Some Fort Detrick Labs Closed

So it's the mere presence of weaponized anthrax in the letters which was guaranteed to make people think of Iraq. As you say, the text in the letters ("DEATH TO AMERICA") is more reminiscent of Iranian sloganeering.

So, anthrax makes people think of Iraq.

The phrasing sounds like Iran (or maybe Hezbollah or some group like that).

Genetic analysis of the DNA links the anthrax to USAMRIID.

By the same token, 9/11 points to Saudi Arabia, since most of the hijackers were Saudis.

And other evidence points to Pakistan and ISI (the money trail, the support for the Taliban, the marketing of nuclear technology by A. Q. Khan, and so forth).

In other words, there are plenty of little hints pointing in a wide variety of directions. Some of these may be spurious (just coincidences). Some may be disinformation (false flags and/or frame-ups). Some may be real.

In this affair there are three names that stand out like very sore thumbs:
Leaky Leahy, Kathy Nguyen and Judith Miller.
I would hazard a hunch that the solution to the mystery revolves around the nexus of these three names.

Leahy and Nguyen are definitely sore thumbs.

Nguyen is an anomalous anthrax case (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1165194/posts?page=105#105 and the follow-up http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1165194/posts?page=113#113).

And the choice of Leahy as a target is also anomalous, as FReeper Khan Noonian Singh has pointed out.

As for Judith Miller, I recently came across the following New York Times article co-authored by her. It's dated Sept. 4, 2001 -- one week before 9/11, and two weeks before the mailing of the first known anthrax letters.

This article is just chock full of information related to a number of things that have been discussed on this thread.

Source: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/strategy/germs.htm.

U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits
Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad

New York Times, September 4, 2001

Over the past several years, the United States has embarked on a program of secret research on biological weapons that, some officials say, tests the limits of the global treaty banning such weapons.

The 1972 treaty forbids nations from developing or acquiring weapons that spread disease, but it allows work on vaccines and other protective measures. Government officials said the secret research, which mimicked the major steps a state or terrorist would take to create a biological arsenal, was aimed at better understanding the threat.

The projects, which have not been previously disclosed, were begun under President Clinton and have been embraced by the Bush administration, which intends to expand them.

Earlier this year, administration officials said, the Pentagon drew up plans to engineer genetically a potentially more potent variant of the bacterium that causes anthrax, a deadly disease ideal for germ warfare.

The experiment has been devised to assess whether the vaccine now being given to millions of American soldiers is effective against such a superbug, which was first created by Russian scientists. A Bush administration official said the National Security Council is expected to give the final go-ahead later this month.

Two other projects completed during the Clinton administration focused on the mechanics of making germ weapons.

In a program code-named Clear Vision, the Central Intelligence Agency built and tested a model of a Soviet-designed germ bomb that agency officials feared was being sold on the international market. The C.I.A. device lacked a fuse and other parts that would make it a working bomb, intelligence officials said.

At about the same time, Pentagon experts assembled a germ factory in the Nevada desert from commercially available materials. Pentagon officials said the project demonstrated the ease with which a terrorist or rogue nation could build a plant that could produce pounds of the deadly germs.

Both the mock bomb and the factory were tested with simulants — benign substances with characteristics similar to the germs used in weapons, officials said.

A senior Bush administration official said all the projects were "fully consistent" with the treaty banning biological weapons and were needed to protect Americans against a growing danger. "This administration will pursue defenses against the full spectrum of biological threats," the official said.

The treaty, another administration official said, allows the United States to conduct research on both microbes and germ munitions for "protective or defensive purposes."

Some Clinton administration officials worried, however, that the project violated the pact. And others expressed concern that the experiments, if disclosed, might be misunderstood as a clandestine effort to resume work on a class of weapons that President Nixon had relinquished in 1969.

Simultaneous experiments involving a model of a germ bomb, a factory to make biological agents and the developoment of more potent anthrax, these officials said, would draw vociferous protests from Washington if conducted by a country the United States viewed as suspect.

