Posted on 07/01/2007 8:58:07 AM PDT by TrebleRebel
WASHINGTON — In the fall of 1992, Kanatjan Alibekov defected from Russia to the United States, bringing detailed, and chilling, descriptions of his role in making biological weapons for the former Soviet Union.
----------- Officials still value his seminal depictions of the Soviet program. But recent events have propelled questions about Alibek's reliability:
No biological weapon of mass destruction has been found in Iraq. His most sensational research findings, with U.S. colleagues, have not withstood peer review by scientific specialists. His promotion of nonprescription pills — sold in his name over the Internet and claiming to bolster the immune system — was ridiculed by some scientists. He resigned as executive director of a Virginia university's biodefense center 10 months ago while facing internal strife over his stewardship.
And, as Alibek raised fear of bioterrorism in the United States, he also has sought to profit from that fear.
By his count, Alibek has won about $28 million in federal grants or contracts for himself or entities that hired him.
The Los Angeles Times explored Alibek's public pronouncements, research and business activities as part of a series that will examine companies and government officials central to the U.S. war on terrorism -----------------------
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Note that BHR”s theory had all the Pentagon/CIA angle as of her March BBC appearance. Then she got a lot of criticism and reigned in her theory.
Professor Boyle is an attorney. He’s not so easily embarrassed.
Your theory is the same as the “BHR Lite” theory (post-March 2002) with the difference you hadn’t ever heard of Hatfill and so went with the guy you knew from Brian Ross’ December 2001 report. Which was totallly botched. The FBI had closed the file on the Wisconsin bowler months earlier. Brian Ross just misunderstood what his source was telling him. If you don’t believe me, just ask him.
Because it has nothing to do with the anthrax attacks of 2001.
Because your hatred for Professor Meselson seems pathological, and I don't want to give you cause to spout more about your mindless hatred.
Because you use your hatred for Professor Meselson as a reason to avoid discussing the facts about the anthrax attacks of 2001.
Because I'm only interested in discussing the facts about the anthrax attacks of 2001.
Ed,
Hasn’t it been your position in dozens of posts that silica would have no usefulness in weaponizing anthrax .. in aerosolizing anthrax? With TrebleRebel arguing the opposite?
What did you think of the patent, available Lawrence Livermore authors that said:
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20070093593.html
“Re-aerosolization is especially problematic where the hazardous contaminant is a very small particle less than 5 .mu.m in size, such as B. anthracis spores, since such particles are readily aerosolizable, have an ability to remain airborne (aerosols with a particle size of 0.1 to 1 .mu.m tend to remain suspended), and can achieve significant diffusive motion in much the same fashion as for gas molecules. Weaponized B. anthracis spores in particular, are very small refined particles which are uniform in size and appearance (approximately 1 to 3 .mu.m in size), highly concentrated, ELECTROSTATICALLY CHARGED, and treated to reduce clumping. Due to their very small size and ability to remain airborne, weaponized B. anthracis spores are more likely to be inhaled and are thus considerably more lethal than unrefined spores. Furthermore, these spores have been shown to re-aerosolize with common office activities such as paper handling and foot traffic.
As an example, particles can include a coating that acts to separate them, RESULTING IN SPACING TOO LARGE FOR VAN DER WAALS FORCES to cause the particles to adhere and thus aggregate and deposit onto surfaces. Various contaminants are of a sufficiently small size (0.5-5 .mu.m) to lodge in the lung tissue, remain in the breathing zone and readily re-suspend.”
Aren’t the Lawrence Livermore authors, with LL doing key work on microbial forensics for the FBI, saying the opposite of what you are saying in hundreds of posts on this very narrow issue of silica?
Do you recall the names of the young scientists at Lawrence Livermore who were doing work for the FBI reflected in MICROBIAL FORENSICS?
Now note the Dugway simulant commonly provided for such studies is 20 percent silica. (see pubmed article below) But the Daschle product is “pure spores” — albeit with silica detected. So the inference to be made is that the silica was removed by repeated centrifugation as Henry Niman posited years ago (whether used in the culture medium or after being dry blended).
