 28.

I can see you will never be able to understand that, so there's no point in discussing this particular subject again.

Ed

www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[TrebleRebel]

You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. You don't know what happened between September 19 and September 25. For all you know the cleaners could have been there between these dates, but perhaps there were no cleaners between September 25 and the date that the building was closed.

The point is, you are totally speculating. The official CDC conclusion is that the September 19 letter contained anthrax. There is no reason to believe that the FBI have concluded otherwise - indeed everything that has been published indicates that they DO agree with the CDC.

But they have looked at ALL the FACTS, and you won't look at ALL the FACTS.

[TrebleRebel]

It's only an "obselete" date because you are choosing to call it that.

Your tactics seem to be very similar to Matthew Meselson's. You make a statement of "fact" (which you have fabricated) and then keep repeating it, then you hope that everyone accepts it.

A good example of Mesleson doing this is here:

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

"Meselson said the confusion over the possibility of a silica additive may have risen because X-ray studies of the powder detected the element silicon, one component of silica. But he said silicon is naturally present in anthrax, noting a 1980 Journal of Bacteriology paper that found an "unexpectedly high concentration of silicon" in anthrax spores."

Note how Meselson fabricates a "fact". He fabricates that there was "confusion" over the possibilty of silica. The truth is there never was any confusion - apart from the confusion Meselson wanted to create.

He used the same tactics in his Sverdlovsk shenanigans, all of which are well documented.

You are learning well from Meselson. Call something "obselte" just beacuse you want it to be so, then keep repeating it, hoping it will be believed.

If you look at ALL the FACTS, you will see that you are wrong.

[TrebleRebel]

"They clearly state in their official up-to-date data that his onset date was September 28."

That is clearly the date that he got really sick, and had the classic secondary symptoms going beyond fatigue.

Blanco's onset date was September 24, which is the key date for understanding which letter infected him.

But you will only see that if you choose to look at ALL the FACTS.

[EdLake]

You don't know what happened between September 19 and September 25. For all you know the cleaners could have been there between these dates, but perhaps there were no cleaners between September 25 and the date that the building was closed.

According to Robert Graysmith's book "Amerithrax: The Hunt for the Anthrax Killer", page 29:

At least two weeks passed between the time officials believe anthrax entered AMI and the office was shut down. During that span 350 employees continued to work in a hot building. Janitorial crews vacuumed and cleaned each of those days.

It seems very clear that is is you who does not have all the facts. And apparently you do not care about facts.

Ed

www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[TrebleRebel]

Pure speculation yet again from you. You have no idea what parts of the building the crews vaccumed on each day. For all you know they did separate floors on consecutive days.

But you will continue to twist the facts to suit your own political agenda.

You really need to check ALL the FACTS, and not just focus on a few facts that happen to suit you.

Without knowing the specific areas that were vacuumed and the frequency this was done with, you are, once again, TOTALLY SPECULATING.

Your website in nothing more than a political agenda wrapped up in so-callled "factual analysis", in oder for you to arrive at your pre-conceived conclusions.

Once again, do not analyze ALL the FACTS as a WHOLE, you simply warp facts to fit your theory.

[TrebleRebel]

"But everyone can see that it is obsolete data."

Once again, another "Matthew Mesleson" tactic. You say EVERYONE can see that the data is obselete - what you really mean is that YOU desperately want this data to be obselete, so you simply say it is, hoping that people will believe you. Don't you think if the data was obselete, the CDC would later on say "oh, by the way we made a mistake in our previous paper, we think Ernesto Blanco's illness had a completely different course than everyone else. Whilst everyone else got fatigue first for several days, we don't think he did, even although he says he did, we don't believe him. Therefore his real onset date was September 28".

Duh! They don't say this, do they? Whch simply means that in your "correct onset date" paper they simply made an error and placed his onset date at the time the secondary symptoms appeared.

Once again, you IGNORE the FACTS. ALL the FACTS need to be examined - and that is something your purely political analysis does not allow you to do.

[EdLake]

You say EVERYONE can see that the data is obselete - what you really mean is that YOU desperately want this data to be obselete

No, what I meant to say was that everyone but you can see that you are using obsolete data.

I use data from two different CDC reports. Both reports use September 28 as Ernesto Blanco's onset date. There's the final report HERE and an earlier report which included this graph which also has Ernesto Blanco's onset date as September 28.

Graph of first 21 cases

So, you might speculate that they made an error on the final report, but are you also saying they made the same error on the graph?

Or are you saying that you don't really know what you are talking about?

Ed

www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[TrebleRebel]

I'm saying you are deliberately ignoring the FACTS. The FACTS are that, as the CDC reports, Ernesto Blanco started to get sick on September 24, and I have provided a table in which the CDC give September 24 as his OFFICIAL onset date.

He didn't start to get sick on September 28 - it was 4 days earlier. That is a FACT!

You are desperately posting tables where the CDC, contrary to their other paper, have his onset date as September 28, but that is the date when his SECONDARY symptoms began.

It's funny how you are willing to use CDC data when it suits you, and yet you are unwilling to accept their OFFICIAL conclusion that Bob Stevens was infected from a letter on Septmeber 19.

That's because you are only interested in politics and NOT the TRUE FACTS. If you look at ALL the FACTS you will SEE that Stevens was infected on September 19 and Blanco started to get sick on September 24.

But you prefer POLITICS to FACTS and you will warp any fact to suit your own purely political agenda. Frankly your website is pure politics, and as such is total crap.

[EdLake]

ALL the FACTS need to be examined

Right. And if you looked at all the facts, you'd see that if Ernesto Blanco handled the anthrax letter on September 21 when the real anthrax letter could have arrived, because of his age he could have started to feel the effects on September 24.

So, you are just wasting energy by arguing whether his onset date is the official date the CDC uses or the date you want to use. Either one could work. The Sverdlovsk Anthrax Outbreak had inhalation cases with only 2 day incubation periods. So, 3 and 4 are definitely in the ball park.

Ed

www.anthraxinvestigation.com

[TrebleRebel]

I still would like to get you on the record as saying that Matthew Meselson who did NOT have access to the ALL of the data is a more credible source of information on the nature of the anthrax than ALL of the scientists who had had acess to ALL of the data - such as all the scientists at AFIP, Detrick and the EPA.

Just answer below:

Who is more credible:

(a) Meselson, of Sverdlovsk fame and shenanigans

or

(b) AFIP, Detrick and the EPA - who have gone on record stating that silica was a key component in altering the spores.

What will it be, Ed. Facts or politics? Your choice.

[TrebleRebel]

Pure speculation on your behalf. You are going beyond reporting opinion as facts - you are just making it up as you go along. You have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA when the September 25 letter arrived - it could have been September 15 for all we know.

The most logical explanation is that Blanco got sick from the September 19 anthrax letter. Until we know more it is PURE and ABSURD speculation to think otherwise. I realize you need such absurd speculation since your motivations are PURELY POLITICAL, but some people prefer FACTS to POLITICS.