Here’s another possibility: Atta got the spores from the Iraqi intelligence officer he met up with in Prague.
Au contraire…I heard on NPR a report in which Harvard geneticist Matthew Meselson states the “weaponization” of anthrax involves the same process as the commercial aerosolizing of bacillus thuringiensis, a close relative of anthrax and an important organic agricultural pesticide.
It is possible a white supremacist working for Monsanto manufacturing BT would know exactly how to do it with anthrax.
If, as Larry Mudd says, the letter sent to Africa turned out not to have contained anthrax then I think we are looking at a domestic terrorist. That was the only sticking point - the Africa letter was mailed on 8 September.
However I’ve not seen any other confirmatory evidence of this apart from the local Atlanta newspaper LM linked to. This BBC article seems to indicate there is some doubt whether there was anthrax or not.
However I did think of another angle to all this.
Imagine you’ve got yourself a jar of anthrax powder and you want to transfer some of this powder to an envelope. How would you do it?
The moment you opened the jar you would release spores into the room. So you couldn’t do this at your house. Or even in a hotel room.
If you did it in a hotel then the spores would remain there and subsequent guests would be infected. We would hear about this and could then track down the perpetrator.
And its not just the risk of infecting whatever room you happen to be in. You could not risk infecting yourself because then you would have to go to a doctor and get hold of some antibiotics. Even if you had yourself a store of antibiotics, you couldn’t take the risk of contracting inhalation anthrax in which case the antibiotics may not work and you’d have to go to hospital.
The only way to avoid infecting yourself is by wearing an all-over protective suit.
So basically, there are only two ways to safely transfer those anthrax spores from the holding jar into the envelope:
-
You do it outside or in a disused barn a long way from anywhere
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You do it in a laboratory
Either way, you’d need to wear a protective suit.
Then, once transferred, you’ve got to carry that envelope down to the nearest postbox. Presumably you would be wearing gloves and carrying it extremely gingerly.
All the above requires a lot of effort and specialist equipment.
Therefore I don’t think its Joe Hick who hates muslims and ZOG (the Zionist Occupational Government).
This is somebody with a knowledge of microbiology who has access to the kind of equipment needed to carry out the plan.
One consolating factor is that, if it is indeed Joe Hick, then he will almost certainly end up infecting himself at some point and will probably die. This may have already happened, have any new envelopes have been posted in the last week or so?
Since the type of anthrax used is, if not weapons grade, then at least an advanced form of anthrax then I think this points away from Joe Hick and toward someone with a knowledge of biology and access to old US anthrax stocks.
Another reason it could be a domestic terrorist is because of that letter that was sent to Tom Daschle. Im not from the USA and I can tell you that we had never heard of this guy until he got that letter.
If I were a foreign terrorist considering who to send my anthrax letters to, he wouldn’t be on my list.
I can understand sending letters to Bush, NBC, ABC etc but in what way would sending one to Tom Daschle further the interests of an Islamic Fundamentalist whose main beef is US forces in Iraq and Saudi and The Palestinian problem?
Something is not quite right about that.
For what it’s worth, here’s an Associated Press article from today summarizing experts’ current thinking on the identity of the perpetrators. Well, what they’re willing to say in public, anyway. For the most part, it recapitulates what’s been discussed in this thread, but it’s interesting that the authorities seem to have just as many competing theories about what’s going on as do the posters here.
Me, I was very close to being convinced that it’s a local nutcase, until I saw the news reports that Mohamed Atta was spotted by Czech police meeting with a known Iraqi operative. I still lean toward a domestic terrorist, but I’m not so sure now.
As far as the point raised by the Porpentine at the top of this page, that a Christian Identity cultist wouldn’t pretend to be advancing another cause, I don’t think that holds up. Christian Identity folks, I’m guessing, wouldn’t really care about recruiting followers if they perceive themselves as being on the threshold of Armageddon (or whatever they call it). Rather, they’d do everything they could to make it come about.
