ping

Ping.

I remember when the original incident occurred. The postal unions were decrying the Postal Service's lack of concern for their safety. The Brentwood facility should have been shut down immediately.

You might find this of some interest:


http://www.rep-am.com/story.php?id=12812
Anthrax revisited - Life back to normal in Oxford despite continuing probe into woman's death

Off to check that link.

Here is the topic:

Many of us must have noticed isolated interesting factinos in relation to the anthrax mailings that we have yet not found occasion to remark on. This thread is for these little facts, which together may add to more than the summation of the parts.

So what observations have *you* noticed that you have not posted or that may not be known widely? Never found the right thread to post it on? This is it.

Discussion on the facts posted by others? Post them too, naturaly.

Book-mark this thread and come back a few times to see what nuggets other FReepers will have posted.

I have addressed this to a large list of previous anthrax-thread participants, in hopes of pulling in many little facts. I will not do any other mass-ping on this thread. My apologies if I missed you.

Let's start things off with............

Background: The postmarking date of the anthrax letters to Senators Daschle and Leahy was Tuesday, 9 October 2001. There is no mail pickup on Sunday, nor on that Monday because of Columbus Day that year. So the letters were mailed some time between 6 October, late in the day after last pickup, and 9 October.

Observacions: Two unusual Internet postings were made at the same time. Read them. Were these posted by the anthrax mailers?

• Posting 1: On 7 October 2001, in a Brazilian chatroom, appeared the following:

  Assunto: ANTRAX EM LOS ANGELES 
                                      Data: 7 Oct 2001 15:44:16 -0300 
                                      De: <.@..> 
                                      Grupo: uol.politica.internacional 
                                      
                                      Comecou a ser espalhado em Los Angeles 10 Kg de
                                      antrax. Estima-se 80 mil mortes nas proximas semanas
                                      

  Translating from portuguese to english:

  Subject: ANTHRAX IN LOS ANGELES
                                      Date: 7 Oct 2001 15:44:16 -0300 
                                      From: <.@..> 
                                      Group: uol.politica.internacional 
                                      
                                      
                                      10 kilograms of anthrax have started to be spread in Los Angeles.
                                      One estimates 80,000 deaths in the coming weeks.
                                      

  The chatroom posting has disappeared into the ether, but it was documented on 8 October 2001: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=Muslim-terrorism-1900.20011007%40news.mantra.com
   
• Posting 2, even more curious: On 9 October 2001, or very late on 8 October 2001 depending on the time zone, appeared the following newsgroup post:

  From: intheknowcia@aol.com (Intheknowcia)
                                      Newsgroups: alt.prophecies.nostradamus
                                      Date: 09 Oct 2001 05:12:54 GMT
                                      Subject: USA to use Nukes against Iraq
                                      Message-ID: <20011009011254.21640.00000886@mb-bj.aol.com>
                                      
                                      Just a little inside info to let you all know
                                      that the USA plans to use Nuclear missiles
                                      against Iraq to totally destroy and burn up
                                      their supplies of Biological weapons, otherwise
                                      they fear these germs spreading across the
                                      region.
                                      
                                      Inside
                                      

  Source url is http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=20011009011254.21640.00000886%40mb-bj.aol.com&output=gplain.
   

Someone might argue that I have just fished 2 posts out of many, selecting those that happened to be around the right date. It is true that if postings like these were a common-place, I could have looked for two from around the right date, and those 2 would then mean Zilch. Howsoever, postings like these are not a dime a dozzen. I know of nothing similar. These are the only postings of this type of which I know, and, as such, the timing of them is remarkable, as is the very early referral to a war by the U.S. on Iraq over WMD.

I'm in !
In addition,if space gets crowded here,I have a bulletin board website ( no fees,no ads,just register)where parts of this discussion could be moved:

http://listeningpost.mywowbb.com

It's not intended to divert anything from FR,but might offer a more "private" discussion forum for anyone who is skittish.

I still visit The Great Satan's Blog to see what he has to say. I still, to this day, think he is pretty close with his theories.

Just to refine things a bit further, I've set aside a special forum for discussing this matter:

http://listeningpost.mywowbb.com/forum1/15.html

I think you're right; coverage by the so-called "mainstream media" has dried up to virtually nothing. I think by now even the most hardened press lefties realize that "Amerithrax" is a tapped-out dry well. In other words, no suspects, no forthcoming arrests, no solution, and all of us can spend the rest of our lives believing whatever we wanted to believe to begin with.

Might be a good idea to move it. Am I your skittish one??

I have hired an editor to put my scenario in a book. She will be here Dec. 13. One year and two days after I gave it to Homeland Security. He never got back to me.

So I'm in.

/sarcasm

?......Can the Canadian 'Service'.....sue?

There goes career #3 for John Edwards. Guess he'll have to move to New York and become a Senator. No wait! Some so-called lawyer already did that.

"I'm the walking dude. I can see all the world."--Anthrax

I'll be happy to have you aboard !

Don't know what the word means, but we did have a family of Padillas in our high school. The kid was so sick he was whiter than a sheet. Chimo Padilla.

Who is the statistician here? If Padilla was 10% of the names of Hispanics, what are the chances of those two having the same last name?

Long lost relative?

Also, the hoaxes from St. Petersburg.

I've been thinking about that, and after re-reading Lance's book, I am beginning to wonder.

Don't know what the word means, but we did have a family of Padillas in our high school. The kid was so sick he was whiter than a sheet. Chimo Padilla.

Who is the statistician here? If Padilla was 10% of the names of Hispanics, what are the chances of those two having the same last name?

Long lost relative?

Also, the hoaxes from St. Petersburg.

I've been thinking about that, and after re-reading Lance's book, I am beginning to wonder.

Thank u. Wherever people feel comfortable is good. I prefer the motto, << There's safety in numbers! >>

Same for the clearing of the Murrah building site.

Is this related? I do not know.

Clarifying here...

I do not suggest that the 10 kilogrammes of anthrax were real. The possibility - and it is only that - is that the anthrax mailers were ratchetingup the level of worry so as to increase the reaction to the few grammes they really had.

I think the anthrax murders were a wildly successful act of terrorism,but am not sure whether they were carried out by a "foreign-oriented" group,or a domestic group willing to destabilize the US- at a time it was under attack - to forward its own agenda.(I have begun to suspect the latter possibility.)

If the group was domestic,it might not have realized its "little bit of guerrilla theater" would cause the deaths of the "workers" it claimed to protect.Having the project blow up in their faces might have discouraged any claims of "responsibility".

This sort of thing happened during the 60's and 70's.Some of the anti-war crowd bombed recruiting stations,places where draft records were kept,etc. If casualties resulted,most of these "noble" protestors got very modest about "taking credit".

One the other hand,one could argue persuasively Muslim extremists do NOT always take "credit" for their acts. Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda crowd denied responsibility for 9/11 ....until they realized it would boost their stature in the Arab world-after which,you couldn't shut them up !

What a fine idea for a thread...

How about the meaning of the return address on the anthrax-laced letters to Sens. Daschle & Leahy? People talked a lot about the Greendale School part and the city, but the ZIP code is key. Was the ZIP code selected first, for a hidden meaning, with the remainder of the address then chosen to flesh it out?

The ZIP code on the anthrax envelopes to the two Senators was 08852.

08-8-52. This is August 8, 1952 - or 8 August 1952, it doesn't matter which style you use, month-day-year as in the USA or day-month-year as in Europe.

What does "August 8, 1952" commemorate? I am told that it is the birthday of the CIA branch for covert activities, the date of the merger of OPC and OSO into the Directorate of Plans, under DDP Frank Wisner. William Leary's authoritative The Central Intelligence Agency: History and Documents places the creation of the Directorate in August, 1952, but doesn't spell out the August 8 date. http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/17240/art-2.html#ft2. BTW, the Directorate of Plans was later renamed the Directorate of Operations.

Is this ZIP code a numerical coincidence?

Or is the return address of the anthrax the signature or calling-card of the covert activities group of the old CIA, before it was gutted??? Or maybe a wistful harkening back to those days of glory???

"... Twist your minds with fear, I'm the man with the power.

... Damnation is the price he'll pay, for an evil man's desire."

The 9 October letters were mailed after Bob Stevens' death. They knew they were playing with fire.

Heh-heh

John,I think it more likely they selected a zip code that would be somewhat in line with those in the general area of the make-believe school.

