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Dave Aiello wrote, "Since beginning a new project at a major financial services firm in Morris County, NJ last week, I have been inundated with work. It's hard to go from 100 percent flexibility to no spare time in less than a week. The work schedule so far has reminded me of the kind of hours that my friend Sandeep Nandy was keeping at Verizon in the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster."
Tuesday's Wasington Post reported that entertainment-oriented talk shows based in New York are having a tough time booking celebrity guests. This is the result of the tendency by West Coast-based celebrities to change their travel schedules to avoid visiting New York City.
We wonder how long the public will put up with this sort of thing, considering the fact that President George W. Bush threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium in World Series Game 3. America really must move on, and everyone has a role to play-- particularly celebrities.
In a front page article in today's Washington Post, Bob Woodward and Dan Eggen report that top FBI and CIA officials believe that one or more U.S.-based extremists are likely to be the source of the anthrax attacks that have been discovered so far. The article also says that these terrorists are probably not connected Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.
If this is the case, we hope that the FBI and CIA will terminate these people with extreme prejudice, and not treat their actions as a "police matter".
The Friday edition of The Guardian reports that a number of media outlets are speculating that the death toll in the destruction of the World Trade Center may be overestimated. Estimates of the number of dead provided by the City of New York continue to be in the neighborhood of 4,900, while those of three major U.S. media outlets are in the range of 2,600 to 3,000.
If this is the case, it would be a wonderful development, and yet another reason to praise the work of the police and firemen who sacrificed their lives to save others.
On today's Op-Ed page of The New York Times, Tom Friedman wrote an opinion piece called We Are Alone. In this article he says, "My fellow Americans, I hate to say this, but except for the good old Brits, we're all alone. And at the end of the day, it's U.S. and British troops who will have to go in, on the ground, and eliminate bin Laden." He comes to this conclusion after reciting a litany of conditions that different countries have placed on their participation in the alliance against terrorism.
Friedman also points out a situation that has not come to light in any news reports we've seen. He says : "... you know how much the Saudis respect sovereignty - like when the Saudi Embassy in Washington rushed all of Osama bin Laden's relatives out of America after Sept. 11 on a private Saudi jet, before they could be properly questioned by the F.B.I."
Unfortunately, Friedman has a history of holding Israel to a far higher standard of conduct than its enemies. We should all be glad that he has come around to telling things like they are, but it must be a painful adjustment for someone who looked the other way so many times in the past.
Yesterday, USA Today reported that ABC News suspended anchorwoman Carole Simpson for unauthorized comments about the anthrax outbreak at ABC News. In addition, she indicated that Cokie Roberts of This Week had received an anthrax tainted envelope, which was not true. ABC is right to do this. No one should be injecting themselves into the news in order to look more important than they are.
Dave Aiello wrote, "Some of you know that our business has been seriously affected by the cutbacks large businesses have made in the Metropolitan New York Area. These cutbacks began in earnest in mid-July and got progressively worse in August. The markets we serve were nearly devastated by the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center."
"I'm pleased to announce that yesterday I closed a deal to provide consulting services to a financial services company in Northern New Jersey. This is the first successful contract negotiation in six weeks, and will restore much of the revenue lost in contract cancellations in August and September."
"It will take a long time for us to build our business back to the level of the first half of 2001. But, I hope that this is the first step along the road to recovery. Thanks to my wife who has been very encouraging, to our family and friends, and to our business associates who tried to help us replace our lost contracts."
The New York Daily News is reporting that the deputy national editor of the Wall Street Journal is in a Westchester County hospital suffering from kidney failure, a perforated colon, and sepsis. Rich Regis was at Dow Jones' World Financial Center office on September 11, and may have "inhaled or ingested" something that made him seriously ill, doctors are reported to have said.
The Times of London reports that Italian police picked up an unusual stowaway in a container ship at the port of Gioia Tauro in Southern Italy. According to the article, Rizik Amid Farid was locked in a container that had its own bed and toilet. Although illegal immigrants often stow away on container ships, he possessed two mobile phones, a laptop, and a camera.
