Silicon Dioxide (Silica), as it appears through energy dispersive X-ray analysis
Posted on 07/01/2007 8:58:07 AM PDT by TrebleRebel
WASHINGTON — In the fall of 1992, Kanatjan Alibekov defected from Russia to the United States, bringing detailed, and chilling, descriptions of his role in making biological weapons for the former Soviet Union.
----------- Officials still value his seminal depictions of the Soviet program. But recent events have propelled questions about Alibek's reliability:
No biological weapon of mass destruction has been found in Iraq. His most sensational research findings, with U.S. colleagues, have not withstood peer review by scientific specialists. His promotion of nonprescription pills — sold in his name over the Internet and claiming to bolster the immune system — was ridiculed by some scientists. He resigned as executive director of a Virginia university's biodefense center 10 months ago while facing internal strife over his stewardship.
And, as Alibek raised fear of bioterrorism in the United States, he also has sought to profit from that fear.
By his count, Alibek has won about $28 million in federal grants or contracts for himself or entities that hired him.
The Los Angeles Times explored Alibek's public pronouncements, research and business activities as part of a series that will examine companies and government officials central to the U.S. war on terrorism -----------------------
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I don't mean to be argumentative, but this statement is untrue.
The Leahy letter was discovered unopened. According to The New York Times, the Leahy letter contained 0.871 grams of refined powder or approximately 871,000,000,000 spores. That's more than what you need to create a "couple of cultures."
The New York Post letter was also recovered unopened, although it had somehow gotten damp, so the unrefined powder was clumped and looked like "Puppy Chow."
And while the Leahy letter had been opened, it was evidently set aside as soon as the envelope was cut open and a puff of powder escaped. Most of the contents should have been intact.
While about 1.5 grams of refined powder and less than a gram of unrefined powder is not a lot for the kazillion tests they wanted to perform, it was more than enough to make SOLID SCIENTIFIC EVALUATIONS of the nature of the powder in the letters. The ONLY guesswork involved here is the guesswork used by the conspiracy theorists to promote their theories.
What you seem to fail to appreciate is that we are using published information here. All most of us are doing is debating whether the information published immediately after the attacks is as valid as later information which showed that early information to be totally invalid.
Except for ZacandPook, no one is discussing specific manufacturing techniques. And I seriously doubt that anyone is paying much attention to ZacandPook's beliefs since his totally unscientific beliefs are buried inside mountains of irrelevant material that has nothing to do with anything. It may be "misinformation," but it is probably recognized as misinformation by almost everyone.
Meanwhile, the rest of us are here to learn. We know that it's possible to learn even though a waterfall of misinformation is pouring down beside us. The trick is to find the facts amid the torrent of beliefs and opinions. And since it's all based upon published information and not upon new experiments we are performing, I doubt that we're talking about anything that a wannabee terrorist couldn't learn infinitely more about by opening a book on microbiology.
The First Amendment, of course, has no application as no state action is involved.
Admin is all-powerful in this FreeRepublic. And his motto, printed in bold red for any poster to see, is: “Loose lips sink ships.”
So if qualified microbiologists who are concerned about such things, and they choose to write Admin, he should oblige them.
If they don’t, then they can’t be heard to complain (and trust me, they are the types to complain and be heard).
My concern is what TrebleRebel says — having minted a lot of PhD’s, he knows a lot of big words — and I think his quest to debate the details is appropriately moderated by those concerned with the proliferation of know-how.
“No one except the attacker knows for sure how things were done and therefore which technique was effective. We haven’t been allowed to do the required testing (to support theory) in the USA since the end of the offensive component of our BW program in 1969.”
Extensive attempts to recreate the product have been conducted at Dugway.
Ed,
I think you would agree, though, that they definitely sought to prioritize their experiments given the small product available for testing. You better than me, could lay your hands on the quote by the keeper of the product, that it pained him to give up a little more, as there was so little left.
In the real world, given that it was about $13 million dollars in DARPA funds (taxpayer monies) in the 2000-2002 period that paid for the GMU Center for Biodefense, the plug on such ventures might be pulled if those influential in policymaking were successful in arguing that the proliferation of know-how in such university programs actually just increases the risk.
Judging by the correspondence above, the concern seems to have already been acted on — without the reason being communicated to Dr. Alibek or the students.
GMU would have received a national security subpoena that they could not talk about.
I think you would agree, though, that they definitely sought to prioritize their experiments given the small product available for testing. You better than me, could lay your hands on the quote by the keeper of the product, that it pained him to give up a little more, as there was so little left.
