German magazine: Amerikan scientist behind anthrax attacks 28 November -- Today the German "Greenpeace Magazin" named a U.$. bio-weapons researcher the prime suspect in the anthrax attacks in New York and Washington. "Did five people have to die, because U.S. bio- weapons researchers wanted more money for their work? 'Greenpeace Magazin' investigations have made this despicable conclusion more likely. The suspicion is based on comments from members of a U.S. government delegation. "The members of the U.S. delegation at the U.N. bio-weapons conference in Geneva were not the only ones to comment that a high-ranking U.S. bio- weapons [scientist] might be behind the anthrax attacks. Independent researchers share this suspicion, 'Greenpeace Magazin' reported on Wednesday. "According to the magazine, the U.S. government is withholding information on the alleged culprit and the laboratory which produced the deadly anthrax spores. It cannot be ruled out that the attacker wanted to force a raise in the budget for U.S. bio-weapons research with his deadly anthrax letters. "Barbara Rosenberg, a U.S. biologist and advisor to former President Clinton, and Hamburg bio- weapons expert Jan van Aken of the 'Sunshine- Project' explained why the anthrax-letters could not have come from the Middle East: The spores in the letter to Democratic majority leader Tom Daschle were mixed with silica. This is typical of the bio-weapons program in the USA. On the other hand, other countries with forbidden bio-weapons, such as Iraq, use 'Betontit,' which is made from clayey stone. "The focus of the investigations has now turned to a 50-year old professor of microbiology at the elite U.S. Harvard University. He was apparently involved in the American bio-weapons program. According to media reports he mysteriously disappeared on 16 November. The police and FBI have however no definitive proof [as to the source of the anthrax attacks]. "According to 'Greenpeace Magazin,' it is questionable whether the sender of the death letters meant to kill the recipients. Some of the letters contained warnings about anthrax. Some also contained advice to immediately start taking antibiotics. Hence Rosenberg believes that [the goal of the letters] was to ensure panic and fear."(1) MIM does not know who is behind the recent anthrax attacks. Certainly people employed in the parasitic, non-productive military sector have an interest in overstating or creating threats which would apparently justify their jobs and salaries. In an earlier report on bio-terrorism, the National Academy of Sciences argued that "bioterrorist initiative programs are strongly reminiscent of the civil defense programs promoted by the U.S. government during the Cold War... fostering the delusion that nuclear war was survivable."(2) Since the end of October, the FBI investigation into the anthrax attacks has focused on domestic suspects, including neo-fascist groups.(3) That has not stopped the CIA and the State Department from blaming Saddam Hussein, to build support for a U.$. attack on Iraq. There is no proof for these allegations; most evidence points against Iraqi involvement. As MIM previously reported,(4) former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter says, "There is no anthrax in Iraq to be exported." Furthermore, the anthrax that Iraq used in its weapons program was not the same kind as that used the anthrax attacks on the east coast (the so- called Ames strain). Maybe the only thing we know for sure about the anthrax attacks is that Amerikan politicians -- and bio-weapons researchers -- have taken advantage of them for their own opportunist reasons. These people can't be straight with the Amerikan public about the risks they face, let alone alleviate them. They are the ones who have sabotaged the enforcement of a biological weapons treaty for over twenty-five years, because Amerikan pharmaceutical companies are afraid of losing "trade secrets." These politicians defend a system where profit is the guiding star, a system of motivations that produces profit as much or more by manipulating fear as by producing humyn needs. MIM calls on people in Amerika to break with a government that lashes out at any convenient target instead of addressing the true causes of these very deadly risks. Notes: 1. "Milzbrand-Anschläge: Täter vermutlich US-Wissenschaftler," www.greenpeace.de, 28 Nov 2001. 2. Laurie Garrett, "Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health," New York: Hyperion, 2000, p. 543. 3. USA Today, 31 Oct 2001. 4. MIM Notes 246, 15 Nov 2001.