The Asbestos Connection

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes

Introduction

The Curious Asbestos Connection

The Four Patterns

1. Politicians are much more prone to die in plane crashes than ordinary people.
2. Prior to the Clinton era, only the Republicans were accident prone. With the Clinton era and on, only the Democrats were.
3. Opposing asbestos seems to bring on the wrath of the gods.
4. The safest time for politicians is in the winter, November to February, odd given that so many air crashes are blamed on foul weather.

One fact to consider is that according to the NTSB (National Transport Safety Board), there are only about 1047 air fatalities a year in the entire USA. Only 1 in 272,000 people a year are killed in air crashes. Politicians in contrast are dying like flies. Why? Can it purely be accounted for by the extra flying they do?

Another fact to consider is that, according to the NTSB (National Transport Safety Board), general aviation aircraft, on an hourly basis, are only about 2.6 times more deadly than the commercial airlines (30.73 vs. 11.82 fatalities per million flight hours). So the fact politicians to more flying in small planes is not enough to account for their accident-proneness.

The Suspects

"Cui prodest scelus, is fecit."
"The one who derives advantage from the crime is the one most likely to have committed it."
~ Seneca

Arab Terrorists There are two main problems with this:

• How would Arab terrorists get hold of weapons grade anthrax available only from the Pentagon? They would have used another source.
• Why would Arab terrorists target just Bush's political enemies? Surely they would target someone else, e.g. strong supporters of Israel.

Cheney is not dead, but he too has as asbestos connection. Vice President Dick Cheney defended his management of Halliburton Co, saying he had assumed the oil giant's insurance would shield it against asbestos lawsuits that have cost it hundreds of millions of dollars and helped devalue its stock. The $7.7 billion acquisition of rival Dresser Industries Inc. in 1998 -- when Cheney was chief executive -- doubled the Texas company's size overnight and allowed it to claim the title of the world's leading oilfield services company. Most of Halliburton's current asbestos claims were inherited from Dresser. The Securities and Exchange Commission informed the company it was investigating its accounting practices. Cheney was chairman and chief executive of Halliburton from 1995 to 2000.

Ashcroft is not dead, but he too has an asbestos connection. Ashcroft sponsored the Ashcroft-Hyde bill, which was drafted by the asbestos manufacturers naturally to be extremely favourable to themselves.

George Bush Jr. is the most likely suspect for the Bob Stevens anthrax letter. Bush had access to the special military grade anthrax and had the power to shut down the investigation. He had motive as well. According to his speechwriter David Frum, he is petty and vindictive.

Someone In the US Bioterror Program. The leading expert on the anthrax attacks is professor Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a microbiologist and an expert on biological warfare who has served as a presidential advisor and testified before congress on this subject. She was selected by the Federation of American Scientists to investigate the anthrax attacks. In 2002 January, professor Rosenberg stated:

"The FBI has surely known for several months that the anthrax attack was an inside job. A government estimate for the number of scientists involved in the US anthrax program over the last five years is 200 people. According to a former defense scientist the number of defense scientists with hands-on anthrax experience and the necessary access is smaller, under 50. The FBI has received short lists of specific suspects with credible motives from a number of knowledgeable inside sources, and has found or been given clues ... that could lead to incriminating evidence. By now the FBI must have a good idea of who the perpetrator is."

Another leading expert on biological warfare, professor Francis Boyle of Indiana University, concurs with Rosenberg's opinion. Professor Boyle is a renowned expert on international law who has testified before congress on legal issues concerning biological warfare, and who was instrumental in drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989. His analysis of the anthrax attacks has led him to the same conclusion reached by professor Rosenberg, which he states even more bluntly:

"I believe that the FBI knows exactly who was behind these attacks and that they have concluded that the perpetrator was someone who was or is involved in illegal and criminal biological warfare research conducted by the US government (the Pentagon or the CIA) or by one of the government's civilian contractors. For that reason, the FBI is not going to apprehend and indict the perpetrator."

The investigation is mysteriously blocked. No reason was ever given. Not many people would have the authority to squash an investigation that important. Two of the very few people who could squash it are Dick Cheney and John Ashcroft. I suggest that Cheney and Ashcroft don't want the literal culprit revealed, because, if he is, the fact that they ordered the anthrax hits would come to light, and then once the asbestos motive comes clear, the Carnahan and Wellstone hits will come to light as well.

The Method

It was important to get Paul Wellstone, a man known to dislike flying, into a small craft on a icy day where a sabotage would naturally be blamed on weather.

"He [Richard Conry, Wellstone's pilot] even went out of his way to make sure Wellstone, a nervous flier, was comfortable about taking the flight, according to a pilot who spoke to Wellstone before takeoff."
~ Leslie Miller of Associated Press

Why Frank Rukavina?

• Because Rukavina was Wellstone's friend, and Wellstone was morally obligated to fly to the funeral. Wellstone could not possibly postpone the trip, just cancel altogether and feel guilty and ashamed of his cowardice. Wellstone could be thus prodded to fly in somewhat inclement weather.
• Rukavina's murder was not suspicious. He was, after all, retired and an old man. I have not been able to find out just how old.
• Rukavina lived in a small town, Eveleth, Minnesota, most easily accessible by small plane.
• Rukavina could be easily euthanised at any time without suspicion. His murder could be timed suit the weather.
• Rukavina was not a high profile person, just a retired Steel Union organiser. There would be no great public interest in his untimely death.

