The Next Big Thing: Anthrax Again?

CIA spymaster turned Counterterrorism ambassador Henry A. Crumpton is quoted in a Daily Telegraph piece by this AP story on CNN, with the catchy pitch:

U.S.: 'Very high' chance of WMD terror strike

Tuesday, January 17, 2006; Posted: 3:43 a.m. EST (08:43 GMT)

LONDON, England (AP) -- There is a "very high" probability that a terrorist group will strike using nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said in comments published Tuesday.

My paranoia may be oversensitive these days, but I can't help see this as a little stoking of the fear machine to help the Chimperor-in-Chief out of a tough spot.  Perhaps the statements made by this expert are not so extreme:

"I rate the probability of terror groups using (weapons of mass destruction) as very high," U.S. State Department counterterrorism coordinator Henry Crumpton was quoted as saying by the Daily Telegraph newspaper. "It is simply a question of time."
"It is not just the nuclear threat that bothers me," he was quoted as saying. "I think, if anything, the biological threat is going to grow."

But there is this little vague and unsubstantiated tidbit which was so reeking of truthiness that it raised a red flag:

Crumpton said a biological attack was potentially the most troubling scenario. He said evidence from Afghanistan suggested al-Qaeda had been seeking to develop anthrax before the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001.

Is he suggesting that the weaponized anthrax used in the US attacks came from Al Qaeda? No, that would be absurd. It would take a relatively advanced infrastructure to produce, and the investigations have tended to assume a domestic/military source.  This was troubling in itself, since the US had sworn off development of bioweapons, according to treaty, at least.

So what could he be referring to. Is he sharing some new classified detail from his days guiding the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan to "success"?  I think not.  I think they are recycling a used scare that Russ Baker pinpointed in The Nation in 2003, when he dissected Bloody Judy Miller's war propaganda campaign in the NYT:

In September 2002, a year after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, Miller had yet another Osama scoop provided by the authorities. Headlined "Lab Suggests Qaeda Planned to Build Arms, Officials Say," the article begins: "Pentagon officials disclosed new details today about equipment found in a laboratory near Kandahar, Afghanistan, that they contend Al Qaeda intended to use to make biological and chemical weapons."

Is this a real story? The headline and lead are powerful. But here's the second paragraph: "The officials said the equipment--a centrifuge for separating liquids and an oven in which slurried agents could be dried--supported the assessment that Al Qaeda might have acquired what it needed to make 'a very limited production of biological and chemical agents,' one official said."

Of course Judy's connection to the anthrax thing is complex. Not only was she victim of an anthrax-letter hoax, she also wrote some fundamental articles for the NYT exploring the US role in fabricating weaponized anthrax.  Unfortunately, they again were less than meets the eye, as the Baltimore Sun revealed 3 months later:

While there was important information in the September 4-5 articles by Judith Miller and others published in the New York Times, these articles actually served to conceal the most important facts about the Dugway program. According to the first article by Miller, published September 4, "Officials stressed that the plant never made anthrax or any other lethal pathogen." We now know that this statement is false: the Dugway plant made weapons-grade anthrax which was so dangerous that it was sent to Fort Detrick, Maryland for sterilization so the bacteria could be studied without undue risk to the scientists involved.

The Times articles were based on interviews with former Dugway director Jay C. Davis, who gave Miller and ABC News a tour of the facility with Pentagon permission. Miller dutifully reported the Pentagon version of events, writing: "Dr. Davis and other officials said the Defense Department's lawyers had carefully reviewed the project to ensure that it did not violate the biological weapons treaty or American law. Because it was purely defensive and never made deadly germs, it was both legal and appropriate, he and others said."

Again, the premise of this legal opinion is blatantly false. The Dugway project did make deadly germs, and was therefore in direct violation of the biological weapons treaty. In view of what was actually going on at Dugway, the Pentagon's decision to invite Times and ABC reporters to the premises and give them a sanitized version of events seems to be a calculated effort at disinformation, using two media outlets that have proven their reliability as conduits for government propaganda.

As in all such disinformation, falsehood and truth are mixed together, and enough new revelations are included to make the piece look like an exposure, when it is really a cover-up. The main revelations came in a second article by Miller, William S. Broad and Stephen Engelberg, published the same day. The most important section reads as follows:

"Over the past several years, the United States has embarked on a program of secret research on biological weapons that, some officials say, tests the limits of the global treaty banning such weapons.

"Earlier this year, administration officials said, the Pentagon drew up plans to engineer genetically a potentially more potent variant of the bacterium that causes anthrax, a deadly disease ideal for germ warfare.

