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c-rock

Funny I got it..... maybe it was operator error c-rock

Top FBI and CIA officials believe that the anthrax attacks on Washington, New York and Florida are likely the work of one or more extremists in the United States who are probably not connected to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization, government officials said yesterday.

Senior officials also are increasingly concerned that the bioterrorism is diverting public attention from the larger threat posed by bin Laden and his network, who are believed to be planning a second wave of attacks against U.S. interests here or abroad that could come at any time, officials said.

None of the 60 to 80 threat reports gathered daily by U.S. intelligence agencies has connected the envelopes containing anthrax spores to al Qaeda or other known organized terrorist groups, and the evidence gleaned from the spore samples so far provides no solid link to a foreign government or laboratory, several officials said.

"Everything seems to lean toward a domestic source," one senior official said. "Nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist type operation."

The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are considering a wide range of domestic possibilities, including associates of right-wing hate groups and U.S. residents sympathetic to the causes of Islamic extremists. But investigators have no clear suspects, and are not even certain whether there are other undetected letters that contained the deadly microbe.

But federal health officials said yesterday that a new case of pulmonary anthrax in a man who worked at a State Department mail facility in Northern Virginia has persuaded them that more than one contaminated letter may have been sent to the Washington area. Health experts previously believed that a single letter, sent to the office of Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.), likely caused all the anthrax reports in the Washington area as it came in contact with other pieces of mail in the system.

Now the "working hypothesis would be that this is not cross-contamination," said Jeffrey Koplan, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "There is not enough infectious material from cross-contamination to do that."

However, ongoing searches of truckloads of undelivered mail to the U.S. Capitol and other government buildings has turned up no other letters laced with anthrax bacteria, leading FBI officials to assume that the Daschle letter may still be the only local source. Two employees at the U.S. Postal Service's Brentwood facility in Washington have died from inhaling the lethal bacteria, and three other local postal workers have contracted inhalational anthrax.

"This envelope, Daschle's envelope, is not watertight or airtight or anything like that," one law enforcement official said. "It's porous. At one or two microns, there's plenty of room for the spores to escape."

Although there is consensus at the FBI and CIA that al Qaeda associates are planning more serious attacks, "nobody believes the anthrax scare we are going through is" the next wave of terrorism, one senior official said. "There is no intelligence on it and it does not fit any [al Qaeda] pattern."




more at the link   feeling lazy

What really bothers me is that there are some groups in this country who, being neither Arab nor Islamic fundamentalists, still think that what occurred on Sept 11, 2001, was a really good idea.

You know, to 'wake up' America, to punish the Jews who 'own' the WTC, to disassociate the US from Israel, to punish the US for its 'sins',
whatever.

Those pin-headed jerks need to be removed from the gene pool ever bit as much as Bin Laden & Co., maybe even more since they are, after all, traitors to their country!

The source of the anthrax, IMHO, is simply: the slimey Iraqi bastard Saddam Hussein. The reasons for this opinion are many.

Iraq has the ability to produce these biological agents.

Saddam has shown a willingness to use chemical agents on a civilian population (his own!), so why not biological agents on US?

Saddam hates the US!

Saddam gets even more prestige among Islamic fundamentalists because of the perception that he may be responsible!

And finally, stories such as this:[url]http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nyt/20011027/ts/czechs_confirm_iraqi_agent_met_with_terror_ringleader_1.html[/url]

(The Iraqis meeting with Atta prior to Sept 11)

Eric The(AreTheySearchingDiplomaticPouchesYet?)Hun[>]:)]

Yes, the idiots who think its domestic are basing it on the fact the envelopes were mailed in the states and the strain of the bacteria is from an Ames IA lab.  Not exactly conclusive evidence.

Or this could be a red herring because they are getting close to catching the real perps.

(edited to correct the state of the lab)

Sarcasm alert...can any of you be this dense...
"It is military grade..it isn't..it is...it was
released by Bin Ladel...it wasn't...-Our terrorism bil just got passed-....it was the work of domestic terrorists. Now they can search your house. Get it?

Keith_J, Ames is in Iowa not Ohio.

hound, not only can they search your house..... they can do it without your knowledge!  There goes the Fourth!

But don't worry, this will sunset in four years when the "emergency" is over (said with big tongue in cheek)!

DaMan

Remember the Post story was by Bob Woodward.  He is infamous for making stuff up out of whole cloth.

