Dec 05 2006
TIMES UK Off The Deep End
One has to realize what a marginal nutcase Litvinenko was, in terms of being a threat to Putin, to grasp the incredible leap in illogic now permeating the UK news media regarding Litvinenko’s death.
Alexander Litvinenko said a lot of outrageous things when he was alive. He claimed that Al Qaeda’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was a Russian agent. He alleged that he had a tape of Russian President Vladimir Putin having sex with another man.
The efforts now being expended to sustain the assassination theory is incredible. Litvinenko was one of 100’s of thousands ex-pat Russians in the UK. He was by far the least successful and least pwerful. He was in desparate need of cash so he cooked up an idea to blackmail Russian leaders, who probably would have laughed the guy off since his credibility was totally shot. But now, this insignificant man has morphed into such an enemy that Russia and its FSB had to use $10’s of millions of dollars worth of Polonium and activated an army of people to carry out a hit on this one low level nuisance:
Security sources have told The Times that the FSB orchestrated a “highly sophisticated plot” and was likely to have used some of its former agents to carry out the operation on the streets of London.
…
Intelligence officials say that only officials such as FSB agents would have been able to obtain sufficent amounts of polonium-210, the radioactive substance used to fatally poison Mr Litvinenko only weeks after he was given British citizenship.
…
MI5 and MI6 are working closely with Scotland Yard on the investigation. A senior police source told The Times yesterday that the method used to kill the 43-year-old dissident was intended to send a message to his friends and allies.
“It’s such a bad way to die, they must have known,” the source said. “The sheer organisation involved could only have been managed by professionals adept at operating internationally.”
Gimme a break. For the price of a bullet or some Ricin Litvinenko would have been dead and few would have cared. The organizational effort required in this case is WHY the assassination theory makes no sense. This police source is either naive has hell or feeding the media what they want to hear. But the larger this gets the less likely it was an army of people out to get one insignificant person. And apparently the size of the effort is gettnig quite large
Intelligence officials believe that a sizeable team was sent from Moscow to smuggle radioactive polonium-210 into Britain and to shadow Mr Litvinenko.
Shadow Litvinenko? How about meet with him so he could assess their status and progress and report back to his boss? Why send an army of people to move a highly profitable black market substance? As reader Crosspatch I believe said on a comment a while back that is like giving an assassin a platinum brick to use to kill someone. The minute the brick is handed over, that assassin is gone and living it up on a beach somewhere. The cost-risk equation is simple – take the treasure and forget about taking any risks for a murder rap.
The Times article is trying ot make me feel like a marginal nutcase myself (which I won’t bother denying)- but the blame game that goes: Bush did it; Putin did it; Rove did it – is all too easy. Usually it’s the liberals who do the kneejerk reaction. Now it’s the conservatives…I should have realized this would be the outcome when over at FR the reaction was from the beginning with no evidence at all – Putin did it. It’s amazing how little intellectual curiosity exists.
A more plausible theory: He was short of cash so he was smugling nuclear material. The cross contamination is explained by their ignorance handling nuclear material.
Fortunately the investigation continues: (Note that Ireland is mentioned as a location being checked over this past weekend)
Published on 05/12/2006
By Andrea Thompson
NUCLEAR experts from Sellafield have been called down to London to help the investigation into the poisoning of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko.
A team of seven health physicists went down to the capital at the weekend and will be working for the Health Protection Agency in locations including London, Ireland and Moscow.
A second team from Sellafield will also be joining the investigation this week.
They will also be involved in checking key locations suspected of being contaminated with polonium 210 – the deadly radioactive substance that killed the former KGB agent in London on November 23.
Meanwhile, specialists from the Westlakes Science and Technology Park, just outside Whitehaven are also playing an important role in the complex Litvinenko investigation.
http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/viewarticle.aspx?id=442328
I have my imagination. And, until there’s a provable theory out there; I’ll hold onto the idea that the Russian Mafia is a very big headache to Israel! Where they got used by russian bums, in order to get exit papers. (During the “thaw” when Gorby didn’t know reducing russia’s populatoin wasn’t the smartest thing on the map.)
But then? Neither were the murderous ways of stalin’s gulag.
Any-hoo. Greed is a KNOWN factor. STUPIDITY is another. All you have to do is ask the guards who deal with prisoners. They’ll tell ya all about how idiots get caught.
And, what are we working with, here?
It is NOW known London is Londonstan. And, it’s a hotbed for contraband. (That’s the direction the “dirty truck” took as it exited England. Passed through France. And, only set off Geiger Counters at the Bulgarian Border. Where “it” and its truckload of 90 “hot” cases, were stopped.) In other words, it seems that nuclear materials are handled, by black marketeers, in “less than sanitary ways.” And, no. I am not surprised.
No friends in sight, anyway. None of the spooks, from any country, particularly cares about the “locals,” with whom they mingle.
