Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2002 3:21 p.m. EDT
West Nile Virus: The First Bioweapon

Back in June of 2000, pundit John LeBoutillier first raised concerns on NewsMax that the West Nile virus may have been the first bioweapon used by Iraq against the U.S.

LeBoutillier wrote: "Never before had this Middle Eastern virus been seen in the United States. Then it suddenly is found in people and in birds in the borough of Queens and then in other areas around New York City. Several elderly people died from West Nile; many others were severely ill and hospitalized because of this mysterious disease.

"Again the media and the Congress were - and remain - lax in linking up two related facts. U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter has revealed that Saddam Hussein's Iraqi scientists were working on West Nile virus!

"Why were Ritter and the United Nations inspecting Iraq at all? Because of evidence that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction and biological agents, as well. Thus the United Nations kept severe sanctions on Iraq until Saddam was proven to be in compliance with U.N. mandates on his government. ...

"Do you believe it is a "coincidence" that this virus suddenly then appeared directly across the East River from U.N. headquarters?"

With the announcement that four people in Louisiana have died as a result of the disease, it is becoming clear that West Nile may be a plague upon America for years to come.

West Nile virus, the mosquito-borne disease once completely foreign to the Western Hemisphere, has now spread from New York to Florida, Louisiana and Wisconsin.

The pathogen was first discovered in the United States in 1999 when it appeared in New York's Long Island City, the Queens community LeBoutillier notes is just across New York's East River from the United Nations.

It killed seven people and caused serious illness in 62 others in New York and New Jersey.

Though the disease has all but disappeared from media scopes since the anthrax scare, it has not gone away, and its possible terrorist origins have never been definitively ruled out.

And why has the disease broken out in the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia - all primary targets for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein since the end of the Gulf War?

Experts agree that Saddam's bioweapons people might be brewing up God knows what in a French-built virology facility near Baghdad that has been closed to United Nations inspectors since Saddam threw them out years ago.

The facility, called the Foot and Mouth Vaccine Plant, was used for making botulinum toxin, or BTX - one of the most lethal biotoxins known.

In 1992, the United Nations tore down the buildings in which the BTX was made and destroyed equipment, but left standing the bulk of the facility, part of which was used for virus research. (In 1985 the CDC sent samples of West Nile virus to a researcher in Iraq, stirring controversy in the media five years later, on the eve of the Gulf War, when reports came out that Iraq had a significant biowarfare program.)

All but missing in action on the front lines of the anthrax attacks, controversial former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher told the Jerusalem Post last year that the genetic strain of the West Nile virus found in Israel is the same as the one found in New York.

And, of course, there remains the sinister shadow of "In the Shadow of Saddam," the infamous book by Saddam's reputed former bodyguard and look-alike, Mikhael Ramadan. Published by a small press in the United Kingdom in 1999, the author's sensational allegations about Saddam's plans to wreak bioterror on the U.S. were featured that same year in the New Yorker magazine's "West Nile Mystery" by Richard Preston.

Preston quoted from the Ramadan account:

"In 1997, on almost the last occasion we met, Saddam summoned me to his study. Seldom had I seen him so elated. Unlocking the top right-hand drawer of his desk, he produced a bulky, leather-bound dossier and read extracts from it. ... The dossier holds details of his ultimate weapon, developed in secret laboratories outside Iraq. ... Free of U.N. inspection, the laboratories would develop the SV1417 strain of the West Nile virus - capable of destroying 97 pc [percent] of all life in an urban environment. ... He said SV1417 was to be "operationally tested" on a Third World population centre. ..." The target had been selected, Saddam said, "but that is not for your innocent ears."

Author Preston questioned: "Why would a man presenting himself as an Iraqi defector predict that Saddam would unleash a virus just months before the same one broke out unexpectedly in New York? And, of all the thousands of viruses in the world, why West Nile?"

Adding another twist to the bizarre story, it turns out that, said Preston, "the fatality rate for West Nile is not remotely near 97 percent, and "SV1417" is not a standard designation for any known strain of West Nile virus."