Farid also possessed a number of documents that lead the police to believe he may have been planning to participate in a hijacking. These include airport employee passes for airports in Canada, Thailand, and Egypt, maps of airports, and other documents identifying him as an airplane mechanic.
In an article posted today on OpinionJournal.com, Seth Lipsky points out that the imam of the Islamic Cultural Center in New York City reportedly made a number of anti-semetic remarks in connection with the terrorist attacks of September 11. Among other things the imam, Sheik Muhammad Al-Gamei'a, is reported to have said, "All the signs indicate that the Jews have the most to gain from an explosion like that. They are the only ones capable of planning such acts.... Jews control decision making in the airports and sensitive centers in the White House and the Pentagon. {America presented} no proof incriminating Osama bin Laden and Al-Qa'ida."
Comments of this nature are reported to have been made in Arabic newspapers and over Arabic broadcast outlets based in London and the Middle East. In this case, however, OpinionJournal.com and the New York Times are both reporting that the comments were made by a Muslim cleric, in Arabic, while he was in the United States. Lipsky's column essentially asks why this cleric's comments have not been reported everywhere?
Another interesting development in this story is that the New York Times reported yesterday that Sheik Al-Gamei'a suddenly resigned from the mosque and moved his family back to Cairo, citing threats made against him and his family.
The Washington Post reports that Taliban fighters are hiding in schools and mosques and storing their weapons to avoid being hit by Allied bombing runs. This is exactly what the Iraqi military did when they could effectively respond to Allied attacks during the Gulf War.
The American media should keep this in mind when they hear reports that Allied forces have struck targets that appear to have civilian purposes. This is war. Everyday people, like postal workers, have died here in America. As far as we are concerned, no facilities in Afghanistan should be sacrosanct.
As we mentioned in a previous article, the State of New Jersey issued a public health alert in an attempt to identify anthrax cases that occurred after September 11 and possible future anthrax cases. The health alert asks hospitals to immedicately begin:
The New York Times reports that postal workers and union officials are criticizing the performance of officials in the handling of the Anthrax exposure at the Trenton regional mail facility. According to the article, "public health officials have issued a statewide alert, warning doctors and druggists to be on the watch for any flu symptoms that might mask a case of anthrax and to report them to the state immediately."
The postal union officials say that state and federal public health officials should not have allowed work to continue inside the regional mail facility while testing was taking place.
We located the public health alert issued by the NJ State Department of Health and Senior Services mentioned in the article. The state health department has issued a number of other press releases and advisories related to anthrax exposure.
Dave Aiello wrote, "Last night, my sister Julie and I attended the San Jose Sharks - New York Rangers game at Madison Square Garden. Although this was probably the third most popular game of the night in the New York Metro Area (behind the Yankee game and the Giants-Eagles game), a large number of New York City police and firemen turned out. Every time the public address announcer or the scoreboard announced the presence of a group of fire and policemen, they were recognized with a standing ovation."
"The repeated cheers for New York's Finest and Bravest were appropriate, considering that this was also the game where the Rangers welcomed Adam Graves back to the Garden. He is now a member of the San Jose Sharks."
The Associated Press reports that Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that a terrorist cell in Hamburg, Germany was heavily involved the attacks on September 11. Ashcroft named three fugitives and said that they were being sought in connection with the planning of the attacks. German Interior Minister Otto Schily also participated in the press conference.
An article on page A11 of today's Washington Post begins to explain how postal workers could have contracted pulmonary anthrax with minimal exposure to anthrax-tainted mail. According to this article, pulmonary anthrax can be contracted if the right kind of anthrax spores are suspended in the air. The spores may have been made airborne in the Washington DC postal facility by the routine cleaning of the sorting machinery.
This is a scenario that we thought was unlikely as late as last night. However, the Washington Post article points out: "Tests performed on monkeys between the 1940s and 1960s indicate that a person must inhale at least 8,000 to 10,000 spores to develop inhalational anthrax. The amount of material would weigh only eight thousandths of a millionth of a gram, and would not be visible to the naked eye...."
A lot of people have questions about Saudi Arabia's reliability as an ally in the war on terrorism. We found an issue of the Jerusalem Letter that contained an article called Saudi Arabia in the 1990s: Stability and Foreign Policy. The article seems particularly useful in understanding the positions that the Saudi government is taking in the current conflict.