Consider: If they say, “Hey, here’s some anthrax, we’re Christians who want to accelerate the end of the world,” then the feds descend on every militia camp in North America, and the plot is over. But if they can keep the mystery roiling, and tensions rising, it’s far more likely that they’ll succeed in starting a nuclear war, or whatever equals Armageddon in their twisted theology.
I’m betting that if it’s a domestic wacko, they thought the U.S. would leap to the conclusion that it was more of bin Laden’s mischief. A weapons-of-mass-destruction attack demands a response “in kind,” and that means the nukes should have been flying to Kabul immediately thereafter. After that, of course, even the the least tepid Muslim coalition members withdraw, and the end of the world, supposedly, is a big step closer. The fact that this didn’t happen, I think, means that some inbred yokel in a mountain hut is chewing his fingers to the bone in frustration.
xanakis, it’s important to remember that you don’t have to be an in-bred, uneducated, unwashed, unemployed hick to be a white supremacist. (Although I’m sure it helps.) Larry Wayne Harris, (for example,) had rudimentary microbiology background, and had access to “millions” of dollars to buy lab equipment. Also, it’s a safe bet that the perpetrators took the precaution of using some sort of pharmaceutical prophylaxis, so transfering the culture powder to an envelope would not be terribly risky.
It does seem to be underreported. Here is another cite from the Washington Post:
FBI and CIA Suspect Domestic Extremists
Officials Doubt Any Links to Bin Laden
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59509-2001Oct26.html
The were more potential targets: Planned Parenthood received calls, Iraqi diplomats who received suspicious letters, etc. I wait for those delivered to Israel. I tend to think that it is that Olympic Park bomber, Eric Robert Rudolph, or his group of sympathizers who was behind this.
An excerpt from an article in the Washington Post:
Several months before an employee of the Sun tabloid died from anthrax, the wife of the publication’s editor helped two of the Sept. 11 hijackers find rental apartments here.
Suspected hijackers Marwan Al-Shehhi and Hamza Alghamdi hired real estate agent Gloria Irish to help them find temporary housing, she said in an interview with The Washington Post in September. Her husband is Sun Editor in Chief Mike Irish. He works in the American Media Inc. building, which has been the focus of an intensive investigation since anthrax was discovered in the facility and three employees were found to have been exposed.
The level of coincidence involved here is almost astronomical. I also find the continued mention of controlled biotoxin particle diameters in the micron size range combined with the presence of anti-clumping compounds to be significant indicators that at least some of these spores were the product of a well funded, large scale scientific effort.
The milling and centrifuge equipment required to isolate aerosolized spores is not cheap. You do not simply erect such machines in a shed and begin churning out anthrax. When you factor in the ancillary safety measures and protective equipment needed to accomplish such a task the expense can rapidly exceed tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Combine this with the fact that Atta is now believed to have met an Iraqi operative in Prague and all of this pulls into a much sharper focus. Iraq is specifically known to have produced weapons grade anthrax spores in the past. As mentioned by Sam Stone, the anthrax attack is a classic “asymmetric threat” where few dollars are spent in order to wreak major havoc in a heavily imbalanced equation of military might. This is a hallmark of bin Laden’s organization as well. I have yet to be shown compelling evidence that this attack was the work of our own domestic terrorists.
Is it? Is there any reason to presume that the al-Qaeda cell had any knowledge of who her husband was, who he worked for and what the hell the talbloids were?
There is a chain of assumptions which make no sense. None at all. Even presuming that these guys, who I understand had nothing but a business relationship with her, somehow knew (how?) where her husband worked, why the fuck go for a supermarket rag? And how would they know he would get it? Why target the rag publisher anyway? Doesn’t fit any logic I can discern.
Concidences do happen.
On the “Milling”:
Calm down Zenster. I rather have the impression that some of this information has been revised. Indeed, recent comments have noted that a sufficiently sophisticated microbiologist with a private lab could have achieved this. I have commenced to take the assertios in re large scale efforts with a grain of salt now because my sense is they were based on out-of-date information (for North America with a large, sophisticated bio-tech industry).
