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r. Capture of Hawsawi and Laptop With Anthrax Spray Drying Docs On March 23, 2003, the Washington Post reported on documents allegedly discovered at the Abdul Qadoos Khan residence -- on a seized laptop -- relating to biochemical weapons. The documents indicated that Al Qaeda leaders may already have manufactured some of them. The documents at the Qadoos home reveal that Al Qaeda had a feasible production plan for anthrax. Confronted with scanned handwritten notes on the computer, Mohammed reportedly began to talk about Al Qaeda's anthrax production program. KSM, however, denies that it was his computer -- he says it was the computer of Mustafa Hawsawi, who was captured at the home the same day. In 2001, before departing for the UAE, Al-Hawsawi had worked in the Al Qaeda media center (Al Sahab (Clouds) in Kandahar. (The letter containing the first anthrax went to the American Media in Florida had blue and pink clouds on it.) Hawsawi worked under KSM who in turn worked for Zawahiri. Al-Hawsawi was a facilitator for the 9/11 attacks and its paymaster, working from the United Arab Emirates, sending thousands to Bin Al-Shibh in the summer of 2001. After 9/11, he returned to Afghanistan where he met separately with Bin Laden, Zawahiri and spokesman Abu Ghaith. KSM worked closely with al-Hawsawi and it would make perfect sense that the computer is actually al-Hawsawi's. The fact that the anthrax spray drying documents were on that computer, however, and that Al-Hawsawi had worked for Al Sahab in Kandahar in 2000, serves to suggest that the undated documents predated 9/11, particularly given that extremely virulent anthrax was later found in Kandahar. At the same time, it suggests that Al-Hawsawi has personal knowledge relevant to anthrax. Al-Hawawi in turn worked with Aafia Siddiqui's husband-to-be, KSM's nephew Al-Baluchi, in the UAE in the summer of 2001 providing logistical support for the hijackers. Hawsawi worked as a financial manager for Bin Laden when he was in Sudan. He was associated with Egyptian Islamic Jihad shura leader Mahjoub, who was Bin Laden's farm manager in Sudan. Mahjoub was the subject of the anthrax threat in January 2001 in Canada, upon announcement of his bail hearing. The day after Mahjoub's bail was denied on October 5, 2001, the potent stuff was sent to US Senators Daschle and Leahy. The Washington Post explained that "What the documents and debriefings show, the first official said, is that "KSM was involved in anthrax production, and [knew] quite a bit about it." Barton Gellman in the Post explained that Al Qaeda had recruited competent scientists, including a Pakistani microbiologist who the officials declined to name. "The documents describe specific timelines for producing biochemical weapons and include a bar graph depicting the parallel processes that must take place between Days 1 and 31 of manufacture. Included are inventories of equipment and indications of readiness to grow seed stocks of pathogen in nutrient baths and then dry the resulting liquid slurry into a form suitable for aerosol dispersal." The Washington Post story notes that U.S. officials said the evidence does not indicate whether al Qaeda completed manufacture. The documents are undated and unsigned and cryptic about essential details. An unclassified memo lists some of the contents of the computer that had the anthrax spraydrying docs. In addition to establishing him as paymaster for the hijackers, Al-Hawsawi's computer disks reportedly also included lists of contributors worldwide, to include bank account numbers and names of organizations that have helped finance terror attacks. In press accounts, one unnamed government official confirmed that the information has yielded the identities of about a dozen suspected terrorists in the US. In his substituted testimony in the Moussaoui case, Al-Hawsawi says he became part of Al Qaeda's media committee in Afghanistan in about July 2000. KSM joined the committee in February 2001. Hawsawi lived at the media office. For about 4-5 months in 2000, Hawsawi worked as a secretary on al Qaeda's media committee. Hawsawi's role "was to copy compact discs and reprint articles for the brothers at the guesthouse in Qandahar. After 2000, Hawsawi worked at the direction of Sheikh Mohammed, transferring funds, and procuring goods." The first time that Hawsawi was asked to be come involved in operational activities was about March 2001, when he took his second trip to the UAE. Although Sheikh Mohammed did not use the word "operation," Sheikh Mohammed told Hawsawi that he would be purchasing items, receiving and possibly sending money, and possibly meeting individuals whom Hawsawi would contact or who would contact him. Sheikh Mohammed also told Hawsawi that his stay would be lengthy, so he should rent an apartment. Sheikh Mohammed said Hawsawi did not need cover because he was carrying a Saudi passport, and it was a common practice for a Saudi to rent an apartment in the UAE. In approximately August 2001, Hawsawi, with Sheikh Mohammed's blessing, decided to take an English course. Sheik Mohammed told Hawsawi that he would be in contact with individuals called 'Abd Al-Rahman (Muhammad Atta) and the "Doctor" (Nawaf al-Hazmi). Atta called Hawsawi four times while in the US. Hawsawi says he was never in contact with Hani or Nawaf while in the US. On September 9, Ramzi bin Shibh told him the date of the planned operation and urged that he return to Pakistan. He flew out on 9/11 and after a night in Karachi, flew on to Quetta. Hawsawi stated repeatedly that he never conducted any activity of any type with or on behalf of Moussaoui and had no knowledge of who made Moussaoui's travel arrangements. Documents, however, reportedly show that al-Hawsawi worked with the Dublin cell to finance Moussaoui’s international travel. Hamid Aich was an EIJ operative there who once had lived with Ressam, the so-called millennium bomber, in Canada. The indictment of Zacarias Moussaoui named al-Hawsawi as an unindicted co-conspirator. Moussaou had tried to call KSM and Hawsawi as witnessses. That indictment reported that al-Hawsawi was born in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Aug. 5, 1968. Hawsawi has said that it was Qahtani who was to have been "the 20th hijacker" rather than Moussaoui. Qahtani, Hawsawi said, had trained extensively to be one of the "muscle hijackers." Atta went to pick Qahtani up at the Orlando airport but immigration officials turned Qahtani away. Of Moussaoui, al-Hawsawi said he had seen Moussaoui at an al-Qaeda guesthouse in Kandahar, Afghanistan, sometime in the first half of 2001, but was not introduced to him and had not conducted any operations with him. At Moussaoui's trial, the government pointed to FAA intelligence reports from the late 1990s and 2000 that noted that a hijacked airliner could be flown into a building or national landmark in the U.S., but viewed that scenario "as an option of last resort" given the motive of the attack was to free blind sheik Abdel Rahman. Flying a plane into a building would afford little time to negotiate. Zacarias Moussaou reportedly was in Karachi with anthrax lab tech Yazid Sufaat on February 3, 2001 when they bought air tickets through a local travel agency for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They reportedly left on a flight for KL on February 8, 2001. Moussaoui began at the Norman, Oklahoma flight school on February 26, 2001. KSM says that Moussaoui's inquiries about cropdusters may have related to Hambali and Sufaat's work with anthrax. Another reason not to underestimate Hawsawi's possible role in an anthrax operation is his contact with al-Marri. Al-Marri, who entered the country on September 10, 2001, was researching chemicals in connection with a "second wave." Al-Marri was also drafting emails to KSM. Although al-Marri denies being in contact with Hawsawi, phone records show otherwise. Email evidence also confirms messages drafted by al-Marri to KSM. The fascinating and groundbreaking article this year by Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post on al-Marri notes that al-Marri picked up $13,000 in cash from al-Hawsawi. Al-Marri made the mistake of opening the briefcase containing the money in bundles and peeling off a few hundred dollars to pay his bail after being stopped on a traffic charge a couple days after 9/11. References to al-Hawsawi turned up in the Dublin, Ireland, office of a Saudi-backed charity suspected of having links to bin Laden upon a raid after 9/11 by Irish authorities. s. Al Qaeda's US-Based Biochem Operative Al-Marri In a declassified 16-page document filed in April 2006, the government described Peoria, Illinois resident Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri as an important Al Qaeda operative. Investigators eventually concluded he was the most important in the United States. The government say he met Osama bin Laden and was chosen by Khalid Sheik Mohammed to help other operatives conduct attacks, hack into computers, or deliver poisons. President Bush said the intelligence community believes that among Marri’s potential targets were “water reservoirs, the