Has anyone read this new book by Randall Larsen discussing the anthrax mailings at some length?
As for the interview mention of the lesion, here are the details that lesion the hijacker had upon his arrival from Kandahar. One of the hijackers, Ahmed Al-Haznawi, went to the ER on June 25, 2001 with what now appears to have been cutaneous anthrax, according to Dr. Tsonas, the doctor who treated him, and other experts. “No one is dismissing this,” said CIA Director Tenet. Alhaznawi had just arrived in the country on June 8. His exposure perhaps related to a camp he had been in Afghanistan. He said he got the blackened gash-like lesion when he bumped his leg on a suitcase two months earlier. Two months earlier he had been in camp near Kandahar (according to a videotape he later made serving as his last Will and Testament). His last will and testament is mixed in with the footage by the al-Qaeda’s Sahab Institute for Media Production that includes Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Sulaiman Abu Ghaith. There are some spiders that on rare occasions bite and cause such a blackened eschar (notably the Brown Recluse Spider found in some parts of the United States)
Dr. Tara O’Toole of the Biodefense Center at John Hopkins concluded it was anthrax. The former head of that group, Dr. Henderson, now director of the office of public health preparedness at the Department of Health and Human Services, explained: “The probability of someone this age having such an ulcer, if he’s not an addict and doesn’t have diabetes or something like that, is very low. It certainly makes one awfully suspicious.” The FBI says no anthrax was found where the hijackers were. (The FBI tested the crash sites where the planes came down and found no traces of anthrax). Although no doubt there are some other diseases that lead to similar sores, it is reasonable to credit that it was cutaneous anthrax considering all the circumstances, to include the finding by the 9/11 Commission that “ in 2001, Sufaat would spend several months attempting to cultivate anthrax for al Qaeda in a laboratory he set up near the Kandahar airport.” Now that we know Kandahar is where the extremely virulent anthrax was located, it makes it more likely that the John Hopkins people are correct that the lesion was cutanous anthrax.
At the time, CBS reported that “U.S. troops are said to have found another biological weapons research lab near Kandahar, one that that was eyeing anthrax.” But CBS and FBI spokesman further noted that “Those searches found extensive evidence that al-Qaida wanted to develop biological weapons, but came up with no evidence the terrorist group actually had anthrax or other deadly germs, they said.” Only years later did we learn that there was in fact extremely virulent anthrax at Kandahar. (Though some senior officials at the CIA and FBI knew this in Autumn 2003) Thus, a factual predicate important to assessment of the John Hopkins report on the leg lesion needed to be reevaluated.
I always thought it was the Terrorists. I couldn’t imagine an American doing that sort of thing. Maybe I am too old fashioned in my thinking.
The terrorists going to a Florida clinic with skin anthrax was widely known at the time after 911.
It doesn’t take a Brain Surgeon or a Dermatologist to connect the dots.
"...how many of them were aware that Mohammad Atta’s roommate had cutaneous anthrax...."
In fact, it's not known that Al Haznawi had anthrax. There has been some speculation to that effect -- educated speculation, by the emergency room doctor who treated him at the time, but after-the-fact speculation nonetheless.
When he overstates his case like this, it makes me doubt his accuracy in general.
Incidentally, around the time of the anthrax mailings, there were other cases of apparent spider bites and lung infections that some have speculated might have been undiagnosed anthrax, but, in the absence of proof, those people have not been placed on any list of victims of the anthrax mailings.