I agree, and I assume that they did prioritize their experiments. The problem is that a lot of experiments require that the tiny sample be destroyed in one way or another, and often a single test is insufficient for a scientific finding. So, they have to destroy tiny sample after tiny sample. (That doesn't mean there are debates over the findings, it just means that often many tests are required to make sure there will be no debates in court.)
If you go back to message #109 in this thread, you'll see that that is NOT true.
Here's what I posted from Chemical & Engineering News:
Daniel Martin, a microbiologist in Dugway's Life Sciences Division, tells C&EN that Dugway was asked "to produce materials to see how they compared with the materials the FBI had in its possession." But, Martin says, Dugway did not reverse or back engineer the attack powder. "Back engineering implies that you know exactly what the material is and can replicate the material exactly, step by step." That isn't what Dugway did, he says.
Instead, Martin says, Dugway used the Leahy powder as the culture starter to "produce several different preparations using different media, and different ways of drying and milling the preparation" that the FBI could use for comparison purposes. Dugway, he says, never analyzed the Leahy powder and did no comparative analyses between the preparations made and the Leahy powder.
In other words, what Dugway did was create a variety of samples made in different ways so the FBI could use the samples for comparison purposes. DUGWAY MADE NO ATTEMPT TO RECREATE THE ATTACK ANTHRAX, AND THEY DID NO OFFICIAL COMPARISONS. They simply used some of the attack anthrax to culture more anthrax and more spores to be used for the variety of tests.
The purpose of the samples was evidently to produce statistics and scientific data which could be shown in court to illustrate how different techniques result in different products, and how the different products can be distinguished from one another.
Here are brief excerpts from the new lengthy investigative piece today by Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post about AQ’s bio program and a US-based operative. The Qatar safe haven she mentions that was given to KSM dates to when he was in a cell with Islambouli, the brother of Sadat’s assassin. See also December 4, 1998 PDB from CIA to President Clinton reporting that Islambouli was travelling to the US to plan aircraft and other attacks.
On the trail of an ‘enemy combatant’
Details emerge on Marri’s alleged role in ‘second wave’ of al-Qaeda attacks
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19859636/
Use of poisons
U.S. intelligence officials believe that Marri trained for two years in Afghanistan, among other things receiving instruction in the use of poisons and toxins at the Derunta camp near Jalalabad, sources said. He is believed to have trained under Abu Khabab al-Masri, an Egyptian specialist in chemical and biological weapons who was killed ...
One of those acquaintances, a former Qatari government official, told The Washington Post that Marri came home with CDs of al-Qaeda training lectures and propaganda, as well as a phony California driver’s license.
***
U.S. authorities allege that Marri had gone to the United Arab Emirates in August 2001 to get more than $13,000 in cash from Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, the alleged paymaster for the Sept. 11 plotters.
***
The Islamic Assembly of North America, an organization that the government accused of creating Web sites to promote violent jihad, contributed $10,000 to the mosque, according to documents filed in federal court in a 2003 terrorism case. Several members of the Macomb mosque’s board had dealings with the group, those records show.
***
Marri had been calling other numbers, in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, according to the complaint. Intelligence and law enforcement sources say he was calling senior al-Qaeda operatives.
The government’s interest in Marri was soon heightened further. In mid-November 2001, al-Qaeda’s senior military commander, Muhammad Atef, was killed in a U.S. rocket attack on an Afghanistan safe house. The CIA discovered a wealth of information among his possessions and on his computer.
“When he was killed, we found out there was a huge al-Qaeda interest in chemical and biological weapons,” said an intelligence source knowledgeable about the investigations of both Atef and Marri. That prompted “a very energetic effort to identify people doing chem-bio.” Materials recovered from Atef’s safe house, the source said, revealed that Marri might be one of them. He and Atef had “shared contacts,” the source said.
***
The feeling was he was engaged in operational research, identifying targets and materials,” the intelligence source said. “We think al-Marri was here to carry out attacks, as part of a second or third wave.,
I should have added that "testing to support theory" is not the same as testing to support legal arguments in court.
So, Biodefense student is technically correct in what she wrote.
I'm only interested in discussing the anthrax attacks of 2001.
Relevant facts show that al Qaeda had NOTHING to do with those attacks. You cannot convert me to your beliefs, so please stop trying. Even when your "facts" are not distorted, they are still NOT RELEVANT to the anthrax attacks of 2001.
