Ed,
“In the face of such a consensus, we had no choice but to ask ourselves, ‘Could the iron law of expertology — the experts are never right — be wrong?’”
See the chapter “Anthrax: ‘Let’s All Take A Deep Breath’” on anthrax in the 2008 book in MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! OR HOW WE WON THE WAR IN IRAQ: THE EXPERTS SPEAK
Let’s consider an early word from the experts.
“Outbreak: So who is terrorising America with anthrax?” The Observer (London), October 21, 2001
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/21/terrorism.anthrax
“Some of those Unscom officials now work at a joint ‘biodefence’ project between George Mason University in Virginia and Dr Alibekov’s company in the West, Advanced Biosystems - now, coincidentally, being consulted by the authorities and hosts to an international seminar on bio-terrorism next month.”
***
“In testimony to the House of Representatives last week, the man who had now changed his name to Kenneth Alibek recalled his time as Dr Alibekov, running the Soviet Biopreparat programme across 40 complexes.... The programme’s function, he said, was to ‘weaponise’ the germs - to stabilise, dry and mill them into particles for spreading by explosions - or just aerosol sprays and on air currents. The question now haunting the US authorities is whether the anthrax now blowing around the Capitol is of ‘weapons grade’ or not.” [Comment: Ed, note that Dr. A oversaw the production of anthrax not just for spreading by explosions but also in aerosol sprays and on air currents]
“From Stepnogorsk and Voz Island led a trail of proliferation - the former was employing 30,000 people when it was shut down in 1992, among them the bearers of know-how, secrets, weapons recipes. According to Alibek, 7,000 of them were trained in how to make a deadly weapon of one type or another. But direct connections between the anthrax leak to Islamic fundamentalists in states bordering ravaged Afghanistan were not the urgent concern of the US or Russian intelligence services - rather, their worries were over expertise to programmes already running in Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Dr Amy Smithson at the Henry L. Stimson Centre in Washington DC wrote a report in 1994 entitled ‘Toxic Archipelago’ in which she argued that once Soviet authority over Biopreparat ended, there were leaks across the Middle East, into territory where terrorists or their sponsors could easily obtain it. [Comment: such as the United States]
***
Investigators strongly believe anthrax exposure cases in New York, Washington and Florida are linked to the 11 September attacks and that remaining al-Qaida individuals or cells are behind them - but officials say they lacked concrete evidence or intelligence to explain who sent the anthrax-contaminated letters. [Comment: the FBI first questioned Al-Timimi 9 days after 9/11]
***
Moreover, at least six of the 11 September hijackers are believed to have lived in Paterson, including Hani Hanjour, who is understood to have steered the American Airlines jet into the Pentagon.
Lead hijacker Mohamed Atta, who expressed suspicious interest in crop dusters, bought a plane ticket to Spain from a Paterson travel agency, and Nawaq al-Hamzi, another Flight 77 hijacker, and Hanjour rented at least three cars from a dealership in nearby Wayne shortly before the attacks.” [Comment: we now know that Nawaf was connected to the “911 imam” who was working with GMU microbiology graduate student Al-Timimi, who came to have an office right next to Dr. Alibek]
Now, turning to what the experts say, let’s go to the top experts testifying before a Congressional committee in 2005:
“Unfortunately, the negative kinds of activities that this
revolution in knowledge and capability constitute a sea change compared
to the abilities that powered the US and USSR offensive biological
warfare programs during the Cold War. Even through the early 1990s, a
great deal of the activity in programs such as the one Dr. Alibek
helped direct could be categorized as ``microbiological process
engineering’’, how to ``weaponize’’ germs and viruses, coat them with
agents that protected them from the environment, to make the disease
causing particles rugged and controllable.”
***
“In the last 8 years, particle physicists and pulmonary scientists have worked
together to improve the efficiency with which drugs reach the alveoli
of the lung, which is also the preferred target for the aerosolized
anthrax spore. A parallel advancement has occurred in the field of
immunology where new organic coatings have been invented which
dramatically increase the uptake of particles by the specialized cells
in the alveoli. Unfortunately these cells are also responsible for
providing the anthrax bacillus with a protected beachhead for
replication. The result is that two unrelated technologies, a method
for generating small drug and vaccine aerosols, and the development of
a specialized coating, are responsible for dramatically reducing the
number of spores required to produce a successful infection”.
Statement of Dr. Roger Brent, Director and President, Molecular Sciences Institute
“Just take a look at a simple example. A lady could die in
Connecticut. She was 94 years old. It was obvious the
infectious dose for this lady was much, much lower. She didn’t
require 10,000 to 20,000 spores to get infected.”
— Dr. Kenneth Alibek
Who do experts like Alibek conclude?
“Mr. Markey. Give us a warning today. Give us something.
Dr. Alibek. First of all, what I would like to say, of
course, I don’t want to be a kind of alarmist, but I strongly
believe it is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when, when
we are going to see the second attack. If you ask me what is
the probability of using different pathogens in terms of the
attack, in my opinion, anthrax will be again the weapon of
choice.
What kind of deployment? There are different scenarios. In
this case, one of the probable cases—again, maybe anthrax—but
the number of places to be mailed could be quite large.”
Who does Dr. Alibek consider to be the most expert?
“In this case, one more thing: In my opinion, we need to pay
attention to what DARPA is doing in the field of anthrax
protection. In my opinion, DARPA is the most sophisticated
entity at this point of time, and it knows what kind of
research and what kind of development needs to be done in this
field to protect against anthrax.”
[Comment: We are privileged to have a DARPA silica coating expert here today, Dr. TrebleRebel.]
Now who does Dr. Alibek fault for the lapse in good threat assessment?
“Dr. Alibek. Unfortunately, I don’t want to be over-
critical. In 1998 or 1999 when I testified first on the Hill, I
said if we don’t develop in the beginning our concept of
biodefense and agree to develop a good threat assessment in
terms of bioterrorism, we are going to suffer and we will never
have any appropriate defense. This suggestion, of course, my
testimony could be found in the archives.”
What does his co-panelist think on this issue of threat assessment?
“Dr. Brent. I think that having conventions that track down
technologies and look for particular things might well give a
false sense of security, so I don’t think you can do it like
that.
I think there is a great deal of value to be had in not
only criminalizing, but stigmatizing, maybe even hyper-
stigmatizing, deliberate research in biological weapons in the
U.S. and worldwide, the idea being to create a moral climate in
which if somebody down the hall was doing something sinister
and you were worried about it, you might drop a dime to your
local enforcement agency.”