I also think using the school as a return address was something only an American (or person very,very familiar with Americans) would do.They would know,in our culture,children are important,and that a mail clerk would be likely to open a letter which appeared to come from school children.

In "nomadic" cultures-such as those which founded the Wahabbi (?) sect of Islam, elders are MUCH more important than children.If resources are scarce,they are more likely to be allocated to an elder than to a child.By extension,a letter received from what appeared to be children would probably be discarded-unopened,as it would likely contain a request for help or some sort.

The 9 October letters were mailed after Bob Stevens' death. They knew they were playing with fire.

I agree. Furthermore, this claim that the perp/s really only wanted to scare people and not actually kill anyone has always struck me as being completely absurd. The anthrax in those letters was the deadliest stuff the top experts had ever seen before. Whoever prepared this stuff absolutely HAD to know that it would almost certainly kill anyone who got into close enough proximity of it.

There is no doubt that they knew that they had killed Bob Stevens before mailing the 9 October letters. A reference to Stevens' death dated 5 October: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3BBE2232.89CC8E1F%40sympatico.ca&output=gplain. This is a reply to an earlier article which, curiosely, was posted anonymously - by "R." - and marked with the x-no-archive tag to request that it be not saved by search engines. Why the superanonymity? Who was this "R."? May-be one of the mailers, just possibly? Doesn't really matter.

The earliest the letters postmarked 9 October could have been mailed was late in the day on 6 October. By the time of mailing, the mailers had known for at least a day that Stevens had died.

I agree with Battle Axe that the envelopes were probably addressed before being filled. Common-sense says that people don't take chances with anthrax-filled envelopes. There is no way to tell how long before mailing were they filled. It doesn't matter for the conclusion tho - they proceeded with the Daschle-Leahy mailing even after they knew that Stevens had died.

I agree. I've always personally believed that at least part of the goal of the anthrax was to try to deter or delay our retaliatory military response to 9/11. A mass anthrax attack killing a large number of people right on the heels of 9/11 would have put American support for an immediate, overwhelming military response at around 90-95% instead of just the 70-80% percent that it was.

I think they probably wanted to try to demonstrate the capability and means with which to kill number of people if they wanted to without actually doing so, which would have been the ultimate provocation. They didn't particularly care who actually died as a result though.

As has been remarked-endlessly-no group ever stepped forward to claim "credit",and assorted AQ insiders have declined to do so.

I have a vague notion-which I can't begin to substantiate-of a small group,operating along the lines of the old Weather Underground: co-opting-let's say-an intern at one of our own labs into smuggling out a small vial of weapons-grade material and leaving a substitute vial in its place.

The group need not have been Muslim-or even have known which direction Mecca lies in.

Looks like they were waiting for media reports of the Florida attack before mailing the letters to the Senators. The letters to Leahy & Daschle were mailed as soon as practical after the 5 October news reports of Stevens' death.

Whosoever did them, the anthrax mailings were a two-phase covert op. Phase One: AMI, also New York Post, NBC, CBS, ABC. Phase Two: Leahy and Daschle.

Phase One in a 2-stage op is a set-up phase, and AMI was crucial in that set-up. It put people in a certain frame-of-mind desired by the mailers.

The mailers waited for that frame-of-mind to be established before launching Phase Two. Their aim: the weaponised anthrax of Phase Two was to be interpreted in the context construited by Phase One.

*Some possible motives: Punishment of the administration for refusal to sign a BW limitation agreement;destabilization of the administration for political reasons,etc.,etc.

I propose that the ZIP code was chosen first, to represent the date of founding of the Directorate of Plans, and then the city was chosen, probably from a map, as being in about the right area.

The alternative hypothesis is that the city was chosen first, but then one has to ask two questions: Why Franklin Park? And why the incorrect ZIP code? It's a lot harder to see how they would have gotten an incorrect ZIP code for a city than to see how they might have gotten an incorrect city near a ZIP code.

Why would they have picked Leahy and Daschle as recipients?

Why would they have tried to blame Islamics?

I can't put together any plausible scenario for this.

Is this just a general comment or are you thinking of something specific? What frame of mind do you mean?

There was enormous indignation by groups,such as the Federation of American Scientists,when the Bush administration declined to become a signatory to the most recent "bioweapons" treaty.(It would have banned ANY research in this area-including defensive research.Other countries-notably Russia-had developed huge stockpiles of nasty stuff-despite being signatories to the first ban.)

Most of the FAS people are sincere-if somewhat leftist-but there are a few genuine extremists in the organization: a few of whom might have assisted a small group of students and other young people in setting up and carrying out a "misguided" plot to call attention to their cause.

The organizers would be people with "academic credentials"-who might view something as horrible as 9/11 as perfect cover for their plot.(They could never afford to have their names linked to the anthrax attack !)

The answer might be as you suggested-or it might be simpler;
eg:the mailers lived in that general area,drove by that specific post office daily,and copied the zip number down-being careful not to use their OWN zip code.

The whole thing, I believe,is to rule NOTHING out.We might believe an idea is too irrational to be possible,but another person,from another belief system,might find it perfectly logical.

(I can recall,while doing a pre-sentence report,asking a man why he had hit a nice old lady over the head with a rock while robbing her." Well",he said,shamefacedly."Truth is I forgot to bring my gun.")

Here's something I noticed.

Khan, in a posting of yours in July, 2004, you made the claim that there was an "ineffective anthrax attack at end of February of 2003." You then elaborated, as follows:

"Has been dubbed weaponised or semiweaponised.
Was thought to have encompassed both a letter campaign with threatening messages and an outdoor delivery trial.
Best estimate of date is 24 Feb 2003." [Boldface added.]
Links: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1165194/posts?page=112#112 and http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1165194/posts?page=145#145

What I noticed was that the same date (Feb. 24, 2003) had occurred in an earlier FR discussion about the possible connection between the anthrax mailings and Internet worms/viruses. [I have placed all the instances of the date Feb. 24, 2003, in this posting in boldface, to make it easy to spot them.]

Before proceeding, a bit on the Nimda worm: It is known that the destructive Nimda worm was released on Sept. 18, 2001, exactly one week after the 9/11 attack (one week to the minute, as closely as one can tell). The destructiveness of this worm on the heels of 9/11 was sufficient that John Ashcroft made a televised statement on Sept. 18 that the worm was not known to be terrorist-related. Something no one knew on that date was that Sept. 18, 2001, was also the postmark date of the anthrax mailings to NBC News and the NY Post. In addition, a variant called Nimda.B was released some time between Oct. 5 and 9, 2001, matching the mailing date of the second set of anthrax letters. (Neither Nimda.B nor the second set of anthrax letters can be dated precisely.) This was observed in early November, 2001, but to this date it is not known whether Nimda and the anthrax mailings were really connected or whether it was a coincidence. (It's perhaps worthy of comment that both the Nimda and anthrax attacks involved putting a destructive payload in mail, whether e-mail or postal mail.)

Fast-forward two years, to late Dec., 2003. Frequent FR reincarnatee Van der Waals, who had expressed interest in the Nimda theory, noted that the Swen computer worm had been released on Sept. 18, 2003, and that a variant of Swen had been released on Oct. 9, 2003. These are the anniversaries of the two known anthrax mailings. The HTML used by the worm makes use of the code word "bacillus". Here's the link to this posting of Van der Waals: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1042297/posts?page=37#37.

I replied to Van der Waals, in http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1042297/posts?page=40#40. Here's part of what I wrote at the time (Dec. 20, 2003):

... note that the worm called Swen is apparently the latest incarnation of the earlier Gibe worm, so 9/18/2003 and 10/9/2003 are just the latest two dates in a longer series of release dates.

So, here are three possibilities regarding Swen:

• Possibility 1. The dates are just a coincidence. If you look, you can find many things that happened on Sept. 18, and some that happened on both Sept. 18 and Oct. 9 in some year.
• Possibility 2. Someone who had nothing to do with the anthrax mailings intentionally picked the anniversary dates, just because he thought it would be a cool thing to do.
• Possibility 3. Someone who had something to do with the anthrax mailings picked those dates on purpose. But why would he do that? Two possible reasons:
  • Possibility 3(a). Disinformation. This presupposes that the Nimda theory is false; the purpose of Swen would then be to divert resources into investigation of a (false) Nimda connection to the anthrax mailings.
  • Possibility 3(b). To draw attention to the earlier release dates of Gibe/Swen:
    
    • Mar. 4, 2002
    • Feb. 24, 2003
      (There were also minor follow-up variants released on Mar. 16, 2003, and Mar. 24, 2003.)
    Why draw attention to these earlier dates? I don't know, but that attention to the earlier Gibe-worm release dates is a predictable consequence of the later Swen releases on the anthrax anniversary dates. In this theory 3(b), it's as if someone is saying: "Look at the release dates!"

