SPECIAL REPORT. The history of the synthetic H1N1 flu virus, the resurrection of the 1918 flu virus and a not-so-rosy future

The history of the extraction of the genetic material from the corpses of victims of the 1918 Spanish influenza virus who were buried in Arctic permafrost is part "X-Files" and part "Jurassic Park." After an unsuccessful 1951 mission, that involved U.S. biological warfare specialists, to extract 1918 Spanish flu genetic material in 1951 from a cemetery in the Inupiat Eskimo village of Brevig Mission, Alaska, scientists made another attempt, a successful one it turns out, in 1997. Dr. Johan Hultin, from the State University of Iowa, successfully extracted genetic material from the corpse of an obese thirty-something female who died from the Spanish flu in 1918, along with 85 percent of Brevig Mission's (called Teller Mission in 1918) villagers in a single week. The pandemic killed at least 50 million people around the world.

Once the Spanish flu genetic material was obtained from the lungs, spleen, liver, and heart of the Eskimo woman's corpse, scientists, in a scene reminiscent of the fictional movie "Jurassic Park," in which genetic material from extinct dinosaurs is used to bring the creatures back to life, recreated the long-since dead 1918 Spanish flu in a U.S.-government funded laboratory. The woman's organs were cut into one-inch cubes and shipped to the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Rockville, Maryland where the virus's genetic RNA material was identified and the 1918 Spanish flu was successfully brought back to life.

The search for the frozen bodies of 1918 flu victims was not limited to Alaska. Another team of scientists, acting like Dr. Frankenstein's "Igor," set out to dig up the graves of miners who died from the flu in the remote Norwegian mining village of Longyearbyen in Spitsbergen, which lies north of the Arctic Circle.

WMR has learned from a research scientist who has been working on the recreation of the 1918 flu that the genetic material has been re-engineered to synthetically create what is now known as the A/H1N1 virus, or as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) calls it, the "novel flu."

The A/H1N1 influenza, which contains genetic material from two strains of swine flu, two strains of human flu, and a single strain of avian flu, has, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), infected a total of 4880 people in North America: 2,059 in Mexico; 2,535 in the United States, and 286 in Canada. There have been 56 reported deaths from the flu in Mexico, three in the United States, and one in Canada.

WMR has learned from an A/H1N1 researcher that the current "novel" flu strain is mutating rapidly in humans but no animals have contracted the virus. The enzyme in A/H1N1, as with all influenza A viruses, is called a polymerase. Scientists have calculated the molecular clock of A/H1N1 form the virus's polymerase rate. Because of the rapid mutation of the virus and the fact that, unlike 1918, rapid global transportation is now the norm, scientists are predicting that the molecular clock of the A/H1N1 virus, coupled with modern transportation, means that almost all the countries of the world will experience an A/H1N1 outbreak within the next few months.

What is different about A/H1N1 is that, unlike other new strains of viruses that rapidly mutate upon emerging and then slow down mutation and then stop entirely, the "novel" or incorrectly-named "swine flu" is showing no signs yet of slowing down its mutation rate and that, according to scientists who worry about A/H1N1 being synthetically-generated, does not happen in nature.

In 2006, at a summit meeting in Cancun, Mexico, President George W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Mexican President Vicente Fox agreed for their nations to coordinate their response to avian flu, which was spreading in Asia. National Public Radio, on April 2, 2006, ran a segment on how bird flu wreaked havoc in 1918 in Brevig Mission. NPR's Weekend Edition ran a report from Brevig Mission by Lori Townsend of Alaska Public Radio:

"The grave has been opened twice by the same pathologist. In 1951, Johann Hultin convinced village elders to allow him to take tissue samples from bodies buried in permafrost. His lab attempts to map the virus were unsuccessful, but he returned in 1997, and when he did, he was once again given permission to re-open the grave."

WMR has learned from a journalist from Anchorage who covered the 1997 grave exhumation that there was CIA personnel with the team of scientists. Inuit elders of Brevig Mission argued against digging up the graves of the flu victims would release evil spirits. However, money allegedly changed hands between the U.S. government research team and some of the elders, so permission to dig up the graves was granted.

NPR and Alaska Public Radio was reporting what was extracted from the 1918 flu victim's corpse was the H5N1 avian flu virus, but that was erroneous. Or was it? If what was extracted from the dead woman's body in Brevig Mission was used to synthetically create the current A/H1N1 virus, there is a strain of avian flu in the virus. But the current A/H1N1 virus also contains swine and human flu strains.

What has been relayed by the researcher is that the original 1918 virus was the H1N1 virus. In Bio-safety level 3 (BSL-s) laboratory work that was largely classified, the virus was artifically combined with common H3N2 and a minor gene splice from the H5N1 Eurasian avian flu strain.

The avian flu or H5N1 virus that struck Asia in 2006 contained some genetic mutations of the 1918 virus. And scientists researching pandemic flu strains have, since the recreation of the 1918 flu, been playing fast and loose with flu samples. On April, 17, 2005, The Washington Post reported that Meridian Bioscience, which was under contract to the College of American Pathologists, accidentally distributed the pandemic H2N2/Japan flu strain, as part of a flu testing kit, to influenza laboratories around the world. WHO ordered the labs to immediately destroy the flu sample because it was worried about an accidental release of the pandemic virus, resulting in a global health crisis. In 1957, H2N2 killed a million people around the world.

The Post'sarticle, by Wendy Orent, states that scientists were working to create an artificial strain of the 1918 virus: "[Scientists] can combine some 1918 genes either with laboratory strains that have been adapted to grow in mice, which don't normally catch human flu, or with ordinary human flu strains to yield new artificial strains. Then the researcher infects mice with his new strain. Strains using three of the 1918 genes are already known to kill mice."

The same Postarticle quotes Peter B. Jahrling, the chief scientist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about the danger of the virus recreation research. Jahrling stated the research was like "looking for a gas leak with a lighted match." The article continues: "What concerns Jahrling and Brown, among others, is that experiments involving 1918 genes are not being carried out under the highest biosafety level, BSL-4. While most of the scientists use what is known as BSL-3 plus, or enhanced, conditions, they do not use space suits, chemical showers or gas-tight cabinets in their work."

