Special from NewsMax's Most Informed Sources
Aug 5, 2002

1. Clinton: 'I Won't Get Circumcised for Israel'
2. Polls: McCall Will Win Primary
3. Simon in Meltdown
4. West Nile Virus – The First Bioweapon

1. Clinton: 'I Won't Get Circumcised for Israel'

Carl Limbacher first reported in the U.S. on Bill Clinton's claims to a Canadian audience that he would "grab a rifle and get in the trench and fight and die" for Israel.

The outrageous comment from a one-time draft avoider made big headlines. Rush Limbaugh picked up the story on his powerhouse national network. And a day later the New York Post carried the story on its cover: "G.I. Bill: I'll Carry Rifle and Die for Israel."

The Post's "Page Six" also reported on Saturday some more background on this story.

The Post contacted Clinton's Harlem office, and the office denied Clinton ever said a widely believed Clinton quote: "I would do anything for Israel – except get a circumcision."

The Post then cited a NewsMax story by Carl Limbacher about Hillary's tall tale of having once tried to join the U.S. Marine Corps.

The Post ran with a transcript of Hillary's claims that had aired on the Rush Limbaugh show.

Hillary recounted: "Gee, now it was probably 19 years ago – in 1975 – I decided that I was very interested in having some experience in serving in some capacity in the military," said Hillary.

"So I walked into our local recruiting office, and I think it was just my bad luck that the person who happened to be there on duty could not have been older than 21. He was in perfect physical shape.

"So I sat down and I said, you know, I wanted to explore – I didn't know whether I thought active duty would be a good idea, reserve, you know, maybe National Guard, something along those lines. This young man looked at me and he said, 'How old are you?'

"I said, 'Well, 27' ... I had these really thick glasses on. He said, 'How bad's your eyesight?' I said, 'It's pretty bad.' And he said, 'How bad?' So I told him. He said, 'That's pretty bad.'

"And he finally said to me, he said, 'You're too old. You can't see. And you're a woman.' And then he went on ... this man, young man, was a Marine. He said, 'But maybe the dogs [Army] would take you.' "

Hillary recalled thinking, "This is not a very encouraging conversation, so maybe I'll look for another way to serve my country."

The Post added ominously that she has lived up to that promise and now "Political insiders say it's clear she is positioning herself to run for president in 2004."

Alert NewsMax readers will remember that NewsMax has been warning of Hillary's presidential desires for 2004.

Last week, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol confirmed that Democratic sources say Hillary is contemplating a 2004 run.

Months ago, NewsMax broke the story with a special report, "Hillary Plans the Presidency."

You can get your copy of the report – and the inside story about Hillary from the Arkansas state trooper who guarded her for seven years – by Clicking Here.

2. Polls: McCall Will Win Primary

NewsMax hears that insider Democratic polls show that New York State Democratic Comptroller Carl McCall will win the September primary and defeat rival Andrew Cuomo for the party's nomination for governor.

Published polls show Andrew Cuomo, son of former liberal Gov. Mario Cuomo, ahead of McCall. But an insider who has seen Democratic polling data shows that McCall is actually leading. The published polls are not weighing the expected heavy black turnout for McCall, an African-American.

All polls continue to show Republican Gov. George Pataki way ahead of all challengers in the general election.

3. Simon in Meltdown

We read ominous reports in California that Bill Simon's campaign may be in meltdown after "a devastating court ruling that ordered his family firm to pay $78 million in damages for defrauding a pay phone company," the Contra Costa Times reports.

Simon has tried to distance himself from the company, one of hundreds his investment firm dealt with, by saying he was not a hands-on manager.

But even that is being used against him.

"We've seen what being non-hands-on has done for him," Davis campaign spokesman Roger Salazar said. "The bottom line is he is either an incompetent businessman or a crooked one."

On Wednesday a Los Angeles jury found that Simon's firm should pay $65 million in punitive damages and $13.3 million in compensatory damages to the owner of Pacific Coin, a Los Angeles pay phone company. The company is owned by a convicted drug smuggler.

Simon's company had bought 39 percent of the company.

The news may be bad for Simon, but California Republicans say the main problem is that Simon has yet to pony up his own money to challenge the $30 million war chest of incumbent Gray Davis.

Only by paying big bucks can he still defeat Davis and the solidly liberal press that supports him.

So far, Simon has shelled out a small amount of his personal fortune.

Yet a barrage of negative stories, including the latest, has not caused Simon's poll numbers to evaporate completely.

Political strategist and Californian David Horowitz suggests Simon's steady poll numbers indicate that voters really are unhappy with Gray Davis.

4. West Nile Virus – The First Bioweapon

Back in June of 2000, pundit John LeBoutillier first raised concerns on NewsMax that the West Nile virus may have been the first bioweapon used by Iraq against the U.S.

