* Dick Cheney’s “real” world gets ever closer to the “fictional” scenario of my novel CASE CLOSED
Posted by Lew Weinstein on July 12, 2009
.
why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?
CASE CLOSED offers a “fictional” answer
.
***
Dick Cheney’s “real” world gets ever closer
to the “fictional” scenario of my novel CASE CLOSED
***
Scott Shane writes in the NYT (7/12/09) …
- The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday.
Read the entire article at … http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/us/politics/12intel.html?hp
LMW COMMENT …
The more we know about Dick Cheney’s “real” world, the closer it comes to the “fictional” 
world I created in my novel CASE CLOSED.
In my novel, I started out with the obvious fact that the FBI, in announcing that Dr. Bruce Ivins was the sole perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax attacks, was not presenting a conclusion it could support with actual evidence. The question I address in CASE CLOSED is why the FBI would particpate in such a deception.
Those who have read CASE CLOSED know that my “fictional” theory was that the FBI failed to solve the case because they were told not to solve it.
- Who would have the power to divert the FBI from a truthful investigation?
- Why would someone with such power not want the truth to emerge?
- And how close is the evidence of Cheney’s actual suppression of the CIA to the “fictional” suppession of the FBI in CASE CLOSED?
DXer said
Today’s Wall Street Journal says new leaks confirm that brainstorming about assassination of Al Qaeda leader was in fact the subject of the special operations planning by the CIA that was not previously briefed to Congress. The story appears alongside media reports of the 13 doctors who have joined to demand an inquest into the death of UK bioweapons expert David Kelly, who reportedly was writing his memoirs. Let’s consider one such assassination and consider who might have done it: Ibn Khattab, Bin Laden’s friend and a key early CBW planner, was killed by a poisoned letter in 2002.
A trusted courier had retrieved the contents of a post office box in Baku, Azerbaijan, to include some small presents and money. After Ibn Khattab opened the envelope, he went into his tent. He came out a half hour later. His face was pale — he was, rubbing his face with the stump of his arm. He then fell into the arms of his bodyguards. Feeling temporarily better, Khattab gave an order to let Ibragim, who, along with five others, had been put under arrest, could go. “He has to get back to Baku.” An hour later Khattab fell ill again. He fell into some bushes, and a short while later was dead.
The letter was delivered by a messenger who he knew — someone he trusted who had was delivering mail from a P.O.E. Box in Baku, Azerbaijan sent from the Middle East. The trusted courier, named Ibragim, had brought a coded Sony video-camera, a watch and a letter. Khattab’s people searched for Ibragim in Baku for a month. His bound body was found in the city outskirts with five bullets in the head. In an interview with the Prima News Service, Shamil Basaev, who reportedly had personally ordered Ibragim’s execution, confirmed his opinion that Khattab had been poisoned by the Russian special services: “They slipped him a poisoned letter,” Basaev told the interviewer What was the motive of this islamist who delivered a poison letter to Bin Laden’s friend, Khattab, in March 2002? Was the islamist who carried the letter who killed Khattab working for the Russian intelligence services? Was the man an unwitting dupe? Or was it all an internal feud such as when Zawahiri (some speculate) killed Azzam years ago? If so, that would be even more interesting evidence on the question of modus operandi. Given Khattab’s connection to the same EIJ folks at charities in places like in Albania and Azerbaijan, it might it be directly relevant to Ayman’s Zabadi program and his choice of means of delivery.
An April 1, 2001 note to FBI Director Freeh, titled “Bin Laden/Ibn Khattab Threat Reporting, read:
“Director Freeh: This note is to advise you of recent threat reporting deemed significant and urgent by the United States Intelligence Community.”
“The U.S. Government has received information indicating that serious operational planning has been underway since late 2000, with an intended culmination in late Spring 2001. These plans are being undertaken by Sunni extremists with links to Ibn al Khattab, an extremist leader in Chechnya and to Usama Bin Laden. There are several planning channels, some with connections to Afghanistan, all within a large shared mujahideen recruitment network.”
“It is not known whether there are different parallel plans or whether all activity centers on one major operation since all the players are heavily intertwined.”
Given this sort of threat reporting, it was all the more surprising for the FBI to allow Ali Al-Timimi to share a suite with leading anthrax scientist Ken Alibek and former deputy USAMRIID Commander Charles Bailey. Or for Al-Timimi’s colleagues, trained in biothreat analysis, to not have a clue.
Source:
CIA Had Secret Al Qaeda Plan
Initiative at Heart of Spat With Congress Examined Ways to Seize, Kill Terror Chiefs, JULY 13, 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124736381913627661.html
DXer said
Ayman’s first anthrax scientist, Rauf Ahmad, has switched his email account from Yahoo to Hotmail, but otherwise is still on the job. His phone numbers and email are online at the Pakistan PARC agency. Although he is quick to ask me questions, as he did this past week, I have never been able to get him to weigh in with his side of the story.
But I am reminded of another PhD thesis from GMU on the anthrax mailings for which famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek was the thesis advisor, at least initially. It provides background on my allegations and discusses Abdur Rauf (Rauf Ahmad).
“Bioterrorism and Islamists Extremism, Reality and Myth,” by Saeed S. Debjan, is a PhD dissertation submitted at the George Mason University at the Center for Biodefense. Saeed tells me that Al-Timimi was before his time. Al-Timimi was the former assistant (for 2 months in 1996) of White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and had a high security clearance in 1999 for work for the Navy while at the biodefense contractor SRA.
In addition to serving the government in various capacities for 23 years, Saeed reports he has spent countless hours on various research projects with famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek both at GMU and outside. The author received an MBA in 1976. He expresses his thanks to Dr.Alibek, who started as his thesis advisor, and also former USAMRIID head Charles Bailey who heads the program, and others.
The various GMU theses on biodefense in 2007 and 2008 are especially interesting given that the Washington Post reported in 2006 that the FBI in 2003 speculated that Ali Al-Timimi, a graduate student in the same building who came to have an office about 15 feet as the bug crawls from Alibek’s and Bailey’s hard drive, was somehow involved in the anthrax mailings. In addition to the much appreciated scholarly approach these students bring to the subject matter, they are interesting because of insights into what the highly experienced and expert GMU faculty members, past and present, are thinking. The author here limits himself to things he deems “confirmed.”