Lastly, the article has a stark warning regarding the 1918 flu reconstruction at the military laboratory in Rockville, research led by Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger. The article states: "Even more disturbing is what may happen when Taubenberger publishes the remaining three gene sequences. Then the entire 1918 flu could be built from scratch by anyone, anywhere, who has sufficient resources and skill. It is quite conceivable that resurrected 1918 flu could someday be used as a bioterrorist agent."

In a January 29, 2006, New York Times article by Jamie Shreeve, titled "Why Revive a Deadly Flu Virus?," it is reported that the 1918 flu had been successfully revived. The article states: "In October, a team of scientists, [CDC's Terrence] Tumpey among them, announced that they had recreated the extinct organism from its genetic code -- essentially the scenario played out in the movie ''Jurassic Park,'' albeit on a microbial scale. In the movie, the scientists' self-serving revivification of dinosaurs leads to mayhem and death . . . . How dangerous is the 1918 virus to today's population? Its genetic code is now in public databases, where other researchers can download it to conduct experiments. Scientists from the University of Wisconsin and the National Microbiology Laboratory in Canada have already collaborated to reconstruct the virus from the publicly available sequence. How easy would it be for a bioterrorist to exploit the same information for malevolent ends?"

The article details how the 1918 genetic material was extracted and who worked on the project: "The resurrection of the 1918 influenzavirus was a team effort engaging the resources of the C.D.C. in Atlanta, an obscure military pathology lab outside Washington, D.C., an esteemed group of influenza experts at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and one elderly Swede. Though the story has been told before, it is impossible not to begin with the Swede. In 1950, Johan Hultin, then a 25-year-old graduate student at the University of Iowa, was searching for a Ph.D. topic when he heard a visiting virologist say that the only way to solve the mystery of the 1918 pandemic would be to recover the virus from a victim who had been buried in permafrost."

There has been yet another secretive U.S. government group involved in researching bio-warfare agents like influenza. Known simply as JASON, the group consists of civilian scientists, the top experts in their fields and a number of Nobel laureates, who meet periodically and issue reports, many of which are classified. JASON has been in existence for 40 years and is thought to be a follow-on to the Manhattan Project, the top secret scientific group that created the atomic bomb during World War II. In fact, some of JASON's earliest members helped to design both the atomic and hydrogen bombs. Its first three members were scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the home of the Manhattan Project.

Operating under the aegis of the MITRE Corporation, a federally-funded contracting entity, JASON scientists primarily met in the highly-secured Building 29 at 3550 General Atomics Court in San Diego. The location is the address of the Torrey Pines Institute. Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), JASON also has links, according to distribution lists on JASON reports, to the CIA. The CIA maintains an element called the IC [Intelligence Community] JASON Program under the Chief Technical Officer. Traditionally, JASON self-selects its members from a number of academic disciplines. However, JASON almost lost its funding a few years ago, when, after issuing a report critical of the Bush administration's ballistic missile defense program, DARPA attempted to force three new members, obviously political overseers, on to the JASON membership rolls. DARPA's chief Tony Tether pulled funding for JASON, forcing the group for the first time since its inception in 1959 to look for another Pentagon sponsor. The ballistic missile defense program, also called Star Wars II, was a personal pet project of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

JASON survived when DARPA's parent orgzniation, the Pentagon's Directorate for Defense Research and Engineering (DDR&E), provided JASON with direct funding, an indication of the power enjoyed by the secretive JASON organization. JASON also has other federal government sponsors, including the Department of Energy.

JASON is also very much involved in issues of biological warfare. JASON produced a report on Civilian Biodefense in January 2000, which was highly-redacted when released. Even the names of the report's authors and the information on four bio-warfare scenarios is completely blacked out, except for a discussion of a 1947 smallpox incident in Scenario Two. The report also states that the CIA's Clandestine Measurement and Signatures Intelligence (MASINT) Operations Center and Counter-Proliferation Center were interested in biological weapons intelligence collection and signatures. A section of the report on "Managing Civilian Response" to a bio-war attack is also completely redacted, as is a section on domestic intelligence. A page on the anthrax threat references "psychological BW [biological weapons] warfare." The JASON report was completed almost two years before anthrax attacks all but suspended the work of Congress after 9/11 and saw the quick passage of the US Patriot Act.

The JASON report also discusses the mining of medical data, including patient billing records, to find out if a disease outbreak has occurred and how far and what direction it is spreading by examining "spatiotemporal patterns," including "averaging statistics for humans traveling globally."

In fact, the JASON Civilian Biodefense report mirrors, in many respects, the analysis being currently conducted by medical intelligence (MEDINT) agencies around the world on the outbreak and spread of A/H1N1. And that begs the question: is A/H1N1, artificially-developed by U.S. government scientists, the real thing or a test run for something much worse?

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SIDEBAR:

The Jason report on bio-war discusses "managing civilian response." That also appears be a major concern of the CDC on A/H1N1 at the present time judging from the following internal CDC memo obtained by WMR (note that "swine flu" is being referred to as the "novel H1N1 flu"):

From: CDC Announcements
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2009 10:31 AM
To: CDC All - [REDACTED]

Subject: Public Inquires Regarding Novel H1N1 Flu – CDC-INFO

Public Inquires Regarding Novel H1N1 Flu – CDC-INFO

The CDC National Contact Center, CDC-INFO, is available to assist CDC programs in responding to calls and emails related to the novel H1N1 flu. CDC-INFO maintains current content for phone and email responses; maintains records of calls/emails; collects and analyzes quality assurance and customer satisfaction data; and provides on-demand reports for program partners.

If the general public is contacting you with questions related to the novel H1N1 outbreak, we encourage you to direct those inquires you receive to CDC-INFO. CDC-INFO representatives are available to respond to inquiries 24 hours, 7 days a week via email and phone, in English and Spanish. Emails should be forwarded to cdcinfo@cdc.gov. Telephone inquiries may be routed to 1-800-CDC-INFO (1-800-232-4636).

If you have any questions regarding this email, or for assistance in routing public inquiries, please contact eocjiccdcinfo@cdc.gov.

CDC-INFO’s Novel H1N1 Flu Response

Since April 22, 2009, CDC-INFO has answered more than 29,000 phone and email inquiries from the general public and health care professionals in support of CDC’s novel H1N1 flu response. As of Friday, May 8, 2009, the average hold time for phone calls related to novel H1N1 flu was less than 5 seconds. To date, the states with the highest number of phone inquiries are: California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Georgia.

