Posted on 04/13/2008 8:20:52 AM PDT by ZacandPook
Oops, you meant Jack McCoy from L&O, not “Bones” from Star Trek.
Jack McCoy wrote the government’s reply brief in the Stevens matter:
“Holding a laboratory responsible for Mr. Stevens’ murder is no different from holding a gun owner (or seller) liable for the conduct of a murderer using a stolen (or purchased) firearm.
“Such an attack (which had never before occurred in the United States) was certainly less foreseable than a murder using a firearm, which occurs daily...”
Jack can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
Your new argument is just as bogus as all your old ones.
It would be legitimate to reproduce simulants of what an adversary has developed - in order to test defenses against any new advance in technology.
The Alibekov anthrax would be a new advance in technology.
Weaponized spores are COATED with silica. You were wrong. Get over it.
The CBC story is WRONG. The reporter MISUNDERSTOOD. The Alibek process did NOT coat spores with resin OR silica. I specifically discussed this with Mr. Alibek, although I didn't realize at the time that it was the subject of a controversy.
The large balls of resin were MIXED with tiny particles of silica and anthrax spores in a way that helped disperse the weapon over a LARGER area. The idea that the resin was some kind of glue to hold the silica to the spores is just plain STUPID.
Ed, you are mistaken. Where a treaty allows you to make small amounts for defensive purchases and a defector comes over who knows how to make the product used by the Russians — known as the Alibekov formula — aren’t you allowed to make it? If not, what would be the point of paying Ken’s visa bill? Otherwise your defensive research would not be effective. Dugway started using simulants in 1992 — after Alibek defected.
The same logic has been used to develop genetically altered strains, I believe — on the grounds that they may be used in an attack.
After Dr. Zanders, I am about the most frequent participant on the BWPP board. So I’m not unacquainted with the very real concerns held by activists in the field.
So not only are you misconstruing language you nowhere cite, but you are putting words in Dr. Rebel’s mouth. You should drop the empty rhetoric of conspiracy theorists, etc. altogether. Your conspiracy theory has 4 people. The indictment, if one ever comes down, likely will contain conspiracy allegations.
Often in the area of biodefense you might be developing small amounts of weapon — a particular agent — for the first time.
Now I am not saying that this is sound policy. Or that it cannot be argued to be illegal. But don’t put words in TrebleRebel’s mouth. If he made that argument, by all means quote it back to him.
For example, by analogy, you argue against an Al Qaeda theory using the straw man argument it is made only by conservatives with a political agenda.
TrebleRebel, if you wanted clarification of Dr. A’s phrasing, you should have emailed him. It makes no sense instead to attack him publicly for a half decade using Ed as his proxy. Both of you are wrong, moreoever, to think it makes any sense, even if ineptly, to discuss how best to weaponize anthrax.
The role of the webposter, respectfully, is more limited.
For example, did Battelle have Ames? Yes.
Transfer records obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act show that USAMRIID, which is located in Frederick, shared the Ames strain last March with scientists at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, an Albuquerque research institute, and in May and June with the Battelle Memorial Institute, a Columbus, Ohio, corporation involved in anthrax vaccine and biodefense research.
Did Battelle in Columbus use the dry form? No. The dry form was only used at Dugway — at the Battelle Life Science facility there in Utah used for that purpose.
Was silica detected? Yes. See AFIP’s report.
So should any product that is held to be a close approximation should a similar spike on an EDX? Yes.
Should the product look like the SEMS Ed points to (rather than the ones pictured in the aerosol study that Dr. Rebel is point at?) Yes.
Now, beyond that, let FBI Director Mueller take it from here. He was channelling Jack McCoy himself when he told the House Judiciary Committee that they had identified Al Qaeda affiliates and cells in the US but that he couldn’t talk about it in open session.
To see what he said, you need to click here:
http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com
If you think the FBI are doing such a superb job why do you even comment on the investigation? Why not just put yourself in their very capable hands and go shopping at the mall with the comforting knowledge that they will keep you safe?
I've admitted that I was wrong about that. I've admitted it here and on my web site. It's in the "horse and buggy" analogy.
But that doesn't change the fact that your absurd conspiracy theories are also shown to be wrong.
When it suits your purposes, you claim the silica was glued to the spores with "polymerized glass."
When it suits your purposes, you claim the silica was glued to the spores with "organic resin."
When it suits your purposes, you claim there was some process involved which dipped the spores in liquid nitrogen to get the silica to stick to the spores.