Administration officials said the need to keep such projects secret was a significant reason behind President Bush's recent rejection of a draft agreement to strengthen the germ-weapons treaty, which has been signed by 143 nations.

The draft would require those countries to disclose where they are conducting defensive research involving gene-splicing or germs likely to be used in weapons. The sites would then be subject to international inspections.

Many national security officials in both the Clinton and Bush administrations opposed the draft, arguing that it would give potential adversaries a road map to what the United States considers its most serious vulnerabilities.

Among the facilities likely to be open to inspection under the draft agreement would be the West Jefferson, Ohio, laboratory of the Battelle Memorial Institute, a military contractor that has been selected to create the genetically altered anthrax.

Several officials who served in senior posts in the Clinton administration acknowledged that the secretive efforts were so poorly coordinated that even the White House was unaware of their full scope.

The Pentagon's project to build a germ factory was not reported to the White House, they said. President Clinton, who developed an intense interest in germ weapons, was never briefed on the programs under way or contemplated, the officials said.

A former senior official in the Clinton White House conceded that in retrospect, someone should have been responsible for reviewing the projects to ensure that they were not only effective in defending the United States, but consistent with the nation's arms-control pledges.

The C.I.A.'s tests on the bomb model touched off a dispute among government experts after the tests were concluded in 2000, with some officials arguing that they violated the germ treaty's prohibition against developing weapons.

Intelligence officials said lawyers at the agency and the White House concluded that the work was defensive, and therefore allowed. But even officials who supported the effort acknowledged that it brought the United States closer to what was forbidden.

"It was pressing how far you go before you do something illegal or immoral," recalled one senior official who was briefed on the program.

Public disclosure of the research is likely to complicate the position of the United States, which has long been in the forefront of efforts to enforce the ban on germ weapons.

The Bush administration's willingness to abandon the 1972 Antiballistic Missile treaty has already drawn criticism around the world. And the administration's stance on the draft agreement for the germ treaty has put Washington at odds with many of its allies, including Japan and Britain.

The Original Treaty

During the cold war, both the United States and the Soviet Union produced vast quantities of germ weapons, enough to kill everyone on earth.

Eager to halt the spread of what many called the poor man's atom bomb, the United States unilaterally gave up germ arms and helped lead the global campaign to abolish them. By 1975, most of the world's nations had signed the convention.

In doing so, they agreed not to develop, produce, acquire or stockpile quantities or types of germs that had no "prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes." They also pledged not to develop or obtain weapons or other equipment "designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict."

There were at least two significant loopholes: The pact did not define "defensive" research or say what studies might be prohibited, if any. And it provided no means of catching cheaters.

In the following decades, several countries did cheat, some on a huge scale. The Soviet Union built entire cities devoted to developing germ weapons, employing tens of thousands of people and turning anthrax, smallpox and bubonic plague into weapons of war. In the late 1980's, Iraq began a crash program to produce its own germ arsenal.

Both countries insisted that their programs were for defensive purposes.

American intelligence officials had suspected that Baghdad and Moscow were clandestinely producing germ weapons. But the full picture of their efforts did not become clear until the 1990's, after several Iraqi and Soviet officials defected.

Fears about the spread of biological weapons were deepened by the rise of terrorism against Americans, the great strides in genetic engineering and the collapse of the Soviet Union, which left thousands of scientists skilled in biological warfare unemployed, penniless and vulnerable to recruitment.

The threat disclosed a quandary: While the United States spent billions of dollars a year to assess enemy military forces and to defend against bullets, tanks, bombs and jet fighters, it knew relatively little about the working of exotic arms it had relinquished long ago.

Designing a Delivery System

In the mid-1990's, the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies stepped up their search for information about other nations' biological research programs, focusing on the former Soviet Union, Iran, Iraq and Libya, among others. Much of the initial emphasis was on the germs that enemies might use in an attack, officials said.

But in 1997, the agency embarked on Clear Vision, which focused on weapons systems that would deliver the germs.