On Thursday, April 30, 2009, CDC-INFO answered the highest number of inquiries on a single topic in its 4-year history, with 3,127 calls and emails answered related to the novel H1N1 outbreak.

As of May 5, 2009, 75 percent of survey respondents gave CDC-INFO their highest satisfaction rating for the novel H1N1 flu-related services they received.

Supporting CDC’s Mission

The CDC-INFO National Contact Center (1800-CDC-INFO or cdcinfo@cdc.gov) supports CDC’s mission by providing a single trusted source of accurate, timely, consistent, and science-based information for the general public, healthcare providers and public health partners. Information is available on more than 400 CDC health and safety topics, disease prevention, and health promotion information through phone, TTY, and email. CDC-INFO provides critical health information to vulnerable populations, including those without access to CDC’s internet resources or those with low health literacy.

More evidence emerges that H1N1 was engineered in "Jurassic Park" bio-labs

Informed sources have revealed to WMR that the H1N1 virus, which the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned could become a global pandemic, was reverse engineered from genetic material obtained from the remains of victims of the deadly 1918 "Spanish flu" influenza pandemic that killed 50 million people worldwide.

WMR has obtained information from biological researchers that the 1918 Spanish flu genetic sequences were "manipulated" in order to effect transmission capability. The current H1N1 virus, called "swine flu," is reportedly a combination of two forms of human flu, two forms of swine flu (North American and Eurasian), and avian or bird flu. There are now reports of species hopping from humans to pigs in Canada.

The scientific name for the current H1N1 virus that was manipulated is "Influenza A virus (strain A/Brevig Mission/1/1918 H1N1)." It is called Brevig Mission because, as WMR previously reported, U.S. Army biological warfare specialists recovered the genetic material from the fairly intact corpse of an Inuit woman who died from the 1918 flu in Brevig Mission, Alaska. WMR has learned that work on manipulation of the Brevig Mission flu strain began in 1997.

Two bio-safety laboratories have been associated with the genetic reverse engineering of not only A-H1N1, the current "swine flu" strain, but also the deadly Ebola virus. They are the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, Canada. The Associated Press reported on September 20, 2007, that the Madison laboratory was cited for safety violations: "University of Wisconsin-Madison research on the deadly Ebola virus was conducted for a year in a less-secure laboratory than required, until the National Institutes of Health alerted the school to the problem. The deadly virus itself was never present in the laboratory, said Jan Klein, UW-Madison biological safety officer. Instead, DNA copies of the virus were being studied to better understand one of the world's most dangerous pathogens."

The report also stated that the Madison research facility was involved with combining "materials": "Klein said no one was ever at risk, though an infectious virus could have been produced if the research material had been combined with other components. But that was not part of any planned experiment and would not be done by accident,' she said."

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reportedly shut down the Ebola research at Madison but it was reportedly moved to a Level 4 Bio-Safety Laboratory at the National Microbiology Laboratory at the Canadian Science Center for Human and Animal Health in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In 2007, macaque monkeys were infected with the 1981 flu virus at the Canadian laboratory by some of the same researchers who were involved in the risky Ebola research in Madison.

The research in Madison on Ebola had been conducted in a Bio Safety Level 2 laboratory when it should have been conducted in a Bio Safety Level 4 laboratory, the most stringent for pathogens like Ebola and H1N1. At the time of the safety violations, Madison has less stringent Level 3 labs but no Level 4 labs. In early 2008, Madison again conducted work on Ebola, but in a Level 4 lab.

Science Daily reported the following from Madison on October 7, 2004: "Using a gene resurrected from the virus that caused the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, recorded history's most lethal outbreak of infectious disease, scientists have found that a single gene may have been responsible for the devastating virulence of the virus."

The Winnipeg laboratory figures into the November 15, 2001 disappearance of noted Harvard University virologist Dr. Don C. Wiley in Memphis, Tennessee after his attendance at a banquet honoring his service as a scientific advisory board member of St. Jude's Hospital. Wiley's body was found one month later in the Mississippi River in Vidalia, Louisiana. The Shelby County medical examiner ruled Wiley's death a "suicide" from jumping into the Mississippi River from the west bound lane of the I-40 Hernando de Soto bridge. Wiley was heading back to his father's residence in Millington, northeast of Memphis at the time of his disappearance.

This editor reported on the Wiley death extensively at the time. And the Canadian facility became involved in the investigation. From "Mystery in Memphis," published in "Abuse Your Illusions, 2003, edited by Russ Kick: "While the Memphis Police and the FBI continued to handle the Wiley case as just another distraught "jumper" hurling himself 135 feet into the Mississippi River, other law enforcement agencies were not as sanguine.

On November30 [2001], [Memphis Police Sergeant Robert 'Bubba' Shemwell received a call from Detective Paul McKemmie of the National Security Investigation Unit of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Ottawa. McKemmie advised Shemwell that his unit was responsible for protecting scientists with Level-3 and Level-4 clearance at the Canadian Science Center for Human and Animal Health in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

The Canadian center houses the National Microbiology Laboratory, where scientists deal with the most dangerous and contagious human and animal pathogens and diseases, which are categorized as Level-4. These include hantavirus, hepatitis, influenza, and hemorrhagic fevers such as the Ebola virus, Marburg virus, and Lassa Fever. In another hghly-protected laboratory, scientists work with Level-3 agents, which include bacteria such as anthrax that, although not contagious, can be transmitted through the air and can cause death or serious illness. The center's tight security is overseen by the RCMP and Canadian Security and Intelligence Service.

McKemmie told Shemwell that someone had posted an email suggesting that Dr. Wiley was not the target for a kidnapping to obtain anthrax but that a scientist working at the Winnipeg laboratory was a more likely target for a kidnapping by bioterrorists.

Nevertheless, the RCMP wanted to know if Memphis hadany information that would indicate that Wiley was the target for an abduction by terrorists. Shockingly, Shemwell fed te RCMP the same line he was feeding the Wiley family and the media: There was no evidence to support the theory that Wiley's disappearance was the result of foul play and that suggestions to the contrary were being mentioned only in the media.

Obviously, not buying Shemwell's line, the Mountie indicated that the RCMP, like the FBI, also would continue to monitor Wiley's disappearance and check out any leads from Canada."