He initially faults me taking the opportunity in a 2007 Newsmax article to cite what I wrote in a 2002 article posted on Cryptome. But in my defense, I only cited the 2002 Cryptome essay because the name of the website sounds cool and mysterious and my brother-in-law reads it. Cryptome will be posting all of the discovery produced by the Army under FOI on an ongoing basis quicker than Ed knows it when he sees it. So it is not like it does not have its usefulness. While my 2002 essay only had 117 hyperlinked footnotes, my main webpage at http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com now has many hundreds, if not thousands many hyperlinked endnotes — so perhaps my mother’s claim that I make things up will be finally laid to rest.
The PhD thesis — the author is now a friend — then admonished me for distracting Amerithrax investigators. Respectfully, coming from someone at GMU’s Center for Biodefense, this is like suggesting that OJ write a piece on choosing gloves that fit. But given how Saeed successfully savaged the ricin allegations, I’ll avoid further editorializing and just quote the excerpts on anthrax — and consider myself lucky to have survived to tell about it.
The dissertation states:
“On 18 July 2002, and as the investigations of the anthrax attacks in the U.S. were still in progress, the Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Stephen Younger told a group of reporters: “Al-Qaedas interest in biological weapons seemed to be focused mainly on anthrax.” *** Although Younger did not offer specifics about the source(s) of his information, nevertheless his comments were viewed seriously by biodefense and bioterrorism commentators given Younger’s position and his direct access to military information.
On July 16, 2004, the 9/11 Commission Staff Statement No. 15 clearly stated that “Al Qaeda had an ambitious biological weapons program and was making advances in its ability to produce anthrax prior to September 11.” ***
The Commission also cited its interview with George Tenet, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time. According to the Commission Staff Statement No. 15, Tenet said “al Qaeda’s ability to conduct an anthrax attack is one of the most immediate threats the United States is likely to face.” These and many other subsequent statements by politicians, news commentators and non-scientific community experts added to the overall concern about Al-Qaeda and its perceived ability to locate, culture, harvest and ultimately weaponize an appropriate strain of this bioagent. This study noted that while a large volume of published material by non-scientific community describes al-Qaeda’s interest in the use of anthrax, very little input, insight, assessment, or analysis has come from the scientific community linking Al Qaeda to the Ames strain of this deadly pathogen.” ***
***
“Other media reports suggested that Al-Qaeda’s Dr. Zawahiri’s house in the city of Kabul, Afghanistan tested positive for anthrax (GSN, 2001, although it was not clear how many tests were conducted, and more important, if the positive test was attributed to naturally occurring anthrax spores in that area.”
***
“Perhaps the most disturbing piece of news about Al-Qaeda and its access to deadly anthrax came approximately two months after the anthrax attacks in the U.S. In the aftermath of September 11 tragedy, soon followed by the anthrax attacks of October 2001, the nation had no choice but to face any new report of biological weapon with [u]tmost concern. On 9 December, news media citing intelligence sources reported that U.S. operatives in Afghanistan were able to collect information suggesting that one or more Russian scientists were assisting Al Qaeda to develop anthrax. Moreover, the article added, the spores of the deadly disease may actually have been stockpiled by the terrorist group, a clear reference to Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. According to the article, U.S. officials believed that any stockpile of anthrax spores were likely to be destroyed in the repreated bombing raids on various sites. However the report added, it was not clear immediately if some of the anthrax spores ever made it out of Afghanistan.
***
“This study found no subsequent publicly available evidence confirming the sole report linking Russian scientists to Al-Qaeda’s reported anthrax production program.”
***
“Dr. Alibek speculates that the silica found in the samples may be a residue from an unsophisticated drying process.”
***
“Subsequent findings by The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (CICUSWMD), 2005 surfaced previously unknown information on Al-Qaeda’s attempt to obtain and independently culture various pathogens, including anthrax, in its makeshift laboratories. For unspecified security reasons, The Commission released only an unclassified version of its report on the Intelligence Community’s performance on Afghanistan, which is naturally much more limited in scope. However, even the unclassified report clearly demonstrates the depth of Al-Qaeda determination to develop pathogen-based weapons of mass casualty. In addition, the Commission report uncovered a number of deficiencies and vulnerabilities that Al-Qaeda and its team of microbiologists encountered not only in their efforts to secure suitable pathogens, but also in their worldwide activities to purchase appropriate laboratory equipment in a discreet and efficient manner.”
“According to the Commission report, Al-Qaeda’s program to develop biological weapons was extensive and was intiiated in or about 1999. Al-Qaeda’s program involved several locations in Afghanistan and two of these locations housed laboratories that were operated with special training. The Commission states assessed that based on an assortment of documents found in these locations, it has become clear that Al-Qaeda’s primary interest was Agent X (The Commission does not identity the pathogen), nevertheless, Al-Qaeda did consider obtaining other biological agents. (CICUSWMD, 2005). Given the closed nature of the Commission report due to its sensitivity, very little substantive information was released by the report to the scientific community and bioweapons experts.” [Psst! Although not “confirmed” “Agent X is really anthrax.]
***
“A close examination of a large volume of publicly available documents released by U.S. and Pakistani official channels raises intriguing questions about extended roles that were played by a number of microbiologists and other operationally useful Pakistani officials in advancing Al-Qaeda’s quest for access to deadly pathogens and other weapons of mass destruction. While this may indeed be a coincidence, this study finds [it] rather unusual to see Pakistani scientists involved one way or another in Al-Qaeda’s weapons of mass destruction research programs. This becomes even more worthy of additional research when [one] considers the fact that Al-Qaeda’s work on biological agents occurred during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan and the Taliban regime was fully recognized and passively supported by the Government of Pakistan.”
***
“Furthermore, when Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of 9/11 was arrested, he was staying in the home of Dr. Abdul Qadoos Khan, a respected bacteriologist, according to multiple news organizations. Within two days, Pakistan officials announced that Dr. Qadoos Khan’s son, Adil has been questioned and released. Adil was a Pakistani Army officer.”
***
“Among many documents that U.S. Forces said they recovered in December 2001 when they took control of Al-Qaeda’s training sites in Kandahar, there were several documents clearly showing not only Al-Qaeda’s interest in biological agents, but also Al-Qaeda’s efforts to purchase suitable pathogens and laboratory equipment. These documents which chronicled a serious attempt by Al-Qaeda to create its own anthrax producing facility revealed information about a mission by a Pakistan scientist named Abdur Rauf with an advanced degree in microbiology. Rauf traveled in Europe to obtain both anthrax spores and certain type of equipment that was required to culture the pathogen. Despite what appears to be solid evidence, U.S. officials have not brought charges against Rauf. In fact, The FBI’s New York office had the lead U.S. role in the investigations and its agents worked closely [with] other U.S. and Pakistani officals in Pakistan in carrying out interrogations. However, problems began to develop when the U.S. side sought to expand the investigation with possible criminal charges against Rauf in the United States. Soon afterward, Pakistan officials shut off access to Rauf in 2003. Since then, Rauf has been permitted to resume his normal life in Pakistan.”