“I’m only interested in discussing the anthrax attacks of 2001.”
And yes, on the webpage you created addressing Al Qaeda in 2002, you wrote that the hijackers were dead, dead, dead and Al Qaeda could not be responsible because if there were other operatives in the US, the FBI would be talking about them. As explained in the article, the FBI has studiously avoided talking about al-Marri, even keeping him out of the 911 Commission Report, according to the article. So it stands as rebutal to your uninformed analysis of an Al Qaeda theory —as does the public record facts relating to all the AQ operatives going to and fro in September 2001.
I concede that you can take almost any article that mentions al Qaeda and twist and distort it to somehow create what you believe is "proof" for your beliefs. But that doesn't mean you are right. It more likely means you are nuts.
Ed,
Let me simplify things for you.
There are two squads on the Amerithrax Task Force.
One has always pursued an Al Qaeda theory.
One has pursued a non-Al Qaeda theory.
You don’t bother reading articles bearing on the analysis and the hundreds of thousands of manhours spent by well over a dozen Amerithrax agents.
That immediately disqualifies your true crime analysis from being taken seriously.
You have cognitive rigidity — and have locked on the suggestion someone in a newsgroup made in December 2001 that a First Grader wrote the letters.
Then when others seek to do the reasoning being done by the Amerithrax investigators, based on the public record, you resort to insults.
You should try fewer insults and assess the evidence the Amerithrax Task Force has studied now for over a half decade.
The reason you don’t address the merits is because you don’t understand them.
Turning to the merits of the article, I wonder what WP journalist SS means when she refers to Atef’s computer. Atef had a laptop that he kept at work, not the bombed home. After the bombing of the building (where Ayman’s office had a sign telling people to clean up after themselves), a looter took the Ayman and Atef computer.
Alan C. of the WSJ bought the computers from a computer dealer. He had his computer damaged, was looking for a replacement, and fell into this bonanza — the articles should have won a Pulitzer, in my opinion. But to add insult to injury, when the CIA gave him back the copy of Atef’s computer they said there was nothing on it. It had in fact been wiped clean. Out of patriotism, he had immediately turned it over without taking time to make a copy. I think his contact with CIA, on the computer’s return, was with a guy named “Bob” on a street corner.
The WSJ journalist has always suspected that they are misleading him and wanted me to FOIA them. But I told him it stood a snowball’s chance in hell. By then, he was in Moscow. So either (1) there in fact was a different Atef computer, (2) the CIA was misleading Mr. Cullison, or (3) Susan’s sources meant to refer to Ayman’s computer. All three seem about equally possible.
As for Ayman’s computer, this is what was on that computer. In an April 1999 memorandum, for example, Zawahiri wrote that “the destructive power of these weapons is no less than that of nuclear weapons. *** [D]espite their extreme danger, we only became aware of them when the enemy drew our attention to them by repeatedly expressing concern that they can be produced simply.” Demonstrating that Al Qaeda’s knowledge and expertise was still at a very early stage despite the grand statements and threats the earlier year, the memorandum read:
“To: Muhammed Atef
From: Ayman al-Zawahiri
Folder Outgoing Mail - to Muhammad Atef
Date: April 15, 1999
I have read the majority of the book [an unnamed volume, probably on biological and chemical weapons]. [It] is
undoubtedly useful. It emphasizes a number of important facts, such as
a) The enemy started thinking about these weapons before WWI. Despite their extreme danger, we only became aware
of them when the enemy drew our attention to them by repeatedly expressing concerns that they can be produced simply
with easily available materials.
b) The destructive opwer of these weapons is no less than that of nuclear weapons.
c) A germ attack is often detected days after it occurs, which raises the number of victims.
d) Defense against such weapons is very difficult, particularly if large quantities are used.”
It continued: “I would like to emphasize what we previously discussed—that looking for a specialist is the fastest, safest, and cheapest way [to embark on a biological- and chemical-weapons program]” . Simultaneously, we should conduct a search on our own. *** Along these lines, the book guided me to a number of references that I am attaching. Perhaps you can find someone to obtain them.”
The memorandum goes on to cite mid-twentieth-century articles from, among other sources, Science, The Journal of Immunology, and The New England Journal of Medicine, and lists the names of such books as Tomorrow’s Weapons (1964), Peace or Pestilence (1949), and Chemical Warfare (1921).
