A Spy Among Us?

The Baltimore Sun ^ | Sunday, July 30, 2006 | Douglas Birch

[jpl]

It could be the plot of a Cold War thriller: A Soviet mole burrows into America's top biodefense lab and steals strains of the deadly viruses that cause Rift Valley and Lassa fevers.

He ships the killer microbes back to Moscow in the bags of Aeroflot pilots, who turn them over to a super-secret arm of the KGB that plots bioterror attacks.

[jpl]

Very long, but extremely interesting piece over the weekend with possible ramifications for the anthrax attacks.

[jpl]

Ping.

[Peach]

Thanks for the ping to this and remembering my interest in this matter.

I'm not buying what this reporter is selling. I'm not saying there wasn't a mole, but I don't think that person had anything to do with the October 2001 anthrax attacks.

It's just too coincidental that:

9/11 Hijacker sought treatment for red hands (anthrax).
October 11, 2001. Palm Beach Post.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/546116/posts

Tabloid Editor rented apartment to two 9/11 hijackers. The tabloid lost a worker to anthrax.
October 15, 2001. Miami Herald.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/548061/posts

Hijackers linked to anthrax.
October 15, 2001. St. Petersburg Times.
http://www.sptimes.com/News/101501/Worldandnation/Hijackers_linked_to_t.shtml

9/11 Hijackers treated for anthrax.
March 23, 2002. The New York Times.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/652000/posts

Remember Anthrax?
April 20, 2002. The Weekly Standard.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/669487/posts
9/24/01. ABC.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/531023/posts

Hijacker treated for anthrax.
May 9, 2002. The Wall Street Journal.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/682921/posts

Atta tried to buy a cropduster.
June 6, 2002. ABC.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/695924/posts

Analysis of anthrax letters.
June 19, 2002. Instapundit.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/703075/posts?page=44#44

The silica used in the anthrax attacks traced to Iraq.
October 28, 2002. The Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A28334-2002Oct27&notFound=true

Freeper polemikos list of links to investigations regarding anthrax.
December 26, 2003.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1047022/posts

Evidence Iraq behind anthrax attacks.
January 1, 2004. Accuracy in Media
http://www.aim.org/publications/media_monitor/2004/01/01.html

Saddam behind anthrax attacks and 9/11 attacks.
Independent website.
http://www.spiritoftruth.org/iraqlinks.htm

[TrebleRebel]

Thanks for the ping. Here's a new briefing I came across:

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2005_hr/bioterror.html

Some of the highlights are statements by Dr Michael Callahan who is presently a DARPA program manager.

Unfortunately, several disquieting observations of the October 2001
anthrax attack using the U.S. mail system merit emphasis. First, the
attack illustrated that advanced expertise had readily been exploited
by a bioterrorist; the preparation in the Daschle letter contained
extraordinarily high concentrations of purified endospores. Second, the
spore preparation was coated with an incipient which helped retard
electrostatic attraction, thus increasing aerosolization of the agent.
Third, the choice of the near-ubiquitous Ames strain, combined with the
absence of forensic details in either the agent or the letters,
indicate that the terrorist is scientifically informed, wary of
detection and extremely dangerous.

[Just mythoughts]

bttt

[TrebleRebel]

It could be that the mole supplied the Ames strain to the Soviet Union. After that the Soviets could have supplied just about anyone.

[Peach]

That's a good point.

[Just mythoughts]

I have NO clue about the veracity of these stories, but one cannot ignore the Russian attempt to protect Saddam and who was there caught fleeing in a convoy to Syria.

Think of the leftist accusations "IF" the claim could be made it (anthrax) was hatched right here in the good old US of A.

[TrebleRebel]

I bring it up because the weaponization method of the spores appears to have Soviet Union written all over it.

In 1998 Ken Alibek was interviewed by Richard Preston for an article titled "The Bioweaponeers" published in the New Yorker[http://web.elastic.org/~fche/mirrors/cryptome.org/bioweap.htm]. In this interview Alibek disclosed details of a new advancement in Soviet dry powder anthrax technology. Preston wrote "The Alibekov anthrax became fully operational in 1989. It is an amber-gray powder, finer than bath talc, with smooth, creamy particles that tend to fly apart and vanish in the air, becoming invisible and drifting for miles. The Alibekov anthrax is four times more efficient than the standard product."

Alibek also disclosed to Preston that the Alibekov anthrax contained two additives. Preston wrote "The Alibekov anthrax is simple, and the formula is somewhat surprising, not quite what you'd expect. Two unrelated materials are mixed with pure powdered anthrax spores. It took a lot of research and testing to get the trick right, and Alibek must have driven his research group hard and skillfully to arrive at it."