***
“Some U.S. officials have stated that they are perplexed about the reason(s) for Pakistani authorities’ refusal to further investigate Rauf. Given his professional knowledge, as well as his apparent favorable ties to Pakistani officials, Rauf has been characterized as “a symbol of a dangerous convergence: a marriage of militancy and technical expertise that could someday yield new kinds of highly lethal weapons to be used against civilians.” “He was someone who at least understood the professional procedures and methods,” said Milton Leitenberg, an expert on biological weapons with the University of Maryland’s Center for International and Security Studies who reviewed the seized documents. “In theory, if he went in the laboratory and tried and tried, maybe he could have gotten it right.”
***
[Until the scientific community, bioweapons experts, and the FBI officials complete their ongoing detailed investigations, it may be prudent for the media and self-proclaimed biological weapons analyst[s] to refrain from advancing additional theories about the anthrax perpetrator(s), their nationality and the origin of the anthrax strain, and any other ‘leads’ that could further distract the investigation officials.”
Respectfully, Saaed, um, no. The investigation officials could use the distraction from those pictures of sorority co-eds.
DXer said
Democrats Call for Probe Over Canceled CIA Program Never Reviewed by Congress
Some Democratic senators are calling for an investigation after learning that Congress wasn’t briefed about an apparent covert CIA counterterrorism program closely monitored by former Vice President Dick Cheney.
FOXNews.com
Sunday, July 12, 2009
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/12/democrats-probe-canceled-cia-program-reviewed-congress/
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told NBC’s “Meet the Press” he doesn’t know the details of the situation, but suggested Cheney should respond since the accusations are aimed squarely at him.
“I think it’s frankly too early for me to reach any conclusion,” McCain said, adding, “If I know Washington, this is the beginning of a pretty involved and detailed story.”
DXer said
When Vice President Cheney was briefed on the documents in late 2001 that a female CIA analyst had noticed coming from the documents coming from Afghanistan, he immediately called a meeting of FBI and CIA. “I’ll be very blunt,” the Vice President started. “There is no priority of this government more important than finding out if there is a link between what’s happened here and what we’ve found over there with Qaeda.” At one point, security personnel thought that the home belonging to Elizabeth Cheney, his daughter had been hit by an anthrax attack. Elizabeth had to call her nanny to get her to take the kids to be tested for exposure. A June 1999 memo from Ayman to military commander Atef said that “the program should seek cover and talent in educational institutions, which it said were ‘more beneficial to us and allow easy access to specialists, which will greatly benefit us in the first stage, God willing.’ ”Thus, in determining whether Al Qaeda was responsible for the anthrax mailings in the Fall of 2001, the FBI and CIA had reason to know based on the growing documentary evidence available by mid-December 2001, that Al Qaeda operatives were likely associated with non-governmental organizations and working under the cover and talent in universities. After an October 2001 bombing raid at a Qaeda camp in Darunta, Afghanistan US forces found 100+ printed, typed, handwritten pages of documents that shed light on Al Qaeda’s early anthrax planning. The Defense Intelligence Agency provided me the documents under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents confirmed that it was Zawahiri’s plan to use established specialists and the cover of universities and charities as cover for weaponizing anthrax. From early on, the evidence suggested that charity is as charity does. 90 of the 100 pages are the photocopies of journal articles and the disease handbook excerpts. It was not clear whether or they had yet acquired virulent anthrax or weaponized it, but it was clear that the planning was well along. It also clear that the leading anthrax suspect was the former assistant of the White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card.
DXer said
The Amerithrax investigation moved forward — whether it progressed with the benefit of the Presidential Surveillance Program or the other still-not-disclosed counterintelligence activity run from the White House is unknown. The three investigative squads, however, were compartmentalized even from each other. Would it be so surprising that in addition to not knowing what the other squads were doing that they did not know what was being done under the Presidential Surveillance Program or any other counterintelligence activity … when that program was so tightly held that only a few Department of Justice officials even knew about it?
In Northern Virginia, GMU microbiologist Ali Al-Timimi had been questioned by the FBI agent and Secret Service agent in connection with WTC 1993. Al-Timimi was a graduate student and employee in bioinformatics at George Mason University who shared a department fax with famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID deputy commander and anthrax researcher Charles Bailey. Al-Timimi was a celebrated speaker and religious scholar associated with the Islamic Assembly of North America (”IANA”), an Ann Arbor-based charity. Ali spoke alongside the blind sheik’s son, Mohammed Abdel-Rahman at IANA conference in 1993 and 1996. On February 26, 2003, authorities searched Ali Al-Timimi’s townhouse. The Washington Post later summarized: “The agents reached an alarming conclusion: ‘Timimi is an Islamist supporter of Bin Laden’ who was leading a group ‘training for jihad,’ the agent wrote in the affidavit. The FBI even came to speculate that Timimi, a doctoral candidate pursuing cancer gene research, might have been involved in the anthrax attacks.”
That same morning, they arrested Sami al-Hussayen, who funnelled money from Saudi Arabia to the Islamic Assembly of North America and maintained websites for radical Saudi Sheiks who inspired Bin Laden. Sami al-Hussayen was in regular contact with Sheik al-Hawali. At the same time they searched Ali Al-Timimi’s townhouse, in Virginia, and arrested Sami al-Hussayen, the FBI searched the home of two PhD level food production experts. One was in Moscow, Idaho and one was in Syracuse, New York. 100 agents came here to Syracuse, NY that day as part of “Operation Imminent Horizon” and simultaneously interviewed 150 people. The animal geneticist and food researcher in Syracuse, Ismail Diab, mixed with silica in making animal feedstuffs. Dr. Diab was not questioned. He had been in Syracuse in Fall 2001 but then returned to Pullman, Washington until the FBI began investigating there in August 2002. At the same time, the FBI interviewed and searched the apartment of Sami’s friend Nabil Al-Baloushi, a doctoral student in food engineering at the University of Idaho. His PhD thesis in 2003 on drying had 350 pages of drying coefficients.
Authorities trumpeted checks years earlier exchanged between the Syracuse, NY charity with Global Relief Foundation and Benevolence International Foundation as if important evidence. Help The Needy was a dba and spin-off affiliated with the Ann Arbor-based Islamic Assembly of North America. Sami was President of the Muslim Student Association and Nabil Albaloushi was Vice-President. Nabil’s 350-page thesis was filled with charts relating to drying coefficients that may have made the FBI think that they had found someone who was cutting edge in drying technique. Sometimes a french fry is just a french fry. The fact that Battelle ran the nearby Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (”PNNL”), which granted access to facilities to Washington State University students and shared library facilities with WSU, may have made the FBI even more peevish about access to cutting-edge drying or aerosol technology.
