That's certainly not true. Like almost everyone, when I first learned about the anthrax letters, I assumed that al Qaeda had sent them. But then as the evidence started piling up, it became clear that al Qaeda was NOT behind the anthrax attacks. And neither was Saddam Hussein.
Instead of looking at the facts, however, back in those days (November 2001) everyone was just voicing opinions: "Al Qaeda did it!" "No, Saddam Hussein did it!" "No, it was the Bush Administration!" "No, it was the pharmaceutical companies!" Etc., etc., etc.
That's why I started my web site. I addressed the "al Qaeda theory" in early 2002. All the FACTS say that al Qaeda was not behind the attacks.
However, there's no way to convince a "True Believer" of that. A True Believer can rationalize anything to fit his beliefs. And there's no way to prove him wrong. Here's why:
The anthrax mailer used standard small pre-stamped post office envelopes to mail his warnings. The envelopes have a green eagle stamp on them. A True Believer sees the green as a color code used by al Qaeda, and sees the American eagle as bird code used by al Qaeda. He sees this a PROOF that al Qaeda sent the letters. How can anyone prove him wrong?
The senate letters were mailed to two liberal senators. There appears to be no sensible reason why al Qaeda would target those two senators before targeting President Bush, the Pentagon, and dozens of Republican senators and congressmen first. But, a True Believer can dig around and find some bill to aid Israel which was sponsored by one of those senators. A True Believer can claim that is PROOF of why those senators were targeted. And how can he be proven wrong?
The letters contained medical advice, and it is clear the sender took numerous precautions to avoid harming anyone. But a True Believer can find some obscure passage in some obscure Muslim writings somewhere which indicate that a good Muslim should warn his enemy before using unusual weapons. To the True Believer, this is PROOF that al Qaeda would send medical advice in a warning letter. How can anyone prove such a ridiculous belief to be wrong?
The FBI has stated many times that the crime was a "domestic" crime. But a True Believer can say that "domestic" means that it was a crime committed by an al Qaeda member who lives in the United States. And who can prove him wrong?
The FBI is searching the world for any sign that al Qaeda might be developing bioweapons or chemical weapons somewhere. The True Believer sees this as "proof" that the FBI is pursuing a theory that al Qaeda was behind the anthrax attacks and that is their PRIMARY theory. And who can prove him wrong?
A True Believer converts facts to beliefs as he tries to convert the heathen to his way of thinking. He relies on the fact that he cannot be proven wrong, no matter how totally ridiculous his twisted rationalizations are.
Eric Hoffer stated in his book "The True Believer" that there is no way to change a True Believer's mind. The most you can hope for is to convert him to a different belief. But why bother? I have no reason to convert anyone. I just get tired sometimes of having some True Believer endlessly try to convert me to his absurd beliefs.
Ed writes:
The anthrax mailer used standard small pre-stamped post office envelopes to mail his warnings. The envelopes have a green eagle stamp on them. A True Believer sees the green as a color code used by al Qaeda, and sees the American eagle as bird code used by al Qaeda. He sees this a PROOF that al Qaeda sent the letters. How can anyone prove him wrong?
Ed, this is ad hominem argument rather than analysis.
Whether “code” was used is a factual question that is susceptible to analysis — and at trial, by testimony. For example, I believe a Special Agent Kavanaugh testified in the ongoing trial, two of the defendants used “school” as part of a code and he gave his expert opinion, based on listening to many intercepted communications, as to the meaning. Defense counsel made an argument, which he will repeat upon closing, that there was not such a code. That they were talking about soccer, eating cheese, getting fresh air, etc. If defense counsel called Special Agent Kavanaugh a “true believer,” as you do, he would have been reprimanded by the judge and would have risked financial sanction if he continued.
The man from New Brunswick, NJ, who lived 6 miles from the mailbox, and was a pious imam like Al-Timimi, was indicted recently. See US Attorney’s Office in Newark press release. He had maintained (mirrored) Al Qaeda’s website that in a FAQ explained what “In The Hearts Of Green Birds” (Inside Green Birds) meant.
It was widely published among the militant islamists that martyrs go to paradise “in the hearts of green birds.” The image above of the bird is from the homepage of the designer of the stamp used in the anthrax mailings. It was designed by artist Michael Doret. The image is “a file made directly from the original art [he] created, so the color is an accurate representation of the printed envelope.” Mr. Doret advises me that the color of the eagle is a “teal” or greenish-blue.
