The projects that Ken worked on in Russia had codenames like ``METOL’’, ``FACTOR’’, ``BONFIRE’’, and ``PODLESHIK’’. The names meant nothing — having been randomly selected by a computer. Ken reports that he had 30 project curators coordinating more than 300 projects — and points to the general advances in the area of genetic engineering that have occurred in the last 30 years.
Ayman’s project was named Zabadi. Meaning yogurt in Arabic. Curdled milk. Given that the same process used to make the Daschle product can be made to make yogurt, was it randomly selected?
I am relying on the name of the codenamed project the excellent article by WSJ journalist Cullison, based on Ayman’s computer. I have no way of knowing whether there was a mistake in translation — whether the real name was Zubaidy, named after the device invented by an Iraqi (by that name) for distributing aerosols.
After the islamists sent the anthrax threat in January 2001 in connection with the detention of the manager of Bin Laden’s farmer in Sudan, EIJ shura member Mahjoub, it was a dairy processor in Wisconsin that Dugway relied on in creating the simulant to test the nature of a threat using mailed anthrax. (They then tweaked it at Dugway). Even TrebleRebel would agree that no coating was added AFTER the preparation at the dairy processor. Given the parameters of that simulant were similar to the Daschle product — it immediately dispersed upon mere opening throughout the room — the Canadian study using that simulant evidences that a relatively sophisticated product can be made using relatively unsophisticated means.
Both Ken and his colleague Charles did consulting with Battelle.
It seems that before one reaches the issue of the risk and consequences of a genetically-engineered pathogen — especially given the 30 years of advances since the Russian program Alibek oversaw — there is an outstanding and unresolved issue of whether or not Amerithrax demonstrates the folly of the US and UK biodefense program. There is the issue whether Amerithrax is Exhibit A demonstrating a huge security breach dating back to the 1999-2001 period.
Particularly as public corruption relating to appropriations in security matters continue to dominate the headlines, are we really that comfortable leaving these policy issues to politicians, let alone the scientists and institutions who stand to financially benefit?
By way of analogy, not long ago, I emailed the US FDA Commissioner one Wednesday afternoon that benzene was in the soft drinks consumed by children worldwide. I was relying on a secret industry project codenamed PROJECT DENVER. I represented a whistleblower. The FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford quit that Friday morning without explanation. He just emailed all FDA employees and walked out the building. I harangued an FDA Assistant General Counsel in Boston, who was speaking at a childhood obesity conference that weekend as to why I hadn’t gotten a response to my email, to no avail. Later it came out the Commissioner owned $62,000 in Pepsi stock. He had been the chief scientific advisor for the Grocery Manufacturers Association which was closely working with the American Beverage Association in opposing my efforts to get soda out of public schools. In his allocution to two misdemeanors, he never addressed this issue of his knowing all about the high levels of benzene found in the soft drinks consumed by children. (He provably did). He disclosed only his leadership of a task force on childhood obesity.
So I venture that when GMU stands mum and is highly defensive about the lax security, no one should accept a lack of forthrightness.
When the FBI and DARPA don’t tell you what the forensics show, one should remain skeptical that they are striking the most appropriate balance between the need for secrecy in the investigation and the Administration’s desire to avoid embarrassment.
I always give the FBI the benefit of the doubt because I sense that FBI Director Mueller and the former Amerithrax head Michael Mason have a lot of integrity. Director Mueller demonstrated it just recently in questioning by the Senate Judiciary Committee on the subject of the meeting at Attorney General Ashcroft’s bedside.
But as the months and years pass, it becomes harder and harder to have confidence that they are, in fact, charting the correct course. Attorney General Gonzales seems too often think in terms of avoiding embarrassment.
If Leahy is testy toward Attorney General Gonzales, maybe it is partly because he doesn’t think he is getting straight information from the DOJ/FBI — whether on NSA spying or on Amerithrax. The leak concerning silica came from the highest levels of the DOJ department, not a Senate staffer, as DOJ suggests as its reason to avoid a fuller briefing.
As for Attorney General Ashcroft, I always had a dim view of him based on the bad press he always got. But after hearing him speak to a university audience here on this question of balancing security concerns against other American values (such as privacy and due process), I certainly don’t question his good faith. The questions from the student body were incredibly lame and loaded — passing up a wonderful opportunity to ask meaningful substantive questions.
Ironically, it turns out that Attorney General Ashcroft could teach his successor a lot about public relations. Take the hard questions and give honest, truthful answers.
On the subject of water quality, having lost all confidence in an industry-dominated government, rather than counting on the US FDA or NYS DOH to do anything about the carcinogen bromate in water sold throughout New York State, I called up Wegmans, countinig on them to do the right thing. (Which upon independent testing, they promptly did, followed by numerous all large retailers).
So who is it in the context of Amerithrax that it is going to do the right thing?
The red cell members of the GMU student body? Where are the biothreat analysis people who can digest this point about the risks associated with the proliferation of knowledge?
At the first annual IANA conference in 1993, Ali Al-Timimi spoke alongside Bilal Philips, a fellow named Mohammed Abdul-Rahman from Afghanistan, Mohammad Qutb from Cairo, and Gamal Sultan from Cairo.
There was a Mohammad Abdul-Rahman who was the blind sheiik’s son. The blind sheik would soon be sentenced for terrorism relating to WTC 1993 and the “Day of Terror” plot directed at NYC landmarks.
And there was a Mohammad Qutb who was Syed Qutb’s brother who taught Bin Laden at university in Saudi Arabia, having emigrated to Saudi Arabia in the 1980s. Qutb, as al-Hawali’s teacher, also strongly influenced al-Hawali. Al-Hawali would be sent to prison in 1994.
In the 1970s, bin Laden was taught by Sayyid Qutb’s brother, Dr. Mohammad Qutb, and a Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood member, Dr. Abdullah Azzam, who later would found Al Qaeda. Azzam’s ideas of non-compromise, violent means, and organizing and fighting on a global scale were central to AQ methods. (A sentencing memo in the US District Court here mentions a videotaped interview made by IANA Vice Chairman Rafil Dhafir of Azzam in Afghanistan in the early 1980s but the local ACLU head assures me there was no enhancement in sentencing for terrorism.)
And there was a Gamal Sultan, the former EIJ member who would seek to start a political party in 1999 with EIJ founder Kamal Habib that sought to chart a nonviolent course (given the practical reality that the movement had been so infiltrated by the security forces), but that the blind sheik declined to endorse.
Salafist commentator Umar Lee has explained that during this period “the most dynamic part of the salafi movement in the DC-area were the students Sheikh Ali al-Timimi. In the DC area, who in the 1990’s co-founded a very small with a small office in DC for an organization called the Society for the Adherence to the Sunnah.
In 1994, cooperation with Al-Timimi’s Society for the Adherence to the Sunnah, Washington, D.C., IANA held its first annual summer camp in English in early July, close to Baltimore, MD. The theme of the camp is, “Living the Shahadah in America.”
In 2000, Mohammed Abdel Rahman, a/k/a “Asadallah,” who is a son of Abdel Rahman, was sitting alongside Bin Laden and Zawahiri and was videotaped encouraging others to “avenge your Sheikh” and “go to the spilling of blood.”
In 2000, on a trip to Pittsburgh, Gamal Sultan and his colleages thought Pittsburgh reminded them of Kandahar given its rolling hills.
Question: what impressionable Maryland youth attended that summer camp co-sponsored by Al-Timimi’s group and IANA?