Selling the threat of bioterrorism (LA Times investigates Alibek)

BREAKING NEWS -

Dr arrested for suspected links with Al-Qaeda movement

CHAKANDRA: Security agencies in a raid at the residence of the house of prominent doctor here have recovered 6 suicide jackets and explosive materials.

Security agencies early Monday morning raided the house of child specialist Dr Mohammad Rasool and arrested him along with his wife and son and recovered 6 suicide jackets and explosive materials from his house.

The security agencies had received information that Al-Qaeda leader Mohammad Yousaf was residing at the Doctor’s house. However he fled prior to the raid.

The security agencies have started interrogations from the arrested doctor and his family.

It is believed that the doctor has links with one of the banned organizations as well as the Al-Qaeda movement

Update-

Posted on August 27, 2007 in International Affairs | No Comments

DIR: An Arab operative of Al-Qaeda, Mohammad Yousaf narrowly escaped police in Chakdarra town here, police sources said on Monday. The sources said that the police captured six suicide jackets and explosives during a raid on a house in Chakdarra after receiving a tip about presence of an al Qaeda operative in the house. According to the sources, Muhammad Yousuf, was staying at the upper floor of a double-storey house in Chakdara, who fled from the house before the raid. Police found six suicide jackets, explosives and the equipment used in remote-control bombs from the house. The owner of the house, Dr. Muhammad Rasool, his wife and two sons, have been detained and a case has been registered against them. Muhammad Yousuf, a key operative of Al Qaeda, was earlier living at Shaheen Town in Peshawar, the sources added.-SANA

Comment/Question: The brother of Sadat’s assassin, Mohammed Islambouli, used Mohammed Youssef as an alias — had one or more passports in that name. Are these reports about Islambouli? He has lived in Peshawar in the past. He is the leader of the Islamic Group members wo have joined Al Qaeda.

Egyptian intelligence officials say Mohammed Islambouli holds two Egyptian passports, a Qatari passport and an Algerian passport in the name Mahmoud Youssef Mahmoud is a variant for Mohammed.

Pinging new book by Francis Boyle

http://blogcritics.org/archives/2007/09/01/151924.php

This book also sheds new light on the nature of the dreaded anthrax attack on Congress and raises some important questions that remain unanswered. Why did this unprecedented event disappear so swiftly from public media discussion? Why has Congress itself failed to pursue both the specific instance and the ramifications of this terrorist attack upon it, and the failure to find a perpetrator? Why has there been no outcry at that failure? For what reasons might the true perpetrators never be found?

According to Boyle, President Bush and former Attorney General Ashcroft used the anthrax attacks on Congress to stampede the American people and push the Congress into enacting into law the totalitarian USA PATRIOT Act with almost no congressional input whatsoever. Boyle believes that the FBI knows exactly who was behind the terrorist anthrax attacks upon the US Congress in the fall of 2001, and the culprits are US government related scientists involved in a criminal US government biowarfare program that violated both the BWC and US domestic legislation implementing the same.

As if this is not enough, he goes on to argues that the Bush Administration is gearing up to fight and win a conflict based on biowarfare. For example, the amounts of money being poured into the US biowarfare industry are staggering. Something is happening here. For fiscal years 2001 to 2004 the United States Government has funded a sum total of 14.5 billion for civilian biowarfare related research alone with an additional 7.6 billion requested for 2005.

new book by Francis Boyle

It's not a "new" book. According to Amazon.com, the "book" was published on December 26, 2005, almost 2 years ago. It's only 139 pages.

Conspiracy theorists like yourself have been trying to get people to read Boyle's book ever since it was published.

This may be the key paragraph from the review you posted:

According to Boyle, President Bush and former Attorney General Ashcroft used the anthrax attacks on Congress to stampede the American people and push the Congress into enacting into law the totalitarian USA PATRIOT Act with almost no congressional input whatsoever. Boyle believes that the FBI knows exactly who was behind the terrorist anthrax attacks upon the US Congress in the fall of 2001, and the culprits are US government related scientists involved in a criminal US government biowarfare program that violated both the BWC and US domestic legislation implementing the same.

This seems pretty close to your own belief that the attack spores were coated in some supersophisticated way and must have come from some illegal bioweapons program. I can see why you want to bring it to everyone's attention.

To me, it belongs on the same shelf as the book about how the U.S. government is covering up the "fact" that the Pentagon was hit by a missile on 9/11 and not by an airliner, and books about the conspiracy theorists who believe the World Trade Center was brought down by explosives planted by the CIA and not by the hijacked airliners.

I've exchanged emails with Boyle. He rants about his totally unscientific conspiracy theory just the way you do.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

Thanks for telling me what my opinion is. I would never have known.
Are the Whitehouse in on the conspiracy to invoke a conspiracy theory that they were behind the attacks? I mean, since the official Whitehouse position is that silica was an additive in the senate anthrax, they would kind of have to be, wouldn’t they? Or could it be that the biggest conspiracy theorist in the country is celebrity nude specialist Ed Lake?

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92006&page=2
Last week, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer confirmed the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology found another additive — silica — in the Daschle anthrax.

Are the Whitehouse in on the conspiracy to invoke a conspiracy theory that they were behind the attacks?

You just endlessly pick things out of context to foster your crazy conspiracy theory that the government is covering up the fact that there was some kind of supersophisticated coating on the anthrax spores mailed in the attack of 2001.

The article you cite is from November 1, 2001, and was written by Gary Matsumoto after his and ABC's claim that there was bentonite in the Daschle anthrax was shown to be totally FALSE. At that time, they only knew that the elements silicon and oxygen were present in the Daschle spores. People were just assuming that that meant that silica was present.

Later in the Matsumoto/ABC article it says,

... Parker's description of what he saw when he looked at the Daschle sample. "I have looked at the specimen under the microscope, both the electron microscope and the scanning microscope, and I can say that the sample was pure spores," he said. Parker also said the spores were "uniform in size," and "highly concentrated."

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

To me, Boyle sounds like your garden variety paranoid, ultra left-wing, America hating, international socialist sociopath, not much different from Barbara Hatch Rosenberg.

Whether you like it or not the OFFICIAL Whitehouse position is that silica was found as an additive. Just read Ari Fleisher’s book. The Whitehouse has NEVER retracted that.
Your wild conspiracy theories are based on the ravings of a madman called Matthew Meselson who embarrisingly (for the FBI) persuaded an FBI scientist (Douglas Beecher) to insert an irrelevant paragraph into a peer reviewed article. Peer reviewed articles are only as good as the peers who review them. And we all know how truthful Meselson is. Or should I remind you of his track record once again?

