Posted on 04/24/2002 8:51:24 PM PDT by knak
Physicists 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 hijackingsbreak 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 successin this case a high death tollbecomes 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.
But the question still remains: why target the Democrats when they could count on their incompetence, corruption and complicency in things that hurt America?UBL also has/had a big hair across his ass about the U.N. If only he would have limited himself to that target. If you can figure out what pisses him off and why, let me know.
Don't quit your day job.
An easy example to contradict your claim (and I have several such examples) would be tickets. A savvy attack would have sent priority Fedex packages with airline, football, baseball, opera, or whatever appropriate tickets were required, along with a campaign donation and a note that so-n-so would love to see the good politician at such an event some day, and the quantity of powder would have been so small that the human eye wouldn't have detected it.
The CONTRAST here, as pointed out above, is that we have weapons-grade anthrax with grade-school delivery techniques (regular mail, so much powder that the eye could see it, and a letter that declared its presence), providing a strong hint that two entirely different entities were involved, such as a sophisticated state sponsor combined with an average-intelligence grunt.
Yes, they did look at crop-dusters and apparently abandoned the idea.There is STILL a State Department (DEA) amored(!) Ayers crop duster, specially fitted out so it can be flown long distances gone missing. Given the patience and lead times dovoted to other attacks, it would be a mistake to go to sleep on this.
It could be seen as a "warning shot" to let our intelligence agencies and NSC know that our enemies have "weaponized" anthrax.
The point being: if our enemies can make grams, they may have kilograms or tons of it. It could even already have been smuggled into the USA in an anonymous cargo container.
A hundred one kilogram glass jars of weaponized anthrax given to ten Iraqi or Al Qaida agents could spread absolute havoc and kill thousands if thrown at the same time on subway tracks in the ten largest US cities. The symptoms would all "present" at the same time, making it very widespread and the medical treatment window for all the possibly exposed (millions of subway riders) very short.
The ten largest American cities would have to be virtually shut down for days or weeks while the danger was analyzed and decontamination was done.
One thing for sure: if the NSC has received such a warning, they would NOT tell us.
But if a WMD attack does occur....
Huh? Please read my above post. You cannot discount the possibility it was a "warning shot" to prove that our enemies have weaponized anthrax. If they can make a gram, they can make a ton.
EXACTLY. Atta got a "free sample" from the Iraqi intelligence chief in Prague is my guess. He sure was DESPERATE to make it to Prague, left the USA and risked refusal of re entry on an expored visa, made several attempts to get into the Czeckos Republic from Germany etc.
Why go to all that trouble for mere information, which could be sent via the internet or a courier?
Because he had to receive something physical and tangible there, like a tiny flask of weaponized anthrax spores?
All very good points.
I also found it interesting when we publicly announced that Iran, Iraq, Libya, and North Korea are now on the nuclear target list.
To me, that means if a terrorist nuke goes off in the U.S., then Iran, Iraq, Libya, and North Korea can anticipate seeing some very bright lights in their capitol cities.
I wonder what word they circulated to their terrorist surrogates as a result.
You are missing the point. The amount of anthrax required to kill off an entire building is invisible to the naked eye. A secretary would pass a fedex donation with baseball tickets and a contributor note to her boss, not even seeing the white powder (if it was a savvy attack). Even Mr. Big needs to hold his own tickets when entering an event.
The CONTRAST here is between the sophisticated, weaponized anthrax and the unsophisticated, amatuer delivery. Clearly the terrorists thought that a large-enough amount of anthrax would be unstoppable. They simply didn't have the education to know that their success ratio would have improved by using smaller quantities (too small to see) combined with savvy delivery techniques. Regular mail is too far down the chain. Registered-receipt mail would have gotten closer. Fed-Ex, closer still. Of course, the delivery method is only going to get so close. After that, the content of the package has to look important enough to make it to Mr. Big.
Considering how much the previous White House ordered in Pizza, we can probably be glad that the terrorists didn't infiltrate the pizza delivery system effectively enough to dust them with powder (but not enough to be visible).
But again, the contrast here is between the powder and the delivery method, making it very likely that two different entities were involved (one sophisticated and rich, the other not).
Because he had to receive something physical and tangible there, like a tiny flask of weaponized anthrax spores?"
Precisely. Atta was good to go for his suicide ride because he knew that he was dieing anyway, from anthrax.
The attack on the Florida tabloid within 1 mile of Atta's apartment, Atta's doctor visit for his "infection", his death wish, the delivery method, and the striking contrast between that and the sophisticated anthrax all point towards a state sponsor, and we now know from smashing Afghanistan that the anthrax wasn't made there, which points us back to Atta's meeting in Prague with Iraqi intelligence.
Iraq and Iran have both been caught by Israel smuggling weapons in to Arafat, and that ties in Arafat's 30 year old Black September hijackers (and their expertise) to the 9/11 attack as well.
Under what circumstance do you think someone would place warnings in the letters? Just curious what you think. I think someone wanting to cause mass hysteria. Which I could also attribute to Saddam more than I would al-qaeda. Is this your opinion too?
I note in the situation you describe there would be a huge number of delayed infections because the chances of detecting such an attack immediately or even in the first 48 hours are miniscule. If we as a nation did not detect the attack until the first symptoms presented themselves in some patients then we could wind up with millions dead. Further, the mass use of antibiotics and vacines would be necessary for those who may have been exposed before the discovery is made.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
I am not sure we have an argument here, but I suspect if you want to get to a US Senator in a less than secure state, he or she is not eating pizza. I can't address Leahy because that bad boy looks like he ate all of 'em!
No one yet has discounted my one kilo jar to subway delivery system. It might or might not kill many thousands or more, but it would certainly be an economic bomb at the least, shutting down our major cities for an extended period.
Folks smart enough to conceive of and pull off 9-11 can do the subway attack even more easily, IF they are given the 100 one kilo jars of anthrax by a state sponsor.
And we know from the WOD the odds of stopping a 100 kilo shipment into the USA is about nil.
They probably did not see this article and run out to get the spores. They must have had the anthrax before September 1. Perhaps the article gave them the idea how to disperse it.
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