"Administration officials said the need to keep such projects secret was a significant reason behind President Bush's recent rejection of a draft agreement to strengthen the germ-weapons treaty, which has been signed by 143 nations."

As the GOP mob faces waves of indictments, and possibly a few suicides (real and staged), and Bush begins to stare down the prospect of impeachment, his cornered junta may react even more erratically and vindictively than usual.

•  Power Corrupts

  but that mojo sure is sweet.

  Crumpton told the newspaper that U.S. and international efforts had severely disrupted the al-Qaeda network since the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, but that "in all probability" Osama bin Laden was still alive.

  He means disrupted in the sense of spawned hundreds of new havens and thousands of new recruits for.

  by Cache on Tue Jan 17, 2006 at 06:31:16 AM PDT

  •  Like when

    you disrupt a puddle by stamping on it hard.

    Result? Hundreds of smaller puddles.

    by Sharoney on Tue Jan 17, 2006 at 07:42:18 AM PDT

  •  disruption analogy

    Including the toxicity, it's the disruption of hitting a globule of mercury with a hammer.

    In other words, disruption of centrality, nothing more.  

    by MN camera on Tue Jan 17, 2006 at 07:48:23 AM PDT

•  One of many

  hur G. Wilhelm Busch and Richart Von Cheney's trump cards.

  by thor on Tue Jan 17, 2006 at 06:40:45 AM PDT

•  Judy Miller: 94 pieces on anthrax & bioterror

  Judith Miller wrote 94 articles on anthrax - many linking anthrax and bioterror to Iraq - between 1998 and 2004 for the New York Times.  You can bet that if it has Judith Miller's byline then it is a Bushista propaganda/psy-ops campaign.

  by LondonYank on Tue Jan 17, 2006 at 06:43:40 AM PDT

•  man..

  It's years old now, but some of these people are so ridiculous.. it still bothers me.

  "The officials said the equipment--a centrifuge for separating liquids and an oven in which slurried agents could be dried--supported the assessment that Al Qaeda might have acquired what it needed to make 'a very limited production of biological and chemical agents,' one official said."

  Well, yes, that's one possibility, if you want to fit your data to the conclusion. But this type of equipment is used to make literally thousands of relatively harmless compounds. While we should be assuming the worst when it comes to AQ, we still have to have some degree of sense when analysing these things. If this is the only proof they have.. well it would make me even more doubtful of these current claims.

  by Politburo on Tue Jan 17, 2006 at 06:43:57 AM PDT

  •  Scale and quatlity

    The item gives no indication of the scale of the equipment, after all we all know that aluminium tube were being purchased by Saddam to build them to process nuclear weapons grade plutonium (despite they were the wrong size and actually shell cases) If memory serves the sort of extract that would be produced would not make a weapon from anthrax anyway as you have to have it at the "spore" stage to survive and finely milled to ensure dispersion (as were the samples sent through the post in the US)

    by londonbear on Tue Jan 17, 2006 at 07:32:23 AM PDT

    •  heh

      Step #1: Get anthrax.

      The whole project falls apart if you cannot source the pathogen. Perhaps you can send off for it by mail order or bid for it on Ebay; although there are rumours of a handy back-door trade at top-security US bio-warfare labs.

      by londanium on Tue Jan 17, 2006 at 07:58:19 AM PDT

      •  Well, actually,

        You can find anthrax bacteria in the soil all over the world.  It's very common.  Go into your back yard, dig up a soil sample, start your own little bacteria farm.  Kind of like the ant farm you had as a kid.

        Of course, the sort of militarized anthrax in question is a very carefully developed, extremely virulent strain.  And of course, what was mailed around was good ol' made in the USA military grade.  Gosh, now who would possess something like that?  Oh, yeah - the military and the spooks.
        

        by EeDan on Tue Jan 17, 2006 at 09:17:09 AM PDT

•  Such coincidence...the anthrax and Miller

  I know it makes the knots in my brain caused by this administration feel like turning....

  I mean, it's like you don't even want to go there, but you have to try.......

  by rosabw on Tue Jan 17, 2006 at 06:48:22 AM PDT

•  a little yes, a little no

  The problem here is, some of the allegations about al Qaeda working on pathogens may, indeed, be true. And it certainly makes sense for the US military to be studying anthrax, as it could be used against them (by more than just "the terrorists"). And i suppose that i can't disagree with the statement that there is a "very high" probability that the US will be hit with a 'WMD' attack. After all, the US very quickly turned that global sympathy ("We are all Americans") into hatred, fear, and loathing in the past couple of years. And i'm sure those who are charged with the protection of the US and its interests have no illusions that protection can be absolute.