This article was written in 1997 by Mordechai Abir of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. It explains the personalities of the three leading figures of the Saudi royal family, and their attempt to respond to the political demands of the well-educated Saudi middle class while appeasing the more militant factions in their society. The article also points out parts of Wahhabi culture that make Saudi Arabia one of the most xenophobic countries in the world.
This article makes it clear that the Saudi leadership realized more than five years ago that they had a number of foreign relations problems that were primarily caused by side-effects of Saudi internal politics. But, many of these political problems have arisen because of half-steps toward liberalization taken by the Saudi royal family as far back as 1980. Westerners have not paid much attention to these problems, and are now reacting with surprise as they all appear to rise to the the surface simultaneously.
Normally, we do not point to articles in the Wall Street Journal because it is a paid subscription site. However, this front page story talks about the possibility that helicopters could have saved victims of the World Trade Center disaster.
Helicopters were used to evacuate a small number of people from the roof of the World Trade Center after the bombing in 1993. But the operation, executed by the NYPD Aviation Bureau, was severely criticized by the New York Fire Department who claimed it was unnecessary.
After 1993, the Port Autority and the New York Police and Fire Departments continued to discuss the possibility of helicopter rescues at the World Trade Center in the future. But, the Port Authority and the Fire Department sided with each other, forcing City Hall to create a compromise plan for use of the Police Aviation Bureau which made it very difficult to officially use the group to save trapped people.
The policy, combined with security procedures that absolutely prohibited access to the roof of the North Tower, contributed to the fact that no rooftop rescues were attempted, despite the obvious presence of the helicopters.
Tuesday's New York Times has an article on the death of two Postal workers in the Washington, DC area, apparently from anthrax. Looking back at our article that began asking questions about anthrax, we have begun to wonder if the public is being told of the true scope of the attack on the U.S. Postal Service and certain customers.
It was hard to imagine that a number of people at the Capitol could be infected with anthrax through the one anthrax-tainted letter known to have been sent to Senator Daschle. It is even more difficult to believe that two postal workers could have died from simply being in the vicinity of this one letter as it passed through a major mail handling facility.
Dave Aiello wrote, "Earlier today, I heard a radio ad for WNET, the PBS affiliate in New York City, also known as Channel 13. The ad said that the station's transmitter had been destroyed in the destruction of the World Trade Center, and that it had not yet been replaced. Since I watch everything on cable or satellite, I had not realized that WNET had not been able to resume normal broadcast operations."
"The Channel 13 Web Site has an article describing what over-the-air viewers must do to receive their signal. The fact that they are attempting to broadcast from Alpine, NJ, and not from an antenna like the one on the Empire State Building indicates the scope of the difficulties that all broadcasters are facing in New York. But, the challenge must be that much greater for a non-profit like Channel 13."
Over the weekend, The Bergen Record reported that thousands of dollars of halloween candy were purchased in large transactions at warehouse clubs in North Jersey. In addition, a report on radio station WPHT in Philadelphia, indicates that a similar transaction took place at a Sam's Club in South Jersey, late last week.
The Washington Post reports that a postal worker in Washinton, D.C. has contracted pulmonary anthrax and is seriously ill. This is the first confirmed case of pulmonary anthrax since the two cases in Florida were discovered.
It's hard to imagine how a postal worker at a sorting facility contracted pulmonary anthrax without opening tainted mail pieces unless spores were being forced out of them by automated mail handling machines.
In the Sunday Washington Post, Bob Woodward reported that the CIA has been told to do "whatever is necessary" to kill Osama Bin Laden. According to the article, this directive is the "most sweeping and lethal covert action" that the CIA has undertaken since its founding in 1947. We agree that they should do whatever it takes, and not stop with Bin Laden.
The Drudge Report says that Senator Hillary Clinton was booed and jeered by New York City police and firemen at a televised, fundraising concert that occurred Saturday. Drudge reports that one policemen standing near Senator Clinton was overheard on the cable channel VH1 shouting, "Get off the stage! We don't want you here!"