New York Stock Exchange and United States military academies.” KSM thought that the fact he was a father of five would help in blend in better than a single man. He reportedly trained at an Al Qaeda camp for up to 19 months during the years 1996 to 1998. Allegations included the grandiose goal that Al Marri was to seek to hack into the US banking system, and “to wipe out balances and otherwise wreak havoc with banking records in order to damage the U.S. economy.” KSM and Bin Laden planned for Al-Marri to be a “point of contact for al Qaeda operatives arriving in the United States.” KSM had met with Ali’s brother, Jarallah al-Marri, in late summer 2001 and told him of Ali’s U.S. activities. U.S. authorities officials allege that Al-Marri went to the United Arab Emirates in August 2001 to get more than $13,000 in cash from Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi. It was Al-Hawsawi’s laptop that had the anthrax spraydrying documents on it. Al-Marri’s training included instruction in the use of toxins and poison at the Darunta camp near Jalalabad. The Post reports that Marri had been calling numbers in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, according to a filed complaint. Government sources say he was calling senior al-Qaeda operatives. He travelled to New York City about the same time as El-Shukrijumah and Dhiren Barot were casing financial institutions and casing NYC tourist helicopters. An oath was found on his computer: “Neither the United States nor anyone living in it will dream of security/safety before we live it in Palestine and before the infidel armies leave the land of Mohammed,” and that God should “protect” and “guard” Usama Bin Laden.” Agents discovered that Al-Marri had created five e-mail accounts on Sept. 22, 2001 using a computer at Western Illinois University. The declaration by Jeffrey N. Rapp, Joint Intelligence Task Force for Combating Terrorism, dated September 9, 2004, provided his email addresses: William274@hotmail.com, Jefferson038@hotmail.com, Howard050@yahoo.com, Drake425@yahoo.com, and Kathy050@yahoo.com. There was as identical draft message in three of the accounts dated September 22, 2001 addressed to an account associated with KSM. The draft stated:
Area code 701 is in North Dakota. Analysts determined that the number was a coded version of Al-Marri’s cellular number. Material is redacted that would reveal the code but it can be deduced. The area code in Macomb and Peoria, Illinois is 309. And so the simple code likely is that “7¾ becomes “3¾ (2 above 5 becomes 2 below 5, “9¾ becomes “1¾ etc.) So from this we can infer Al-Marri’s cellular number was 309-231-4060. (If you apply the same code to the zip code associated with the “Greendale School” return address, one comes up with Newton, Mass.; the FBI raided a posh hotel where two hijackers stayed in Newton the night before 9/11.) Although his parents were Saudi, Al-Marri’s family had moved to Doha, Qatar. He was 17 when he came to the United States. He first studied computer science at a Spoon River College in Macomb, Illinois. The intensive english program at Western Illinois University attracted a lot of Middle Eastern students to the rural setting. He and his brother would later transfer attend Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois. His brother later would be detained in Guantanamo, after being captured in Afghanistan. The Washington Post reports that acquaintances remembered Ali as a “skinny, long-haired partygoer with a sense of humor.” He graduated in 1991 with a business degree and returned to Doha, Qatar. He told FBI agents he was in the US from 1983-1991. Back in Doha, he worked at the Qatar Islamic Bank and at the government audit bureau. Doha, Qatar was where future anthrax planners KSM and Mohammed Islambouli were given safe haven by the Qatar religious minister. In early 1996, in the midst of political turmoil involving Sheik Hamad Bin Khalifa al-Thani, who had ousted his father favored by fundamentalists, Al-Marri left for Afghanistan. In a court filing, Pentagon’s top counterterrorism official explained he went to train at a Bin Laden camp. KSM, too, the Washington Post points out, had followed a similar path — first going to school in rural United States and then going to Doha, Qatar in the mid-1990s. By the mid-1990s, Mohammed had been involved in the planning of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing as well as Operation Bojinka in the Philippines. KSM worked in Doha for the government — he worked for the department of water works, where he may have learned something about poisoning a reservoir or localized water infrastructure. Reporter Susan Schmidt notes: “Mohammed and a group of militants found refuge on the outskirts of Doha, on a farm owned by the religious minister, according to the Sept. 11 commission. In 1996, as the FBI was closing in, Mohammed slipped out of the country for Afghanistan.” Guiliani’s security firm advised the Qatar government on security matters and denies having tipped the government leader who then shared the information. Qatar returned to Doha with the views of a hardened extremist. A former Qatari government official told The Washington Post that Al-Marri came home with CDs of al-Qaeda training lectures and propaganda — as well as a phony California driver’s license. The continuing investigation of the 1996 coup attempt directed at the reformist son who had usurped control from his father cost some of Al-Marri’s relatives their government jobs. His family returned to the Saudi desert. But although his wife and young children went to the Saudi desert, Al-Marri had other plans. Schmidt reports that the FBI says in May 2000, he flew to Chicago from Dahmam, Saudi Arabia, using a fake passport and the name Abdullakareem A. Almuslam. During the summer of 2000, Al-Marri arrived in the United States and spent two months in Chicago. In July, he then checked into Macomb, the farm town where he had first studied years earlier. He checked into the inexpensive Time Out Motel. Rm. 209 became the official address of the fictitious AAA Carpets that would receive money from the stolen credit cards. On August 17, 2000, he booked a flight to New York City. He called the imam of the Macomb mosque, a Saudi graduate student named Khalid al-Jaloud and asked for a ride to the Peoria airport. Jaloud told the Washington Post that he did not know the man and did not know where was going but was glad to oblige. Dhiren Barot, who was pretending to be enrolled at the Mohawk Valley Community College in Upstate New York, was Al Qaeda’s chief operative in Great Britain. The Post investigative feature notes that Dhiren Barot was indicted in 2005 for casing the stock exchange and other financial targets. In her lengthy groundbreaking article, Schmidt points out he had flown in from London the day before. Barot, arrested in Britain in 2004 and sentenced to life in prison confessed to what the judge in the case called a plot of “colossal and unprecedented scale” to blow up London subway cars, detonate radioactive “dirty bombs” and use limousines packed with gas cylinders to destroy luxury hotels. Al-Marri returned to Chicago for a few days and then returned to Saudi Arabia. The Macomb Imam told the Post, “He asked me to put a computer in my house,” I did not want to. He said he wanted to store stuff until he could bring his family back.” Jaloud continued: “A few weeks or a month or two later he started calling, wanting me to send it to Pakistan. He told me he is there.” He called two or three times and argued.” Jaloud said the request worried him. Finally, someone called and asked him to ship the computer to Washington. Jaloud reports that he did so at his own expense. Al-Marri reentered the country on September 10, 2001, arriving in New York. He and his wife and kids made their way to their new hometown after an overnight stay in Chicago. Two days after 9/11, Al-Marri’s 6-year-old son was standing on the backseat. KSM’s idea that he would blend in even in rural Illinois because of 5 children had backfired. An officer stopped him. A check of his license turned up a 10-year-old warrant on a DWI charge. The Post explains that “groomed and polite,” he explained to the police officer he was back to study for his master’s degree in computer science. He was being taken to the station for booking when they stopped to drop the young boy off at the family’s room at the Time Out motel. Al-Marri makes the incredible mistake of opening a briefcase to pull out three hundred dollar bills from the bundles in a briefcase. “The briefcase was filled with bundles of hundreds.” The money was from the $13,000 Al-Hawsawi had given him in United Arab Emirates in August 2001. That fall he travelled from Peoria to Macomb and pressed to be admitted to Western Illinois University’s intensive English program even though his English was fine. In applying, he would not provide a home address or sign the application. “He was a very pugnacious individual,” the administrator told the Post. He was calling students. A number of people reported him as acting suspicious in the heightened sensibilities after 9/11. One student from whom he sought help was the