The idea that Wiley's body could have been in the fast-raging Mississippi for a month seems fanciful. When his body was discovered in Louisiana, Wiley's clothing was intact. Recovered from Wiley's clothing were his watch, wedding band, belt, wallet, and even a piece of hard candy that managed not have dissolved after an entire month in water.

Wiley co-wrote a paper on the structures of H5 avian flu and H9 swine flu that was published in the Journal of the National Academy of Sciences in September 18, 2001, just some two months before he went missing in Memphis. However, Wiley's expertise on the 1918 influenza was longstanding. In 1981, Wiley co-wrote a paper, titled "X-ray structures of H5 avian and H9 swine influenza virus hemagglutinins bound to avian and human receptor analogs," that defined the crystal structure of the 1918 influenza virus, a step that made it easier to conduct "forensic" analysis on the origin of precursor viruses and their naturally-occurring or man-made genetic off-shoots.

Although virology, not bacteriology, was Wiley's area of expertise, it was revealed during my investigation of Wiley's death that he had become quite concerned about the mailing of anthrax through the postal system. A week before his disappearance, Wiley attended a session on "Bioethics and Research" at a meeting of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland. At the time of the conference, four people had already been killed from being exposed to anthrax-laden letters sent through the mail. It was later discovered that the anthrax originated from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

Wiley had also received a letter from a failed PhD student at University College in Dublin, Ireland that sought to warn him about the origins of anthrax. In October 2001, a series of "white powder" samples were discovered at University College. Irish Army specialists transferred all the samples to Britain's Porton Down bio-warfare facility, the UK's equivalent of Fort Detrick.

Based on Dr. Wiley's expertise in tracking down the origins of viruses and, with his speciality in crystallization of samples, bacteria like anthrax, as well, it is clear that whoever is benefiting from the outbreak of a A-H1N1 flu that has been resurrected and genetically "manipulated" in a "Jurassic Park" laboratory had a very good reason to murder Dr. Wiley and make it appear to be a suicide.

Swine Flu Kills The Torture Memos By Lori Price

Flu Kills The Torture Memos By Lori Price, www.legitgov.org
26 April 2009

In a 'Holy convenience, Batman!' moment, a 'unique' flu virus (one likely concocted in US Army labs) overtakes media coverage of revelations that the highest levels of the US government instructed the CIA (and private contractors) to torture terror suspects.

Scientists said the virus combines genetic material from pigs, birds and humans in a way researchers have not seen before. “We are very, very concerned,” World Health Organization spokesman Thomas Abraham said. “We have what appears to be a novel virus and it has spread from human to human,” he said. “It’s all hands on deck at the moment.”

Guess where the first swine flu outbreak occurred? That's right, Fort Dix, New Jersey, in 1976. Also likely created in a US Army lab. Thirteen soldiers died, leading the US government to force a questionable vaccine on the population -- backed by a legal liability escape clause mandated by and for the pharma-terrorists. Next, people started dying not from the flu -- but from the *vaccine.*

Every major media outlet has reported the fact that US/UK bioterrorists have been manipulating the avian flu virus in university and Army labs. This new flu strain, one that 'no one has ever seen,' contains avian flu. Now, how does *that* happen?

CLG has been covering flu 'oddities' for eight years. See: Flu 'Oddities' and Flu 'Oddities' News Archives.

*****

U.S. denies producing biological weapons from bird flu samples --Media: U.S. denies Indonesia's allegation on bird flu virus 17 Mar 2008 The United States has flatly denied allegations it was producing biological weapons from bird flu samples sent by Indonesia to the World Health Organization, the English daily The Jakarta Post reported Monday. Michael H. Anderson, counselor for Public Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia, [has issued the denial]. However, Indonesian senior biodefense researcher Isro Samihardjo said the U.S. could use bird flu virus samples from Indonesia to develop weapons at the Los Alamos Laboratory. Isro was speaking at a meeting about Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari's newly released book here Saturday. In her book "It's Time for the World to Change, Divine Hands behind Bird Flu," Siti writes of her suspicions about a conspiracy between the U.S. and the WHO.

Experts identify genes for bird flu replication 09 Jul 2008 Scientists have identified around 100 genes that the H5N1 bird flu virus needs in a host in order to replicate, and this finding may help in the hunt for ways to block foment its proliferation.

Army: 3 vials of virus samples missing from Maryland facility 22 Apr 2009 Missing vials of a potentially dangerous virus have prompted an Army investigation into the disappearance from a lab in Maryland. The Army's Criminal Investigation Command agents have been visiting Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, to investigate the disappearance of the vials. The vials contained samples of Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis... In 97 percent of cases, humans with the virus suffer flu-like symptoms, but it can be deadly in about 1 out of 100 cases, according to Caree Vander Linden, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

Scientists isolate genes that made 1918 flu lethal 29 Dec 2008 By mixing and matching a contemporary flu virus with the "Spanish flu" -- a virus that killed between 20 and 50 million people 90 years ago in history's most devastating outbreak of infectious disease -- researchers have identified a set of three genes that helped underpin the extraordinary virulence of the 1918 virus. Writing today (Dec. 29) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by University of Wisconsin-Madison virologists Yoshihiro Kawaoka and Tokiko Watanabe identifies genes that gave the 1918 virus the capacity to reproduce in lung tissue, a hallmark of the pathogen that claimed more lives than all the battles of World War I combined.

Venture capital firm set to reap rewards on swine flu 24 Apr 2009 The swine flu outbreak is likely to benefit one of the most prolific and successful venture capital firms in the United States: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Thomson Reuters Private Equity Week reported on Friday. Shares of the two public companies in the firm's portfolio of eight Pandemic and Bio Defense companies -- BioCryst Pharmaceuticals and Novavax -- jumped Friday on news that the swine flu killed a reported 60 people in Mexico and has infected people in the United States. The World Health Organization said the [unique] virus appears to be susceptible to Roche's flu drug Tamiflu, also known as oseltamivir, but not to older flu drugs such as amantadine.

Rumsfeld's growing stake in Tamiflu --Defense Secretary, ex-chairman of flu treatment rights holder, sees portfolio value growing. 31 Oct 2005 The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people around the globe, but it's proving to be very good news for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that's now the most-sought after drug in the world. Rumsfeld served as Gilead (Research)'s chairman from 1997 until he joined the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.

