Here's another on a related subject:
Hussein the Conqueror Is it his destiny to sack Jerusalem, destroy Israel, and kill and capture the Jews?
Posted on 11/02/2001 9:57:54 PM PST by Freedom of Speech Wins
Thursday November 01 02:13 PM EST
Spores, Additives Raise Iraq Questions
By ABCNEWS.com
Suspicion of an Iraqi link to anthrax attacks in the United States grows.
Former U.N. weapons inspectors tell ABCNEWS they've learned the anthrax spores found in a poison letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle are nearly identical to those discovered in Iraq in 1994.
ABCNEWS has learned that at least two European chemical companies make aluminum-free bentonite, meaning further tests are needed to rule out the presence of the troubling additive in an anthrax-laced letter that was mailed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
Though ABCNEWS reported last week that initial tests on the Daschle letter discovered the presence of bentonite, an anti-clumping agent that make the spores deadlier by helping them float through the air and into the lungs more readily, the White House has denied the additive was present.
The question is critical, as finding bentonite or silica would mark one of the only solid leads investigators would have into the possible source of the deadly poison letters that have been showing up in mailrooms from Florida to New York City.
Making anthrax deadlier by mixing it with such additives is a trademark of Iraq's weapons program, which could point to state-sponsorship of the mail attacks. But equipment used to to treat anthrax with bentonite is available on the open market, and also could lead investigators to a suspect in the United States.
The government's top labs have run the Daschle anthrax sample through a series of intense tests. An electron microscope study found the Daschle spores looked "virtually identical" to those found in Iraq by UN weapons inspectors in 1994. But after subjecting it to a sophisticated x-ray test last week, the Army concluded it contained no bentonite, a volcanic comprised of several minerals, including aluminum.
For the Army, no aluminum equaled no bentonite.
"One of its principle ingredients is aluminum," said Major General John Parker, overall commander of the military laboratories doing the analyses. "And I will say to you that we see no aluminum presence [sic] in the sample."
That assessment may prove correct, but not based solely on the absence of aluminum. Chemical companies headquartered in Europe make a processed, aluminum-free bentonite. Mineralogist, Dr. William Moll Ph.D., who has mainly worked in private industry, says these synthetic bentonites are used as "free-flow agents" that give dry powders a "fluid" or "slippery" quality as the particles float through the air.
One of America's leading experts on mineral clays, Dr. Hayden Murray, a professor emeritus of geology at Indiana University, says one company based in Munich, Germany, removes aluminum from bentonite to create a finer, more refined additive that would be more "slippery" than what Iraq has in its own deposits.
Murray says at least two American companies mine such high-quality bentonite, but the German company has a much larger customer base in the Middle East.
Last week, White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer confirmed the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology found another additive — silica — in the Daschle anthrax. Like bentonite, silica is used in pharmaceutical powders all over the world and would make the anthrax float through the air more effectively.
When the United States was still in the biological weapons business back in the 1960s, U.S. scientists experimented with anthrax, silica and bentonite. The former Soviet Union also used silica in powders for biological weapons. Spray Dryers
In fact, federal officials say, many countries have the materials, the technology, and the know-how to put pharmaceutical powders to deadly use. Yet as far as anyone knows, only the United States and the former Soviet Union have actually produced an anthrax weapon in powdered form.
But Iraq, for one, is believed to have been trying. In the 1980's, Baghdad purchased three spray dryers from a Danish company for research purposes. In 1998 and 1989, Iraqi officials asked the Danish company that manufactured the dryers to help identify companies that would sell silica, as well as two other drying agents, kaolin and maltodextrin.
Like many items employed in the production of germ weapons, the dryers and the chemicals were "dual use." Spray dryers, for instance, are commonly used to make powdered milk. UN weapons inspectors say the Iraqi dryers were eventually used to make biological weapons.
The FBI apparently has its own suspicions about the use of spray dryers in the germ attacks. When ABCNEWS phoned the company that sold Iraq the dryers, officials there said the FBI had called the previous day. 'Pure Spore' Clues
The concentration of spores in the Daschle sample is another potential clue to its source.
In creating a germ weapon, microbiologists must induce bacteria like anthrax into a spore state, a hardier form of the cells that protects them against extreme temperatures and other environmental stress. Spores can be induced in various ways, but American scientists discovered one of the best in the 70's, years after abandoning its offensive biological warfare program. Iraq improved on the U.S. method, creating a preparation that was almost 100 percent spores.
General Parker examined what he described as "pure spores." Richard Spertzel, former Chief of the Biology Section of the U.N. Special Commission, says a pure spore preparation is also an Iraqi trademark.
Iraq had the ability to do so, but U.N. inspectors only found evidence that Baghdad made a powdered aerosol with the germ, Bacillus thuringiensis. Spertzel is quick to add that the B. thuringiensis particles were too small for use as a bio-pesticide, because they were so light. "They would just float away," he says. "Nothing would stick to the plants."
Spertzel believes the bio-pesticide work was a dry run for anthrax production. Federal officials say there is no proof that a foreign state is connected to the attacks. Instead, the theory favored by FBI investigators might be described as "Ted Kaczynski with a petri dish." According to this view, a "disgruntled Ph.D. here in America could have created this havoc with a well-equipped laboratory."
America's bio-warfare scientists remain divided on this point. For Bill Patrick, former director of "Product Development" in the waning days of the U.S. offensive biological weapons program, the small amounts of anthrax involved, apparently just 2 grams in the Daschle letter, points to "a small operation." Patrick, and another Fort Detrick veteran, Col. David Franz, both say they'd expect to see larger amounts of biological agent employed in more ambitious attacks, as much as 100 pounds, before conceding the involvement of a foreign state.
Spertzel disputes this logic. He maintains that the use of a small amount of anthrax in these attacks do not prove the perpetrators only possessed a small amount. "Look at what they've accomplished with a few letters," says Spertzel. "They didn't need to use more."
Another dissenter from the prevailing conventional wisdom, Dr. Alan Zelicoff of Sandia National Laboratory, admits that a "disgruntled Ph.D." could get a hold of a virulent anthrax strain and culture it, but "he wouldn't know the aerosol physics to create the powder. This is a complex engineering problem," says Zelicoff.
Sources privy to the federal investigation say the tests on the Daschle sample are still underway. Even if these tests ultimately find bentonite, as well as silica, they will not prove Iraqi involvement. In the language of criminology, the manufacturing techniques, and the additives in the aerosol powders, may add up to a known modus operandi, but they are not "fingerprints."
Although Spertzel is convinced that the accumulating circumstantial evidence is "narrowing the field," he concedes that investigators may never know with certainty the identity of the terrorists behind the germ attacks. "I don't think that we're going to see a smoking gun that's going to implicate this country, or that company," says Spertzel. "That's the hard thing to swallow with these anonymous attacks. You want to defend yourself, but from whom?"
It looks like a tough deal to pinpoint the source of this deadly stuff!
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Federal officials say there is no proof that a foreign state is connected to the attacks. Instead, the theory favored by FBI investigators might be described as "Ted Kaczynski with a petri dish." According to this view, a "disgruntled Ph.D. here in America could have created this havoc with a well-equipped laboratory."
Please God, if it is a home grown fruitloop, let it be a lefitist, anti-American, member of the educational community.
That probably won't deter the Domestic Nutter Task Force (DNTF) any.
Here's another on a related subject:
Hussein the Conqueror
Yep!
Stay well - stay safe- Stay armed - Yorktown
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