Anthrax: Who and Why : Melbourne Indymedia

    The tactic of lethal letters was not merely the modus operandi of the militant islamists inspired by Ayman Zawahiri, it was their signature. The islamists sent letter bombs in late December 1996 from Alexandria, Egypt to newspaper offices in New York City and Washington, D.C. and people in symbolic positions. Musical Christmas cards on December 21, 1996 contained improvised explosive devices. The letters were sent in connection with the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center and the imprisonment of the blind sheik, Sheik Abdel Rahman. The former leader of the Egyptian Al-Gamaa al-Islamiya ("Islamic Group"), Abdel-Rahman was also a spiritual leader of Al Qaeda. The letter bombs were sent in connection with the treatment of the Egyptian islamists imprisoned for the earlier attack on the WTC and a related plot. The purpose of the letter bombs -- which resulted in minimal casualty -- was to send a message. There was no claim of responsibility. There was no explanation. Once one had been received, the next ten, mailed on two separate dates, were easily collected. Sound familiar? Two bombs were also sent to Leavenworth, where a key WTC 1993 defendant was imprisoned, addressed to "Parole Officer." (The position does not exist). The FBI suspected the Vanguards of Conquest, a mysterious group led by Egyptian Islamic Jihad head Ayman Zawahiri. The group can be thought of as either the military wing of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad or perhaps just EIJ by another name.

     Zawahiri was head of Al Qaeda's biochemical program. Ayman named it Zabadi or "Curdled Milk." The CIA has known of Zawahiri's plans to use anthrax since July 1998, when the CIA seized a disc from Ayman Zawahiri's right-hand, Ahmed Mabruk during his arrest outside a restaurant by the CIA in Baku, Azerbaijan. Mabruk, at the time, was the head of Jihad's military operations. Mabruk was handed over to Egyptian authorities. Mabruk was a close associate and had been his former cellmate in Dagestan in 1996. Mabruk would be at Ayman's side while Ayman would fall to his knees during trial and weep and invoke Allah. Their captors reportedly did not know the true identity of the prisoners. The CIA refused to give the FBI Mabruk's laptop. FBI's Bin Laden expert John O’Neill, head of the FBI’s New York office, tried to get around this by sending an agent to Azerbaijan to get copies of the computer files from the Azerbaijan government. The FBI finally got the files after O'Neill persuaded President Clinton to personally appeal to the president of Azerbaijan for the computer files. FBI Special Agent Dan Coleman would later describe as the "Rosetta Stone of Al Qaeda." O'Neill later died on 9/11 in his role as head of World Trade Center security. He died with the knowledge that Ayman Zawahiri planned to attack US targets with anthrax -- and that Zawahiri does not make a threat that he does not intend to try to keep.

     Mabruk claimed that Zawahiri intended to use anthrax against US targets. The CIA also snatched Egyptian Al-Najjar, another senior Al Qaeda member (a shura or policy-making council member no less) who had been working for the Egyptian intelligence services. Al-Najjar confirmed Ayman's intent to use weaponized anthrax against US targets in connection with the detention of militant islamists in a sworn lengthy confession. Even Zawahiri's friend, Cairo lawyer al-Zayat, who was the blind sheik's attorney, in March 1999 said that Bin Laden and Zawahiri were likely to resort to the biological and chemical agents they possessed given the extradition pressure senior Al Qaeda leaders faced. An islamist who had been a close associate of Zawahiri later would explain that Zawahiri spent a decade and had made 15 separate attempts to recruit the necessary expertise to weaponize anthrax in Russia and the Middle East.

   Zawahiri was associated with a faction of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad known as the Vanguards of Conquest. Zawahiri and the Vanguards of Conquest were seeking to recreate Mohammed's taking of mecca by a small band through violent attacks on Egyptian leaders. By the late 1990s, Zawahiri had determined that the Egyptian Islamic Jihad should focus on its struggle against the United States and hold off on further attacks against the Egyptian regime.