Deadly new flu strain erupts in Mexico, U.S. 24 Apr 2009 A strain of flu never seen before has killed up to 60 people in Mexico and also appeared in the United States, where eight people were infected but recovered, health officials said on Friday. Mexico's government said at least 20 people have died of the flu and it may also be responsible for 40 other deaths. The WHO said the virus appears to be susceptible to Roche AG's flu drug Tamiflu, also known as oseltamivir, but not to older flu drugs such as amantadine. [Lucky Rumsfeld!]

Swine Flu May Be Named Event of International Concern 25 Apr 2009 The World Health Organization is set to declare the deadly swine flu virus outbreak in Mexico and the U.S. a global concern, potentially prompting travel advisories, said a person familiar with the matter. An emergency committee of the WHO in Geneva will declare the outbreak "a public health event of international concern" in a teleconference that began at 4 p.m. today, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting is confidential.

WHO chief says swine flu has pandemic potential 25 Apr 2009 --WHO emergency committee to advise on changing alert level --All countries urged to be vigilant for unusual cases --Premature to issue travel advisories, WHO head says --Too soon to switch to production of new flu vaccine

WHO worries Mexico flu deaths could mark pandemic 25 Apr 2009 Mexico closed its schools across its capital Friday after at least 16 otherwise healthy people died and more than 900 others fell ill from what could be a new strain of swine flu. The World Health Organization worried that it could mark the start of a flu pandemic.

Outbreak in Mexico, U.S. tied to new swine flu --Source of unique virus a mystery; CDC expects more cases 24 Apr 2009 The unique strain of swine flu found in seven people in California and Texas has been connected to the deadly flu that has broken out in Mexico, killing as many as 61 people. The strain has never been seen before and is raising fears of a possible pandemic across North America. The World Health Organization said the virus that killed at least 12 of the victims in Mexico had the same genetic structure as an outbreak discovered in California. [See: Flu 'Oddities'.]

Navy Experimenting With Flu at Mexican Border --Mexico Shuts Schools Amid Deadly Flu Outbreak 25 Apr 2009 Mexican officials, scrambling to control a swine flu outbreak that has killed at least 16 people and possibly dozens more in recent weeks... The unusual strain this year was noticed, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of respiratory diseases the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only because the agency was trying out a new diagnostic test at a Navy laboratory and doing more testing than usual through a new Border Infectious Disease Surveillance Project along the Mexican border. [See: The U.S.-Mexico Border Infectious Disease Surveillance Project: Establishing Bi-national Border Surveillance (cdc.gov)]

Possible Swine Flu Outbreak At NYC Prep School --Department of Health Officials Testing 75 Students At St. Francis Preparatory School In Queens 24 Apr 2009 New York City health officials say that about 75 students at a Queens high school have fallen ill with flu-like symptoms and testing is under way to rule out the strain of swine flu that has killed dozens in Mexico. The Health Department's Dr. Don Weiss said Friday that a team of agency doctors and investigators were dispatched to the private St. Francis Preparatory School the previous day after students reported fever, sore throat, cough, aches and pains.

Mexico flu deaths raise fears of global epidemic --Unique virus connected to cases in Calif. and Texas; source still a mystery 24 Apr 2009 Mexico shut down schools, museums, libraries and state-run theaters across its overcrowded capital Friday in hopes of containing a swine flu outbreak that authorities say killed at least 20 people -- and perhaps dozens more. World health authorities worried openly that the strange new virus could become a global epidemic. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said tests show some of the Mexico victims died from the same new strain of swine flu that sickened eight people in Texas and California. Of the 14 samples tested from Mexico, seven were matches, said the CDC's acting director Dr. Richard Besser.

'Laboratory testing showed that the virus does not match any known flu strains.' In California and Texas, 5 New Swine Flu Cases 24 Apr 2009 Government scientists have identified five more people who have been infected with swine flu, apparently confirming suspicions that the unusual strain of the respiratory infection is spreading from person to person, federal health officials said yesterday. Three new cases were found in California and two in Texas, bringing the total number of confirmed cases to seven, officials at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said... Genetic analysis of the virus indicates it is highly unusual: It is a hybrid that resulted from a [Fort Detrick?] combination of four different viruses.'

Troops Could Be Sent to Border --Under $350M plan, National Guard would be aimed at drug war 24 Apr 2009 The Pentagon and Homeland Security Department are developing contingency plans to send National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexican border under a $350 million initiative that would expand the U.S. military's role in [fomenting] the drug war, according to Obama administration officials.

In 2002, Military Agency Warned Against 'Torture' --Extreme Duress Could Yield Unreliable Information, It Said 24 Apr 2009 The military agency that provided advice on harsh interrogation techniques for use against terrorism suspects referred to the application of extreme duress as "torture" in a July 2002 document sent to the Pentagon's chief lawyer and warned that it would produce "unreliable information." "The unintended consequence of a U.S. policy that provides for the torture of prisoners is that it could be used by our adversaries as justification for the torture of captured U.S. personnel," says the document, an unsigned two-page attachment to a memo by the military's Joint Personnel Recovery Agency. Parts of the attachment, obtained in full by The Washington Post, were quoted in a Senate report on harsh interrogation released this week. [Oops! Looks like the PentaPost will have to stop calling torture 'enhanced interrogation techniques' because the Pentagon itself calls torture torture. --LRP]

Memo From the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency 24 Apr 2009

Cheney Requests Release of 2 CIA Reports on Interrogations 25 Apr 2009 Former vice president [sic] Richard B. Cheney is asking for the release of two CIA reports in his bid to marshal evidence that coercive interrogation tactics such as waterboarding helped thwart terrorist plots, according to documents released yesterday by the National Archives and Records Administration.

UK High Court demands U.S. torture documents 22 Apr 2009 The chief justice of the British High Court on Wednesday gave the British government one week to obtain the U.S. release of classified information about the alleged torture of a British resident [Binyam Mohamed] who'd been detained at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The court indicated that it would issue its own order if the government doesn't respond or justify why continued secrecy is warranted.

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Anthrax attack on Congress and media had roots in planned US biowar attack on USSR and Albania

SPECIAL REPORT. Anthrax attack on Congress and media had roots in planned US biowar attack on USSR and Albania

According to documents obtained by WMR, the anthrax attacks on the U.S. Congress and the media in October and November 2001 were directly linked to CIA and Pentagon contractors that were developing biological warfare agents in 1983 that were to be used against the Soviet Union and Albania.