There many bio-sciences labs in the US Zenster. Many.
Not trivial costs perhaps, but then one doesn’t necessarily have to * buy * the equipment. Leased lab time, fraud, either direct or employee fraud etc …
Your logic is not particularly good here. Nor Sam’s.
Atta appears to have met, according to Czech sources, the Iraqi agent. Was it the first time? Was there a sustained relationship. Were the Iraqis simply meeting him to sound him out? Iraq has a lot to fear from al-Qaedesque opposition on its, they would be quite careful, I would expect, in their association with al-Qaeda, for their own health. It is unsurprising if Iraq has met al-Qaeda people. It is much more surprising if they actively work together.
Then, you make the assumption anthrax was passed. However, all reports indicate a domestic strain, not the strain known to have been in Iraqi hands.
Second, your characterization that these attacks have the “hallmark” of al-Qaeda is only true in a very trivial superficial sense in that they are terror attacks, and share the “assymetry” that by definition all terror attacks share.
Otherwise, they do not reflect past al-Qaeda behaviour. They are not terribly descructive – although that could be just a mistake on the part of the sender–, they include notes utterly out of al-Qaeda’s character to date, they appear improvised… etc. I’m sure if you read the WP you’ve read the critical articles in this regard. Cherry picking facts.
Now, my own :
Firstly, the date. The American format does suggest someone who’s been in the United States for something more than a quick run through or brief visits as throughout the Middle East and indeed most of the rest of the world a day-month-year format is used. Suggestive of at least some degree of acclimatization to the USA…
Speculation in regards to the handwriting seems unfounded. I’m not a specialist, I won’t hazard any opinion beyond that the handwriting doesn’t strike me as particularly ‘middle eastern-Roman character’ problematic (and I should say that only the subliterate truly have problems with roman characters, being so ubiquitous in most places).
It does remind me of (a) someone who has poor handwriting command or (b) mimicking poor handwriting command. Whether the person is from place X, Y or Z strikes me as probably undeterminable for all that I am sure the handwriting analysis pseudo-science will make pronouncements.
Further, several persons raised a point which has occurred to me. The targets of the Anthrax letters suggest deep familiarity with America. Even well-informed folks in the Mid-East tend to have a very “Presidential” view of American politics. Political systems in the region are presidential, de facto even in cases where it is not de jure, and one’s political world tends to inform one’s understanding of other political worlds barring direct experience. To target Daschle reflects, in this world, a fairly sophisticated and indeed almost internal understanding of American politics, which I found to extremely rare, even among well-informed circles. The same for the targets at media companies. (The first target, the supermarket rag publisher is just too bizarre for words for this to be the work of foreigner. Frankly I doubt if any al-Qaeda member knows what the hell those papers are or cares.)
Conclusion: whoever is behind this has a fairly long-domestic exposure to US politics, enough to internalize American political workings. Not necessarily in a sophisticated manner but certainly more than the vast majority of MENA region folks. Does this exclude foreign elements? No, but it does render rather unlikely that it is a case of someone arriving recently doing this. And it strengthens in my mind the domestic connection.
Whether that connection is a white supremacist, a deranged person w/o real political links, a US-born Muslim extremist or some unknown third choice strikes me as currently unknowable. If it is a Bin Laden sympathizer (and my reading to now strikes me that this is just a bit too pat, rather too much of what an American thinks ‘Islamic Terrorists’ are all about rather than the reality) I would lay heavy odds on the person being either American born (or long-time resident) and a non-Arabic speaker.
Even the sophistication of the actual anthrax strikes me as an area where one should be cautious in drawing conclusions. I have developed the sense that much of the biological warfare ‘common knowledge’ or wisdom is dangerously out of date given advances in the bio-tech field in the past decade. Disturbingly, my sense from the business end is that in biotech, sophisticated equipment is is not that hard to get one’s mits on by hook or by crook in North America and material controls not that strict.
However, it does strike me as rather silly to make a priori assertions in regards to the white supremacist angle being excludeable because the poster supposes that such groups want attention.