Intelligence officials said the project was led by Gene Johnson, a senior C.I.A. scientist who had long worked with some of the world's deadliest viruses. Dr. Johnson was eager to understand the damage that Soviet miniature bombs — bomblets, in military parlance — might inflict.

The agency asked its spies to find or buy a Soviet bomblet, which releases germs in a fine mist. That search proved unsuccessful, and the agency approved a proposal to build a replica and study how well it could disperse its lethal cargo.

The agency's lawyers concluded that such a project was permitted by the treaty because the intent was defensive. Intelligence officials said the C.I.A. had reports that at least one nation was trying to buy the Soviet- made bomblets.

A model was constructed and the agency conducted two sets of tests at Battelle, the military contractor. The experiments measured dissemination characteristics and how the model performed under different atmospheric conditions, intelligence officials said. They emphasized that the device was a "portion" of a bomb that could not have been used as a weapon.

The experiments caused concern at the White House, which learned about the project after it was under way. Some aides to President Clinton worried that the benefits did not justify the risks. But a White House lawyer led a joint assessment by several departments that concluded that the program did not violate the treaty, and it went ahead.

The questions were debated anew after the project was completed, this time without consensus. A State Department official argued for a strict reading of the treaty: the ban on acquiring or developing "weapons" barred states from building even a partial model of a germ bomb, no matter what the rationale.

"A bomb is a bomb is a bomb," another official said at the time.

The C.I.A. continued to insist that it had the legal authority to conduct such tests and, intelligence officials said, the agency was prepared to reopen the fight over how to interpret the treaty. But even so, the agency ended the Clear Vision project in the last year of the Clinton administration, intelligence officials said.

Bill Harlow, the C.I.A. spokesman, acknowledged that the agency had conducted "laboratory or experimental" work to assess the intelligence it had gathered about biological warfare.

"Everything we have done in this respect was entirely appropriate, necessary, consistent with U.S. treaty obligations and was briefed to the National Security Council staff and appropriate Congressional oversight committees," Mr. Harlow said.

Breeding More Potent Anthrax

In the 1990's, government officials also grew increasingly worried about the possibility that scientists could use the widely available techniques of gene-splicing to create even more deadly weapons.

Those concerns deepened in 1995, when Russian scientists disclosed at a scientific conference in Britain that they had implanted genes from Bacillus cereus, an organism that causes food poisoning, into the anthrax microbe.

The scientists said later that the experiments were peaceful; the two microbes can be found side-by-side in nature and, the Russians said, they wanted to see what happened if they cross-bred.

A published account of the experiment, which appeared in a scientific journal in late 1997, alarmed the Pentagon, which had just decided to require that American soldiers be vaccinated against anthrax. According to the article, the new strain was resistant to Russia's anthrax vaccine, at least in hamsters.

American officials tried to obtain a sample from Russia through a scientific exchange program to see whether the Russians had really created such a hybrid. The Americans also wanted to test whether the microbe could defeat the American vaccine, which is different from that used by Russia.

Despite repeated promises, the bacteria were never provided.

Eventually the C.I.A. drew up plans to replicate the strain, but intelligence officials said the agency hesitated because there was no specific report that an adversary was attempting to turn the superbug into a weapon.

This year, officials said, the project was taken over by the Pentagon's intelligence arm, the Defense Intelligence Agency. Pentagon lawyers reviewed the proposal and said it complied with the treaty. Officials said the research would be part of Project Jefferson, yet another government effort to track the dangers posed by germ weapons.

A spokesman for Defense Intelligence, Lt. Cmdr. James Brooks, declined comment. Asked about the precautions at Battelle, which is to create the enhanced anthrax, Commander Brooks said security was "entirely suitable for all work already conducted and planned for Project Jefferson."

The Question of Secrecy

While several officials in both the Clinton and Bush administrations called this and other research long overdue, they expressed concern about the lack of a central system for vetting such proposals.

And a former American diplomat questioned the wisdom of keeping them secret.

