You miss my point on the attacks being a vaccination. I meant that in a metaphorical sense, where the attacks would result in the US powering up an anti-biological warfare capability (it’s “immune system”). It was not a weak strain – it was pretty deadly, it just lacked AB resistance.

My understanding is that in fact a very effective and novel anti-clumping agent was used, such that swirling some spores in a test tube would leave a hazs in the air of the tube for a long time. In other words, the declumping part of weaponization was done.

To do that is difficult, because you have to separate the spores and coat them with a declumping agent. I have no idea how that is done.

One of the AQ guys in Florida had what appeared to be a cutaneous Anthrax infection, although it was never closely examined or diagnosed. I am not aware of treatment by a doctor.

I have no information that Alibek is a flake. I just take extraordinary claims with a grain of salt.

Finally, weaponized Anthrax (declumped and modified for antibiotic resistance) is exceedingly deadly. Introduced in the HVAC air handler of a large building it could kill almost everyone in there, which could be many thousands.

As to the source of the Anthrax, the mystery remains. It was partially weaponized, which is consistent with the idea of it being a warning. It was sent to media and politicians, which is consistent with the idea of it being a public warning. It was sent in envelopes which minimized the dispersion, which is consistent with a warning in the sense of causing minimal casualties.

If AQ had it in Florida, how did they weaponize it?

All good points. We’re probably boring the others to death here. You can just give me an email.

I don’t think Alibek is a flake but who’s to know nowadays. Check his bio out at the GMU site.

http://www.gmu.edu/centers/biodefense/faculty_alibek.html

Yes I understand your points on anthrax. Yes it will cause some deaths if not caught but it’s very expensive to clean up afterwards and can put critical infrastructure off line for long periods of time. It just causes panic and fear and that’s what they’re after anyway.

I handn’t really thought about a watered down variety to build natural immunity. Plausible but I think there is too much circumstancial evidence suggesting this was an aQ strike.

Check out this site which seems to be the going authority which is kept by an attorney. I don’t know if he keeping all of this stuff for a brief for a potential suit against the government for a big screw up or not:

http://hspig.org/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=507

http://hspig.org/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=508

Several key things, the aQ terrorists in Florida from all indications had contracted subcuteanous (sp) anthrax before 9/11. A local doctor treated them however like most stateside doctors had not seen a clinical presentation of anthrax. Gee I hope smallpox photos are getting around. Anyway the doctor was shown photos later and believes this is the type of skin infection he was treating them for.

The key factor is while the anthrax was reasonably small and pure which is indicative of weaponized strains, the anti-static charge on these particles was not removed. By removing the static charge the powder does not clump into larger particles. According to Alibek and others small amounts of reasonably pure anthrax can be made in small labs. The kicker is removing the charge which requires a lot more processing and substantial equipment.

What do you think Mr. Simon you’re the detective here, could the FBI be off on a red herring?

Not that I’m paranoid or anything, I should say to my federal peers in the three and two letter agencies, we’re friendlies here carrying on a polite and civil discussion. We are only trying to assist in the WOT. If your bots drop out this discussion thread, come and see me I will be happy to show you where this is already available in many places on the Net. That’s if you get to analyze this in the next five years. :–)

TROLL OUT

“Ebola as a mist would be nasty, although I have no idea how much it would take. It also tends to not have much in the way of epidemics.”

Isn’t that true of anything that kills quickly? You’re dead before you have much of a chance to spread it. So that ILK4, killing you before your immune system can even fire up, would be the same.

Deadly for those exposed, and horrifying to everyone else, but not likely to spread far because of quarantine.

HIV, on the other hand, is slow death and is one of the reasons that epidemic has spread so far and wide. It’s easy to infect someone else before you even know you’re infected yourself.

Clio

Thanks for the clarification. IMF and World Bank are western institutions. Doesn’t matter what they do really. Or perhaps there’s some thought of getting sympathy from the far left..as Islamists have gotten in some circles in Europe.

My second biggest surprise on 9/11 (the first was the date) was that the attack did no use biological agents.

Genetic engineery, like my daughter does, is getting relatively easy and quite inexpensive. Someone has now built a polio virus from just chemical. The whole area is going gangbusters, and the possibilities are terrifying.

The immigrants are already carrying deadly biological agents: multi-drug resistant TB. For all I know, they may have some MRSA also. After all, if you go to Mexico (a couple of hours driving from here), you can buy all the antibiotics you want with no prescription, so you can unintentionally breed resistant bugs. This is true in much of the world. In Africa, frequently someone will get a single dose of antibiotic because it is all they can afford.

I don’t know what Alibek is working on. I’m always a bit suspicious of guys like him – it may be a con of some sort.

One reason Al Qaeda might not use an infectious agent is that they would be blamed all over the world for hundreds of millions to billions of deaths. That might cause some problems in their ability to operate, much less not having their throats gut.