In the very interview in which they admitted 9/11, and described the codes used for the four targets for the planes, KSM and Ramzi Binalshibh admitted to the Jenny code, the code for representing the date 9/11, and used the symbolism of the “Green Birds.” Osama Bin Laden later invoked the symbolism in his video “The 19 Martyrs”, describing a hijacker as “A man of worship who enjoined good and forbade evil. His body was on earth but his heart roamed with the green birds that perch beneath the Throne of the Most Merciful.”
Echoing the symbolism of green birds invoked by key 9-11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh a few months earlielr in his interview with al-Jazeera, in a lengthy and articulate essay
The FAQ on Al Qaeda’s website, the Azzam Publications, website explained that “In the Hearts of Green Birds” refers to what is inside. The actual Arabic word used in the Hadith is not Qalb (heart) but it is Jowf which can mean any of interior, inside, or heart (as in center). There was a video based on the hadith with the title In The Hearts of Green Birds about foreign mujahideen that had been martyred in Bosnia. The audiocasette was created in August 1996 and its 3rd edition was released in January 1997. The azzam.org website selling the “In the Hearts of Green Birds” audiocassette was shut down after 9/11 because authorities thought it might contain codes and instructions to militants.
As I said, the iman who maintained the website and lived 6 miles from the mailbox has been indicted in what appears to be an attempt to prosecute using whatever basis is possible. Many will rise up in alarm and argue selective prosecution. I don’t know the precedent relating to the defense so as to be able to judge its prospects, but I expect it’s an uphill battle. He is said to be a very nice, pious man, and from his internet posts, he always struck me as very reasonable. The charge in the indictment is income tax evasion.
In these sorts of prosecutions it seems that the government is engaged in shadow boxing. The only way to get rid of the shadows is to turn on the lights.
The website posted an exclusive interview with Ayman al-Zawahiri and stressed the importance of cash donations and gas masks and chemical-resistant suits. Ibn Khattab, the Arab Chechnyan fighter who was Bin Laden’s good friend, had told his public that azzam.com was highly recommended and that only the two charities identified by the website should be used to route donations — announcing in 2000 that Benevolence International Foundation was one of the charities that should be used. In February 2000, the Quoqaz.net website posted donation links for the two charities, one being BIF. Ibu al-Khattab, the late Arab-Afghan commander of foreign mjuahideen in Chechnya (who in March 2002 was killed by a poison letter), expressly endorsed Azzam Publications.
Azzam.org had “no bricks and mortar address, but operates a post office box in London, and bill[ed] itself as “an independent media organisation providing authentic news and information about jihad and the Foreign Mujahideen everywhere”. One posting datelined from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and was a message to Muslim youth from top terror suspect Bin Laden. A farewell message from Azzam Publications .. exhorts “Muslims all over the World (to) render as much financial, physical, medical, media and moral support to the Taliban as they can.” Azzam also urged those with computer expertise to mirror the website so as to keep it up after authorities took it down. One can access old websites as they existed on past dates through www.archives.org and its wonderful Wayback Machine — except to the extent blocked.
British and US intelligence sources suspected that some of Azzam.com’s jihad photos and graphics contain messages embedded with a technology known as steganography. The code instead perhaps was there for all to see on the stamps of the lethal missives being sent.
A man formerly known as Paul Hall was arrested in Phoenix on a federal criminal complaint in March 2007 and agreed to be removed to District of Connecticut for further prosecution where there has been investigation of Azzam Publications website located on a server there. He is alleged to have provided classified information to the London-based Azzam Publications about a U.S. Navy battle group as it traveled from California to the Persian Gulf region in 2001. He allegedly “described a recent force protection briefing given aboard his ship, voiced enmity toward America, praised Osama bin Laden and the mujahedeen [and] praised the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole.”
Even Zarqawi invoked the imagery in a 60-minute audio message:
“The martyrs rejoince in the bounty provided by God. Their souls are inside the bodies of green birds that fly in heaven.”
In Fall 2004, the federal authorities indicted the fellow behind Azzam Publications selling “Green Birds,” Babar Ahmad, pointing, in part, to the “distribution of videotapes and compact discs depicting fighters in Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere, and the eulogizing of dead fighters, for the purpose of recruiting individuals and soliciting donations to support the mujahideen in Afghanistan and Chechnya.” Of Pakistani descent, Ahmad is a British computer specialist. He is associated with KSM, who had anthrax production documents on his laptop. Ahmad is also the cousin of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was arrested mid-2004 in Pakistan. Khan’s computers carried detailed surveillance of five financial buildings in New York, Newark and Washington and prompted the Department of Homeland Security to elevate the threat alert level to orange.