On August 4, 2008, WMR reported on the anthrax investigation: "U.S. intelligence sources have revealed that the FBI has gone slow on the anthrax investigation because of the myriad links to covert programs involving Fort Detrick, the CIA, the Army Dugway Proving Ground in Utah (the home to the only aerosolized dry anthrax laboratory), and contractors SAIC, Battelle, and Hadron Advanced Biosystems (now known as Analex Corporation). Such weapons development would be in contravention of the 1972 Biological Weapons Treaty signed by President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev but may have been subsequently ignored by the CIA following Nixon's resignation in 1974. Former President George Bush headed the CIA from November 1975 to January 1977."

As it turns out, in 1983, the Reagan administration was not only violating the 1972 Biological Weapons Treaty but was planning to target the Soviet Union with newly-developed biological agents.

The FBI concentrated its anthrax investigation on Fort Detrick and the late badgered scientist Dr. Bruce Ivins. The FBI's motives were to avoid the genesis of the illegal US bio-warfare program, located just across the Potomac in Arlington, Virginia's Rosslyn and Court House neighborhoods.

A January 20, 1983, letter from Cabazon Arms,a "CSC-WSI Joint Venture" established by Cabazon Security Corporation (83-180 Requa Avenue, Suite 9, Indio, California) and Wackenhut Services Inc. (3280 Ponce de Leon Blvd., Coral Gables, Florida), as a joint CIA and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) weapons research and development firm on the Cabazon Indian reservation in California, from Cabazon Arms President John P. Nichols to Dr. Harry Fair of Tactical Technologies, located at 1400 Wilson Boulevard, Room 1014, Arlington (Rosslyn), Virginia, states: "On February 15, 1983, I will be forwarding to you a unique lost of agents and production techniques related to biological warfare. The Stormont Laboratories, Inc., business plan I mailed you was to prepare you for what we are sending you in this area. Their products could be utilized in small countries bordering Albania or large countries bordering the Soviet Union. You will be amazed at the scope." Just down the street from Tactical Technolgies was 1911 North Fort Myer Drive, the location of the offices of CIA covert operatives Edwin Wilson, Thomas Clines, Ted Shackley, Rafael "Chi Chi" Quintero and the center for the shipment of arms to Iran on the ill-fated SS Poet and other illegal arms shipments. Just up Wilson Boulevard from Tactical Technologies was Battelle Memorial Institute, implicated in the anthrax weaponry development.

Tactical Technologies, involved with Hadron and Cabazon, and a CIA front was headquartered at 1400 Wilson Boulevard in Rosslyn.

A stone's throw from Tactical Technologies was 1911 North Fort Myer Drive, the brown building in the center and the headquarters of CIA fronts involving Ted Shackley, Thomas Clines, Edwin Wilson, and the shipping agent for the ill-fated SS Poet.

In a May 25, 1981, Wackenhut Inter-Office memo, Fair is named as "Dr. Harry D. Fair, Chief, Propulsion Technology, Applied Science Division" of the U.S. Army's Picatinny Arsenal in Dover, New Jersey. The same memo states that the Santa Rosa Indians pledged to the Cabazons that their land could be used for the testing of a "rail gun."

It is unclear what Nichols meant by using biological warfare agents in small countries bordering Albania, then a Chinese ally, and large countries bordering the Soviet Union, which included China. However, the possibility that the CIA and its contractors were contemplating a "false flag" biological attack on Albania from non-aligned Yugoslavia that may have been blamed on Moscow and a "false flag" retaliatory biological attack from China on the Soviet Union cannot be ruled out. A Soviet-Chinese war in the early 1980s would have advanced the proto-neoconservative political agenda of extreme anti-Communists in the Reagan administration like Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, individuals who would later play a key part in the bogus intelligence that saw the George W. Bush administration invade and occupy Iraq.

On September 10, 1981, the Riverside, California Police Department noted a major meeting at the Cabazon Indian Reservation that was attended by Earl Brian, identified as a "Wisconsin businessman and CIA employee."

Brian, who was reportedly involved in working for William Casey and George H. W. Bush to pay off Iranian mullahs to arrange for the Iranians to hold the U.S. hostages until after the 1980 presidential election, a criminal conspiracy known as the "October Surprise," was the CIA's point man on developing biological weapons. Brian headed up two companies involved with bio-war research and development for Langley, Biotech Capital Corporation and Hadron. Brian was also involved in selling pirated copies of Inslaw, Inc.'s Prosecutors Management Information System (PROMIS) to foreign clients to fund bio-war weapons research and development on the Cabazon Indian reservation.

Brian was also the president of Xonics, Inc., a CIA and Pentagon contractor based in Los Angeles that was involved in radar and telecommunications systems. Hadron was originally incorporated in 1964 as Bio-Rad. The assets of the failed Xonics and Bio-Rad were combined to form Hadron, which ultimately became Analex Corporation. Analex North America was sold in 2007 to QinetiQ in a deal that involved The Carlyle Group, in which George H. W. Bush had a financial stake.

The correspondence between Nichols and Fair also mentioned Stormont Laboratories, founded by Dr. Clyde Stormont in Woodland, California. Stormont, a native of Wisconsin, was a noted professor of professor of genetics and serology. Stormont, a speciaist on equine blood typing, died on September 10, 2002.

Cabazon and associated firm principal directors also discussed in 1988 the development of biological warfare weapons, including those involving cancer and immuno-deficiency and specifically a patent involving cytotoxic T-Lymphocytes, with the Japanese. The primary Japanese entity involved in signing the agreement with the Cabazon interlocking entities on September 14, 1988,was Ajinomoto Co., Inc. of 1-5-8 Kyobashi, Chuo-ku, Tokyo and an "internationally-recognied Medical School in Japan" that received a CIA grant laundered through the Cabazon entity and the American side of the agreement included Meridian International Logistics, Inc. (MIL), a reputed CIA front and CIA and Pentagon liaison to Cabazon Arms, with offices at 15270 Sutton Street, Suite 101, Sherman Oaks, California and 1666 San Onofre Drive, Pacific Palisades, California, and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. MIL had an arms subsidiary, Meridian Arms Corporation (MAC), which dealt directly with Cabazon Arms and Wackenhut.