My guess is that it's just a coincidence - Possibility 1.

I have some questions on this theory:

1. Why would they have sent anthrax to Leahy and Daschle? Leahy especially is one of the best friends such people have in the US government.

2. How would someone like that have had the connections to obtain weaponized anthrax from clandestine military sources or clandestine intelligence sources?

3. Wouldn't a bioterror attack be expected to result in a resumption or resurgence of biological warfare research, and isn't this the precise opposite of what these people wanted to achieve?

Mitch,there WERE a few other things that match the September and October dates: On Sept.17 (as I recall) Pres. Bush publicly identified Osama as the "author" of 9/11;and on October 18 (again,as I recall)we began bombardment of AQ and Taliban in Afghanistan.

In Princeton, NJ-not far from where the second batch of letters was mailed,there were 2 large student demonstrations going on: one pro-war;the other anti-war.
Both demonstrations "collapsed" when word of the Afghanistan response was received.(Both factions had been on tenterhooks because the media had been speculating on the date for quite a while.)

I can picture someone at one of the demonstrations (the "Anti",seems more likely to me)hurrying away to a storage spot,retrieving a carefully wrapped package,and walking it to the mailbox,in direct reaction to the news.

1.Connections in our biolabs:Security was NOT great.There may have been student interns-almost completely "un-vetted"-with far more access than desirable.There were labor problems at all of our bio and atomic labs,and "gray collar" technicians sometimes engaged in enormously risky "demonstrations".Security people sometimes engaged in thefts.(GAO publicized quite a few of them,but probably revealed only the tip of the iceberg.)

2. Why Leahy and Daschle ? IF this was a "far-left" protest,the plotters may have been fairly sure neither man would actually be EXPOSED to the anthrax letters.The September mailings had put the nation on notice,and special precautions-meager as they might have been-were being taken. Daschle and Leahy would (and I'm sure did) perceive the letters as some sort of right-wing plot.

Overly complicated? Perhaps;but,since we really know very little-beyond what has been published,we should rule almost nothing out.

I don't believe it was something as casual as that. The weaponized anthrax could have caused very large numbers of casualties, if it had been delivered differently. The use of what is clearly a WMD would have been planned out in advance.

Any theory must explain the motivation of the mailers -- what is the motive that would cause them, on the one hand, to use the anthrax but, on the other hand, to use it in a way that would minimize its military effectiveness?

And what is the motivation for mailing two very liberal Senators?

It's true that security wasn't great. But for a far-left group to arrange for the theft of professionally prepared material whose very existence was being kept secret is difficult to believe. It's easier to believe that someone could have obtained Ames anthrax prior to weaponization, but then one has to believe that your hypothetical left-wing group has laboratory facilities both for inventing and for carrying out the weaponization process, in an entirely clandestine fashion. That's quite difficult to believe.

2. Why Leahy and Daschle ? IF this was a "far-left" protest,the plotters may have been fairly sure neither man would actually be EXPOSED to the anthrax letters.The September mailings had put the nation on notice,and special precautions-meager as they might have been-were being taken. Daschle and Leahy would (and I'm sure did) perceive the letters as some sort of right-wing plot.

Why attack even the staff of two of the government officials most friendly to you?

If the purpose was to convince people that it was a right-wing plot, why did they try so hard to convince people that it was an Islamic plot?

There's also my third question, which you didn't answer:

"Wouldn't a bioterror attack be expected to result in a resumption or resurgence of biological warfare research, and isn't this the precise opposite of what these people wanted to achieve?"

What did your hypothetical perps want to achieve that they thought they could achieve through the anthrax mailings?

I think Occam's razor suggests that something else is the right answer. Everything in this theory seems strained - no offense intended, I agree with you that we should consider all sorts of possibilities, I just don't think this one works on close inspection.

A small group along the lines of Iran-Contra or Nugan-Hand or any # of covert activities alignes better with the pattern we see. Eyes open for for means, motive and opportunity. Also for past engagement in covert ops.

<< The group need not have been Muslim-or even have known which direction Mecca lies in. >>

I concur.

JF - << Is this just a general comment or are you thinking of something specific? What frame of mind do you mean? >>

The comment about 2-stage covert ops is true ingeneral, but I had something specific in mind.

Phase One in the anthrax mailings was meant to get people in a frame-of-mind to connect the anthrax mailings with Muslim terrorism and specifically with 09-11.

For a start, the letters were dated 09-11-01, and they said "Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is Great."

The mailers realized that this was not enouf: people could say that the Muslim connection was a ruse. That's where the AMI attack in Boca Raton came into play. It established a geographically incontrovertible nexus of connexion between the anthrax and the 09-11 highjackers. This was convincing in a way that phrases written in the letters could not be, since it would have been much harder for a casually opportunistic piggybacker to find out that Boca Raton was where to go and then to go there so quickly after 09-11. Howsoever, this is preciisely what happened; that just proves that it wasn't a casual piggybacker.

Bob Stevens' death has kept the anthrax/09-11 connexion in play. That was the purpose of the Phase-One attack on AMI.

Just for the record, the "Camel Club Connection" was,from what I've been able to determine,more smoke than fire-although certain of the west coast left-stremists ,such as MEcha circulated hundreds of articles on the internet suggesting otherwise.

Col. Zack and his "camel commando" were brought to account-by the FBI, and by the courts,and wound up apologizing publicly for their conduct-though you WON'T see that on any of the web news sites.They were also cleared of anything but "inappropriate conduct" - (there was apparently a bit of "ye olde slap and tickle" involved in the mysterious lab visits.)

It's also interesting the real author of this disinformation campaign had not done his/her homework particularly well.The author made much of the word "antrax",concluding whoever wrote it could not spell-and might,therefor have been the person who mis-spelled "penicyllin" in the anthrax letters.The fact is, anthrax is spelled ANTRAX in a wide variety of languages-including most of the "Germanic" tongues.

John, picture this scenario: a young dedicated female intern
who has been gulled into thinking she's doing the right thing,scouts out the location of some (supposedly not-there)vials of LIVE anthrax,pulls one vial,and substitutes an identical-looking vial of harmless simulant.

She hides the vial long enough for it to warm up to room temperature,then smuggles it out-under a sanitary pad - a method long used by cocaine smugglers by the way.

There is no need for a lab.All that is needed is a proper glove box-which can be bought or built.

I loooked at that "Israeli connection" a LONG time ago,and in some detail.Some of the "documentation" is pure Arab propaganda,and some of the conclusions are (to me) inane.
I say this a non-Jew,who knows Israel and the US sometimes have conflicting interests-and are occasionally "at swords point".

For example,the notion that "Zionists" would want a war in which Israel would be the target or choice for Iraqi rocket attacks-this time with chemical and/or bio weapons does not make sense - especially when Iraq's close allies, Syria and Egypt have similar WMD programs,and would be strongly tempted to "jump in".

I have also read these reports about Israeli agents circulating about our country,prior to 9/11.I'm sure there were-and still are some-just as there are agents for a number of countries:some "friendly";some hostile.The people who originate these reports often seem to be people who want us to believe 9/11 was a covert Israeli operation-a notion Osama bin Laden and his merry men would find a bit breath-taking.

Do you ever wonder why some people want you to believe this stuff ?

There are people who want the anthrax murders to be part of something they can relate to: whether it be an al-Qaeda plot,an Iraqi plot,a Russian plot,an Israeli plot,a domestic right/left wing (your choice) plot,etc.,etc.

The problem with wanting a certain outcome is that it taints the inquiry-often beyond redemption.Let me give you an example.

One of the last pieces of information FBI traitor Robert Hanssen "fetched" at the request of his Russian paymasters was the government's "Doomsday" scenario-which asked the question : "What would happen if there were a decapitating strike on the US government ?"

At the time this request was made,Russia was no longer communist. The KGB had morphed,seamlessly,into the FSB.The Cold War was officially over.Why did the Russians want this information?

Did the Russians-still smarting from Afghanistan,and from a number of "dirty tricks" our CIA had played on them-forward the information to one of their numerous contacts ? Did they supply the anthrax murderers with a vial or so of their own anthrax ? (Ken Alibek,former head of the Vektor Labs in Siberia has told western reporters Vektor had Ames - strain anthrax, and made their weapons grade anthrax by a process identical to that developed at Ft. Detrick - whose security they had long since penetrated.)