Professor Boyle recently pointed out that he is on a terror watch list so I doubt he agrees with the occasional writer who describes him as an insider. Boyle, no doubt is very smart and I find his close ally, Sherwood Ross, to write very lucidly. But I hope they spend a little more time looking into this issue of a US biodefense insider instead of chewing the same food for thought that has been served up for the past half decade. There was a “deep insider” involved, just as computerbytesman posited in November 2001. It’s just that the “deep insider” was working with OBL’s sheik and giving lectures on signs of the coming day of judgment. (Ali Al-Timimi had a high security clearance working for the Navy. All the while he shared a fax with famed Russian bioweaponeer Alibek and distinguished former USAMRIID head Charles Bailey, a prolific Ames anthrax researcher. Sherwood and Frances should take a break from their effort to impeach the President and address some basic material facts that have come to light. This isn’t rocket science, people. They are going to rip that summa off Dr. Boyle’s chest if he does not address in the court of public opinion the new facts that have come to light.

In terms of other potentially interesting new developments, there was a recent indictment of a Salafist very near the place of mailing who was keeping up Al Qaeda’s website who lived 6 or so miles from the mailbox used.

Azzam.com posted an exclusive interview with Ayman al-Zawahiri and stressed the importance of cash donations and gas masks and chemical-resistant suits. Ibn Khattab, the Arab Chechnyan fighter who was Bin Laden’s good friend, had told his public that azzam.com was highly recommended and that only the two charities identified by the website should be used to route donations — announcing in 2000 that Benevolence International Foundation was one of the charities that should be used. In February 2000, the Quoqaz.net website posted donation links for the two charities, one being BIF. Qoqaz also linked Islamic Assembly of North America, the charity for which GMU microbiology student Ali Al-Timimi was the tleading speaker at annual conferences.

Ibu al-Khattab, the late Arab-Afghan commander of foreign mjuahideen in Chechnya (who in March 2002 was killed by a poison letter), expressly endorsed Azzam Publications.

“The brothers in Britain, may Allah reward them, have put in much efforts to publicize the Jihad. There is an organization by the name of Azzam Publications, which is run by brothers who are known to us and maintain regular contact with us. So anyone who wishes to support us or requires any further information about the situation here, they should contact this organization. We keep them informed with news updates about the state of affairs here, so if the people have any questions we can answer them through this organization. So the brothers at Azzam Publications, may Allah preserve them, are cooperating with us in media efforts. They have made many commendable efforts to publicize the Jihad, so if you make contact with them and support them, Inshallah, it will be very beneficial.”

Azzam.org had “no bricks and mortar address, but operates a post office box in London, and bill[ed] itself as “an independent media organisation providing authentic news and information about jihad and the Foreign Mujahideen everywhere”. One posting datelined from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and was a message to Muslim youth from top terror suspect Bin Laden. A farewell message from Azzam Publications .. exhorts “Muslims all over the World (to) render as much financial, physical, medical, media and moral support to the Taliban as they can.” Azzam also urged those with computer expertise to mirror the website so as to keep it up after authorities took it down. One can access old websites as they existed on past dates through www.archives.org and its wonderful Wayback Machine — except to the extent blocked.

The azzam.com website gave instructions on how to route money to teh Taliban. It recommended carrying an official letter of the organization stating that the donation was for “for the suffering people of Afghanistan.” The posted form letter from people in South Arlington, read:

“We would like to introduce our official delegation from the Islamic Centre of South Arlington who are carrying monetary assistance for the suffering people of Afghanistan. The members of this delegation are listed below:

1. Abdullah Muhammad Saeed, American passport Holder

2. Ishaq Mansoor Al-Katib, American passport holder

3. Muhammad Abdur-Rasheed, Canadian Passport Holder

They are carrying a quantity of cash donations which have been collected by the Muslim community of South Arlington and are to help the suffering people of Afghanistan. We request all those to whom it may concern to allow the bearers of this letter to pass freely without let or hindrance and to provide them such assistance or protections as may be necessary.
* * *
Signed,
Chairman of the Islamic Centre of South Arlington, USA”

A man formerly known as Paul Hall was arrested in Phoenix on a federal criminal complaint in March 2007 and agreed to be removed to District of Connecticut for further prosecution where there has been investigation of Azzam Publications website located on a server there. He is alleged to have provided classified information to the London-based Azzam Publications about a U.S. Navy battle group as it traveled from California to the Persian Gulf region in 2001. He allegedly “described a recent force protection briefing given aboard his ship, voiced enmity toward America, praised Osama bin Laden and the mujahedeen [and] praised the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole.”

On August 6, 2001, the numeric Internet addresses for the domain Qoqaz.net were changed by its administrators to correspond directly with those of another existing domain: Minna.com. Thus, all web visitors to qoqaz.net and minna.com were shown the same identical Qoqaz.net homepage. Minna.com at the time was registered to:

Mokhtar, Mazen (MMZ265) mazen@ABETTERMARKET.COM
Minna International Corporation
216 Bishop Blvd.
North Brunswick , NJ 08902

Although moderate in his posts and lectures, he for a time used the email signature: “Hamas has no victims, it only has legitimate targets.” In one atypical posting, he wrote that suicide bombing should be encouraged

“[b]ecause it’s an effective method of attacking the ennemy [sic] and continuing jihad, which is at the very least a [religious requirement] on the MuslimsÉ Those who commit suicide seek death, but martyrs are not counted as dead, as Allah said above. They seek a greater life for themselves with Allah, and a greater future for Muslims. May Allah support them, bless them and forgive us for not being with them.” (April 1996)

For example, in November 2000, an e-mail was sent from an individual to Azzam Publications, stating in part:

On your site there is an article about JOINT U.S./RUSSIAN CHEMICAL ATTACK ON AFGHANISTAN IMMINENT Appeal for donations to the Taliban Government Appeal for gas masks I would like to donate where do I start. Or where do I send a shipment of gas masks to?

Instead of disclaiming ability to direct or assist the donor, a response from an Azzam Publications administrative e-mail account stated, “Instructions later this weekend.”

Now from his correspondence, we know that Ayman did not actually fear a chemical attack by US or Russia. Instead, 100+ pages provided by the DIA under FOIA show he was busily planning an attack of his own.

In Fall 2004, the federal authorities indicted the fellow behind Azzam Publications selling “Green Birds,” Babar Ahmad in London, pointing, in part, to the “distribution of videotapes and compact discs depicting fighters in Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere, and the eulogizing of dead fighters, for the purpose of recruiting individuals and soliciting donations to support the mujahideen in Afghanistan and Chechnya.” Of Pakistani descent, Ahmad is a British computer specialist. He is associated with KSM, who had anthrax production documents on his laptop. Ahmad is also the cousin of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was arrested mid-2004 in Pakistan. Khan’s computers carried detailed surveillance of five financial buildings in New York, Newark and Washington and prompted the Department of Homeland Security to elevate the threat alert level to orange.

