Question:
The FBI has deduced, based on "exacting
handwriting and linguistic analyses" that all the anthrax
bio-terrorism attacks are the work of a "lone wolf."
Did the FBI miss any clues?
Answer:
The FBI's behavioral analysis unit assumed
that all the anthrax attacks were all done by one and
the same person— a person who mailed anthrax-laced letters
from Trenton, New Jersey. But that single-person assumption,
while convenient, is not necessarily valid. There are
significant differences in the anthrax attacks that
occurred in Florida, New York and DC. Consider the three
attacks. The Florida Attack . The anthrax attack at
the offices of American Media in Florida did not involve
a letter or envelope that was ever found or recalled.
There were two victims. One (fatal) was in the editorial
offices, the other worked in the mail room. Since spores
from the anthrax was found throughout the building,
it cannot be determined if the anthrax actually arrived
by a letter, by a package or by some other means (Minute
traces were found in a local post office but that might
have been the result of cross-contamination from American
Media's outgoing mail.) In any case, since there was
no letter so the "exacting handwriting and linguistic
analysis" cannot apply to this attack. But there is
a clue: the absence of a letter or warning. The proverbial
dog that didn't bark. If no letter warning accompanied
the anthrax, it suggests that whoever sent it had a
reason for not including the type of warning that was
used in the September 18th attack (described below).
But why? The perpetrator may have feared that a postmark
would give away his proximite location, or had another
reason. The lack of a warning also raises the issue
of purpose. The purpose of this anthrax attack, for
example, might have been to test the speed that an unalerted
medical system in America would detect and identify
the bacteria. The Tuesday, Sept 18th attack. Two identical
anthrax-laced letters, with no return address, were
sent from Trenton to NBC and the NY Post in New York
City. Unlike the Florida attack, the New York attack
contained both a warning and a message in eighteen block-written
words. It warned that an anthrax attack was "next" and
advised the letter- openers to take "penacilin," thus
alerting the medical system. The message for the media:
"Death to America, Death to Israel, Allah is Great."
One clue here is the photo-copying: why would a person
photo-copy a brief message (18 words) rather then re-write
it? One answer might be that the person who mailed these
letters may have lack the language ability-- or the
authority-- to compose a letter in his own block-writing,
and therefore instead used a photo-copied message written
by another person. The purpose is also an issue worth
considering: unlike the Florida attack, the New York
attack carries a message to the media. It focuses attention
on two targets— America and Israel— in the name of Allah.
So the purpose may have been to focus media attention,
rather than causing casualties (ergo, lower grade anthrax
was used). The Tuesday October 9 DC Attack. Two anthrax-laced
letters were sent to two Democratic Senators, Senator
Tom Daschle and Senator Patrick Leahy. The message was
different from that of the prior attack. The Daschle
letter had an added warning: "You can not stop us. We
have this anthrax." The enclosed bacteria demonstrated
the quality of "This anthrax. When analyzed, it proved
to be the virulent Ames strain milled to between six
and one micron in diameter (one-twentieth of a human
hair.) This milling gave it frightening capabilities
as an aerosol weapon. If distributed in the ventilator
system, the dosage in this single letter would have
had the capability of infecting the entire United States
Congress with inhalation anthrax. The text suggests
the purpose of this attack was demonstration. Unlike
prior attacks, these letters demonstrated that the perpetrator
had both a weapon (Ames strain anthrax bacteria) and
technology (micro-milling) to inflict massive damage.
Clue #1: The return address list a non-existent "Greendale
School" in Franklin, Park N.J.. This error suggests
that the perpetrator may not have been familiar with
the Trenton area. Clue #2 (Not commented on by FBI)
The letter uses plural pronouns "We" and "Us," which,
if taken at face value, suggests that more than a single
individual is involved. The geographic fallacy. The
FBI, according to the Wall Street Journal, "thinks the
sender, who may tend to avoid people, has a good knowledge
of Trenton, N.J." The mailer may have lived near Trenton
but since no DNA or fingerprints in any of the letters,
there is no reason to conclude that the mailer and preparer
are a single person. A different person in a different
place (or even different continent) could have prepared
the letters with anthrax and sent them to the mailer
in a zip-locked bag. Indeed, one letter cointaining
anthrax bacteria was sent from Zurich, Switzerland to
a doctor in Chile who was an expert in bio-terrorism
in mid November. And for at least 2 fatal attacks— Kathy
Nyguyen in New York and Ottilie Lundgren in Oxford,
Connecticut— there is no evidence even of a letter.
So the Trenton postmark may be a misleading clue.
. By concentrating on the handwriting of the letter-sender,
The FBI appears to have missed the central clue. The
crucial evidence is not the letters, but the colonies
of anthrax bacteria that they contained. Specifically,
the CDC analysis shows that they were a) virulent Ames-like
strain b) milled to micron size and c) the contained
a large volume of the anthrax bacteria. The Strain
clue. The bacteria is a variant of the virulent Ames
Strain, discovered in 1931. When the bacteria reproduces,
it makes slight errors in copying itself, and therefore
there are variants. The catalogue of variants, or "family
tree" was kept by the Department of Agriculture facility
until mid October 2001 when, with FBI approval, it was
incinerated. The Ames strain comes in two forms: non-virulent
and virulent. The difference between them is that the
virulent anthrax produces toxin proteins and encapsulates
itself with a protective layer, which means it can survive.
The non-virulent, which has been mutated to make it
non-infectious, does not produce toxin proteins or protect
itself. It is the latter form that has been made available
to researchers--22,000, according to the FBI estimate.
Virulent anthrax, which was found in all the anthrax
cases, is another story. Only five known labs in US
have specimens of the virulent strain— the Department
of Agriculture lab at Iowa State, the Center for Disease
Control in Atlanta, the US Army Medical Research Institute
at Fort Detrick in Maryland, the lab at Louisiana State
University and the lab Northern Arizona University.
At each lab, the specimens are kept under lock and key,
and everyone who uses them is recorded. So there is
a very short list of individuals with access to virulent
specimens. The Size clue. The anthrax bacteria in the
Daschle and Leahy letters was 1-6 microns in diameter.
The specimens in laboratories are an order of magnitude
larger. (The government destroyed all the smaller-sized
"weaponized." anthrax 25 years ago.) So the party who
conducted these anthrax attacks, not only had to have
access to the virulent strain, it had to have the facilities
and equipment to grow a batch from the speciman in a
media, which produces a slurry, then dry the slurry
into powder, freeze it, and perform micro-surgery so
as to reduce its diameter by an order of magnitude without
damaging the structure of the bacteria, and, in order
to turn it into an aerosol, alter its electrostatic
charge so it would not cling together. While such equipment
exists in some pharmaceutical labs, it would be relatively
easy to determine that it had been used to mill anthrax.
So a party performing this operation would need a secret
lab. The Volume clue. The Daschle and Leahy letters
contained over a tea spoon of anthrax, or many billion
spores. All would have to be milled in an exacting process.
So the secret lab would have to be organized for the
continuous production of weaponized anthrax. This would
also requiring protecting those do the drying, freezing,
milling, altering and stock-piling with either massive
anti-biotics or vaccination (if vaccination works against
Ames strain). The real issue is would any "lone wolf"
in the Trenton area have access to the 5 labs in which
the virulent strain specimans are kept and secret facilities
to weaponize it and resources to produce billions of
anthrax bacteria safely. If no US-based candidate fits
these requisites then, the next clue would be a stealthed
foreign state-run lab that has this strain and capability
to mill it to micron size.
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