The incident took place during a concert called America: A Tribute to Heroes.
The New York Times is reporting that bio-warfare and HVAC experts do not consider modern building ventilation systems a good transport media for anthrax spores. The article said, "finely ground, weapons-grade spores containing anthrax would
be quickly diluted in any ordinary office building and at least partly filtered by a standard
office ventilation system, as long as it was up to current standards..."
The misuse of a building ventilation system to spread anthrax was one of the things we questioned in our article What is "Weapons Grade Anthrax" Anyway?, earlier this week.
The Drudge Report pointed out the Philadelphia Inquirer story that reports that The Philadelphia Bomb Squad removed a suitcase containing 1/3 of a pound of C-4 explosive from the Greyhound Bus Terminal in Center City. The suitcase had been placed in a locker on September 29, removed from the locker on October 3 and placed in the Lost and Found. The explosive was discovered today when the building staff went through the baggage that had remained unclaimed for 14 days.
The Guardian published a powerful opinion piece by Kanan Makiya entitled Fighting Islam's Klu Klux Klan. Makiya is an Iraqi dissident currently teaching in the United States.
...grievances alone do not explain the apocalyptic act of fury that was unleashed upon New York and Washington. Arabs and Muslims need today to face up to the fact that their resentment at America has long since become unmoored from any rational underpinnings it might once have had; like the anti-Semitism of the interwar years, it is today steeped in deeply embedded conspiratorial patterns of thought rooted in profound ignorance of how a society and a polity like the United States, much less Israel, functions.
In her regular weekly column on OpinionJournal.com, Peggy Noonan calls upon Americans to profile young Arab-looking men. She says:
No one likes "racial profiling," "ethnic profiling," "religious profiling." But I see it this way: If groups of terrorists took out two huge buildings and part of the Pentagon and killed 5,000 people and then decided to unleash anthrax and it emerged that those terrorists were all middle-aged American blond women who tend to dress in blue jeans and T-shirts and like to go by Catholic churches and light candles, I would be deeply upset not only because the terrorists had done what they'd done. I would also be upset because they were just like me! I fit their profile! I look like them! I act like them! Everywhere I went people would notice me and give me hard looks and watch what I was doing. I would feel terrible about this. But you know what else I'd do? I'd suck it up. I'd understand. I wouldn't like it, but I'd get it, and I'd accept it.
Open your eyes. If you see something that doesn't look normal, start asking questions. Point out such activity to law enforcement. No group and no activity is beyond suspicion at this point. Being a small part of the investigation is a lot more theraputic than watching MSNBC or CNN and worrying if you will be the next victim.
Reuters reports that "psychological damage to society" from biological and chemical attacks could well be greater and longer lasting than any physical impact. The article says, in part, "Judging by the anthrax scares around the globe, the persistent images of spacesuit clad medics on television screens, and cautious assurances uttered by shaken politicians to a jittery public, the psychological effects are already evident."
Refer back to what Senator McCain said in the New York Times yesterday: "More people have been struck by lightning in the last 10 days, I'll bet,
than have contracted anthrax. The country badly needs to settle down."
The Washington Post reports that Special Forces has landed in southern Afghanistan. Since many of us cannot visualize what cities are in southern Afghanistan, here is a map of Afghanistan that was produced by the CIA.
Note that Kandahar or Qandahar is located in southern Afghanistan, up the road from the city of Quetta, Pakistan. This is where the Taliban stronghold was, at least prior to the beginning of hostilities.
Another article in USA Today explains the dilemma that faces families of people lost in the terrorist attack. In spite of the fact that over $1 billion has been raised for relief, and over $20 billion in combined aid is likely to be available from private entities and governments at all levels, many families have not received much money.
Now is not the time to blame the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald or any other company whose offices were destroyed. We call upon the states and federal government to take decisive action to coordinate the relief efforts. Families need to know what they can expect to receive, so that they can make their plans for the future.
The USA Today reports that residents of Franklin Park, NJ are stunned by the implication of their town in the anthrax cases. This article recounts the fact that the return address for the anthrax-tainted letter sent to Senator Daschle's office had a Franklin Park, NJ return address. It also points out that there were a number of obvious errors in that return address, as we noted in our analysis on October 17.