In an affidavit, an FBI special agent and computer investigative specialist, alleged that a New Brunswick, NJ man, Mazen Mokhtar, assisted Babar in maintaining the continued operation of the Azzam sites, through the use of mirror sites, when the administrators of Azzam sites shut down the Azzam.com site down after 9/11.” The mirror sites, www.qoqaz.net and www.waaqiah.com, routed people trying to access www.azzam.com. A friend reports: “He said he used to run a hosting service four or five years ago that used to resell Web hosting services to people. He said he didn’t know those guys (mentioned in court papers) and he is not involved in anything like that.” An Egyptian-born imam and political activist, he is a supporter of Palestinian cause and frequent speaker before groups in Brooklyn and the Bronx. He is said to be nice and seems a man of peace. He gave a couple of thoughtful presentations in the Fall of 2006 that are online on YouTube, to include to the Muslim Students Associationa at Rutgers University.

In an affidavit in support of the indictment of Babar Ahmad, “[t]his same fund raising solicitation and instructions were also posted by a specific individual [the North Brunsick, NJ-based Mazen Mokhtar] who resided in the United States and who served as a U.S.-based administrator for www.qoqaz.net, the mirror site of www.azzam.com, as well as for Azzam Publications sites generally in late 2001.”

The affidavit continued:

“During 2001 that person posted the same solicitation and instruction on another U.S.-based website, www.minna.com, which this individual also operated. Further, a search of this person’s residence in New Jersey resulted in the recovery of contact numbers for Azzam Publications in hardcopy and electronic form. Therefore, it is evident that AHMAD worked in concert with this individual to maintain the continued operation of the Azzam sites, through the use of mirror sites, when the administrators of Azzam sites shut the Www.azzam.com site down after 9/11. This U.S. individual’s participation in the effort to continue the existence of the Azzam website content in another form through the use of mirror sites demonstrates that a concerted effort existed between the administrators of Azzam, including Ahmed, and individuals in the United States and others to further the goals of Azzam, that is, to solicit funds for organizations for which support is prohibited under U.S. law, namely the Taliban and Chechen Mujahideen, in an effort to support their goals.

In addition to the specific fund-raising instructions set forth above, throughout 2000 and 2001, the Azzam Publications websites also instructed that individuals use the hawala system — a record-less financial transaction system — to transfer funds to Pakistan and the Taliban to avoid interception of the funds.”

In late April 2007, Mr. Mokhtar was indictef for failing to file tax returns and filing false tax returns The Indictment alleges that for the tax years 2003 and 2004, Mokhtar failed to file business tax returns. The Indictment additionally alleges that for the tax years 2000, 2002 and 2003, Mokhtar filed fraudulent personal tax returns in that he failed to state the entire amount of income he received from his business, Mindcraft. He likely will raise selective prosecution as a defense though it is a difficult defense to establish.

The azzam.org website selling the “In the Hearts of Green Birds”
audiocassette was shut down after 9/11 because authorities thought it
might contain codes and instructions to militants. British and US
intelligence sources suspected that some of Azzam.com’s jihad photos
and graphics contain messages embedded with a technology known as
steganography. The code instead perhaps was there for all to see on the
stamps of the lethal missives being sent.

It was widely published among the militant islamists that martyrs go
to paradise “in the hearts of green birds.” The stamp used in the
anthrax mailings was of a green bird. It was designed by artist
Michael Doret. He explained to me that the image at google of the
“Federal Eagle” Stamp is “a file made directly from the original art
[he] created, so the color is an accurate representation of the printed
envelope.” Mr. Doret advises me that the color of the eagle is a “teal”
or greenish-blue.

In the very interview in which they admitted 9/11, and described
the codes used for the four targets for the planes, KSM and Ramzi
Binalshibh admitted to the Jenny code, the code for representing the
date 9/11, and used the symbolism of the “Green Birds.” Osama Bin Laden
later invoked the symbolism in his video “The 19 Martyrs”, describing a
hijacker as “A man of worship who enjoined good and forbade evil. His
body was on earth but his heart roamed with the green birds that perch
beneath the Throne of the Most Merciful.” Isn’t “green birds of
paradise” discussed at length in Abdel-Rahman’s 2,000 page PhD thesis
on the chapter in the Koran called “Repentance.” which addresses the
foreign policy and military affairs of the Islamic state?

Peter Finn of the Washington Post explains the symbolism:

“Around 7 one evening during Ramadan in 1998, the believers filed down
a long corridor leading to the prayer room of the Al Muhadjirin mosque
here, placing their shoes on the dark brown shelves before stepping
onto a carpet the color of turquoise, a mixture of green for Islam and
blue for heaven. Among the worshipers was a small group of men who
clustered around a severe slight Egyptian named Mohamed Atta.

In the 2002 interview, Ramzi Binalshibh, who Tenet says had a CBRN
role, said that Al-Shehhi, even before he learned of the operation used
to have beautiful visions that he flies in the sky with huge green
birds and crashes into things.”

A FAQ on Al Qaeda’s website, the Azzam Publications, website mirrored
by the fellow from New Brunswick, where the anthrax letters were
mailed, explained that “In the Hearts of Green Birds” refers to what is
inside. The actual Arabic word used in the Hadith is not Qalb (heart)
but it is Jowf which can mean any of interior, inside, or heart (as in
center). There was a video based on the hadith with the title In The
Hearts of Green Birds about foreign mujahideen that had been martyred
in Bosnia. The audiocasette was created in August 1996 and its 3rd
edition was released in January 1997.

Of course, given that the symbolism used in this regard in the
anthrax mailings had an origin in religious writing, there is no direct
tie with the website — the tie could be with the hadith. The London
webmaster once said that the FBI allowed it to remain up (while it
moved from server to server) for another year hoping to get leads on
supporters. In the case of the telephone line of the US postal worker
from Brooklyn, they let him continue arranging telephone conference
calls with the Islamic Group leader eager to plan a new attack from
1998-2002, foregoing a criminal prosecution for the fruits of the
intelligence source. The Egyptian Islamic Group (Taha) was rendered
shortly after 9/11.

Even Zarqawi invoked the “green birds” imagery in a 60-minute
audio message:

“The martyrs rejoince in the bounty provided by God. Their souls are
inside the bodies of green birds that fly in heaven.”