When it suits your purposes, you claim that the silica sticks to the spores from van der Waals forces.
All you really care about is that there MUST be some illegal conspiracy involving the FBI and countless scientists where the sole purpose seems to be to prove you wrong in your beliefs.
I have never claimed that a liquid nitrogen process was used to make the senate spores. I have pointed out with examples that modern inhalational drug processing can create state-of-the-art aerosols with 1% or less fumed silica. Liquid nitrogen processing is not essential - and even it were it would be quite applicable to anthrax spores.
The silica in the Dugway spores ARE stuck there with van der Waals forces - the product isn’t too robust - the silica can fall off. The way around that is to chemically bind the silica to the spores. That would need a binding agent such as polymerized glass. This was also pointed out by Marilyn Thompson’s Detrick source in her book - that scientist eveidently agreed with me that a binding agent was used to attach the silica.
It’s far easier to neutralize the threat than to prove in court to a 100% certitude that someone processed some bacteria or dropped an envelope in the mailbox.
-They killed Atef within a month.
-They captured a key anthrax lab tech with two months.
-They captured a member of the 3-member WMD committee with 1 1/2 year (he was the one who would speak alongside Al-Timimi).
-They captured KSM, who had taken over from Atef, with 1 1/2 year.
-His regional operative Hambali within 2 years.
-Two additional lab techs within 2 years.
-The scientist who was infiltrating UK biodefense within the first year.
-Invading Iraq was a huge mistake.
-Permitting a Salafist-Jihadist who was close to WTC 1993 co-conspirators and lecturing on the end of times to be 15 feet from the leading anthrax scientist and former deputy commander was a big mistake.
-Allowing a man whose family are Palestinian activists (according to what his sister-in-law told the WashPo) to be the key criminal prosecutor in Amerithrax was a huge mistake.
So as can be expected, there are pluses and minuses.
But they are light-years ahead in understanding the anthrax mailings when compared to the vast majority of public commentators — ahead of all those who don’t realize US-supporters of the Salafi-jihadits are responsible.
For you, for example, to have so astutely seized on the importance of presence of silica and the related signature, and yet not realize the significance of the fact that the man working with Bin Laden’s sheik and the 911 imam was just 15 feet away from Ken is just absolutely astonishing.
That’s because the man 15 feet from Alibek doesn’t know the first thing about making spores.
There are coincidences everywhere. Anthrax being sent to the lady who rented the hijackers apartment husband’s workplace. The arrest of the guy who co-authored a paper on the NY lady who died of anthrax.
I’m not saying Al-Timni wasn’t invloved - all I’m saying is being 15 feet from Ken isn’t any more of a coincidence than the two coincidences I cite above.
Or isn’t any more of a coincidence than Greendale school and Greendale in Rhodesia or Atta’s Jenny Lopez.
“That’s because the man 15 feet from Alibek doesn’t know the first thing about making spores.”
He’s not suspected of being the processor. He is suspected of having, for example, accessed the biochemistry information. When they sent 100 federal agents to simultaneously interview 150 people the day and minute they searched Ali’s residence, those people were supporters of Ali’s charity. Similarly, when they later obtained the health records of another pious fellow in North Carolina, where Ali’s DC group had a branch, they weren’t looking to see if he had measles. They were looking to see if he had been prescribed, for example, Cipro. Just as a single example, the man arrested here regularly mixed with silica which is how they made the Dugway simulant. By not reading outside your field, your conclusion was predetermined.
“There are coincidences everywhere. Anthrax being sent to the lady who rented the hijackers apartment husband’s workplace. The arrest of the guy who co-authored a paper on the NY lady who died of anthrax.”
To dismiss them as mere coincidences is unfounded given the connections that existed.
“I’m not saying Al-Timni wasn’t invloved - all I’m saying is being 15 feet from Ken isn’t any more of a coincidence than the two coincidences I cite above.”
And Ali Mohammed didn’t really have access to classified information at Ft. Bragg. Right. Those cables from the Joint Chiefs could just be left forgotten in the FBI storage warehouse. There is no mistake that the FBI can be deemed to have made — with the benefit of hindsight — that begins to compare with the mistake people are making when they overlook the infiltration that has occurred here. I mean how much plainer does Al-Timimi’s attorney have to spell it out?
