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TIME Exclusive: Cropduster Manual Discovered in Suspected Terrorist Hideout
Time.com ^ | September.22,2001 | MASSIMO CALABRESI AND SALLY DONNELLY

Posted on 09/22/2001 3:08:14 PM PDT by Reagan Man

Sources tell TIME that U.S. officials suspect that bin Laden conspirators may have been planning to disperse biological or chemical agents from cropdusting planes

Saturday, Sep. 22, 2001

New York -- U.S. law enforcement officials have found a manual on the operation of cropdusting equipment while searching suspected terrorist hideouts, government sources tell TIME magazine in an issue out on Monday, Sept. 24th.

The discovery has added to concerns among government counterterrorism experts that the bin Laden conspirators may have been planning — or may still be planning —to disperse biological or chemical agents from a cropdusting plane normally used for agricultural purposes.

Among the belongings of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, sources tell TIME, were manuals showing how to operate cropdusting equipment that could be used to spray fast-killing toxins into the air.

The discovery resulted in the grounding of all cropdusters nationwide on Sunday Sept. 16th. The dusters have been allowed back up, but are not allowed to take off or land from what traffic controllers refer to as Class B airspace, or the skies around major cities.

One senior official cautions that because corroborative evidence is lacking the FBI does not place "high credibility" in the notion that the hijackers were in fact exploring the idea of stealing or renting cropdusters. However, the FBI is advising members of a crop-dusters' group to report any suspicious buys of dangerous chemicals in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks.

Last week, the National Agricultural Aviation Association, a crop dusters trade group, posted a message from the FBI to its membership: "Members should be vigilant to any suspicious activity relative to the use, training in or acquisition of dangerous chemicals or airborne application of same including threats, unusual purchases, suspicious behavior by employees or customers, and unusual contacts with the public. Members should report any suspicious circumstances or information to local FBI offices."


TOPICS: Breaking News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: alqaeda; alqaida; anthrax; antraz; cropduster; cropdusters; cropdusting; moussaoui; wmd; zacariasmoussaoui
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To: L`enn
i prefer giving the muslims nuclear law than have to live under martial law, personally. the cropduster news is big and has been for a long time in our parts.
161 posted on 09/22/2001 4:37:21 PM PDT by Anonymous2
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To: Impeach98
"Had this been the NRA attacking us for supporting Britain"

Islamic cultures have a reputation for being agreessive and violent in a real petty way. No other culture on the face of the earth does. The Irish don't. The Irish don't involve other people either. The Islamic jihadists do.

On 9-13 I interfered on 2 separate occasions where arabs were being threatened by an angry mob. I exited both times, because they were shooting off their mouths about how it's the US's fault. Guess how the angry mobs gathered? High school arabs started it by shooting off their mouths with the same gutter rubbish. It's time to shut down all their cultural centers of hate. Permanently.

162 posted on 09/22/2001 4:38:07 PM PDT by spunkets
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To: okie_tech
Or Wagner Power Painters. I don't but the chem-bio sh*t is the big enchilada. More bang for the buck. It has to be addressed and it ain't gonna be easy. And now is the time to do it before America goes back to sleep again.
163 posted on 09/22/2001 4:38:59 PM PDT by L`enn
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To: Travis McGee
How about a "proprietary front company" owned by jihadists, such as a gasoline wholesale distributer with twenty tanker trucks?

See my last post.

164 posted on 09/22/2001 4:39:10 PM PDT by Nita Nupress
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To: Miss Marple
OK. Now I am going to bring up another thing that has been bugging me for almost two years. We have a large number of Chinese immigrants. I have never figured out how they got here, since most totalitarian countries do not allow citizens to leave.

China is picky about who can go and who can't. But some can go.