Bin Laden was using “Green Birds” in the same way he used the
repeated phrase “Looming Tower” to hint of what was to come with the
planes attack on the World Trade Center. Lawrence Wright has an
excellent book “The Looming Tower” and that is the basis for the title.
Bin Laden said in a key communication:

“Wherever you are, death will find you,

even in the looming tower.”

In a prerecorded tape aired October 7, 2001, at the time of the
anthrax mailing to the Senators, Bin Laden said “The winds of faith
have come.”

Here is an hour interview by Professor Boyle on this theory that the anthrax attacks were intended to get the Patriot Act passed. He, BHR and Ed all have what has been called a “bioevangelist” theory, which is unencumbered by any consideration of the facts relating to Al Qaeda and Taliban and EIJ/IG operatives in the US.

http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=19409
Biowarfare and the Emergence of Police State America”
(Interview with author and professor of international law, Dr. Francis Boyle. The history of biological warfare development and the Biological Weapons Convention; forced anthrax inoculations of the military; anthrax attacks on congress and the resultant Patriot legislation setting up a police state; FBI agent Marion “Spike” Bowman’s thwarting of FBI investigations into both Zacarias Moussaoui and the anthrax attacks on congress; the DNC’s prevention of impeachment proceedings against Bush and others in his administration for high crimes and misdemeanors.)

When Cheney was briefed on the documents seized in Afghanistan and flagged by a CIA analyst in late 2001, he immediately called a meeting of FBI and CIA. “I’ll be very blunt,” the Vice President started. “There is no priority of this government more important than finding out if there is a link between what’s happened here and what we’ve found over there with Qaeda.” At one point, security personnel thought that the home belonging to Elizabeth Cheney, his daughter, had been hit by an anthrax attack. Elizabeth ‘had to call her nanny to get her to take the kids to be tested for exposure. A June 1999 memo from Ayman to military commander Atef said that “said the program should seek cover and talent in educational institutions, which it said were ‘more beneficial to us and allow easy access to specialists, which will greatly benefit us in the first stage, God willing.’ ‘’ Thus, in determining whether Al Qaeda was responsible for the anthrax mailings in the Fall of 2001, the FBI and CIA knew based on the growing documentary evidence available by December, that Al Qaeda operatives were likely associated with non-governmental organizations and working under the cover of universities. From early on, the CIA and FBI knew that charity is as charity does. They knew where Al-Timimi worked, having interviewed him the first week after 9/11. An undercover operation at Al-Timimi’s Falls Church mosque was already underway. The next month, George Mason University hired GMU graduate student Al-Timimi for $70,000 a year for coordinating research among several universities.

Ed, Professor Boyle and Professor BHR, in developing their bioevangelist theory seemed totally unaware of the reason Senators Leahy and Daschle would be targeted and were totally unaware where an active Salafist supporter of the Taliban Al-Timimi worked.

An August 29, 2001 opinion column on Islamway, set up by the IANA webmaster and the second most read site for english speaking muslims, illustrates that the role of “Leahy Law” was known by educated islamists: There is an intolerable contradiction between America’s professed policy of opposition to state-sponsored terrorism, exemplified by the Leahy Law, and the U.S. Congress’ continuing sponsorship of Israeli violence against Palestinians.” The article cited “References: CIFP 2001. “Limitations on Assistance to Security Forces: ‘The Leahy Law’” 4/9/01 (Washington, DC: Center for International Foreign Policy) Center for International Foreign Policy Accessed 8/28/01.Hocksteader, Lee 2001.” The next day, in the same publication, there was an article describing the 21-page document released in Ottawa on August 29, 2001, in which the CSIS claimed that Canadian detainee Jaballah had contacts with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader Shehata and sought to deport Jaballah.

“[Daschle and Leahy] represent something to him,” says James Fitzgerald of the FBI Academy’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. “Whatever agenda he’s operating under, these people meant something to him.” To more fully appreciate why Leahy — a human rights advocate and liberal democrat — might have been targeted as a symbol, it is important to know that Senator Leahy has been the head of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, the panel in charge of aid to Egypt and Israel. In addition to the Senate majority leader, anthrax was mailed to the position symbolic of the 50 billion in appropriations that has been given to Israel since 1947 (and the equally substantial $2 billion annually in aid that has been keeping Mubarak in power in Egypt and the militant islamists out of power). Being an international relations expert who represents islamist interests, Professor Boyle would know this but does not address it, being motivated by political and not true crime concerns.

Professor Boyle would also know that the targeted Senators have another connection pertinent to the Egyptian militants. The United States and other countries exchange evidence for counterterrorism cases under the legal framework of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty {”MLAT”). Egypt is signatory of such a treaty that ratified by the United States Senate in late 2000. For example, when the Fall 2001 rendition of Vanguards of Conquest leader Agizah was criticized, the US explained that it was relying on the MLAT. The issue came up in the prosecution of Post Office worker Ahmed Abdel Sattar and the MLAT was described. Sattar’s attorney Michael Tigar, at trial in December 2004 explained: “Now, that might be classified, it’s true, but we have now found out and our research has just revealed that on, that the State Department has reported that it intends to use and relies on the mutual legal assistance treaty between the United States and Egypt signed May 3, 1998, in Cairo, and finally ratified by the United States Senate on October 18th, 2000. The State Department issued a press report about this treaty on November 29th, 2001 and I have a copy here.” He explained that “Article IV of the treaty provides that requests under the treaty can be made orally as well as under the formal written procedures required by the treaty, that those requests can include requests for testimony, documents, and even for the transfer to the United States ... if the treaty conditions are met.” The Senate, of course, ratifies such treaties and it is Leahy’s Subcommittee that would have jurisdiction.

Vanguards of Conquest spokesman Al-Sirri is a co-defendant in the case against post office worker Sattar. In the late 1990s Sattar and he spoke in 90,000 conversations intercepted by the FBI, including many Egyptian Islamic Group leaders. Egyptian Islamic Group leaders and Al-Sirri’s fellow EIJ cell members in London were subject to process under those treaties at the time of the anthrax mailings. Those London cell members had been responsible for the faxing of the claim of responsibility which stated the motive for the 1998 embassy bombings. Al-Sirri was the guy whose stationery was used as the letter of introduction in the assassination of the Northern Alliance leader two days before 9/11. The WP in May 2002 reported that authorities, based on intercepted conversation between Post Office employee Sattar and Al-Sirri in the Summer 2001, suspected Sattar of helping with the letter. (The letter was found on Ayman’s computer in Kabul).