local mosque imam, graduate student Jaloud. Jaloud curiously reports that he did not remember him as the fellow he had taken to the airport 90 minutes away in the summer of 2000, or the fellow he had argued about shipping the computer, or the fellow who had then put him to the expense of shipping the computer to Washington. (Jaloud said when questioned in 2005, he told the Saudis that he did not remember the address in Washington where he sent the computer.) Schmidt reports in her riveting account that although rural, the Islamic Center of Macomb “had come to the attention of intelligence and law enforcement agencies.” Before Marri could relocate to Macomb, the FBI’s Springfield office was advised by headquarters that an active phone number in their area was linked to the 9/11 plotters. A fedex mail receipt left at Dulles International had led them to a phone number associated with Hawsawi. The FBI learned that some calls to that number were made from cellphones and pay phones at odd hours of the night from Central Illnois by someone using prepaid phone cards. A call made on November 4 traced to Chicago matched Al-Marri’s visit there and a call on November 7 was made from his home phone. An intelligence official told the Washington Post journalist that when Mohammed Atef was killed in November 2001, “we found out there was a huge al-Qaeda interest in chemical and biological weapons. That prompted “a very energetic effort to identify people doing chem-bio.” The day after falsely denying he had called the number associated with al-Hawsawi, he was arrested and sent to New York in connection with a terrorism investigation there. In December 2002, prosecutors expanded the charges against Al-Marri adding that he lied to the FBI when denied using pay phones in Chicago and Central Illinois to dial the number of KSM’s assistant, al-Hawsawi. Al-Marri had called the telephone number that Atta gave to Federal Express as the UAE telephone number as the point of contact for the recipient. It was Al-Hawsawi’s laptop that had the anthrax spraydrying documents on it. Al-Hawsawi had received left-over funds from the hijackers shortly before 9/11. Al-Marri called al-Hasawi’s number using a call card at a phone in Peoria on September 23, 2001, about a week after the first anthrax mailing. On October 14, about a week after the second anthrax mailing, he called al-Hawsawi’s number again. Three weeks after that, he allegedly tried to call two more times — this time from payphones in Chicago, including a payphone at a transient hotel on North Lincoln Avenue. He also called and spoke to someone in Houston who has not yet been publicly identified. Al-Marri was separately charged with lying to agents about the trip he made to the U.S. in the summer of 2000. During that visit, he opened up three bank accounts for a fictitious business, AAA Carpets, at three different banks in Macomb, in southern Illinois. The accounts received funds from bogus credit card purchases. He was charged with using a stolen social security number in establishing the accounts. Al-Marri was working toward a master’s degree in computer information systems at Bradley when he was arrested in December 2001. He rarely attended classes and was failing. The government’s indictment alleged:
President Bush designated him an “enemy combatant, after KSM was captured in the Spring of 2003 and identified Al Marri was one of the “second wave” plotters and facilitators whose name he revealed. Al-Marri’s research interest in one of the ingredients that would be used in attack using a “mobtakker” device on New York subways heightened interest in him further still. Authorities were especially concerned that Ayman Zawahiri had vetoed the idea pitched by Al Qaeda’s head in Saudi Arabia because Ayman had something bigger planned. The Post article quotes an intelligence official: “Since al-Marri was already in custody by then he couldn’t have been an active participant, but who he was in contact with might have led to the people who were involved in the plot.” One question that arises is: after al-Marri cased New York City targets, where in Washington did he have Jaloud ship the computer? The Post article concludes by noting that despite the half decade of al-Marri’s custody, Al-Marri’s attorneys have never spoken to him about the specifics of the government’s claims. “We haven’t drilled down on those allegations. There’s no reason to. He’s not really charged with anything. He said he is innocent, he’s not a sleeper agent — at that point we left it at that.” On June 11, 2007, in al-Marri v. Wright, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that the Military Commissions Act does not override al-Marri’s constitutional rights to challenge his accusers. The Court held ruled that al-Marri must be released from military detention and either freed or placed in US civilian detention where the federal government would have to charge him with crimes. t. 2003 Capture Of Hambali And Sufaat's Assistants And The Seizure Of "Extremely Virulent" (But Unweaponized) Anthrax Muklis Yunos was arrested on May 25, 2003. Agents reportedly became suspicious when an ambulance pulled over and delivered Yunos, who was wearing a plaster cast on a leg as part of a disguise. According to other reports, he was also wearing facial bandages. An Egyptian missionary accompanying him, Al Gabre Mahmud, was apparently on an international terrorist watchlist. Authorities became suspicious when the two went to the wrong gate (and did not go to the one typically used for medical transport). The pair then objected when officials wanted to remove some of the mummy-like bandages. AP reported that a police intelligence dossier describes him as "a fanatic of the extreme fundamentalist movement" who received training in an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, including lessons on the use of anthrax as a biological weapon. He is described as about five foot three and with the features of a Japanese-Korean. The MILF leadership has strongly but unconvincingly denied that Yunos is affiliated with their organization. Yunos initially was cooperating with authorities over a bucket of spicy Kentucky Fried Chicken, complaining about the arrogance and unhelpfulness of MILF leadership. Hambali was arrested in mid-August 2003 in Thailand. Hambali had fled Malaysia with his wife, Lee, not long after 9/11. His wife and her sister had studied at the school of Bashir, JI's religious leader. He told his mother they were moving to Thailand. Hambali worked and his wife studied Arabic. Over the next two years, he also spent time in Cambodia and Myanmar. Soft-spoken and polite, the neighbors said he kept to himself in the apartment building. He reportedly underwent plastic surgery to alter his appearance, but perhaps he just shaved his beard. His wife, an ethnic Chinese Malaysian who converted to Islam, was also detained. After being shipped to Jordan, where he was harshly interrogated, Hambali eventually began providing information about Al Qaeda's anthrax production program. He told interrogators that the terror network had what author Ron Suskind describes as an "extremely virulent" strain of anthrax before the September 11 attacks. In the autumn of 2003, Suskind reports, U.S. forces in Afghanistan found a sample of the virulent anthrax at a house in Kandahar. Pulitzer Prize winning author Ron Suskind writes: "One disclosure was particularly alarming: al Qaeda had, in fact produced high-grade anthrax. Hambali, during interrogation, revealed its whereabouts in Afghanistan. The CIA soon descended on a house in Kandahar and discovered a small, extremely potent sample of the biological agent." He continued: "The anthrax found in Kandahar was extremely virulent. What's more, it was produced, according to the intelligence, in the months before 9/11. And it could be easily reproduced to create a quantity that could be readily weaponized." Suskind writes:
Suskind continued:
Based on the additional information being provided in 2003, authorities also captured two mid to low level technicians -- an Egyptian and a Sudanese. President Bush has explained that these mid-to low level technicians were part of a Southeastern Asian based cell that was developing an anthrax attack on the United States.
Sufaat wrapped things up in the Summer of 2001, according to Tenet, and briefed Hambali and Zawahiri over the course of a week.
u. Warlord Hekmatyar's Henchman in Kabul: Gitmo Charges And Anthrax Powder An exclusive September 2007 Associated Press, article quoted one hearing before the Combat Status Review Tribunal. It quoted an allegation against Rahmatullah Sangaryar, who stood accused of "planning biological and poison attacks on United States and coalition forces in Kandahar, Afghanistan" and of possessing anthrax powder and a liquid poison." The article reports that "the Afghan detainee said he was captured only with muddy clothes, possessed no anthrax and never planned such an attack."
I have not seen the transcript being relied upon by the AP. AP obtained the 2006 transcript of my interest mentioning the anthrax allegation under FOIA. It is linked from the Wikipedia.org entry for "Rahmatullah Sangaryar."