The pounding of the anti-Iraqi war-drums being knee-jerk and all that, but one might care to try to find factual grounding for it. One meeting between Atta and an Iraqi agent, as yet known through the Czechs only, does not strike me as convincing in light of other, harder facts. Same, it appears for the CIA and FBI.
I guess you are ignoring all the ‘unnamed sources’ within the administration that are now pointing the finger at Iraq.
Only three countries were known to have knowledge of how to coat anthrax spores to keep them suspended in air - the U.S., the Soviet Union, and Iraq. The U.S. destroyed most of its anthrax stocks in the mid 1980’s, and keeps only small sample quantities. The Soviet Union did lose track of some of its anthrax stocks, and has to be considered a possibility.
However, Iraq was making the stuff by the TON. And a lot of it couldn’t be found by U.N. weapons inspectors. And there have been no weapons inspections in Iraq for years. And Saddam hates America, and we know Iraq sponsors terrorism against the U.S. Further, we know that Iraq has no qualms about using weapons of mass destruction, since they used chemical warfare against the Kurds and Iranians.
Then we have a fairly substantial report that Atta met with an agent of Iraqi intelligence before Sept. 11.
This is the evidence for Iraq’s involvement. It is circumstantial to be sure, but still fairly significant.
The argument for a domestic nut on the other hand, is very thin. The terrorist used a U.S. date format. This is evidence? You’re sure not giving much credence to Osama’s intelligence. Making sure you use the right date formats would have to fall under Deception 101 in terrorism school. And they have a deep knowledge of America? Apparently you missed the part where Atta and the other 18 hijackers spent YEARS in the United States? Or that Bin Laden has a degree and spent many years abroad? Or that anyone can get their hands on an intro American Civics text?
None of that type of ‘intelligence’ is worth a nickel. Once you admit that the enemy is relatively sophisticated, things like getting addresses of government buildings and not making obvious grammatical errors is a given. Absence or presence of it is completely irrelevant to the analysis.
Ignoring them? Nah, I know some of them vaguely. Those unnamed sources have been beating that drum from the get-go. Clearly data is not informing their desire to take a crack at Saddam.
Sam, are willfully ignoring the revised estimation on the anthrax, including the opinion that a good microbiologist could have achieved the observed Anthrax?
Nor do I recall, and of course with so much to keep track of it is possible I’ve forgotten or missed something, that the coating issue is confirmed. As has been pointed out in other threads on anthrax, microbiological processing capacity has advanced a great deal since the 1970s and 1980s – my sense is much of the intitial assertions date from assumptions based on these baseline technologies – and the issue of reducing the electrostatic charge of micro-particles dealt with in a number of different ways.
Mind you, I am not * excluding, * say the Soviet option, I am simply adopting some healthy skepticism in regards to this information given many assumptions about anthrax as a bio-weapon seem to me to be based on out-dated technological baselines.
You’re speaking of course of the governmental weapon stocks. I believe, if I recall the NYTimes and WP reports correctly, that the sole id’d strain is a naturally occuring one in the USA.
Ergo, we can not operate on the presumption that the anthrax was from anyone’s weapon stocks. It could have been independently developed. Again, the issue remains the unknown level of art needed to achieve this.
If there is ** one ** thing we can be certain of, past estimations on anthrax as a bio-weapon need to be reviewed, critically.
And the id’d strains don’t match known Iraqi strains but rather seem to be, again if my recollection of the public reports are correct, of domestic ordinary origin even if milled.
Yes, Saddam has little reason to love the US of A. But he does like his own skin. He’s a stupid thug, but he’s not utterly irrational. He has some pretty poor set of frameworks for judging the rest of the world’s actions – his misjudgements to date have been severe.
But nothing like this. Saddam, I am sure, understands if this were confirmed against Iraq that his days would be over. I doubt the risk would be taken. Doubt but do not exclude. Merely hating the US doesn’t get us to anthrax terrorism. At least not directly. Indirectly is another story.