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1800749
Spore matrix. The material used as the test agent for this study was a
powdered matrix containing B. atrophaeus spores (ATCC 9372; formerly
Bacillus subtilis var. niger and subsequently “Bacillus globigii”) (12)
and silicon dioxide particles obtained from the U.S. Army Dugway Proving
Ground Life Science Division. The spore material was prepared by
cultivating B. atrophaeus in tryptic soy broth (Difco, Detroit, MI)
containing 3 mg/liter MnSO4 (Fisher Scientific, Pittsburgh, PA). After
80 to 90% sporulation, the spore suspension was centrifuged to obtain a
spore suspension containing approximately 20% solids. Dry spore material
was then prepared from the unwashed spore suspension with a laboratory
spray dryer. The spore material was dry blended with Aerosil R812S fumed
silica particles (Degussa, Frankfurt am Main, Germany) at 80% dry spore
material to 20% silica and jet milled to a uniform particle size. The
final powdered matrix contained approximately 1011 viable
spores/g. The B. atrophaeus spore material was expressly designed to
enhance aerosol suspension and inhalation characteristics, and the
removal, extraction, and recovery characteristics of a different Bacillus
species, native spore material, or spore material prepared by a different
method may differ.”
Now in the two sentences reportedly written by Professor Meselson, he says the danger is that biodefense research efforts will be misdirected if it is not appreciated that no sophisticated additives were used. ... if it is not understood that there is great danger in simply prepared preparations.
But silica is not a sophisticated additive. Beecher never said silica was not detected. If you don’t believe me, just ask him.
Why on earth are you rehashing stuff about Ari Fleischer’s book or personal opinion about someone not involved in the investigation when you have peer-reviewed representations about the make-up of the Dugway simulant?
Formal representations which were shared with you a day or two ago that totally contradict what you’ve been arguing for years?
No. As usual, you got nothing right.
Perhaps I should have written: "Because, even if true, it would have nothing to do with the anthrax attacks of 2001." But, I figured you'd just use that to go into some hate-filled diatribe, and I wanted to avoid that. But, you did it anyway.
Even though 99 percent of the facts about the anthrax attacks of 2001 have nothing to do with Professor Meselson, he is clearly all you can think about.
All you are doing is demonstrating that your pathological hatreds have made you totally irrational, and it is you who cannot be trusted in any comment on the subject of the anthrax attacks of 2001.
No, it hasn't. Silica IS used in weaponizing anthrax. I've never said otherwise. I even describe how Alibek did it in my book. And I describe how silica was used in the milling process used in the 1950s. I've described in detail countless times how silica is used to help keep "weaponized" spores from absorbing moisture.
However, silica was NOT -- REPEAT NOT used to "weaponize" the anthrax sent through the mail in 2001. People who viewed the anthrax through Scanning Electron Microscopes saw no trace of silica. The only reason some people continue to believe that there was silica in the Daschle anthrax is because of FALSE ASSUMPTIONS made early in the investigation after AFIP detected the elements silicon and oxygen in the spores.
TrebelRebel believes that the anthrax spores were COATED with silica, even though NO ONE saw any coating on the spores, not even AFIP. It's just a mindless belief on TrebelRebel's part, which he sometimes tries to justify with a ridiculous claim that the "goop" Tom Geisbert saw oozing out of and dripping off of chemically-treated spores translates into "seeing a coating on the spores."
So, you’re saying Meselson was RIGHT about Sverdlovsk? It was contaminated sausages after all? And Boris Yeltsin was just kidding when he said the Soviets had a BW factory?
Are you on drugs?
AFIP clearly stated ONE YEAR AFTER the attacks that silica was a key aerosol enabling component. They are a named source, and they were charged by the FBI to analyze the spores.
Your fantasies about a massive conspiracy amongst USAMRIID scientists and the Whitehouse to pretend there was silica present is typical of a conspiracy theorist. I suppose you also believe the moon landings were faked and that explosive charges brought down the twin towers.
No. They are saying exactly what I've been saying. Note that this information says anthrax spores are "readily aerosolizable" and will also re-aerosolize:
Re-aerosolization is especially problematic where the hazardous contaminant is a very small particle less than 5 .mu.m in size, such as B. anthracis spores, since such particles are readily aerosolizable, have an ability to remain airborne (aerosols with a particle size of 0.1 to 1 .mu.m tend to remain suspended), and can achieve significant diffusive motion in much the same fashion as for gas molecules.
That statement is about what Douglas Beecher said: Spore powders which have NOT been manufactured as bioweapons can also be extremely dangerous.
According to TrebelRebel, re-aerosolation of uncoated spores would be just about impossible.
Plus, the comment about van der Waals forces is not JUST about spores:
Airborne contaminants such as, but not limited to, toxic metals, microbiological contaminants, and allergens could also be removed from the breathing environment in this way. As an example, particles can include a coating that acts to separate them, resulting in spacing too large for van der Waals forces to cause the particles to adhere and thus aggregate and deposit onto surfaces.
