Posted on 04/13/2008 8:20:52 AM PDT by ZacandPook
It's not MY swimming pool. I'm not a bioweaponeer. I have no special interest in the physics of small particles. I certainly have no interest in converting everyone who believes total nonsense about van der Waals forces and coatings on spores.
My only interest in this subject was to try to determine which group of scientists was right and which group was wrong. I've done that to my satisfaction, so I'll be washing my hands of the subject as soon as I can find the time to put a detailed analysis on my web site.
If people read my analysis -- fine. If they don't. That's up to them. Google and Yahoo! will make sure they can find it - if they bother to look.
Have we FINALLY got rid of you from peddling your crap on this website?
Go read a book, Treble, and stop flogging a dead horse.
Excerpts from the 2007 PhD thesis “An Assessment of Exploitable Weaknesses in Universities” (as retyped and numbered by me). (Any typos are mine).
1. “On October 29, 2001 the President stated in the Homeland Security Presidential Directive-2, “The Government shall implement measures to end the abuse of student visas and prohibit certain international students from receiving education and training in sensitive areas. including areas of study with direct application to the development of weapons of mass destruction. The Government shall also prohibit the education of training of foreign nationals who would use such training to harm the United States or its Allies.”
2. On December 1, 1862, Abraham Lincoln said in a message to Congress, “As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.”
3. “The Biodefense program is centered around the National Center for Biodefense (NCD), located in Discovery Hall on the Prince William campus, headed by Charles Bailey. The program is intended to promote awareness of the national and international security challenges and medical and public health threats posed by biological terrorism and biological weapons proliferation.
***
4. The program is intended to provide students with a background with fundamentals of science and technology of biodefense, threat analysis of biological weapons, and the specialized areas of medical defense, including engineering defense, non-proliferation in biodefense, and counter-terrorism/ law enforcement of biodefense. Students in this program have unique opportunities to participate in cutting-edge and meaningful research while working with the renowned investigators in the life sciences research center.”
5. “The scope of work defined on the NCBD website for cooperative research states that USAMRIID scientists will consult on the design, construction, and operation of specialized laboratory equipment for exposing animals to aerosolized agents. The education partnership “will provide a unique opportunity for students to work on research projects that could not otherwise be available in an educational environment.” GMU does not have any qualified person to determine whether or not this research and laboratory equipment falls within export control regulations.”
6. “The Department of Molecular and Microbiology (MMB) administers NCBD graduate degree programs in bio-defense. MMB also includes the Center for Biomedical Genomics (CBMG) located in Discovery Hall on the Prince William Campus.
***
NCBD and CBMG, including some offices and research areas of the American Type Culture Collection (ATCC), are located in Discovery Hall, making this an attractive building on the Prince William Campus to target for information and technology.”
7. “Recent developments and discoveries in research and cutting edge technologies, including defense related technologies, by American and foreign national students in higher education require new means to control sensitive or potentially threatening information. This dissertation examined whether to and what degree universities are vulnerable to misuse, misapplication, and exploitation of information and technology and if the presence of foreign nationals contributes to this vulnerability.
8. “Yazid Sufaat is suspected of working on the development of biological and chemical weapons, specifically the anthrax program headed by Ayman Zawahiri known as ‘curdled milk.’” In June 2001, Sufaat travelled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to work for the Taliban Medical Brigade and to work with anthrax. Sufaat worked in the Afghan city of Kandahar, also known as ‘Hambali’ the alleged mastermind of the Bali 2002 bombing.
9. “In March 2003, handwritten notes and files on a laptop seized during the captive of al-Qaeda member Khalid Mohammed, include an anthrax production plan using a spray dryer. According to Ross Getman ... Mohammed told authorities that Zacarias Moussaoui inquired about crop dusters, possibly in relation to the anthrax work being done by Sufaat.”
10. “A June 1999 memo said the program should seek cover and talent in education institutions...”
11. “Discovery Hall currently has BSL 1, 2 and 2+ labs in which students work with attenuated and vaccine strains of Fracella tularemia, anthrax and HIV. GMU will eventually have new biological labs featuring a BSL-3 lab which will have anthrax and tularemia.”
12. “[]he Pasteur strain of anthrax is a select agent, not because it is a particularly pathogenic bug on its own, but it contains the genetic elements that can be recombined with other strains to make a pathogenic bug.”
13. “Collaborations include work with U.S. Army Medical Institute Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) and the Army Engineer Research and Development Center - Topographic Engineers Center (ERDC-TEC). Funded projects from state and federal grants and awards to study infectious diseases that result from biological terrorism or arise naturally include: U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command, Commonwealth Health Research Board (Virginia), National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
[Elsewhere the author states U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center work included detection of biological agents]
14. “GMU currently collaborates with USAMRIID.”