The Pakistan government, at a press conference, claimed that Khalid Mohammed, Al Qaeda’s #3, was captured on March 1, 2003. According to the Pakistan government officals, Mohammed allegedly was hiding in the home of the Pakistani bacteriologist Dr. Abdul Qadoos Khan. The family of the bacteriologist claimed that KSM was not there at the home upon the early March raid but had been captured at a different location. That claim is also made by an informed Pakistani journalist, in the 2007 book Pakistan Frontline, and sourced to an unnamed Pakistan police officer involved in the capture. The author reports that KSM was actually picked up two weeks earlier but authorities wanted time to catch accomplices planning attacks.
Handwritten notes and files on a laptop seized upon the capture of KSM, Al Qaeda’s #3, included a feasible anthrax production plan using a spray dryer and addressed the recruitment of necessary expertise. Although the details of the documents on Mohammed’s computer may (or may not) point to possible difficulties in aerial dispersal, they are consistent with the product used in the anthrax mailings. Al Qaeda had both the means and opportunity. Mohammed told his interrogators that Moussaoui was not going to be part of 9/11 but was to be part of a “second wave.” KSM explained that Moussaoui’s inquiries about crop dusters may have been related to the anthrax work being done by US-trained biochemist and Al Qaeda operative, Malaysian Yazid Sufaat. Zacarias Moussaoui once told the judge at his trial in a filing that he wants “anthrax for Jew sympathizer only.” Al-Timimi and Bin Laden’s sheik al-Hawali spoke by telephone about how they might help in connection with Moussaoui’s defense.
In early March 2003, a man named Saud Memon, who was in the textiles business, was captured in South Africa. He had fled here after Daniel Pearl was killed on his property. Memon reportedly gave information on Al Qaeda’s anthrax work that he allegedly helping to finance. He reportedly was associated with Harakat ul-Mujahedeen Al-Almi and was one of the trustees of Al-Akhtar Trust International, a charity the United States Treasury alleges was tied to al Qaeda and the Taliban. After four years in detention at an undisclosed location, he was left in front of his home in Karachi on April 28, 2007 in very poor health. He died a couple weeks later. The cause of death was reported to be meningitis and tuberculosis. Memon’s lawyer said he had been in the custody of Pakistani intelligence officials. Memon’s name is not on the final official lists of Guantanamo captives issued on May 15, 2006. The Wall Street Journal also quoted an unnamed Pakistani official who said that Memon for a time was held in the American Bagram Theater detention facility.
Bacteriologist Abdul Qadoos Khan was charged along with his son, Ahmed, for harboring the fugitives. As of March 28, 2003, he was in a hospital for a cardiac problem and had been granted “pre-arrest bail.”
A man named Muklis Yunos, who reportedly received training on use of anthrax as a biological weapon in Afghanistan according to Philippine intelligence reports, was arrested on May 25, 2003, and cooperated with authorities over a bucket of spicy Kentucky Fried Chicken. Yunos had been Hambali’s right-hand man and was in charge of special operations of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (”MILF”).
In early June 2003, a Central Intelligence Agency (”CIA”) report publicly concluded that the reason for Mohammed Atta’s and Zacarias Moussaoui’s inquiries into cropdusters was for the contemplated use in dispersing biological agents such as anthrax. It had long been known Osama Bin Laden was interested in using cropdusters to disperse biological agents (since the testimony of millennium bomber Ahmed Ressam). An early September 2003 Newsweek article included a rumor by a Taliban source that at a meeting in April 2003 Bin Laden was planning an “unbelievable” biological attack, the plans for which had suffered a setback upon the arrest of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. He had been captured the previous month in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Tenet in his May 2007 At The Center Of The Storm wrote: “And in early 2003, al-Qaida canceled a planned cyanide attack on the New York City subway, Al-Zawahiri recalled the operatives in New York because ‘we have something better in mind.’” Tenet noted that the CIA still does not know what al-Zawahiri meant but adds that the cyanide attack ‘was not sufficiently inspiring’ for al-Qaida.”
The attorney for White House staffer Scooter Libby revealed that Libby in July 2003 was preoccupied with many national security issues, including the possibility al-Qaida had brought anthrax into the United States. President Bush had first nicknamed him “Germ Boy” after his office in the Spring 2001 took charge of the issue of the possibility of an WMD attack using biological weapons. Libby met twice with Germs author Judy Miller in DC. Libby’s attorney read about these threats from a court-approved summary of classified information in arguing that Libby had honestly forgotten what he told reporters about Valerie Plame being a CIA operative. (When Libby’s attorneys announced that Libby in fact was not going to testify, the Judge excluded any testimony about terrorist matters in July 2003 that Libby may have addressed.)
Anthrax lab coordinator Hambali was arrested in August 2003 in the quiet city of Ayuttullah, Thailand, which is about half way between Bangkok and Chang Mai. He was sent to Jordan. In Autumn 2003, extremely virulent (but unweaponized) anthrax was found at a house in Kandahar — after regional operative Hambali was harshly interrogated. Al Qaeda had the extremely virulent anthrax before 9/11. Sufaat’s two principal assistants — and Egyptian and a Sudanese man — were also captured in 2003 and are in custody. They had been assisting Sufaat prior to 9/11. The FBI dropped the continuous conspicuous surveillance of Dr. Steve Hatfill in early Fall 2003, after extremely virulent anthrax that they knew could be readily weaponized was found at the residence pointed out by Hambali. Prior to that, the “Hatfill theory” had been an alternative hypothesis pursued by one of the squads within Amerithrax. It was the one that got massive attention because of intentional leaks by at least one key federal official who headed the criminal division at the US Attorney’s office in the District of Columbia. The man, born in Haifa in 1948, had shifted over from the CIA on September 29, 2001. His daughter later represented anthrax weapons suspect Al-Timimi pro bono. The former head of Amerithrax, Van Harp, once said of the motive of the leaker in civil deposition, that it must be something personal.
