st three-quarters of them said it was likely the United States would see a major terrorist strike before the end of 2004. A similar number predicted that the assault would be greater than those of 9/11 and might well involve weapons of mass destruction. It was the sense of the group that such an attack was likely to generate additional support for President Bush."

"People are critical of Bush in lots of ways but they still give him pretty good grades for dealing with the war on terrorism," pollster Andy Kohut told USA Today. If there were an attack, he said, "the traditional effect is a rally."

Last month Condi Rice predicted a terrorist attack. "I think that we do have to take very seriously the thought that the terrorists might have learned, we hope, the wrong lesson from Spain. I think we also have to take seriously that they might try during the cycle leading up to the election to do something." Bush also chimed in last month. "I can understand why [the American people] think we're going to get hit again. They saw what happened in Madrid." So, it looks like there will be a terr'ist attack either before the election or during the election. Just to make sure we don't forget about such a terrible prospect, retired Lt. Gen. Patrick Hughes of the Ministry of Homeland Security is warning al-Qaeda will strike with chemical and biological weapons, most likely anthrax. It's easy to make anthrax and ricin because there's how-to sites all over the internet, says Hughes. "If the past is indeed prologue, then we are going to screw up, or they are going to get lucky," Hughes fretted. "I can't sleep."

I wonder if any of his sleeplessness is due to the fact the last batch of anthrax sent to two leading Senate Democrats and Tom Brokaw in October, 2001, was manufactured at a US germ warfare facility at the Dugway Proving Ground, about 80 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, Utah, and sent to a germ warfare unit at Fort Detrick, near Frederick, Maryland, only 30 miles from Washington, DC. It's interesting to note that the FBI suspected the perpetrator was "a former Fort Detrick scientist who is now working for a contractor in the Washington DC area," according to Barbara Rosenberg, director of the Federation of American Scientists' chemical and biological weapons working group.

Contractors have figured big in the news lately.

It's also interesting that a report on how to launch an anthrax attack was written in February 1999 by William Patrick III, a leading bioweapons expert, and submitted to a defense contractor, Science Applications International Corporation. Patrick's report mentions the use of 2.5 grams of powder in a standard envelope, about the same amount sent to Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Actually, anthrax is the perfect weapon for Bush's re-election, er re-appointment. "The reason it is considered by the West to be attractive for use as a biological weapon is twofold: first, the spores are robust, surviving exposure to both ultraviolet radiation and the sterilizing effect of high temperatures far better than other pathogens; secondly, anthrax causes a non-transmissible disease," writes

John Eldridge, Editor of Jane's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense. In other words, a few people can be infected and it will not spread. An anthrax attack would be limited in its damage and yet scare the heck out of everybody. Remember how many people freaked out in 2001 thanks to sensationalistic reports in the meda?

"It is much more difficult to use anthrax and other biological agents in mass attacks than is often suggested by the media," notes http://reason.com/rb/rb101001.shtml Claudine McCarthy, a research associate in the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Project at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, DC.

Anthrax attack during the election?

It sure beats the damage inflicted by a dirty bomb or some other explosive device and would have about the same result -- a Bush re-appointment and four more years of neocon madness.

http://kurtnimmo.com/archives/00000124.html http://kurtnimmo.com/archives/00000124.html#comments

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------