Yes, against folks he knows can’t get to him. He has no scruples. He’s basicaly a mafia boy in charge of country, but within his little universe, he’s not utterly irrational. Again, I’m not excluding Iraq, but I do put it way down on the likely list.
Shrug, of which we know nothing.
It’s evidence of Iraqi contacts with al-Qaeda, Sam, but that does not make the logical leap that (a) Atta et al, cell is connected with the Anthrax (b) that if they were they got if from the Iraqis.
You’re drawing together a wish list to go after the poster boy.
If we are to believe published reports in re the CIA and FBI, it appears they disagree.
Reread what I wrote, Sam: I noted it is evidence of someone acclimatized to the USA. Doesn’t say who that is.
I give great credence to al-Qaeda’s organization and intelligence. I also put that in the context of what I know about the blinders in re culture and the like.
Sam, this is frankly a staggeringly …illogical response. The letters make specific reference to 'Islamic" themes – or better to the stereotyped langauge of the same. Hardly “deception” from the POV of an al-Qaeda cell, yes Sam?
No Sam, but I have managed to keep facts and assumptions seperate. They came and went on multiple occasions, sticking to themselves largely, and staying, with the exception of the flight school, within their ‘community.’ Or so published reports lead me to understand.
Their overall profile strikes me as not having an intimate contact with American society nor its political system. Nor much interest in the same.
Bin Laden has a Saudi degree --I think I recall it was technical, but in any case, it wasn’t American Civ-- and he spent a handful of years in Bierut. So, Sam, what does that mean?
I shared with you, Sam, my judgement, based on direct professional experience including speaking with officials --in their own language mind you, that most folks, even educated have a very poor understanding of actual power workings in American politics. Dismiss if you wish, but I would hope that your own assumptions are based on something substantive.
In any case, my judgement was that the targets reflect someone with long residence here and/or good integration into the community. That does not match the Atta et al cell. You will note that I did not exclude other choices, including al-Qaeda sympathizers or perhaps a fringe cell such as the one recently broken up in Bruxelles.
Absolutely Sam, but understanding and internalizing that abstract information is entirely another game. I sense there’s no yanking you out of your assumptions so I’ll not belabor the issue.
Frankly, I have no idea what you think you are arguing here, other than that you don’t need real evidence to link the attacks to Iraq, your a priori enemy number one.
The only problem I had with the domestic terrorist theory is that some of the letters were posted before 11 September.
However this article in todays UK Observer could possibly answer all the questions.
The article suggests it could be both domestic terrorists and al qaeda working together. Neo-nazi extremists share a similar hatred of US federal Government and they have been known to work together before in Europe although not, so far, in America.
Maybe the nazi group did have prior knowledge of the WTC attack and timed their attack to coincide with it. They may not have known the precise details of the WTC but they may have known that something big was going to go down on that day.
Maybe Atta did get the anthrax off the Iraqi agent but not to use himself. He got it in order to hand it on to the nazi group.
The Oklahoma bomb will have impressed al qaeda. It will have shown them that there are domestic elements within the US who hate the government every bit as much as they do. It will maybe have made al qaeda think that these groups could be trusted to form a temporary alliance with.
I realise we don’t have enough evidence to full justify this theory yet but its something to think about.
I don’t see that the posting of letters before 11 September is actually relevant quite as yet.
I don’t recall the precise time-line but I only recall the Kenyan letter being posted 8 September and that turned out to be not at all related to this whole thing. I don’t believe we have a date on the Florida letter – but again with so much to keep track of I no doubt am forgetting.
In any event, as I said, coincidences do happen. I don’t find that likely, but as matter of logic, that is not a reason to conclude anything.
In regards to al-Qaeda working with neo-Nazi groups. I am of two minds in this.
On one hand, shared illogical hatred of “the Jews” and modern American society in all its pluralism certainly provides a lot more common ground than one might think.
On the other hand, my experience with people on the al-Qaeda end of the polito-religious spectrum leads me to suspect they would not be terribly enthusiastic about working with Xtian infidels of any kind. Their paranioa level is very high, and with good reason. Their organizations only survive through discipline and paranioa. See my post in the deterrance of terrorism thread.
