Troubling Anthrax Additive Found; Atta Met Iraq

Despite a last-minute denial from the White House, sources tell ABCNEWS the anthrax in the tainted letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was laced with bentonite. The potent additive is known to have been used by only one country in producing biochemical weapons — Iraq.

ABCNEWS has been told by three well-placed and separate sources that initial tests on an anthrax-laced letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle have detected a troubling chemical additive that authorities consider their first significant clue yet.

An urgent series of tests conducted on the letter at Ft. Detrick, Md., and elsewhere discovered the anthrax spores were treated with bentonite, a substance that keeps the tiny particles floating in the air by preventing them from sticking together. The easier the particles are to inhale, the more deadly they are.

As far as is known, only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons.

Just minutes before ABCNEWS' World News Tonight aired this report, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) flatly denied bentonite was found on the letters. Moments later, another senior White House official backed off Fleischer's comments, saying it does not appear to be bentonite "at this point."

The official said the Ft. Detrick findings represented an "opinionated analysis," that three other labs are conducting tests, and that one of those labs had contradicted the bentonite finding. But, the official added, "tests continue."

Fleischer added today that no test or analysis has concluded that bentonite is present in the Daschle anthrax, and "no other finding contradicts or calls into question" that conclusion.

Reading from what he said was a sentence from the report prepared by scientists at Fort Detrick, he told ABCNEWS, "It is interesting to note there is no evidence of aluminum in the sample." Aluminum, Fleischer said, would also be present if bentonite was.

While it's possible countries other than Iraq may be using the additive, it is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program.

"It means to me that Iraq becomes the prime suspect as the source of the anthrax used in these letters," former U.N. weapons inspector Timothy Trevan told ABCNEWS.

In the process of destroying much of Iraq's biological arsenal, U.N. teams first discovered Iraq was using bentonite, which is found in soil around the world, including the United States and Iraq.

"That discovery was proof positive of how they were using bentonite to make small particles," former U.N. weapons inspector Richard Spertzel told ABCNEWS.

But officials cautioned today that even if Iraq or renegade Iraqi scientists prove to be the source, it's a separate issue from who actually sent the anthrax through the mail.

"What you have to keep in mind is the difference between knowledge about what type of information you have to have to produce it, and who could have sent it," Fleischer said. "They are totally separate topics that could involve totally separate people. It could be the same person or people. It could be totally different people. The information does not apply to who sent it."

Experts say the bentonite discovery doesn't rule out a very well-equipped lab using the Iraqi technique. In fact, commercial spray dryers that Iraq used to produce its biological weapons were bought on the open market from the Danish subsidiary of a U.S. company for about $100,000 a piece.

Starting Thursday, FBI agents began asking company officials in Columbia, Md., if anyone suspicious in this country had recently acquired one of them. — Brian Ross, Christopher Isham, Chris Vlasto and Gary Matsumoto

Raising new questions about whether Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, officials in the Czech Republic now confirm for the first time that a key hijacker met with an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague.

Czech Interior Minister Stanislav Gross said Mohamed Atta, believed by U.S. investigators to be a ringleader of the hijackers, met an Iraqi diplomat shortly before the consul was expelled. Czech intelligence officials were troubled by Al-Ani's photographing of the Radio Free Europe building in the city.

"At this point we can confirm," Gross said, "Mohamed Atta made contact with Iraqi intelligence officer Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir Al-Ani, who was expelled from the Czech Republic for conduct incompatible with his diplomatic status on April 22, 2001."

The meeting took place on Atta's second known visit to Prague. A year earlier, on June 2, 2000, he had came to Prague from Germany by bus in the morning hours. The next day, Gross said, Atta left for the United States.

Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz had previously denied Al-Ani had any contact with Atta in Prague. In recent weeks, Minister Gross also had said there was no evidence to support Prague media reports citing Czech intelligence officials who said Atta had met Al-Ani.

The meeting, along with Iraq's stockpiles of biological weapons, have led some to question whether Atta — and Hussein — were not somehow behind the anthrax attacks in the United States.

"There are reports that one of the things that may have happened at that meeting was that [Atta] was given by the Iraqi some sample of anthrax," former U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler told ABCNEWS. "We do not know if that is true. I believe it is something that should be investigated."

"At this point, neither I nor anyone else from the police or Czech intelligence services will provide any further information concerning this contact and [Atta's] stay and movement on the territory of the Czech Republic until the investigation is finished," he said. — Brian Hartman

Critics of the FBI are saying agents may have missed some early clues that could have helped prevent the Sept. 11 attacks.