“Or isn’t any more of a coincidence than Greendale school and Greendale in Rhodesia...” Greendale School was not a coincidence. It was the code known by the CIA to have been used by Ayman Zawahiri. In May 2001, in explaining what he was doing to longtime followers, he used “school” as code for EIJ as he commonly did. The Green Team was the code used for the team sent by military commander Atef to Somalia led by Saif Adel. It had been almost a decade since Stan Bedlington had been with the CIA — his interpretation of Greendale was wide of the mark. As for the Jenny code, that was in fact the code used by Ramzi and wedding in fact is the code for event. So it has always been either EIJ or someone knowledgeable enough to frame the EIJ — such as someone steeped in threat assessment. That includes two associated with widely publicized searches. But that’s why you don’t see them hassling drunk bowlers who didn’t know anything about Zawahiri’s plans to weaponize anthrax for use against US targets.
Although you won’t find it mentioned on Ed’s page in which he attempts to point the finger at the guy who thought anthrax was a virus, in a filing unsealed this month, Dr. Ali Al-Timimi’s lawyer wrote: “Al-Timimi “was considered an anthrax weapons suspect.” Dr. Al-Timimi’s counsel summarizes:
“we know Dr. Al-Timimi:
* was interviewed in 1994 by the FBI and Secret Service regarding his ties to the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing;
* was referenced in the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (”Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”) as one of seventy individuals regarding whom the FBI is conducting full field investigations on a national basis;
* was described to his brother by the FBI within days of the 9-11 attacks as an immediate suspect in the Al Qaeda conspiracy;
* was contacted by the FBI only nine days after 9-11 and asked about the attacks and its perpetrators;
* was considered an anthrax weapons suspect;
[redacted - passage presumptively IMO about Amerithrax investigation]
* was described during his trial by FBI agent John Wyman as having “extensive ties” with the “broader al-Qaeda network”;
* was described in the indictment and superseding indictment as being associated with terrorists seeking harm to the United States;
* was a participant in dozens of international overseas calls to individuals known to have been under suspicion of Al-Qaeda ties like Al-Hawali; and
* was associated with the long investigation of the Virginia Jihad Group.
***
The conversation with Al-Hawali on September 19, 2001 was central to the indictment and raised at trial. Al-Timimi called Dr. Hawali after the dinner with Kwon on September 16, 2001 and just two hours before he met with Kwon and Hassan for the last time on September 19, 2001.
“]911 imam] Anwar Al-Aulaqi goes directly to Dr. Al-Timimi’s state of mind and his role in the alleged conspiracy. The 9-11 Report indicates that Special Agent Ammerman interviewed Al-Aulaqi just before or shortly after his October 2002 visit to Dr. Al-Timimi’s home to discuss the attacks and his efforts to reach out to the U.S. government.”
[IANA head] Bassem Khafagi was questioned about Dr. Al-Timimi before 9-11 in Jordan, purportedly at the behest of American intelligence. [redacted ] He was specifically asked about Dr. Al-Timimi’s connection to Bin Laden prior to Dr. Al-Timimi’s arrest. He was later interviewed by the FBI about Dr. Al-Timimi. Clearly, such early investigations go directly to the allegations of Dr. Al-Timimi’s connections to terrorists and Bin Laden — [redacted]”
The letter by Al-Timimi’s counsel attached as an exhibit is equally meaty. An example of an additional detail is that in March 2002, Dr. Al-Timimi spoke with Dr. Al-Hawali (Bin Laden’s sheik who was the subject of OBL’s “Declaration of War”) about assisting Moussaoui in his defense.
The filing and the letter exhibit each copy the daughter of the lead prosecutor in Amerithrax. That prosecutor has pled the Fifth Amendment concerning all the leaks hyping a “POI” of the other Amerithrax squad, Dr. Steve Hatfill.
Dr. Rebel, I know you’ve corresponded a lot with Zack over the years and I know he holds you in high regard. He enjoys his hijinks with in patiently explaining to Ed the error of his ways. But Zack has been far too ready to overlook your cluelessness on Al Qaeda.
Consider your failiure to realize that the FoxNews email best fits Ali’s and his colleagues — with his colleagues merely the focus of attention because they were the victims of the threat of biochemistry info (or product).
In an e-mail obtained by FOX News, scientists at Fort Detrick openly discussed how the anthrax powder they were asked to analyze after the attacks was nearly identical to that made by one of their colleagues.