An undated U.S. government document, classified as "National Security Information: Unauthorized disclosure subject to criminal sanctions," attached to the January 20, 1983 letter from Cabazon Arms' Nichols to Fair, states in a paragraph titled "Possible Military Applications Utilizing Hybridoma Technology" and a sub-paragraph titled "Biological warfare," that states "the gene-splicing technology provides the ability to produce pathogenic (harmful) agents (i.e., viruses). In fact, biological warfare weaponry of this nature (both production and supply) is limited only by the imagination of the scientist."

In addition, the letter states that the Cabazon reservation was being used to develop a small machine gun that could be fitted with silencers. The letter states that Peter Zokosky, who was the owner of an arms manufacturer called Armtec Manufacturing and whose wife was mayor of Indio, had the British interested in the machine gun project. In addition, South Korean ammunition makers were involved, along with Swedish arms manufacturers. Chile and Guatemala were mentioned as possible locations for the manufacture of the weapon, called the Cabazon Arms CA 9 SMG. Other markets for Cabazon Arms mentioned in a September 1, 1981, Cabazon letter, were Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, and El Salvador. Guatemala and El Salvador are described as the "most sensitive." A March 23, 1982, Cabazon Arms letter also stats that potential markets for the firm's ammunition included Argentina, Taiwan, and Turkey. Cabazon Arms also exported night vision goggles to Guatemala and Jordan.

The mention of Chile and Guatemala is significant. On February 4, 2008, WMR reported: "A stringer for the Financial Times, Anson Ng, who was following a CIA-connected money trail connecting the weapons smugglers to Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) money tranches, including one that led through the Cabazon Indian Reservation in California, was shot and killed in Guatemala City.

On November 27, 1992, a number of dramatic revelations were made in a debate in the British House of Commons, chief among them that a British journalist [Jonathan Moyle] investigating [Chilean arms manufacturer Carlos] Cardoen, Matrix Churchill, and the weapons smuggling ring was murdered in Chile:

The following comments were made by then-MP Ken Livingstone, [later] Mayor of London: 'I must emphasise that we are still talking about allegations that Mark Thatcher [son of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher] was trading arms to Iraq and that he was trying to sell South African arms to Saudi Arabia. However, if there is any shred of truth in the charges, are we to believe that MI5 and MI6 did not warn the Prime Minister of the day about the activities in which her son was involved? Surely the director of MI5 or MI6 must have thought that it was important, if any information of that kind came to light, to warn the Prime Minister immediately that her son was engaged in activities that were illegal in British law and contravened United Nations resolutions. Of course, the director of MI5 or MI6 would have done that.

I shall examine the position of Dr. Carlos Cardoen a little more. He is a major and powerful figure in Chile. According to Mr. Ari Ben-Menashe, Dr. Cardoen is a business associate of Mark Thatcher. A British journalist who went to investigate Dr. Cardoen has been murdered. That is a particularly unpleasant twist to the story . . .'"

The Cabazon Arms letter to Fair also stated that Kuwait was interested in "financing the production of the CA 9 SMG."

Hadron eventually morphed into Analex. On April 8, 2002, this editor wrote an article for CounterPunch on the Analex connection to the anthrax attacks in 2001: "On April 4, ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross broadcast on ABC World News Tonight that after six months the FBI still had hardly any clues and no suspects in its anthrax investigation. A Soviet defector, the former First Deputy Director of Biopreparat from 1988 to 1992 and anthrax expert, Ken Alibek (formerly Kanatjan Alibekov), now a U.S. government consultant, made the astounding claim that the person who is behind the anthrax attacks may, in fact, been advising the U.S. government. After having passed a lie detector test, Alibek was cleared of any suspicion.

Interestingly, Alibek is President of Hadron Advanced Biosystems. On October 2, 2001, just two days before the first anthrax case was reported in Boca Raton, Florida and a week and a half before the first anthrax was sent through the mail to NBC News in New York, Advanced Biosystems received an $800,000 grant from NIH [National Institutes of Health] to focus on very specific defenses against anthrax. Hadron has long been linked with the CIA. The links resulted in charges by many former government officials, including the late former Attorney General Elliot Richardson, that the company's former President, Earl Brian, illegally procured a database system called PROMIS (Prosecutors' Management Information System) from Inslaw, Inc. and used his connections to the CIA and Israeli intelligence to illegally distribute the software to various foreign governments."

Also from the CounterPunch article was the following: "William Capers Patrick III was part of the original Fort Detrick anthrax development program, which "officially" ended in 1972 when President Nixon signed, along with the Soviet Union and United Kingdom, the Biological Weapons Convention. Nixon had actually ordered the Pentagon to stop producing biological weapons in 1969. It now seems likely that the U.S. military and intelligence community failed to follow Nixon's orders and, in fact, have consistently violated a lawful treaty signed by the United States . . .Last December, the New York Timesclaimed Patrick authored a secret paper on the effects of sending anthrax through the mail, a report he denies. However, Patrick told the BBC that he was surprised that as an expert on anthrax (he was a member of the UN biological warfare inspection team in the 1990s), the FBI did not interview him right after the first anthrax attacks. The BBC reported that Battelle Memorial Institute (a favorite Pentagon and CIA contractor and for whom Alibek served as biological warfare program manager in 1998) conducted a secret biological warfare test in the Nevada desert using genetically-modified anthrax early last September, right before the terrorist attacks. The BBC reported that Patrick's paper on sending anthrax through the mail was also part of the classified contractor work on the deadly bacterial agent."

On July 30, 2002, this editor filed the following story with Intelligence Online of Paris: The report shows that there was in the months before the anthrax attacks a significant southern California link to biological warfare:

"On March 8, 2001, police in Irvine, California discovered automatic weapons, explosives, and six plastic cylinders containing chemicals beneath the home of Dr. Larry Ford, who had committed suicide on March 2, three days after his Biofem Pharmaceutical, Inc. business partner, James Patrick Riley, was shot by a masked gunman outside the company's headquarters. An associate of Ford was later convicted of the murder. Ford, a devout Mormon who was rumored to have worked at Fort Detrick and the CIA, established a close relationship with South Africa's top secret bio-warfare program, Project COAST. In 1987, Ford, while a professor of gynecology and obstetrics at UCLA, became friendly with Dr. Niels Knobel, a major player in COAST. Ford became a consultant to the South African biowar program and became acquainted with Dr. Wouter Basson, known as "Dr. Death," the head of South Africa's bio-warfare program.