    After a bombing raid at a Qaeda camp in Darunta, Afghanistan US forces found 100+ pages of typed and handwritten pages of documents that shed light on Al Qaeda's early anthrax planning. It was not clear whether or not they had yet acquired virulent anthrax or weaponized it, but it was clear that the planning was well along. When Cheney was briefed on the documents in late 2001, he immediately called a meeting of FBI and CIA. "I'll be very blunt," the Vice President started. "There is no priority of this government more important than finding out if there is a link between what's happened here and what we've found over there with Qaeda." A June 1999 memo from Ayman to military commander Atef said that "said the program should seek cover and talent in educational institutions, which it said were 'more beneficial to us and allow easy access to specialists, which will greatly benefit us in the first stage, God willing.' '' Thus, in determining whether Al Qaeda was responsible for the anthrax mailings in the Fall of 2001, the FBI and CIA knew based on the growing documentary evidence available by December, that Al Qaeda operatives were likely associated with non-governmental organizations and working under the cover of universities. From early on, the CIA and FBI knew that charity is as charity does.

       In late January 2001, the Immigration Minister in Canada and Justice minister received an anthrax threat in the form of anthrax hoax letters. The letters were sent upon the announcement of bail hearing for a detained Egyptian Islamic Jihad leader who had managed Bin Laden's farm in Sudan.    Canada announced on January 18, 2001 that an Egyptian Islamic Jihad Shura member, Mahmoud Mahjoub would have a January 30 bail hearing. Soon after, someone sent an anthrax threat letter to the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Minister Caplan had signed the security certificate authorizing Mahjoub's detention. After arriving in Canada in 1996, Mahjoub continued to be in contact with high level militants, including his former supervisor, al-Duri, an Iraqi reputed to be Bin Laden's chief procurer or weapons of mass destruction. One of the first things FBI Special Agent Jack Cloonan from the FBI's New York Office did after the anthrax mailings was to fly down to Sudan with CIA agents and meet with al-Duri, Mahjoub's former supervisor at Bin Laden's farm in Sudan.

      In February 2001, the CIA briefed the President in a "Presidential Daily Bulletin "("PDB") on "Bin Laden's Interest in Biological and Radiological Weapons" in a still-classified briefing memorandum. Like the PDB on Bin Laden's threat to use planes to free the blind sheik, the February 2001 would illustrate the wisdom that most intelligence is open source.

    In May 2001, in a letter that month to Egyptian Islamic Jihad members, Zawahiri used "school" as a code word for the Egyptian militant islamists. The letters with anthrax later sent to the Senators purported to be from "Greendale School."

    In June 2001, Yazid Sufaat traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan to work for the Taliban Medical Brigade and to continue his work with anthrax. Hambali says that after a one-month training course, Sufaat worked with him "supporting" a Qaeda "anthrax program" in the Afghan city of Kandahar. The laboratory was near the Kandahar airport. That same month, in Florida, hijacker Ahmed Alhaznawi told a doctor that he had gotten a gash associated with blackened lesion -- such as occurs with cutaneous anthrax -- in Afghanistan. He claimed he got the lesion after bumping into a suitcase he was carrying in Afghanistan. He had come from the Darunta camp where Al Qaeda's anthrax production program at Kandahar was located and where virulent anthrax was found.

      That month, in New York City, John O'Neill, the FBI's expert on Al Qaeda, had seen the reports of surveillance of the January 2000 meeting in Malaysia attended by Al Qaeda anthrax technician Yazid Sufaat. CIA analysts "Mary" and "Dave" from CIA's Alec Station had provided a briefing at a meeting with the FBI. The pair was from a unit named after Michael Scheuer's young son and focused on the Bin Laden threat. The CIA analysts did not tell the names of the two individuals in the photo who had then come to the United States. At the time, a "wall" separated intelligence and law enforcement functions.

    In the Summer of 2001, although the WTC had not received any briefing on the use of planes, its management had taken steps to prepare for an attack using anthrax based on intelligence that had been received in light of what O'Neill, who by 9/11 would be head of security for the World Trade Center, had told management that summer.     WTC Director Reiss described the warning about anthrax from John O'Neill, then the FBI's top Al Qaeda expert, in the Summer of 2001.

"We met regularly with John P. O'Neill. Amazingly, the Chief Operating Officer at Port Authority would bring John P. O'Neill in and he would meet with the line directors and a lot of times he would tell us. "If anything cames up as a threat, I'd let you know and just do what I tell you, because [you] don't have classified intelligence clearance. ..

What the security people and others were telling us was that the next threat was chem-bio.