GunLvr

Is that the best proof?  Left-wing politicians and the media?  

How about the real fact that out of the known letters, some were delivered but not opened.  These have not been released to make the appearance that it is a domestic group.  Not surprising the left and media would open envelopes that had the appearance of the contaminated ones.

I cannot believe there is a domestic grouop that developed the spores and mailed them using expedient techniques (sloppy handwriting on post-office vending machine prepaid envelopes).  

Handwriting experts have also commented the "A" in "USA" was single struck while it was double-struck on the word "Allah", indicating a powerful reverence for the latter.

Its a pure red herring stating the acts were a domestic group.  

No America, it's not Iraq!  We took care of them back in the early 1990's.  Don't you remember?  It must be some domestic nut cases.  Remember, it's not Iraq.  And we're not planning on bombing them once we're through with the Taliban. [rolleyes]

God Bless Texas

I know one thing, if this is domestic terrorism, I will declare my personal jihad on any group responsible and their appologists, left or right.

The problem I see with the domestic angle is that it assumes that someone would take the trouble to make up this stuff (at great expense and risk to themselves) and then sit on it until Sept. 11 (which, we must assume, they did not know was going to happen).

It is hard to believe that someone would have had the time to manufacture anthrax in this form in 10 or so days after 9/11.

I would put my money on Iraq as the source of this stuff.

[u]Then[/u] we'll change our opinions as more facts become known. You know, like our government does!

Eric The(I'veLearnedALotAboutObfuscationFromThem,YouKnow)Hun[>]:)]

Does anybody out there REALLY think that the following is true:

-That on the morning of 9/11/01 there was somebody like Timothy McVeigh sitting at their home and they looked up and noticed that terrorists had attacked the WTC.

-This same person just HAPPENED to have a number of different strains and types of anthrax spores.  By different types I mean this individual had both military grade anthrax in very fine, easily dispersed spores, and non-military grade anthrax - kinda like puppy chow.  This person just happened to have the addresses of all the major offices in D.C. and just decided to mail out all of these different types and different strains of anthrax to all of these different offices.

-Even BEFORE we know who bombed these buildings, remember we didn't know who did this for a couple of weeks, this same Timothy McVeigh-like individual JUST HAPPENS to put notes in all these anthrax envelope saying things like "death to America", "death to Israel", "Allah is great".

If ANYBODY REALLY believes all of this, and doesn't think that this is an act of terrorism, then I have a pre-ban AR-15 made by Norinco in Russia, in 300 win mag, with a 1000 round magazine drum that shoots 3 inch groups at 5000 yrds - for sale to you for a whole lot of money.

Does anyone out there think that the following is true?
1. That on 9/11..the government knew by 4 Pm that bin Ladel was responsible for WTC.
2. That avgas burns hot enough to melt steel?
3. That a passport survived the explosion?
4. That dedicated Muslim fundamentalists went to a topless bar?
5. That an gov't lawyer said not to kill the leader of the Taliban? truth is stranger than fiction
6. That White House orificials had been taking Cipro for a month before 9/11 and they new nothing?

Raf, it is good advice, but some of us have considered the facts as they've been made available.

Here's what I've heard so far:

1: The scientist in charge of Iraq's bio weapons program that defected to the US in the mid-90's says it's something Iraq was capable of doing.

2: The timing is pretty good for a domestic militia group to be doing this.  It would be one hell of a coincidence to have the antrhax and be waiting for this kind of moment.

3: One of the first antrhax letters was mailed from outside the country.

4: There has been NO conclusive proof that a domestic group is responsible.  We only know that some of the letters have been mailed from inside the country.

5: Bio-weapons experts have started saying that evidence points to processing that would have to be done by someone with specialized equipment.  Daschale's letter alone infected 28 people.

6: Don Foster, the professor who outed Joe Klein as the author of Primary Colors, says that the note in Daschale's antrhax envelope indicate someone who is not proficient in English.

7: Neither Ken Alibek or William Patrick III have been asked to help in the investigations, and there are probably few people in the US that understand more about antrhax as a bio weapon than they do.  Both have been critical of the lack of information that has been made available to independant scientists.  They also question the FBI and CDC's experience with weapons grade antrhax powder, primarily because both groups have none.

God Bless Texas

Post from raf -

No, I believe it was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.[:D]

Yet, we can't wait until [u]all[/u] the evidence is in, prior to considering just who/what/why the hell is going on! First, it's unlikely you'll ever know all the facts, and, second, it may be too late by then.