Gulbuddin Hikmatyar founded Hizb-I Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) as a faction of the Hizb-I Islami party in the late 1970s. His group was one of the major mujahedin groups in the war against the Soviets. He received about half of all CIA funding despite his virulent anti-western views. Hekmatyar has long-established ties with both Osama Bin Ladin and blind sheik Abdel-Rahman. Prosecutors in the prosecution of US-based charities took a dim view of any defendant's connection to Hekmatyar. v. Unconfirmed Claim: 2007 Capture of Taliban Spokesman With Anthrax Packets Intended For Mailing To Government Officials Amerithrax Agents checked the Kabul area in May 2004 but came up empty, sources told the Washington Post. In November of that year, on additional information, agents spent weeks searching an area in the Kandahar mountains, several hundred miles outside of Kabul. Again they found nothing. In January 2007, a Taliban spokesman was captured. An Afghanistan governor says his residence contained anthrax powder packets. According to a report by the Afghan Islamic Press Agency, as monitored by the BBC, the powdered anthrax was intended for mailing to government officials. The former Taliban spokesman quietly told a camera that he was "on a mission" when he was arrested. The fellow who reportedly had "anthrax powder packets" had been living in Peshawar. Muhammad Hanif's real name is Abdulhaq Haji Gulroz. Is this young guy mentioned above Qari Mullah Din Muhammad Hanif, the former madrassa-trained Minister of Education who wouldn't let the medical school use cadavers? (That was a good thing, given that the school didn't have electricity.) Is he a "Dr." If so, what kind? The former education minister had not received a secular education and oversaw the medical school. A veterinary student in September 2001 said they had nothing in the way of facilities or equipment. It was the Agriculture Minister who had taken a keen interest in supervising the Red Cross/FAO-funded anthrax vaccine laboratory. Yazid Sufaat did his anthrax work, he says, as part of a "Taliban medical brigade." A building associated with the charity WAFA housed a lab, and WAFA was a militant supporter of the Taliban. So while we still lack lab tests and further clarification or confirmation, this sketchy report about anthrax powder packets is intriguing. Hanif also claimed that Mullah Omar was living in Quetta under the Pakistan ISI's protection. The Washington Post once focused on the ISI's failure to cooperate with the microbiologist and food production expert Rauf Ahmad who was helping Ayman. The Post noted that I had publicly associated him with the documents provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency first. But no paper has yet addressed the ISI role in connection with suppressing information about the prosecution (or lack thereof) of bacteriologist Abdul Qadoos Khan, in whose home KSM was reportedly arrested. It's perfectly understandable why the ISI would not want to cooperate -- having worked closely with the Taliban for years at the urging of the US. Moreover, the political risks are very real given the unpopularity with the Pakistan public of pursuing respected professionals who are sympathetic to Al Qaeda. But no failure on the part of the ISI to cooperate with the FBI or CIA on the subject of an attack using aerosolized anthrax should be countenanced. By Richard M. Smith of www.ComputerBytesMan.com November 30, 2001 From the beginning, most investigators have speculated that the person who sent out the Anthrax letters is likely an insider who works in the biology field. Only an insider would have the knowledge and access to the equipment to make Anthrax and protect them self for getting infected. Such an insider might work for a biotech company, a university or government research organization, or medical lab. Greenpeace Germany reported on Wednesday an even more intriguing possibility that the sender is a "Deep Insider" who works in the U.S. biological warfare program. Here is an excerpt from a Reuter's story on the Greenpeace report: Group Says U.S. Expert Believed Behind Anthrax Attacks http://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/nm/20011128/ts/attack_anthrax_greenpeace_dc_1.html BERLIN (Reuters) - The anthrax attacks in the United States were probably the work of a member of a U.S. biological warfare program, the magazine of environment pressure group Greenpeace Germany reported Wednesday. The magazine said its article was based on information from a U.S. delegation source at the U.N. biological weapons conference in Geneva that began last week. The attacks have killed five people. "The U.S. delegation believe it is an inside job... Their members also have more information than has been made public," Kirsten Brodde, a reporter for the magazine, told Reuters. Further evidence of a Deep Insider can be found in an article in a November 30th article in the Washington Post: Ames Strain Of Anthrax Limited to Few Labs The Ames strain used in the Anthrax letters apparently has had very limited distribution over the past 5 years. The primary source for the Ames strain is the US Army's biowarfare research lab at Fort Detrick, Maryland (http://www.usamriid.army.mil/). Since 1997, when the US government started requiring record keeping, this Army lab has distributed samples of the Ames strain to only 5 other labs in the United States, Canada, and the UK. All of these labs are involved with biowarfare research such as testing and perfecting an effective Anthrax vaccine. Here is a list of the labs given the Post article: University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center Defence Research Establishment Suffield (Note: turned out not to be from Bruce Ivins' flask) U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground (Note: Dugway's Baker Lab in 2001 was run by Battelle) Chemical Defence Establishment at Porton Down (Note: turned out not to be from Bruce Ivins' flask)" A literature search at the time that the December 1999 Journal of Infectious Disease indicates that Ames also was supplied to Ann Arbor researchers at the University of Michigan. The research was explained at meetings before the American Society of Microbiologists in 1998 and 1999. Patents first published beginning January 2003 (but first filed well before 9/11) confirm that.Bruce Ivins supplied the Ames strain used by the Ann Arbor researchers, with some work done at USAMRIID, Louisiana State University and Dugway. (where Battelle Memorial Institute ran the Army's Baker Lab at Dugway, the aerosol testing facility). If it was an outside study, it had to be at the military installation in Utah. If is was inside, it could be either at West Jefferson in Ohio or at Dugway. In December 1999, the Ann Arbor researchers did an outside study at Dugway using aerosolized anthrax surrogates. They were also working on a vaccine that would be delivered intranasally. The Affidavit submitted in support of the search regarding Detrick research Bruce Ivins states:
As one news account noted: "Ask Keim [the FBI's key scientist on the issue] if he thinks Ivins was the anthrax letters terrorist and he says he just doesn’t know. 'It remains to be seen.' " Preliminary research was first reported in 2002 in Science. The analysis is directed to showing the similarity between various samples of Ames. The institutions known to have fully virulent B. anthracis Ames include USAMRIID, Naval Medical Research Center, Dugway in Utah, CDC, CAMR-Porton [in Great Britain], Battelle in Ohio, University of Northern Arizona (Keim), University of New Mexico, Louisiana State University (Hugh-Jones), and University of Scranton (DelVecchio). Alibek says Russia had Ames. Porton Down reportedly provided it to four unnamed researchers. (That, for example, is where Martin Hugh-Jones at LSU got it in the late 1990s). American Type Culture Collection ("ATCC") has written me to say that as a matter of policy, they will not address whether their patent repository (as distinguished from their online catalog) had virulent Ames prior to 9/11. Although ATCC did not take the opportunity to deny it, one could infer from the FBI's affidavit in connection the search of Ivins' residence that no lab in Virginia is known by the FBI to have had virulent Ames. Ari Fleischer explained: "What you have to keep in mind is the difference between knowledge about what type of information you have to have to produce it, and who could have sent it. They are totally separate topics that could involve totally separate people. It could be the same person or people. It could be totally different people. The information does not apply to who sent it." Ken Alibek, the former head of the Soviet bio-weapons programme suggests that 'If I were a terrorist, I would certainly not use a strain known to be from my country.'" The Washington Post explained in a late October 2008 article: "While some FBI scientists were analyzing genetic mutations, others were scouring the planet for repositories of Ames-strain bacteria. To their surprise, Ames turned out to be quite rare, with only 15 U.S. institutions and three foreign ones possessing live, virulent Ames. Samples of Ames were collected and added to a repository the FBI had established at Fort Detrick. In a process that ended only in late 2006, bureau scientists picked up 1,072 samples of anthrax bacteria and tested each for mutations identical to the ones in the bioterrorist's letters." The Washington Post has explained: "Back at the bureau's Washington field office, agents were reconstructing the history of RMR-1029. A giant flow chart, covering most of a wall, recorded each discovery about the origins of the spores