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.