Eric The(OurHouseIsOnFire!)Hun[>]:)]

Hound

Are you suggesting a government conspiracy to blow-up the World Trade Center towers?

I am not a mechnical engineer but I am engineer and I have had courses in Mechanics of Materials The fires were hot enough to weaken,not melt,the steel supports.  With several of the supports misssing, from the impact of an aircraft, and other weakened by the fires the structure failed.

Nope I would never postulate a government conspiracy...are you kidding? With the terrorism bill passed? Leavenworth is not my idea of a
vacation.

n the 20th Century, steel melted at
    1538 degrees Celsius (2800 F, see http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/fe.html), but in the 21st Century, it melts at 800 degrees C (1472 F).

These are the kind of numbers I am discussing.
We can look up the numbers and the numbers do not match-up. And the absolute stupidity of paying people big money to blow up building so they fall correctly and all the while we could have used one plane's worth of fuel.....

raf--excellent statement....

Hound

The steel didn't have to melted before the building failed it just had to be weakened by the heat. I think it was physics and a lot of luck that the buildings fell relatively straight down.  I agree that dis-information has been spread but I don't see the conspricay you are implying.

JIMBEAM, during mid-construction of the WTC, use of asbestos to protect the supporting structure, was banned (by the EPA). The designer protested because he KNEW that a fire ABOVE the asbestos protected supporting structure, could result in the collapse of the twin towers.

DaMan  

[i]Top FBI and CIA officials believe that the anthrax attacks on Washington, New York and Florida are likely the work of one or more extremists in the United States who are probably not connected to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist organization, government officials said yesterday.[/i]

If the government openly admits that the anthrax comes from a state sponsor; Then We will [b]Have To[/b] respond in kind: chem/biological/nuclear. I think that the government isn't ready for that kind of escalation.

WWIII  [soapbox]

Edited to add (IMHO)

Could be!  DaMan

Da Man, thanks for the information.

The Twin Towers do not have a lot of internal structural supports. It was built using a very innovative design strategy. This was one of the main reasons they could actually build it in the first place. They used only about 2/3's the building materials of a conventional building, big savings with a stronger overall structure.

They were built using a super strong skin that bore most of the load while providing protection against hurricane wind forces and earthquakes. Many of the Tower's interior spaces had huge volume areas with absolutely no internal columns. Once that skin was severely damaged and melted beyond the point stability, the whole thing collapsed in on itself. They were designed to take an impact with a partially fueled 707. They did take the impacts without falling. They were not counting on a fully fueled 767 and the ensuing fireball.

1: I still don't think anyone KNOWS for sure if bin Laden was involved and/or responsible. I definitely wouldn't bet money that he had nothing to do with it, though!

2: It was jet fuel (basically kerosene), not avgas. From what I remember reading, the type of steel used in structures starts losing structural strength around 2000F and is "melting" around 3000F. Just imagine what kind of a flue the building would make, and how hot the fire could get with that much air being drawn upwards.

3: Sure, why not? The explosion blew it clear somehow. Look at all the papers that survived the planes hitting the building.

4: I'm not so sure they were dedicated so much as brainwashed. Maybe they were Muslims in name only, and did it because they wanted to kill Americans, instead of because they were promised a place in paradise.

5: Well, there is the EO that prohibits assassinations. I don't agree with it one bit, but a lawyer for the gov't is in the peculiar position of having to recommend that the gov't follow the laws it pased even when it doesn't want to any more.

6: I haven't heard anything about this, so I can't comment. The idea that our gov't would let something like this happen is repugnant to me, but I have to admit that there's a little voice inside me saying that "the gov't" would kill 10 times as many Americans if "the gov't" thought it could benefit from doing so. Everyone has a bit of conspiracy theorist in them, I guess.

So... two huge buildings, rammed by airliners at speed, after standing for a while, fall...  straight down??  One side doesn't hold for a fraction of a second longer than the other on one of the floors on one of the towers?  The massive concussion created when one falls doesn't bring the other weakened tower down with it?  360 degrees of equal collapse, sequentially on floor by floor by floor for 200 floors??  I suppose it could happen through a very hot 'fire' that somehow weakened all structural members to the point that all major structural members on each floor failed at exactly the same time, one floor at a time, top to bottom even though the planes impacted closer to the middle.  Could happen if for instance the building were tossed upside down into in a blast furnace.  Or you could toss a coin 10,000 times and end up with the same result - similar level of probability.