"I went out and spent well in excess of $100,000 and provided chem-bio training and suits .. and anthrax gear for the command at the World Trade Center and police desk... We felt this was the next coming wave. We developed a plan to isolate the air conditioning system and shut it down. But never did we have a thought of what happened on 9/11."

The night before 9/11, the new head of security for the WTC O'Neill sat at his usual table at Elaine's. O'Neill told his friend that the country was due for something big. He said that he expected that there would be another attack on the World Trade Center -- because Al Qaeda seeks to finish what they start.

    O'Neill knew of "Operation Bojinka" and that one of Khalid Mohammed's alternative scenarios was use of a biochemical weapon in connection with the detention of the blind sheik and other WTC plotters. There was a letter on the seized laptop (from 1995) that was signed " Khalid Sheik Bojinka" that threatened to use biochemical weapons if a fellow plotter who had been captured was not released. O'Neill expected an anthrax attack on the WTC -- not a planes attack. He knew things were still tense between the CIA and FBI after how hard he had to work to get a copy of Mabruk's laptop in 1998.   Holding his trademark cigar that night at Elaine's, O'Neill said "life doesn't get much better than this." He died the next day in the plane attack on the towers.

    In response to the anthrax hoax letters in Canada back in late January in connection with the detention without charges of EIJ shura member Mahjoub, the Canadian government did a study was done on the effectiveness of use of mailed anthrax as a delivery system. The result, which was published in September 2001, was that the simulant made at the US Army facility at Dugway had quickly dispersed throughout the room. The simulant even leaked through the envelope before opening. Only an estimated 16 individuals in the United States government saw the report that month.

      Immediately after bail was denied the senior member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad/ Vanguards of Conquest on October 5, 2001, lethal letters were again sent to people in symbolic positions relating to the detention of Mohammed Mahjoub and rendering of militant islamists. Similar letters had been sent to Washington DC and New York newspapers a couple weeks earlier. The letters in the Fall 2001, instead of containing a small explosive or anthrax bacteria that was harmless, contained extremely virulent anthrax.

     Sometime not long after the invasion of Afghanistan in Fall 2001, an Al Qaeda spokesman al-Kuwaiti claimed in a letter intended for the American public (but not released until 2006) that US-based operatives who had gained access to US government and intelligence information had been green-lighted for a biological attack.

    On October 23, 2001, Saeed Mohammed, a Karachi microbiology student who had helped procure equipment from Karachi for the anthrax lab in Kandahar, was walked to a waiting Lear Jet late at night According to the Pakistan press, a microbiologist named Abdur Rauf was also picked up in October 2001 by the CIA in Karachi. The Director of the Society for Applied Microbiology confirmed to me that Dr. Rauf attended Porton Down-sponsored conferences about anthrax in both 1999 and 2000 in the UK.

    In early November 2001 journalist, Philip Smucker, wrote from Peshawar in The Telegraph: "A Filipino checking into a Kabul hotel a few days ago said: 'My Muslim brothers are in dire need of my services in microbiology.' Asked by an Afghan reporter what he was doing in a war zone, the Filipino added: 'Have you ever heard of anthrax? That is the kind of thing I'm pretty good at making.' He said he belonged to Filipino terrorist group Abu Sayyaf and had arrived with a voucher signed by Dr Ayman Al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's right hand man."

    Yazid Sufaat was arrested in December 2001 upon his return to Malaysia. Newsweek reported that a "second wave" involving biological attacks had been thwarted upon the arrest of Al Qaeda members who had been intended to provide logistical support.

    In late 2002, the head of the wing of the Egyptian Islamic Group summarized the Amerithrax investigation, dedicating the treatise on American intelligence and law enforcement to:

"To the pious and the hidden who are not known when they come and who are not missed when they disappear -- To those whom their God will answer when they pray to Him. To all the eyes that are vigilant late at night to bring victory to this religion."