The April 1999 email to Atef indicated Ayman had read one USAMRIID author’s description of the secret history of anthrax reported by USAMRIID — the book was called Peace or Pestilence. That was 2 1/2 years before the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings. Post-9/11, we have had the same history avidly reported to us by critics of the biodefense industry. Ayman, well-aware of USAMRIID’s history with anthrax, may have had an operative or some other sympathizer arrange to obtain the US Army strain that would point the public and authorities to this history — confounding true crime analysis at the same time providing moral justification for the use anthrax under the laws of jihad. His interpretation — alluded to in the repeated citation to a particular koranic verse — was that jihadists should use the weapons used by their enemies.
According to a May 7, 1999 email, the modest amount of $2,000 to $4,000 had been marked for “startup” costs of the program. A letter dated May 23, 1999 written by one of Zawahiri’s aliases mentions some “very useful ideas” that had been discussed during a visit to the training camp Abu Khabab. “It just needs some experiments to develop its practical use.” Especially promising was a home-brew nerve gas made from insecticides and a chemical additive that would help speed up penetration into the skin.
In Afghanistan, Zawahiri was assisted by Midhat Mursi (alias Abu Khabab). In his late 1940s, Mursi had graduated from the University of Alexandria in 1975. An Egyptian chemical engineer, he ran the camp named Abu Khabab. Midhat Mursi finally was killed in a January 2006 bombing raid in Pakistan — at a high-level terror summit at which Zawahiri’s son-in-law was also killed. Al Qaeda’s experimentation with its chemical weapons has been featured on the nightly television news picturing a dog being put to death. Director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies and former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, Jonathan Tucker, an expert retained by the government to determine the chemical used in the video, opined that it was hydrogen cyanide. As journalist John Berger explained of the tapes: “US intelligence said al-Qaida’s chemical weapons programme was centered in Darunta camp. The mastermind behind experiments was allegedly an Egyptian called Midhat Mursi, who ran a section of the camp known as Khabab, and who worked mainly with Egyptians. Experts said that all but one of the voices on the tapes shown yesterday by CNN spoke in Egyptian accents.
Ahmed Ressam testified at his trial in New York that he participated in experiments using cyanide gas pumped into an office building ventilation system at a training camp run by bin Laden in Afghanistan. Abu Khabab camp was within the Darunta Camp, which also included the Assadalah Abdul Rahman camp, operated by the son of blind cleric Omar Abdel Rahman.
Ayman liked the idea to make a home-brew nerve gas from insecticides and a chemical additive that would help speed penetration into the skin. In a June 1999 memo, however, he talks about building labs (with one being closed every three months so it can be moved and replaced by another), and plans to have them covered with oil paint so they might be cleaned with insecticides. Question: why would you use an insecticide to clean an insecticide? Paraformaldehyde, on the other hand, is commonly used to clean the biological agent anthrax.
The correspondence from later in 1999 between Rauf Ahmad and Ayman — produced ironically by the DIA under FOIA — is more interesting. It illustrates Ayman’s focus and success in infiltrating the US and UK biodefense establishments.
Ali Al-Timimi at GMU did not talk religion or politics at work. Even after indictment, he focused the next 4 months and successfully defended his thesis. While questioned 7 or 8 times before indictment, he did not share details of his ordeal to his workmates and instead remained focused on issues like chaos theory as applied to cancer.
Relatedly, and speaking of Chicago (see WP article), for beach reading, nothing beats Alaa Al Aswany’s novel Chicago (January 2007) for timeliness. It about 7 pious graduate students — doctors — who support the militants and who for different personal reasons resolve to take action. The press (see TimesOnline interview) is that sales picked up after the Glasgow bombings given a close similarity in plotting. But the author is already very popular. His last book is going to be made into the biggest budget Egyptian movie ever. He is equally a staunch critic of Mubarak, Bush and the fundamentalists. He is a strong proponent of a robust democracy. Given the modus operandi of the Egyptian militants is targeted assassination, and given that Mubarak’s administration does not tolerate dissident men of letters well, he is an author to encourage and follow closely.
“A very Egyptian Delight,” TimesOnline, February 11, 2007
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article1353179.ece
“What you seem to fail to appreciate is that we are using published information here. All most of us are doing is debating whether the information published immediately after the attacks is as valid as later information which showed that early information to be totally invalid.”
What information SHOWED that the early information was invalid? The new information is spun and manipulated by the same people who have constantly attempted to undermine AFIPs statements with new mistatements.
The best example of this is the lie told my Meselson to the aauthor of the C&E article.