15. “As a student in the biodefense program, the author is aware that students without background checks are permitted to work on grants, specifically Department of Defense, that has been awarded to NCBD under the Department of Molecular and Microbiology at GMU. Students are also permitted to do research separately from work in the lab for their studies. Work and studies are separate, but related by the lab. Thus, student access, research and activities go unchecked and unmonitored. Students have access to critical information and technology.”
16. A principal investigator (PI) may hire a student based on a one on one interview, post doctoral or masters interest, technical abilities, publications, previous work and lab experience, whether student qualifications match the principal interrogators current research, whether there is a space, and if the timing is right. There is no formal screening process or background check that the author is aware of for teaching or research assistantships.
17. “Discovery Hall is composed largely of strains of bio-agents that are avirulent for humans; thus, security for agents is not as stringent.”
18. “It is the access that students have to technology at GMU that can possibly allow them to weaponize them to weaponize the harmful agents once they obtain it.”
19. “Although computers are password protected, anyone can access the computers located throughout the labs. Research results can be recorded on lab computers. Someone wanting to access research results would first have to understand what the numbers meant. Research results are also kept in a lab notebook that is kept in the lab or office. This enables other students to repeat what was already done or to see results.”
20. “It is alarming that a project is not reviewed periodically for export control regulations because the direction of research could deviate or the status of controlled information or technology could change.”
21. “Upon hearing about instances or missing equipment in Discovery Hall, the author contacted campus security who was unaware of instances of missing equipment. Missing equipment should be reported to the equipment liaison. Missing equipment may not be reported to campus security because labs tend to share equipment. Equipment also goes missing because it is not inventoried if it is under $2,000.
22. [An example from October 2006 of equipment that went missing was a rotissery hybridization over belonging to the Center for Biomedical Genoimics]
“This equipment can be used to manufacture biological agents and genetically modified agents, which could potentially be used as biological weapons.”
23. “A DI system is a de-ionized water system, which removes the ions that are found in normal tap water. The assistant director for operations noticed the DI system in Discovery Hall was using the entire 100 gallons in two days, which is an enormous amount of water for the four DI taps in the whole building. According to the assistant director for operations, it is difficult to calculate the reason for that much water since no leak was found. A large amount of water used over a short period of time for unknown reasons could indicate that the research is being conducted covertly.”
24. “The events at GMU demonstrate opportunity to create a clandestine lab, the ability to sell items illegally, or the ability to exploit school equipment for ill intent. It also demonstrates vulnerability to theft, and a lack of technology and control and protection.”
25. “The threat posed by Islamic extremists interacting with students at universities is a concern since college students are impressionable and have the potential to be influenced by radicalism and radical preachers. The radical preacher Ali Al-Timimi is an illustrative example.
26. Ali Al-Timimi earned a doctorate in 2005 in computational biology from GMU. His doctoral dissertation is entitled “Chaos and Complexity in Cancer.” Brought to the author’s attention, was that Al-Timimi had an office in Discovery Hall.”
27. “He was convicted and sentenced to ten federal counts of supporting and encouraging terrorist activities, specifically urging his followers to join the Taliban to fight the U.S. troops and to train with the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.”
28. “According to Broadside Newspaper at George Mason University, study groups made up of Muslim students at Mason gathered on a weekly basis to hear lectures by Shaykh Ja’far Idris at Dar Al-Aqam. According to the Broadside, Idris is an internationally known Salafi cleric and a member of the Salafi diplomatic corps, who was forced to leave the United states in 2003 due to pressure from the U.S. Government. Al-Timimi participated in events sponsored by the Mason’s Muslim Students Association.
29. “The ability of the student to misuse, misapply or exploit information and technology learned from conducting biological research using the assets and capabilities available is extremely vulnerable.
30. “The student already has access to the knowledge and understands how to use and misuse biological agents. These students know the potential applications for the information and technology that is used during biological research. The students are able to access the information easily and work with the technology regularly... This information and technology is also extremely sensitive as stated earlier in the study.”
31. “A student with legitimate access to Discovery Hall has easy accessibility to equipment. A student with access to the loading dock could steal equipment on the weekend when campus security is not present in Discovery Hall. A student could also walk out of the entrance with equipment on the weekend without security present.
32. “If it was discovered that a student at GMU used information and technology against the U.S. which was learned and accessed at GMU the consequences would be severe. Such an incident would cause an immediate end to research.”
—
http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com
Dr. Rebel,
So far you’ve quoted experts from DARPA, Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, and GMU’s Center for Biodefense (the Alibek and Patrick supervised thesis by Dr. Ken’s assistant Crockett). Oh, and JAMA, CDC, etc. But that was only after you confused them.