and what Ivins did with them. But the agents wondered: Could others, besides Ivins, have gotten access to the flask of spores?" The Post article continues: "The question drives much of the skepticism about the FBI's case. At a news conference in August, bureau officials estimated that as many as 100 people potentially had access to the biocontainment lab where Ivins kept his collections. Investigators have maintained that other possible suspects were ruled out, but they have never explained how. It is one of the gaps that independent experts and lawmakers have raised since Ivins's death." Journalist Joby Warrick writes: "In interviews, FBI officials said the list of 100 names included USAMRIID scientists as well as anyone with even a tenuous connection to Ivins's lab, such as visitors or janitors. Each person was investigated, though most could not have gotten to the spores under any reasonable scenario the investigators could construct." "Still, dozens of people were cleared at various times to enter USAMRIID's Building 1425, where Ivins worked and kept his spore collection. Each had to be investigated, even those who lacked the basic knowledge to handle highly lethal bacteria." Joby Warrick of the Washington Post reports that "In late October 2001, lab technician Terry Abshire placed a tray of anthrax cells under a microscope and spotted something so peculiar she had to look twice." "Abshire focused her lens on a moldlike clump. Anthrax bacteria were growing here, but some of the cells were odd: strange shapes, strange textures, strange colors. These were mutants, or 'morphs,' genetic deviants scattered among the ordinary anthrax cells like chocolate chips in a cookie batter." Although it would take years to develop the science, this discovery led to proving that the origin of the anthrax was originally Ivins reference flask. There was no requirement to document transfers prior to 1997. One former USAMRIID-sponsored vaccine researcher at UMass, Dr. Curtis Thorne reports that samples used to be sent by ordinary mail. In 2001, his research on virulence of genetically altered anthrax strains was being built upon at the University of Texas (Houston) by Theresa Koehler under a grant from the CIA, the National Institutes of Health and others. The Ames strain, along with other strains, would be distributed not for nefarious purposes, but for veterinary and other research, to include use in challenging vaccines in development. Claire Fraser-Liggett, professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and director of the University of Maryland Institute for Genome Sciences and an adviser to the FBI on Amerithrax, asked, “What would have happened in this investigation had Dr. Hatfill not been so forceful in his response to being named a person of interest. What if he, instead of fighting back, had committed suicide because of the pressure? Would that have been the end of the investigation?” It was Fraser-Liggett’s genetic analysis of the anthrax spores in the letters led to Ivins' flask. “The part that seems still hotly debated is whether there was sufficient evidence to name Dr. Ivins as the perpetrator,” Fraser-Liggett says. “I have complete confidence in the accuracy of our data,” Fraser-Liggett says, but she acknowledges it does not indicate Ivins is guilty. "We just don't know how many hands it went through before it got to the ultimate user," explained Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and once a consultant to the government's investigation. One expert, Dr. C.J. Peters, summarizes: "Knowing that this strain was originally isolated in the U.S. has absolutely nothing to do with where the weapon may have been prepared because, as I tried to make the point, these strains move around. A post doc in somebody's laboratory could have taken this strain to another lab and it could have been taken overseas and it could have ended up absolutely anywhere. Tiny quantities of anthrax that you couldn't see, that you couldn't detect in an inventory can be used to propagate as much as you want. So that's just not, in fact, very helpful." The FBI estimates that, at a minimum, 100 had access to the flask in Bruce Ivins' lab. Ft. Detrick scientists point out that it used to be stored in a different lab in 1997, bringing the number to 200-300 people. The New York Post reports that "multiple facilities outside of Fort Detrick were sent RMR-1029 for their own research, including government laboratories, the Battelle lab and academic institutions like the University of New Mexico." The Post explains: "In April 2007, the FBI sent Ivins a letter saying he was "not a target of the investigation" and said it was investigating 42 people who had access to RMR-1029 at the Battelle labs in Ohio, [Ivins attorney] Kemp said." “Another lab might take a couple of milliliters of that spore preparation and create a daughter preparation,” Gerry Andrews, Ivins former boss and now a Professor at the University of Wyoming, says. “How many [samples] Ivins gave out I have no idea, but he did it through official channels, and there is a chain of custody records that indicates which labs got RMR-1029 and how much of the material they got.” The exact match to what was known to be in Ivins flask was at "one other institution" with the word "institution" being parsed to be different from the word laboratory.
The FBI WMD head implied that the other institution might be deemed "quasi-governmental" rather than what we call government.
The strain referenced in documents on Khalid Mohammed's computer seized in March 2003 was not Ames and perhaps not even virulent. It is reasonable to assume that the anthrax purchased from the North Korea supplier was not Ames (if that report of an early acquisition is credited). Thus, the question relevant to an Al Qaeda theory is what access to the US Army strain might have been accomplished by someone with 1) an organization supported by funds diverted from charities backing his play, and 2) a lot of educated and technically-trained Salafists who believe in his Islamist cause. A former KGB spy master says that the Russians had a spy at Ft. Detrick who provided samples of all specimens by diplomatic pouch. But it seems more likely that Al Qaeda simply got it directly from a western laboratory. For example, Ayman had a trusted scientist attending conferences sponsored by Porton Down scheduling 10-day lab visit as early as 1999. In the US, he had the support of other scientists (such as GMU's Al-Timimi) who did advanced research alongside researchers working with the Ames strain under a contract with USAMRIID for DARPA. NBC once reported that the 16 labs known to have Ames had been winnowed to 4 that were a match. On NPR, Attorney Paul Kemp, attorney for the family of the late Bruce Ivins, said that Ames from Ivins' flask was known to have gone to Battelle and University of New Mexico. Warrick explains: "Ivins, the FBI discovered, had spent more than a year perfecting what agents called his 'ultimate creation' -- his signature blend of highly lethal anthrax spores -- and guarded it so carefully that his lab assistants did not know where he kept it." "Ivins's talents also helped give him away, investigators told the Washington Post said. Exceptionally pure concentrations of anthrax spores were Ivins's trademark and placed him in an exclusive class. In the end, the FBI concluded, he was the only one with access to the deadly spores who also possessed the skills and equipment needed to create the extraordinarily powerful bioweapon that was mailed to U.S. Senate offices and news organizations in the fall of 2001." The Washington Post's Warrick writes: "It was intended for garden-variety animal experiments, but the collection of anthrax spores known as RMR-1029 was anything but ordinary. Ivins, its creator, had devoted a year to perfecting it, mixing 34 different batches of bacteria-laden broth and distilling them into a single liter of pure lethality. The finished product, a muddy, off-white liquid in a glass flask the size of a small coffee pot, was the greatest single concentration of deadly anthrax bacteria in the country, FBI investigators said." Ivins began work on it in 1996 with the goal of creating a large repository of highly virulent Bacillus anthracis spores that could be used by his fellow scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID, for years to come. To measure the effectiveness of new anthrax vaccines, the drugs have to be tested against a potent form of bacteria that remained the same from one experiment to the next." "It was his ultimate creation," Jason D. Bannan said of the flask, an FBI microbiologist assigned to the Amerithrax case told the Washington Post. "This was the culmination of a lot of hard work." Warrick writes: "He wasn't an expert. He was the expert," said a senior FBI investigator, who answered questions about the still-open case on the condition of anonymity." "Bruce Ivins was a victim of a vicious plot," said Ayaad Assaad, a toxicologist who once worked with Ivins at Fort Detrick, in Maryland. In a number of patents by University of Michigan researchers in Ann Arbor, Tarek Hamouda and James R. Baker, Jr., including some before 9/11, the inventors thank Bruce Ivins of Ft. Detrick for supplying them with Ames. The University of Michigan patents stated: "B. anthracis spores, Ames and Vollum 1 B strains, were kindly supplied by Dr. Bruce Ivins (USAMRIID, Fort Detrick, Frederick, Md.), and prepared as previously described (Ivins et al., 1995). Dr. Hamouda served as group leader on the DARPA Anti-infective project. A patent application filed April 2000 by the University of Michigan inventors explained:
In late August 2001, NanoBio relocated from a small office with 12 year-old furniture to an expanded office on Green Road located at Plymouth Park. After the mailings, DARPA reportedly asked for some of their product them to decontaminate some of the Senate offices. The company pitched hand cream to postal workers. The inventors company, NanoBio, is funded by DARPA. NanoBio received a $3,150,000 defense contract in 2003. Dr. Hamouda graduated Cairo Medical in December 1982. He married in 1986. His wife was on the Cairo University dental faculty for 10 years. Upon coming to the United States in 1994 after finishing his microbiology PhD at Cairo Medical, Dr. Hamouda was a post-doctoral fellow at the Wayne State University School of Medicine in downtown Detroit. His immunology department biography at Wayne indicates that he then came to the University of Michigan and began work on the DARPA-funded work with anthrax bio-defense applications with James R. Baker at their company NanoBio. The University of Michigan researchers presented in part at various listed meetings and conferences in 1998 and 1999. The December 1999 article titled "A Novel Surfactant Nanoemulsion with Broad-Spectrum Sporicidal Activity of against Bacillus Species" in the Journal for Infectious Diseases states: "B. anthracis spores, Ames and Vollum 1B strains, were supplied by Bruce Ivins (US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases [USAMRIID], Fort Detrick, Frederick, MD) and were prepared as described elsewhere. Four other strains of B. anthracis were provided by Martin Hugh-Jones (Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge." In the acknowledgements section, the University of Michigan authors thank:
The authors explained that "The nanoemulsions can be rapidly produced in large quantities and are stable for many months *** Undiluted, they have the texture of a semisolid cream and can be applied topically by hand or mixed with water. Diluted, they have a consistency and appearance similar to skim milk and can be sprayed to decontaminate surfaces or potentially interact with aerosolized spores before inhalation." An earlier publication of the University of Michigan Medical school, Medicine at Michigan, (Vol. 1, No. 1, Spring 1999) described the DARPA-funded research:
The research is sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the central research and development organization for the U.S. Department of Defense." Dr. Baker, by email, advises me that Ivins did the studies involving Ames for them at USAMRIID. He reports: "We never had Ames and could not have it at our UM facilities." Before September 2001, it's office was described as in the basement of a downtown bank which seems to describe 912 N. Main St., Ann Arbor, just west of University of Michigan campus. An article in the Summer of 2000 in Medicine at Michigan explains:
As Fortune magazine explained in November 2001: "Then bioterror struck.... It moved to a bland corporate park where its office has no name on the door. It yanked its street address off its Website, whose hit rate jumped from 350 a month to 1,000 a day." NanoBio was part of the solution: "in the back of NanoBio's office sit two dozen empty white 55-gallon barrels. A few days before, DARPA had asked Annis and Baker if they could make enough decontaminant to clean several anthrax-tainted offices in the Senate. NanoBio's small lab mixers will have to run day and night to fill the barrels. 'This is not the way we want to do this,' sighs [its key investor], shaking his head. 'This is all a duct-tape solution.' " James Baker, founder of Ann Arbor's NanoBio's likes to quote a Chinese proverb: "When there are no lions and tigers in the jungle, the monkeys rule." It's naive to think that Al Qaeda could not have obtained Ames just because it tended to be in labs associated with or funded by the US military. As just one example, US Army Al Qaeda operative Sgt. Ali Mohammed accompanied Zawahiri in his travels in the US. (Ali Mohamed had been a major in the same unit of the Egyptian Army that produced Sadat’s assassin, Khaled Islambouli). Ali Al-Timimi was working in the building housing the Center for Biodefense funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ("DARPA") and had access to the facilities at both the Center for Biodefense and the adjacent American Type Culture Collection. Michael Ray Stubbs was an HVAC system technician at Lawrence Livermore Lab with a high-level security clearance permitting access. That was where the effort to combat the perceived Bin Laden anthrax threat was launched in 1998. Aafia Siddiqui, who attended classes at a building with the virulent Vollum strain. She later married a 9/11 plotter al-Balucchi, who was in UAE with al-Hawsawi, whose laptop, when seized at the home of a bacteriologist, had anthrax spraydrying documents on it. The reality is that a lab technician, researcher, or other person similarly situated might simply have walked out of some lab that had it. What was NanoBio's old street address? Why is Aafia Siddiqui associated with an address at 1915 Woodbury Drive in Ann Arbor? An Assistant United States Attorney has claimed in open court (in the opening argument in United States v. Paracha) that Aafia was willing to participate in an anthrax attack if asked. Among the documents found in Afghanistan in 2001, were letters and notes written in English to Ayman Zawahiri by a scientist about his attempts to obtain an anthrax sample. One handwritten letter was on the letterhead of the Society for Applied Microbiology, the UK's oldest microbiological society. The Society for Applied Microbiology of Bedford, UK, recognizes that "the development and exploitation of Applied Microbiology requires the maintenance and improvement of the microbiological resources in the UK, such as culture collections and other specialized facilities." Thus, Zawahiri's access to the Ames strain is still yet to be proved or disclosed, but there was no shortage of possibilities or recruitment attempts by Ayman. One colleague of his estimates that he made 15 recruitment attempts over a many year period. Dr. Keim observes: “Whoever perpetrated the first crime must realize that we have the capability to identify material and to track the material back to its source. Whoever did this is presumably aware of what’s going on, and if the person is a scientist, they can read the study. Hopefully, the person is out there thinking: When am I going to get caught?” The FBI has not yet identified the location of the 8 isolates downstram from Ivins' flask known to be an identical match -- or the 100+people it says had access. For the US Attorney Jeff Taylor to make it seem, however, that only Ivins had control over anthrax that was genetically identical was fallacious. The more commonsensical point would be that Ivins would have no reason to use anthrax so directly traceable to him by reason of being a mix of Ames strains. The DARPA-funded work involving use of the lyophilizer by Dr. Ivins apparently involved the DARPA-funded Ann Arbor researchers who thanked him in numerous patents for supplying the Ames and referenced his 1995 Vaccines article describing preparation of the spores. Salon.com blogger Glen Greenwald explains:
Throughout the period 2000-2008, the Ann Arbor researchers would explain: "B. anthracis spores, Ames and Vollum 1 B strains, were kindly supplied by Dr. Bruce Ivins (USAMRIID, Fort Detrick, Frederick, Md.), and prepared as previously described (Ivins et al., Vaccine 13:1779 [1995])."
Gerry Andrews told the Baltimore Examiner “The only lyophylizer available was a speed vac,” he says. “That’s a low-volume instrument that you can’t even fit under a hood” used to contain pathogens. “The only opinions that I would place any confidence in would have to come from individuals who have made the stuff, in the same quantity of the letters,” said infectious disease specialist W. Russell Byrne. “And then I would ask them to go into B3 in building 1425, work there for a couple of weeks and reproduce what they say Bruce did. That’s the only way I could, in good conscience and in the spirit of objective scientific inquiry, believe them.” The lead investigator Montooth, told the Washington Post: "When you go to the true experts and ask them how many people can develop [anthrax spores] into something with this purity and this concentration, they shake their heads." "Some will say there are perhaps six. Others will say maybe a dozen." The Washington Post reports: "But drying the spores turned out to be no obstacle at all, FBI scientists said. It required only one more step, using a common laboratory machine known as a lyophilizer. Ivins had one in his lab." In contrast, the head of the Air Force lab, expert at making anthrax simulants, advises me by email: "The Amerithrax spores were neither freeze dried nor milled. I have seen both and the Amerithrax had characteristics of neither." Dr. Alibek, who once thought a spraydryer likely was used, told me that he later came to think a fluidized bed dryer was used. The FBI scientists likely have never made aerosolized anthrax simulant but will be able to attempt to justify their conclusions in time. In an October 16, 2008 letter to the academy, Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.), a member of the House intelligence committee, asked the panel to investigate whether the bureau's scientific discoveries were "inconsistent with the FBI's conclusions." Before the anthrax mailings, in an interview in September 2000, Dr. Ken Alibek addressed whether Bin Laden could make a "Alibek-caliber" powdered anthrax. Dr. Alibek was a colleague of microbiologist Ali Al-Timimi. Al-Timimi was taught by Bin Laden's Sheik al-Hawali and actively communicating with him.
