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.