In an affidavit, an FBI special agent and computer investigative specialist, alleged that a New Brunswick, NJ man, Mazen Mokhtar, assisted Babar in maintaining the continued operation of the Azzam sites, through the use of mirror sites, when the administrators of Azzam sites shut down the Azzam.com site down after 9/11.” The mirror sites, www.qoqaz.net and www.waaqiah.com, allegedly routed people trying to access www.azzam.com. The affidavit alleges that Mr. Mokhtar is listed as the administrative contact for the mirror sites. He also operated minna.com. A friend reports: “He said he used to run a hosting service four or five years ago that used to resell Web hosting services to people. He said he didn’t know those guys (mentioned in court papers) and he is not involved in anything like that.” An Egyptian-born imam and political activist, he is a supporter of Palestinian cause and frequent speaker before groups in Brooklyn and the Bronx. He is said to be a man of peace. He gave a couple of thoughtful presentations in the Fall of 2006 that are online on YouTube, to include to the Muslim Students Associationa at Rutgers University.
Of course, given that the symbolism used in this regard in the anthrax mailings had an origin in religious writing, there is no direct tie with the website — the tie could be with the hadith. The webmaster has said that the FBI allowed it to remain up (while it moved from server to server) for another year hoping to get leads on supporters.
Bin Laden was using “Green Birds” in the same way he used the repeated phrase “Looming Tower” to hint of what was to come with the planes attack on the World Trade Center. He would say:
“Wherever you are, death will find you,
even in the looming tower.”
In a prerecorded tape aired October 7, 2001, at the time of the anthrax mailing to the Senators, Bin Laden said “The winds of faith have come.”
Ed writes:
“The senate letters were mailed to two liberal senators. There appears to be no sensible reason why al Qaeda would target those two senators before targeting President Bush, the Pentagon, and dozens of Republican senators and congressmen first. “
Ed apparently forogt about the 747 plane that crashed into the Pentagon or the plane that was shot down over Pennsylvania.
When you uploaded your Al Qaeda argument, you argued that Leahy had NOTHING to do with foreign relations which was both wrong and ignorant, given that his webpage makes clear his very important role. He is author of the Leahy Law pursuant to which appropriations continue to flow even while dozens of Egyptian Islamic Jihad leaders are rendered to places like Cairo and other places and allegedly tortured. Most analysts would agree that this is a central motive for the attacks by the militants and is certainly a motivation keenly felt by Ayman. It is not argued as PROOF that Al Qaeda was involved, it is part of the analysis. To save yourself critical thinking, you just fail to disclose to your readers the key importance of the Leahy Law and the approproations. (Leahy chaired the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee relating to appropriations to Egypt and Israel. You just didn’t know that and avoid disclosing it through your jingoistic ad hominem labels.
The founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad Kamal Habib and leader of the military wing (who wrote for the IANA quarterly magazine (Timimi’s group) ) told scholar Fawaz Gerges:
“The prison years also radicalized al-shabab [young men] and set them on another violent journey. The torture left deep physical and psychological scars on jihadists and fueled their thirst for vengeance. Look at my hands — still spotted with the scars from cigarette burns nineteen years later. For days on end we were brutalized — our faces bloodied, our bodies broken with electrical shocks and other devices. The torturers aimed at breaking our souls and brainwashing us. They wanted to humiliate us and force us to betray the closest members of our cells.
I spent sleepless nights listening to the screams of young men echoing from torture chambers. A degrading, dehumanizing experience. I cannot convey to you the rage felt by al-shabab who were tortured after Sadat’s assassination.”
In a videotape that circulated in the summer of 2001, Zawahiri said “In Egypt they put a lot of people in jails — some sentenced to be hanged. And in the Egyptian jails, there is a lot of killing and torture. All this happens under the supervision of America. America has a CIA station as well as an FBI office and a huge embassy in Egypt, and it closely follows what happens in that country. Therefore, America is responsible for everything that happens.”
