* FBI document recently produced indicates that disposition of some of Ames made by Dugway for Ivins is unknown — though 70 ml of that 9/23/1997 production run was taken by FBI from Dugway in 2004 search
Posted by DXer on March 21, 2016
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CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
Disposition of the genetically matching anthrax is unknown — yet the FBI suppressed the information and ignored it (along with much more) while the FBI contrived an elaborate theory based on the fact that a man sometimes (apparently) liked wearing panties. When the same FBI officials had a chance to set things on a sensible course and look at this inactivation issue prior to 2001, they failed to do so (all while waiving the banner of accountability and transparency).
Most recently, the Army and FBI have delayed production of the key Ivins notebooks until after this Congressional hearing.
This is our taxpayer dollars at work. All the FBI and DOD needed to do to make the system work in connection with this difficult true crime and national security mission is comply with FOIPA.
Is that really too much to ask?
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2016/04/gao-many-us-agencies-have-gaps-lab-safety-policies
GAO: Many US agencies have gaps in lab safety policies
Filed Under: Biosecurity Issues
Robert Roos | News Writer | CIDRAP News | Apr 21, 2016
FDA, Michael J. Ermarth / Flickr cc
Five departments and nine agencies across the US government, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have gaps in their policies for safely managing biological agents in high-containment laboratories, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report released this week.
The GAO, Congress’s investigative arm, said it was asked to review lab safety policies in the wake of several safety lapses that were reported in government labs in 2014 and 2015. For example, in 2014 the inadequate inactivation of Bacillus anthracisin a CDC lab potentially exposed dozens of personnel to the pathogen that causes anthrax, though no illnesses were reported.
And in 2015, it was revealed that an Army lab in Utah had inadvertently sent supposedly dead, but potentially live, B anthracis to 86 other labs over a decade.
DXer said
Ruth Marcus: What if Clinton isn’t indicted?
RUTH MARCUS Washington Post Writers Group Published: March 30, 2016
http://newsok.com/article/5488308
There is useful guidance in both the independent counsel law and the department’s own precedents. The independent counsel law required the prosecutor to file a final report — hence the infamous Kenneth Starr report on Lewinsky — that the supervising court could make public.
Similarly, the Justice Department in 2010 issued a 92-page investigative summary that detailed the evidence against Bruce Ivins, the Fort Detrick researcher who was the suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks but who committed suicide while under investigation.
Ordinarily, that would have ended the case, but officials determined that the intense public interest justified releasing more information. Tellingly, that took a year to accomplish — time that is not available in this circumstance.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Amerithrax: Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Brussels suspects linked to nuclear facility plot
Last Updated Mar 24, 2016
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/brussels-attacks-ibrahim-khalid-bakraoui-plot-belgium-nuclear-abdeslam/
Comment:
For the FBI and the Army not to expedite the processing of FOIAPA requests relating to the possible threatened use of WMD is wrongheaded.
After the US is attacked — as it surely will be — Congress should revisit the FBI’s handling of the pending requests relating to Al Qaeda’s access to the Ames strain of anthrax.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Brussels bombers DID plan to attack nuclear power station as police uncover 12 hours of footage jihadists filmed outside a plant director’s home
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3507417/Brussels-bombers-DID-plan-attack-nuclear-power-station-police-uncover-12-hours-footage-jihadists-filmed-outside-plant-director-s-home.html#ixzz43p6IJhAf
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com
DXer said
Christian Hassell, the former head FBI Laboratory person is now a senior DOD official who was in charge of the DOD review relating to the ineffective decontamination at Dugway. He is the one who deemed it appropriate only to consider the samples post-2002.
He is also the fellow who, while working for the FBI on Amerithrax, failed to provide the National Academy of Sciences Notebook 3655. Notebook 3655 relates to Flask 1030. Flask 1030 as the seed stock sent to Dugway to make both Flask 1029 and the 340 ml. Ames then sent to USAMRIID in June 2001
Massive conflicts of interest typically arise through no fault of the person wearing the different hats. And I certainly presume Dr. Hassell’s good faith and the good faith of Dr. Vahid Majidi. Both seem like very nice and principled and well-qualified men.
But conflicts of interest need to be addressed and the consequences avoided. In the case of the DOD review of irradiation, the review and assessment needs to extend beck past 2002 to 1997 — prior to the time that five people were murdered using the Ames strain of anthrax.
Let me say that again because Dr. Majidi seems to have a closed mind and acts as a prosecutorial advocate in Amerithrax rather than a scientist:
In the case of the DOD review of irradiation, the review and assessment needs to extend beck past 2002 to 1997 — prior to the time that five people were murdered using the Ames strain of anthrax.
Dr. Majidi is relying too heavily on his friend Mr. Comey’s willingness to go along (or cover his back, as Dr. Majidi puts it).
Christian Hassell never provided NAS the Notebook 3655, which related to Flask 1030 and was the seed stock sent to Dugway to make both Flask 1029 and the 340 ml. Ames then sent to USAMRIID in June 2001
Posted by Lew Weinstein on October 9, 2015
DXer said
Was Flask 1030 (Notebook 3655) the source of the Fall 2001 anthrax mailings rather than Flask 1029 (Notebook 4010)?