After the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology detected silica, [USAMRIID Major General John] Parker reported that the anthrax in question contained silica, a common substance found in sand and quartz. Another department colleague of Bin Laden's sheik's protege -- Dr. Alibek's co-director of the Center for Biodefense at GMU --told a reporter that the presence of silica is significant, but he declined to say why, citing national security concerns. "I don't think I want to give people -- terrorists -- any information to help them, said Dr. Charles Bailey, a scientist at Advanced Biosystems Inc. at George Mason University and former commander of the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID)." The problem was that a microbiologist trained in computer science and actively communicating with Bin Laden's sheik and the 911 imam was working just feet away from both famed Russian anthrax bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and Dr. Bailey. Bin Laden's supporters already had access to the information. The FBI WMD head has said the silica may have been in the culture medium. Bailey and Alibek in mid-March 2001 filed a confidential patent application relating to the concentration of anthrax using silicon dioxide. There presently is no evidence that Ivins had access to the know-how. Scientists have determined that anthrax spores mailed to Capitol Hill were made less than two years ago before being mailed. Moreover, contrary to what has often been implied or assumed, the technique to weaponize the anthrax used in the Fall 2001 was not the one used by the US Army in weaponizing anthrax in the 1950s. William Patrick's process for weaponizing anthrax involved freeze drying and chemical processing whereas it was the process contemplated by Al Qaeda that involved spraydrying. "We made little freeze-dried pellets of anthrax," Donald Schattenberg explained, "then we ground them down with a high-speed colloid mill." The finding cast doubt on the hypothesis that the spores could have been stolen from a lab a long time ago. Commenting on the fine powder sent Senator Daschle and Leahy, "Only nations, probably, have figured out how to do this," Professor Matthew Meselson at Harvard said at the time. But, he adds, this means "how to do it is in the minds of people," including former employees of weapons programs in the Soviet Union and the US. Dr. Spertzel, the U.N. Special Commission chief biological inspector from 1994 to 1998 told the Washington Post: “In my opinion, there are maybe four or five people in the whole country who might be able to make this stuff, and I’m one of them. And even with a good lab and staff to help run it, it might take me a year to come up with a product as good.” At a break from a briefing before a Congressional subcommittee in December 2001, Dr. Richard Spertzel and Dr. Ken Alibek discussed access to the Ames strain and the method of weaponization. They might just as well have been demonstrating how to palm a basketball -- with Dr. Alibek agreeing with Dr. Spertzel on the likely general method but saying it is easier than Dr. Spertzel may think. According to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, "Scanning electron microscopy of the spores used in the Senate office attack showed that they range from individual particles to aggregates of 100 [microns] or more. Spores were uniform in size and appearance and the aggregates had a propensity to pulverize (i.e., disperse into smaller particles when disturbed)." The Homeland Security Subcommittee on Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attack held a hearing in July 2005 on "Engineering Bio-Terror Agents: Lessons from the Offensive U.S. and Russian Biological Weapons Programs." The hearing evaluated Al Qaeda's ability to develop and use catastrophic biological weapons -- such as weaponized anthrax. The hearing examined the known biological warfare capabilities developed by the U.S. and Russian offensive programs, and the potential of those capabilities being utilized in future terrorist attacks. One of the witnesses at the hearing ironically was the former colleague of Al-Timimi, Dr. Kenneth Alibek, Executive Director, Center for Biodefense, George Mason University Another witness, Dr. Michael V. Callahan, Director, Biodefense & Mass Casualty Care, CIMIT/Massachusetts General Hospital, explained:
Ari Fleischer discusses the silica in the anthrax in his book Taking Heat. He reports that he had argued at length with ABC News over its story that the additive was bentonite (which arguably was characteristic of the Iraq program). He explained that from the start he had told ABC that it was silica, not bentonite, that had been detected. The suggestion that AFIP experts did not know the difference between silica and silcon is not well founded, and the now-deceased scientist who performed the EDX specifically told the journalist that oxygen was also detected in ratios consistent with silicon dioxide. A PhD student supervised by Matthias Frank, a big star at Livermore in developing the biosensor, addressed these issues in 2004. Lawrence Livermore lab was tasked with combating the Bin Laden anthrax threat in 1998 and is steeped in biodetection, the subject of the PhD thesis. LLNL researchers have developed advanced technologies to rapidly detect the airborne release of biological threat agents. The student cites Gary Matsumoto's Science article and says:
Former Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and Harvard biologist Matthew Meselson, however, have opined that there was no special silica coating observable in the Scanning Electron Microscope ("SEM") images they saw. The FBI's scientist at Sandia confirms that no silica was observed on the exosporium and that instead it was below the exosporium, absorbed in the coats. The presence of any silica, Drs. Meselson and Alibek say, may have come from the environment because of the special tendency of anthrax spore coats to attract silicon. (The lead FBI scientist Dwight Adams relied on the study provided the FBI by Meselson in briefing the Congress in November 2002.) Indeed, the silica may have been in the culture medium and then removed as described by a mid-March 2001 and related patent filed by researchers at Dr. Alibek's Center for Biodefense at GMU. “The silicon is probably the most important scientific evidence that would lead anybody to question whether Bruce was capable of making these spores,” says Gerald P. Andrews, Bruce Ivins’ former boss. Andrews and George Mason University professor and former Soviet bioweapons researcher Sergei Popov believe the silicon was purposely added, due to unnaturally high levels of the mineral in the spores. Sandia made a video on YouTube explaining its research on behalf of the FBI. A scientist from the FBI Laboratory, Dr. Doug Beecher, in a July 2006 issue of "Applied and Environmental Microbiology" provided me a copy of his article that reports that:
The vague and ambiguous passage mere confirms Dr. Alibek's point that a sophisticated product can result from a relatively simple method. Harvard University Matthew Meselson reviewed the language in the FBI scientist's article before publication. "The statement should have had a reference," editor-in-chief of the microbiology journal told a trade periodical. "An unsupported sentence being cited as fact is uncomfortable to me. Any statement in a scientific article should be supported by a reference or by documentation." The two passages, footnoted or not, essentially said what Dr. Alibek had been saying: "'[J]ust because you have a sophisticated product doesn't mean the technique has to be sophisticated.' " Silica in the culture medium would not be a sophisticated "additive" but would permit the agent to be concentrated. In a Letter to the Editor in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Aug. 2007, p. 5074, titled “Unsupported Conclusions on the Bacillus anthracis Spores,” Kay A. Mereish, at the United Nations, reports:
Dr. Mereish tells me that her letter to the editor was not intended to agree or disagree with the FBI scientist. She merely notes that his two sentences that related to this issue of additive were not supported by the scientific experiment and data that he published. She relies on Dr. Small who made her statement based on her scientific research finding in connection with her work on the anthrax samples. Dr. Mereish's letter, however, is another example where the use of "electrical charges" scientists as Dr. Patrick and Dr. Alibek are failing to distinguish between electrostatic charges and Van der Waals forces, thus resulting in some of the confusion in the press reports. Kathryn Crockett, Ken Alibek’s assistant -- was just a couple doors down from Ali Al-Timimi -- addressed these issues in her 2006 thesis, "A historical analysis of Bacillus anthracis as a biological weapon and its application to the development of nonproliferation and defense strategies." She expressed her special thanks to Dr. Ken Alibek and Dr. Bill Patrick. Dr. Patrick consulted with the FBI and so the FBI credits his expertise. "I don't want to appear arrogant. I don't think anyone knows more about anthrax powder in this country," William Patrick told an interviewer. Dr. Alibek’s access to know-how, regarding anthrax weaponization, similarly, seems beyond reasonable dispute. Dr. Crockett successfully defended the thesis before a panel that included USAMRIID head and Ames strain researcher Charles Bailey, Ali Al-Timimi's other Department colleague. She says that scientists who analyzed the powder through viewing micrographs or actual contact are divided over the quality of the powder. She cites Gary Matsumoto’s “Science” article in summarizing the debate. She says the FBI has vacillated on silica. “Regarding the specific issue of weaponization," Dr. Alibek's assistant concluded in her PhD thesis, "according to several scientists at USAMRIID who examined the material, the powder created a significant cloud when agitated meaning that the adhesion of the particles had been reduced. Reducing the adhesion of the particles meant that the powder would fly better.” She explains that “The most common way to reduce electrostatic charge is to add a substance to the mixture, usually a silica based substance.” On the issue of encapsulation, she reports that “many experts who examined the powder stated the spores were encapsulated. Encapsulation involves coating bacteria with a polymer which is usually done to protect fragile bacteria from harsh conditions such as extreme heat and pressure that occurs at the time of detonation (if in a bomb), as well as from moisture and ultraviolet light. The process was not originally developed for biological weapons purposes but rather to improve the delivery of various drugs to target organs or systems before they were destroyed by enzymes in the circulatory system" (citing Alibek and Crockett, 2005). "The US and Soviet Union, however, " she explains, "used this technique in their biological weapons programs for pathogens that were not stable in aerosol form... Since spores have hardy shells that provide the same protection as encapsulation would, there is no need to cover them with a polymer.“ She explains that one “possible explanation is that the spore was in fact encapsulated but not for protective purpose. Encapsulation also reduces the need for milling when producing a dry formulation." She wrote: "If the perpetrator was knowledgeable of the use of encapsulation for this purpose, then he or she may have employed it because sophisticated equipment was not at his disposal." One military scientist who has made anthrax simulants described the GMU patents as relating to an encapsulation technique which serves to increase the viability of a wide range of pathogens. More broadly, a DIA analyst once commented to me that the internal debate seemed relatively inconsequential given the circumstantial evidence -- overlooked by so many people -- that US-based supporters of Al Qaeda are responsible for the mailings. Most of Dr. Ivins' colleagues have thought Al Qaeda was responsible.