On the other hand, while Anthrax is an infections disease, it doesn’t create epidemics among humans. Furthermore, the spores contaminate places and its very expensive to get rid of them. Hence a properly weaponized Anthrax attack would be very lethal and deny use of property for a while. The Anthrax used in 1971 was apparently very well weaponized except for anti-biotic resistance which doesn’t even require genetic engineering to add, as far as I know. An envelope of antibiotic resistant version of that stuff dropped into a big building HVAC could kill thousands. Same with pneumonic plague, except I don’t think it forms spores so there’s not much decontamination. Ebola as a mist would be nasty, although I have no idea how much it would take. It also tends to not have much in the way of epidemics.

Going a little off topic. Yes, building vaccines for known agents is reasonable. I was just suggesting don’t blow all your money in one spot.

I believe folks like Ken Alibek(George Mason Univ, DC) and his associates are breaking new ground on news ways to combat bioweapon agents which may be more practicle in the long run. Unfortunately pharms industry may be left out in cold.

My greatest fear as a mentioned once before here is for aQ to use disposable infected terrorists agents to visit border towns in Mexico and infect those transient works who are about to cross over.

Talk about a doomsday weapon of Armegedon(sp)

Ron

The problem with your AQ Anthrax attack is simple: the Anthrax was not antibiotic resistant. Hence it caused few casualties, even though its dispersal had been weaponized. In other words, the agent was half weaponized. Since weaponization of spores is trickier than adding antibiotic resistance, and because of where the letters were sent, I think someone did this to “innoculate” the US against biowar by activating our “immune system” ($5 billion diverted to biowar defense). Run it by your wife.

You are right that there are some ferocious biological agents possible. Adding the ILK4 gene to smallpox, for example.

As far as Bio-Shield. Having lots of vaccines immediately available makes good sense. While bad guys can develop new agents, it’s harder for them to develop agents that aren’t antigenic triggers for an existing vaccine ( except for the ILK4 trick, which appears to defeat vaccines by killing before the immune system has a chance to fire up).

Syl

I agree that Al Qaeda wants to do a bigger attack than 9-11. One wonders at the definition of “bigger.” There is also the issue of timing relative to the election and who would win as a result. It would be very hard to launch an attack more spectacular than 9-11, but less hard to kill a lot of people. For example, using Sarin from those “we found no WMDs” artillery shells and attacking a large building not on alert would be tragic and very easy. A bunch could be attacked.

Truck bombs are likewise very deadly, although unless the target were picked right, the damage wouldn’t come close to 9-11. I saw the damage in Oklahoma City and it was awesome (buildings a blog away destroyed, big apartment buildly structurly damaged). A semi-trailer would make an even bigger bang, and the ammonium nitrate/urea and fuel oil is a relatively low explosive appropriate for damaging buildings. But unless it destroyed the structural integrity of the building, as in OK City, it’s not going to kill a huge number of people.

jerry

For the most part, I agree with you on cyberspace warfare. There are significant attacks that can be mounted, but almost all major control systems and military systems are physically isolated from the internet. The attacks could temporarily disrupt the internet, but that’s about it. Most worries about cyberspace warfare are as valid as the millenium worries.

Al Qaeda Communications

Today, it appears to be easy to create codes not breakable by the NSA. The academic world has developed a number that are also easy to implement. Public key encryption even handles the difficult key management problem. Hence, unless the bad guys screw up or we can plant something on their computer, or we take advantage of unTempested systems, we are not going to be reading their digital traffic. It’s going to be just random bits. From that we can do traffic analysis, which is quite valuable, but not as good as reading the plaintext.

The NSA keeps quiet about this and may, because of its world class flock of cryptographers, be able to break one or more of these codes. Venona used a theoretically unbreakable system (one time pads) and was broken due to the occasional use of the same pad again, a violation of the coding rules. Even so it took years to do the decrypts. NSA also has its share of scientists, and also contracts out (often through an alias), to stay at the forefront. But again, don’t expect an ULTRA class of crack. In this world, that would probably require an agent at the communications node (a la John Walker).

Regarding the history of ULTRA. It was given to high level field commanders, but the source was not provided. At the Anzio Beach landing, for example, the general had ULTRA intelligence that there were no Germans between him and roam. He chose to ignore it and the result was a near disaster when the Germans came down and attacked his overly-dense army in its small perimeter. Chuchill reportedly got intelligence that Coventry would be destroyed in a vengeance attack, and chose not to warn Coventry to protect the secret. Amazingly, after a whole night of bombing, there were almost no casualties.

The US also had broken the Japanese Diplomatic Code (PURPLE) before the start of the war, and hence had the contents of the Japanese ultimatum hours before the Pearl Harbor attack. Secy of State Cordell Hull had it in his briefcase when the Japanese, accidently late, presented it. It was that late presentation that led to the charges of “day of infamy” as the Japanese supposedly attacked without warning. But Hull actually had the warninig, a secret that had to be kept for a long time.

