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UC Berkeley Scientist Says Al Qaeda Sent Anthrax Letters
daily californian ^ | 4/24/02

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.


TOPICS: Anthrax Scare; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: alqaeda; anthrax; anthraxscarelist; berkley; hijackers; injury; wmd
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To: okie01;nogbad;boris
"Being published in a college newspaper, this story is a dead end and will go nowhere. "

This is not just any college, this is MIT. My question is why did Muller, professor at Berkeley, write to the MIT newspaper (magazine, actually)? Note there is no Richard Muller who is in alumnus of MIT. Second question, why did the Tech Review print his letter?

61 posted on 04/25/2002 11:14:43 AM PDT by Tymesup
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To: Fred Mertz; ALOHA RONNIE
Thanks for the heads ups!
62 posted on 04/25/2002 11:16:26 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Mitchell
I agree with your observation that the best fit for who had the most to gain from an anthrax warning is Iraq, for military deterrence. I also agree that they have the most at risk (most likely target of our national wrath) and are the greatest threat, via WMDs.
63 posted on 04/25/2002 11:24:31 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Nogbad
Thanks for the heads up!
64 posted on 04/25/2002 11:28:27 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Nogbad
I agree that al Queda was involved in the anthrax attacks - but IMHO, they were the designated frontmen for Iraq. It would make sense because al Queda had the cells, the pentration, but Iraq had the biotechnology. And we know they networked with one another...
65 posted on 04/25/2002 11:33:40 AM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: bluefish
Too many people here on FR believe that everything disseminated through the news media is the administration's true stance and all behind the scenes activity is based on those "public" statements. It is as if nobody recalls some basic diplomacy or disinformation crap.

Bingo! As I've been saying for a while, sometimes diplomacy consists of saying "nice doggie!" to a snarling mongrel, whilst looking for a rock. I suspect we're building/preparing some really nice rocks.

66 posted on 04/25/2002 12:14:07 PM PDT by FreedomPoster
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To: Tymesup; okie01; boris
"Being published in a college newspaper,
this story is a dead end and will go nowhere. "

Technology Review is not a college newspaper,
it is a high quality, 'slick' magazine,
much more interesting than, for example,
Scientific American.

It is sent automatically to all MIT alumni,
who generally tend to be very important people,
(myself excluded).

67 posted on 04/25/2002 12:43:19 PM PDT by Nogbad
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To: Tymesup; okie01; boris
Second point:

Second question, why did the Tech Review print his letter?

It is not a letter, it is an ARTICLE.

Why does any magazine print any article??

This is not the first article Muller has written
for Technology Review,
he did an earlier one on Crop-Dusters.

68 posted on 04/25/2002 12:52:18 PM PDT by Nogbad
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To: Nogbad
They told me if I donated to the alumni fund, I would get the magazine for free.
69 posted on 04/25/2002 12:53:29 PM PDT by Tymesup
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To: Tymesup
Well I never donated anything
and I get it all the same.

How did that happen?

70 posted on 04/25/2002 1:01:33 PM PDT by Nogbad
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To: Nogbad
Sounds like one of us got taken.
71 posted on 04/25/2002 1:12:41 PM PDT by Tymesup
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To: piasa
I agree with your assessment about the election fiasco -- but I think that explains the timing of the attacks (both 9/11 and anthrax), but not the targets.

If you go on the theory that Atta and friends were also responsible for the Anthrax, directly or indirectly, then look at the political headlines of last year, while these terrorists were hatching their plot within our borders. You'll notice that Daschle and Leahy had attained prominence in the media. The press was talking about Dashchle as having emerged as "a leader," and, of course, Leahy achieved fame during the Ashcroft hearings. (Let's face it, the Republicans don't exactly have any exciting members in Congress). The news networks chosen could simply be those these guys watched most, or thought most Americans watched most, and the New York Post, for a long time, has been considered pro-Jewish.

The American Media anthrax can also be explained by association -- the paper is sold all over the place, and their dealings with the real-estate agent wife of an AMI bigwig (and their contempt for women) quite probably sealed that target.

72 posted on 04/25/2002 1:31:52 PM PDT by browardchad
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To: browardchad; Mitchell; Alamo-Girl
The question why Daschle and Leahy.

Lets reverse the situation.