In connection with defending a civil rights claim by former USAMRIID scientist Steve Hatfill, the FBI described the anthrax probe as “unprecedented in the FBI’s 95-year history.” By late November 2003, agents had spent 231,000 hours. The head of the investigation said that the investigation was “active and ongoing” and said agents’ time was divided between checking into individuals who might be connected to the attacks and a scientific effort to determine how the spores themselves were made using “cutting-edge forensic techniques and analysis.” The court papers did not indicate that Dr. Hatfill was still among those being investigated. Hatfill was labeled a “person of interest” in the probe in August 2002 by Attorney General John Ashcroft in responding to press inquiries for the reason for searches and surveillance that Dr. Hatfill had reported. By late 2003, all conspicuous surveillance had ended, according two unnamed federal law enforcement officials who spoke on condition of anonymity. The head of the investigation cautioned that Hatfill’s lawsuit could force the FBI to divulge its “interest in specific individuals,” who could flee the country, destroy evidence, intimidate witnesses, or concoct alibis.
In mid-December 2003, two brothers, Michael Ray and James Stubbs, were arrested in a Manila suburb where they were fundraising for a charity that supported the militant islamists and allegedly in contact with militant brothers. Michael Ray, an American, had been a HVAC technician at Lawrence Livermore near San Francisco — until March 2000 — where the Defense Threat Reduction Agency had launched a program to combat the Bin Laden anthrax threat in 1998. His brother, James, Jr., was also known as Jamil Daud Mujahid. James reportedly was monitored saying that he had been a classmate of bin Laden and had named his son Osama. James once was a policeman in California and a teacher in Missouri. James allegedly met with members of Abu Sayyef and Moro Islamic Liberation Front while in the Philippines doing charity fundraising. The brothers had been under surveillance at the time of their arrest. James Stubbs, according to some reports, had recently left a job as a teacher in California to study Arabic in Sudan. Other reports suggested that his recent work instead involved training dogs. Authorities allege that the brothers in May 2003 had met with several charity groups suspected of being al-Qaeda fronts, founded by Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law Khalifa.
In mid-April 2004, Patrick Hughes, Lieutenant General (Retired), Assistant Secretary for Information Analysis, Homeland Security Department testified before the 9/11 Commission. He explained that interrogations and other evidence revealed that Al Qaeda wanted to strike the US with a nonconventional weapon, most notably anthrax.
Palestinian Marwan Jabour had gone to Pakistan as a student. In May 2004, he was arrested by authorities in Lahore, Pakistan. “He was in touch with top Al Qaeda operational figures and was strongly linked to Al Qaeda chemical and biological efforts and had provided some funding for an Al Qaeda [biological weapons] lab,” one anonymous counterintelligence official was quoted in the press as saying. After dinner with a Professor at Lahore University, some men on the street approached him and asked him about his friend, before forcing him into a car. The men also arrested the Professor and another friend who had joined them for dinner. The men took him to the local station of the Pakistan Inter Services Intelligence (”ISI”). When finally released two years later, he gave a rare glimpse into the conditions in which detainees have been secretly held. He first was held for a month at a secret detention facility operated by the U.S. and Pakistan, as described in detail in the report “Ghost Prisoner: Two Years in Secret CIA Detention.” He was flown to a CIA secret prison, that he believes was in Afghanistan, before finally being flown to Jordan, transferred to Israel and eventually released in the Gaza Strip. He admits having trained in Afghanistan in 1998 and then fighting with the Taliban. He acknowledges helping some Al Qaeda figures escape to Pakistan in 2003. Jabour denies any ties to terrorism. He says the mujahideen he helped relocate to Pakistan in 2003, because of his familiarity with the area and his fluency in Urdu, were “unaffiliated” and had not sworn an oath of loyalty to Al Qaeda.
In a statement issued June 16, 2004, the 9/11 Commission Staff concluded that “Al Qaeda had an ambitious biological weapons program and was making advances in its ability to produce anthrax prior to September 11. According to the 2004 statement by the Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet to the 911 Commission, al Qaeda’s ability to conduct an anthrax attack is one of the most immediate threats the United States is likely to face.” On August 9, 2004, it was announced that in the Spring of 2001, a man named El-Shukrijumah, also known as Jafar the Pilot, who was part of a “second wave,” had been casing New York City helicopters. Photographs from a seized computer disc included the controls and the locks on the door between the passengers and pilot. In a bulletin, the FBI noted that the surveillance might relate to a plot to disperse a chemical or biological weapon.
The first inhalational anthrax victim in New York City, Kathy Nguyen, had died at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan, where a former BIF employed worked as an intern and then as a resident in internal medicine. She worked in the stockroom of a nearby hospital that was a subsidiary of Lenox Hill. In late June 2004, when US authorities much later charged the doctor with immigration violations, he was represented by Stanley L. Cohen, the partner of the blind sheik’s Abdel-Rahman’s lawyer Lynne Stewart. Faraj lived in Brooklyn where he had moved in 1999 from Falls Church.
Authorities had received information, for example, from at least one detainee at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that there was an anthrax storage facility in the Kabul area. Amerithrax Agents checked the Kabul area in May 2004 but came up empty. The Washington Post explained that “[b]ecause the deadly letters contained the Ames anthrax spores, manufactured in the United States, authorities entertained the possibility that they had been removed from a U.S. lab and transported overseas.” Then in November 2004, on further information, agents spent several weeks unsuccessfully searching an area in the Kandahar mountains, several hundred miles outside of Kabul. In 2005, an internal report was prepared summarizing the status of the investigation.
On March 31, 2005, the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, in its “Report to the President of the United States,” concluded “al-Qai’da’s biological program was further along, particularly with regard to Agent X [anthrax], than pre-War intelligence indicated. The program was extensive, well-organized, and operated for two years before September 11, but intelligence insights into the program were limited. The program involved several sites around Afghanistan. Two of these sites contained commercial equipment and were operated by individuals with special training.” A former government analyst recalls that one technician was named Barq — another was named Wahdan.
In a court filing dated May 20, 2005, an attorney for the United States Department of Justice wrote: “The investigation into the anthrax attacks is one of the largest and most complex investigations in law enforcement history. To bring those responsible to justice, the investigation remains intensely active.”
In June 2005, President of Pakistan Gen. Pervez Musharraf told CNN in a filmed interview: “These people were involved in the .. production of anthrax.”
In a late September 2005 letter to the Washington Post, Michael Mason, head of Amerithrax investigation (as head of the DC Field Office), wrote: “while not well known to the public, the scientific advances gained from this investigation are unprecedented and have greatly strengthened our government’s ability to prepare for — and prevent — biological attacks. Since the first anthrax mailing, investigators have worked with scientists to narrow the focus of this investigation.” He continued “Despite the frustrations that come with any complex investigation, the FBI’s investigators never stop thinking about the innocent victims of these attacks.” In a press conference in October 2005, Director Mueller said that the FBI was pursuing all domestic and international leads. He told the public to remember the anthrax letters. Remember Oklahoma City. He declined to say if they had a suspect. That year, FBI agents visited Asia, Africa and Afghanistan in the course of the Amerithrax investigation.
