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If we don’t learn from history we are doomed to repeated it. So we can either uncritically read the press releases such as the report in the AP yesterday about tracking biological scientists by satellite, or we can check out books such as Zegart’s new book SPYING BLIND (Princeton University Press), and realize that the FBI has not yet demonstrated that it is not still trapped by the credo, “Real men don’t type.” Condi Rice was the author’s thesis advisor. It explores the systemic institutional problems that underlie the personal failures that the media finds it easier to grasp and describe.

The August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief (”PDB”) to the President Bush explained that Bin Laden planned to hijack some aircraft as part of an effort to free the blind sheik. A little noticed December 5, 1998 PDB to the same effect to President Clinton, however — declassified and included in the 911 Commission Report — said that the attacks were being planned by the brother of Sadat’s assassin, Mohammed Islambouli. The anthrax was sent on the date of Sadat’s assassination and the date the Camp David Accords (the reason Sadat was killed) were approved. Islambouli was in a cell with Khalid Mohammed (”KSM”), who would come to lead the cell planning anthrax attacks in the United States.

None of this should have come as a surprise. On July 4, 1993, United States Postal employee Ahmed Abdel Sattar spoke to the press about Abdel Rahman’s arrest and said “we haven’t decided the time or place, but our Muslim community will demonstrate its outrage at the arrest of the Sheik.” In the indictment of the Staten Island Post Office employee who worshipped in Brooklyn, the United States government alleged that following his arrest, Abdel Rahman, in a message to his followers recorded while he was in prison, urged: “Oh Muslims! Oh Muslims! ... It is a duty upon all the Muslims around the world to free the Sheikh, and to rescue him from his jail.” Referring to the United States, he implored, “Muslims everywhere, dismember their nation, tear them apart, ruin their economy, provoke their corporations, destroy their embassies, attack their interests, sink their ships, and shoot down their planes, kill them on land, at sea, and in the air. Kill them wherever you find them.” His list is a pretty concise summary of the terrorist actions taken over the next decade.

The tactic of lethal letters delivered by the US Post Office — although not mentioned in this list by Abdel-Rahman - - was not merely the modus operandi of the militant islamists inspired by Abdel-Rahman, it was their signature. The islamists sent letter bombs in late December 1996 from Alexandria, Egypt to newspaper offices in New York City and Washington, D.C. and people in symbolic positions. Musical Christmas cards apparently postmarked in Alexandria, Egypt on December 21, 1996 contained improvised explosive devices. The bombs were mailed on the Night of Decree or Night of Measures. The letters were sent in connection with the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center and the imprisonment of the blind sheik, Sheik Abdel Rahman. The former leader of the Egyptian Al-Gamaa al-Islamiya (”Islamic Group”), Abdel-Rahman was also a spiritual leader of Al Qaeda.

The letter bombs were sent in connection with the treatment of the Egyptian islamists imprisoned for the earlier attack on the WTC and a related plot. The purpose of the letter bombs — which resulted in minimal casualty — was to send a message. (There initially was an outstanding $2 million reward — under the rewards for justice program, the reward now is up to $5 million.) There was no claim of responsibility. There was no explanation. Once one had been received, the next ten, mailed on two separate dates, were easily collected. Sound familiar? Two bombs were also sent to Leavenworth, where a key WTC 1993 defendant was imprisoned, addressed to “Parole Officer.” (The position does not exist).

The FBI suspected the Vanguards of Conquest, a mysterious group led by Egyptian Islamic Jihad head Ayman Zawahiri. The group can be thought of as either the military wing of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad or perhaps just EIJ by another name. It is sometimes known as the New Jihad. Yassir Al-Sirri was the Egyptian Islamic Jihad/ Vanguards of Conquest publicist and worked out of his London-based home while on the public dole. Another group under suspicion for the mailings was the Egyptian Islamic Group. The blind sheik Abdel Rahman simultaneously was the spiritual leader of Al Qaeda, Egyptian Islamic Group and Egyptian Islamic Jihad/Vanguards of Conquest. The next month, on February 12, 1997, the Islamic Group, for its part, issued a statement: “The Islamic Group declares all American interests legitimate targets to its legitimate “jihad until the release of all prisoners, on top of whom is Abdel Rahman.”

Abdel-Rahman’s friend, Ayman Zawahiri, was head of Al Qaeda’s biochemical program. The blind sheik’s son. Mohammed was on Al Qaeda’s three- member WMD committee. In 1993, Ali Al-Timimi was scheduled to speak before the blind sheik’s son, Mohammed Abdel-Rahman at the first annual conference of Al-Timimi’s charity, Islamic Assembly of North America (”IANA”) along with the former EIJ member Gamal Sultan and the brother of Sayyid Qutb. After WTC 1993, the islamists had found it prudent to get a new fresh start at developing the Salafist infrastructure in the United States. In July and August 2001, Al-Timimi spoke in Toronto and London alongside “911 imam” Awlaki and unindicted WTC 1993 conspirator Bilal Philips.

Ali Al-Timimi became a microbiology grad student at George Mason University, and worked alongside the scientists at the DARPA-funded Center for Biodefense. The NIH just awarded a $25 million grant to work with BL-4 pathogens near the country’s capitol.

The more things change the more they stay the same.