U.S. government investigators are now looking into a link between Basson, Ford, and possibly others involved with anthrax at Fort Detrick, Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, the Plum Island Animal Disease Center in Long Island, New York; and at South Africa's former biowar center at Fort Klapperkop in Pretoria [now Tshwane]."

Other documentation obtained by WMR shows that Cabazon Indian Security, the joint venture with Wackehut, discussed the purchase of Valleyfield Chemical Products Corporation of Valleyfield, Canada, after its owner, Canadian engineer Gerald Bull, was jailed in the United States for the illegal export of weapons to South Africa. Bull had not only worked for the South Africans but also the CIA, Israel, and was later involved in the building of a "super gun" for Saddam Hussein in Iraq. There is a belief that the 1981 testing that was to take place on the Santa Rosa Indian reservation involved Bull's rail gun or "super gun." Bull was assassinated by the Mossad on March 22, 1990 in Brussels. One of the Mossad assassins was reported recently to have been involved in the "hit" on CIA Patriot missile technology transfer expert U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel William Bennett, who was bludgeoned to death on March 22, 2009, while walking with his wife on an early Sunday morning in Landsdowne, Virginia. Bennett was specifically investigating the illegal theft of Patriot technology by Israel and its sale to Russia and China.

The May 31, 1981, Wackenhut memo states that "Barry Zuckerman and Charles F. Agar, both Canadian citizens, who are involved with a Canadian firm called Mineral Resources International Ltd., as well as both being involved with Canadian financial institutions . . . are interested in the possibility of acquiring this plant [Valleyfield Chemical]. The memo noted that the Wackenhut-Cabazon joint venture would be the foreign marketing representative for the chemical plant after its purchase and that Mineral Resources International already had a joint venture with the Cabazons to explore for oil and gas on the California reservation. The offices of California's U.S. Senators Alan Cranston and S. I. Hayakawa were involved in the agreement between the Cabazons and Canadians.

Cabazon Arms was also linked to First Intercontinental Development Corporation (FIDCO) of 908 15th Street, Suite 6, Santa Monica, California. FIDCO was reportedly a CIA front headed by George K. Pender, that was in charge of a $3 billion fund to reconstruct Lebanon after the 1982 Israeli invasion of the country. FIDCO had direct connections to Lebanese President Amin Gemayel, the influential Chamoun Christian Maronite political family, the Arab Bank in Amman, and the Reagan White House's Michael McManus, Jr., an Assistant to the President. Another CIA front involved with Cabazon was Intersect Corporation, headed by John Vanderwerker, with offices at 18952 MacArthur Boulevard, Irvine, California. FIDCO and Intersect Corporation, as CIA fronts, regularly transferred millions of dollars to finance the CIA's arms and plane sales businesses. Two banks identified in these transactions are Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) and Credit Suisse in Zurich and Geneva. One of the Credit Suisse-Geneva account numbers used by the CIA entities between 1981 and 1983 for these transactions was 027465905482-1.

Intersect Corporation also had a Washington presence. The Washington Post Style section ran a story on January 27, 1980, about an "old hen" social party at the Smithsonian. Among those quoted in the article was an attendee at the social event, John Elliott of Fairfax, and who was cited as working for the "Intersect Corporation" which "does security work for the government."

Intersect and a Glenn Shockley, a principal of both FIDCO and Meridian International Logistics, were involved with a Spring 1981 aircraft transaction worth $7,800,000, with Parvis Lavi of Omega Industries of Plainview, Long Island. The date is significant because of the Reagan campaign's 1980 October Surprise involving the supply pre-election and post-election of military supplies to Iran in return for Iran holding U.S. embassy hostages in Iran until after the November presidential election to ensure President Jimmy Carter's defeat by Reagan. In 1998, Lavi was charged with illegally selling F-14 spare engine parts to Iran. Lavi also had offices in Los Angeles and Rotterdam. Lavi's brother, Houshang Lavi, was involved in a Carter administration deal in October 1980 to sell up to $10 million in F-14 spare parts to Iran in exchange for the hostage's release. However, key parts of the CIA were working with the Reagan campaign to ensure that there was no pre-election hostage release that could benefit Carter's re-election campaign. In 1983, a Swiss company, Alcari SA, sued Omega Industries for failure to pay Alcari $1.2 million in a deal to sell Iran military supplied in 1981, the same time that the Cabazon-connected CIA entities were involved in money transfers worth over $7 million that involved Omega Industries.

FIDCO, a Delaware corporation organized in 1974, brought a complaint on October 28, 1981, in the U.S. District Court of Appeals in Washington, DC against Ship's Overseas Services, Inc. (SOS), a firm organized in 1972. The complaint dealt with the 1975 shipment of steel pipe from Spain for an oil company in Libya. SOS contracted pipe from Gulf Consolidated International, Inc. in Houston and turned a profit with the Libyans, from which FIDCO demanded a share. The case appeared to be a normal business dispute, except for the fact that appearing as a pro se intervenor before the court was none other than Michael A. McManus, Jr., the Special Assistant to President Reagan. However, the court ultimately found in favor of SOS.

In 1988, the chairman of the Hosue Judiciary Committee's Criminal Justice Subcommittee conducted an investigation of the Reagan campaign's October Surprise conspiracy with Iran. However, as WMR has previusly reported, Conyers has been staffed with individuals over the years who are connected not only to the CIA and CIA front operations in Washington, DC, but American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) operatives. The Conyers investigation of the October Surprise went nowhere.

In addition to journalists Moyle and Ng, there would be one more journalist who would be murdered because of his investigation of the arms smuggling and other illegal activities partly based on the Cabazon Indian reservation. Freelance Washington journalist Danny Casolaro was found with his wrists slashed a dozen times in a bathtub at the Sheraton Hotel in Martinsburg, West Virginia, on August 10, 1991. One of the last sources Casolaro spoke to was an official of the Cabazon Arms operation. As with journalist Gary Webb, who uncovered the CIA's links to the same Nicaraguan contra elements who were also involved with Cabazon, Casolaro's death was ruled a suicide. Before and after their deaths, Casolaro and Webb were subjected to a concerted disinformation and character assassination campaign conducted by certain sectors of the corporate media, which, in turn, took their orders from their CIA masters.