An August 29, 2001 opinion column on Islamway, the second most read site for english speaking muslims, illustrates that the role of “Leahy Law” was known by educated islamists: There is an intolerable contradiction between America’s professed policy of opposition to state-sponsored terrorism, exemplified by the Leahy Law, and the U.S. Congress’ continuing sponsorship of Israeli violence against Palestinians.” The article cited “References: CIFP 2001. “Limitations on Assistance to Security Forces: ‘The Leahy Law’” 4/9/01 (Washington, DC: Center for International Foreign Policy) Center for International Foreign Policy Accessed 8/28/01.Hocksteader, Lee 2001. “The next day, in the same publication, there was an article describing the 21-page document released in Ottawa on August 29, 2001, in which the CSIS claimed that Canadian detainee Jaballah had contacts with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader Shehata and sought to deport Jaballah.
But to more fully appreciate why Leahy — a human rights advocate and liberal democrat — might have been targeted as a symbol, it is important to know that Senator Leahy has been the head of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, the panel in charge of aid to Egypt and Israel. In addition to the Senate majority leader, anthrax was mailed to the position symbolic of the 50 billion in appropriations that has been given to Israel since 1947 (and the equally substantial $2 billion annually in aid that has been keeping Mubarak in power in Egypt and the militant islamists out of power). In an audiotape received by al-Jazeera and published in October 2002, Zawahiri again pointed to the weapons bought by US appropriations: “As for America, it must expect to be treated the same way that it has committed crimes, like the destruction of the Palestinians’ homes by the Jews using US weapons and like the murder of Muhammad Al-Durra and other Palestinian children by the Jews with US weapons. Then the American people will curse Bush and his administration dead or alive due to the extremely high price they are repaid with.”
That aid goes to the core of Al Qaeda’s complaint against the United States. (The portion going to Egypt and Israel constitutes, by far, the largest portion of US foreign aid, and most of that is for military and security purposes.) Pakistan is a grudging ally in the “war against terrorism” largely due to the US Aid it now receives in exchange for that cooperation. The press in Pakistan newspapers regularly reported on protests arguing that FBI’s reported 12 agents in Pakistan in 2002 were an affront to its sovereignty. There was a tall man, an Urdu-speaking man, and a woman — all chain-smokers — who along with their colleagues were doing very important work in an unsupportive, even hostile, environment. The US agents — whether CIA or FBI or US Army -— caused quite a stir in Pakistan along with the Pakistani security and intelligence officials who accompanied them.
Within a couple weeks after September 11, a report in the Washington Post and then throughout the muslim world explained that the President sought a waiver that would allow military assistance to once-shunned nations. The militant islamists who had already been reeling from the extradition of 70 “brothers”, would now be facing much more of the same. President Bush asked Congress for authority to waive all existing restrictions on U.S. military assistance and exports for the next five years to any country where the aid would help the fight against international terrorism. The waiver would include those nations who were currently unable to receive U.S. military aid because of their sponsorship of terrorism (such as Syria and Iran) or because of their nuclear weapons programs (such as Pakistan). In mid-March 2003, Washington waived sanctions imposed in 1999 paving the way for release in economic aid to Pakistan. Billions more would be sent to Egypt, Israel and other countries involved in the “war against terrorism.”
In late September 2001, the Washington Post quoted Leahy: “We all want to be helpful, and I will listen to what they have in mind.” The article noted that he was chairman of both the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, which were considering the legislation. “But we also want to be convinced that what is being proposed is sound, measured and necessary and not merely impulsive,” said Leahy. “Moral leadership in defense of democracy and human rights is vital to what we stand for in the world. Acts of terrorism are violations of human rights. Now is the time to show what sets us apart from those who attack us,” he said.
The options being considered in response to the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington included potential cooperation with virtually every Middle Eastern and South and Central Asian nation near Afghanistan. “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists” would be the only test for foreign aid. The “Leahy Law” plays a key role in the secret “rendering” of Egyptian Islamic Jihad (Al Qaeda) operatives to countries like Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Algeria where they are allegedly tortured. Richard Clarke, counterterrorism czar during the Clinton Administration, has quoted Vice-President Gore saying: “Of course it’s a violation of international law, that’s why it’s a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.” Although humanitarian in its intent, the Leahy Law permits continued appropriations to military and security units who conduct torture in the event of “extraordinary circumstances.”