“Then he said he had to look at a lot of samples that the FBI had prepared ... to duplicate the letter material,” “Then the bombshell. He said that the best duplication of the material was the stuff made by [name redacted]. He said that it was almost exactly the same — his knees got shaky and he sputtered, ‘But I told the General we didn’t make spore powder!’”
FOX News reports:
“The FBI has narrowed its focus to “about four” suspects in the 6 1/2-year investigation of the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, and at least three of those suspects are linked to the Army’s bioweapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, FOX News has learned.
Among the pool of suspects are three scientists — a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist — linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID.”
It was more than a happy coincidence, Dr. Rebel, for Ayman Zawahiri and Mohammed Islambouli that an active supporter of the Taliban and supporter of jihad was a US biodefense insider. Microbiologist Al-Timimi worked in the same building as famed Russian bioweapons scientist Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID Deputy Commander and Acting Commander Charles Bailey, who would come to publish a lot of research with the “Ames strain” of anthrax. Al-Timimi was a current associate and former student of Bin Laden’s spiritual advisor, dissident Saudi Sheik al-Hawali. He would speak along with the blind sheik’s son at charity conferences — the blind sheik’s son served on Al Qaeda’s WMD committee. Al-Timimi’s mentor Bilal Philips was known for recruiting members of the military to jihad. The first week after 9/11, FBI agents questioned Ali Al-Timimi, a microbiology graduate student in a program jointly run by George Mason University and the American Type Culture Collection (”ATCC”). Ali, according to his lawyer, had been questioned by an FBI agent and Secret Service agent in 1994 after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had a high security clearance for work for the Navy in he late 1990s and in 1996 for two months had worked for the White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card when he was Secretary of Transportation. As time off from his university studies permitted, Ali was an active speaker with a charity Islamic Assembly of North America.
In April 2008, Dr. Alibek told me that has not seen anybody from the FBI for the last 6 years. He reports that has lectured/consulted for many government officials on these 2001-anthrax “issues” several times years ago. He says he can just assume there were some of them from FBI but that was the extent of his contact. Although he was polygraphed in early 2002 along with many others, Dr. Alibek assures me that he has never been asked to provide with his handwriting. Dr. Alibek last offered his help to them about 4 or 5 years ago — he was thanked and decided to leave the area of biodefense afterwards. Now he is working in the field of pharmaceutical development and spends his time developing and manufacturing cardio and cancer drugs. Ed may be comfortable with the FoxNews report and Ken may provide assurances now that Ali was just a fanatic, but once you study the fuller context of the FBI’s prosecutions over the past half-decade, you can see that what they’ve done is neutralized what they perceived as the anthrax threat by prosecuting other criminal violations.
You can continue to make Tetrahedron or BHR-like arguments if you like and be subject to Ed’s ridicule, or you can come over and join S.H.I.E.L.D.
IRON MAN just recently joined us.
— Pook
Interestingly, when I got home from doing errands a few minutes ago, I found a very nice email in my inbox from one of the authors of the Aerosol Science article. I haven't yet gotten permssion to quote him or identify him, but he tells me that there is no agreement between the authors of the article on what causes the silica to stick to the spores.
But don't let that dilute your absolute certainty.
1. The Sterne preparations WERE prepared shortly before they began their project. They were not the old stuff like the BG preparations. You were right about that.
2. The email also says that the were not in a position to know any details about the attack anthrax and just accepted what was in the media as being reasonable. I was right about that.
3. The person who wrote me says I shouldn't attribute anything in the article to any specific individual. So, he probably won't let me quote him. That means that this information from the email should be considered to be from everyone who participated in writing the article.
Dr. Rebel, let me try to summarize in a different way. The key in coating a chicken breast with bread crumbs is whole milk. Don’t use skim. Ali Al-Timimi had Ken’s recipes available to him if his security was no better that Dr. Patrick’s. It all was quite ridiculous for Ken even to be telling author Preston (you quote above) the Alibekov formula. We shouldn’t now fault him for not more clearly explaining things to Ed in the December 2004 conversation.
Ayman Zawahiri accomplished the attack on the US “structure” he intended. With the planes, Al Qaeda struck the US trade dominance (World Trade Center) and its military might (Pentagon). With the anthrax, some US-based supporter(s) of the goals of Zawahiri rounded out the field that they imagine provides support to Israel — the legislative branch and media. Analogous letter bombs were sent in connection with the earlier attack on the World Trade Center and the imprisonment of the Blind Sheikh and militant islamists responsible for that attack and a related plot. Thus, relying on the postal service to send its deadly missives in connection with an earlier attack of the World Trade Center is not only Al Qaeda’s modus operandi, it is its signature.