Sorry I was speaking metaphorically re cyberspace. It’s not offense v. defense re network security.

What I was refering to is the ability of the Net and the Blogosphere to communicate the truth and objective information freely, trancending interference of political boundaries and constraints of editorial and media conglomerate boardrooms. After all this is a war of information and ideas.

Yes there may be the moonbots on the left and the wingnuts on the right but if you triangulate this info it seems to have a self-correcting ability. See my link on the Power and Politics of Blogs (Two poli sci profs are circulating a draft paper on this).

The Net and the Blogosphere are collectively an emerging medium which make the media as we know it no longer relevant.

If you want to get real deep on this, check this piece out. Sorry I couldn’t link to it easily.

TROLL OUT

The cultures of the world that have undergone religious reformation and/or cultural enlightenment will prevail though there may be many losses. Those who have experienced freedom will overpower any repressive culture that seeks to constrain the free will of man. The radical Islamic extremists believe there is a need for Devine government to control man, as he will only do evil if given free will. This is a failed ideology. This region of the world was the cradle of modern mathematics, science, medicine, and the arts. Where are they now? What was the cause of this stagnation? I suggest, it is the recognition and acceptance of the free will of man to CHOOSE to do good or evil. The power of this universal TRUTH is unending.

In terms of today, Dr. Phil always asks, ?How?s that workin for ya?? The answer is not very well. This struggle has continued for many centuries and yet the radical Islamic extremists have remained as they were in the 12th and 13th Centuries of the old Islamic Empire. Once man has taken the bit of freedom in his mouth, there is no turning back. The Internet and blogging is interconnecting the world. The free flow of information is becoming transparent to international borders.

The collective consciousness of the world is growing together at an ever-increasing exponential rate. This is the beginning of collective cognitive thought. This is much like the cellular development of the human brain as synaptic connections and pathways form which give rise to consciousness, and ultimately sentient thought and existence.

Sorry one more short (really) comment before I go.

Do the reading. Bio-Shield as currently proposed is a flawed concept and this money will be wasted.

We can’t vaccinate our way out of bioterrorism. You’ll never know exactly what agents you are developing a vaccine for let alone get pharms industry to create it (See my link above).

Bioterror agents can be created faster than you can develop vaccines to counter.

Besides as Alibek says, there is a limit to the number of vaccinations you can give any one person. He has firsthand knowledge as he has lost much of his hearing and suffered other serious effects from the number of vaccinations he has received.

The answer is, “go for the ball!” Don’t wait for the attack. Need to get the agent before it can be released. Shades of FOX’s 24 HRS 2nd season. Maybe the feds should hire the screenwriters for this show because they are more informed then the feds appear to be. Mr. Simon could you check on that?

TROLL OUT

I have a small background in cyberspace warfare. There is no there there. Physical force dominated cyberforce any day. I used to make this point in briefings by constructing a conceptual world made up of two virtual countries, Billworld and Steveworld. (Microsoft versus Apple for the uninitiated). I posited the existance of a steveworld citizen living in a billworld physical space. As you can see, steveworld guy can’t survive an attack by bill’s thugs by cyber means alone. The reason is simple. We exist in physical space not the virtual world of cyberspace. I can always show up at you door with an ax and order you join billworld at penalty of death. There is nothing steveworld can do to save you.

Allow me to clarify my thoughts. The World Bank and IMF are not in any way pillars of the global economy–if AQ blew them sky high tomorrow (which I sincerely hope doesn’t happen–as if that needs to be said, right?) I’m not sure that any stock markets would jump a point. What they ARE the foundation of (for better and for worse) is a western-financed, largely well-intentioned system of aid and development. Now even the most pointy-headed of intellectuals who pretends to be dead in the street outside the World Bank once a year at their big meeting does not REALLY think the people inside the building are evil or deserve to be blown up. There is simply a difference of opinion about the means, pace and direction of development.

Now, the “critique” that AQ seems to be offering of this development model is a good deal harsher and, one would hope, might induce the protester types (protesters of war, of “unfair” trade, of whatever ya got) to question who is hated and why here.

Yesterday I was listening to Fresh Air and so called funny man Bill Maher makes the comment that no Iraqi wanted Saddam in power but that given the choice between having him there and having his sister walk down the street in a miniskirt, he’d rather have Saddam back. I think this speaks volumes about the spineless cultural relativism of the Left today–note, the Iraqi we have to keep in consideration is the brother, not the sister.

The cowardice and moral stupidity of the Left today is one in which we turn on our own leaders rather than admit that we are ALL the target of a common enemy. Get him first, not me. I’m just minding my own business here.

I’m just amazed that no one seems even to noticed the targetting of two institutions of international cooperation, not international greed.

I disagree that this is just dumb Arabs who can’t tell the difference between one big building in a large American city and another. They know what they’re targetting. We need to try to understand and talk about why they chose them.