* AP story mentions al-Qaida “anthrax program” … related comments by readers of this blog

Lew’s new novel CASE CLOSED

explores the FBI’s failed investigation of the 2001 anthrax case …

* see CASE CLOSED VIDEO on YouTube

* purchase CASE CLOSED (paperback)

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AP story mentions al-Qaida “anthrax program”

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Kathy Gannon writes for AP (6-21-09)

• Estimates of al-Qaida’s annual budget needs vary wildly from $300 million to as low as $10 million.
• (Juan Carlos, a former U.S. National Security Council adviser on terrorism who now works at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington) … estimates al-Qaida’s needs as “modest,” said its big expenses are payments to families; food and shelter to maintain operations; travel and logistics; money for cells engaged in plots; bribes, and expenses for longer-range plans such as an anthrax program.

read the entire article at … Taliban gains money, al-Qaida finances recovering

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Perhaps stimulated by that story, DXer has posted several very detailed comments this morning. You can read DXer’s entire comments at the bottom of the post …

nagging-questions-in-anthrax-case

extracts from comments by DXer …

• The White House knew of the anthrax threat in a February 2001 briefing from the CIA to President Bush.
• To begin to understand Amerithrax, the government should declassify the early February 2001 PDB from the CIA to President Bush on Al Qaeda’s interest in biological weapons.
• President Bush (was briefed) in February 2001 about a threat to use mailed anthrax if bail was denied the Vanguards of Conquest #2 Mahmoud Mahjoub.
• Bail was denied; anthrax letters were mailed.
• The CIA has known of the plans by Zawahiri and the Vanguards of Conquest to use anthrax since July 1998, when the CIA seized a disc from Ayman Zawahiri’s right-hand, Ahmed Mabruk, during his arrest outside a restaurant in Baku, Azerbaijan.
• Mabruk claimed that Zawahiri intended to use anthrax against US targets.

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• Let’s consider the case of Kathy Nguyen (one of the 5 anthrax victims who died)
  

  Kathy Nguyen

  • an article about her infection in the Journal of the American Medical Association explained that an epidemiological study of her workplace and residence had not turned up any explanation of how she was exposed.
  • She had worked in the stockroom of Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital (MEETH), which was a subsidiary of Lenox Hill.
• Dr. Hassan Faraj was an intern there at the time and then finished his residency at Lenox Hill in 2004.
  • (Dr. Faraj) was listed in 2002 as an author of the AMA article about the fatal anthrax inhalation exposure of Kathy Nguyen.
  • An arrest warrant issued for Dr. Hassan Faraj on immigration charges on June 29, 2004.
  • The United States government charged Dr. Farah with providing aid to a supporter of Osama Bin Laden and making false statements.
  • Dr. Faraj formerly worked for the Al Qaeda front charity, BIF, in Zagreb, Croatia.
  • In the fall of 2004, the government discovered that the defendant (Hassan Faraj) used his fraudulently-obtained United States citizenship in January 2002 to sponsor the attempted entry into the United States by suspected foreign terrorist Amir Abdulrazzak, also known as Amir Amrush.

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In addition, a new contributor to our blog (AS) posted two comments this morning that I’d like to repeat here.

comments by AS …

• What is the FBI’s explanation for the fact that the White House staff was taking Cipro prior to the Anthrax mailings?
• Are we really to believe the FBI “theory” that Ottillie Lundgren and Kathy Nguyen died from “cross contamination”? If that were possible why did we not have many casualties along the east coast from “cross contamination”?

LMW COMMENT …

I don’t know any reasonable person, myself included, who believes the FBI has made its case that Dr. Bruce Ivins is the

Congressman Holt

sole perpetrator of the anthrax attacks. There is so much evidence out there, including but surely not limited to the notes above, suggesting a far more complicated and frightening scenario.

We should all be writing to our representatives in Washngton demanding that they support Congressman Rush Holt’s bill to create an Anthrax Investigative Commission.