And, yes. It’s an eye-opener to see all these “hot” Russians flying in; and contaminating “places.” (It’s no longer just a Russian Mafia whore house, with dames in transit, anymore.)
Litvenenko might have actually known NOTHING about his “killers.” As a matter of fact, EVERYONE got more worried about “cancer” and getting treated, than they were about unravelling this puzzle.
That the PR arm would attack putin? GOOD! That this is accurate? What’s “accurate” when you’re dealing with the twisted russians?
But whatever IS exposed, it’s like Hansel & Gretel’s bread crumbs. Tell me? How do they “test” for contamination, if the Geiger Counters don’t go off? Blue lights?
Is this the story of the Blue Lights special?
Whoever did this has left no fingerprints. Just one collection of bad guys, some with astronomical sums of money. But no friends. Oh. And, the Chechnyans lost some operatives. Another goody.
Apparently the papparazzi in Great Britain is just as useless as they are in the US. But then they are lefties, no. You know, there is no war on terror. Bush is just scaring people and disrupting their lives with war. If the US would pull out of Iraq today we would have global peace tomorrow. /s
HEH! The Times is the most responsible paper in the UK and its sources are most likely to be official, but you carry on. I’m going with them. Occam’s razor and all–I take it the Iran to the Chechens via London to Russia theory at least has fallen off the board.
Another tidbit:
”
Radiation tests on the British Embassy in Moscow are taking place as Scotland Yard detectives take the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning inquiry to the Russian capital.
A team of radiation specialists, who have travelled to Moscow from Britain, are conducting tests on one room at the embassy.
It is reported to be where Andrei Lugovoi gave a statement about his meeting with Mr Litvinenko on the day he was allegedly poisoned in London to Britain’s deputy ambassador.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uklatest/story/0,,-6259810,00.html
well there is perhaps a modicum of good news which I am typing instead of pasting as this board seems to swallow posts with cuts and pastes sometimes: Mr. Chaika (some Russian Gov spokesman) said that British investigators would be able to interview Lugovoi despite reports that he is being treated or tested in a hospital for contamination. Earlier reports suggested that it would be up to Lugovoi’s “doctors” whether he could be interviewed. Lugovoi at this point seems to be the fall guy for both sides….and he will later be described by the Russians as a rogue element and by the British as proof that Russians were involved and end of story. Neatly tied and wrapped up…and we will never know what the hell was going on.
Not for me, Clarice. Such a scenario is probably the only thing that would justify sending such a team to kill him. His words wouldn’t be enough for that kind of a response, he had to be engaged in something that was more of a physical threat.
You don’t put together a mission that large with that much risk because you don’t like what someone says. It also can’t be a problem with what information he has because you would have to assume at this point that British police now have full access to all his computers and files.
Nobody paid much attention to his ranting just as we don’t pay much attention to the people who raise the issue of all the dead bodies that seem to lie along the Clintons’ path to success.
Seems too big of an operation to silence a crackpot writer if it indeed was that. Could be lots of reasons why the police would have said what they did.
Stephen Cobert better be shaking in his boots. Pretty soon, Bush, Chaves, Castro, Putin and Pelosi are going to be after him with radioactive poisons. Better hope he doesn’t write a book!
How fresh was the poison polonium?
Paul J. Shlichta
During the next few weeks of confusion and cover-up about the Litvinenko poisoning, look out for the word ‘lead’, which may yet pin the tail on the Russian donkey.
Polonium-210, the next-to-last link in the Uranium 8 radioactive decay chain, decays to lead-206, which is stable. Therefore a sample of pure polonium-210 kept for 138 days (its half life) would change into a 50-50 mixture of polonium and lead. On the other hand, a sample of polonium-210 without any lead in it would have to be fresh-from-the-reactor material.
It is very likely that the doctors treating Litvinenko tested for lead, the most common heavy metal poison. But although the news reports mentioned thallium (a byproduct in the production of Po-210), there was no mention of any traces of lead. If there was none, then Litvinenko was poisoned with freshly made polonium, only a few days old.
I suggest that any purchase of the poisonous dose through a black market route-say a dealer in Jakarta who had a contact in Kazakhstan who could get it from someone in the Ukraine, etc.-would have taken weeks between reactor and assassin. The only way to have obtained fresh material quickly would have been through the auspices of a high-level official who could smooth the way for fast transport. Now who could that have been, I wonder?
Posted at 08:28 AM | Email | Permalink
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Lizard, don’t be a sap. The Russians will be doing the questioning allowing the Brits only to observe; the Russians will not allow the extradition to Britain of any Russian involved andLugovoi is hospitalized (which, I assume, means they may say he’s too ill to be questioned).
http://www.examiner.com/a-437687~Russia__No_Extraditions_in_Spy_Death.html?cid=rss-World
Just a little Russian dance.
Lugovoi at least by one account I just read is out of the hospital and claims to be willing to be questioned. . http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/news/article_1229893.php/Scotland_Yard_investigators_take_time_out_in_Moscow
We’ll have to watch and see, Lizard. From your article:”Chaika added that his office intended to question Lugovoi as well.
