Word: ricin
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...devilish details were all sorts of contradictions. Some cuts are to programs so popular that Congress will just ignore the request. It was difficult for Bush to defend cuts in funds for the Centers for Disease Control (8.9%) and for combatting bioterrorism in the week that ricin was being mailed to the Senate majority leader. However vital the issues of war and homeland security, there was $805 million less for emergency workers, and 210,000 veterans could see their health benefits cut. All the police departments that have relied on FBI crime labs to analyze fingerprints or hair samples will...
...suggested that this was probably a case of homegrown terrorism rather than Round 2 of al-Qaeda's assault on the U.S. The likely perpetrator, many still believe, was a malevolent nerd with chemistry-lab expertise and a grudge against the government. But when traces of the biological toxin ricin showed up in Senator Bill Frist's mail room last week, the FBI and other agencies declared there was no evidence pointing to either a foreign culprit or a mad scientist. One possibility under examination: a good ole boy who knows his way around 18-wheelers, weigh stations...
That would be consistent with two unsolved ricin-in-the-mail incidents that occurred last fall. They didn't create much of a panic, and despite the evacuation of three Senate office buildings last week, neither did the ricin found under a mail-opening machine on Capitol Hill. Ricin is a potent enough poison , and terrorist groups from al-Qaeda to the Iraq-based Ansar al-Islam have reportedly produced it for use as a biological weapon. So, evidently, did Saddam Hussein before the first Gulf...
...bulletin also tells local law officials and other first responders to be aware of telltale signs of toxin production: for instance, large caches of yeast or infant formula, which can be used to grow or dilute biological toxins, and sacks of castor beans, from which ricin is extracted...
...Sunday, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN that a compound established by the Jihadist group Ansar Al Islam and captured by American and Kurdish forces last week was probably the source of the ricin seized from Algerian extremists in London earlier this year. U.S. intelligence had earlier identified the Ansar group as being especially active in attempting to develop ricin and other chemical and biological agents for use as terror weapons...