The FBI scientists have been able to distinguish between water isotopes ratios in the anthrax. Brian Williams reports that investigators have told NBC that the water used to make the spores came from the Northeastern United States. Researchers have been able to establish that anthrax grown in water in the Northeastern United States is distinguishable from anthrax grown in water from the Southeast and Pacific Northwest. In one published anthrax study, researchers grew Bacillus subtilis, a harmless bacteria that resembles Bacillus anthracis, using local water from five different U.S. cities. The scientists were able to distinguish those grown in various cities. The method can be used to narrow the number of possible origins of the water based on the number of oxygen and hydrogen isotopes. Interviewer Kestenbaum said: "Ehleringer is now creating a map showing how the isotope ratios of water vary anthrax was grown, it may rule some places out." As defined by the Census Bureau, the Northeast region of the United States covers nine states: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. A scientist explained the research in an NPR interview in 2004. I once inferred from the NBC report that from the isotope ratios, authorities believe either that the anthrax was grown in one of the yellow (or perhaps light green) areas, but not one of the dark green, blue or red areas on Ehrlinger's map. The yellow swath includes much of the Northeastern United States -- places like Manhattan, and Syracuse, NY as well as places like Ann Arbor and Minneapolis. Islamabad and Baghdad can be excluded. Pretty much all foreign locations apparently can be excluded (except for parts of Canada), along with places with comparable oxygen isotope ratios such as Central New Jersey, Maryland and Ohio. Outside of the United States, pretty much only the adjacent parts of Canada above Northeastern US (e.g., parts of Ontario and Quebec) match the yellow swath that the scientists found distinguishing. The authors of one of the key articles specifically noted that they couldn't distinguish between North Carolina and Ohio -- the dark green. Similarly, they can't distinguish between Central New Jersey and North Carolina (again, the dark green). The key studies in the peer reviewed literature indicate that they were funded by the Central Intelligence Agency. Someone needs to pay the bills. Ehleringer and his colleagues published a March 2007 article titled "Stable isotope ratios of tap water in the contiguous United States" in "Water Resources Research." The study was funded by the "federal government." The raw data survey results have been embargoed by the federal government." (The agency would usually be identified). In other water isotope ratio studies the funding agency was identified as the CIA or whatever agency it was -- it varied. Perhaps this March 2007 study was funded by the Department of Justice/Federal Bureau of Investigation and was done specifically for the purpose of laying the scientific groundwork of a prosecution in Amerithrax. Separately, a press release announced in September 2003 that University of Maryland researchers have developed a technique to help the FBI track the origins of deadly anthrax spores by identifying the medium used to grow it. The FBI asked Maryland professor Catherine Fenselau to turn her mass spectrometry lab to the forensic task of sleuthing how bacillus spores, such as anthrax, are prepared. While the Utah scientist in this study was looking at the tap water, Helen W. Kreuzer-Martin, the Maryland scientist in a study published in April 2007 titled "Stable Isotope Ratios and the Forensic Analysis of Microorganisms," was looking at the nutrients in the culture. The DOJ/FBI likely hopes to put all the data together with the more familiar reasons to suspect someone (means, motive, modus operandi and opportunity), and put on a case that to a moral certainty proves it was committed by the perp(s). Absent the scientific evidence, there perhaps is a lack of a "smoking gun." Here, based on this new science, hopefully there is a smoking petri dish. By looking at the oxygen, hydrogen and deuterium geospatial distribution, authorities can more precisely identify where the water came from. For example, the deuterium map might be relied upon to eliminate an ambiguity left by the range indicated by the oxygen and hydrogen maps. Why hasn't the Task Force released the isotope ratio analysis? Ft. Detrick made its own de-ionized water (as do all military labs apparently). The FBI's expert James Ehleringer advises me that "there are regional stable isotope ratios for drinking water, including many locally-bottled waters. If de-ionization is completed by a reverse-osmosis process, then the isotope ratios of the de-ionized and pre-de-ionized waters should be the same." In a March 31, 2003 public exchange sponsored by the Washington Post, in response to my written question submitted in advance, Ali Al-Timimi's George Mason University colleague, Kenneth Alibek, said: "This anthrax wasn't sophisticated, didn't have coatings, had electric charge and many other things." In other responses, he further explained: "There was no special need to add silica to this anthrax. Presence or absence of silica says nothing about whether it was state sponsored." US bioweaponeer William Patrick took time out from advising GMU grad students and gave it a 7 out of 10 --- calling it professionally done but not weapons grade. Perhaps that would be a B+ or even an A-. In an interview with CBS, William Patrick explained that he had been given a polygraph in June 2002 about the anthrax letters. He reports that "The FBI that they wanted me to become a part of their inner circle of--of experts, and that in order to become a part of that inner circle of technical experts, that I'd have to pass a polygraph test." On April 11, 2003, Scott Shane reported that reverse engineering "carried out at the Army's biodefense center at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, raises the disquieting possibility that al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups could create lethal bioweapons without scientific or financial help from a state." Quoting one outside bioterrorism expert. "It shows you can have a fairly sophisticated product with fairly rudimentary methods." At last report, the reverse engineering reportedly was not able to recreate the identical product. Lisa Bronson, deputy undersecretary of defense for technology security policy and proliferation, has said that commercially available equipment used to make powdered milk could be used to make powderized anthrax. A spray dryer is used in chemical and food processing to manufacture dried egg, powdered milk, animal feed, cake mixes, citrus juices, coffee, corn syrup, cream, creamers, dried eggs, potatoes, shortening, starch derivatives, tea, tomatoes, yeast, and -- last but not least -- yogurt. Washington State University also has an informative discussion on the web. Making dried milk is not rocket science and doesn't require a PhD. But, if experience is any guide, Al Qaeda has PhD's and even rocket scientists who are sympathetic to its cause (indeed, even the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb). Here is a Q&A from a March 31, 2003 exchange with Kenneth Alibek, in response to a question I posed to him. (The month before 100 agents had come to Syracuse the same minute Ali Al-Timimi's residence was searched, and so I was curious what the fuss was all about.)
To find the missing spraydryer, perhaps the FBI merely needs to find and trace the steps of Al Qaeda's expert yogurt or dried milk or animal feedstuffs or rice hull processor. Confounding things a bit, a couple years later, Dr. Alibek told me that he had come to think that it was made using a fluidized bed dryer rather than a spraydryer. The attack anthrax was contaiminated with a distinctive B. subtilus strain. No matching subtilis was found in swabbing of the USAMRIID labs were Dr. Ivins worked. The affidavit in support of a search warrant explained:
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