Posted on 04/24/2002 8:51:24 PM PDT by knak
Physicist’s Theory Differs From Mainstream View
The United States government may still believe that whoever perpetrated the anthrax attacks last year is an American, but a UC Berkeley scientist vehemently disagrees.
Physics professor Richard Muller believes that the real culprit is none other than Al Qaeda. His ideas were published in the April 16 issue of MIT's Technology Review.
White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer said in a press briefing on Feb. 25 that that it appears that the anthrax mailings were not a foreign scheme.
"All indications are that the source of the anthrax is domestic," he said.
But according to Muller, the letter attacks follow a scenario set up by the previous airplane hijackings—break no laws, play it safe.
"The scenario is that these people have learned that if they try to do something complicated to the United States…they get caught," said Muller. "Then the FBI is going to infiltrate (them). They try to do things that are absolutely safe."
"When the anthrax hit, a week later, it was exactly in that scenario. This was just what we would expect from Al Qaeda. But it only killed four people. So people say, well, therefore it couldn't be Al Qaeda."
According to Muller, it is wrong when success—in this case a high death toll—becomes equated with intent.
"But (the attacks) failed. That's what people don't appreciate," Muller said. "They had a million lethal doses in these envelopes and they killed four people, total. Bin Laden isn't going to take credit for a failed attack."
"There was every reason for them to expect that the anthrax would kill thousands, because the information on how you spread anthrax is not widely available. What was widely available is the fact that a millionth of a gram is a lethal dose."
Reportedly, two grams of anthrax was in the letter sent to Sen. Patrick Leahy.
Muller asserted that even terrorists are not experts, and the greatest mistake they made during their quest to commit mass murder was believing everything they read.
A Sept. 1 study posted on the Internet by the Defence Research Establishment Suffield in Alberta, Canada suggested that envelope-borne anthrax spores could be aerosolized very effectively by the simple act of opening mail.
According to Muller, the study probably piqued the terrorists' interest, but, for a variety of reasons, most likely did not reflect the behavior of anthrax spores in the real world.
The question that remains is how a million spores did not kill at least hundreds of targeted U.S. leaders and media personalities.
According to UC Berkeley plant and microbial biology professor Antje Hofmeister, if Al Qaeda was the culprit, their dispersal method may have been the plan's fatal flaw.
To obtain a biologically effective anthrax, the spores need to be of a very narrow size range, she said.
"It's really, really challenging to get the right size," Hofmeister said.
The method of delivery could have caused sticking or other side-effects that could have altered its expected lethality, Hofmeister said.
Due to mostly circumstantial evidence in favor of it, Muller said that his opinion is shared by a scant few.
However, his argument may be gaining support from others.
An article published Monday in the political journal The Weekly Standard supports Muller's views, and carefully rebuts the government arguments.
David Tell, the author of the article, who is also the opinion editor of The Weekly Standard, remains just as skeptical as Muller.
"I've never been especially impressed by the FBI's apparent reasons for thinking it is a lone American," he said.
I expected brilliance, but what I got was a barely functional career bueracrat.
Put little faith in anything the FBI does.
If you have people willing to go on a suicide mission
unmanned craft are not necessary.
Aerosol spray cans will do the trick nicely.
Very interesting. I've never heard this before.
What I recall people saying was that standard-size nozzles wouldn't work well for anthrax, that it would take unusual (custom-made) nozzles to distribute the particles of anthrax spores. However, buying or making one's own nozzles wouldn't really be a very formidable task. (We're talking here about somebody willing to make the necessary investment to attack the United States of America. The cost of a few custom-made nozzles is insignificant.)
But I read in an article a while back that papers were found in Kabul about converting a pesticide into a nerve gas with the addition of ingredients. I thought this might have been what they were thinking when they scoped out the crop-dusters.
That's interesting. In the discussion about the similarity between Gulf War syndrome and the symptoms the anthrax survivors are experiencing, I mentioned the possibility that a chemical agent caused both. (The chemical weapon would hypothetically have been mixed with some of the anthrax powder in the case of the anthrax mailings, and would also have been used in the Gulf War.) This is pure speculation, of course. [There's no evidence for it except the vague similarity of symptoms. Iraq has used chemical weapons in the past, and the Palestinians use rat poison in their bombs, so it would fit the pattern. As of now, it's just a possibility to be aware of.]
I agree with these general views. If you have to pick a single country, Iraq is the most likely. But we really don't have enough evidence to say.
I do think that the motive is more than revenge. The attack on the U.S. is intended to have a long-term effect; it's a calculated bid for world power status. (Whoever did it, the 9/11 attack and the anthrax mailings were two prongs of one coordinated action; the connections between the hijackers and the anthrax mailings imply that, as does the timing.)
If I had to guess right now, my bet would be on a loose consortium or alliance of countries. I don't think Pres. Bush spoke about an "Axis of Evil" as some kind of broad generality or sweeping metaphor. He really doesn't use a lot of figures of speech; he's a very down-to-earth kind of person. So, taking this speech at face value, I suspect that the U.S. government has evidence that there is alliance of countries against us in this war.
Pres. Bush specifically named Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. If North Korea is there, so is China, at least behind the scenes; North Korea can't sneeze without China's approval. (Another way to look at this is that naming North Korea was the U.S. government's diplomatic approach to including China in the list without spelling it out.)
I don't know exactly what this means -- not how Iraq and Iran are now allied, nor the nature of China's hypothetical involvement. And I could easily be wrong on the identities of the enemy countries. These are just suspicions right now; time will tell.
I don't think this is anything that should suprise you. Its like a maker of 'balloons of mass destruction' conducting exercises dropping them from tall buildings. Comon sense limits you to certain delivery systems.
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