As reason for the 1998 embassy bombings, in addition to the rendition recent EIJ members to Cairo, the faxes pointed to the detention of Blind Sheik Abdel-Rahman and dissident Saudi Sheik al-Hawali. Al-Hawali was the mentor of GMU microbiology student Al-Timimi who spoke in London in August 2001 alongside 911 Imam Awlaki (also from Falls Church) and unindicted WTC 1993 conspirator Bilal Philips. Al-Timimi was in contact with Saudi sheik Al-Hawali in 2002 and arranged to hand deliver a message to all members of Congress he had drafted in al-Hawali’s name on the first anniversary of the anthrax mailings to Senator Leahy and Daschle. So the conversation at the water cooler at GMU between the former USAMRIID head and the guy working with Bin Laden’s sheik and lecturing around the world about the signs of the coming end of times and day of judgment, might have gone something like this: “Have you heard a forecast? Ali, do you know if the day of resurrection is going to be sunny?”

The USG at some point needs to comes clean about these facts. The USG and individuals likely have been mum due to considerations of due process, privacy and the confidentaility of a national security investigation. For example, with all the attention paid to Dr. Hatfill’s privacy claim suit, one can appreciate why GMU may feel it is between a rock and a hard place. They have the privacy interests of a former employee to respect. But at some point, the public has a right to know especially given that GMU sought the $25 million grant for a regional BL-3 facility. What was important to Cheney in late 2001 to know is still important over a half decade later for the public to know.

Chasing Isambouli
Sheiks, Bioweaponeers and the Anthrax Letters
http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com

In the interview, Professor Boyle makes many good points about the risks of proliferation and the recklessness of government spending in biodefense. He recommends Sy Hirsch’s book on USG’s old program for some historical context. He says the current proliferation of “death sciences” leads to BL-3 labs and recklessly puts know-how into the hands of irresponsible people.
Professor Boyle focuses on recombinant technology and the risks associated with such government work at universities.

But this is more than a little ironic given his client list and the fact that Ali read Genome Technology throughout his trial for sedition.

Professor B. describes how in the Summer of 2004 the FBI interviewed him for an hour and asked him to inform on his Arab and islamist clients. He says he now is on all terrorist watch lists. He says passing through O’Hara on his way home from Malaysia he was taken into custody. They said it must be a different Frances Anthony Boyle and let him go. :0) “How many Frances Anthony Boyles are there?” he asks.

Boyle talks about how in the 1980s the Reagan administration of “weapons-specific” agents to Iraq. Perhaps he is talking about the provision of a number of strains in the mid-1980s to the University of Baghdad by the American Type Culture Collection (”ATCC”). (The invoices show that Ames was not included). The strains Iraq included Sterne, A-3, two Vollum strains, and five other strains from ATCC. ATCC is now located at GMU and was the co-sponsor of Al-Timimi’s bioinformatics program. He had access to ATCC and Center for Biodefense facilities and had “catalog rights.” A former ATCC employee tells me he would have access to the patent repository (which is separate from the online catalog).

Now, admittedly, the USG’s not-so-enlightened strategy in the Iraq/Iran war in the 1980s was to hope that they beat each other’s brains out.

I recall the press conference by Iraq’s Tariq Aziz announcing the sale of another 100 combat configured helicopters to Iraq. For agricultural spraying missions, he said. Delivery was to be made to the Agriculture Ministry.

Uh-huh. I guess the TOW missiles, a US-controlled item, secretly proposed to be put on the helicopters by the arms trafficker were intended for hunting gophers.

But the USG DID indict the arms trafficker, Sarkis Soghanalian, for the conspiracy to outfit the helicopters with TOW (heat-seeking missiles). His defense in the federal district court prosecution in Miami was that it was all approved by Oliver North from his basement office. He has given an interview after his release claiming that everything he did was approved and would be evidenced by Ollie’s notebooks, which were classified. The matter is public record (except to the extent sealed or classified) in Miami federal district court. Saudi Prince Bandar arranged the financing for the deal at Beni Hana’s with Sarkis.

Sarkis used to pump gas here in Upstate NY before he became the #2 or #3 top arms trafficker in the real world (after Khashoggi). Our paths next crossed in the Miami courthouse. I held the door open for him while he and his entourage trudged to the elevator after a court hearing (he’s a very big, slow-moving guy) . By chance, I had lunch with the government prosecutor and he didn’t seem too concerned.

So it’s not that I can’t empathize with Boyle’s arguments — my heart warms to any HLS summa who starts an interview by quoting that chain-smoking hero of mine, Saul Alinsky. It’s just that Professor B’s representation of some serious islamist clients and his leftist political predispositions has caused him to allow himself (and colleague Sherwood) to stall in their true crime analysis — just when Boyle’s experience would be most useful at getting at the truth of Amerithrax.

Professor Boyle explains that he concluded that it had to be done by someone knowledgeable about the anthrax research done by the anthrax government. He gave the FBI a list of all labs up until 1989. His list was over a dozen years out of date. So is Professor Boyle surprised that this Bowman at FBI said they were working with Ft Detrick? Would you expect them to work with folks not in the field? One working for islamist clients? Did Frances suggest that perhaps his law students would do the EDX analysis?

Then Boyle says the FBI authorized the destruction of the inventory at Ames, Iowa. He says the collection should have been preserved.

Professor Boyle, however, has never made any inquiry of what the “Ames collection” at Ames, Iowa included. I’ve spoken to all the professors involved and Boyle, an attorney, should not make factual assumptions without checking them. While I agree the 100 vials should have just been couriered over to the USDA facility, there’s no reason to think it includes the Ames strain. The anthrax vaccine work done in conjunction with USAMRIID was done by USDA, not ISU where the inventory was destroyed. And so he places an undo emphasis on the ISU inventory though the entire incident is important to understand. At the very least, he is not distinguishing between ISU and USDA in his argument.

He also says FBI’s Bowman sabotaged the request to get access to Moussaoui’s computer. But Professor Boyle, in arguing elsewhere about a “police state”, he is being horribly hypocritical. While I personally think clearly there was authorization to get access to the computer because of Moussaoui’s connection to Bin Laden’s friend, Chechen leader, Arab fighter Ibn Khattab, in any other context Boyle would be arguing it would be an illegal search and Nazi Gestapo tactics. Indeed, I would have to check his client list from the time to make sure he wasn’t representing Ibn Khattab himself.

Politics has no role in true crime analysis. Professor Boyle’s analysis is based on politically-motivated conjecture rather than factual inquiry. He represents islamist clients.

The last part of the interview is about his attempts with Ramsey Clark to get Bush impeached. Now I can relate. I just bought an “IMPEACH WITH HONOR” button at a rumamge sale for my brother-in-law. (Actually got it free because the woman approved the sentiment). He and Ramsey Clark were against the invasion. I was too.