In an interview broadcast on al-Jazeera television on October 7, 2001 (October 6 in the US) — about when the second letter saying “Death to America’” and “Death to Israel” was mailed — Ayman Zawahiri echoed a familiar refrain sounded by Bin Laden: “O people of the U.S., can you ask yourselves a question: Why all this enmity for the United States and Israel? *** Your government supports the corrupt governments in our countries.”
A month after 9/11, late at night , a charter flight from Cairo touched down at the Baku airport. An Egyptian, arrested by the Azerbaijani authorities on suspicions of having played a part in the September 11 attack was brought on board. His name was kept secret. That same night the plane set off in the opposite direction. Much of the Amerithrax story has happened at night with no witnesses, with the rendering of University of Karachi microbiology student Saeed Mohammed merely one example. Zawahiri claims that there is a US intelligence bureau inside the headquarters of the Egyptian State Security Investigation Department that receives daily reports on the number of detainees and those detainees that are released. At the time Ayman Zawahiri was getting his biological weapons program in full swing, his own brother Mohammed was picked up in the United Arab Emirates. He was secretly rendered to Egyptian security forces and sentenced to death rendered in the Albanian returnees case.
Throughout 2001, the Egyptian islamists were wracked by extraditions and renditions. CIA Director Tenet once publicly testified that there had been 70 renditions prior to 9/11. At the same time a Canadian judge was finding that Mahmoud Mahjoub was a member of the Vanguards of Conquest and would be denied bail, Bosnian authorities announced on October 6, 2001 they had handed over three Egyptians to Cairo who had been arrested in July. In Uruguay, a court authorized the extradition to Egypt of a man wanted in Egypt for his alleged role in the 1997 Luxor attack. Ahmed Agiza, the leader of the Vanguards of Conquest (which can be viewed as an offshoot of Jihad), was handed over by Sweden in December 2001. Mr. Michael Scheuer the former chief, Bin Laden Unit, defended the extraordinary rendition program he had launched at the request of President Clinton and his advisors before Congress in April 2007.
The commentators like Ed who suggest that Al Qaeda would have had no motivation to send weaponized anthrax to Senators Daschle and Leahy as symbolic targets — because they are liberal — are mistaken and uninformed. The main goal of Dr. Zawahiri is to topple President Mubarak. He views the US Aid as the chief obstacle and is indifferent to this country’s labels of conservative and liberal.
Ed writes:
“The letters contained medical advice, and it is clear the sender took numerous precautions to avoid harming anyone. But a True Believer can find some obscure passage in some obscure Muslim writings somewhere which indicate that a good Muslim should warn his enemy before using unusual weapons. ..”
The Koran and hadiths, which Ed calls “obscure publications,” provide extensive guidance on the honorable conduct of warfare. One of the leading non-muslim expert on the subject was Princeton’s Bernard Lewis. For years, Princeton University Middle Eastern history Professor Emeritus Bernard Lewis’ writing on the clash between islam and the west would be translated by the Muslim brotherhood and handed out as pamphlets outside of mosques. After the 1998 “Crusaders” statement by Bin Laden and Zawahiri, Lewis wrote an article “License to Kill, Usama Bin Ladin’s Declaration of Jihad,” in Foreign Affairs: “Obviously, the West must defend itself by whatever means will be effective. But in devising strategies to fight the terrorists, it would surely be useful to understand the forces that drive them.” After 9/11, Lewis, a professor emeritus at Princeton University, admonished the Pentagon Defence Policy Board to consider how much worse the devastation could have been on Sept. 11 if the terrorists had used a weapon of mass destruction —such as Iraq was said to possess. In a September 27, 2001, in an Op Ed in the Wall Street Journal, the 87 year-old historian explained the use of biochemical weapons by Al Qaeda: “the laws of jihad categorically preclude wanton and indiscriminate slaughter. The warriors in the holy war are urged not to harm noncombatants, women and children, ‘unless they attack you first.’ Even such questions as missile and chemical warfare are addressed, the first in relation to mangonels and catapults, the other to the use of poison-tipped arrows and poisoning enemy water supplies. Here the jurists differ— some permit, some restrict, some forbid these forms of warfare. A point on which they insist is the need for a clear declaration of war before beginning hostilities, and for proper warning before resuming hostilities after a truce.
As Ali Al Timimi once explained: “Modern warfare did not exist during those times when they wrote those classical books of fiqh.” The old principles therefore must be relied upon to guide the issue in new times.
