I cannot begin to express how happy I am that the terrorists did not elect to carry-on a briefcase full of Anthrax or Botulinum Toxin. This would have easily magnified the effects of the disaster exponentially. Thought for the day: Botulinum Toxin is a bio-chemical weapon so powerful that 1 pound (properly distributed) would easily obliterate the eastern Seaboard. Manufacturing this "Mega-Weapon" is only slightly more complex than making liquor. -eh -----Original Message----- From: Ariel Biener [mailto:ariel@fireball.tau.ac.il] Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 5:59 AM To: clarke Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Don't blame Intelligence or Security Agencies..... On Thu, 13 Sep 2001, clarke wrote:

The intelligence agencies in the United States are the best in the world.

This is actually not true. In order for anyone to get world class explosives, they would need to be well connected and to have access to explosives, that is, someone will have to supply them. Among these network of terrorists, some of them deal with supplying explosives, some with aquiring them, some with planning, some with other financial aspects. Like any other military (or large organization), they have a few departments. Most of the people are rather sane, and work in a more or less normal manner to do their "job". The ones carrying out the missions are the vast minority of such an organization. Intelligence gathering should and must be at the preliminary stage, by infiltrating such organizations, in any possible way. An operation of the size the US witnessed involved many people, at all levels of the organization. If the organization was well covered by the CIA/???, then the information would have reached them long time before the actual hit. This is what intelligence is all about. --Ariel

Get your shit straight!

~ Clarke ~

-- Ariel Biener e-mail: ariel@post.tau.ac.il PGP(6.5.8) public key http://www.tau.ac.il/~ariel/pgp.html