Posted by Lew Weinstein on October 15, 2015
https://caseclosedbylewweinstein.wordpress.com/tag/notebook-3655/
DXer said
I spoke with Mr. Walukonis from Army FOIA.
The wonderful USAMRMC FOIA officer will look to track down the 3 notebooks that the FBI says it has provided the Army.
DXer said
Veteran Egyptian jihadist now an al Qaeda leader in Syria
By Thomas Joscelyn | March 21, 2016 | tjoscelyn@gmail.com
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2016/03/veteran-egyptian-jihadist-now-an-al-qaeda-leader-in-syria.php
Here is some background to this story:
Mabruk is a former close confidante of Ayman Zawahiri who in 1998 explained Ayman Zawahiri’s plans to use anthrax against US targets. He was captured and his laptop was seized. … fast forward to modern times…
Al-Hawsawi, KSM’s assistant who was the 911 logistics person who had anthrax spraydrying documents on his laptop (although it is commonly referred to as KSM’s laptop), asked to be represented by Montasser Al-Zayat, the Egyptian attorney and a London attorney. Montasser Al-Zayat represented blind sheik Abdel-Rahman. Al-Zayat was among the first, who along with defendant Mabruk, announced in March 1999 that Ayman Zawahiri intended to use weaponized anthrax against US targets in retaliation for the rendering of EIJ leaders. Al-Zayat at the time was defending key defendants in the trial of the Albanian returnees.
The CIA has known of Zawahiri’s plans 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. At the time, Mabruk was the head of Jihad’s military operations. Mabruk was handed over to Egyptian authorities. A close associate and former cellmate in Dagestan in 1996, Mabruk was at Ayman’s side while Ayman would fall to his knees during trial and weep and invoke Allah. Their captors reportedly did not know the true identity of the prisoners.
After Mabruk’s capture in Baku, Azerbaijan, the CIA refused to give the FBI Mabruk’s laptop. FBI’s Bin Laden expert John O’Neill, head of the FBI’s New York office, tried to get around this by sending an agent to Azerbaijan to get copies of the computer files from the Azerbaijan government. The FBI finally got the files after O’Neill persuaded President Clinton to personally appeal to the president of Azerbaijan for the computer files. FBI Special Agent Dan Coleman would later describe the laptop as the “Rosetta Stone of Al Qaeda.” O’Neill died on 9/11 in his role as head of World Trade Center security. He died with the knowledge that Ayman Zawahiri planned to attack US targets with anthrax — and that Zawahiri does not make a threat that he does not intend to try to keep.
Mabruk claimed that Zawahiri intended to use anthrax against US targets. At the time, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (”DTRA”) set up a program at Lawrence Livermore to combat the Bin Laden anthrax threat. The CIA also snatched Egyptian Al-Najjar, another senior Al Qaeda member (a shura or policy-making council member no less) who had been working for the Egyptian intelligence services. Al-Najjar confirmed Ayman’s intent to use weaponized anthrax against US targets in connection with the detention of militant islamists in a sworn lengthy confession. Even Zawahiri’s friend, Cairo lawyer Montasser al-Zayat, who was the blind sheik’s attorney, in March 1999 said that Bin Laden and Zawahiri were likely to resort to the biological and chemical agents they possessed given the extradition pressure senior Al Qaeda leaders faced. That week, and thoughout that year, Al-Zayat was in touch by telephone with US Post Office employee Sattar and Islamic Group leaders about the group’s strategy to free the blind sheik. An islamist who had been a close associate of Zawahiri later would explain that Zawahiri spent a decade and had made 15 separate attempts to recruit the necessary expertise to weaponize anthrax in Russia and the Middle East.
Mabruk was in regular contact with Mahmoud Jaballah, who was in Toronto beginning May 1996. Although Mabruk changed his location every few months, Jaballah kept aware of his whereabouts through his contacts with Jaballah’s brother-in-law Shehata. Shehata was in charge of EIJ’s “special operations.” When Mabruk was arrested and imprisoned in Dagestan along with Zawahiri, Jaballah was told, on December 13, 1996 that Mabruk was “hospitalized.” That is established code for “in jail” and, for example, is the code used by Zawahiri in emails on the same subject. Jaballah raised funds for Mabruk’s release and coordinated these collection efforts with Shehata. Indeed, it was Jaballah’s brother-in-law Shehata who brought the money to Dagestan to arrange for Zawahiri’s and Mabruk’s release. Correspondence between Mabruk and Jaballah in 1997 reports on Jaballah’s recruitment efforts. Mabruk, EIJ’s military commander, was pleased. Jaballah confirmed with Shehata and Mabruk his view of the reliability of the individuals he had recruited. His recruits were affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Zawahiri and the Vanguards of Conquest were seeking to recreate Mohammed’s taking of mecca by a small band through violent attacks on Egyptian leaders. By the late 1990s, Zawahiri had determined that the Egyptian Islamic Jihad should focus on its struggle against the United States and hold off on further attacks against the Egyptian regime.
It is not good news that Mabruk is back working for Ayman Zawahiri and that Amerithrax remains unsolved, according to the former lead investigator.
Anthrax, Al Qaeda and Ayman Zawahiri: The Infiltration of US Biodefense
http://www.amerithrax.wordpress.com