While it says "particles can include a coating," that doesn't mean spores MUST include a coating. And the prior quote says that spores do not NEED to include a coating.
When you have to make stuff up to make a point, you are showing how desperate you are due to your lack of facts.
No one ever "pretended" there was silica in the attack anthrax. It was just assumed because the elements silicon and oxygen had been detected. That is NOT a conspiracy. It is a MISTAKE.
A conspiracy would be when someone claims that when General Parker and others say the Daschle anthrax was "pure spores" they are all lying and involved in some coverup of some illegal U.S. government bioweapons program, because the spores WERE coated with silica.
Not even AFIP claimed the spores were COATED with silica. It takes a unique level of stupidity to believe the spores WERE coated and everyone is lying about it.
Ed, you say that TrebleRebel’s argument about overcoming VanderWaals source is crock. Lawrence Livermore, with the inventor authoring papers on the subject with Dugway’s Lloyd, disagrees with you.
Even Alibek and Patrick disagree with you. As explained in the PhD thesis they supervised, silica serves to increase the concentration leading to greater concentration — which leads to it being more aerosolizable.
The weakness is TrebleRebel’s argument is that he doesn’t appreciate that the Dugway simulant in the Canadian experiment performed just as well as the Daschle product. And so the special processing tricks he thinks so important were not used and yet still performed like the Daschle product at 20 percent weight silica.
Ed, you quote Professor Meselson saying:
“Even impure apparently clumpy spore preparations can put large numbers of spores into the air under the conditions of the Canadian experiments.”
Now where was the simulant used in the Canadian study obtained? Dugway.
Did it contain silica? Yes.
What weight? 20 percent. (much more weight than used in the Daschle product)
Did it leak from the envelope before opening? Yes.
Did it immediately cross the room? Yes.
Why was it prepared? It was prepared in connection with a threat letter received relating to the detention of a Vanguards of Conquest shura member, Mahmoud Mahjoub.
Can silica be used and yet not appear on a SEMS? Yes, the GMU patent explains greater concentration can be achieved by removing the silica through repeated centifugation or an air chamber. Dr. Alibek explains that in small scale production, a trillion spore concentration can be achieved without expensive equipment.
Is there any reason to doubt Alibek? No.
Is there any reason to doubt that Alibek and Meselson did not see silica?
No.
Is there any reason to doubt that the AFIP’s EDX detected silica?
No. Ken didn’t even know they had detected silica until I told him. Now he accepts it. I have no idea why you have not adjusted your argument to take into account that Dr. A no longer disputes silica was detected.
Is there a patent relating to use of hydrophobic nanosilica powders in concentration agents such as anthrax?
Yes.
Who is the owner?
GMU.
Who had access to the know-how. The neo-Salafist lecturing on the end of times who was taught by Bin Laden’s sheik and was working with the sheik to hand deliver a letter to all members of Congress on the first anniversary of the letters to Daschle and Leahy. The one the WP says the FBI thinks accessed the know-how. The guy sentenced to life plus 70 years.
The guy who was concerned Mahmoud Mahjoub’s detention and speaking in Toronto in the Summer of 2001.
Join the investigation, guys. It’s never too late.
Given that Ken and Charles both consulted for Battelle, and Charles was the liaison for the DIA on biological weapons, and Ken was a renown expert who consulted on such weapons with a wide variety of agencies, was the Canadian report in fact faxed to their fax number in September 2001? Which coincidentally also was Ali’s fax? Anyone who had seen the report would know it likely would leak and likely would kill innocents. That would violate the hadiths.
Your babbling makes no sense. You say YOU told Alibek that there was silica in the Daschle anthrax, and he BELIEVED you. And that is supposed to be proof of what? And why should I take into account the fact that Alibek was gullible enough to believe what you said?
There was no silica in the attack anthrax. No one detected silica. They detected the elements silicon and oxygen.
You put facts together like putting them in a blender. Whatever crap comes out is something you claim to be true.
Ed, have you seen the Alibek and Patrick supervised thesis? If you are in Madison, the University of Wisconsin at Madison would have the Alibek supervised thesis on ProQuest Dissertations for free. I would send it but these pdfs are too big to forward.
As for what I told Ken, I told him the AFIP report says that silica was detected.
You did not interview the EDX operator, who was highly experienced at detecting silica. Highly experienced in interpreting the distribution of silicon and oxygen. Your understanding arose at a time when Ken was not aware of the AFIP report.