       A walk-in to the CIA then led to the dramatic capture of Khalid Mohammed, Al Qaeda's #3, on March 23, 2003. Mohammed allegedly was hiding in the home of the Pakistani bacteriologist Dr. Abdul Qadoos Khan. Along with Zawahiri, Abdel Rahman and his two sons have had considerable influence over Bin Laden. He reportedly treated them like sons. Although while in jail in the early 1980s, Zawahiri caused considerable tension by challenging the blind sheik's ability to lead a coalition of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and the Egyptian Islamic Group, Zawahiri and Bin Laden are Rahman's friends. The imprisoned WTC 1993 plotter Yousef was KSM's nephew. The leaders in charge of Al Qaeda's anthrax production program thus had a close connection to those imprisoned in connection with the earlier bombing of the World Trade Center. WTC 1993 mastermind Ramzi Yousef had been the mentor of the new husband of MIT-graduate Aafia Siddiqui.

     In March 2003, handwritten notes and files on a laptop seized upon the capture of KSM, Al Qaeda's #3, included a feasible anthrax production plan using a spray dryer and addressed the recruitment of necessary expertise. Although the details of the documents on Mohammed's computer may (or may not) point to possible difficulties in aerial dispersal, they are fully consistent with the product used in the anthrax mailings. Al Qaeda had both the means and opportunity. Mohammed told his interrogators that Moussaoui was not going to be part of 9/11 but was to be part of a "second wave." KSM explained that Moussaoui's inquiries about crop dusters may have been related to the anthrax work being done by US-trained biochemist and Al Qaeda operative, Malaysian Yazid Sufaat. Zacarias Moussaoui once told the judge at his trial in a filing that he wants "anthrax for Jew sympathizer only."

      Microbiologist Abdul Qadoos Khan was charged along with his son, Ahmed, for harboring the fugitives. As of March 28, 2003, he was in a hospital for a cardiac problem and had been granted "pre-arrest bail."

      A man named Muklis Yunos, who reportedly received training on use of anthrax as a biological weapon in Afghanistan according to Philippine intelligence reports, was arrested on May 25, 2003, and cooperated with authorities over a bucket of spicy Kentucky Fried Chicken. Yunos had been Hambali's right-hand man and was in charge of special operations of Moro Islamic Liberation Front ("MILF").

     Anthrax lab coordinator Hambali was arrested in August 2003 in the quiet city of Ayuttullah, Thailand. He was sent to Jordan In Autumn 2003, extremely virulent anthrax was found at a house in Kandahar -- after regional operative Hambali was harshly interrogated. Al Qaeda had the extremely virulent anthrax before 9/11. Sufaat's two principal assistants -- and Egyptian and a Sudanese man -- were also captured and are in custody. They had been assisting Sufaat prior to 9/11.

   In a statement issued June 16, 2004, the 9/11 Commission Staff concluded that "Al Qaeda had an ambitious biological weapons program and was making advances in its ability to produce anthrax prior to September 11. According to Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, al Qaeda’s ability to conduct an anthrax attack is one of the most immediate threats the United States is likely to face."   On August 9, 2004, it was announced that in the Spring of 2001, a man named El-Shukrijumah, also known as Jafar the Pilot, who was part of a "second wave," had been casing New York City helicopters. Photographs from a seized computer disc included the controls and the locks on the door between the passengers and pilot. In a bulletin, the FBI noted that the surveillance might relate to a plot to disperse a chemical or biological weapon.

    MSNBC, relying on an unnamed FBI spokesperson, reported that the FBI has narrowed the pool of labs known to have had the US Army anthrax strain known as the " Ames strain" that was a match from 16 to 4 but could not rule out that it was obtained overseas. Thus, not only was it likely that an Al Qaeda perpetrator was associated with an NGO and university, but there had to have been access to a virulent anthrax strain that was only in a score or so of known labs, most of which were affiliated in some way with the US government. Although sometimes reports referred to its "ubiquitous" distribution, the major revelation on the subject came in 2005 when pursuant to two treaties, samples of anthrax was evaluated from Georgia and Azerbaijan and it was determined that former Republics of Russia also had Ames. Just as former bioweaponeer Ken Alibek had said in 2001, Russia had obtained Ames years earlier through a spy at Ft. Detrick.

    Authorities had received information, for example, from at least one detainee at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that there was an anthrax storage facility in the Kabul area. Amerithrax Agents checked the Kabul area in May 2004 but came up empty. Then in November 2004, on further information, agents had spent several weeks unsuccessfully searching an area in the Kandahar mountains, several hundred miles outside of Kabul. In 2005, an internal report was prepared summarizing the status of the investigation.