I find it hard to imagine someone like Atta – I feel know the man, based on my time in Egypt and knowledge of that social class – would trust handing off something he recieved from Iraqis (and again this runs into the objection that current public information indicates it is an American domestic strain in at least two major cases) to some infidil. The possibilities of getting trapped rather outweigh the possible gains.
No, the whole scenario runs against everything I know about these folks. That is al-Qaeda and related organizations in the violent end of the Islamist political spectrum.
However, the article’s raising the issue of some kind of extremist Islamist and Neo-Nazi cohabitation is not to be dismissed. I doubt that it would be al-Qaeda, or this specific cell but that does not rule out sympathizers or fringe cells.
Please consider what the odds are against someone having direct (or even remote) contact with the hijackers and then also being in close proximity to one of the very first exposure sites. The odds defy imagination. Also try to remember that the Enquirer had front page full headlines showing bin Laden’s photo and reading “Wanted Dead of Alive” with the “Alive” crossed out. While I agree that the publication in and of itself is no major player we cannot afford to assume that such an offensive headline wouldn’t garner some animosity.
But the likelihood of this one still remains exceedingly slim. Having two of the most significant terrorist attacks in the entire planet’s history come up with such close linking is conspicuous no matter how you slice it.
A single individual working in a “private” lab presupposes that someone could rally the inordinate amounts of equipment and resources without any mishap occurring. While self-innoculation might render a certain margin of safety, there still remains the risk of an inadvertent release which could easily have highly noticeable after effects (like masses of dying livestock). I also find it extremely unlikely that a given biotech industry employee could surreptitiously sideline the fermenters, freeze dryers, mills, centrifuges and the critical decontamination equipment needed to perform the biotoxin isolation (and then cover it up) without attracting the glare of corporate safety and oversight watchdogs. Yes, the biotech industry had expanded exponentially in recent years. That selfsame expansion has also witnessed huge advances in the ability and requirement for such commercial ventures to closely monitor their product for quality control and incidental contamination. Finding even a hint of manufactured biotoxin (I’m talking about detection of parts per million, if not billions) would send up warning flags visible from the moon. Huge product liabilities and their attendant negative publicity when coupled with the danger of unintentional release make this unavoidable.
Your argument against this is less than compelling.
In deductive situations it is useful to apply Occam’s Razor. While I agree that it is almost too simple to be believed, Iraq’s puzzle piece fits into this problem with almost breathtaking ease. Again, this does not necessarily make it so, but certainly and justifiably focuses a disproportionate degree of the spotlight upon Iraq.
Collounsbury, out of respect for your quite obvious degree of lettering I am obliged to assume that you are fully aware that the domestically isolated Ames strain of this biotoxin was shared with Iraq. Which brain-dead moron was responsible for this calamity will remain one of the great mysteries of our time. Consequently, the presence of this particular strain excludes none of the mentioned players. The preponderance of other evidence (however circumstantial) keeps the crosshairs centered squarely upon Iraq.
While al Qaeda demonstrates a definite predilection for more abrupt and devastating modes of attack, their callous disregard for massive loss of human life returns the ball of responsibility for this bioterrorism into their court at lightning speed. Whatever valid aspects that might be lacking in the MO are quickly counterbalanced by another too perfect fit with the end results.
Al Qaeda has already demonstrated a solid willingness to park their operatives within our borders for protracted periods, so this point proves little either way.
Here we are in large agreement, despite being some of the only direct evidence involved in the case, the handwriting does not provide incontrovertible proof of anything. Especially in light of the previous points mentioned.
Here you make one of your first truly hard to argue points. The targetting of Daschel is something that has an extremely poor fit with external terrorist motives. However, it behooves us to remember that terrorists are not always explicable or rational. Still, I must concur that this one is akin to the trout in the milk pail. It does require some explaining.
