Posted on 10/13/2001 11:30:41 PM PDT by geros
Iraq 'behind US anthrax outbreaks'
· Pentagon hardliners press for strikes on Saddam
· Britain's GPs put on full alert over deadly disease
War on Terrorism: Observer special
David Rose and Ed Vulliamy, New York Sunday October 14, 2001 The Observer
American investigators probing anthrax outbreaks in Florida and New York believe they have all the hallmarks of a terrorist attack - and have named Iraq as prime suspect as the source of the deadly spores.
Their inquiries are adding to what US hawks say is a growing mass of evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved, possibly indirectly, with the 11 September hijackers.
If investigators' fears are confirmed - and sceptics fear American hawks could be publicising the claim to press their case for strikes against Iraq - the pressure now building among senior Pentagon and White House officials in Washington for an attack may become irresistible.
Plans have been discussed among Pentagon strategists for US air strike support for armed insurrections against Saddam by rebel Kurds in the north and Shia Muslims in the south with a promise of American ground troops to protect the oilfields of Basra.
Contact has already been made with an Iraqi opposition group based in London with a view to installing its members as a future government in Baghdad.
Leading US intelligence sources, involved with both the CIA and the Defence Department, told The Observer that the 'giveaway' which suggests a state sponsor for the anthrax cases is that the victims in Florida were afflicted with the airborne form of the disease.
'Making anthrax, on its own, isn't so difficult,' one senior US intelligence source said. 'But it only begins to become effective as a biological weapon if they can be made the right size to breathe in. If you can't get airborne infectivity, you can't use it as a weapon. That is extremely difficult. There is very little leeway. Most spores are either too big to be suspended in air, or too small to lodge on the lining of the lungs.'
As claims about an Iraqi link grew, senior health officials in Britain revealed they warned all the country's GPs last week to be vigilant about the disease. 'I think we have to be prepared to think the unthinkable,' said the Government's Chief Medical Officer, Dr Liam Donaldson. The Department of Health confirmed the Government is conducting an urgent review of Britain's ability to cope with chemical or biological attacks.
It also emerged last night that three people who worked in the Florida buildings at the centre of anthrax scares are now in the UK and undergoing tests for the disease. And in America a letter sent from Malaysia to a Microsoft office was found to contain traces of anthrax.
In liquid form, anthrax is useless - droplets would fall to the ground, rather than staying suspended in the air to be breathed by victims. Making powder needs repeated washings in huge centrifuges, followed by intensive drying, which requires sealed environments. The technology would cost millions.
US intelligence believes Iraq has the technology and supplies of anthrax suitable for terrorist use. 'They aren't making this stuff in caves in Afghanistan,' the CIA source said. 'This is prima facie evidence of the involvement of a state intelligence agency. Maybe Iran has the capability. But it doesn't look likely politically. That leaves Iraq.'
Scientists investigating the attacks say the bacteria used is similar to the 'Ames strain' of anthrax originally cultivated at Iowa State University in the 1950s and later given to labs throughout the world, including Iraq.
According to sources in the Bush administration, investigators are talking to Egyptian authorities who say members of the al-Qaida network, detained and interrogated in Cairo, had obtained phials of anthrax in the Czech Republic.
Last autumn Mohamed Atta is said by US intelligence officials to have met in Prague an agent from Iraqi intelligence called Ahmed Samir al-Ahani, a former consul later expelled by the Czechs for activities not compatible with his diplomatic mission.
The Czechs are also examining the possibility that Atta met a former director of Saddam's external secret services, Farouk Hijazi, at a second meeting in the spring. Hijazi is known to have met Bin Laden.
It was confirmed yesterday that Jim Woolsey, CIA director from 1993 to 1996, recently visited London on behalf of the hawkish Defence Department to 'firm up' other evidence of Iraqi involvement in 11 September.
Some observers fear linking Saddam to the terrorist attacks is part of an agenda being driven by US hawks eager to broaden the war to include Iraq, a move being resisted by the British government.
The hawks winning the ear of President Bush is assembled around Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, and a think tank, the Defence Policy Advisory Board, dubbed the 'Wolfowitz cabal'.
Their strategy to target Iraq was hammered out at a two-day seminar in September, of which the dovish Secretary of State Colin Powell had no knowledge.
The result was a letter to President Bush urging the removal of Saddam as a precondition to the war. 'Failure to undertake such an effort,' it said, 'will constitute a decisive surrender in the war against terrorism'.
In a swipe at Powell's premium on coalition-building, it continues: 'coalition building has run amok. The point about a coalition is "can it achieve the right purpose?" not "can you get a lot of members?"'
Administration officials close to the group told The Observer : 'We see this war as one against the virus of terrorism. If you have bone marrow cancer, it's not enough to just cut off the patient's foot. You have to do the complete course of chemotherapy. And if that means embarking on the next Hundred Years' War, that's what we're doing.'