Spokesman al-Kuwaiti was giving a plain warning in the Fall 2001 letter claimed — not disclosed until 2006 — that the green light had been given for US -bio attack (1) from folks that were US-based, (2) above suspicion, and (3) with access to US government and intelligence information. “The Truth about the New Crusade: A Ruling on the Killing of Women and Children of the Non-Believers,” by Ramzi bin al-Shibh, argues that “the sanctity of women, children, and the elderly is not absolute” and concludes that “in killing Americans who are ordinarily off limits, Muslims should not exceed four million noncombatants, or render more than ten million of them homeless.” Spokesman Abu Ghaith used the same figure in June 2002 in arguing in favor of the moral right to use biological or chemical weapons.
A book commemorating the September 11 “raid” was published by Majallat al-Ansar and consisted of four essays. It addresses the importance that any attack comply with the laws of Sharia.
While purporting not to want to get entangled in a discussion of the legal technicalities, the author then addressed at length why the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon was justified under the laws of sharia.
Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of CIA counter-terrorist operations, discussed the requirement of warning under the laws of jihad on NPR in connection with the Al Qaeda audiotape by Bin Laden that aired shortly before the November 2004 election. In the case of anthrax, Ayman Zawahiri likely considers that the warning required under the laws of jihad has been given.
Zawahiri is the grandson of and quite proud of the well-known “Pious Ambassador,” who was President of Cairo University. Dr. Zawahiri is reserving himself a spot in a bad place by reason of his botched analysis of the hadiths and teachings of Mohammed governing warfare (no women, children, noncombatants etc.) The same principles prohibit attacking livestock, crops or wells. Judging by the interpretive texts, it would seem that Al Qaeda and the anthrax mailer has violated the Quran and hadiths by killing noncombatant women and children, and even the aged. It cannot be persuasively argued that those noncombatant women and children and the aged attacked the jihadists first. An infant visiting ABC was infected by the anthrax. Before the military tribunal, KSM says the koran forbids killing children. He noted that warfare is guided by the koran and hadiths. Thus, the harshest judgment may await true believers in another world.
The head of Egyptian Islamic Group, who approved of Sadat’s assassination and was released after a quarter-century in prison, said of 9/11 after a revision of the hadiths on violence and now is likely to be led by a leading Egyptian Islamic Jihad thinker (resulting in a release of up to 5,000 EIJ members):
“The killing of businessmen is forbidden by Islamic law and the World Trade Center was all businessmen. The killing of women and children and old people is forbidden by Islamic law and many of those were killed in the building. The killing of Muslims is prohibited by Islamic law and there were more than 600 Muslim men and women in the Trade Center among those killed.
These are innocent and intelligent spirits and Bin Laden and those with him will have to account for them...and God knows.”
So, Ed, understand that the islamic jurisprudence governing the conduct of warfare is taken very seriously by these pious folks. To properly profile a crime, you need to stand in the shoes of the adversary.
Ed writes:
“The FBI has stated many times that the crime was a “domestic” crime. But a True Believer can say that “domestic” means that it was a crime committed by an al Qaeda member who lives in the United States.”
Al-Timimi is a US Citizen. Had a high security clearance for work for the Navy. Had a letter of commendation from the White House. Now if he were involved, would that motivation be more like 9/11? Or Oklahoma City. I don’t know. You tell me. But Director Mueller wants us to think of both. Both involve a hatred of US policy and not a desire to save the US from calamity.
Ed, what part of this statement by Attorney General Ashcroft or by Director Mueller (in October 2005) do you not understand? Attorney General Ashcroft once explained 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. See Dr. Razsi’s thesis and discussion on this point. He works for the Homeland Security on WMD issues and written his doctoral thesis on preventing domestic bioterrorism such as by US-based supporters of Al Qaeda who work in US labs. His thesis was supervised by Dr. Alibek at GMU’s Center for Biodefense.
“Domestic terrorism” is defined by the Antiterrorism Act of 1991. Judge Harold Baer explained in 2003 in Smith v. Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan that in distinguishing “international terrorism,” “[t]he main difference is that domestic terrorism involves acts that “occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States,” Here, the anthrax mailings are reasonably understood as involving acts that “occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.” The District Court judge was “mindful that an expansive interpretation of ‘international terrorism’ might render ‘domestic terrorism’ superfluous.”