Moreover, his point is that the presence or absence of silica is not determinative of whether it was state sponsored or not. Not determinative of whether it came from a state program or not. That seems a sound assumption, particularly given that they later publicly published the patent under which hydrophobic silica was used to concentrate biological agents, with the silica then removed by repeated centrifugation.
This proliferation of dual use technology is precisely the valid concerned so well expressed by Professor Boyle in his interview.
But let me encourage you to go get the PhD thesis on weaponization that Ken and Bill P. supervised. It explains why silica would have been used. It basically picks up where your drying idea leaves off and explains the alternative purpose as it relates to aerosolization. It explains that the technique was developed in the context of delivering drugs to the intended organs. Under this understanding, the feds would be looking not just for a spraydrying expert with experience in using silica to dry blend the product, but an expert in functional polymerization. They’d be looking for someone with parents proud of their son’s contribution to improving the delivery of pharmaceuticals. Given that IG had both such experts available to them — and some left over to spare — these differences in the forensic results has practical consequences.
I like to think of you and TrebleRebel as equally right.
TrebleRebel is not a microbiologist and not a spraydrying expert. And so his brilliance needs to be viewed through your common-sense show me approach.
But the common sense approach would be just to contact and Ken and confirm that I’m right that he no longer would dispute that the EDX correctly detected silica (and not merely silicon).
I don’t recall that you’ve addressed the electrostatic charge point. Now Professor Boyle mistakenly predicated his argument on the claim that the charge “had been removed.” Now, that was not true as explained by Alibek.
But the Livermore patent clearly contradicts you on the electrostatic charge. are you willing to accept it as authoritative expertise? If not, why not?
Ed, just to be clear, do you now credit the correctness and authority of the statement by the biological expert working for the Department of Energy says:
Weaponized B. anthracis spores in particular, are very small refined particles which are uniform in size and appearance (approximately 1 to 3 .mu.m in size), highly concentrated, ELECTROSTATICALLY CHARGED, and treated to reduce clumping. Due to their very small size and ability to remain airborne, weaponized B. anthracis spores are more likely to be inhaled and are thus considerably more lethal than unrefined spores. Furthermore, these spores have been shown to re-aerosolize with common office activities such as paper handling and foot traffic.
As an example, particles can include a coating that acts to separate them, RESULTING IN SPACING TOO LARGE FOR VAN DER WAALS FORCES to cause the particles to adhere and thus aggregate and deposit onto surfaces. Various contaminants are of a sufficiently small size (0.5-5 .mu.m) to lodge in the lung tissue, remain in the breathing zone and readily re-suspend
Weaponized B. anthracis spores in particular, are very small refined particles which are uniform in size and appearance (approximately 1 to 3 .mu.m in size), highly concentrated, ELECTROSTATICALLY CHARGED, and treated to reduce clumping.”
Beecher would not say that the spores were not weaponized. He merely says it is mistaken to assume that a state sponsored program is necessary. He wrote: “a widely circulated misconception is that the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapon production. The issue is usually the basis for implying that the powders were inordinately dangerous compared to spores alone. The persistent credence given to this impression fosters erroneous preconceptions, which may misguide research and preparedness efforts and generally detract from the magnitude of hazards posed by simple spore preparations.”
The dual use technology at issue here is not akin to military weapon production. It is a publicly published patent relating to the concentration of biological agents.
Small-scale processing to maximize aerosolizability is by definition weaponization where you have the small particle size even though “not akin to military weapon production.” He’s just saying there was no sophisticated additive and that a state actor was not needed to make the anthrax. Silica is not a sophisticated additive. You mistakenly read Beecher to be support for the proposition that no silica was used. If he had meant to say that, he would have said that. If you don’t believe me, just ask Dr. Beecher. Whether dry blended or used in the culture medium, there is no reason to view it as akin to military weapons production.
Now it is has been reported that Professor Meselson added those two sentences. I don’t know one way or the other. But guess who peer-reviewed the article in the same journal in February 2007 by the Livermore woman and Dugway fellow?
Beecher wrote a nice note when he forwarded me the article that I gave to you. He said “With compliments.” But be gentle with Ed.
In understanding what the FBI was thinking, on February 26, 2003, they searched two drying experts the same minute they searched Ali’s townhouse. One they arrested, one they didn’t. Expertise is spraydrying. And expertise in mixing with silica. One lived a mile from me.
But neither had expertise in functionalized polymers.
So the FBI was left scratching its head for the next couple of years.