But if the goal was to get people to blame the far right, why would they go to such trouble to pin the blame on Islamic extremists?

And if the goal was to stop research into biological warfare, this would have had the opposite effect.

There is no need for a lab.All that is needed is a proper glove box-which can be bought or built.

It is not as simple as that.

Either your hypothetical hippie perps obtained already-weaponized anthrax from their US government source, or else they obtained stock spores - virulent Ames but not yet weaponized.

A left-winger without deep military or CIA connections would not have been able to obtain already-weaponized material, whose existence to this day has not even been acknowledged. I'm not sure a simple glovebox would have sufficed for placing the material in the envelopes, but I suppose they could have obtained brief access to a containment facility. It's obtaining the material in the first place that's the sticking point in this case.

If they instead obtained unweaponized spores, which is a more reasonable possibility, then they would have been faced with the formidable task of developing a weaponization protocol and then weaponizing the purloined spores. This requires a series of experiments over a period of time in an advanced lab facility. It is not credible that this could have been done secretly in the U.S. by some group of far-left-wing rebels.

THAT I can agree to !
Worth noting: There has been some suggestion the material used to "float" the spores was a substance called "nanoglass",and that the anthrax was prepared in a spray dryer.

I've also read(somewhere or other)a PROPERLY made w/g anthrax would be almost impossible to package,because it would float right out of anything it was placed in (except a covered vial).

Descriptions of what was mailed suggest a combination of w/g anthrax and almost-dry anthrax slurry may have been used.

One of our posters,who used to use the name "Van der Waals" here knew something about nanoglass,but got himself barred because of a dispute with some of the other posters.

If there were Israelis bugging the DEA - and there might well have been - what do you suppose the reason was ?
Could it be Israel is one of the primary sources ( Holland is the other) of a popular "rave" drug ?

Nah ! Too simple an answer.

So saith Alan Simpson-who apparently describes himself as a "former British Intelligence Officer" ,and who maintains an anti-Bush website. Mr. Simpson seems lavish with praise-for himself-which I imagine is just about required if one rents office space in Washington.

Looking at his website, I see nothing that could not have been gleaned from a ten minute review of the local newspapers-and absolutely nothing that would qualify him to comment on the anthrax murders.

Go to : http://www.comlinks.com to get a good look at Mr. Simpson.

What this seems to be coming down to is belief systems.You believe one way;I another.

That is why I said that either the weaponized anthrax was purloined in weaponized form or else the perps would have needed an advanced lab and some kind of official umbrella shielding them.

The Justice Department made-up the domestic terrorist theroy in order to buy time.

This does not rule out a domestic theory. It only rules out the "mad scientist weaponizes anthrax in his bathtub" theory. There are other domestic options.

Nes, we (again) have different belief systems.If you wish to believe in a pro-Israeli cabal running the government-fine. It is, I suppose,marginally better than discussions of "mud people" or "militia management",or why risk-averse bureaucrats in the CIA (and the FBI)should be venerated for their failures.

Simpson thinks Richard Clarke was a great man,and, I'm sure,will be helpful in landing him something "worthwhile"-ie: funded by Wahabbi oil money.

John, I certainly agree. There was-in spite of crude spelling and the suggestion of a decade-behind-the-times medicine-a certain level of sophistication involved.

This sounds like a job for the Waffenfabrik SS -or, perhaps, the Geheim Staats Polizei .

Especially when you consider that any "secret bioweapons program" in our government involving more than a couple of people or so would be pretty much impossible to keep secret for very long. People who've been paying attention recently may have noticed that our bureaucracy has more leaks than the Titanic. We can't even fight a war anymore without all of the details being spilled out to the press.

If you are going to consider this option, why not consider that AQ might have been tricked into doing it as part of a false-flag operation? Both possibilities seem equally (un)likely.

It has spilled out to the press, has it not? And to the New York Times even, I don't mean the Mad Cow Morning News.

And, as you've probably heard, the US District Court ruled out a lawsuit by Hatfill v the NY Times : noting the Times did not report anything on Hatfill until he came forward and identified himself as the "person of interest" the FBI was investigating.

Faust, when you said that leaks had spilled out to the New York Times, you didn't really mean Kristof falling for the Hatfill bait, did you? I was thinking of something else when I read your post.

Here is a post that caught my eye in a search, read final paragraf with emphassis added.....


To: CyberAnt; Wordsmith; The Great Satan

Missile delivery systems are irrelvant, with the exception of perhaps attacks on Israel - but even then unlikley since Israel will follow the trajectory of the missile to its origin and reply with a nuclear bomb.

Ballistic missiles went out with hijacking planes and taking them to Cuba.

This is the new world of plausible deniability - and Saddam was the person who brought us into this new world.

False flag operations carried out by willing suicidal jihadists (where even the jihadist grunts themselves are unaware who's really sponsoring them) are what we have to deal with - and when these guys have anthrax in their hands it's the most frightening thing the world has ever faced. There is no deterrent.

21 posted on 01/30/2003 4:19 PM EST by Badabing Badaboom
Cached from http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/832842/posts

The New York Times article that came to mind was the Sep-4-2001 report by Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and Wm J Broad, U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits.

A thought-provoking article which has received just scant attention.

If you haven't seen it, here's a link. http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/strategy/germs.htm

There is another report Ms Miller did not mention: an experiment in mail contamination performed in Canada under the auspices of both governments. Simulant was placed in test letters,and it was found the simulant would leak through the pores of the envelopes-no matter how carefully they were taped.The projected result was extremely serious-just as the real thing turned out to be.

One of the contractors employed on the project was Hatfill-and-as memory serves, he hired Bill Patrick (a retired BW expert) as a consultant. (This places the FBI's interest in Hatfill in a different context.)

Ay, there's the rub - ye just wouldn't know. That's why it's named a false-flag.

Btw, the poster whose post caught my eye in No. 84 didnt say he thought Saddam was the sponsor. Just that Saddam had << brought us into this new world >>. What-ever that means.

The postmark dates mean nothing all that important. The pieces carried addresses that would take them through several major airports and important postal facilities ~ Brokaw, Daschle and Leahy would suffice for that purpose.

The terrorists managed to shut down the main postal facility serving the national capital.

The recent discovery of a field handbook in Iraq concerning manufacturing weaponized anthrax should pretty much resolve all the questions about who was really involved in the attack.

**

That is the report I was thinking of too. Thought provoking. In-deed.

The New York Times article is long, may-be a summary would be utile:

1. The US is engaged in a secret biowarfare research program, claimed to be for defence. Only defensive biowarfare research is compatible with US treaty obliggations. Program begun under Clinton, continued under Bush.
    
2. In 2001, some time before 11 September, the Pentagon made plans to have Battelle create a superpotent anthrax, via genetic engineering.
    
3. The CIA built and tested a model of a Soviet-designed germ bomb, said to lack some parts needed for a working bomb.
    
4. The Defense Dept built a biological weapons factory in the Nevada desert from commercially available materials.

Just one month later, on Oct-5-2001, a hoax anthrax letter was mailed to Judith Miller from St Petersburg, Florida. Strong indications are that this was connected to the real anthrax mailings.

What do you think was the reason Judith Miller received a letter? Could the reason be Miller's Sep-4-2001 article?

John, what are the "strong indications" the hoax letter had any connection to the anthrax murders ?

I'm curious.

(Hoax letters were mailed by the hundreds prior to 9/11;by the thousands afterward.)

Khan, are you aware the reason for experiments in "super-potency" was the revelations of Ken Alibek ? The Russians had done a LOT of work in breeding antibiotic-resistant diseases,chimeras,etc.

I can see where our research would alarm the FAS-though the Russian efforts never really seemed to.( The head of the FAS kept saying :"Nothing to see here ! Move along !" -even after it was disclosed there were TONS of bioweapons in their arsenal,and specially designed rockets to deliver them.)

By contrast, Alibek was stunned by our lack of a weapons program and our lack of a viable infrastructure.(He had assumed the US was lying,just as the Soviets had.) The source of that is Alibek himself.

Yes, there are very many hoax anthrax letters which have nothing to do with the 2001 mailings.

But the letter to Judith Miller was part of a small set of letters from St Petersburg, Florida, whose connection with the 2001 mailings is very probable.