Unless you had lived in the USA for a time and were directly exposed to these newsprint rolls of toilet paper. A terrorist who lived in the exact same town as the publications headquarters might just take umbrage and redirect a little of his plan towards a stark object lesson for the offenders. This is not a too wild speculation to make.
And neither are many elements of al Qaeda’s US based network so recently arrived. There has been ample opportunity for assimilation of this degree of realpolitik to enable this facet of the attack. Again, this is a seemingly disjunct fragment but not entirely out of the question.
None of which decisively rules out a link to the terrorists that are already actively engaged in operations that have had such a disruptive effect on our nation.
Please review my previous comments on equipment and production methods.
I agree.
Again I will invoke Occam’s Razor as a clear reason for us to maintain a full ongoing investigation of Iraq as we examine the other angles in this admittedly complex case.
Do they? I don’t know the proper variables to estimate the odds. It’s all well and fine to assert this but frankly we lack any real statistical basis to know how to assess this. It is rather like the folks who assert that the odds are against evolution happening.
Bah, I repeat, I’ll lay large odds that few if any al-Qaeda folks care one whit what the US press says about ObL and even fewer have seen or are aware of or care about the Enquirer and fewer still know where the publisher is located etc. etc.
Chain of assumptions. If I build a probability tree, this doesn’t look very convincing to me given present knowledge.
Our history. I have no doubts they are temporally linked. And casually in a weak sense. That does not lead ipso-facto to the conclusion the same group is reponsible, versus piggy-backing etc.
Assumptions:
First, assuming single individual seems to have no basis. I have no basis to make an assumption, based on public information, either way. Either Islamistes or White Supremecists could be working in groups. I see no basis for us to make assumptions one way or the other.
On what basis are you making judgements about the amounts of equipment and resources.
To my knowledge we have no idea how much anthrax there is.
To my knowledge we have few firm ideas about the actual requirements for processing an unknown amount of anthrax.
To my knowledge, we have no basis to make assumptions on risk of handling per se. Well, I will advance the weak opinion that my experience in the business end of bio-tech and gen-engineering lead me to the sensation you are sensationalizing the handling threat for a well-trained lab technician. I’ve met plenty in my career, it does not strike me that a disciplined, educated lab technician with a decent background, as many have, in micro-biology could not safely handle and culture pathogens. But, I admit I’m an econ and political risk guy with a decent but not truly substantive background in the biosciences. I can read a genetics paper, but lord knows I couldn’t replicate it.
Yes, there is a risk. Risk taking is part of being involved in terror activities. What that risk is and how controlable the risk is, that is the genuine question.
On the basis of my admittedly somewhat arms-length and superficial knowledge of my own firm’s labs, (which don’t deal in this kind of thing but we do have to be worried about contamination etc, something of the flip side of the equation), I don’t see this as a genuine barrier.
You don’t. Fuck, then you know better than I. We fucking lost a major fucking package of our cultures once. Back in 97 as I recall. A huge amount of money down the drain. Ooh, that was one fucked up disaster. Thank god I wasn’t part of that team, those poor bastids.
I’m going to suggest that you’ve got an unnecessarily Andromeda strain vision of how these things work. Take a look at the documented case of what’s his face, the supermacist that was twice busted for holding bio-toxins.
In the pre-11 September world, I frankly don’t think that it is terribly difficult to imagine a disciplined, careful group – or individual-- being able to fraudulently use corporate lab facilities to create a small batch of anthrax. Given that we don’t have data on how much anthrax is out there, what it’s nature is etc. there is no basis – on my limited experience-- to exclude this.
Yeah, we do our best as far as I know. However, we’re not military. I can’t on my knowledge exclude careful individuals not being able to avoid detection. There ain’t no corporate cops you know.
You’re mixing different ideas and parts of the product stream Zenster. In regards to using * production * facilities, well yeah, I agree introducing a toxin into the system would not be feasible. Well, let me retract that. Would be low on my understanding of likelihood.
