Two labs confirmed Pentagon anthrax: same genetic strain used in the 2001 attacks.

UPI ^ | March 21, 2005 | Dee Ann Divis

[Gene Vidocq]

Ayman Zawahiri

Ross

[genefromjersey]

(Music up)

Ayman-
You with the bars in your eyes
Infidels made a fool of you-
You thought you were so wise !

Ayman-
Your finger's up in the air
It had better not be the middle one
Or we'll put pork in your rice !

Everybody sing !!

[Allan]

Which one is Ross?

[Gene Vidocq]

"Everybody sing !!"


Ay, ya, ya ya

Ayman Zawahiri

Dah alli bareedo.

Ilnaas koullaha A'aiynha a'alaiik.

Dah alli bareedo.

Ilnaas koullaha A'aiynha a'alaiik.

Ay, ya, ya. Oo la, la. Kida, Kidah, Allaah.




http://www.shira.net/samara.htm

[Gene Vidocq]

"Which one is Ross?"


The one with the Harvard Law Degree and a One Track Mind.

[Inkognitow]

"The band Anthrax takes on anthrax vaccine"

Give me a break!

[Inkognitow]

"The happenings of the "Camel Club" were long since settled..."

Perhaps, but I don't think so.


"The Rhyme of the Ancient Camellier"

"Ayaad Assaad was the start,
with a reputation for not having heart
A 'skimmer' without equal
We hope there's no sequel
In his honor we created this beast
It represents life lower than yeast
Whoever is voted this sucker,
you can't duck her,
You must accept blame,
And bear all the shame
Unlike Assaad,
that first mother%#$&#%"

***

Well it's time for the camel to pass
So let's all reach and raise up a glass.
Let's give'm the credit,
the one who will get it
the poor bastard we're gonna harass."




Fort Detrick's anthrax mystery
Who tried to frame Dr. Ayaad Assaad,
a former biowarfare researcher at the Army lab?
Was it the same person responsible for last fall's anthrax mail terrorism?
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Laura Rozen
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/01/26/assaad/index_np.html


http://glassfrequency.blogspot.com/2002B_Rozen_Salon.html

[Inkognitow]

"the poor bastard we're gonna harass."

On the night of March 12, Ayaad Assaad received a call from a person representing himself as a Louisiana F.B.I. agent. The caller demanded to know if Assaad had been told who wrote the Quantico letter. To prove his credentials, the caller rattled off personal information from as far back as Assaad's Egyptian high school -- the Arabic name of which he pronounced correctly. Assaad believes he recognized the caller's source of information: he was likely reading from Assaad's confidential SF-171, a U.S.-government employment application form that had been on file at USAMRIID.

Frightened, Dr. Assaad hung up, then called me at home at 10 P.M. to tell me of the incident. I assured him the call was fraudulent. The F.B.I. does not conduct its business in that way.

There were, in my opinion, a few people whose recorded voices should be played back to Assaad to see if he recognized one of them as his anonymous caller. Though it is a felony to impersonate an F.B.I. agent, the task force decided not to investigate. According to Assaad, when he finally called the F.B.I., he was told to get caller ID.

[Gene Vidocq]

"A lot of good has come from it . . . five people have died, but we've put about $6 billion in our budget . . ."

-David Franz

Anthrax Plot Against Liberals?

By Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid | November 8, 2001 "He'd have to learn a lot more than just what he knew working with underarm aerosol sprays."

The federal government's handling of the anthrax controversy seems like the Keystone Cops. The most serious aspect was the failure to immediately test postal workers, two of whom died of anthrax exposure. Media coverage has followed confusing government statements. First, the anthrax in Senator Tom Daschle's office was said to be "weapons-grade." Then a government scientist said it was "common-variety" anthrax. Then we were told it was, in fact, weapons-grade.

The letters were discovered after the terror attacks of September 11th. Some of the letters say, "Death to America," and have praise for Allah. It seems obvious to some that radical Muslims wrote the poison letters. The letters are written or printed in such a way as to suggest they are the work of someone who has just learned his letters and the language. That, too, suggests a foreigner who hasn't been in the U.S. very long.

