I'm another freeper in agreement with TGS. I've looked at this quite closely over the past year, and my work involves me in professional discussions about state and local bioterrorism emergency preparedness. TGS, among others here, has laid down his argument quite persuasively. I'd like to hear yours.
Mine is pretty simple. The Ames strain of anthrax used had a unique distinguishing marker, which was a stretch of 35 A's in its poly A tract on plasmid pX02. No one has demonstrated this version outside of the US. Natural Ames has only been isolated in Texas, once from a cow in 1980 and from a goat in 1997. The attack anthrax doesn't match the goat, but it is an EXACT match of the material at USAMRIID.
There is absolutly NO DATA indicating Iraq has Ames with 35 A's. It's starter cultures from ATCC in 1986 did NOT include Ames. In fact ATCC has NEVER distributed Ames. Iraq was not successful in get Ames from Porton Down either and the genomic sequence of two isolates from Porton Down do NOT match the attack anthrax.
In addition to the lack of evidence of ANY Ames in Iraq's hands, there is the simple fact that three TINY batches were used in the 2001 mailings. The first mailing of Sept 18 ONLY produced cutaneous anthrax. As bioweapons go, it was GARBAGE. The reason GARBAGE was mailed to NYC was because the mailer did not have time to weaponize or refine it. The AMI material was a bit better and the best stuff went to DC. However, as a WMD it was a dismal failure (unless the M stands for minimal).
The mailings in 2001 were the work or one or two US scientists looking to make a statement and I exect to hear another statement from one or both VERY soon. I think the next statement will be GUILTY as charged.
We are now in an end game and it has NOTHING to do with Iraq, Al Qaeda, or anything outside of the US. It's pure domestic and everyone will be reading about it VERY soon.