Both Barbara Hatch Rosenberg and Don Foster have written about this set of hoax letters. While one may discount their conclusions regarding the case as a whole, their analysis of why these particular hoax letters are connected to the case is solid.

Rosenberg's paper is on-line. Foster wrote an article in Vanity Fair, but I don't think Vanity Fair has an archive on the web.

Thank you for drawing one's attention to Foster's article in Vanity Fair. You are right, Vanity Fair doesn't have an archive online, but I did a search and found a posting of it at the UCLA anthrax website - http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/messageanthrax.html.

I recommend this article greatly for the info on the 3 hoax letters sent by the mailers.

Here is an outline. Read the article for more info.

	Postmark Date	Addressee	Text
Hoax Letter #1	20 Sep 2001	Tom Brokaw; opened by aide Erin O'Connor Same people received a real anthrax letter postmked 18 Sep 2001!	Started: "THE UNTHINKABEL" SAMPLE OF HOW IT WILL LOOK In the 1st line above, you should see one quotemark below the line, and also the 2 underlined Ns in the word UNTHINKABEL should be Ns reversed left-right as mirror-image. Included bio-terror threats against New York, Chi, LA, and Wash DC. If Newsweek is correct, also contained the text: SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. But this may be a paraphrase of SAMPLE OF HOW IT WILL LOOK rather than a quotacion.
Hoax Letter #2	5 Oct 2001	Howard Troxler	HOWARD TOXLER...1ST CASE OF DISEASE NOW BLOW AWAY THIS DUST SO YOU CAN SEE HOW THE REAL THING FLYS. OKLAHOMA-RYDER TRUCK! SKYWAY BRIDGE-18 WHEELS. According to Foster, same hand-writing and same simbolic oddities. Exact details have not been made public.
Hoax Letter #3	5 Oct 2001	Judith Miller	Bio-terror threats, same hand-writing and simbolic oddities. Text has not been publicised.

Question: What do the 3 letters have in common?

Answer:

• Commonality A: All 3 contained powder, but some inert material, not anthrax.
• Commonality B: All 3 were mailed from Saint Petersburg.
• Commonality C: All 3 contained threats of bio-terror.
• Commonality D: All 3 were written in the same hand-writing and with fake Russian script: Cyrillic-looking backward Ns and opening quotacion marks below the line a la Russe.

Question: How do we know that the 3 letters are connected to one another?

Answer: Primarily because of Commonality D. Secondarily because of Commonality B. Tertiarily because two were postmarked on the same date, 5 Oct 2001.

Question: How do we know that these letters are connected to the 2001 anthrax mailings?

Answer: There was an 18 Sep 2001 mailing of real anthrax to Tom Brokaw, also opened by his aide Erin O'Connor. Here we have a 20 Sep 2001 hoax mailing to the same person. At the time, no one knew:

• that there was an anthrax attack in progress,
• much less that such an attack would take place via the US mails accompanying letters,
• and even less that Tom Brokaw would be the recipient of such a letter.

And the Brokaw hoax letter is quite explicit: "The unthinkabel" and, even more pointedly, "Sample of how it will look".

The other two letters were postmarkened 5 October 2001. Bob Stevens had just died from anthrax. That was in the news. But... it was not being widely attributed to bio-terrorism, and I believe there was no suggestion of delivery via letter. And... no one knew that AMI was merely the first media target to be noticed, of several real anthrax letters already mailed but still unknown. So again on 5 Oct we have what would be an amazing co-incidence if it were a co-incidence... Two more hoax letters containing powder, threatening bio-attacks, sent to news media outlets. Just like the real letters that were unknown at the time to all but the mailers.

Somehow I don't see the exact same person sending the real letter, then sending a hoax afterward. I know there are similarities, but it is not an isolated incident in relation to all the other hoaxes. The only thing isolated are the letters that contain the real stuff. I still also can't find a place for the purity of the mailed real anthrax. Why would they send such purity, unless they did not know it was so pure.

If it were drugs, they would cut it with something to make the good stuff last. I"m just taking the other side of the coin for arguments sake.

The similarities are not the point.

Look... Someone sends anthrax in the mail. Someone sends a warning letter to the same person at virtually the same time, before anyone else knew that the original letter had been sent. Actually before anyone else knew that any anthrax letters had been sent.

How could anyone else have known who to send the warning letter to?

Why wait a couple of days after the real letter before mailing the warning letter? Be-cause of the incubation period. That's exactly what one would expect.

To all of you contributing to this thread: This has been a VERY interesting and informative exchange,with plenty of new material thrown in,and I appreciate the spirit and cooperativeness of all !

There were much earlier threads about the exact nature of the materials used.Someone-quite a while ago-suggested the materials were made with a very up-to-date technology.

Cabosil (silocaine) was mentioned.This stuff is available "over the counter" for about $ 5.95 pound,and is used in fireworks and (prepared a bit differently) in pharmaceutical products,electronics,and certain paints.

When made "perfectly" in a proper spray dryer (a recent and notable Swiss upgrade of the Russo-Iraqi method),it was actually unsuitable for mailing,because you couldn't get it to hold still long enough to put it into an envelope.

The Russians (and their "clients") used to use a spray dryer to prepare their bioweapons.Instead of using cabosil,they used diatomaceous earth and Bentonite (a water resistant clay)-plus a third,undisclosed material which helped eliminate clumping.It was almost exactly the way we used to make it,before we stopped production in 1972: no surprise,because the Russians had penetrated our program so thoroughly,they were reading copies of our internal reports before the ink was dry on the originals.

A very good question. If the perp was going to send hoax letters also to the anthrax recipients, he wouldn't have just done Brokaw, would he?

Yet it is hard to believe that it's a coincidence that one of the anthrax targets was mailed a warning letter just a couple of days after the anthrax letter was mailed. As you pointed out, Khan, no one else could have known at the time.

You're also right about the incubation period, Khan. If the purpose was to have another, more recent, letter to be remembered by the victim after symptoms ensued, then waiting a couple of days before mailing is what you would do.

I am half way up the fence on the hoax letters.

I am on the fence on the hoax letters also, Battle Axe. It seems credible that the two letters to Brokaw within two days could not be a coincidence. So I would like to believe the theory. Yet, where are the hoax letters to the other anthrax victims that one would suspect would have been sent if this theory is right??

I concur. Thank you, Gene, and every-body else on this thread.

Ahhhh, a woman after my own heart, as they say. Argument may educe truth.

John Faust::: << If the perp was going to send hoax letters also to the anthrax recipients, he wouldn't have just done Brokaw, would he? ... If the perp was going to send hoax letters also to the anthrax recipients, he wouldn't have just done Brokaw, would he? >>

Tom Brokaw was not the only anthrax recipient to receive a hoax letter! He was just 1 of at least 3 anthrax recipients who received hoax letters too.

So, by your reasoning, this works in favor of the theory that the hoax letters were part of the anthrax plot.

There was a hoax letter addressed in block capitals to the Editor of the New York Post, just like one of the anthrax letters, according to the rememberance of the worker who opened the letter. This letter was received and thrown out either in September or some-time in October before the 19th. Best guess is it was mailed around 20 September along with the hoax letter to Brokaw as part of the 1st set of Saint Petersburg letters, but it could have been mailed on 5 October with the 2nd set of Saint Petersburg hoax letters.

Sen Daschle, another anthrax target, also received a hoax letter, this one much later than the others, in November 2001.

Source is Barbara Hatch Rosenberg's research, http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/BHR-FAS2.html, article from 5 Feb 2002. As she says:

<< In addition, at least three of the five anthrax recipients also received "hoax" letters containing an innocuous powder; and several different media offices received similar hoax letters. Some of the hoax letters were mailed BEFORE the first anthrax case (in Florida) was reported, and all but one hoax letter were mailed BEFORE there were any reports of anthrax letters or hoax letters. Therefore the hoax letters targeting media are not simply a copycat phenomenon. The envelopes on most or all of the hoax letters were addressed in block capitals similar to the addresses on the anthrax envelopes, even though they were mailed before the anthrax envelopes became known. >>

Hang in there !

I'm reminded of the "joy" of untangling the cheap cuttyhunk fishing line I used as a kid: You just have to keep pulling at those loose ends !

Now: two divergent thoughts on the "hoax" letters.

1. Hoax letters will almost always be addressed in spikey,"angry-looking" capital letters.The hoax letters could have been JUSt THAT !