For repeated centrifugation and sequential filtration, nothing beats the US Army-funded MICROBIAL VAC developed in Idaho with testing done in the midwest and consulting done from Iowa State University, where there was a prototype. The fellow arrested had a supervisor and colleague and good friend who consulted on it (doing the stats). He came here to work for IANA and was a friend of al-Hussayen, the IANA webmaster. It concentrated and sequentially filtered the anthrax for the purpose of sampling anthrax on meat carcasses. A nice guy, I called him once to talk but it wasn’t a good time because too much was going on.
Spertzel has always recognized the importance of sequential filtering. In Iraq, they used a coffin-shaped device. The repeated centrifugation leads to what you call “pure spores” and the sequential filtration gets rid of the debris and results in a particle of a uniform small size.
Thank-you for recognizing that Livermore embrace the van der Waals model of spore agglomeration. Also, thank-you for pointing out that Livermore scientists also recognize that weaponized spores are highly charged with static electricity.
The Ed Lakes and Matthew Meselsons of the world have now been relegated to the dustbin of history - where they should have been many, many years ago. It’s just amazing that Meselson still seems to have credibilty even today amongst journalists who are too lazy to do a simple Google search that would reveal his gross misconduct on BW affairs dating back over the last 20 years.
At least we have Ed Lake to thank for continually publishing Meselson’s warped viewpoints. Ed, you have done a great service to the media. I thank you for that. The more you write about Meselson the more the entire world realizes what a liar he is.
Commenting on the fine powder sent Senator Daschle and Leahy, Professor Meselson said: “Only nations, probably, have figured out how to do this,” But, he adds, this means “how to do it is in the minds of people,” including former employees of weapons programs in the Soviet Union and the US.
And he said that it didn’t make much sense to have protracted debate over forensics — that was best left to the experts doing the work for the FBI.
That hardly warrants your five years of insults, regardless of the historical background. Both seem like perfectly reasonable statements and he’s barely spoken or written more than a few sentences more. As for his letter in which he joined Dr. Alibek, Dr. A, while a stand-up guy with undisputed expertise, is disqualified because of the FBI’s intense investigation into whether he obtained the access to know-how from Ken.
Moreover, it was somewhat reckless to think Professor Meselson would “lie” about not seeing silica when the same SEMS are there for the retained experts to observe.
You say it would be clearly observable and yet you are talking about a weight of 1 percent rather than 20 percent. And you’re not a microbiologist. And they didn’t see all the SEMS.
So you might have been more constructive and instead relied upon his expert opinion: “Only nations, probably, have figured out how to do this [but] how to do it is in the minds of people” and moved on.
I have proof that Meselson lied about Sverdlovsk, and eyewitnesses who would testify that he ignored pathology reports he was shown (at great risk to the courageous Soviet doctors who concealed them from the KGB). Let me know when Meselson wants to pursue this in court.
And if you someday have proof he is a Russophile and was dramatically wrong about Sverdlovsk, all you’ve succeeded in doing is alienating those that have fondly known Matt for decades. As Buckaroo Bonzai said, don’t be mean because wherever you go, there you are.
Time is better spent asking: what Russian might be a tad defensive that silica was used, particularly given that many people then seize on that to point to a state sponsored program. Ken knew the silica patent was in the pipeline and would be published.
The more fruitful approach would be to one day out of the blue say: “Yo, Ken, how ya doing? So did you used to pal around with the guy who was the protege of Bin Laden’s sheik and lecturing on the signs of the coming day of judgment and saying that Western civilization would hoperfully fall into the dustbin of history? Then he’ll start talking more to the point of what he knows is going on.
Now we can ask: why did Ali Al-Timimi have a high security clearance? Why did the Center for Biodefense and ATCC work there given they knew he was a hardliner? And if they didn’t, why didn’t they? Why didn’t DIA or DARPA? What did the letter of recommendation to Ali from the White House say? What work did he do for Andrew Card while Card was at DOT? There are lots of questions more interesting than whether Professor Meselson got it right or wrong in a letter to the editor.
Personally, I think you made a compelling argument on the historical record. Even the DIA and CIA, according to a declassified document, show that after a meeting he had called, after he left, they all agreed he wasn’t asking the Russians the hard questions.
It’s just quicker to get to the part of asking the Russian the hard questions. If you had been nice, you could have corresponded with Dr. A and Dr. M directly and we could have had you and Ken agree on this “encapsulation” as the reason silica was used (what I sometimes describe as a functionalized polymer).
Absent surreptitious interception of communications, the best source of intelligence is to engage the person.
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