James F. Leonard, head of the delegation that negotiated the germ treaty, said research on microbes or munitions could be justified, depending on the specifics.

But he said such experiments should be done openly, exposed to the scrutiny of scientists and the public. Public disclosure, he said, is important evidence that the United States is proceeding with a "clean heart."

"It's very important to be open," he said. "If we're not open, who's going to be open?"

Mr. Leonard said the fine distinctions drawn by government lawyers were frequently ignored when a secret program was exposed. Then, he said, others offer the harshest possible interpretations — a "vulgarization of what has been done."

But he concluded that the secret germ research, as described to him, was "foolish, but not illegal."

It should be pointed out
that Judith Miller was the recipient
of a well-publicized 'hoax' anthrax letter
at the time of the attacks.

I would be interested to know
whether the Iraqi/Iranian/Pakistani/al-Qaeda advocates on this thread
really believe this was a hoax by a third party
or
if not
why did they target Judith Miller?

Was it likely they even knew who she was or cared?

Thanks for the information!

I checked a news media archive (factiva.com) for anthrax stories in the months before 9/11, just to put that Judith Miller article in perspective. Here's what I found:

Reports of minor natural anthrax outbreaks around the world. There's one every few weeks.
Stories about the Pentagon's anthrax vaccination program.
Stories about the breakdown in talks at the Biological Weapons Convention.
Stories about human experiments conducted during Japan's wartime biowarfare research.
Stories about the bioterror threat, often coupled to criticism of missile defense.
Stories about Iraq often mentioned Saddam's proclivity for anthrax. No-one seemed in any doubt that he had it.

Now, some more interesting stories:

Tampa Tribune, 16 July 2001: "Central Florida is developing a reputation for phony anthrax threats, and some of them are sophisticated. A sample recently tested by the lab contained a toxin used against mosquito larvae that has a biological signature similar to anthrax. It could have thrown off less-refined tests." (from an article on an early warning system that operated during the Super Bowl in January)
The Times, 24 July 2001: "During the trial [of Dr Wouter Basson], which has revealed astonishing details of the lengths to which apartheid South Africa was prepared to go to protect white minority rule, witnesses have disclosed details of secret programmes to manufacture poisoned chocolates and clothes, attempts to lace letters with anthrax [my emphasis], and a scheme to release cholera into the water supply of a refugee camp." And: "He said that his job as head of the secret operation to kill the black enemies of the apartheid state brought him into contact with an 'international chemical and biological warfare mafia' made up of sinister experts from Britain, America, Russia and North Korea." (from "Apartheid era's 'Dr Death' tells of boundless power")
New Scientist, 1 September 2001, carried a story on how Aum Shinrikyo tried spraying a Tokyo neighborhood with anthrax. "This scenario will be played out in the drama Gas Attack, to be screened on Britain's Channel 4 this month. It shows racial extremists killing Kurdish asylum seekers in Glasgow with lethal anthrax taken from animal carcasses."
New York Times, 4 September 2001, carries the article by Judith Miller et al, which reveals secret CIA and Pentagon projects involving (i) bombs loaded with anthrax simulants (ii) genetic engineering of new anthrax strains to be tested against existing vaccines. The latter work is said to be motivated by the recent creation in Russia of a new GM (genetically modified) strain of anthrax. The need to keep these projects secret is said to be behind the US refusal to ratify the BW Convention. The article prompts a flurry of punditry and international comment, mostly disapproving. The article is to be followed by a book by Miller and her coauthors, "Germs", slated for release on October 2.
Aberdeen Press & Journal, 21 August 2001: A hoax anthrax threat was made against St Andrews University, where Prince William was about to start a degree, supposedly in conjunction with threats from the "Scottish National Liberation Army" to kill him.
Sunday Express (UK), 9 September 2001. This story has to be read to be believed, but here are the highlights: MI5 and Mossad have established that Saddam Hussein is trying to "market" anthrax to terrorists. His agents have met with Basque, Kosovar, and Macedonian groups, among others. Iraqi intelligence may also be compelling asylum seekers (at that time trying to enter the UK from France, through the Channel Tunnel, in large numbers) to carry chemical and biological weapons on their bodies. Iraq has large quantities of WMD stored underground, and President Bush is considering a preemptive strike.
Guardian (UK), 10 September 2001: During the 1940s and 1950s, the UK carried out a program of offensive biowarfare research, codenamed "Red Admiral", which included the design of anthrax bomblets.