Although Alibek revealed to Preston the identities of the two materials, Preston did not publish them. However, in the same year, Alibek was also interviewed by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation for a documentary titled "Red Lies" [http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/bioweapons/redlies.html]. This documentary outlined the Soviet's continued development of advanced anthrax dry powder technology even after the Sverdlovsk accident killed up to one hundred people. The "Red Lies" documentary did provide details of the additives, stating "In the years since the Sverdlovsk accident, Alibek and a research team had taken the Soviet military's anthrax and made it even more deadly. He developed a process to take ground up anthrax spores and coat each particle in plastic and resin. It kept the anthrax aloft four times longer, increasing its ability to infect people."

These details have to be compared to descriptions of the 2001 senate anthrax that were leaked to the media in the period 2002-2003. The first set of leaks were made to Newsweek [ http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/sophisticatedstrainanthrax.html] , CNN [ http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/unusualcoating.html] and the Washigton Post[ http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/anthraxpowdernotroutine.html]in April 2002. Newsweek wrote "The Leahy anthrax -- mailed in an envelope that was recovered unopened from a Washington post office last November -- also was coated with a chemical compound unknown to experts who have worked in the field for years; the coating matches no known anthrax samples ever recovered from biological-weapons producers anywhere in the world, including Iraq and the former Soviet Union. The combination of the intense milling of the bacteria and the unusual coating produced an anthrax powder so fine and fluffy that individually coated anthrax spores were found in the Leahy envelope, something that U.S. bioweapons experts had never seen."

The second set of leaks were made to the Washington Post [ http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/fbisecretlyrecreate.html] in November 2002 who wrote "Investigators and experts have said the spores in the Daschle and Leahy letters were uniformly between 1 and 3 microns in size, and were coated with fine particles of frothy silica glass." In November 2003 Science Magazine [ http://www.angelfire.com/blog/sophie_d2/Anthrax_Science.pdf] reported that in addition to silica the senate anthrax contained "polymerized glass" and its purpose was to chemically bind the silica to the surface of the spores. Some speculate that the similarities between the descriptions of the Alibekov anthrax and the senate anthrax demonstrate a link to technology secretly developed in the Soviet Union in the late 1980's. Now, if the Soviets also got the Ames strain from a mole at Detrick they have all the elements necessary to make the 2001 anthrax.

[Peach]

the coating matches no known anthrax samples ever recovered from biological-weapons producers anywhere in the world, including Iraq and the former Soviet Union. The combination of the intense milling of the bacteria and the unusual coating produced an anthrax powder so fine and fluffy that individually coated anthrax spores were found in the Leahy envelope, something that U.S. bioweapons experts had never seen."

I remember reading that which is why I've never bought it was a homegrown terrorist. That and the "coincidence" that some of the 9/11 hijackers had what people later recognized as cutaneous anthrax.

[TrebleRebel]

And yet the statement "the coating matches no known anthrax samples ever recovered from biological-weapons producers anywhere in the world, including Iraq and the former Soviet Union" doesn't it with Alibek's statements to Richard Preston and CBC in 1998. Alibek's 1998 statements sound EXACTLY like the 2001 anthrax powder.

Interestingly, Alibek's comments AFTER the 2001 attacks seem to be geared towards putting as much distance as possible between himself and the technology of silica coatings and amber-gray powders, finer than bath talc, with smooth, creamy particles that tend to fly apart and vanish in the air, becoming invisible and drifting for miles.

Here's some examples:
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa76481.000/hfa76481_0.HTM
Talking about anthrax, I know something about this powder sent to different locations. Unfortunately I cannot disclose my source of information. I saw, let me say, some pictures. Without getting into detail, my first conclusion is that I am convinced this agent and this product cannot be considered as a Russian or an American weapon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/03/special/world/sp_iraq_alibek033103.htm
A published analysis of the anthrax mailed to government and media in Oct. 2001 shows unambiguously that silicon dioxide was present on the surface of the spores. The work was performed by the AFIP and the results can be seen here.
Does this mean, in your opinion, that the anthrax was made in a state-sponsored bioweapons lab?

Ken Alibek: We paid to much attention to the silicon oxide on the surface of the spores. I haven't seen any silicon presence on micrographs of this anthrax. We shouldn't forget that silica would be a natural component. In this case, in my opinion, silica was a natural presence in these spores. There was no special need to add silica to this anthrax.

[TrebleRebel]

Actually, the article does indeed say the Soviets had obtained Ames:

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/custom/attack/bal-te.detrick30jul30,0,2597607.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines

Serguei Popov, a scientist once based in a Soviet bioweapons lab in Obolensk, south of Moscow, said that by the early 1980s his colleagues had obtained at least two strains of anthrax commonly studied in Detrick and affiliated labs. They included the Ames strain, first identified at Detrick in the early 1980s. It became the standard used for testing U.S. military vaccines, and it was the strain contained in the 2001 anthrax letters that killed five people and infected 23 in the U.S.