But what seems obvious to some doesn't make sense to others. Gary Brown, described as a retired Air Force counter terrorism specialist, told the Washington Post that he suspected the anthrax terrorism was domestic because, he said, one of the letters went to Daschle, "who's on the left. If it's a home-grown militia effort, Daschle's a likely target." But Daschle has never been a major target of the far right-wing. He's never been seen as a major left-wing figure. One might expect the militia send a letter to an official of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Iraq has been suggested as a possible source, and this makes a lot of sense. Iraq has concealed its hand in past terrorist incidents, such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. But Iraq's foreign minister and top scientist assured Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes that they would never do such a thing. Following the lead of that so-called expert quoted in the Post, some of the talking heads in the media have started suggesting that right-wingers are the source of the anthrax. On CNBC's Hardball show, Chris Mathews suggested the source was someone who hates liberals working at a plant making underarm deodorant.

"It's been my hunch for days now," he said, "that [the source is] some angry person perhaps living in the New Jersey area who has been an employee of a major pharmaceutical company that may work with aerosol sprays for underarm deodorants or whatever. Would that kind of engineer have the capability – just because he didn't like the country, didn't like liberals or media people, to produce this kind of anthrax and put it in an envelope?"

His guest was David Franz, the vice president of chemical and biological defenses at the Southern Research Institute and a former commander at the Army's germ defense lab at Ft. Detrick, Maryland. Franz politely said Mathews didn't know what he was talking about. He explained, "He'd have to learn a lot more than just what he knew working with underarm aerosol sprays. Those are chemicals, and here we're dealing with living things. We're dealing with a spore that you have to keep alive…" One doesn't know whether to laugh or cry at Mathews' pathetic attempt to blame conservatives for the anthrax" terrorism.

***

Col. David R. Franz:

"A former commander of Fort Detrick, Col. David Franz, said, "A lot of good has come from it . . . five people have died, but we've put about $6 billion in our budget . . ."

But for the families of the five people who died, it is cold comfort."

(ABC News, 4/4/02).

***

" An anonymous letter was sent to the FBI describing Egyptian-born Dr. Ayaad Assaad as a "potential terrorist" early last October right before the anthrax letters. Although the FBI cleared him of any suspicion, his victimization by a racist clique at Fort Detrick prior to his layoff in 1997 was revealed. At that time he was targeted with racist poison pen letters.

His supervisor, Col. David Franz, "slammed the door in my face," asserted Assaad, "when I complained." Dr. Richard Crosland and Dr. Kay Mereish described Fort Detrick Commander Franz as a "bigot" and "racist" when they were laid off in the same year that Hatfill was hired."

(Hartford Courant, 12/19/01)

[Gene Vidocq]

March 29, 2005

By TIM MILLER
6 News Anchor/Reporter

OAK RIDGE (WATE) -- A report by the DOE's Office of the Inspector General says that allegations of improper anthrax research at ORNL are true.

The investigation was conducted in fall 2004. The 10 page report was released Tuesday.

The inspector general says a guest researcher at the national lab didn't get authorization to conduct research on dead anthrax spores.

Although the dead spores didn't pose a health hazard, the report says they could have caused false positives for anthrax in biological detectors. The report says the false positives could have caused public distress.

Also, the report says the dead anthrax spores weren't checked in or secured, a significant safety concern that could've led to possible theft.

However, ORNL says that no regulations were violated.

"When you kill biological material," says the lab's Brian Davison, "it becomes just dead protein. There's no hazard at all. The researcher was approved for doing work on detection of proteins and was aware that he was working with these spores. And he got the dead spores in by approved measures."

Davison adds that ORNL formally communicated with the inspector general's office its concerns that the federal department over-reacted when a draft of the report was released.

The inspector general made several recommendations in the report. Some of those are that ORNL should make sure only authorized researchers can conduct work at the lab and that security reviews should be done on all biological products.

Representatives at the lab say although they disagree with much of the report, they agree with some of the recommendations and are working to improve security measures.