So what does it all mean?

Some of these events are clearly connected. For example, the secret anthrax biodefense program described by Judith Miller turns out to be the reason why the BW Convention failed just the month before. The US failure to ratify the convention might in turn be the reason why the facts got out - some of the diplomats would have demanded answers from their friends in biodefense, and perhaps the truth just trickled out to the journalists shortly thereafter.

The reports from the UK are an intriguing muddle. Was the "Scottish National Liberation Army" one of the groups that the Iraqis supposedly liaised with? Was the idea for this TV drama about anthrax attacks on Kurdish refugees derived from the alleged MI5/Mossad report, after it was run through a politically correct filter like the one which produced the movie version of The Sum of All Fears? Was the Guardian's story an indirect response to the Sunday Express story? Perhaps some defense historian read this balderdash about Iraqi anthrax terrorism, rang up a journalist and said "We were the ones researching this stuff..."

Back to Judith Miller. Allan says:

It should be pointed out that Judith Miller was the recipient of a well-publicized 'hoax' anthrax letter at the time of the attacks.
I would be interested to know whether the Iraqi/Iranian/Pakistani/al-Qaeda advocates on this thread really believe this was a hoax by a third party or if not why did they target Judith Miller?
Was it likely they even knew who she was or cared?

I think it was a third-party hoax. As I understand it, the letter Judith Miller received was one of several sent out from Florida, another of which went to St Petersburg Times journalist Howard Troxler. Here's what it said: "Howard Toxler...1st case of disease now blow away this dust so you can see how the real thing flys. Oklahoma-Ryder Truck! Skyway bridge-18 wheels." Rosenberg says the printing of Troxler's letter resembled that of the real anthrax letters. I will reserve judgement until I see a picture. But certainly the content is very different. The real anthrax letters contain straightforward threats. The letter to Troxler is somewhere between cryptic and schizophrenic. (It might bear comparison to the ricin letter that was sent to Bill Frist last year.)

Judith Miller has multiple connections to our themes of anthrax, Iraq, and radical Islam. Actually, she's written books on all three subjects - Germs (2001), Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf (1990, with Laurie Mylroie), and God Has Ninety-Nine Names (1996). Before and during the war, she obtained many exclusives for the New York Times on the topic of Iraqi WMD, which proved to come from Chalabi and which the paper subsequently disowned. You can see a change in the reviews of Germs at Amazon - mostly they're high, then after the Times published its correction, there's a string of one-star reviews, saying that she's been discredited as a journalist. So she's also a key player in the "information war" over the status and origin of pre-war intelligence on Iraq.

Here is the Sunday Express article from 9/9/2001. Gordon Thomas is an intelligence journalist of long standing whose stories have a very Debka-like flavor.

ASYLUM SEEKER BOMB ALERT.

SUNDAY EXPRESS INVESTIGATION By Gordon Thomas and Gareth Crickmer.

9 September 2001

The Express on Sunday

(c) Copyright Express Newspapers 2001

SECRET SERVICE chiefs fear Iraqi spies posing as asylum seekers are entering Britain carrying deadly chemical weapons, we can reveal today.

Customs officers, concerned at the growing number of Iraqis they have to deal with, have called for MI5 agents to monitor terror suspects closely.

The threat emerged after an international spy operation found that Saddam Hussein is producing large amounts of anthrax which he is actively trying to market to terrorists.

During an eight-month intelligence mission by MI5 and the CIA, officers tracked the dictator's agents to meetings in the Balkans with members of the Basque group ETA and equally fanatical terror groups in Kosovo and Macedonia.