For Ed to argue that Ayman would only use a “big bang” is to be totally uninformed that targeted assassination is EIJ’s modus operandi.
Ayman’s plan established by the documentary evidence seized in Afghanistan was to use the cover of charities and universities. When you have the choice between relying on a Brian Ross report, Ed, and the documentary evidence, always go with the documentary evidence.
Al Qaeda’s Mohammed Abdel-Rahman had fellow IANA speaker Ali Al-Timimi available to recruit. A December 1998 PDB had said that Mohammed Islambouli was going to send someone to make contact with people in the US to carry out attacks. In mid-2000, KSM and Islambouli apparently eventually sent bio-chem operative from Saudi Arabia, where his family had moved from Doha, Qatar. Al-Marri had been with both KSM and Islambouli. After Al-Marri was done casing New York City targets with UK operative Dhiren Barot, he had his computer sent from Macomb, Illinois to Washington. In the summer of 2001 went to UAE to receive $13,000 from Al-Hawsawi whose laptop had the spraydrying documents. Upon returning to the United States from Pakistan the next year on September 10, 2001, Al-Marri maintained contact with Al-Hawsawi. Al-Hawsawi also handled financial logistics relating to the 9/11 hijackers. Like Tenet said, anthrax planning was in parallel with the 9/11 planes operation. To close the Amerithrax case, the key question: where in Washington did Al-Marri have his computer sent?
In the Washington, D.C. area, Taliban supporter Ali Al-Timimi worked in the same building as famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID Deputy Commander and Acting Commander Charles Bailey, who had co-invented a process using hydrophobic silica to lead to greater concentration of a biological agent. “Encapsulation” was the reason for the detection of silica. Dr. Bailey has been a prolific Ames anthrax strain researcher. Dr. Alibek and Dr. Bailey had multimillion dollar grants from DARPA funding a contract with USAMRIID with Delta Ames supplied by NIH. NSA intercepts showed that Ali Al-Timimi was working with Bin Laden’s sheik al-Hawali, who had been the subject of Bin Laden’s 1996 Declaration of War and his 1998 claim of responsibility for the embassy bombings. Timimi has been sentenced to life plus 70 years before his conviction was reversed and remanded. Bilal Philips had been Ali’s mentor and the father of Jafar the Pilot had been Bilal Philips’ mentor. Ali Al-Timimi shared a fax machine with famed Russian anthrax bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID deputy commander Charles Bailey, who is listed as an author on various articles reporting biodefense research using virulent Ames strain of anthrax.
Dr. Bailey had worked with the Defense Intelligence Agency (”DIA”) for years on threat assessment of biological weapons. Dr. Alibek had consulted for Battelle, world renown for its expertise on anthrax aerosols. Dr. Alibek and Dr. Bailey had co-authored the patent filed in mid-March 2001 on concentrating biological agents using silica in the growth medium that was still confidential as of Fall 2001. Ed’s theory that a surfactant was used prior to drying may come up along on the outside and overtake all the pictures of asperities and van der waals forces that Dr. Rebel cares to post.
Although Ed never mentions it, CIA Director Tenet, in a May 2007 book, notes that the CIA was startled to learn that the anthrax planning had been done in parallel with the 9/11 planning. Indeed, it was the laptop of Hawsawi, who was KSM’s assistant who sent and received money from the hijackers, that had the anthrax spraydrying documents on it. In fact, KSM was not really captured on March 1, 2003, when the laptop was seized, as the Pakistanis claim. He apparently instead was captured on or about February 13, 2001 at the time the blind sheik’s son was grabbed, based on a report Zahid Hussain sourced to a police official. Intelligence officials just wanted the two weeks to get leads on those planning attacks. The family members of the bacteriologist who owned the home where Hawsawi and the laptop were taken have always stridently claimed that KSM was not captured there. Two weeks later authorities raided Al-Timimi along with drying and processing experts. In June 2003, a UN report explained that Al-Qaeda “WMD Committee” — Mohammed Abdel-Rahman was one of its three members — “is known to have approached a number of Muslim scientists to assist the terrorist network with the creation and procurement of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.” Al-Timimi apparently, the FBI suspects, was one such scientist.