"Steven Thornton, a Federal Aviation Administration preflight specialist, said he feared somebody may have pressured Wellstone's pilot [Richard Conry] to fly the senator to a funeral in northeastern Minnesota."
~ Leslie Miller of Associated Press

It Gets Even Curiouser

There are a few more "coincidences" surrounding the anthrax attacks that suggest someone high in the administration was behind them. According to 911pi.com the White House began taking Cipro, an anti-biotic for Anthrax, several weeks before the first attack. The master database listing the origins of every Anthrax strain in the world were requested destroyed by the FBI just before the anthrax attacks broke out. These attacks were the motivation for the Congress to pass the Patriot Act, a 300-page bill some admitted was impossible to even read in the time allotted. Fear has been a very effective tool in passing agendas.

If the accidents were actually murders, then the key suspects are Ashcroft and Cheney. Who else would have access to US military grade anthrax? -- not many. Who else could stop the investigation and keep it stopped?

The culprits were narrowed to a mere 50 possibilities who had potential access. It would have been fairly trivial to find the culprit by giving the suspects lie detector tests, something that could be expected with such a high security job. Then some unidentified Republican with clout called off the investigation. No wonder the Democrats are so afraid to say boo to the Bush administration!

Ashcroft and Cheney have motive, means and opportunity. This is far from proof of guilt, but it suggests further investigation is called for.

How Dick Cheney Unloaded the Highland Asbestos Hot Potato

Highlands Insurance had been a wholly owned subsidiary of Halliburton since 1958 when it was formed to provide health insurance to the company's many workers.

When Cheney took the helm at Halliburton in 1995 company lawyers were fretting that Highlands might soon become one big asbestos insurance liability. It seems Halliburton's former workers were beginning to show up with serious asbestos-related maladies.

Highlands Insurance had to go.

But, how do you get rid of a hot potato like that?

Court documents show that Cheney devised a plan to sell Highlands to unsuspecting shareholders by not disclosing the company's potential asbestos claim liabilities. If successful, Highlands Insurance would be spun off as an independent company - sold to investors and along with it would go Halliburton's exposure to losses the insurance company would almost certainly face.

Within three years of the sale Highlands found itself saddled with 23,000 claims worth about $80 million from workers at Halliburton's Brown & Root construction subsidiary.

Highland's attorneys have argued - successfully - that Cheney withheld "material information" about Brown & Root's insurance issues. Last month the Delaware Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling in favor of Highlands.

The Highlands case becomes the third instance in which Cheney's 5-year reign as Halliburton's CEO has come under scrutiny. The SEC is currently investigating accounting changes Cheney ordered in which uncollected debts were counted as income.

And, Cheney's involvement in the $7.7 billion merger with Dresser Industries in 1998 nearly bankrupted Halliburton because of Dresser Industries' own asbestos liabilities.

Halliburton estimates its asbestos liability at $2.2 billion over the next 15 years. Halliburton is suing its insurers, including Highlands, for refusing to pay some of those claims.

Highlands filed suit in Delaware in 2000 but Highlands' lawyers were unable to depose Cheney because he had already begun his new job as vice president of the United States.

In his new post, Cheney is being sued by both public interest groups and the Government Accounting Office for documents relating to his energy task force meetings in 2000 and 2001, which he continues to refuse to release. He has also been named as a defendant in a Halliburton shareholder's class action suit.

The Companies

Other companies in deep trouble with asbestos lawsuits include: Halliburton and Honeywell, PPG Industries and DuPont.

Claims have also been filed against asbestos users such as General Electric, Lockheed Martin, A,T&T, Campbell Soup, Colgate-Palmolive, E&J Gallo Winery, Gerber Products, DuPont, major electric utilities, oil refineries, shipbuilders, construction contractors, retailers, textile mills, finance companies investing in these ventures and even Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

The total litigation dwarfs even the Enron scandal.

The Other Anthrax Deaths

Conclusion

The Wellstone and Carnahan murders are really quite minor crimes when you look at the asbestos situation as a whole. The asbestos industry hid the dangers of asbestos exposure for years. They used every trick in the book to avoid paying off liability claims. Asbestos has killed thousands of people and disabled tens of thousands. The dishonesty of the asbestos companies has harmed hundreds of innocent companies and bankrupted pension plans.

Links

• The Iraq War.
• George Bush Jr. and 9-11
• Bushisms: Quotations from George Bush Jr., mostly idiotic.
• George W. Bush's Resume
• How Bush Stole the Election
• Books about George Bush Jr. This includes his kinky sexual history, his cocaine abuse, his father's pedophilia, his election fraud, 9-11, the Iraq war and many other books on similar topics.
• Bush Body Count: This sites documents the suspicious deaths of 75 other Bush opponents.
• Political Graveyard: source for much of the information about politicians involved in air crashes.
• How Cheney unloaded Highland
• Professor Barbara Hatch Anthrax analysis.
• Professor Francis Boyle's anthrax analysis.
• Leslie Miller's Associated Press Article on The Wellstone Crash
• Mysterious plane crashes: I'm not the only one who has noticed odd patterns in the "accidental" plane crashes involving American politicians.
• Links about the Wellstone Crash
• AnthraxInvestigation.com

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