2. On the other hand,the hoax letters could have been a test run to measure how well the mailing plan would work.

(The "problem" with this is that one would have to have insiders at the receiving end to give you the particulars:When did they arrive?Who handled them ? How ? What was the reaction,etc.? In the absence of multiple insiders,would you not have to have a police,postal,or FBI contact to tell you these things ?)

(This is for Khan: In what countries would penicyllin (?)be the first drug thought of for treating anthrax ? Would that be the drug of choice for Veterinary medication ? )

Penicillin was the tradicional remedy for anthrax, in the US and else-where.

CDC still includes penicillin first in its list of treatments, altho cipro has now become the primary recommendation for adults: << Bacillus anthracis usually responds effectively to several antibiotics including penicillin, doxycycline, and fluoroquinolones (such as ciprofloxacin). >> http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/anthrax/faq/treatment.asp

For children, CDC has amoxicillin, a type of penicillin, as the primary recommendation, unless the anthrax strain is penicillin-resistent: << As soon as penicillin susceptibility of the organism has been confirmed, prophylactic therapy for children should be changed to oral amoxicillin 80 mg/kg of body mass per day divided every 8 hours (not to exceed 500 mg three times daily). >> http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5041a1.htm

Amoxicillin/penicillin is the primary option not just for children, but also for pregnant women, and in general when there is a contra-indication for cipro. http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/anthrax/treatment/amoxicillinpatient.asp

Etc..... And penicillin is still an acceptable treatment option for anybody, altho cipro is now preferred in many cases.

Summary: Having recommended penicillin in the anthrax letters does not point to any place of origin, neither foreign nor domestic. Nor does it suggest veterinary experience versus medical experience.

Conclusion: Penicillin is a reasonable suggestion to have made. It is also the most widely recognized anti-biotic. If cipro had been named, most people would have said "What is that?" But penicillin is immediately recognized as an anti-biotic.

Thanks, Khan !

As you've noticed, I can never seem to remember how to spell "penicillin".

Ooops ! The anthrax mailer couldn't spell it either !!

I would guess, if the notes said "God is great !",most people in our society would have said: "Aha ! The Religious Right at work !!"

( I mention this,because at one time,much was made of the mention of "Allah".Some "experts" insisted most Muslims would say "God". Glancing at this line in the letter text,I couldn't help but notice what looked like a "hesitation mark" on the Letter "A" of Allah-suggesting the writer might have been more comfortable writing "Al'lah"-which,I believe, is the non-Aglicized way of writing it."

Both Tom Brokaw and the New York Post received hoax letters at about the same time as real anthrax letters? Before it was known that Brokaw and the Post had been sent real anthrax letters? Before it was known that anyone had been sent anthrax letters?

This is not just one recipient, but two. The chance of a double coincidence is well past astronomical.

There were probably unnoticed hoax letters sent to the other anthrax recipients. Indeed, most of the anthrax letters themselves went unnoticed at the time, and several were never found.

It is even possible that there are some anthrax letters which were never discovered and which happened never to infect anybody. The cases that we know about only infected 1 or 2 people, so the chance of infection was low. For that reason, it's quite possible that there were anthrax letters that infected nobody and were never found. Maybe some of the recipients of other hoax letters that were found - Miller, Troxler, CBS in Washington DC, Fox News - were also recipients of real anthrax letters???

Of course, that's idle speculation. But there is no doubt of a connection between the St Petersburg hoax letters and the anthrax letters.

There's no such thing as perfect timing, and no one expects guarantees in black ops. The point is that, because of the incubation period, there is a window of several days after mailing the actual letter during which additional "hoax" letters could be sent. It is then probable that the hoax letters would be received before any anthrax case had been diagnosed. In point of fact, this is what happened - exactly what happened - with NBC News and with the New York Post.

The hoax letters make it more likely that the recipient will read at least one of the perps' letters, and if the recipient reads both, so much the better for increasing the threatening feeling.

I'm not buying same perp sending the hoaxes, but the cell might be big enough that someone else knew about it and got on the bandwagon and sent his own powder without having the real stuff.

It might not be the same person, no one said that it was. The St Petersburg hoax letters were sent either by a compatriot of the sender of the real letters or by the sender himself as part of the same plot.

This analysis doesn't hold water without leaks. Look at the dates. There were very many hoax letters after the anthrax letters to Brokaw and the New York Post were announced. That Brokaw was the recipient of an anthrax letter was made public on 12 Oct 2001, the Post anthrax letter wasn't discovered and made public until later, 20 Oct 2001.

But on 5 Oct 2001, when the Saint Petersburg hoax letter to Brokaw was post-marked, we were still in an earlier time when there were far fewer anthrax hoax letters, since there was no public knowlege yet of the real letters. Perhaps one or two hundred hoaxes a year, mostly sent to abortion clinics.

There was some concern about anthrax after 11 Sept, but mostly the fear was distribution by crop-duster or in the ventilation system of a highrise, etc. Letters would be way down the list of fears, because they just are not an effective distribution method.

Brokaw is famous, but he would not have been on anybody's list of potential targets, if anybody were to make up a list of targets. Can you find even a single document from before 12 Oct 2001, the date the Brokaw letter was announced, that lists Tom Brokaw as a likely target of a terrorist attack? How about the New York Post? Alternately, can you find any evidence that hoax anthrax letters to the media were so common prior to 12 Oct 2001 that any particular letter would be no surprize?

No. It is clear, as Faust says, that the hoax letter to Brokaw could not be a coincidence.

So we know that the 3 Saint Petersburg letters were mailed by anthrax coconspirators. Now... the interesting question is... << What does that tell us? >>

Yeah I looked it up to be sure. I don't usually bother to look up spellings lol!!!

If the Tom Brokaw St. Petersberg letter was postmarked on Oct. 5, then is it no more than a hoax. It was announced on the radio that there was a person that was sick with anthrax on Oct. 4. It is a copycat.

Not a chance. Yes, it was known that Stevens had somehow contracted anthrax, probably the hoax letter was mailed right after the announcement that Stevens had died of anthrax. But 5 Oct letters weren't from a copy-cat.

How did the supposed copy-cat know to send a letter to Tom Brokaw? A real anthrax letter had been mailed to Brokaw on 18 Sept, but on 5 Oct only the plotters knew about it.

It's not credible that they picked a name at random, out of tens of thousands, or more, famous people, and they just happened to pick somebody who would not have been widely viewed as a target at all but who in fact was, unknown to anyone else, already the recipient of a real anthrax letter.

And then they did it again with a hoax letter to the New York Post, received before it was known that the Post was an anthrax recipient !!

The Daschle hoax letter may be a copy-cat; it was sent too late to tell, after it was known that Daschle had received anthrax in the mail. Daschle is a more likely random pick anyway. One can-not tell if the Daschle hoax was sent by a copy-cat or not. But the Brokaw hoax letter certainly and the unrecovered but recalled Post letter almost certainly were sent not by copy-cats but as part of the ongoing plot, what-so-ever its purpose might have been.

The question of interest now is: << What does it tell us that the Saint Petersburg letters were sent by the anthrax plotters?? >>

But, here's an analogie in the form of a tale... Imagine a woman who gets a beautiful bouquet of unusual, exotic flowers anonymoussly, via delivery service. That same day she receives a letter, mailed the previous day, accompanied by a single unusual petal very like the flowers, minding her to watch for delivery of a whole bouquet of similar flowers. Does she believe that she has two secret admirers, both of whom favor the same exotic flower, and both of whom happened to choose that same day to send their tokens of admiration? Of course not. She knows they're from the same person.

And anthrax letters - even hoax letters - are far less common than bouquets of flowers and secret admirers.

Going on now...

What other topics could be of interest? Perhaps the Viet Namese woman in New York City? The one whose case of inhalation anthrax, alone among the 2001 anthrax cases, has not been attributed to a specific known or suspected letter.

Or maybe something else. As you said, Khan, when you began this discussion...

So what observations have *you* noticed that you have not posted or that may not be known widely? Never found the right thread to post it on? This is it.

John, this has been attributed to contaminated mail....BUT,an exhaustive investigation found no trace of anthrax in her apartment, her mailbox,the hospital she worked in,or the subway she normally used.

This is why I think there might have been a deliberate "plume" - type release : something easy to accomplish with a weaponized bioagent.

Bill Patrick,the retired "inventor" of the US bioweapons materials,demonstrated how such a weapon could work. He had a jar of (inert) material,which was in the form of a grayish-white powder.When he took the lid off,the powder "lifted off" from the jar,rose on air currents,and began drifting away. He told the author interviewing him the plume could travel for miles.