At the same time that Ramadan was being discussed in the CIA, Dr. Ken Alibek, a defector and the former deputy chief of research for Biopreparat, the Soviet Union's main biowarfare program, spoke to lawmakers on Capitol Hill, voicing his concern that the West Nile outbreak was "suspicious."

In his article, Preston reported a conversation with an anonymous FBI agent, who told him that West Nile might be a good choice for a terrorist. He said: "If I was planning a bioterror event, I'd do things with subtle finesse, to make it look like a natural outbreak. That would delay the response and lock up the decision-making process."

An Army expert interviewed by Preston in the article told him that the military knew that Soviet biologists working for the Soviet Union's biowarfare program had evaluated the West Nile virus for use as a biological weapon.

Quoted:
"The virus was first found in an adult woman in the West Nile District of Uganda in 1937. It is now commonly detected in humans, birds and other vertebrates in Africa, Eastern Europe, West Asia and the Middle East."

from: [url]http://www.avma.org/press/piwestnilevirus01.asp[/url]

if wnv is a bio-weapon...it dates to the time of phosgene gas...a much more effective agent of death.

me thinks my tinfoil hat needs needs another layer.now...is it shiney side in, or out???

Quoted:
Pretty poor choice for a bio weapon if it is. It only kills those with poor health and is hard to transmit.

Quoted:
West Nile Virus a Bilogical Weapon? I seriously doubt it.

For one thing, I don't see the bastards being smart enough to do that.

Secondly, they would be announcing their responsibility for it and claiming more is to come.

Just my thoughts.

Ow!!! I was bit by a mosquito and it gave me a bad virus, Im a TERRORISTS VICTIM and I'm entitled to $3,000,000...

Quoted:
"The virus was first found in an adult woman in the West Nile District of Uganda in 1937. It is now commonly detected in humans, birds and other vertebrates in Africa, Eastern Europe, West Asia and the Middle East."

from: [url]http://www.avma.org/press/piwestnilevirus01.asp[/url]

if wnv is a bio-weapon...it dates to the time of phosgene gas...a much more effective agent of death.

me thinks my tinfoil hat needs needs another layer.now...is it shiney side in, or out???

Quoted:
Oh shit! I just realized I'm out of Reynold's Wrap!

Quoted:



I'm curious what your comments might have been  after the first WTC attack?

Quoted:
Pretty poor choice for a bio weapon if it is. It only kills those with poor health and is hard to transmit.

Quoted:


They were a little more subdued. This is tongue-in-cheek for the families of the WNV deaths (not that death is funny) who will probably try to get ahold of some money for being a terrorist victim.

BTW...As far as giving pantloads of money to REAL victims of terrorism, its obscene at how much free (govrnment) cash they were given...It averages to about $1,750,000 per victim.

Hopefully it won't happen again, but what happens when the next true act of terrorism happens and takes out 20,000? Do we give them more money?

I think about $400,000 per victim is almost too much.

Quoted:
This is classic misdirection. The US developed West Nile, as well as AIDS, Ebola, Pnemonia, you name it. Name any "disease/virus" and the good folks at Fort Detrick/USAMRID/Joseph Gallo and his Special Virus research are behind it.

This is classic for the would be controllers, though. They develop these abominations, then they hype several bad-guys (Iraq/Osama/North Korea, etc.) to blame when they release/test them on the unsuspecting public.

This is how they work--they blow up buildings and blame it on militants (WTC1/OKC/WTC2). They develop these despicable biological warfare agents and blame it on the "Muslims/Koreans/Iraqis, etc). Then they can swoop in on the heels of these planned disasters and reap the benefits (obliteration of the Constitution/BOR/Posse Comitatus).

Buckle up folks, these are the end times, and we are fast approaching the home stretch.

"All your freedoms are belong to us."

Quoted:
Oh no, DJBump is off his meds again. Poor DJBump. [whacko]

Quoted:
I realize that in pooh-poohing everything that you haven't heard on CNN and MSNBC leaves you little time to do things like read, so I'll help you out.

"Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish."--Euripides