165 posted on 09/22/2001 4:40:21 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
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To: Dog Gone
bob needs to carry a loaded .45 and be trained and prepared to use it. a cell phone to call cleanup (911) would be good too.
166 posted on 09/22/2001 4:40:50 PM PDT by Anonymous2
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To: Nita Nupress, MindBender26
I'm still mystified that MindBender26's thread yesterday was deleted. Some people on the thread were claiming that it violated "Loose Lips Sink Ships," but I didn't see any military information revealed. MindBender26 claimed -- claiming law enforcement sources -- that the Orlando area travel agent Badawi arrested a few days ago is the single source of funding for the hijackers that the FBI has been talking about, and that he is probably a brother of bin Laden's. I don't see what's militarily sensitive about that information, and I was many years in naval intelligence.
167 posted on 09/22/2001 4:41:44 PM PDT by aristeides (demosthenes@olg.com)
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To: L`enn
yeah, our right to own industrial spray paint machines should be constricted too. the analogy to f-16s and sherman tanks is ludicrous.
168 posted on 09/22/2001 4:42:20 PM PDT by Anonymous2
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Comment #169 Removed by Moderator

To: Travis McGee
Check out #159, bin sh!ts bro. owned "Delta Gas Corp."
170 posted on 09/22/2001 4:43:32 PM PDT by spunkets
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To: freedomnews
we need to start executing these people publicly and now.
171 posted on 09/22/2001 4:43:53 PM PDT by Anonymous2
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To: Dog Gone
The bad news is that we now know the terrorists were also thinking of it. One can only hope that this was for another attack sometime in the next few years, and not imminent

Sure makes me feel better. I am planning on being around the next few years. I am saddened and angered by the fact that all of this should never have happened in the first place. I think you know what I mean.

172 posted on 09/22/2001 4:44:35 PM PDT by Linda
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To: spunkets
Hmmm it's becoming easier to see why the Catholics did their Crusade. When pushed in a corner, there sometimes appears to be no choice but fight nasty.
173 posted on 09/22/2001 4:44:45 PM PDT by HiTech RedNeck
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To: Anonymous2
Agreed, martial law is not pretty and the chem-bio thing scares the be-j*sus out of me, as of all the issues out there, this one is the most dangerous. I can only hope that our leaders share the same fear as I do and have the guts and brains to realize this.
174 posted on 09/22/2001 4:44:52 PM PDT by L`enn
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To: Impeach98
Wrong-o

We thus far have treated Arabs and Muslims as we treated Germans in the 1940s.

False-o

Germans were put in camps even though a very large portion of the US population was always of German descent. My own 2nd or 3rd cousins were because they had just arrived from Germany at that time to join relatives here when the war broke out.

America's Invisible Gulag: A Biography of German American Internment & Exclusion in World War II: Memory & History. xxiv + 379pp. Illustrations, notes, and index. Paper. (Table of Contents and ordering information).

You can even search the internet and find that German American internment was a fact.

175 posted on 09/22/2001 4:45:14 PM PDT by FITZ
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To: Miss Marple
Please tell me to remove my tinfoil hat. Please.

Now's not the time to be taking off your tinfoil hat and in addition to it, you should have your gas mask ready to put on.

176 posted on 09/22/2001 4:47:58 PM PDT by FITZ
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Comment #177 Removed by Moderator

To: F.J. Mitchell
nuking the nations that have harbored, financed and had knowledge about these radical groups and did nothing would make it most unprofitable for them to not deal with their problems within 7 days. i have a feeling the current suspicions of islam in america will go a long ways to slowing down and dispersing those with murder in their hearts inside our own borders to find and nail each and every one of them. this is so serious that no one quite has a handle on what we are in.
178 posted on 09/22/2001 4:49:19 PM PDT by Anonymous2
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To: Travis McGee
i98 is slightly naive when it comes to satan's favorite false religion, islam.
179 posted on 09/22/2001 4:50:27 PM PDT by Anonymous2
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To: Travis McGee
That is a slim hope to hang onto. A tiny vial of anthrax can be grown by a microbiology grad student in a "glove box" to enough to kill tens of thousands with just Home Depot supplies.

While I think we need to be diligent about fighting biological weapons (especially a mass production of smallpox vaccinations), everything I've read that sounds credible seems to suggest that isn't the case. There is a link (http://www.nov55.com/athr.html I don't feel like looking up the link command now) where the guy here claims that getting anthrax into the form where it is sprayed out in a crop duster is still technically hard to do. Still, it wouldn't bother me for crop dusters to be registered and have some sort of tracking on them so if they are near a city, they can be shot down or whatever if they don't get back on course...

180 posted on 09/22/2001 4:50:35 PM PDT by Nate505
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