Imagine,if you will,you are part of a group that has mailed anthrax,and you still have a few grams left over.You have access to a helium tank and some balloons.You tuck a bit of "product" inside each balloon,and fill it with helium.

Away we go ,with no one the wiser.The balloons may travel a few blocks,or several miles.If they go high enough, they will break;but most will leak-slowly-and come to rest somewhere:spreading little plumes of spores everywhere.

(That was the complicated scheme. The simple method would have been to do just what Bill Patrick did:take the cover off the container,and let the wind do the rest.

It's a hit-or-miss methodology: one that would make a scientist cringe,but which is almost ideal for a terrorist,who wants to demonstrate to a citizenry that no one can protect them.

I know I said we should move on, but you guys missed something here.

The Tom Brokaw "hoax" letter from St Petersburg was postmarked Sept. 20, not Oct. 5. This is not a copycat, period. It was sent by someone in on the plot.

For comparison, the anthrax-laced letter to Brokaw was postmarked on Sept. 18. On Sept. 20, when the hoax letter to Brokaw was mailed, no one except the mailers knew anything about the anthrax mailings at all.

The Oct. 5 letters to Miller and Troxler were sent by the same people as the Sept. 20 St. Petersburg letter. We know this because of the symbolic peculiarities that Foster points out. So that's how we know that these letters were also sent as part of the plot.

I suspect the source was something else. Didn't one of the investigators say that she got a "snoutful" of spores? And didn't she become so gravely ill so quickly that she was unable to tell investigators anything - in spite of being in good health? Yet no spores showed up anywhere investigators looked. Strange.

Fellow Freepers!!!!!

Someone is messing with our thread! Go back and look at 51-100. There are a lot removed by admin. mod. I think that email that I want to look at has been removed!!!

Are there feds on the thread? Are we getting too close to something??

My carbine is loaded.

Just from a google search. The link is in 33 up above. It wasnt an email tho, it was a usenet post, if it matters.

I do not know who R is, or if it could be the mailer. It's just a gut feeling that may-be it could be.

Whoever R is wanted to promote public discussion of the Stevens death-by-anthrax as fast as humanly possible. And R tried to cover his tracks with << x-no-archive >> and with an anonymouss post.

Nothing new here right now - all this is just what I said in post 33 up above in this thread.

Any-way, as Faust has kindly reminded us, the Daschle hoax letter from Saint Petersburg was postmarkened 20 September 2001. This is much too early for a copy-cat. It must have been someone with inside knowlege.

Thank you for the important date correction, John.

Someone described Xinh Thi "Kathy" Nguyen as having intelligence connections in Nam in the 1970s. No documentation though. May-be it's just air.

What is your src for this? I've not seen interview with ex-husband.

Here is a similar statement attributed to a longtime friend, Gina Ramjassingh:

Kathy Nguyen liked sweet smelling things. "She loved flowers. She loved perfumes, the finer ones. She burned scented candles in her house all the time," Ramjassingh said.

From web page: http://www.staugustine.com/stories/111102/nat_1115994.shtml

Capitol Grilling: Anthrax - 70 who fit the profile
... NYTimes reports today that Kathy Nguyen's ex-husband says that she "loved to smell
things". ... victims...one would think there would be traces of anthrax found in ...
www.capitolgrilling.com/cgi-bin/ ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/4/49/2.html - 101k - Supplemental Result - Cached - Similar pages

But I can't get this to come up. Maybe someone else can.

The NYTimes article with the quote from Nguyen's ex-hubby is supposed to have been on 24 November 2001, if any-body wants to look it up.

Thank u for these new links, B.A.

Some hilites, including the name of the x-husband - or, as this article says, estranged husband:

• According to city officials, the woman's estranged second husband, tracked down by investigators, said that while he had no specific information about how she might have been exposed, he knew she did like to smell things.
   
• Even Dave Cruz, who manages the Bronx apartment complex where Ms. Nguyen lived, and who rushed her to the hospital and was the last to speak with her, told investigators that he had little to offer. She seemed to have no idea what ailed her, he recalled....
   
• Investigators tracked down an estranged second husband of Ms. Nguyen's, Jeng Gang Chi, who said that Ms. Nguyen had no contact with family members who remained in Vietnam. He did tell them, curiously, that she liked to smell things.
   
• [Dave Cruz, who drove her to the hospital,] could hear that she was having difficulty breathing. "She said in her soft voice, `Dave, it just hurts when I try to breathe,' " he recalled.... [H]e quizzed her. Did she have asthma? Bronchitis? " `No, no,' " he recalled her saying. " `It just hurts. It hurts to breathe.' "
  
  As a freeper, Ann Archy, pointed out, referring to one of the other inhalation anthrax victims who died: << ...the postman who called 911 and told that operator the entire story sounded like he had NO trouble breathng...curious. >>
  This may confirm that Nguyen's case was unusually severe, right from the start.

It looks like the freeper Nes Tona got banned. My guess is that he was probably a multiple username poster.

I don't know where you heard this, Khan, but you piqued my interest. I think you're right, she had connections. The evidence fits to perfection. OTOH, there's no smoking gun, but no one would expect a smoking gun.

Read the many news reports, including quotes from various neighbors and friends, and you will see a consistent picture. Consider...

1. Kathy Nguyen "worked for the U.S. Embassy, and was one of the last evacuees to be plucked from its roof by helicopter when the North Vietnamese attacked the city, said Edith Navedo, 57, Nguyen's friend of 20 years."
   Source: New York Post, Oct 31, 2001, http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nypost/87209737.html?did=87209737&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT&date=Oct+31%2C+2001&author=DOUGLAS+MONTERO&desc=ANOTHER+CRUEL+TURN+FOR+HOSP+VICTIM
    
2. "Nguyen owned a bar in Saigon, and [friend since the 1970s Gina] Ramjassingh said Nguyen told her she was 'working with the Americans' during the Vietnam War."
   Source: St Augustine Record, Nov 11, 2002, http://www.staugustine.com/stories/111102/nat_1115994.shtml
    
3. "[Neighbor Josefa] Richardson said Nguyen rarely spoke of her past, but said she had worked at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon."
   Source: AP, Nov 1, 2001, http://breakingnews.morris.com/terrorism/stories/110101/vic.shtml
    
4. "Immigration and Naturalization Service records show she entered the United States in San Diego on May 4, 1975."
   Source: AP, Nov 1, 2001, http://breakingnews.morris.com/terrorism/stories/110101/vic.shtml
   Comment:The final evacuation from the US Embassy in Saigon was by helicopter on Apr 30, 1975. The date of her entry into the US confirms the story that she was among the last of the evacuees as Saigon was falling.
    
5. "Her mother was a teacher, and her family rented rooms to American soldiers. The family had some money, and a house on the water. She came to New York City in the late 1970s, apparently with the help of an American she met during the war."
   Source: USA Today, Oct 31, 2001, http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2001/10/31/anthrax-nyc.htm
    

What was that final evacuation like? There's a fascinating account at http://www.franksnepp.com/decent/, from Frank Snepp's book Decent Interval: An Insider's Account of Saigon's Indecent End Told by the CIA's Chief Strategy Analyst in Vietnam.

The ambassador and other high-level officials had refused to prepare adequately for the evacuation, and did not even start it in sufficient time. Why? Partly because of denial of the imminence of Saigon's fall, partly because of fear that evacuation planning would lead the S. Viet Namese army to conclude that the US had thrown in the towel and that the end was at hand, turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy. So they did nothing. And when the NVA was at the edge of the city, there was suddenly a mad scramble to escape.

The CIA seems to have been in charge of the evacuation. It wasn't just Americans who were to be evacuated, of course, but also as many as possible, at that late time, of the Viet Namese who had worked with the CIA and who did not want to take a chance on being treated by the communists as enemy collaborators. Here's a quote from Snepp's website:

"From time to time I stopped by the CIA operations room to listen in horror at the radios as stranded Vietnamese agents pleaded over the circuits for help, begging not to be forgotten. Some would be picked up by Air America helicopters that CIA colleagues and I sent shuttling around the city. Most would be forgotten."

Here's more evidence of the central role of the CIA in the evacuation. From Fall of Saigon Stories, http://www.vietmemorial.org/myweb/fall_of_saigon.htm, a photograph and its caption:

Cia man-indentified by alias "T.D.Latz" help evacuees up
ladder to make-shift chopper pad on last day of war.
[sic - Forgive the errors in spelling and grammar. I think the caption was written by a Viet Namese refugee. I've quoted it verbatim.]