  However, one page in this admin's hegemonic playbook has certainly contained instructions for ramping up fear at critical junctures. We've all seen it and have come to expect it, so i don't see anything wrong with questioning anything they say.

  And the "anthrax scare" is by no means a closed case. There are many powerful suggestions that it was an entirely domestic operation. Every US citizen should be shouting from their (duct tape-sealed, alas) windows that they want this investigated and prosecuted. There's lots of info following the leads at the above link.

  by subtropolis on Tue Jan 17, 2006 at 07:09:15 AM PDT

•  "Hank" Crumpton

  Reading the Telegraph story  sugests that "Hank" may bave been brought off from criticising the Bush administration/CIA by his appointment to the co-ordinating post:

  
  In a distinguished career with the CIA, during which he won four of the agency's highest awards, Mr Crumpton was a key figure in its covert operations against al-Qa'eda pre-September 11.

  Referred to simply as "Henry" in the 9/11 Commission Report, Mr Crumpton tried to persuade the CIA to do more in Afghanistan to hunt down Osama bin Laden before the attacks, but two key proposals to tackle al-Qa'eda were turned down.
  

  Not mentioned is the earlier part of the warning:

  
  (He) warned yesterday that the "war on terror" was likely to last for decades.

  "This threat has changed the way we will fight wars in the future," he said.

  "We are talking about micro targets such as al-Qa'eda which, when combined with WMD, have a macro impact. I rate the probability of terror groups using WMD [to attack Western targets] as very high. It is simply a question of time.
  

  Which not only presages keeping Gitmo Bay prisoners there for decades but questions the very nature of the US armed forces which are still set up for classic warfare.

  by londonbear on Tue Jan 17, 2006 at 07:22:39 AM PDT

•  Homeland security $ withdrawn from Las Vegas

  Where in America do more people from more places come and go and mix and mingle than Las Vegas?

  If I was a pathogen looking to hop a ride to Anytown, USA, Las Vegas is where I'd wanna be.  But they're doing a heckuva job at Homeland Security; so much so that Las Vegas need not be defended.

  What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.....unless it's a deadly, microscopic, aerosolized virus.

  by roxtar on Tue Jan 17, 2006 at 07:44:00 AM PDT

•  www.anthrax.com

  For a bunch of fortysomething headbangers, the guys in ANTHRAX are surprisingly on the ball regarding Bushco's anthrax vaccine initiative:

  ANTHRAX FIGHTS THE VACCINE
  Anthrax says "No More!" to Spreading The Disease

  Anthrax has partnered with Slave to the Metal^TM Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Slave to the Metal (the Heavy Metal lifestyle brand and entertainment platform), the portal for Heavy Metal music fans and the Music Industry to raise awareness and provide funds to those organizations and individuals that fight against the misuse of heavy metals (i.e. depleted uranium, mercury and lead) and who are rising in outrage over other misanthropic and genocidal initiatives such as the forceful administration to our soldiers of the untested and unapproved Anthrax Vaccine. (See: www.anthraxvaccine.org, www.milvacs.org). In addition to raising awareness by speaking out and offering literature on this site (please download the postcard and email the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) Anthrax will print a limited edition autographed poster which is a retrospective of the cover art from their 1985 album Spreading The Disease and offer the proceeds to organizations that are fighting this constitutional breach.

  "Every fan of Heavy Metal music has the chance right now to support our troops as Anthrax partners with Slave to the Metal Foundation to provide an opportunity for the most affected generation to make a difference and bring public awareness to the dangers of the Anthrax Vaccine" - Charlie Benante.

  "Heavy Metal music was born out of non-conformity to socially accepted structure. Therefore our roots are seeded in the belief that we must challenge structure as it is based on past viewpoints imposed on the future. With respect to the Anthrax Vaccine it is our responsibility as `keepers of the faith' of Heavy Metal music to stay true to core belief and challenge Project BioShield - a legislative act that authorizes the mandated use of untested and unapproved vaccines on our soldiers making them in essence first line guinea pigs for the biopharmaceutical industry." Scott Ian.

  "It has come to us from the most legitimate and politically correct activist circles that our headbanger support is sorely needed to make the public aware of these atrocities." Joey Belladonna.
  

  by gp39m on Tue Jan 17, 2006 at 07:46:59 AM PDT