The USA Today article says, "People here immediately recognized two inconsistencies. There is no Greendale School in Franklin Park or anywhere else in the vicinity, and 08852 is not Franklin Park's ZIP code. But - and many found this chilling - there is a Greenbrook elementary school in nearby Kendall Park; 08852 is located in neighboring South Brunswick; and there is a grammar school in that ZIP code, Monmouth Junction Elementary."
The Philadelphia Daily News reports that the FBI is investigating the transfer of $210,000 in Pennsylvania state funds through a series of counterfeit checks. These funds were drawn through checks payable to people with Arabic names and cleared through banks in Florida and Texas. Once a pattern was identified, Pennsylvania auditors and their clearing banks reportedly stopped the theft of an additional $90,000.
Although attempted fraudulent use of state funds by passing bogus checks is a regular occurance across the United States, the article says that the "difference this time was the size of the checks, timing and links to Arabic names."
The Washington Post did its part to inform a nervous public by publishing an article which explains the terminology that public health officials use to describe an infectious agent's potential to cause disease. This is helpful, because many news accounts that were published yesterday, like The New York Times article Anthrax Mailed to Senate Is Found to Be Potent Form were loaded with unscientific but serious-sounding terminology.
Another question which has not been answered in print is how many people could be infected by the amount of anthrax that can be mailed in a Number 10 envelope? It's hard to believe that anyone is going to get pulmonary anthrax unless the anthrax is actually airborne. How much lighter could the anthrax sent to Senator Daschle be than confectioners' sugar? And, what is the likelyhood that confectioners' sugar sent in a business envelope would make it into a building's ventilation system?
John McCain has the threat in proper perspective, in our opinion. In the New York Times article Sense of Unease Grips Anthrax Preoccupied Washington, McCain said: "We have had one death from this stuff, and three other confirmed cases. Two of those three are a milder form of the disease. More people have been struck by lightning in the last 10 days, I'll bet, than have contracted anthrax. The country badly needs to settle down."
The US Postal Service has posted a document called What To Do If You Receive An Anthrax Threat on their Web Site. It takes the form of a Frequently Asked Questions document, and includes criteria that can be used to identify suspicious letters or parcels.
Among the criteria: "{articles} have no return address, or have one that can't be verified as legitimate", and "show a city or state in the postmark that doesn't match the return address". As we stated in our analysis of the appearance of the anthrax-tainted envelopes, the envelopes sent to Tom Brokaw and Senator Daschle both fail these two criteria.
The Associated Press published a photo of the envelopes from two anthrax-tainted letters. A couple of issues with these envelopes obviously stand out:
The New York Times reports that Rehavam Ze'evi was assassinated by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine at the Hyatt Regency Jerusalem. Ze'evi was the Minister of Tourism, and was reportedly the first member of the Israeli cabinet ever assassinated by a Palestinian group.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said that Ze'evi was assassinated in retaliation for the assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa, the PFLP's former leader. Ze'evi was also one of the most strident opponents of compromise with the Palestinian Authority.
An article in The Washington Post asks the question that has been floating around Talk Radio for days: Were all the September 11 hijackers aware of the fact that they were on a suicide mission?
There are many good arguments supporting the notion that a large number of the terrorists did not know the full details of their dastardly plan. One is that only a few of the terrorists left suicide notes, and the terrorists that did leave suicide notes were trained as pilots or were otherwise readily identified as leaders of hijacker groups.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports on the continuing controversy over Representative Cynthia McKinney's letter to Prince Alwaleed bin Talal. The article tries to indicate that the Atlanta community is divided over the issue, with Arab-Americans supporting her stance, and Jews opposing it. Yet the on-line poll, appearing on the same Web Page as the article, is running 91 percent to 9 percent in favor of Rudolph Giuliani's rejection of the donation.
We are surprised at the limited number of articles that have run in major newspapers after the revelation that two of the letters involved in anthrax cases were postmarked in Trenton, NJ. Among the articles that were written, the Philly Daily News published the first article that included interviews of people in the Trenton area. According to the article, called More Caution, No Panic in Trenton, "...the people of Trenton say they're too battle-scarred from last month's terrorist attacks to let a little local biohazard scare them."