Let’s look at this lie and then demonstrate with published information that it is indeed a lie. In fact it’s such a transparent lie it’s almost funny.
http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/84/8449gov1.html
Sometimes scientists misspoke as well, as was the case with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. AFIP studied the anthrax powder from the Daschle letter using energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, and a top AFIP scientist, Florabell G. Mullick, reported the presence of silica in an AFIP newsletter. Yet, the spectrum AFIP released shows a peak for the element silicon, not silicon dioxide (silica).
Now we go to the ACTUAL spectrum released by AFIP - and we see that the Meselson lie is the exact OPPOSITE of the spectrum released by AFIP - it shows peaks for silicon dioxide (silica) - NOT silicon.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/841229/posts
Silicon Dioxide (Silica), as it appears through energy dispersive X-ray analysis
bump for a later read of this interesting thread
The best example of invalid "early information", of course, is the infamous Oct. 28, 2002, Washington Post Article titled "FBI's Theory On Anthrax Is Doubted."
Here are the opening paragraphs of that article:
A significant number of scientists and biological warfare experts are expressing skepticism about the FBI's view that a single disgruntled American scientist prepared the spores and mailed the deadly anthrax letters that killed five people last year.
These sources say that making a weaponized aerosol of such sophistication and virulence would require scientific knowledge, technical competence, access to expensive equipment and safety know-how that are probably beyond the capabilities of a lone individual.
The "experts" cited in that ridiculous article were Richard Spertzel (who openly admitted his ignorance by stating that "even with a good lab and staff to help run it, it might take me a year to come up with a product as good") plus a manufacturer of spray dryers, a pharmaceutical scientist and three chemical engineers. They are the "scientists" who the Post considered to be "experts" who would know more about spores than microbiologists who actually work with spores every day.
In his August 2006 article in Applied And Environmental Microbiology, FBI Scientist Douglas Beecher stated that "Individuals familiar with the compositions of the powders in the letters have indicated that they were comprised simply of spores purified to different extents." Beecher also specifically named that Washington Post article as fostering "erroneous preconceptions, which may misguide research and preparedness efforts and generally detract from the magnitude of hazards posed by simple spore preparations."
And how did the Washington Post report on this? On September 25, 2006, they published an article titled "FBI Is Casting A Wider Net in Anthrax Attacks." They pretended it was news to them that the spores were not super-sophisticated. Here are the opening paragraphs of that article:
Five years after the anthrax attacks that killed five people, the FBI is now convinced that the lethal powder sent to the Senate was far less sophisticated than originally believed, widening the pool of possible suspects in a frustratingly slow investigation.
The finding, which resulted from countless scientific tests at numerous laboratories, appears to undermine the widely held belief that the attack was carried out by a government scientist or someone with access to a U.S. biodefense lab.
What was initially described as a near-military-grade biological weapon was ultimately found to have had a more ordinary pedigree, containing no additives and no signs of special processing to make the anthrax bacteria more deadly, law enforcement officials confirmed.
That is the kind of new information showing old information to be invalid that I was talking about.
On September 26, 2006, in an article titled "Anthrax Not Weapons-Grade, Official Says," Bill Broad at The New York Times also wrote about the Beecher article, and he said this:
Seeking to clear up public confusion, an F.B.I. official has reiterated the bureau’s judgment that the anthrax in the letter attacks five years ago bore no special coatings to increase its deadliness and no hallmarks of a military weapon.
And this:
The misconceptions in the case began early, reinforced by edgy public officials and federal scientists struggling to assess an unfamiliar threat quickly. In Washington, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology studied the anthrax and found what it believed to be added silica, a signature of military anthrax.
“This was a key component,” an institute official said at the time. “Silica prevents the anthrax from aggregating, making it easier to aerosolize.”
Last year, Edward G. Lake, a retired computer systems analyst in Racine, Wis., self-published a book, “Analyzing the Anthrax Attacks,” that documented the silica misunderstanding as well as many other federal and private blunders. “There were,” Mr. Lake said in an interview, “a lot of false assumptions.”
For its part, the F.B.I. has quietly but fairly consistently argued for a humdrum explanation. In November 2001, it said the culprit was probably a domestic loner with at least limited scientific expertise who was able to use laboratory equipment obtained for as little as $2,500.
As this shows, the FBI has stated all along that the powder was NOT COATED. But some people who know absolutely nothing about microbiology, like you, absolutely refuse to believe it and, instead, look for vast conspiracies to cover up the "truth".
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