What if this anthrax stuff was sent from Cuba to be mailed in the states to Florida or NYC or the eastern seaboard. If the DNA showes that it came from Iraq, we had best suspect Tio Fidel!
Remember Tio Fidel, the orginal terrorist who wanted to kill most Americans in 1962 with the thermo nuclear tipped missiles supplied by Russia! Hint, he still would like to kill all of us!
If that stuff got to Cuba from Iraq, then China with all of its ships going in and out must be suspect!
If OBL does have these WMD weapons, what better place to send them and the techies than to Cuba. Load them up in a ChiCom Costco Ship and bring them right into Havana via the ChiCom owned Panama Canal! Then, you are 90 to 100 miles from Florida in a country where the leader would love to see every American dead since at least 1962. Hint, he ain't changed that dream!
I hope that GW has people watching Cuba and Tio Fidel, the big mass murderer of his own people in this hemisphere!
Wasn't it made in iowa?
The nukes were never under cuban control.
They wont be missed.
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| Blair: 'we must be prepared for battle casualties' |
|
Tony Blair says Britain must be prepared for casualties among its armed forces as part of the war against terrorism.
In an interview with the Observer newspaper he says the military action against Afghanistan's Taliban rulers is justified He says he can see no alternative if Osama bin Laden's terrorism is to be defeated. The Prime Minister commented: "If you take military action there are always risks. We obviously do everything we can to limit the possibility of casualties among men and women when we send them into action. "(But) You have to decide what you believe is right and recognise it is a very heavy responsibility. You don't do it if there's an alternative. But, right from the very beginning, I've not understood what the alternative can be." Mr Blair goes on to say that the US, Britain and the other allies are doing their best to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He talks of creating a "security bridge", a period of ceasefire that will allow negotiations to start between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. He said: "You need to construct at least the right platform of security so that people feel they're not seeing funerals on their television screens, heightening the tension and anger and bitterness, then the violence." Mr Blair is anxious to play down the prospects of military action against Saddam Hussein's Iraq - something being proposed by many security ' in the US. He said: "The first phase is the action in Afghanistan against the perpetrators of the 11 September outrage. That is action we've discussed, considered, deliberated upon and taken." Story filed: 04:42 Sunday 14th October 2001 http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_423189.html?menu=news.latestheadlines |
I think it time the word "hawk" was replaced with "Eagle"
Right now is the time to pave the way diplomatically to undermine Iraq's position. It's important to point out that the two leading causes of death in Iraq are heart disease and diabetes, which are both tied in with over-eating. People who accuse us of starving Iraq have bought into liberal spin.
Bringing emphasis on the Iraqi defector would be a great help. He is a defector of conscience. He was a bio-terror researcher and hates what he had done there. Perhaps we should have a high-profile hearing in the House based on what he revealed to the press. And I am certain that Echelon has picked up hundreds of damning statements by Iraqi leaders.
"Dog tags" and "Fox holes" have been eliminated from military jargon because they offend women, don't ask don't tell and now we can't offend allah by naming our military operations. I have a bad feeling about all this. Better go to my sensitivity training.
Wasn't it made in iowa?
No, the strain was developed at the University of Iowa in the '50s. Then samples were distributed around the world to then-freindly countries' labs to make anti-toxins and antibiotics as a counter-measure against the threat of Soviet Bio-weapons.
Remember, Saddam had gone on a big buying spree in the late '80s for centrifuges and drying ovens for his labs. The Iraqis had to have kept the culture alive all that while (not hard to do). The FBI was able to trace the strain by DNA to the original markers left by the Ames Iowa lab.
Or so it seems.
This is a "war" in name only. Although there are very good reasons for NOT declaring war on the all-too-familiar list of terrorist groups and state sponsors, we should also be very clear that no formal declaration of war has been issued by the U.S. Congress.
That being the case, we are consequently subject to the second-guessing, critiques, unclarity of purpose, and misguided alliances that directly result from this Congressional half-measure.
Compare this:
"Expressing the sense of the Senate and House of Representatives regarding the terrorist attacks launched against the United States on September 11, 2001. "
[SNIP]
(7) commits to support increased resources in the war to eradicate terrorism;
(8) supports the determination of the President, in close consultation with Congress, to bring to justice and punish the perpetrators of these attacks as well as their sponsors; and
To this:
"JOINT RESOLUTION Declaring that a state of war exists between the Imperial Government of Japan and the Government and the people of the United States and making provisions to prosecute the same.
[SNIP]
"The President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial Government of Japan; and, to bring the conflict to a successful termination, all of the resources of the country are hereby pledged by the Congress of the United States."
and I'd think the sooner the better. . . . decisively. Avoid allowing Iraq any coalition building. Avoid allowing Russia et al time to clue in and build strategies against such.
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