Oh, but did I mention Ramsey Clark is the blind sheik Abdel-Rahman’s lawyer? To his credit, Ramsey refused to issue the press release about the blind sheik’s withdrawal of his support for the cease-fire entered by the Egyptian Islamic Gruop after Luxor. A very distinguished gentlemen fighting for peace and justice. It was Lynne Stewart, not Ramsey, who had the role with the translator of passing on the proposal by the EIJ founder/IANA writer Kamal Habib that the blind sheik endorse working through a political party.

But the bottom line is that Professor Boyle may be disqualified from speaking to these issues at all given his client representations.

As for whether Ramsey Clark thinks his client, blind sheik Abdel-Rahman is responsible for the anthrax mailings, I don’t know.

I suspect he’ll have a chance to express his opinion after the indictment.

He has worked in Cairo alongside his co-counsel Montasser Al-Zayat the fellow in March 1999 who said Ayman would resort to anthrax against US targets. Al-Zayat has represented the blind sheik for decades.

Overlooking Professor Boyle’s lack of impartiality, let’s hope he focus his intellect on the implications of Al-Timimi’s access to cutting-edge know-how.

Oh, and he’s right. There’s only one Frances Anthony Boyle.

Just read Ari Fleisher’s book.

We went over this is messages 285, 286 and 290 in this thread. But since you seem to have no memory for anything except what you believe, I'll go over it again:

In "Taking the Heat", Fleischer talks a lot about ABC falsely reporting that there was bentonite in the attack anthrax. Fleischer then says on page 203:

Over the next several days, I dug deep into the story [about bentonite]. I spoke not only to officials at the NSC but to researchers themselves at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology [AFIP]. They told me the Daschle anthrax contained silicon and oxygen but not aluminum. Since bentonite contains aluminum, if there's no aluminum, they said, there's no bentonite.

This confirms what I said: AFIP merely detected silicon and oxygen.

You then brought up another passage in Fleischer's book, using THIS LINK, but that passage is about Brian Ross claiming that the White House was saying there was silica in the attack anthrax. It goes back to the early days when almost everyone was incorrectly assuming that the presence of silicon and oxygen meant that some form of silica was present.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

Your wild conspiracy theories are based on the ravings of a madman ...

My conspiracy theories?

Perhaps our problem here is that you do not understand the meaning of the word "conspiracy."

The legal dictionary definition of a "conspiracy" is:

"When people work together by agreement to commit an illegal act."

An example of that would be your belief that the attack anthrax of 2001 was created via some supersophisticated process that could only be part of some secret and illegal bioweapons program. Or, as Francis Boyle put it:

the culprits are US government related scientists involved in a criminal US government biowarfare program that violated both the BWC and US domestic legislation implementing the same.

While you avoid using the word "conspire," you endlessly theorize that respected scientists, FBI agents and other agencies have conspired to mislead the American people about coatings on the anthrax spores. Whether you use the word or not, that makes you a "conspiracy theorist."

When you call me a conspiracy theorist, you just blather on about your belief that the FBI and many others are being misled by some "madman." That doesn't make me a conspiracy theorist. That makes you a nut case.

I'm saying what the facts say: The spores were NOT coated with silica. And, except for lab contamination, the spores were "pure spores," just as General Parker stated repeatedly. There was no illegal act by anyone except the anthrax mailer.

Understand?

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

not much different from Barbara Hatch Rosenberg.

I exchanged emails with Boyle, and he recommended that I believe as Rosenberg believes. He seems to have totally accepted her beliefs. But he also goes many bizarre steps further.

On my web site I discussed him back on December 21, 2006, when I wrote:

I've said before that, when you get far enough away from reality, it's hard to tell the difference between the Radical Right and the Lunatic Left. One conspiracy theorist on the far far Left is currently making his beliefs known to anyone who will listen. This is from today's Free Market News:

Dr. Francis A Boyle, a professor of international law at the University of Illinois-Champaign, and the man who wrote the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, is convinced that "9/11 was allowed to happen, the war on terror is facilitating the downfall of The Republic, and concentration camps are in place, with U.S. citizens as the targets." He also reportedly declared, during an appearance on the Alex Jones program, that the purpose of the anthrax attack was "to foment a police state by killing off opposition to hardline post-9/11 legislation."

The title of the article is: "BOYLE: FEDS WERE BEHIND ANTHRAX ATTACKS."

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

"While you avoid using the word "conspire," you endlessly theorize that respected scientists, FBI agents and other agencies have conspired to mislead the American people about coatings on the anthrax spores."

Hardly. I just state facts. Ari's book clearly communicates Ari's assertion that SILICA was found as an additive despite your perverted twisting of how it is written.

And Meselson's manipulations as a reviewer of Beecher's paper pales into insignificance compared with his DOCUMENTED manipulations of the media over Sverdlovsk. Do we need to cite ALL of your buddy Matthwew's gross scientific misconduct all over again?

If Meselson can fool the media for 10 years after >100 inhalational anthrax deaths he can certainly fool them for longer after 5 deaths from inhalational anthrax.

Are you denying that Meselson was able to fool the media for 10 years over Sverdlovsk? Are you saying the exerept below is a lie? Have you actually read Plague Wars? Or do you only read books that you WANT to believe?

CHAPTER NINE Incident at Sverdlovsk
Page 76:

The Soviets now went to extraordinary lengths to buttress their lies and make them supportable and credible worldwide. What had begun as a local cover-up in Sverdlovsk, now became an international fairy tale, a fiction of breathtaking audacity.

Page 77:

Throughout the rest of the 1980s, Matthew Meselson, a respected Harvard professor of microbiology and longtime arms control activist, unwittingly helped the Soviet caravan of deception and disinformation gain acceptance in the West.
Meselson emerged as the leading scientific expert to oppose his own government's interpretation of Sverdlovsk in favour of the Soviets' old tainted-meat cover-up. He defended the Soviets' case publicly and doubtless from the most honest of beliefs. President Reagan was now in the White House and, no matter how forcefully his administration complained about Sverdlovsk, Meselson remained utterly convinced that there had been an accident with bad meat and it had nothing to do with any secret biological weapons plant.
.........
With his well-deserved and impressive academic/scientific credentials, his views were usually sought and carefully listened to. He also became an important figure for the US media to consult. His opinions about Sverdlovsk were widely quoted in the serious press, books, and prestigious scientific journals. The record shows that after 1980 his publicly stated views on Sverdlovsk broadly agreed with the explanations issued by the Soviets themselves.

