Sunday, December 14, 2008

Confirmation: Letter spores grown in medium to which silicon added

Although this conclusion is nothing new to many of us, it is gratifying to get confirmation from the National Academy of Engineering of the National Academy of Sciences, and to hear a Sandia National Labs scientist, Paul Kotula, acknowledge that 200 tries to reverse engineer the spores did not create an identical match. Which simply says it is likely the FBI does not know exactly how the spores were made, which makes it more difficult to pin their manufacture on any one individual.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This sounds as if Sandia are trying to create some wiggle room for themselves as they are about to face Congressional hearings next year, a new administration, possibly a new FBI director, and certainly some tough auditing and questioning by an independent NAS committee.

The message from Sandia may be morphing into something like "well, we never actually said the silicon was not put there deliberately, we just said it was on the spore coat and not on the outside of the exosporium".

They still refuse to disclose the silicon concentration. Maybe they are still figuring out how to best back-peddle some more. It seems outrageous that the FBI could forget that tiny detail about the complete lack of silicon in Ivins' original flask, or even in any anthrax sample from Detrick.

Things seem to be turning around now, but we're not likely to get any admissions of incompetence from the FBI labs.

Old Atlantic Lighthouse said...

Hypothesis: Pakistan. Timeline: Week before 9/11/2001, the head of Pakistan's ISI came to the US and met with US leaders to try to get sanctions lifted. That failed. He gave the go-ahead for 9/11 to al Qaeda in the DC area.

Then he met with US intensively following few days. US agreed to life sanctions and pay money to Pakistan. He then gave the signal to the anthrax team to mail the anthrax on 9/18. Reason? 9/11 was to turn on US concern for al Qaeda and that they needed Pakistan's help to get to Afghanistan.

Once they got the money they sent out anthrax made from spores from a US lab to turn US attention to domestic terrorism. Once they got the money they wanted to turn attention away from Pakistan. It basically worked.

Before 9/11, there was talk the US might lift sanctions on India but not Pakistan. Pakistan already considered the sanctions unjust. The head of ISI was a fundamentalist and unjust in that context means its not just ok to kill but whatever it takes is required to do to remove the unjust situation.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2001/09/07/edmansoor_ed3_.php

"
Pakistan:Leaving U.S. Sanctions in Place Would Be Grave
By Mansoor Ijaz, R. James Woolsey and James A. Abrahamson
Published: FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2001

NEW YORK: The Bush administration is preparing to lift punitive sanctions imposed on India for its nuclear program. But clearing this hurdle to bolster political, economic and military ties with India while maintaining even sterner sanctions on Pakistan would be seen throughout the Middle East as discrimination of the first order. Islamabad would be pushed in dangerous directions, particularly toward increased reliance on its nuclear and missile programs.

Further crippling a weak Pakistan, perhaps to the point of state failure, would invite its myriad problems to spill over into other countries. Islamic militancy, arms and drug trafficking and religiously motivated sectarian violence could have devastating consequences for India's economic prospects and cause trouble in important Islamic oil-producing countries. Risks to U.S. forces and interests in the Middle East would be a virtual certainty.
"

Also

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-27095601.html

Search Pakistan "sanctions lifted" 2001, and other similar searches. Toss in nuclear, IMF, etc. Pakistan's central banker on 9/11 later wrote a book and said Pakistan was unable to continue w/o lifting sanctions. That meant Pakistan would have to give up its nuclear program but India wouldn't. That would be "unjust".

http://www.historycommons.org/project.jsp?project=911_project

has info on Pakistan and 9/11. Can look up meetings ISI and US after 9/11 before 9/18. Also has an anthrax timeline.

http://www.historycommons.org/project.jsp?project=2001anthraxattacks

By Sep 23 2001 Sanctions lifted in the news.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1558860.stm

Pakistan knew that before 9/18/01. There were also anthrax incidents in Pakistan in 2001 after 9/11. Pakistan ISI was capable of getting anthrax from a US source and then producing it. Only Pakistan and the others involved in 9/11 could plan it all out in advance and be ready to mail on 9/18 from NJ and from Florida the fake letters to same people, e.g. NBC.

Only Pakistan had a motive to divert attention from 9/11 on 9/18 because then they had the money and sanctions lifted deal. Means, motive, opportunity, timing. It all fits Pakistan.

Pakistan also has the MO before 9/11 and up to now. In 1999, Musharraf invaded Kargil and said Pakistani troops were terrorists. India won and wanted to return the bodies of Pakistan soldiers, but Pakistan still said they were terrorists and wouldn't take the bodies of their own soldiers.

Anonymous said...

Not reporting contradictory evidence isn't scientific evidence. Fortunately, the Sandia folks revealed this at this time because it draws attention to either corrupt or incompetent law enforcement which has caused irreversible damage to an outstanding scientist who devoted his life to protecting soldiers and the American people. I am certain as the days move toward this case being heard before an independent congressional investigatory panel, that more nasty manipulation of the data will come out.

Ellen Byrne said...

Anthrax Case Solved is not listed in Time Magazine's top crime stories of 2008.