    On March 31, 2005, the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, in its "Report to the President of the United States," concluded "al-Qai'da's biological program was further along, particularly with regard to Agent X [anthrax], than pre-War intelligence indicated. The program was extensive, well-organized, and operated for two years before September 11, but intelligence insights into the program were limited. The program involved several sites around Afghanistan. Two of these sites contained commercial equipment and were operated by individuals with special training."

    In a court filing dated May 20, 2005, an attorney for the United States Department of Justice wrote: "The investigation into the anthrax attacks is one of the largest and most complex investigations in law enforcement history. To bring those responsible to justice, the investigation remains intensely active."

    In June 2005, President of Pakistan Gen. Pervez Musharraf told CNN in a filmed interview: "These people were involved in the .. production of anthrax."

       In a press conference in October 2005, Director Mueller said that the FBI was pursuing all domestic and international leads. He said "remember Oklahoma City. Remember 9/11." He declined to say if they had a suspect. That year, FBI agents visited Asia, Africa and Afghanistan in the course of the Amerithrax investigation.

     In the opening argument of Uzair Paracha in November 2005, the Assistant United States Attorney claimed that MIT graduate Aafia Siddiqui was willing to help with an anthrax attack. Any evidence supporting the dramatic statement was later excluded from evidence on the grounds that it would be unduly prejudicial.

     That month, Interpol head Ronald Noble urged: "Al Qaeda's global network, its proven capabilities, its deadly history, its desire to do the unthinkable and the evidence collected about its bio-terrorist ambitions, ominously portend a clear and present danger of the highest order." Henry Crumpton, the U.S. State Department's counterterrorism coordinator agreed: "The threat is real. But what really concerns me is weapons of mass destruction," Crumpton said, pointing to this evidence U.S. officials said they found in Afghanistan that al-Qaeda was working on anthrax weapons. From 1999 to 2001, Crumpton was deputy chief of operations for the CIA's Counterterrorist Center. He led the CIA's counterterrorism campaign in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2002.

    The CIA has been quietly building a case that the anthrax mailings were an international plot. This is old news. It's just no longer bureaucratically impolite to openly contest the FBI's early theory about a lone, American scientist. Many people have argued that a US-based Al Qaeda operative is behind the earlier Fall 2001 anthrax mailings in the US, and that the mailings served as a threat and warning. Princeton islamist scholar Bernard Lewis has explained that while islamists may disagree about whether killing innocents is sanctioned by the laws of jihad, extremists like Zawahiri agree that notice must be given before biochemical weapons are used. "The Prophet's guidance," says Michael Scheuer, an al-Qaeda analyst retired from the CIA who once headed its Bin Laden unit, "was always, Before you attack someone, warn them very clearly." The anthrax mailings followed the pattern of letters they sent in January 1997 to newspaper branches in Washington, D.C. and New York City, as well as symbolic targets. The letter bombs were sent in connection with the detention of the blind sheik Abdel Rahman and those responsible for the earlier World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

    A key question is how they acquired the anthrax strain -- the "Ames strain" first isolated by the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Lab in 1980. The US Army recipe from the 1950s was not used, and obtaining the unprocessed Ames strain of anthrax does not warrant the weight given it by some press accounts. Although coveted as the "gold standard" in vaccine research, it is known to have been at about a score of labs and over the years an estimated 1,000 people may have had access.

Al Qaeda's anthrax production plans on Khalid Mohammed's computer, according to an unnamed source relied upon by the Washington Post, did not evidence knowledge of advanced techniques in the most efficient biological weapons. At least according to the public comments by bioweaponeer experts William Patrick and Kenneth Alibek, under the optimal method, there is no electrostatic charge. In the case of the anthrax used in the mailings, there was an electrostatic charge. (According to the technical representative for Bucchi, a static charge is unavoidable with their mini-spraydryer). Although there was a dominance of single spores and a trillion spore concentration, there were clumps as large as 40 - 100 microns. (Spores must be no bigger than 5 microns to be inhalable.) The sophistication and effectiveness of the product perhaps lay not in just its concentration, but in its crumbliness and how it floated right out of the envelope. The "trillion spore" issue was an aspect of the mistaken theory that state sponsorship was necessarily indicated. Many point to the trillion spore concentration as extraordinary. It is far simpler, however, to achieve a trillion spore concentration in the production of a few grams than in industrial processing typical of a state sponsored lab.