Further evidence has come from Israel's Mossad secret service, renowned for gathering information on Saddam's regime. The defence experts believe that the Butcher of Baghdad's police are coercing Iraqis fleeing the despotic regime to carry the weapons into the UK under threat of death.

They are being warned that family and friends they leave behind will be targeted unless they do as they are told.

French police say about 500 Iraqis a week are turning up near the Eurotunnel terminal outside Calais trying to cross the Channel.

A high ranking officer last week highlighted the scale of the problem, admitting it was "impossible" to stop all the Iraqis reaching England.

There are also concerns that aid agencies may be encouraging the Iraqis after claims by refugees that they have been offered help.

Surgeon Diary Raoof, 29, an Iraqi Kurd who claims he worked for the Save the Children Fund, told the Sunday Express that British agencies promised him a "warm welcome" in England and put him in touch with experts who could guide him here. Last night a senior intelligence officer said: "Our fear is that some of these asylum seekers are being pressured by Saddam's secret police to act as couriers.

"Biological weapons are very easy to carry. A small bottle of water could contain sufficient anthrax to create havoc." He added: "Short of checking every bottle coming through every air or sea port, there is no real way to intercept." British anti-terror experts have secretly been stationed at Calais to check the danger The Government claims they are there only to stop asylum seekers entering the country illegally.

But the Sunday Express has learned their real mission is to deal with the far greater threat posed by Saddam. Apart from anthrax, Saddam's scientists also produce the lethal nerve agents Soman and Tabun.

Iraq is known to have quantities of these weapons stockpiled deep underground.

Saddam believes the sites are beyond the reach of America's biggest conventional bombs.

Only a nuclear weapon would be certain to destroy the bunkers.

So alarmed is President Bush that he is considering launching a pre-emptive air attack. US Air Force crews in Saudi Arabia have already been given target details of the sites.

A Pentagon source said: "If we cannot penetrate deep enough to actually destroy the biochemicals, we can bury the bunkers with our earthquake bombs." Last week the Pentagon took the unusual step of publicly confirming that eight more Iraqi factories have begun manufacturing bio-chemical weapons.

Israeli sources claim that in a chemical warfare training exercise last month about 20 Iraqi soldiers were killed and more than 200 severely injured.

Last week Saddam scored a propaganda success, shooting down a pilotless US spy plane. It is the first time that the Iraqis have downed an Allied aircraft since the Gulf war in 1991.

Experts say he is now determined to provoke a civil war inside Iraqi Kurdistan to lure in more Allied aircraft.

Attacks on planes patrolling over Iraq have become increasingly aggressive.

Our revelations come just days after the High Court ruled that four Iraqi Kurds detained at Cambridgeshire's Oakington centre were held illegally.

The decision could leave taxpayers with a (pound sign)110 million compensation bill if 11,000 other refugees make similar claims.

That's an interesting collection of articles you found. I'll need to check them out.

One fast comment for now. You write:

It [the Troxler letter] might bear comparison to the ricin letter that was sent to Bill Frist last year.

As far as I know, Sen. Frist didn't receive a letter. Some ricin was said to have been found in one of Frist's offices (maybe the mailroom?), but I don't believe any accompanying letter has ever been referred to in news reports. It's not even clear if the ricin was in an envelope, or in a case of some sort, or just in a loose pile.

There were the two earlier letters from "Fallen Angel," each of which was accompanied by ricin in a metal canister. One of these was sent to the White House. The other was discovered in South Carolina; I don't recall who it was addressed to (or if that has even been revealed).

The letter to Troxler is somewhere between cryptic and schizophrenic.

Schizophrenic maybe
and explosive
but I don't find the reference
to the Oklahoma City bombing
particularly cryptic.

Much the opposite.

"Howard Toxler...1st case of disease"

The hoax letter to Troxler was sent October 5
the day that Bob Stevens died.
Ernesto Blanco wasn't diagnosed with anthrax until October 8.
The Florida Public Health officer has said that it is an isolated case
and that a public health investigation is being done
not a criminal one.