When are you going to stop relying on authority and expertise and start using bold, capital letters with red font like Ed? Trust me, marketing is important. Also use an example from an upcoming movie or recently opened blockbuster movie if you can. For example, go see SPEED RACER and then draw an analogy between single encapsulated spores to a horse and buggy.
Army, Hopkins to collaborate on biodefense research
By David Dishneau | The Associated Press
5:50 PM EDT, May 12, 2008
ttp://www.baltimoresun.com/news/education/college/bal-biodefense0512,0,7450735.story
The Army and Johns Hopkins University announced a deal today enabling biotechnology graduate students to work with scientists at the military’s premier biological weapons defense laboratory at Fort Detrick in Frederick at the Army’s expense.
***
At least two fellowships will be offered yearly, starting this fall, to students with a biodefense concentration within the biotechnology master’s degree program. They will work at USAMRIDD, where scientists study some of the world’s most dangerous pathogens, including anthrax, the Ebola virus and botulinum neurotoxin.
***
The students will most likely work in biosafety level 3 labs and possibly BSL-4 labs, reserved for the most virulent agents
Comment:
Ed, ignore Treble. He just got out of the pool and his towel is wrapped too tight.
Can you link both this and the PhD thesis relating to the vulnerability assessment related to universities?
The thesis addresses biosecurity issues applicable to universities broader than addressed in excerpts I’ve quoted.
Let’s consider the GMU PhD thesis in the context of the bigger picture coming into focus.
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.
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 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 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. So Dr. and Dr. B would have been a focus only as victims of a theft of biochemistry information.
Here’s the table of contents of a 2007 book, BIOTERRORISM.
CHAPTER 1: BIOTERRORISM - A COMPLEX THREAT
ANDREAS WENGER AND RETO WOLLENMANN
PART 1: UNDERSTANDING THE THREAT - ACTORS AND CAPABILITIES
CHAPTER 2: THE LEGACY OF SECRET STATE PROGRAMS
JEANNE GUILLEMIN
CHAPTER 3: EVOLUTION OF THE CURRENT THREAT
MILTON LEITENBERG
CHAPTER 4: THE IMPACT OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE
MALCOLM DANDO
PART 2: ASSESSING THE THREAT - DIFFERING PERCEPTIONS
CHAPTER 5: KNOWLEDGE GAPS AND THREAT ASSESSMENTS
PETER R. LAVOY
CHAPTER 6: WHY DO CONCLUSIONS FROM THE EXPERTS VARY?
MARIE ISABELLE CHEVRIER
PART 3: MANAGING THE THREAT - POLICY OPTIONS
CHAPTER 7: WHEN TO ‘CRY WOLF’, WHAT TO CRY, AND HOW TO CRY IT
ANTHONY H. CORDESMAN
CHAPTER 8: MORE TRANSPARENCY FOR A SECURE BIODEFENSE
IRIS HUNGER
PART 4: CONCLUSION
CHAPTER 9: SECURING SOCIETY AGAINST THE RISK OF BIOTERRORISM
ANDREAS WENGER
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
All I said was that I won't be going to go on any crusade to correct all the nonsense printed in the media about coatings on the spores in the Daschle anthrax powder.
That doesn't mean I'm going to stop discussing the anthrax attacks of 2001 here or anywhere else.
It means that when you make your next screwball mistake about science, I'll still be here to point it out to you.
I don’t have time to read this now, but pinging you BA, in case you didn’t see this.
Also, thought you’d find it interesting Miz Sterious.
See TrebleRebel, marketing is everything. Ed has brilliantly added a graphic that serves to remind us of a bowling ball in support of his theory. You really do, though, need to go read a book instead of belaboring what is an unsettled difference of views among scientists not in a position to know. I’m finding that there is much to learn from many people — notwithstanding that their contribution comes from a wildly different point of view or focus.
Professor Barry Kellman in his 2007 book BIOVIOLENCE provides a summary of the issues raised by the PhD excerpts above:
“The story of Ali Al-Timimi is illustrative. American-born, he received religious education in Saudi Araba and was active in the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA). Known as a spiritual leader among radical islamists, he lectured at the Center for Islamic Information and Education in Falls Church. By Spring 2002, as a computational biology doctoral student at George Mason University, he worked in a program designed to coordinate bioresearch at several universities. He was discovered by the FBI, convicted on charges of incitement to wage war against the United States, and sentenced to life in prison in 2005.”
He cites Vanguards of Conquest: The Sheik and the Bioweaponeers in support. [http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com]
One of the most cautious, well-regarded and oft-quoted analysts on this subject is Milton Leitenberg.
He wrote the chapter on evolving threats in Wenger and Wollenmann’s BIOTERRORISM: CONFRONTING A COMPLEX THREAT (2007).