In the opening argument of the Uzair Paracha trial in November 2005, the Assistant United States Attorney claimed that MIT graduate Aafia Siddiqui was willing to help with an anthrax attack. She had been associated with the Maktab Khidmat (Bureau of Services) branch in Boston, which in 1993 was renamed Care International. Any evidence supporting the dramatic statement was later excluded from evidence on the grounds that it would be unduly prejudicial.
That month, Interpol head Ronald Noble urged: “Al Qaeda’s global network, its proven capabilities, its deadly history, its desire to do the unthinkable and the evidence collected about its bio-terrorist ambitions, ominously portend a clear and present danger of the highest order.” Henry Crumpton, the U.S. State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator agreed: “The threat is real. But what really concerns me is weapons of mass destruction,” Crumpton said, pointing to this evidence U.S. officials said they found in Afghanistan that al-Qaeda was working on anthrax weapons. From 1999 to 2001, Crumpton was deputy chief of operations for the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center. He led the CIA’s counterterrorism campaign in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2002.
The hyped intentional leaks about Hatfill distracted the world’s press attention. A federal district court judge hearing a civil rights claim against the Department of Justice confirms there is not a “scintilla of evidence” against Hatfill. The CIA, however, continued to work quietly building a case that the anthrax mailings were an international plot. Some argued that a US-based Al Qaeda operative is behind the earlier Fall 2001 anthrax mailings in the US, and that the mailings served as a threat and warning — intended to deter invasion of Afghanistan. Princeton islamist scholar Bernard Lewis has explained that while islamists may disagree about whether killing innocents is sanctioned by the laws of jihad, extremists like Zawahiri agree that notice must be given before biochemical weapons are used. “The Prophet’s guidance,” says Michael Scheuer, an al-Qaeda analyst retired from the CIA who once headed its Bin Laden unit, “was always, Before you attack someone, warn them very clearly.” The anthrax mailings followed the pattern of letters they sent in January 1997 to newspaper branches in Washington, D.C. and New York City, as well as symbolic targets. The letter bombs were sent in connection with the detention of the blind sheik Abdel Rahman and those responsible for the earlier World Trade Center bombing in 1993.
DXer said
Mr. Shane writes:
The report said “the exceptionally compartmented nature of the program” frustrated F.B.I. agents who were assigned to follow up on tips it had turned up.
How would the head of the field office — say, Mr. Persichini — be in a position to have any confidence in his conclusions on a matter if the compartmented nature of the program prevented agents assigned to follow up on tips it had turned up?
What was the White House so motivated about? Anthrax.
What did Vice President Cheney consider the most important issue facing the Administration?
Figuring out whether US biodefense had been infiltrated by Ayman Zawahiri and Bin Laden and whether they were responsible for the anthrax mailings.
And the assistant of what former White House Chief of Staff was a suspect anthrax in the anthrax mailings? Andrew Card.
Biographer Draper in Dead Certain reports that on October 4, 2001, Bush teared up during a speech at the State Department thanking them for their hard work after 9/11. Back at the White House, Bush motioned Fleischer into the Oval Office. “A Boca Raton tabloid editor had checked into a Florida hospital yesterday, Bush told Fleischer. Anthrax. The veil of resoluteness fell away from the president. His shoulders were hunched. Fleischer had never seen him more upset. Neither man said a word — neither had to: This was it, the second wave.” Then, immediately after the October 5 denial of bail of the Vanguards of Conquest #2, someone mailed, on or about October 6, 2001, very fine powdered anthrax to US Senators Leahy and Daschle. An infant visiting ABC was one of the first affected, which should have been prohibited (haram) in anyone’s book. Five people died, including an elderly woman and a hospital worker. Dr. Kenneth Alibek on October 19, 2001 told CBS News’ “48 Hours” that he thought the mailings were connected in some way to the September 11th attacks and the people who planned them. He said, “In my opinion, what we see now is the second wave.” Former Defense Secretary and liberal hawk William Cohen wrote in Slate that long before the press was talking about Cipro he had bought some after an indirect tip from someone with the Administration.
The August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief (”PDB”) to the President Bush explained that Bin Laden planned to hijack some aircraft as part of an effort to free the blind sheik. A little noticed December 1998 PDB to the same effect to President Clinton, however — declassified and included in the 911 Commission Report — reported that the aircraft and attacks were being planned by the brother of Sadat’s assassin, Mohammed Islambouli. Islambouli was in a cell with Khalid Mohammed (”KSM”), who by November 2001 had come to lead the cell planning anthrax attacks in the United States. The anthrax was sent on the date of Sadat’s assassination and the date the Camp David Accords were approved. Sadat’s peace with Israel was a key reason the militants killed Sadat.
On October 22, 2001, anthrax was found on an automatic slitter used to open letters at a military facilities across the Potomac River. Unless just cross-contamination of mail, this meant the White House was a target of biological terrorism: ‘I think the seminal event of the Bush administration was the anthrax attacks,’ someone close to the president told Jacob Weisberg, the editor-in-chief of the online daily magazine, Slate. ‘It was the thing that changed everything. It was the hard stare into the abyss.’” “I sat through the most gruesome briefing in the Oval Office about anthrax, how it could spread, and how we had no defenses,” Bush’s first press secretary, Ari Fleischer told the book author in the summer of 2007. “Dick Cheney was the strongest advocate of the possibility of attack and the need to prepare for it.” After 9/11, the Secret Service began monitoring the air inside and outside the White House — the chimneys of bio-detectors were visible from the front lawn. Cheney reportedly began traveling with a biohazard protective suit. At some point, fifty members of the mail-handling staff in the executive office buildings were taking Cipro.
“The anthrax spores in the letter to Daschle were so professionally refined, the Central Intelligence Agency believed the powder must have been sent by an experienced terrorist organization, most probably Al Qaeda, as a sequel to the group’s September 11 attacks.
During a [October 17] meeting of the White House’s National Security Council that day, Cheney, who was sitting in for the President because Bush was traveling abroad, urged everyone to keep this inflammatory speculation secret.
“They thought there had been a nerve attack,” a former administration official, who was sworn to secrecy about it, later confided.
They thought Cheney had already been lethally infected. …
***
Cheney in particular was so stricken by the potential for attack that he insisted that the rest of the National Security Council undergo a gruesome briefing on it on September 20, 2001. When the White House sensor registered the presence of such poisons less than a month later, many, including Cheney, believed a nightmare was unfolding. “It was really a nerve-jangling time,” the former official said.