There were no other known anthrax victims at the time.
But the author of the letter seemed to know.

Cryptic?

Although it was known that Stevens had anthrax, it was not known that mail was being used for the delivery (and it was still being questioned whether Stevens might have contracted anthrax naturally).

And the fact of the anthrax case itself had only been announced on Oct. 4, the day before the Troxler letter was postmarked.

In 1980, St Petersburg's Skyway Bridge was rammed and badly damaged by a freighter. A number of vehicles fell off the bridge, and "of the victims who made the fall there was only one survivor, whose truck had luckily landed on the deck" of the freighter.

Perhaps this is what "Skyway bridge-18 wheels" refers to?

"Oklahoma-Ryder Truck" - I assumed that was about John Doe #2 (and therefore ambiguous, since some people think he was an agent of the state, others a foreign collaborator).

My feeling is that the person who sent this letter thought that 9/11 was an inside job, and the moment that anthrax hit the news (October 4), they assumed it was more of the same. "Blow away this dust so you can see how the real thing flys"... I hate to admit it, but it does sound like a reference to the aerosol properties of the real anthrax, doesn't it? My head hurts!

How about looking at the 19 hijackers as a model for the anthrax perps. Rather than saying it is Iran or Iraq. And everyone always leaves out Pakistan. There certainly a lot of AQ picked up in Pakistan... It doesn't seem to me to be a specific country, rather a collection of those religious fanatics.

If you read a book like Rohan Gunaratna's Inside al Qaeda, it certainly looks like al Qaeda had contacts in dozens of countries, at many different social levels. So al Qaeda in its full breadth is definitely a complicated organism. What I think is most important is to figure out what was behind the string of attacks on the USA associated with Ramzi Yousef and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who are nominally Pakistanis but who grew up in Kuwait.

On the question of whether Saudi or Pakistani intelligence was complicit in 9/11... the head of Saudi intelligence was fired three weeks before, and the head of Pakistani intelligence was in Washington on the day itself. I think they knew something was coming and failed to stop it. How hard they tried, I couldn't say.

Here's a connection you might like. "The only confessed al Qaeda sleeper caught on U.S. soil", Iyman Faris, is from Kashmir. He worked as a truck driver and plotted to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge by cutting the suspension cables. He was exposed in April 2003, after KSM was captured in Pakistan the previous month. As I just mentioned (post #192), there's a truck-and-bridge theme running through one of the anthrax hoax letters sent just after news broke of the first anthrax case, a letter which arguably displays knowledge of the anthrax properties ("blow... this dust" - the fake powder - "so you can see how the real thing flys").

He was sentenced late in October 2003, just a few days after a ricin scare in South Carolina. The ricin was accompanied by a note expressing "anger over legislation regulating the trucking industry", and signed "Fallen Angel". Another was found in November at a White House mail processing facility.

Just to close the circle - another letter from October 2001, sometimes assumed to be the work of the anthrax mailer, fingered a former USAMRIID scientist, Ayaad Assaad, as a potential bioterrorist. Assaad's specialty is ricin. (And he's a Coptic Christian - and 9/11 was the Coptic New Year, yes, I know no-one wants to follow me in that direction...)

Most of the connections in the circle of associations I just constructed are probably spurious. But maybe one or two of them mean something.

This is the best theory about the ricin letters that I've seen: They're from a drug-making ring who sell speed (methamphetamine) to truck drivers, and don't want to lose their market! (The new regulations mandate longer rest periods for drivers.)

Okay, I think I get it now. "Oklahoma-Ryder Truck! Skyway bridge-18 wheels." It's a threat to blow up an 18-wheel truck on the Skyway bridge in Troxler's hometown of St Petersburg. Not so cryptic then - just another threat.

The letter to Judith Miller reportedly threatened an attack on the Sears Tower. I can't find the text of it anywhere.

Great summary! Thank you so much for the information and analysis!

Thanks for the ping.

Information at this point in the political season has ominous overtones...

ping