Weeks before the hijackings, the FBI received a CIA warning that two suspected terrorists had slipped into the United States. The FBI was unable to locate the two men, who ended up among the 19 hijackers.

They did, in August, arrest Zacarias Moussaoui, an Algerian man who aroused suspicions at a Minnesota flight school. But FBI headquarters denied the agents' request to obtain a warrant to search through the suspect's computer because before Sept. 11 the agents didn't have enough evidence he was part of a terrorist plan.

"If going into that computer would have helped to determine or detect what was about to happen, then it's absolutely essential that that goes forward, even if you end up forgoing a prosecution," former FBI Assistant Director Buck Revell said.

And what about sharing information? After the Sept. 11 attacks, police chiefs complained that they were given the FBI's terrorist watch list, but little more. The FBI was also criticized for what many viewed taking too long to conduct tests and interview witnesses in the first Anthrax cases in Florida and New York.

Mueller, a career prosecutor who is the FBI's new director, comes from outside the bureau to lead it in the most challenging time in the agency's history.

Sen. Charles Grassly, a longtime FBI critic, says the director faces a tough task.

"Director Mueller has two wars to win, one on the outside against the terrorists, the other is with his own bureacracy," Grassley said. — John Miller

Italian police are trying to learn why Rizk Amid Farid, a 43-year-old Egyptian arrested near Rome, would have been shipping himself across the Atlantic Ocean in a furnished box complete with a bed and toilet. Farid was discovered late last week in a shipyard in the southern port of Gioia Tauro, where his Canada-bound ship was docked for five days. Authorities on the ground say port authority personnel discovered Farid after hearing strange noises coming from his container. Crammed into the suspicious stowaway's box with him were two cellular phones, a satellite phone, a computer, cameras, many documents, and even a drill for making airholes.

Police believe he boarded the ship in Egypt and planned to travel all the way to Canada. But Farid, who was holding a Canadian passport, also had a plane ticket to fly from Rome to Toronto to Montreal. His seat on the flight, scheduled to leave last Friday, was confirmed.

Italian investigators say everything about Farid — his documents and claims about himself — appear to be either false or obscured. They have checked his stories with police in other countries — including Egypt, Canada and the United States — and believe none has panned out. Canadian investigators are further investigating the suspect's background.

Though police have not said they have any direct evidence tying Farid to terrorism, he is the first person to be arrested in Italy on the basis of a new counterterrorism law passed last week in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. Under the new law, he can be held for at least six months as investigators try to determine whether he is a terrorist.

A prosecutor said the stowaway had studied in Egypt and in North America to qualify as a commercial jet engine mechanic. Before leaving Egypt, however, he was believed to be working at a magazine distribution company. Investigators say he claimed to be "running away" from a powerful brother-in-law in Egypt and had traveled in the container for five days.

"Why not point the finger at a "domestic terrorist" for right now, and give Saddam some sort of sense of calm."

Because such action would negate from Pres. Bush's plain talk about "smoking them out of their holes", and would make him guilty of political pandering. It would mean that maintaining the coalition is more important than finding the guilty parties. It would be lying to the American people whose support for the war is more important that any other factor. Sorry, but the tree is already being cut down, so let the chips fall where they may.

The American Media anthrax and the DC antrax both caused cases of inhalation anthrax. The New York stuff has to this time only caused cutaneous anthrax. Either they had two different batches or they screwed some of it up.

I also think this may argue the point that whoever did this had a very limited amount of anthrax in their possession.

One group, Aryan Action, praises the Sept. 11 attacks on its Web site and declares: "Either you're fighting with the jews against al Qaeda, or you support al Qaeda fighting against the jews."

Cooper said a meeting this year in Beirut was attended by neo-Nazis and Islamic extremists united in their hatred of Jews. "Some extremists are now globalized," he said.

White supremacists have been linked with anthrax in the past, but not in relation to an attack.

Washington Post - Sat. Oct. 27, 2001 - Bob Woodward

You might try reading something other than FreeRepublic on occasion. I don't like Bob Woodward, but he does get facts straight.

Fine. Let's follow your advice. Then when some group of FReepers are out protesting a bunch of "Give Peace a Chance" groupies and they are violently attacked because "the media" says "right-wingers", especially a "West coast" branch, a not so subtle smash of FR that only the ignorant ignore, are responsible for the current Anthrax attacks I'll come back and ask you how you feel then!