However, research labs are a different beast. There, firstly, you often have all kinds of whacky things around. you never know what you can turn up. So testing is going on in different projects etc. Product liability is not the concern, rather keeping your documentation good so that you can go to the patent examiner on D-Day and get that killer patent on your work. And police state things don’t work in the research lab. We gotta give our folks a bit of leash – in my experience – to cook up new ideas. Now of course there is oversight, we can’t be flushing another million down on a failed gene line, but on the other hand we do need good new future lines.
Of course, my experience is all around plant biotech. I am imagining that medical bio-tech research labs do not differ that substantially in terms of structure. (And that my business end understanding of our labs is correct. I’m attempting to be careful here on the knowledge that my occasional tours and beers with our lab-boys do not make me an expert. I have some ideas, but they are superficial)
[qutoe]
Your argument against this is less than compelling.
[/quote]
Shrug, frankly your argument doesn’t strike me as well informed.
No, it does not. Occam’s razor works when one has the correct set of information and one does not abstract away from relevant data.
Can you provide substnatiation on the Ames strain in particular being shared with Iraq? My understanding was the contrary. Now, given the rapidly evolving set of public information, I don’t pretend to exclude this, it just runs contra what I read in the NYT and the WP.
There is no preponderance of evidence.
Zenster, your rhetorical flourishes add little to your analysis. There’s been no massive loss of life in this case, there is no “too perfect” fit with end results.
Now, I am not excluding innovation and branching out, but your characterization as fitting the MO of al-Qaeda is ludicrously superficial and meaningless.
I disagree, I follow the logic of al-Qaeda and similar organizations quite well. Once you understand their world-view and framework, IMO, the logic and rationality of their actions really becomes much clearer. Assertions as to their illogic, from my POV, largely derive from lack of understanding of their base assumptions and frameworks of analysis.
These guys are whackos in the sense of running out and doing things they’ve not carefully considered. As I mentioned, these organizations have survived through discipline, cold rational calculations about structure and action etc.
All this said, I am not using this to argue that al-Qaeda is excludable. A cell long in place or perhaps a cell recruited from ‘native’ or ‘nativized’ Muslims is entirely concievable to me. Given the compartmentalized structure, however, they are highly unlikely to have known directly or indirectly about Atta.
What leads me to somewhat weakly favor, based on current public information, the white supremacist piste is the overall picture which just does not jibe for reasons already laid out.
Assertion, Zenster. We don’t know. I don’t exclude this, but neither do I feel a basis to make a characterization that “many elements” are here since such and such a time period.
It is an unknown.
Did I make that argument?
Err insert not before whackos.
Only if you don’t think about it. Collounsbury has covered it pretty well, but I wanted to offer this article from The Progressive which addresses the suggestion that Iraq is implicated very well.
I think that there has been a huge amount of conflicting information put forth on this subject. While I agree that it would be political suicide for Saddam to risk reprisal and the continuation of sanctions, his prior positions render him a justifiable and central focus for our suspicions.
The notion of Aryan Nation colluding with al-Qaeda is almost as disturbing as it is ludicrous. But stranger things have been known to happen. First and foremost we need to accurately identify those who are responsible.
I maintain that the coincidences surrounding the anthrax attacks are extremely curious at the very least.
I also think that there may be some disinformation going on. There are just too many conflicting claims being made by ‘official’ sources. Now I hear that this Anthrax may not have been coated and milled that fine, but not more than an hour ago on CNN they were reporting that it WAS coated and milled. And they repeated the claim that only a handful of labs could do this.
Another story mentioned today was that a microbiology student associated with Bin Laden was arrested today in Pakistan.
I think the prudent thing to do is just to wait and see what the final, official line is on the provenance of this stuff.
I agree that there is a certain amount of disinformation going on. That’s natural enough, under the circumstances. I’m inclined to agree with Scott Ritter on this:
I suspect that the finger-pointing at Iraq is largely coming from interested parties. [sub](cough… profiteers.)[/sub]
I like the immediacy of CNN, but they are a little too selective about what they report. The still haven’t bother to retract the Kenya letter story, as far as I know.