linked - Investigating the Terror

formula in the fax was the same as the formula the FBI was using at
Eglin. Two bomb technicians present at Eglin, however, recall the
conversation. FBI Comments at 10.
After Williams' OIG interview, we obtained a copy of the fax Williams
received at Eglin. The fax includes two Arabic formulas and their
translations. The first formula (First Fax Formula) is one of the two
formulas Williams testified in Salameh he used to make urea nitrate and
became G.Ex. 2781. The second formula in the fax (Second Fax Formula)
is different from the two Arabic formulas Williams testified he relied on to
make the urea nitrate.
As noted above, the First Fax Formula (G.Ex. 2781) differs from the
formula used at Eglin in that the fax formula fails to prescribe that the
urea should be dissolved in water prior to the addition of the nitric acid
and further states that the nitric acid itself should be diluted to a 34%
concentration. As indicated above, at Eglin the urea was first dissolved in
distilled water, and then reagent grade (70.4%) or technical grade (67%)
nitric acid was added. The fax formula, moreover, is essentially a
chemical equation with molecular weights. It does not include a specific
amount of 34% nitric acid to be added to a specific amount of urea.
The Second Fax Formula is quite different from the Eglin formula. The
Second Fax Formula uses human or animal urine as an ingredient. The
formula sets forth a procedure for evaporating and filtering the urine;
then 90% nitric acid is added to the urine filtrate at a ratio by volume of
one part acid to three parts urine.
Thus, the fax formulas were different from the formula the FBI used to
manufacture urea nitrate at Eglin, and no one in the FBI at Eglin
attempted to manufacture urea nitrate from the fax formulas.
Because he was not a chemist, Williams lacked the expertise to
determine on his own whether a fax formula was the same as the formula
Whitehurst was following. When Williams testified at the OIG interview
that the formulas seemed to be the same because both used a 60 to 63
ratio by weight of urea to nitric acid, it is clear he did not understand that
the ratio of the weights must take into account the concentrations of the
ingredients. Because the concentrations of the ingredients at Eglin were
different from the concentrations in the Arabic formula, the ratios of