    An FBI Lab scientist on composition of powders from the Hazardous Materials Response Unit published the comment in 2006: "Individuals familiar with the composition of the powders in the letters have indicated that they were were comprised simply of spores purified to different extents. However, a widely circulated misconception is that the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapon production. The issue is usually the basis for implying that the powders were inordinately dangerous compared to spores alone. The persistent credence given to this impression fosters erroneous preconceptions, which may misguide research and preparedness efforts and generally detract from the magnitude of hazards posed by simple spore preparations."

     In January 2007, Muhammad Hanif, a spokesman for the Taliban, spoke quietly to the camera. Taliban leader Mullah Omar, he said, was living in Quetta under the protection of the Pakistan ISI. In a press conference, the governor of the province on the border of Afghanistan and Pakisan reported that they had found packets of powdered anthrax in his home upon his arrest.

    On the issue of motive and the reason Senators Daschle and Leahy would have been targeted -- they are commonly simplistically viewed as "liberals." Zawahiri likely targeted Senators Daschle and Leahy to receive anthrax letters, in addition to various media outlets, because of the appropriations made pursuant to the "Leahy Law" to military and security forces. That money has prevented the militant islamists from achieving their goals. Al Qaeda members and sympathizers feel that the FBI's involvement in countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Philippines undermines their prospects of establishing a worldwide Caliphate. The Fall 2001 letter from Al Qaeda spokesman al- Kuwaiti, directed to the American public -- but which was not released until 2006 -- claimed that the green light had been given for US -bio attack (1) from folks that were US-based, (2) above suspicion, and (3) with access to US government and intelligence information. He explained: "There is no animosity between us. You involved yourselves in this battle. The war is between us and the Jews. You interfered in our countries and influenced our governments to strike against the Moslems."

    Senator Leahy was Chairman of both the Judiciary Committee overseeing the FBI and Appropriations Subcommittee in charge of foreign aid to these countries. In late September 2001, it was announced that the President was seeking a blanket waiver that would lift all restrictions on aid to military and security units in connection with pursuing the militant islamists. This extradition and imprisonment of Al Qaeda leaders, along with US support for Israel and the Mubarak government in Egypt, remains foremost in the mind of Dr. Zawahiri. At the height of the development of his biological weapons program, his brother was extradited pursuant to a death sentence in the "Albanian returnees" case. It's hard to keep up with the stories about billion dollar appropriations, debt forgiveness, and loan guarantees to countries like Egypt and Israel and now even Pakistan. Those appropriations pale in comparison to the many tens of billions in appropriations relating to the invasion of Iraq. Al Qaeda had a motive in mind.

    The "Federal Eagle" stamp used in the anthrax mailings was a blue-green. It was widely published among the militant islamists that martyrs go to paradise "in the hearts of green birds." In the very interview in which they admitted 9/11, and described the codes used for the four targets for the planes, the masterminds admitted to the Jenny code, the code for representing the date 9/11, and used the symbolism of the "Green Birds." Osama Bin Laden later invoked the symbolism in his video "The 19 Martyrs."     A FAQ on the Azzam Publications website explained that "In the Hearts of Green Birds" refers to what is inside.

    Whatever your political persuasion, and whatever disagreements about individual issues relating to due process and civil liberties, the FBI and CIA deserve our support. We are, after all, facing this threat together. First, the nature of such an investigation is that we lack sufficient information to second-guess (or even know) what the FBI, CIA and Postal Inspectors on the Amerithrax Task Force are doing. Media reports are a poor approximation of reality because of the lack of good sources. Indeed, there has been compartmentalization and divergent views even within the Task Force. Second, hindsight is 20/20. Third, now that the leaks relating to US scientist Dr. Steve Hatfill seem to have long since been plugged, it is not likely we could do better in striking the appropriate balance between due process and national security. The FBI's profile includes a US-based supporter of the militant islamists. Attorney General Ashcroft once explained that an "either-or" approach is not useful. The media has tended to overlook the fact that when the FBI uses the word "domestic" the word includes a US-based, highly-educated supporter of the militant islamists.