Suppose I were to go to Egypt
and plot a terrorist attack against some politicians.
It is a common theme of all the terrorist profiles
that they spoke English badly.
So suppose I had a rudimentary knowledge of Arabic.
Other than Mubarak,
I do not know the names of any prominent Egyptian politicians.
What do I do?
I pick up a copy of Al-Ahram,
look on the front page,
look for a political story, at random,
and write down the names of a couple politicians
mentioned in the article.
I would not know nor care what their political affiliations were.
I'd just look up their addresses
and send anthrax laced letters to them.

I do not know why everyone assumes
the author of the letters had a sophisticated knowledge
of American politics
and chose the targets on that basis.
I think the terrorists neither knew nor cared about anything like that.

73 posted on 04/25/2002 1:51:16 PM PDT by Nogbad
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To: Nogbad
Great analysis! The lack of a pattern points away from knowledgeable citizens, IMHO.
74 posted on 04/25/2002 2:13:30 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: Nogbad
Exactly -- whoever was plastered all over the media at the time. Not complicated, not some right-wing nut -- just foreigners who want to get the most publicity bang for the buck.
75 posted on 04/25/2002 3:12:43 PM PDT by browardchad
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To: knak
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?

That isn't exactly what I think occurred. It appears to me that the anthrax mailings were a military deterrent -- a warning to the United States by some foreign power not to engage in certain types of military actions under threat of reprisal.

I don't think the intent was to cause mass hysteria. (They had something like a million lethal doses of anthrax, if it could have been delivered differently. Even realizing that one couldn't really kill one million people with such a quantity, because of the delivery problem, surely they could think of a better way of causing mass hysteria than mailing one million doses in half a dozen envelopes.)

The purpose of the warnings wasn't really to warn the recipients -- I don't think the sender cared about those few individuals one way or the other. Nobody sends anthrax in the mail if they're unwilling to kill. On the other hand, the purpose wasn't specifically to kill (or the anthrax would have been released very differently).

The warning message basically was: "We have weaponized anthrax. We're willing to use it. And we're able to use it, because the anthrax is in the U.S. and we have agents in the U.S. Think of it as analogous to a nuclear deterrent. Don't attack us with weapons of mass destruction or otherwise threaten to bring down our government."

I think the message is probably from Iraq, based on world events, but that's just an educated guess -- it wouldn't surprise me terribly if it were from Iran, or from China, or from some other country, or from a loose alliance (an "axis of evil"). I'm sure that the U.S. government knows who sent it, because the sender would have made sure of that (since the deterrence doesn't work without us knowing the sender). [Remember Dr. Strangelove and the Doomsday Machine that the Russians hadn't announced yet? It doesn't work without the other side knowing you have it -- and believing that you're able and willing to use it.]

In summary, what happened is that somebody (Saddam Hussein?) realized that they had a non-nuclear weapon that might work as a deterrent against the use of nuclear weapons. And they're challenging us to see what we'll do about it (and to see what we can do about it).

Of course I'm not 100% sure about this. But I see no other explanation that's consistent with all the evidence.

76 posted on 04/25/2002 3:42:21 PM PDT by Mitchell
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To: harpseal
One government motive would concern the liability issues arising out of an act of war. If the anthrax attacks can be passed off as the act of a deranged individual, that's one thing. If, on the other hand, they are an act of war, that's yet another.

Some well meaning but otherwise infinitely stupid individual over at FBI may have nothing more than that in mind.

The Justice Department and it's subordinate agencies have more than their fair share of such people.

77 posted on 04/25/2002 3:54:23 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: muawiyah
Somehow I think there is more than one reason for this position. Politics may well have a lot to do with it.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

78 posted on 04/25/2002 4:09:17 PM PDT by harpseal
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To: Alamo-Girl
I agree with your observation that the best fit for who had the most to gain from an anthrax warning is Iraq, for military deterrence. I also agree that they have the most at risk (most likely target of our national wrath) and are the greatest threat, via WMDs.

In the long run, I think China is a much greater threat. But for now Iraq is probably the immediate and direct concern.

79 posted on 04/25/2002 4:35:42 PM PDT by Mitchell
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To: Alamo-Girl; Mitchell
??...Does the U.N. have advanced 'high tech' science labs...??
80 posted on 04/25/2002 4:39:15 PM PDT by maestro
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