Posted on 10/26/2001 8:30:02 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
W A S H I N G T O N, Oct. 26 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 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."
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 after Czech intelligence officials saw him casing 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 details of this contact are under investigation," Gross said.
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."
For his part, Gross would not give further details on the Atta meeting.
"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
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Check back for continuous updates on the hunt for terrorists from ABCNEWS' worldwide investigative team.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.
FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledges, "There were some missteps early on."
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 Probe Man Found in Box
An extraordinary stowaway is under investigation in Italy.
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.
Ann Wise in Rome, Yael Lavie in London and Brian Hartman in Washington
For Education And Discussion Only. Not For Commercial Use.
Or lets put it another way, if Saddam Hussein sold anthrax to some group, do you really think he had no idea that it was going to be used against the United States?
If this isn't what's afoot, then I'm a little nervous.
We have to delay...
The Showdown with Sadaam.
How do we know it's delay and not deny?
Because we keep hearing from President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld that this war is going to last years. I don't think so... not in the Afghanistan Campaign it isn't.
So there's more. Recall the deal we just cut with Iran, allowing for our pilots to crash-land in their territory, and they would do humanitarian rescue. Between the lines, that means we're getting use of their airspace, since only if a pilot is shot down there would anyone know we were there. This gives Iran a built-in out against the radicals if this should happen,
Why are we doing this with them? Not for Afghanistan. This is for Iraq, whom Iran hates. Remember that during the Gulf War in '90-'91, Bush the Elder neglected to bring Iran into the coalition, and Sadaam pulled off a deal to stash the bulk of his air force in Iran just prior to Desert Storm. Dubya isn't repeating that mistake, and Iran recognizes that a bio, chem ,and possibly nuke-capable Sadaam isn't in their long-term or short term best interests.
So why delay, and not strike?
In addition to the logistics abroad, consider:
We're under bio-attack. A biological WMD has been used against us, on American soil, for the first time in our History. In world History.
And these aren't really attacks. They're advertisements. We know Sadaam has more than anthrax letters in his arsenal. He has better anthrax with better delivery systems, smallpox, VX gas, and no one in our government can say for sure that he doesn't have nukes. He's letting us know that his arsenal is already here. We need time to stop what's brewing here, because it isn't pretty.
9/11 wasn't his best shot. He's got a knife to our throat. That's why we're being goaded into this war.
Sadaam Hussein is holding cards that we don't want him to play, so we try to crack as many of the sleeper terrorists as possible before striking Iraq.
That's why we're delaying....
Momentarily.
Folks, it's crystal clear, the time to kill is here, it's us or them, all or nothing. To call for the complete and total anhilation of a part of a civilization is quite strong. But remember, it was not us who attacked them.
Don't necessarily have on opinion on that... Doesn't sting, like it did with Clinton, because I guess I see the tide rolling Sadaam's way.
The right wing anthrax theory has no traction, so I really don't care. We're going after Sadaam, 85% to 95% of America will support that war, and the right-wing thing will be forgotten.
Too much has changed for too many since 9/11.
Note that Bob Woodward's "government sources" are never identified. Leading me to believe that Deep Throat has been resurrected. Or that Woodward's making it up as he goes along...
The WH will wait for the results from ALL lab tests, and likely not announce the findings to the press. Let the speculations roll. Plenty of time to wage war, and when we do, it must be a "big-time" surprise..... (without media in the loop).
Iraq must be lulled into thinking that they're 'off-the-hook.'
And the terrorist just picked up by the FBI at the Phoenix airport on the jet from London. He's a flight instructor, who left the USA for Japan on September 11.
Not to mention all the wierd "arabs with heavy orange backpacks" reports out of Phoenix.
Is something big afoot, or are we just beginning to pay attention?
Of course. But is it leaking? Or are NBC, CNN and the Post drawing on their own fevered imaginations?
Top FBI and CIA officials believe that the anthrax attacks on Washington, New York and Florida are likely the work of one or more extremists in the United States who are probably not connected to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization, government officials said yesterday.
He could be making this up, but I believe he would only do that if it involved dead FBI and/or CIA sources. Like maybe a combination of J. Edgar Hoover and James Jesus Angleton.
Our policy for 50 years has been that an attack with bio WMD would be answered with nukes. Time to find out.
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