[Peach]

Unfortunately I cannot disclose my source of information. I saw, let me say, some pictures. Without getting into detail, my first conclusion is that I am convinced this agent and this product cannot be considered as a Russian or an American weapon.

I'll have to check back into this thread; I'm getting ready to listen to Netanyahu on Rush. bbl

[Tinian]

Very ineresting.

Bump for later reading.

[fso301]

bump

[Battle Axe]

I am the eyewitness to an incident at Iowa State University in the fall semester of 1990.

I have repeatedly informed the FBI, CIA, CDC, DIA and all the other alphabets, as well as many of you.

This story would mesh into what I saw on a level of some sort.


For those of you without 8 years of biological training, the way to find the perps is to look for stray cases of infection. And I saw two.

Now I didn't put all this together until June of 2002 when I suddenly realized that the man with the sore on his face sitting in the waiting room of the student health center WAS the husband of the woman who sat across the table from me in class. She had the same sore, only on her forearm.

The sores had appeared "over the weekend" after she had come into class late. She had made a big production of why she was late as she was NEVER late.

She had stopped to get the mail and there was a package in the mail. She eagerly opened it without looking at the label. The dry ice fell out and shattered. She thought the package contained seeds. But there was a note in a language she did not recognize and she spoke Spanish and English. Suddenly she came to the conclusion that the contents of the package were not intended for her and she then looked at the label. It had her address but someone else's name.

So she looked the name up in the student directory and determined where he lived and hand delivered the package to him as she could not put it back through the mail as the shards of dry ice would no longer fit in the container.

I tried to figure out what was going on and asked some questions. The man whose name was on the package was a Pakistani. The address was "only a couple of numbers different", so it would have been in her apartment complex. The Pak said he was expecting the package.

This class only met on Thursday. This was the Thursday after the Thanksgiving break.

The following week, either Mon or Tues I sat next to this woman in the student health center. She was quite pale and she wanted to know why I was there. I said I was sick with something wrong with my tongue or head or sinuses. She started to tell me about her arm when the nurse called her name.

The next Thursday, (the 2nd one after Thanksgiving) she asked me if I recognized this sore on her arm. She said the physician told her it was a bug or spider bite. I'm an entomologist and did NOT recognize it at all. The she told the class that her husband had the same thing on his face. I can describe this sore today. She said it only hurt when she looked at it and it was burned black in the middle like burned brownies and had a circular bruise around the outside of it.

I saw the man sitting in the waiting room of the student health center on Friday December 14, 1990. His sore dripped profusely.

Anthrax isn't supposed to drip, but this did. Then I found in the CDC reports that the mailed anthrax dripped. Judith Miller in GERMS said that one of the postal worker's sore drip, drip, drip like a faucet. That is exactly what I observed.

THEN.....the 3rd Thursday after Thanksgiving was our last class before the final. The woman borrowed a book of mine. She dripped some of her drainage onto the page. I still own the book, but it is in safe hands now.

This spy story would mesh in with this account.

It would NOT be prudent for the spy in USAMRIID to steal the sample. He should only steal the secrets. The authorities have tested every speck in USAMRIID and not found this special kind, a mutant, that drips. The mailed anthrax was a mixture of regular genotype 62 and this drippy mutant also a genotype 62.

On October 10,11,12, 2001 depending on who you read, Iowa State University destroyed their collection of anthrax that had been kept in the vet school. They also destroyed (supposedly) all the records of who had access and any log in and log out of student participation.

This was 5 days after Bob Stevens died (October 5, 2001).

In April of 1992, ISU applied for and received a Section 18 from the EPA for the use of paraformaldehyde. This is listed on the anthrax clean-up page. It is signed by a lawyer who works for the USDA out of John Hopkins. The intended target is listed as "a dreaded disease of both livestock and man"

The timing of this application fits perfectly with how a lab is regulated. They would have been forced to get this in order to keep their certification current as they would have had time to fail two consecutive tests for certification between the time that it was stolen and the third certification test which they would not have been able to take without this "plan of action".

There are huge implications here. Careers are at stake, reputations are in the balance.

But you are dealing with the Little Red, White and Blue Hen. I fear only God. And right is right and wrong is wrong.

The innocent woman with the sore that sat across the table from me lived at 161 E. There was a Pak from Faisalabad living at 116 E. There was another Pak at the vet school also from Faisalabad.

You put it together.

Battle Axe

[jpl]

I'd sure love to know what Congress, the FBI, and the Justice Department think about this story, not to mention Dr. Hatfill, Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, Nicholas Kristof, Don Foster, etc. etc.

If in fact there is any veracity to this at all, it pretty much renders the government's entire "Amerithrax" investigation completely meaningless.

[carmenbmw]

bttt

[theelephantway]

I am suprised that this liberal rag wrote anything about this. I am stuck reading this paper everyday and they always tell us that Bush's statements about people trying to hurt the U.S. are exaggerated.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!