Information permitting a resolution of the Amerithrax matter — the identity of the processor(s) and mailer — likely will come from the numerous individuals, now arrested, who may have played a role or known something. It likely will stem from those with a personal knowledge of Al Qaeda, and not those with an ideological or political axe to grind, whether against Iraq or militant islamists, in favor of establishing a Palestinian state, or against the US biodefense establishment or current federal Administration. The perps likely at some point have expressed upset at the detention of the Blind Sheik or been personally affected by the detention of friends or family.
Although the analysis by the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, Md. did not pinpoint the exact origin of the Florida isolate, the study showed how whole-genome sequencing technology and computational methods can be a powerful approach for analyzing anthrax and other bacterial outbreaks. BHR has always underestimated the usefulness of the genetic line of inquiry at narrowing the source of the anthrax. Similarly, while the anthrax perpetrator(s) may never be caught, the Amerithrax investigation was hard fought by investigators who realized that the next 9/11 might be at issue. As they heard Ayman Zawahiri’s recurring threats of attack, the Amerithrax investigators likely remained haunted by coincidences that they tirelessly pursued while they left no stone unturned. Amerithrax investigators emphasize that there is no cover-up — no conspiracy. The investigators at least once were under intense pressure to solve the case. Giving the government the benefit of the doubt, and putting aside whether anyone will be prosecuted criminally for leaks, the information that was withheld was presumably for reasons of national security and safeguarding the integrity of the confidential criminal investigation.
In 2003, anthrax lab tech Yazid Sufaat’s assistants were captured. “Extremely virulent” anthrax was found in Afghanistan after Hambali was harshly interrogated in Jordan. Ron Suskind in One Percent Solution reports that it was unweaponized but authorities knew it could be readily weaponized and had predated 9/11. It was highly concentrated. After these and other developments, conspicuous surveillance was called off on US scientist Dr. Steve Hatfill in late 2003. In the Summer 2006, the “911 Imam” Awlaki (Aulaqi) from Falls Church, Virginia was arrested in Yemen and held for 18 months. Awlaki met both in San Diego and in Falls Church with hijacker Nawaf who had been at the planning meeting in January 2000 at the condo of anthrax lab director Yazid Sufaat. 911 planner Ramzi Bin-al-Shibh had the telephone number of Awlaki’s mosque. CIA Director Tenet in his 2007 book says authorities were startled to find that the anthrax planning had been done in parallel with the 9/11 planning and that Ramzi Bin-al-Shibh had a CBRN role. (So, no, TrebleRebel, don’t be surprised that the “Jenny” used by Ramzi would be used.) The Falls Church “911 Iman” Awlaki would speak alongside fellow Falls Church imam Ali Al-Timimi and Bilal Philips about the signs of the coming day of judgment — for example, in August 2001, he spoke with Ali Al-Timimi in London along with unindicted WTC 1993 conspirator Philips.
The anthrax operation was likely led by Mohammed Islambouli, who had been in a cell with KSM in connection with the planned attacks on the US using aircraft and other means. Islambouli’s role and his planned visit to the US in preparation for the attacks was the subject of the December 4, 1998 Presidential Daily Brief by the CIA to President Clinton. If we don’t learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. The job of journalists, however, is news, not analysis. So journalists understandably need to wait until they are told these things by the government (or in this case, by a defendant’s counsel). Sometimes the government’s interest in the fruits of intelligence activity causes them to forego explaining what is really going on or in seeking a criminal prosecution. For example, the wiretap on Postal employee Sattar’s telephone permitted them to catch the head of the Egyptian Islamic Group in Egypt in October 2000. Similarly, by proceeding in great secrecy in Amerithrax, they have had numerous successes that otherwise would have eluded them. The solution to Amerithrax, however, has been there for all to see — most intelligence is open source. Amerithrax is best understood as a complex web of prosecutions. In the end Amerithrax will be known as a great DOJ/FBI success story.
The prosecution in the Al-Timimi matter only has a matter of days left to provide any discoverable evidence of interception.
I don’t know who you are corresponding with - but I have emails I’m also not allowed to quote from. But I can tell you that everyone in the N American aerosol BW community does not credit Beecher’s paper - they believe Beecher’s paper “slipped through the process” and the blame is on the reviewers. They don not believe it is possible to make a preparation based on only raw spores that could ever behave the way the Daschle powder was shown to behave by scientific study in the Hart Building (JAMA study).
Of course, Beecher did not respond to the rebuttal letter to provide his data, and that is basically the end of the matter.
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