In time, the Situation Room alarm turned out to be false. But on October 22, the Secret Service reported it had what it believed to be additional traces on an automated letter-opening device used on White House mail.
***
By August [2003], Hambali had been captured, and had reportedly gave information leading to the revelation that Al Qaeda had been in the process of producing high-grade anthrax.
The Malaysian scientist who had been developing the anthrax had been in custody since before [KSM], since December 2001, raising questions about why the capture of Mohammed was so essential to establish this threat.
In any case, it predictably triggered renewed fears in the White House, where Bush and Cheney hammered the Agency for more details and chastised the FBI for doing too little to root out domestic sleeper cells.”
The former Egyptian Islamic Jihad/Vanguards of Conquest #1, Cairo MD Ahmed Agiza, was rendered from Sweden on December 18, 2001. He had been in Pakistan in the mid-1990s. In Iran in 2000, upon the thawing of relations between Egypt and Iran, he feared that he would be detained. He wanted to go to the UK but could not get papers. So he bought tickets for Canada. But while in Sweden in transit, he sought asylum. He was rendered shortly after a CIA analyst found documents showing the Vanguards of Conquest/Egyptian Islamic Jihad plan to use charities and universities to infiltrate the US and UK biodefense establishments.
Jacob Weisberg in the 2008 The Bush Tragedy writes. “Inside the administration, the October bioterror attacks had a greater impact than is generally appreciated — and in many ways greater than 9/11. Without the anthrax attacks, Bush probably would not have invaded Iraq.” He explains: “The anthrax attacks in New York and Washington created a sense of vulnerability that was in many respects greater than the mass murder at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. As horrific as September 11 was, it was a discrete crime, whose perpetrators were quickly identified and pursued. The anthrax letters, by contrast, killed only a few people, but remained unsolved.”
DXer said
One supporter of the detained Vanguards of Conquest leader Mohammad Mahjoub was Ali Al-Timimi, a microbiologist who worked in the building housing the Center for Biodefense funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (“DARPA”). In a filing unsealed in the spring of 2008, Dr. Ali Al-Timimi’s lawyer, Professor and MSNBC commentator Jonathan Turley, explained that his client “was considered an anthrax weapons suspect.” Al-Timimi was computational biologist who came to have an office 15 feet from the leading anthrax scientist and the former deputy commander of USAMRIID. A motion filed in early August 2008 seeking to unseal additional information in federal district court was denied. The ongoing proceedings are highly classified.
~~
Dr. Al-Timimi’s counsel summarizes:
“we know Dr. Al-Timimi:
* was interviewed in 1994 by the FBI and Secret Service regarding his ties to the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing;
* was referenced in the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (“Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”) as one of seventy individuals regarding whom the FBI is conducting full field investigations on a national basis;
* was described to his brother by the FBI within days of the 9-11 attacks as an immediate suspect in the Al Qaeda conspiracy;
* was contacted by the FBI only nine days after 9-11 and asked about the attacks and its perpetrators;
* was considered an anthrax weapons suspect;
[redacted]
* was described during his trial by FBI agent John Wyman as having “extensive ties” with the “broader al-Qaeda network”;
* was described in the indictment and superseding indictment as being associated with terrorists seeking harm to the United States;
* was a participant in dozens of international overseas calls to individuals known to have been under suspicion of Al-Qaeda ties like Al-Hawali; and
* was associated with the long investigation of the Virginia Jihad Group.
***
The conversation with [Bin Laden's sheik] Al-Hawali on September 19, 2001 was central to the indictment and raised at trial. ***
[911 imam] Anwar Al-Aulaqi goes directly to Dr. Al-Timimi’s state of mind and his role in the alleged conspiracy. The 9-11 Report indicates that Special Agent Ammerman interviewed Al-Aulaqi just before or shortly after his October 2002 visit to Dr. Al-Timimi’s home to discuss the attacks and his efforts to reach out to the U.S. government.
[IANA head] Bassem Khafagi was questioned about Dr. Al-Timimi before 9-11 in Jordan, purportedly at the behest of American intelligence. [redacted ] He was specifically asked about Dr. Al-Timimi’s connection to Bin Laden prior to Dr. Al-Timimi’s arrest. He was later interviewed by the FBI about Dr. Al-Timimi. Clearly, such early investigations go directly to the allegations of Dr. Al-Timimi’s connections to terrorists and Bin Laden — [redacted]”
The letter attached as an exhibit notes that in March 2002 Al-Timimi spoke with Al-Hawali about assisting Moussaoui in his defense. Al-Hawali was Bin Laden’s sheik who was the subject of OBL’s “Declaration of War.” Moussaoui was the operative sent by Bin Laden to be part of a “second wave” who had been inquiring about crop dusters. The filing and the letter exhibit each copy defense co-counsel, the daughter of the lead prosecutor in Amerithrax. That prosecutor has pled the Fifth Amendment concerning all the leaks hyping a “POI” of the other Amerithrax squad, Dr. Steve Hatfill. His daughter withdrew as Al-Timimi’s pro bono counsel on February 27, 2009.
Bruce Ivins had supplied the virulent Ames strain of anthrax to Ann Arbor researchers. One of the researchers, Dr. Hamouda, obtained his PhD in microbiology from Cairo Medical in 1994. He and his wife came to the United States to settle that year. By 1998, he was working on a DARPA-funded project involving nanoemulsions and a biocidal cream. In December 1999, he and two colleagues travelled to a remote military installation in Utah to test its effectiveness in killing aerosolized anthrax surrogates. An April 2001 report describing testing at Dugway concluded that the best performing decontamination agents were University of Michigan, Sandia National Laboratories, and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (LLNL). The FBI and CIA may have been concerned that there might have been unauthorized access to the Ames strain. That would explain their aggressive prosecution of various matters related to Al-Timimi’s charity IANA which was in Ann Arbor 1 mile from the NanoBio office. IANA promoted the views of Bin Laden’s sheiks. Al-Timimi was IANA’s most celebrated speaker. He was in active contact with one of those sheiks, who had been Ali’s religious mentor at university in Saudi Arabia.
