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To: Mitchell; Nogbad; EternalHope; Dark Wing; Sabertooth; cicero's_son
for discussion
3 posted on 08/04/2002 2:29:34 AM PDT by The Great Satan
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To: The Great Satan; Nogbad; keri; okie01; Shermy; BlackVeil; muawiyah; aristeides; Alamo-Girl; ...
I generally agree with your assessment. I'll add a couple of points.

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There is a new, seemingly technical, but very important report. An August 3, 2002, Washington Post article hints that there are small genetic differences between the anthrax mailed to Sen. Leahy and the anthrax mailed to AMI in Florida. (It's the Washington Post, so I won't post a quotation -- click on the link, search for Leahy, and read that paragraph and the following paragraph.)

Why is this important? Because it suggests that someone somewhere has cultured large vats of anthrax over substantial periods of time (otherwise genetic variation is unlikely to have emerged). This is very unlikely to have been the result of a lone domestic terrorist; the time required makes it impossible to do this through surreptitious use of a domestic lab, and it also is very unlikely that somebody could have maintained an in-home lab for that period of time, without any instances of contamination -- and without being discovered at all.

You may recall the differential symptomatology associated with the different mailings that I pointed out some time ago. The Washington Post article hints at confirmation of what I suspected at the time, that there is a genetic basis for at least some of the observed differences.

So the likely conclusion is that the anthrax was developed abroad, with state sponsorship, and the biowarfare program underlying it is substantial and long-standing.

This report is in line with the growing acknowledgment of the Prague meeting; the ducks are being placed in a row.

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Switching gears, there is one thing that I find curious in terms of the geopolitical analysis of the situation. What is the role of Pakistan (or Pakistanis) in this affair? While pointing to Iraq makes logical sense, virtually all the people detained in connection with the anthrax mailings were Pakistani, and Pakistani nuclear scientists are known to have been discussing anthrax bombs and the like. (And, for that matter, how does al-Qaeda, or radical Islam in general, fit in? But Pakistan is the key question.)

7 posted on 08/04/2002 3:04:32 AM PDT by Mitchell
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