Posted on 10/28/2002 4:16:38 AM PST by GailA
Even on a small scale, you still need containment.
Someone else has noticed.
Organizational vanity: The FBI, pop-psych profile in hand, is forcing the case to fit the profile. (profiles have media glamour, but are easily subjected to political forces)
CYA: They're covering for some yet-unknown, internal lapse or action.
That Iraq had the wherewithal to make the anthrax letters does not mean it is the guilty party. Still, the FBI's early dismissal of the possibility may have prematurely closed a legitimate line of inquiry.
"Iraq almost certainly had their anthrax spores in a powdered form," Spertzel said. "They had used silica gel to aid in dispersibility of [wheat] smut spores, and also indicated they were looking at it as a carrier for aflatoxin," a carcinogen.
In addition, we have discovered what the "mystery additive" was: fumed silicate.
The information in the full Washington Post article provides still circumstantial, but virtually conclusive, evidence that the anthrax came from Iraq. Plus, a strong suggestion that the White House knows it...
None of this is any surprise, of course. But it confirms what we've been thinking...
Bush administration officials have acknowledged that the anthrax attacks were an important motivator in the U.S. decision to confront Iraq, and several senior administration officials say today that they still strongly suspect a foreign source -- perhaps Iraq -- even though no one has publicly said so.That Iraq had the wherewithal to make the anthrax letters does not mean it is the guilty party. Still, the FBI's early dismissal of the possibility may have prematurely closed a legitimate line of inquiry.
"Iraq almost certainly had their anthrax spores in a powdered form," Spertzel said. "They had used silica gel to aid in dispersibility of [wheat] smut spores, and also indicated they were looking at it as a carrier for aflatoxin," a carcinogen.
In addition, we have discovered what the "mystery additive" was: fumed silicate.
The information in the full Washington Post article provides still circumstantial, but virtually conclusive, evidence that the anthrax came from Iraq. Plus, a strong suggestion that the White House knows it...
None of this is any surprise, of course. But it confirms what we've been thinking...
Some fumed silicas are extremely difficult to make, but at least two -- Aerosil and Cab-O-Sil -- are readily available and sold commercially in bulk. Either product, in theory, could be used to coat anthrax spores. Aerosil is based in Germany and Cab-O-Sil, in Boston. Both firms have offices around the world.Ken Alibek, a former deputy director of the Soviet bioweapons program now running an Alexandria biotechnology firm, said the Soviets used Aerosil in agent powders, and a classified Defense Department memo in 1991 said Iraq had "imported approximately 100 MT [metric tons] of Aerosil during the last 8-9 years." Spertzel said the United Nations reported in the 1990s that Iraq had 10 metric tons of Cab-O-Sil, probably destined for its chemical weapons program.
The United Nations also documented the presence of three Niro Inc. spray dryers in Iraq in the 1990s. Spertzel said two were destroyed, and the third was scoured and sterilized before inspectors could examine it.
My three paragraphs and your three paragraphs kinda tell the story, don't they? And it's a whole different story than either of the headlines from The Commercial Appeal or the Washington Post (FBI's Theory on Anthrax Is Doubted).
Methinks, perhaps, it would be a good idea for somebody to put up a thread with the Washington Post article...
Do I hear a volunteer...???
I recall a report that the investigators subjected the Leahy sample to carbon 14 dating and found it to be less than two years old. That would seem to be further evidence that it came from neither the American nor the Soviet stash ...
Thanks, I missed that one.
Here's a link to the translation of a Cuban page on a simple, harmless oral vaccine... note its use of Aerosil in manufacture of the dust form.
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://www.cuba.cu/publicaciones/documentos/sintefarma/sf97_2_4.htm&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522aerosil%2522%2Bcuba%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8
While Iraq is certainly capable and motivated, Cuba is, too. We know very little about their program, or where Cuba really does spend its money, much less than we know about Iraq. Clearly the island isn't spending any on its people other than its incredibly devoted efforts in its own biotechnology programs to 'help' nations perfectly capable of doing so on their own, or nations which are better off than Cuba.
Yet American Cubans still take medicine to their relatives in Cuba because the average Cuban doesn't have access to these things - at least not affordable ones.
And we know that Cuba has helped Iran build a biotech facility, and we know Cuba's leadership has been tight in the middle east with some of our 'best' friends, including Iraq, Libya and Iran.