Yikes. I just posted on another thread that the lack of publicized evidence pointing to Iraq as the anthrax source raised the possibility of a U.S. source. If true, this could be considered a smoking gun. But, not knowing the specifics of the technique, the material used is commonly available. (Trivia: Bentonite is a swelling clay that is mixed with water and injected into wells as they are drilled to prevent collapse before a steel casing can be inserted. )

Major mixed feelings about this report. This information, if true, could be considered a how-to tip. Gawd the agony of wanting to know what is happening, yet knowing that knowledge is dangerous!

"Should we tell Iraq and the American people everything we know? Do we have a need to know every detail even if it might alert our enemies to an attack?"

You miscontrue my meaning. Military secrets should be secret - no leaks. But to have one spokeman say one thing and another spokesman say another makes the government look like the Keystone Cops. If it gets out in the news that Iraq is behind the anthrax attacks, then so be it. Iraq is already preparing for our bombs...

If the government said "We know who did it and will respond at a time and place of our choosing", that would be fine. Also fine, but a bit too late to use now, is "We are continuing our investigation and have no comment at this time." But lies are unacceptable and the statemnets "Garden-variety antrhax" and "he got it by drinking from a mountain stream" are lies.

Even worse is this merry-go-round of conflicting information. Daschel says it is potent stuff. Thomson says it is "garden-variety". US-AMRID says the coating has bentonite; the CDC says no. An anonymous source says that Atta met with an Iraqi agent; a different anyonymous sources claims the "totality of evidence" shows the "spores" came from the US. All of this conflicting information leads to a loss of confidence in the government and makes me think they wouldn't recognize military-grade anthrax if they got it in the mail.

Actually, I didn't misconstrue anything. We may have a difference of opinion but I'm pretty sure I understand where you're coming from.

My position is that any information that aids or abets our enemies should only be privy to those with a neeed to know. I don't need to know how the anthrax was weaponized, all I need to know is how best to protect me and my family from it.

If its in our interest to hold back information, whether its military or intel, then I support it.

A lot of handwringing and calling for peoples heads have occurred in the last month and personally I see no reason for it. The fog of the first bio-attack on America is lifting and what I see is only 3 casualties, God bless them, and a lot of anthrax exposure that never reached infection. Somebody is doing their job and doing it better each day.

I do agree with you. Maybe I overstated my response. I hate that it looks like we don't know what we are doing.

As for the government blaming it on "right-wing fanatics", your right, its stupid.

But correct me if I am wrong, no one in the Bush Administration has pointed the finger at anyone, the only reports of that are from so called leaks, in the CIA etc. and the liberal media is jumping all over it.

All I am saying is that IF this is a tactic to confuse the enemy, maybe it's working, it sure as hell has been confusing us.

This question is easily answered. The objective of all revolutionary groups is to create increasing governmental crackdowns that alienate the society at large, thereby delegitimizing the government and creating a vacuum of authority into which the revolutionary movement can move. Hence, a right wing, or left wing revolutionary movement would have motive for any domestic action that would result in a decrease in civil liberties, especially within the context of a society where vast numbers of normal citizens break the law every day by smoking marijuana. These people will now be caught up in a newer, larger net that formerly kept them free from being caught in their innocuous behavior.

That being said, I would think that the whole issue of where the anthrax came from and who is sending it would be settled by now. The Egyptians have Al Queda operatives in custody, who, under less delicate interrogation techniques than ours, have already confessed to acquiring the anthrax in the Czech Republic with plans to release it in coordination with the 911 attacks. There is more than evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the anthrax attack is coming from Al Queda. It is quite simply beyond doubt at this point. The only questions are arising because of our own government's disinformation campaign.

I think Trenton is known more for it's heavy middle eastern population than it is for its right-wing extremist groups. I just don't think RW extremists are too prevelant in the northeast. We can't forget that the very first cast originated in FLorida a mile from where Atta lived. We also must remember that the first letter was post-marked 9/8.

"You might try reading something other than FreeRepublic on occasion. I don't like Bob Woodward, but he does get facts straight."

You are quoting Woodward, a man known for his lack of agenda. /sarcasm

I looked for the Ayran Action web site. None found. Maybe you should do your own research.

What are you worried about it for? You are Canadian, not American and none of this applies to you. Or is there a Canadian branch? If there is worry about your own nation and quit telling Americans what to do. Foreign interlopers like you are part of what is killing this nation.

Do like the rest of us do! Go along to get along! Bow down to global unification! Give up your sovereignty.
How many more nice little quotes would you like?

Take your toys and go home for a while. Johnny's son can't come out to play right now. When Johnny comes marching home again, his son can come out to play.

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