Posted on 09/25/2006 10:42:40 AM PDT by blam
US attacks used 'common anthrax'
At least five people died in anthrax attacks in 2001
Investigators believe anthrax used in a series of attacks in the US in 2001 was not of military grade as originally thought, a US newspaper reports. The Washington Post paper says the FBI has widened its investigation into the source of the anthrax after finding it was of a more common variety.
"There is no significant signature in the powder that points to a domestic source," an expert told the paper.
Anthrax powder, sent by mail, killed five people in the US in October 2001.
At least 17 people were taken ill after coming into contact with the powder, which was sent in envelopes to US government offices and media organisations.
'No additives'
Coming weeks after the 11 September attacks, the anthrax mailings caused panic in the US.
Suspicion originally centred on scientists with access to US defence laboratories.
But no one was charged over the attacks, and according to the Washington Post, the pool of suspects has now been widened.
Officials quoted by the paper say the type of anthrax sent in the post bore none of the hallmarks associated with the "weaponised" form of the disease spores, used by the military.
The powder used in the attacks was reportedly of a common strain and had not been processed to make it more easily dispersible - and therefore, more lethal.
The paper quotes a report by an FBI scientist, Douglas J Beecher, who dismisses as a "widely-circulated misconception" the view that the anthrax spores were produced "using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapons production".
According to another scientist interviewed by the Washington Post, although the anthrax used in the attacks was not military-grade, it was of a very high quality.
"Whoever did it was proud of their biology. They grew the spores, spun them down, cleaned up the debris. But there were no additives," the scientist is quoted as saying.
ping
And it took them 5 years to figure this out?
Wow, that was quick. What happened to that guy who was hounded, Richard Jewel style?
I'll take it with .06479891 g. NaCl2
Hatfield.
He's working in an Iranian weapons lab. (Just kiddin')
And the related Washington Post story today almost made me fall out of my chair. It had the first acknowledgement I've ever seen made in the mainstream press that the Soviet Union/Russia has the Ames strain. I was absolutely stunned. A few years ago they were telling us they had it narrowed down to something like seven or eight labs!
And they have more comments in there from Chertoff which are very cleverly phrased, yet hard to interpret in any other way than as trying to keep a cloud of suspicion over Hatfill, even though he doesn't actually mention him by name.
Needless to say, even though the Soviet Union gets specifically mentioned, you don't see any mention of countries like Pakistan or Iraq, although we now know for certain that the strain may well have been available all over the world.
Thanks for the ping.
Lousy title. Makes it sound like US is using anthrax weapons in the war.
Yes, indeed. They are spinning a strange story here, not sure what to make of it. I'm hoping we're going to get some kind of response from the military scientists who, 5 years ago, said the additive silica was present.
Me either, and you aren't kidding. As someone else said earlier in the thread, the information being put out now is almost completely opposed to everything that was put out earlier on.
Is it really possible that our entire government apparatus can be this incompetent? Maybe, but I have to say that I find it hard to believe. Notice how all of this information is suddenly coming out now, right at the fifth anniversary of the attacks, when it is coming back into media focus. Mere coincidence, or a bone being thrown to pacify the curious?
Here's a few of the reports and stories:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011029-4.html
MAJOR GENERAL PARKER: Complicated question. We do know that we found silica in the samples. Now, we don't know what that motive would be, or why it would be there, or anything. But there is silica in the samples.
http://www.afip.org/images/public/nl081002.pdf
The AFIP lab deputy director, Florabel Mullick, said "This [silica] was a key component. Silica prevents the anthrax from aggregating, making it easier to aerosolize.
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/sophisticatedstrainanthrax.html
Government sources tell NEWSWEEK that the secret new analysis shows anthrax found in a letter addressed to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy was ground to a microscopic fineness not achieved by U.S. biological-weapons experts. 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.
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/fbisecretlyrecreate.html
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. The weaponized product was astonishingly pure -- 1 trillion spores per gram -- and so light that it simply floated into the air, ready to be inhaled, as soon as the envelope was opened.
What a bunch of creeps.
It means nothing other than the folks who put together the attack happened to use the most commonly used single strain of anthrax in the world.
That means two things ~ (1) That they had access to the anthrax, and (2) They knew this strain would be impossible to trace.
Which, of course, means they knew what to do with anthrax.
I broached this subject back back in 2002 on the same thread where the first news that the envelopes had been taped shut was posted. These guys knew what the seepage rate of their anthrax was using USPS postage embossed envelopes. That is, they'd tested it and discovered they had to tape over the envelopes to reduce the seepage lest it all dissipate before reaching the targets.
A postal inspector evaluating all of the tape was able to show that all of the pieces were taken from the same roll, sequentially.
The fact they were testing USPS embossed envelopes for seepage indicates they'd used them earlier in a different attack (or test) that failed ~ where no one came down with anthrax.
It's possible they mailed an envelope to one of their own addresses to see what condition the material was in after a few days under the tender mercies of USPS.
An early question being asked around USPS Headquarters was "what's the ordinary background level of anthrax in the mail system", and the answer was "no one ever asked, so we don't know". That's why no examination was possible for an earlier attack. On the other hand, sufficient testing has now been done that USPS folks definitely know the background levels of anthrax and dozens of other potentially dangerous materials.
A more important question, though, is what varieties of anthrax has subsequently been found in the mail system. I'm going to guess that is now known, but they're not telling us.
"Yes, indeed. They are spinning a strange story here, not sure what to make of it. I'm hoping we're going to get some kind of response from the military scientists who, 5 years ago, said the additive silica was present."
They don't want to lose the Hatfill case. Bureacracy abhors culpability.
Here's the Washington Post version.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/24/AR2006092401014_2.html?nav=rss_politics/fedpage
Question - how could it take five years to decide if it had additives or not?
"A few years ago they were telling us they had it narrowed down to something like seven or eight labs!"
They were trying to prove the "Ameri"-thrax profile it looks like.
"or a bone being thrown to pacify the curious"
It's that time of year. If they knew this years ago, why clarify now?
So why are they spinning the lies now? Why now?
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