‘If the doctors allow it … he will definitely be questioned,’ Chaika said.
Chaika also said another former agent, Mikhail Trepashkin, would not be questioned. Trepashkin, currently in prison for betraying state secrets, was not mentioned in requests from British police, Chaika added.”
Clarice I read that Trepashkin (can’t find it now) was NOT on the list of people Scotland Yard wanted to question
I’ve commented (elsewhere) about “800 lb. gorillas in the room”, but it occurs to me there is another.
Berezovsky and some of his accomplices in the $100 billion heist have suggested -here and there-they are being subjected to anti-semitic persecution : a charge which might well ring true with many who HAVE been persecuted. It’s a ploy George Soros (another piece of work) has used at times.
Judging by some of the comments I’ve read elsewhere, Berezovsky and friends may have been at least partially successful in portraying themselves as “victims” – and the media MAY be a bit worried about being accused of anti-semitic bias. Thus, perhaps, the “Let’s-hang-Putin-first-and-ask-questions-later” attitude.
Der Spiegal trying to tie all this in with PC non smoking campaign:
There is little risk that any bystanders were irradiated in this case. In fact, standing near smokers is riskier. Tiny airborne particles of the radioactive metal commonly settle on tobacco leaves. This explains why cigarettes can contain significant quantities of polonium. Heavy smokers are exposed to an annual dose of radiation from polonium equal to about 250 lung x-rays.
we’re all doomed
A more rational explanation is that Berozovsky is not mentioned as under suspicion by the British authorities to the Times reporters.The authorities have, consistent with Dr Schlicta’s view and that of those who have been long time Russia watchers and ex-KGB officials in the west–taken the view that this involved Russian state organs or thugs operating with the approval of Putin himself.
No Clarice, I haven’t changed my mind. I still think Iran is the source. There is just too much polonium that has to be accounted for and Iran doesn’t have to account for anything. Plus Iran would be willing to give or sell to the Chechens or other terrorists. But I’ll concede the official version will probably be the Russians. What MI5, MI6 and the FBI knows might be a different story. We are not always given the true facts. But the British would have to be crazy to let it go at that and not take into consideration that it could be a plot for a dirty bomb in London or that London is a byway for smugglers of nuclear material.
some other theories still out there: from monsters and critics UK:
Alexander Rahr, a leading Russia expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations, a Berlin-based think tank, Tuesday told United Press International via telephone from New York.
He added that there were three main theories of who was responsible for Litvinenko`s death, the first being that Putin wanted to silence one of his most outspoken critics; the second that conservative forces in Russia wanted to hurt Russia`s relations with the West so that Putin would be forced to call back elections and establish a dictatorial regime; the third being that Russian exile oligarchs wanted to destabilize the Kremlin in a way that would allow them to return back home and reclaim their lost wealth. That third theory would include in the range of suspects Boris Berezovsky, the exiled oligarch, in whose house police found traces of the radioactive isotope.
I don’t view the Times coverage as “off the deep end” at all, either. I think this is as they report it, and that they have an inside track with an approved British government source. So yes, I still see this as a very complicated hit to get rid of someone. Why did they go to so much trouble? Because they wanted him dead, and they wanted to send a very cold chill through all of his friends, or anyone else who would dare even think of becoming a turncoat and talking about their secrets.
Litvinenko was a guy who was connecting (or had already connected?) the dots on several crucial investigations, some interlinked. Those cases were the 1999 apartment bombing case and Anna Politkovskaya’s recent murder, as well as something very important to do with Yukos Oil — the Yukos case involved Livinenko very recently flying to Israel in and the testimony of his friend Yuri Schvets to the FBI and Brit authorities.
In addition, Litvinenko seemed to delight in goading the Kremlin; that article he wrote last summer about Putin being a pedophile was not political parody, ala Stephen Colbert That story is not the only, or even the most compelling, motive, and I never suggested it was. But it does highlight the explosive nature of the Litvinenko-Putin standoff.
Like many other enemies of the Kremlin (many of whom have ended up dead or poisoned, Litvinenko was more than very inconvenient and embarrassing. He was a threat because he knew too much and loved to talk about it. Even more, he hung around with Berezovsky and they were actively seeking to undermine the Putin regime. Litvinenko was too unpredictable and too dangerous for them to allow him to go on as he was.
But he wasn’t some insignificant little twerp to them. If anyone believes that, then they’ve swallowed the bait that the FSB’s been casting out so desperately for the last month.
Alexander Litvinenko was admittedly very shady — he was, after all, former KGB and FSB, and so reports of his alleged recent blackmail schemes don’t surprise me at all. But what he absolutely was not was a little splinter in the Russian bear’s paw. Instead, he more resembled a trap that was sprung, because as it appears now, Russia has chewed off part of itself to be rid of him.