...against the presence of silica. This whole thing has the smell of one conspiracy theorist going after another conspiracy theorist. Lake is either arguing that the Dugway team is incompetent, or that they are conspiring to create a weaponization lie out in the press. They (Dugway) seem to be the group in the Army that still does CBW research, and they apparently know techniques for which William Patrick is out of date.

Lots of what Lake says doesn't make good sense. His real argument is that Meselson and Abilek say there are no coatings, and he believes them.

Here is what he says of former weapons inspector Spertzel:

"In my opinion, there are maybe four or five people in the whole country who might be able to make this stuff, and I'm one of them," said Richard O. Spertzel, chief biological inspector for the U.N. Special Commission from 1994 to 1998. "And even with a good lab and staff to help run it, it might take me a year to come up with a product as good."

In other words, Richard Spertzel not only hasn't seen the anthrax and doesn't know how to purify anthrax, it would take him a year to figure out how to make such a thing with the help of a staff.

That is most definitely not how I would have interpreted what Spertzel said, he said he was among 4 or 5 people who could create the specimen, not that he didn't know how to purify anthrax.

Here is what he says about the polymerized glass:

So, according to Jacobsen, the polymerized glass was used to bind the previously found silica to the spores - a technology which would be like putting each spore inside a tiny glass bottle. (Or putting each particle of silica in a tiny glass bottle and somehow fixing them evenly across the surface of the spore.) And he believes this was done without killing every single spore, and the tiny glass bottle wouldn't prevent the spore from germinating.

He also says Jacobsen made up the explanation of polymerized glass being sol-gel.

I don't know whether sol-gel solutions deposited on spores help adhere clay particles or not. I just know that the above paragraph reeks of lack of understanding. I spent a year looking at aerosol gels for a completely different reason, and they don't correspond to Lake's characterization at all. I don't know what Jacobsen might or might not have made up, but the above paragraph is weird.

Please understand. I find the claims of Iraqi involvement made by ABC as loopy as I find the idea that polymerized glass is little bottles. ABC was engaged in rumor and fear mongering, Glenn's original charge. But I also find this Ed Lake vs. Guy Matsumoto thing to be strange. It's a surrogate Abilek vs. Dugway fight, I'd stay out of it.

On a different note: It seems to be a dark conspiracy that a government lab would be researching offensive biological weapons. Both sides of this conspiracy theory battle believe that, both Lake and Matsumoto (wow! look at those defunct labs!). Am I the only one who begs to differ? And if so, why?

Agreed, almost. Who said anything about hiding it? As late as 1990, they were doing it out in the open, that was years after the treaty, so why hide it now?

The Army was. Possibly Sandia too. Like I said, that was 1990. Don't know about now. But its apparently not a guarded secret that if you want to build something that couldn't be built in 1990, you go to Dugway.

Sorry for the Times select:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/world/middleeast/09cnd-iran.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

I heard David Albright on the radio say he thought the number of operational centrifuges was closer to 1000, but then said it could be anywhere between the two numbers because we don't have very good information about Iran's nuclear program.

He also said he didn't expect Iran to actually start enriching anything, just test it, because they don't want retribution from Europe in the short term.

Just thought you'd like to know.

Wow. That is truly weird. Can you get an award for that that begins with a P? (Pulitzer, Polk, Peabody,...Propaganda)?

The letter by American, detailing the set of casus belli that were already out on March 8, 2003 is very telling. Both the mainstream media and the blogs tend to promote the idea that the rationale for the war is constantly shifting as the old rationale becomes obsolete. It is widely believed that the "democracy in the Middle East" argument followed the failure to find WMD, but American's post shows that this was not so.

The only rationale I find missing from the pre-war list is very telling. It is: "We're fighting them over there so we won't have to fight them here." The reason is telling too: It is not a casus bellum, a reason to go to war.

It is a reason for never ending a war so long as "them" exist.