By way of example, was longtime Al Qaeda operative and former US Army sergeant Ali Mohamed “foreign” or “domestic”? Are the young men from Buffalo — most of whom were US citizens and born here — “foreign” or “domestic”? Would a graduate or postdoctoral microbiology student sympathetic to Al Qaeda — living and working in the US — be considered “foreign” or “domestic”? Would an islamist PhD animal geneticist and nutrition researcher living in the US for decades be “foreign” or domestic”? What about an Iraqi-born US citizen Ph.D. expert in bacillus thuringiensis who knew one of the WTC bombers? Or what about the Egyptian who made frequent attempts to obtain maps of the water supply system of Canton, Ohio, and sought books dealing with anthrax? What about a graduate in bioinformatics with access to GMU’s DARPA-funded Center for Biodefense facilities? What about Mohammed Junaid Babar from Queens, whose mother worked at the WTC, who post-9/11 met left the US and met with Al Qaeda’s #3, Zawahiri’s chief aide al-Hadi. And, of course, there is the lovely and pious Aafia Siddiqui from the Brandeis biology department who completed her dissertation in 2001 and remained committed to helping the widows, orphans and refugees of conflicts such as in Bosnia. A hazmat courier who delivered anthrax to Paul Keim’s lab at Northern Arizona was interviewed twice — the first was around March 2002. He says it was in the second interview, around January 2003, that “middle eastern men” became the focus of the FBI’s questions.
An interesting article, “The Knowledge: Biotechnology’s advance could give malefactors the ability to manipulate life processes — and even affect human behavior” in The MIT Technology Review (March/April 2006) is based on interviews with Sergei Popov (an expert at GMU who had worked as a Russian bioweaponeer), University of Maryland researcher Milton Leitenberg, Harvard’s Matthew Meselson, Rutger’s Richard Ebright and others:
“After last year’s bioterrorism conference in DC, I called on Richard Ebright, whose Rutgers laboratory researches transcription initiation (the first step in gene expression), to hear why he so opposes the biodefense boom (in its current form) and why he doesn’t worry about terrorists’ synthesizing biological weapons.
‘There are now more than 300 U.S. institutions with access to live bioweapons agents and 16,500 individuals approved to handle them,” Ebright told me. While all of those people have undergone some form of background check — to verify, for instance, that they aren’t named on a terrorist watch list and aren’t illegal aliens — it’s also true, Ebright noted, that ‘Mohammed Atta would have passed those tests without difficulty.’ “
***
‘That’s the most significant concern,’ Ebright agreed. ‘If al-Qaeda wished to carry out a bioweapons attack in the U.S., their simplest means of acquiring access to the materials and the knowledge would be to send individuals to train within programs involved in biodefense research.’ Ebright paused. ‘And today, every university and corporate press office is trumpeting its success in securing research funding as part of this biodefense expansion, describing exactly what’s available and where.’
One intelligence official has suggested that one reason that the FBI has not emphasized the possibility of a foreign source is that it might require UN involvement in the investigation pursuant to certain biological weapons protocols. The US specifically rejected France’s suggestion in October 2001 that there be a UN resolution condemning the attacks on the grounds that the Security Council had no role to play unless there was clear proof that the perpetrator was foreign. Bob Woodward quotes Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, in explaining why the administration did not acknowledge an al Qaeda link, even though it thought there was one: “If we say it’s al Qaeda, a state sponsor may feel safe and then hit us, thinking they will have a bye, because we’ll blame it on al Qaeda.”
In September 2005, Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington field office said that this “globe-spanning investigation remains intensely active and broadly focused.” According to one recent letter to a Congressman rejecting the request for a briefing, the investigation has spanned six out of seven continents. The FBI has conducted 9,100 witness interviews, 67 searches and issued 6,000 grand jury subpoenas.
In a press conference in October 2005, Director Mueller said that the FBI was pursuing all domestic and international leads. He told the public to remember Oklahoma City. Remember 9/11. He declined to say if they had a suspect. That year, FBI agents visited Asia, Africa and Afghanistan in the course of the Amerithrax investigation. Only Ed, however, has been hanging around playgrounds.
Ed is mistaken in thinking that the October 2005 Press Conference “Mueller on Anthrax”, Director Mueller was explaining FBI activities generally. He was specifically describing the Amerithrax investigation. The motives that Director Mueller pointed to involved a hatred of US policies. Not a bioevangelist looking to save the US from calamity.
We can have confidence that the FBI has pursued any and all theories and leads and left no stone unturned.