Or you could rig up a series of HE charges (that's 'very hot fire' for pr purposes, isn't it?) with appropriate delays so as to bring the towers straight down and hence prevent one tower from being toppled into the other - remember the 1993 wtc bombing?   Except that if some terrorists found out about that, or accidentally struck upon a way to exploit it, you might face both towers going down as a result of the 'protective' explosive charges detonating under say the fires created by an impacting airliner.

e8ght, are you currently experiencing a shortage of tin foil?  You know aluminum foil isn't an adequate substitute.

I mean, seriously.  The fricking tin foil crowd cracks me up with this crap.  We've got a lot of armchair "engineers" who know jack about the structural design of that building and how it was designed.  Yet, it's one of the few buildings with tons of information about it, INCLUDING detailed construction drawings easily available to the public.  The building had no interior support columns other than the steel around the internal core where the elevators and stairs were located.  The rest of the building was supported by the exterior.

Tell me, how much weight total were on those remaining upper floors, including people.  Sans people, it's estimated that each of those floors weights 3000 tons.  And talking with someone who worked at the site, it didn't all come down neatly.  That's what happens when a 400,000lb airplane hits a building travelling at 300MPH.  

God Bless Texas

What is a "protective" explosive charge?  Are you implying that charges were placed to bring the building straight down to avoid damaging surrounding buildings? Given the time frame I don't think charges could be set in both buildings. I think people leaving the building would have noticed other carrying explosive up to the fire to collapse the buildings.  I have done limited work with explosives, any government agency would have a difficult time pulling that amount of explosives, transporting them and setting them in such a short period of time.


((After reading your post again it seems that you are suggesting that explosive were placed in the buildings prior to the attack to protect surrounding structures in the event of such an attack.))

The reason why the second building hit fell  first was that it was hit much, much lower and had a lot more mass above the wound. The first building was almost hit near the top.

Like I said before, the Twin Towers aren't built like other skyscrapers. Once the weaker insides collapsed, it basically imploded downwards taking the support skin with it. It collapsed inside first and straight down. The web like design of the support skin was made to absorb an impact and sustain integrity. But when the inside fell first, it took the whole thing down. Any explosive charges would be visible from the outside, being that the main support structures are on the skin. Time to change your tinfoil, it maybe getting oxidized.

The History channel has been running a program on the Towers that aired last April. It explains everything. Many of these interviews predate the 9-11 attacks all the way back to the initial design stage of the building.

Just a guess, that's all.  But I did get an A in Mechanics of Static Structures.  And I am a  licensed blaster.  Whether explosives were present, why explosives were there, who put them there, when - I don't know any of this.  Hell, maybe there were no explosives.  But it'll be a long time before anyone manages to convince me that 200 stories worth of buildings fell straight down without prior planning by someone.

Most of the internal volume of the buildings was air, so it's actually fairly difficult to get them to "topple". The failure was a classic progressive collapse--the top floors fell down onto the lower floors, which imposed a dynamic load that exceeded the maximum load, causing each floor to fail in succession.

Lots of debris fell out and away from the buildings. If you watch the video it looks like large chunks are falling a block or two way, at least.

Getting back to the original topic, it appears that investigators may have located one possible source for the anthrax... (link from WorldNet Daily)

[URL]http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99991490[/URL]

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that someone planted explosive charges in the WTC to make sure the towers would fall straight down instead of toppling onto other buildings.  Then shouldn't there also be "protective" charges in the Sears Tower?  Find the explosives in the Sears Tower and your theory will start to make some sense.

Maybe, just maybe we know that we're going to fight Iraq. We know we're going to have to fight a few more countries, too.
Would it be smart to fight them all at once?
No.
Would it be smart to let the pundits and the media and John McCain say when we should engage?
No.

We have a schedule.
Hysteria shouldn't cause us to alter that schedule.

Personally for me, I wish the govt officials shouldn't think out loud like this. They shouldn wait until they have evidence with some reasonable certainty. It is causing some paranoia and anxiety among the masses when everyone gets only part of the picture and we have to fill in the rest.

I have reconsidered.  Certainly fire is what caused the buildings to fail.

[URL]http://www.abqjournal.com/aqvan09-11-01.htm[/URL]