The Star-Ledger, New Jersey's best newspaper, Trenton mail hub becomes a center of disease fears: "... envelopes they handle might be carrying deadly bacteria such as anthrax. That concern was particularly on the minds of the 900 employees of the Trenton Processing Center in Hamilton Township, which on Sept. 18 postmarked the anthrax- laced letters that infected an NBC News employee and were sent to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.)".
The Trentonian, one of the two daily newspaper in Trenton, is running slightly modified wire service copy. It's primary value add is a locally-written headline.
The Washington Post headline Investigators Scour Post Offices in Fla., NJ for Clues to Deadly Mail's Source only has first hand accounts from the Florida postal distribution center, where the mail intended for American Media was handled. Although seven Washinton Post reporters contributed to the article, none of them filed their report from Trenton.
The Star-Ledger reports that nine Port Authority employees teamed up to save a quadriplegic co-worker from the 69th floor of Tower 1 by carrying him down on a special evacuation wheelchair. The group made it out of the World Trade Center with 10 minutes to spare.
On Sunday, Cablevision News 12 reported that New York Senator Hillary Clinton's motorcade injured a Westchester County police officer when it attempted to bypass a manditory security checkpoint at the Westchester County Airport. This story was publicized on a few New York City radio stations yesterday, but it took a little while for us to locate, due to the fact that it was reported by a regional cable news outlet that we do not receive in Central New Jersey.
Dave Aiello wrote, "It's a little hard to believe how much I agree with New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, considering his dovish support of the Palestinian Authority in the past. But, in his column on the Op-Ed page of the Times today, Friedman is absolutely right to point out the huge inconsistencies in the policies of the Saudi royal family toward the current war on terrorism."
"Friedman points out the Saudi's act as if many of the leaders of al Qaeda were not originally from their kingdom. They have not owned up to the fact that they continued to fund the Taliban regime in Afghanistan after it became clear that the country had become a terrorism factory."
"Friedman calls upon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal to rechannel the $10 million he tried to give to World Trade Center relief to change the political climate in the Middle East:"
So if you want to do something useful with your $10 million, then endow an anti-corruption
campaign in Saudi Arabia, or endow American Studies departments in all Saudi universities,
or endow a center of Islamic learning in Saudi Arabia that would focus on the teachings of
reformist Islamic scholars. Or give the money to Seeds of Peace, which brings Arab and
Israeli youth together, or invest in development inside Saudi Arabia or Palestine, so young
Saudis and Palestinians can find fulfilling jobs. Or persuade King Fahd to say publicly that
if Israel withdraws to the 1967 borders, Saudi Arabia would lead the Muslim world into
diplomatic relations with Israel.
Today, The New York Times published an about the vulnerability of the Verizon infrastructure in Lower Manhattan and the problems that resulted from the World Trade Center attack. The article provides a detailed (non-technical) explanation of the vulnerability of the Verizon facility at 140 West Street. This building is so close to the World Trade Center that falling rubble and steel girders hit it, damaging switching gear dedicated to J.P. Morgan Chase.
It appears that the financial services companies that supposedly have technology risk assessment programs were caught with their pants down. According to the article, "Only after Sept. 11 did executives from the financial services industry in Lower Manhattan come to realize just how many of its eggs were in that one 75-year-old building."
The Telegraph reports that New York Mayor Giuliani is to be given an honorary knighthood for leadership in the World Trade Center attacks. The announcement was made by Buckingham Palace, on behalf of Queen Elizabeth II.
Thomas Von Essen and Bernard Kerik, representing the Fire and Police Departments, will also receive honors.
The Philadelphia Inquirer has a front-page story about doctors specializing in infectious diseases and their role in quickly identifying biological warfare attacks. The doctors interviewed work at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Center City.
Although they spend most of their time consulting on the care of patients with troublesome post-surgical infections and AIDS, they are keeping up to date on developments in biological warfare agents that could be employed by terrorists against targets in the United States.