Hopefully the FBI is looking at all possibilities.
"When Yuri Ovchinnikov died in 1987, I joined a group of Biopreparat scientists at his funeral services in Moscow. The conversation eventually turned to Cuba's surprising achievements in genetic engineering. Someone mentioned that Cuban scientists had successfully altered strains of bacteria at a pharmaceutical facility just outside of Havana.
"Where did such a poor country get all of that knowledge and equipment?" I asked.
"From us, of course," he answered with a smile.
As I listened in astonishment, he told me that Castro had been taken during a visit to the Soviet Union in February 1981 to a laboratory where E. coli bacteria had been genetically altered to produce interferon, then thought a key to curing cancer and other diseases. Castro spoke so enthusiastically to Brezhnev about what he had seen that the Soviet leader magnanimously offered his help. A strain of E. coli containing the plasmid used to produce interferon was sent to Havana, along with equipment and working procedures. Within a few years, Cuba had one of the most sophisticated genetic engineering labs in the world-capable of the kind of advanced weapons research we were doing in our own.
General Lebedinsky visited Cuba the following year, at Castro's invitation, with a team of military scientists. He was set up in a ten room beach-front cottage near Havana and boasted of being received like a king. An epidemic of dengue fever had broken out a few months earlier, infecting 350,000 people. Castro was convinced that this was the result of an American biological attack. He asked Lebedinsky and his scientists to study the strain of the dengue virus in special labs set up near the cottage compound. All evidence pointed to a natural outbreak-the strain was Cuban, not American-but Castro was less interested in scientific process than in political expediency.
…Cuba has accused the United States twelve times since 1962 of staging biological attacks on Cuban soil with antilivestock and anticrop agents…
Kalinin was invited to Cuba in 1990 to discuss the creation of a new biotechnology plant ostensibly devoted to single-cell protein. He returned convinced that Cuba had an active biological weapons program. The situation in Cuba illustrates the slippery interrelation between Soviet support of scientific programs among our allies and their ability to develop biological weapons.
…For many years, the Soviet Union organized courses in genetic engineering and molecular biology for scientists from Eastern Europe, Cuba, Libya, India, Iran and Iraq among others. Some forty foreign scientists were trained annually. Many of them now head biotechnology programs in their own countries.
Some have recruited the services of their former classmates.
In July 1995, Russia opened negotiations with Iraq for the sale of large industrial fermentation vessels and related equipment. The model was one we had used to develop and manufacture bacterial biological weapons. Like Cuba, the Iraqis maintained the vessels were intended to grow single-cell protein for cattle feed…
A report submitted by the U.S. Office of Technological Assessment to hearings at the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in late 1995 identified seventeen counties believe d to possess biological weapons -Libya, North Korea, South Korea, Iraq, Taiwan, Syria, Israel, Iran, China, Egypt, Vietnam, Laos, Cuba, Bulgaria, India, South Africa and Russia.
More than twenty years ago in a major speech President Castro said his government would not give up the option of engaging in terrorism.
"If the Cuban state were to carry out terrorist acts and respond with terrorism to the terrorists, we believe we would be efficient terrorists. [applause] Let no one think anything else. If we decide to carry out terrorism, it is a sure thing we would be efficient. But the mere fact that the Cuban revolution has never implemented terrorism does not mean that we renounce it. We would like to issue this warning."
Fidel Castro, "1976 Speech Fidel Castro Addresses MININT Anniversary Ceremony" Speech by Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro at main event marking 15th anniversary of the founding of the Ministry of the Interior held at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana on 6 June--Live] Havana Domestic Radio/Television Services in Spanish June 7, 1976.
Taken from Castro Speech Database / Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC) University of Texas at Austin http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/castro.html
Like his fellow traveler Elena Belen Montes, the Cuban spy caught shortly after 911, who also wrote a report used by anti-embargo congressmen to downplay Cuban capabilities.
Not unlike Rosenberg's source, Dr. Meryl Nass, who claims she worked for the Cuban ministry of health and now regrets it. She wrote a garbage report on anthrax in Africa which was used by Rosenberg and others to put the focus on Hatfill in the anthrax cases.
Not to mention "conservative", "republican", "wealthy", ...
This article is much better than the typical report we're used to. For instance, recognition is given to the difficulty of collecting and containing the weaponized spores. In general, I see more of an open mind here, and more attention to the evidence, than I've become accustomed to.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.