Page 81:

But the guilty involvement reached even higher. Next, it emerged that Boris Yelstin himself also must have known about the cover-up. In May 1992, Yeltsin's new Russian government formally acknowledged what was now well known, but still had no official imprimatur. The man who had been the powerful communist party chief of the Sverdlovsk region in 1979 was none other than President Boris Yeltsin. He now admitted that the outbreak had been caused by an accident at the biological weapons facility, and not by natural causes. This presumably correct version became the official position of the Russian government, and remains so to this day.
Meselson, however, remained unfazed. In the face of Yeltsin's admission and the Russian and US press disclosures, the professor assembled a team of expert American scientists and went with them to Sverdlovsk in June 1992 to see for himself. They interviewed two outstanding Sverdlovsk doctors Faina Abramova and Lev Grinberg who participated in the 1979 autopsies at Hospital 40. For thirteen years, these brave pathologists had secretly hidden incontrovertible medial evidence from the KGB including preserved tissue samples, slides, and autopsy reports which proved that the victims had died from breathing in the anthrax.
Meselson later claimed that he and his team had made the discovery of the new truth from these important witnesses, but again, the facts were against him. The two Russian doctors had previously spoken to Soviet reporters and the Wall Street Journal, so Meselson was simply taking credit for being the final arbiter who had authenticated the evidence.
After making a second trip to Sverdlovsk, Mesleson finally published his results in 1994 in the journal Science; the article accepted that the tainted-meat story was bogus. But, perversely, he still would not admit that the US government had been right for fifteen years, or that he had been wrong. Rather, he trumpeted the fact that he anf his team had finally uncovered the "defenitive proof" that the true cause of the outbreak was pulmonary anthrax. "This should end the argument about where the outbreak came from," Meselson somewhat pompously told the New York Times "Right up until now, people have still been debating the matter."
Yet, to the bitter end, Meselson still clung to a benign interpretation of Soviet motives. He noted that the cause of the accident was still not determined, which implied that it may have involved only a Soviet research centre, one for finding an antidote to an anthrax attack, and not a military production centre for biological weapons. By clinging to this position, he could still argue that the Soviets were not violating the BWC, but were conducting permissable research under the treaty.

It’s not the case that he totally accepted BHR’s beliefs. They arrived at their bioevangelist theory independently, and then you followed suit the next month.

The order that Professor Rosenberg, Ed, and Professor Boyle arrived at their “bioevangelist”/anthrax-was-to-help-pass-the-Patriot-Act theory is as follows:

Boyle
Rosenberg
Lake

But it’s basically the same sound-the-alarm theory. They should have a group hug.

After describing how he decided it was by a US-biodefense insider when he read the late October press about its sophistication, Professor Boyle explains the timeline:

“This was just before I ran the CRG workshop at Harvard on Biowarfare the first weekend in November. There my colleague Jonathan King, Professor of Microbiology at MIT and the head of their electron-microscope lab, publicly stated the same exact conclusion independently of me. He had reached the exact same conclusion that I had. Likewise Dr. Barbara Rosenberg who is now with the Federation of American Scientists, independent of both King and me later reached the exact same conclusion: that whoever did this was working for the United States government now, in the Pentagon or the CIA or had in the immediate past, and must have had access to a U.S. biowarfare lab. I was interviewed on FOX, I was interviewed on BBC World Service and I was interviewed on Pacific Network in Washington DC.”

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:NutdU3c7OacJ:www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/biowar101.html+%22Francis+Boyle%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=12&gl=us

In an April 2002 lecture he explained:

“I believe the FBI knows exactly who was behind this attack and they have probably concluded that yes, it was someone who was currently involved in illegal and criminal biological warfare research by the United States government. Either the Pentagon or the CIA or one of their private contractors. And for that reason they are not going to apprehend and they are not going to indict him because obviously he would spill the beans on the whole thing and implicate the Pentagon, CIA, whoever is behind this. So this is where we are today, where the FBI says we are working on it, but of course, that is ridiculous.”

So, ironically, he’s right about access to know-how — just wrong in his speculation about motive.

In an earlier post or two, I had spelled Professor Boyle’s name wrong. First name is Francis. Apologies.

Do we need to cite ALL of your buddy Matthwew's gross scientific misconduct all over again?

Actually, the question is: Why do you keep going off the subject to attack Professor Meselson when we're talking about the anthrax attacks of 2001? Is it because you cannot discuss any subject without launching into personal attacks on people you hate?

People who have seen the Daschle anthrax powder have stated over and over and over that the powder was "pure spores." No one SAW any additives when the Daschle anthrax was viewed under a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). (The mysterious "goop" Geisbert saw oozing out of the spores occurred when he turned up the power on a much more powerful Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), heating up the spores and causing chemicals used to kill the spores to ooze out.)

Matthew Meselson was just one of the people who stated that he saw no silica in photos of the Daschle anthrax. Do you believe he somehow cast as spell on all the others?

Are you really so filled with hate that you believe that Meselson somehow brainwashed General Parker into saying the powder was "pure spores" -- even though Parker said it long before Meselson became involved?

Are you really so filled with hate that you somehow believe that when Tom Geisbert provided Richard Preston with a photo of a "reference sample of pure anthrax spores similar in character to the weapons-grade 'skull-anthrax' in the Daschle letter" that he was somehow under some long-distance spell cast by Professor Meselson? Here is that image:

Are you really so filled with hate that you somehow believe that when the book "Microbial Forensics" printed pictures of what coated spores look like they were under some spell cast by Mesleson to mislead the world?

Here's what spores coated with silica look like:

Are you really so filled with hate that you believe that people viewing the Daschle anthrax under an SEM saw coated spores like those in the above picture but were somehow made to believe by Meselson's spell that they saw "pure spores" like those in Geisbert's reference sample?

Can't you see that your belief about coated spores is nothing more than a belief?

You never look at the facts. You just pick out words and phrases that fit your beliefs, often from reports which have long ago been shown to be false. And then you twist everything to try to make it seem like support for your beliefs.

Is it really so hard to understand that when Geisbert used the TEM to view the spores killed with chemicals and saw "goop" oozing out of the spores, he was seeing the chemicals he used to kill the spores? He saw nothing oozing out of the spores when he viewed spores killed with radiation. Why is that?

Is it really so hard to understand that when AFIP examined DRY spores under an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (an instrument used to detect the presence of otherwise-unseen chemicals through characteristic wavelengths of X-ray light), they simply assumed that the presence of the elements of silicon and oxygen meant that it was in the form of silica? If they had actually SEEN silica, wouldn't they have described what it looked like?

If you would just look at ALL the facts instead of just picking out only those which you can fit to your beliefs, you'd see that what you believe about the Daschle spores being coated with silica is absolute and total nonsense.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

Professor Boyle explains the timeline

Ah! At last you post something worth reading. Thank you!