IANA speaker Ali Al-Timimi worked in the same building as two other DARPA-funded researchers — famed Russian bioweapons scientist Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID Deputy Commander and Acting Commander Charles Bailey. Al-Timimi was a current associate and former student of Bin Laden’s spiritual advisor, dissident Saudi Sheik al-Hawali. Ali Al-Timimi preached on the end of times and the inevitability of the clash of civilizations. He was in active contact with the sheik whose detention had been the express subject of Bin Laden’s 1996 Declaration of War. At GMU, Dr. Bailey would publish a lot of research with the “Ames strain” of anthrax. The anthrax used in the anthrax mailings was traced to Bruce Ivins’ lab at USAMRIID, where Ivins, according to a former colleague, had done some work for DARPA. Al-Timimi would speak along with the blind sheik’s son at charity conferences. The blind sheik’s son served on Al Qaeda’s WMD committee. Al-Timimi’s mentor Bilal Philips was known for recruiting members of the military to jihad. The first week after 9/11, FBI agents questioned Al-Timimi. He was a graduate student in a program jointly run by George Mason University and the American Type Culture Collection (”ATCC”). Ali, according to his lawyer, had been questioned by an FBI agent and Secret Service agent in 1994 after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had a high security clearance for work for the Navy in the late 1990s. The defense webpage reported that in 1996, for two months had worked for the White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card. (Mr. Card had been Secretary of Transportation in 1992-1993; from 1993 to 1998, Mr. Card was President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Automobile Manufacturers Association.) As time off from his university studies permitted, Ali was an active speaker with the charity Islamic Assembly of North America.
Two months earlier, a laptop evidencing Al Qaeda’s intent on weaponizing anthrax was seized in Baku in July 1998, Dr. Alibek, then Program Manager, Battelle Memorial Institute, testified before the Joint Economic Committee on the subject of “Terrorist and Intelligence Operations: Potential Impact on the U.S. Economy”about the proliferation of know-how. Dr. Alibek noted that “[t]here are numerous ways in which Russia’s biological weapons expertise can be proliferated to other countries.” Indeed. Sometimes such proliferation is funded by DARPA and any student who wants to apply to work in the building can submit an application. One applicant accepted was this Salafist preacher seeing signs of the coming day of judgment and the inevitable clash of civilizations. Indeed, sometimes they even have the White House Chief of Staff available to serve as a reference. Al-Timimi had been mentored by the sheik named in Bin Laden’s declaration of war in 1996. In 1999, Al-Timimi had a high security clearance for work for the Navy. His father worked at the Iraqi embassy.
Dr. Ken Alibek testified before the House Armed Services Committee Oversight Panel on Terrorism again on May 23, 2000 about the issue of proliferation of biological weapons. He explained: “Terrorists interested in biological weapons are on the level of state- sponsored terrorist organizations
such as that of Osama bin Laden; on the level of large, independent organizations such as Aum Shinrikyo; or on the level of individuals acting alone or in concert with small radical organizations.” Dr. Alibek in 2003, who recently would not explain to the documentary makers of “Anthrax Wars” why he had left the country so abruptly, told me he knew Ali was a hardliner. He later would describe Ali to me as a “fanatic,” the same word Ayman Zawahiri’s former friends use to describe him to me.
Dr. Alibek continued: “Although these groups will produce biological weapons with varying levels of sophistication, they all can potentially cause great damage. *** Furthermore, there is no doubt that we will see future uses of biological weapons by terrorist groups, as there have been several attempts already.” Dr. Alibek explained to the Congressional Committee in May 2000:
“When most people think of proliferation, they imagine weapons export. In the case of biological weapons, they picture international smuggling either of ready-made weapons material, or at least of cultures of pathogenic microorganisms. However, this area of proliferation is of the least concern. Even without such assistance, a determined organization could obtain virulent strains of microorganisms from their natural reservoirs (such as soil or animals), from culture libraries that provide such organisms for research purposes, or by stealing cultures from legitimate laboratories.”
American Type Culture Collection, the largest microbiologist depository in the world, co-sponsored Ali’s bioinformatics program.
Dr. Alibek explained:
“The proliferation issue is particularly complex for biological weapons. In many cases, the same equipment and knowledge that can be used to produce biological weapons can also be used to produce legitimate biotechnological products ***”
Dr. Alibek concluded: “To protect ourselves from the threat of biological weapons, we must increase our awareness and understanding of the threat, strengthen current international agreements and increase transparency ***”
By 2001, Al-Timimi was allowed access to the most diverse microbiological repository in the world and allowed to work alongside staff at the DARPA-funded Center for Biodefense. The Center for Biodefense personnel were working under the largest biodefense award in history. Delta (avirulent) Ames was supplied by NIH. Raymond H. Cypess, president of the germ bank, said of the Ames strain, “We never had it,’ and we can say that on several levels of analysis.” ATCC refuses to confirm to me whether its patent repository, as distinguished from its online category, had Ames, but we can assume government scientists would have ensured that the patent repository was considered at the same time as the online catalog and excluded as a source of the Ames. Of course, if the FBI was fettered by the Administration’s failure to share intelligence information, that would pose a problem. On September 11, 2002, an FBI agent pressed me when I had first come forward with my claim that US-based operatives who knew Ayman Zawahiri were responsible. He seemed to want me to say on the record (for a recording) that I had told the CIA in December 2001 but not the FBi. Certainly, in any event, judging from the current mess, the FBI and Postal Inspectors seem to have been fully capable of screwing things up with no help from the CIA for at least 7 years. Ben Furman, former FBI Counterterrorism, once wrote and me and told me that Amerithrax was a mess but that he still thought it made sense to keep information from the public. I might ordinarily agree except when the decision-makers have self-interested political reasons for keeping information from being known.
I say it is about time that the taxpayers paying Mr. Cheney’s salary know what he was up to for those 8 years, whatever the details or motivation turn out to be.
Former Deputy USAMRIID Commander Dr. Charles Bailey, who may be under a gag order similar to that imposed on USAMRIID personnel, refuses to confirm Ali was not much more than 15 feet from both Dr. Alibek and Dr. Bailey. Through the university counsel, he similarly has failed to address this issue of access to virulent Ames.
DXer said
The Huffington Post -
“A former intelligence official, who was familiar with former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden’s tenure at the CIA, said Hayden never communicated with the president or vice president about the now-canceled program and was under no restrictions from Cheney about congressional briefings. The official said Hayden was briefed only two or three times on the program.
Exactly what the counterterrorism program was meant to do remains a mystery. The former intelligence official said it was not related to the CIA’s rendition, interrogation and detention program. Nor was it part of a wider classified electronic surveillance program that was the subject of a government report to Congress this past week.
The official characterized it as an embryonic intelligence gathering effort, and only sporadically active. He said it was hoped to yield intelligence that would be used to conduct a secret mission or missions in another country _ that is, a covert operation. But it never matured to that point.”