LeBoutillier wrote: "Never before had this Middle Eastern virus been seen in the United States. Then it suddenly is found in people and in birds in the borough of Queens and then in other areas around New York City. Several elderly people died from West Nile; many others were severely ill and hospitalized because of this mysterious disease.

"Again the media and the Congress were – and remain – lax in linking up two related facts. U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ridder has revealed that Saddam Hussein's Iraqi scientists were working on West Nile virus!

"Why were Ridder and the United Nations inspecting Iraq at all? Because of evidence that Saddam was developing weapons of mass destruction and biological agents, as well. Thus the United Nations kept severe sanctions on Iraq until Saddam was proven to be in compliance with U.N. mandates on his government. …

"Do you believe it is a "coincidence" that this virus suddenly then appeared directly across the East River from U.N. headquarters?"

With the announcement that four people in Louisiana have died as a result of the disease, it is becoming clear that West Nile may be a plague upon America for years to come.

West Nile virus, the mosquito-borne disease once completely foreign to the Western Hemisphere, has now spread from New York to Florida, Louisiana and Wisconsin.

The pathogen was first discovered in the United States in 1999 when it appeared in New York's Long Island City, the Queens community LeBoutillier notes is just across New York's East River from the United Nations.

It killed seven people and caused serious illness in 62 others in New York and New Jersey.

Though the disease has all but disappeared from media scopes since the anthrax scare, it has not gone away, and its possible terrorist origins have never been definitively ruled out.

And why has the disease broken out in the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia – all primary targets for Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein since the end of the Gulf War?

Experts agree that Saddam's bioweapons people might be brewing up God knows what in a French-built virology facility near Baghdad that has been closed to inspectors from the United Nations since Saddam threw them out years ago.

The facility, called the Foot and Mouth Vaccine Plant, was used for making botulinum toxin, or BTX – one of the most lethal biotoxins known.

In 1992, the United Nations tore down the buildings in which the BTX was made and destroyed equipment, but left standing the bulk of the facility, part of which was used for virus research. (In 1985 the CDC sent samples of West Nile virus to a researcher in Iraq, stirring controversy in the media five years later, on the eve of the Gulf War, when reports came out that Iraq had a significant biowarfare program.)

All but missing in action on the front lines of the anthrax attacks, controversial former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher told the Jerusalem Post last year that the genetic strain of the West Nile virus found in Israel is the same as the one found in New York.

And, of course, there remains the sinister shadow of "In the Shadow of Saddam," the infamous book by Saddam's reputed former bodyguard and look-alike, Mikhael Ramadan. Published by a small press in the United Kingdom in 1999, the author's sensational allegations about Saddam's plans to wreak bioterror on the U.S. were featured that same year in the New Yorker Magazine's "West Nile Mystery" by Richard Preston.

Preston quoted from the Ramadan account:

"In 1997, on almost the last occasion we met, Saddam summoned me to his study. Seldom had I seen him so elated. Unlocking the top right-hand drawer of his desk, he produced a bulky, leather-bound dossier and read extracts from it. ... The dossier holds details of his ultimate weapon, developed in secret laboratories outside Iraq. ... Free of U.N. inspection, the laboratories would develop the SV1417 strain of the West Nile virus – capable of destroying 97 pc [percent] of all life in an urban environment. ... He said SV1417 was to be "operationally tested" on a Third World population centre. ..." The target had been selected, Saddam said, "but that is not for your innocent ears."

Author Preston questioned: "Why would a man presenting himself as an Iraqi defector predict that Saddam would unleash a virus just months before the same one broke out unexpectedly in New York? And, of all the thousands of viruses in the world, why West Nile?"

Adding another twist to the bizarre story, it turns out that, said Preston, "the fatality rate for West Nile is not remotely near ninety-seven per cent, and "SV1417" is not a standard designation for any known strain of West Nile virus."

At the same time that Ramadan was being discussed in the CIA, Dr. Ken Alibek, a defector and the former deputy chief of research for Biopreparat, the Soviet Union's main biowarfare program, spoke to lawmakers on Capitol Hill, voicing his concern that the West Nile outbreak was "suspicious."

In his article, Preston reported a conversation with an anonymous FBI agent, who told him that West Nile might be a good choice for a terrorist. He said: "If I was planning a bioterror event, I'd do things with subtle finesse, to make it look like a natural outbreak. That would delay the response and lock up the decision-making process."

An Army expert interviewed by Preston in the article told him that the military knew that Soviet biologists working for the Soviet Union's biowarfare program had evaluated the West Nile virus for use as a biological weapon.

Editor's Note:

To get the special report on Hillary's presidential plans, Click Here.

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