But it’s basically the same sound-the-alarm theory.

Hardly. Boyle is saying the purpose of the anthrax attack was "to foment a police state by killing off opposition to hardline post-9/11 legislation."

That's not even remotely similar to saying the attacks were made by a private citizen who feared that Muslims terrorists living around him could launch a bioweapons attack at any moment.

Ed at www.anthraxinvestigation.com

Why do you keep going off the subject to attack Professor Meselson when we're talking about the anthrax attacks of 2001?

That would be because any time knowledgeable government investigator's annouce the result that silica was found and it's purpose was to create an aersolizable product Meselson is ALWAYS there to pretend to the press that he knows better than they do.
A better question is why do YOU consistently FAIL TO ACKNOWLEDGE that Meselson manipulated the entire western media for more than a decaade over Sverdlovsk?
Do you deny that your bum-chum Meselson did this? Or are you too afraid to face the facts?
Do you deny that he made error after error in investigating BW incidents over 20 years? Do you remember Yellow Rain? Operation Tailwind? Do I need to post yet ANOTHER reminder here on this forum? Haven't you already humiliated your idol enough in public? Do we need to dredge up all these embarrassing details yet again?

By all means, compare his book to your BWCC page and tell me how they differ.

In the 139 page book, his analysis in Chapter 6. He reasons Al Qaeda could not be responsible because the guy coming from Kandahar in June 2001 with a leg lesion didn’t have the skills to weaponize anthrax. (See also April 2002 lecture online) Given that Professor B’s mission is political advocacy, not catching the bad guys, even five years later, he has found no cause for closer consideration. His close working ally, Sherwood, trots the argument from 2002 and sends it out at regular intervals. The pair nowhere address: the seizure of pre-911 anthrax in Kandahar, the seizure of the anthrax packets in 2007 claimed by the Afghan governor, the anthrax weaponization documents on al-Hawsawi’s computer (seized upon KSM’s capture), the documents provided by DIA about Ayman’s weaponization program, the infiltration of the UK biodefense establishment by a scientist working for Ayman Zawahiri, Al-Timimi’s high security clearance and access to cutting edge weaponization know-how and the most diverse biological collection in the world, or the content of the intercepts between Egyptian Islamic Group and Egyptian Islamic Jihad leaders. Because they are on a political mission. His other ally in the impeachment effort, the distinguished former US Attorney Ramsey Clark, represents Sheik Abdel-Rahman, the very fellow whose detention motivated the anthrax mailings.

Ed doesn’t address these issues because he has no answer. He sticks to his argument that the letters were written by a First Grader — see his block lettering argument.

Now all this would be fine — and it is wonderful that war criminals get the best minds like Ramsey Clark to defend them and we have Ed policing the playgrounds of America — except here the anthrax letters threaten an aerosolized anthrax attack on NYC and Washington, D.C. and the facts in no way support Professor Boyle’s or Ed’s theory. Only Professor Boyle’s political world view does. And Ed just adopted BHR’s theory who adopted Boyle’s theory — and then was pissed she didn’t suspect a guy from Wisconsin Brian Ross butchered a story about.

Rather than fusing a moralistic approach with legal advocacy, in this context Professor Boyle merely has supplanted leftist political advocacy for true crime analysis. Much like Justin Raimondo has done with his bonehead stupid Zack theory. The antiwar effort might have gained traction if it was based on a more solid and reasoned analysis of the evidence — whether relating to Niger and uranium, Atta and Prague, or Al-Timimi and anthrax. Kneejerk partisanship leads to muddy or superficial thinking. By way of example, to say “there was no connection” between AQ and Iraq is just wrong. Just flat out wrong. It’s when you get into the facts that you realize that the Salafists in Iraq may have been infiltrated by an Iraqi agent (Wael) but there was no collaborative relationship between Ayman/OBL and Saddam. At least no evidence of one.

A few days after 9/11, Professor Boyle was debating with Bill O’Reilly whether there was legal authority for the US to take action given that Bin Laden was merely a “suspect” in the attacks. What’s his argument going to be after the next 9/11 — if he continues to address the facts of the crime and seeks to pass off political advocacy as true crime analysis? He either needs to address the facts or sit quietly in the back of the classroom. Too much is at stake to get the facts wrong — or to put your head in the sand about those facts like Ed does. He hasn’t attempt to address an Al Qaeda theory since he divined that the hijackers were “dead, dead, dead” and thus AQ could not possibly be responsible or else the FBI would be talking about other operatives. Well... memo to Ed: the FBI is talking about them. Just read the indictments and BOLO alerts.

In light of this week’s news about the FBI wiretapping King’s widow some years after MLK’s death, it worth noting while US Attorney General, Ramsey Clark got into a famous showdown with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover when he attempted to block the Director’s wiretaps of MLK. Hoover ordered the wiretaps anyway without AG Clark’s approval. After he left the Administration, Ramsey Clark became counsel for anti-war protestor Philip Berrigan. I once was prowling around the FBI’s FOIA office in DC looking for fun stuff and came across a thick file on the Berrigans. I called up Philip’s sister-in-law, a close family friend, and asked if she wanted a copy. She said she wouldn’t bother to dignify what the FBI did. The Berrigans would be over to visit and would have to go down the street to use the pay phone to avoid a wiretap. Then the 80s saw Ramsey globetrotting with the likes of Qadaffi and representing Lyndon LaRouche back at home. In 1990, he accepted invitation to the National Coalition to Stop US Intervention in the Middle East by members of an orthodox Stalinist sect, the Workers World Party (WWP) He’s represented PLO leaders — just as Professor Boyle has been a legal advisor to the PLO. Most recently, he defended Saddam.

But when it comes to who sent an anthrax threat using potent anthrax, park your goddamn politics at the door and roll up your sleeves and study the facts. Ed is still stuck on silica and the writing of first graders — as if the couple dozen FBI agents have taken up knitting in the past half decade while he parses Ari Fleischer’s and General Parker’s comments for the 100th time.

Under one view of things, Professor Rosenberg just followed the lead of a lawyer advocating on behalf of the militant islamists. It’s just damn lucky the FBI recovered from the fog that enveloped it in 2002 due to political pressure. Although the Washington Post repeatedly has had some great reporting, by and large, on anthrax the media has been lame and is now gun shy due to the Hatfill litigation.

Amerithrax is actually related to a complex web of prosecutions, arrests and renditions and the FBI and CIA are taking no prisoners.

Okay, they are taking quite a few. Let’s hope they are well-represented and their civil liberties protected.