—”When we move to the Al-Qaida group in Afghanistan, the picture rapidly becomes much more serious, and all the preceding semifarcical events can be seen as inconsequential trivia. The first significant and meaningful information on what Al-Qaida may at some point have hoped to achieve in the area of bioweapons appeared on a single page in the journal SCIENCE in mid-December 2003, and then in declassified documents that were obtained in the last week of March 2004.
Appended to the single page in SCIENCE via the internet address was a list of thirty-two items: eleven books and twenty-one professional journal papers nearly all dating from the 1950s and 1960s dealing with pathogens or bioweapons.”
***
“They were found in Al Qaida training camp near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in December 2001. Half of the books dealt with historic or general aspects of bioweapons and would be of little practical use in an effort to produce bioweapons agents. However, at least some of the journal papers and the remaining half of the books might have been useful in such an effort. They were found only a few kilometers from the site near the Kandahar airport that confirmed the rudimentary equipment also procured by Al-Qaida.”
—Most important of all, the documents indicated that “al-Qaida’s BW initiative included recruitment of individuals with PhD-level expertise who supported planning and acquisition efforts by their familiarity with the scientific community.”
[He notes that the most recent conferences known to have been attended by the scientist writing the 1999 anthrax planning correspondence to Zawahiri were in July and September 1999]
—”If it should turn out, as is currently assumed, that the Amerithrax perpetrator came from within the US government’s own biodefense program, with access to strains, laboratories, people and knowledge, then all previous conceptions about the significance of the events would be substantially altered.
***
—Al-Qaeda has actively recruited educated college graduates and ... specifically sought individuals with particular knowledge and training. ... Such recruiting patterns do not automatically translate into either an interest or capability in bioweapons, but they would be a key advantage should the interests of such a group turn in that direction, as Al-Zawahiri’s [1999] memorandum quoted above suggests they may.”
—”Unfortunately, ten years of widely broadcast public discussion have provided such groups, at least on a general level, with suggestions as to what paths to follow.”
Instead of correcting my scewball science mistakes here Ed, why don’t you publish your theories in a peer-reviewed science journal?
And, you never know, some day in the future some scientist might be willing to tell you that van der Waals forces don’t make anthrax spores adhere - and he might even be willing to let you use his name on your website. If, that is, he wants to end his career.
I'd rather correct your screwball mistakes here.
Besides, I don't really have any "peers." :-)
When I get my detailed analysis of spore interaction onto my web page, I'll be asking every scientist I encounter to comment on it. You, too. My web site may not be "a peer-reviewed science journal," but, as we've seen, there is no end to the scientific nonsense that gets "peer reviewed" and printed in scientific journals. It appears to be a I'll-review-yours-if-you review-mine process where criticizing a report is not polite. Instead, criticism is done in letters to the editor and on the Internet AFTER the report is printed.
On my web site I welcome criticism, and I specifically request that people write me if they can PROVE that something I've written is wrong. When they do, I correct my web site.
The letter to the editor was the standard way scientists discuss their work. It was pointed out that a statement was made that was unsupported and that it should be followed up with data. It was not followed up with the data - hence the statement no longer enjoys peer-reviewed status.
If Beecher had provided the data then the statement would be accepted. I wonder why Beecher didn’t provide the data? But I’m sure you don’t wonder why.
TrebleRebel,
Or the offering from Harvard University Press from September 2006 is “Anthrax: Bioterror as Fact and Fantasy” by French history professor Philipp Sarasin (Translated into English).
That book quotes a June 2005 interview of Dr. Alibek in a Swiss (German language) weekly news magazine, Neue Zurcher Zeitung, in which he addresses the anthrax mailings:
A. “...What if I told you Swiss scientists are paid by Al Qaeda? You could believe it or not. It has become somewhat fashionable to disparage Russian scientists. Americans, Iraqis, or whoever could just as well be involved with Al Qaeda. Why doesn’t anyone speculate about that?”
Q. “But could one of your students build a biological weapon in the garage?”
A. “Let me reply philosophically: Two hundred years ago, it was unthinkable to believe that people would be using mobile telephones, wasn’t it? Everything changes. Our knowledge grows, and technology develops incredibly quickly. These days even high-school kids can breed recombinant microbial strains. I am not saying that a student is in a position to build a biological weapon all by himself. But the knowledge needed to do it is certainly there.”
My kids are making a thermonuclear device as a school project. Got the plans off the internet.
I discussed the article with Dr. Beecher. I KNOW why he hasn't responded to the criticism. So, there's no need for me to wonder.
As to why he didn't provide support for statements about things that any microbiologist should know, is it really necessary to include an explanation of elementary microbiology in a paper about ways of detecting anthrax in mail bags?
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