Another interesting fact:

As documented in the St Augustine Record link above, Nguyen owned a bar in Saigon. The CIA frequently worked with Saigon bar-owners, because of their ready access to the seamy side of life and also because of their many contacts. Not all bar-owners worked with the CIA, of course, but this bar-owner worked with Americans in the US embassy and was part of the final CIA evacuation of the embassy.

Finally, look at a couple of quotes from the papers on the secretive life she lived in the days before her illness. Just like the rest, not at all definitive, but they make you go "Hmmmmm":

• They discovered that although Nguyen had a bank account, she did not seem to write checks from it. Instead, she relied on postal money orders.
  [CDC Chief Investigator in New York, Dr. Stephen] Ostroff did not know at which post office Nguyen purchased them, and he said the usual paper trail most people generate was nearly nonexistent for Nguyen.
  "She didn't do that," Ostroff said. "She has a minimal paper trail."
  Source: New York Daily News, Nov 11, 2001, http://web.archive.org/web/20011111175953/http://www.nydailynews.com/2001-11-11/News_and_Views/Beyond_the_City/a-131689.asp
   
• There were initial reports that Nguyen worked a second job. City health officals disputed them, but according to NYU's Tierno, who is briefed daily on the investigation, she did have other income.
  "She had an outside job and perhaps crossed the path of a terrorist or at least worked with a person who was one," said Tierno. "It turns out she may have had several jobs, she may have been moonlighting."
  Source: Boston Globe, Nov 18, 2001, http://web.archive.org/web/20011126121037/www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/322/nation/Anthrax_victim_s_last_days_examinedP.shtm

The one mysterie victim has a past CIA connexion. Could be a co-incidence, the connexion was long ago. It is one hell of a co-incidence.

I agree with you.

It sounds more likely that she simply crossed paths with the perp.

Maybe a little bit more than "crossed paths" hmmm?

If Pigpen had been covered instead with anthrax, all who traversed his path could be potential victims of at least cutaneous anthrax.

Yes but she didn't get cutaneous anthrax. What she had was an especially virulent case of inhalation anthrax. She was a strong, healthy person too - "never missed a day of work" etc. - unlike the frail old lady in Connecticut. If there was so much anthrax powder around that a strong healthy person got a very virulent case of inhalation anthrax, where is the trail of other cases - there should have been at least a couple extra cases of cutaneous anthrax. And why are there no spores to be found lying around anywhere she frequented?

Somehow I think Kathy N. crossed paths with the perp or it was a minimal cross contamination of the mail as she did like to smell things.

I think this is almost right. She almost certainly had more than minimal cross-contamination, there isn't evidence of contamination through the mail in her case anyway. I think she had direct contact with one of the perps, maybe she knew one of them. I agree with you that her predilection for smelling things may have been her downfall.

May-be XTN was an unwitting courier. After many years, an old American acquantiance from Nam seeks her out and says he has a small job for her. She was rescued in the last hours of Saigon as it fell, and may have felt that she owed something. She would also have been paid for her work, we know she had some outside job and anybody in her circumstance could use some extra cashe.

So she is given a plastic baggy with envelopes in it. She is warned in no uncertain terms not to remove the envelopes from the bag until the time of mailing, not even to open the baggy until then, and to handle it gently. No mention of anthrax. May-be some cover story like = it's a secret job and finger-prints needed to be avoided. And some assurance that no-one would get hurt.

Following instructions, she goes to a mail-box, opens the baggy and, without touching the envelopes, pours them out into the mail-box. Then... out of curiousity, she takes a big whiff from the empty baggy, as is her wont. No-one had warned her about the empty baggy, they thought the envelopes were sealed tight with tape, and also no-one imagined that she would take a deep breath from the empty baggy. But, as we know, she always liked to smell things. And that's the unfortunate end of her story.


BTW: Why do I say an unwitting courier rather than an intencional accomplice who knew what she had done? Because she did not appear to suspect that she had anthrax. She was very ill, even had a bloody cough, for two days but did not see a doctor for anti-biotics and went to work any-way. The super-intendent who drove her to gospital didnt mention the signs of fear or nervousness that she would have shown if she had suspected what she had.

Khan,one of the main problems with that is this woman-who holds down at least 2 jobs so she can keep body and soul together-is suddenly travelling to Princeton,NJ-by bus,train,or private car,seeking out a mailbox in an unfamiliar town,and mailing some tainted letters....TWICE !

Had there been some unexplained absences from work,the Feds would have been all over it.

I don't think any o this is a problem for the theory.

Public transportation between NYC and Princeton is readily available, and fast. She could easily have gone when offduty, the 9 October 2001 letters were mailed sometime during a 3-day week-end. The 18 September 2001 letters could have been mailed on a trip to Princeton Monday evening 17 September. Or mailed Sunday and not postmarked until Tues, USPS has occasional pickup delays.

For that matter, we don't know that both mailings were from Princeton. The theory doesnt even require her to have handled both mailings, altho that would seem logical.

Some-how I dont think << seeking out a mailbox in an unfamiliar town >> would have been much of a hurdle to her. She was an incredibly resourceful woman, with emotional strength - look at her life story.

As for holding down 2 jobs, maybe this was the 2nd job. Or if not, it was just a very parttime moonlighting thing, no-one knew about it. She wasnt working 100-hour weeks, she had time to visit restaurants and such like.

This theory may not be pre-cisely right. But it is a lot more credible than random crosscontamination when no spores are found anywhere else in the area, and she, as a healthy woman, is exposed to enough spores to give her a virulent case of inhalation anthrax, altho no-one else even gets cutaneous anthrax from the supposed spores on the loose.

Also, as has been said earlier, it would be one hell of a coincidence for someone with past CIA connexions to be a random victim of the first-ever anthrax attack on the USA.

If she had a Pakistani name and had Islamic-terrorist connexions from 1975, you'd be all over her.

Let the evidence lead where-ever it leads.

Thank you for posting. I find this theory very plausible. In fact, it is the only plausible explanation I have seen for Kathy Nguyen's having contracted anthrax. Her case is completely different than all the others, and much harder to fathom.

Well,that still leaves us with the very awkward Otillie Lundgren-a pretty much home bound senior citizen,whose mailbox,trash,property,house,etc. all came up negative for anthrax contamination.

I don't see her as a secret agent,somehow !

Concur with you on this. Lundgren and Nguyen are very different:

• Lundgren was 94 yrs of age, very old and frail. A few spores could have done her in - low immune system. Nguyen, altho no Spring chicken, was much younger, strong and in the best of health, never missed a day of work. Nguyen must have received a large dose of spores.
   
• Anthrax contamination was found on the mail of one of Lundgren's neighbours, providing a specific route for possible crosscontamination in Lundgren's case. No anthrax spores have been discouvered in Nguyen's neighbourhood or any-where else she was known to frequent.
   
• Since Lundgren was frail enough to have succumbed to a small number of spores, it isn't surprising that there's no trail of spores or other cases around here. But it is surprising that Nguyen's case, with probably a much greater spore exposure, was an isolated incident - with no trail of spores, no other cases, not even cutaneous.

The argument is stronger even that that, Khan. There was a trail of spores near Ottilie Lundgren. A spore was found on mail received by one of her neighbors, and that mail could be traced back to the infamous New Jersey postal machines.

There is no "trail of spores" near places Kathy Nguyen went to, no spores at all. As you pointed out, this is very surprising: Contaminated mail was found near Lundgren's house. It would have taken many more spores to infect the healthy 61-year-old Kathy Nguyen than the near-centenarian Ottilie Lundgren. So where are the spores? Why were there no spores found in Nguyen's stomping grounds?

"Standing firm" in the absence of solid evidence is unwise.

Is cross-contamination conceivable? Yes it is. One would have to be foolish to rule it out completely. On the other hand, one would also have no reasoned basis to take the opposite position and claim that cross-contamination was proven.

So one may ask:

"Is there any concrete evidence for cross-contamination in the Nguyen case?" No, there is none.

"Is there any concrete evidence for a source of anthrax other than cross-contamination in the Nguyen case?" No, there is no evidence of that either.

The known evidence leads to no definitive position on the source of her anthrax infection.

The original consensus of the experts was that cross-contamination was unlikely. The most common view among investigators originally was that she crossed paths with the perps in some way.

Only when no other source of anthrax was found did cross-contamination become the fallback position. There is no hard evidence in favor of cross-contamination as the source.