Seven years on, no answer from White House on anthrax attacks

[Zyxius]

Yet another basis for the War on Terror falling flat on its face. The War on Terror is based on LIES and has been used by the powerful to usurp power just like Hitler did after the convenient burning of the Reichstag (Parliament) Building. Convenient accidents and terrorism are a favorite tool of unpopular leaders who need wider mandates.


The Raw Story | Seven years on, no answer from White House on anthrax attacks
Seven years on, no answer from White House on anthrax attacks
Eric Brewer
Published: Wednesday July 16, 2008
It's been almost seven years since — in the weeks immediately following 9/11 — anthrax powder sent through the mail killed five people, threatened the lives of two Democratic senators, terrorized the entire nation, and helped prod a panicky Congress into passing the so-called Patriot Act.

In the intervening years, not only has the killer remained free, but missteps in the investigation have had major negative consequences. Just last month, in fact, the Department of Justice agreed to pay $4.6 million to former bioweapons expert Stephen Hatfill to settle a lawsuit Hatfill brought against the Justice Department, the FBI, and former Attorney General John Ashcroft for destroying his reputation and career by publicly implicating him in the case. And Glenn Greenwald has pointed out that in 2001, ABC News was fed false information by several "well-placed sources" (presumably officials in the Bush administration) suggesting an Iraq-anthrax link. That imaginary link was widely cited by pro-war cheerleaders.

At Monday's White House briefing, I asked if President Bush was satisfied with the progress of the investigation into the attacks. Press Secretary Dana Perino told me that she didn't even "know if he has had an update on it."

Here is our exchange:

Q Is the president satisfied with the progress of the investigation into the anthrax attacks?

MS. PERINO: I don't know if he has had an update on it. But obviously this is something that the FBI is doing. We don't do the investigation from the White House.

Q Well, is he following the progress?

MS. PERINO: You know, I'm sure he -- he gets updated by Director Mueller once a week on a variety of issues. And if that comes up, I'm sure he gets an update.

Q You don't know if he's satisfied with the progress?

MS. PERINO: I don't.

One reason I thought the White House might need to be reminded of this issue is because as recently as last January, in his 2008 State of the Union address, the President appeared to have completely forgotten about the attacks, stating, "We are grateful that there has not been another attack on our soil since 9/11." The anthrax letters, of course, were postmarked on September 18 and October 9, 2001, one to four weeks after 9/11. In his radio address to the nation on November 3, 2001, Bush called them "a second wave of terrorist attacks," and promised that "we will solve these crimes, and we will punish those responsible."

But just a few months later, the White House was already stalling. Asked about the pace of the investigation on February 25, 2002, then-Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said, "The President would like to get this, obviously, resolved as quickly as is possible. The pace of justice is a methodical one...the President believes the FBI is doing a good, solid job."

The question didn't come up again at a White House briefing until more than three years later, when a reporter asked Scott McClellan, "Why have we not found the person or persons responsible for the anthrax attacks of 2001?" Scott's reply: "That's a matter that remains a priority. It remains under investigation. The FBI continues to pursue it."

So it's incredible that now, after three more years, all the White House spokesperson has to say is, "If that comes up, I'm sure he gets an update." Not "he believes the FBI is doing a good job." Not even "that matter remains a priority." Just "if it comes up, he gets an update."

That's simply unacceptable. Why isn't THE PRESIDENT bringing it up? And almost as bad, why hasn't the establishment media pressed the administration harder on this issue? Especially after this story by David Willman in the L.A. Times revealed that Justice Department officials kept the investigation focused on Hatfill for almost five years, even though investigators never found any evidence linking him to the attacks, and that many experts who have been involved in the case now believe that it will never be solved.

When the Ramsey family was cleared in the JonBenet case, the media went wild. I can only suppose that one more Bush failure is no longer considered newsworthy.

The preceding article was a White House report from Eric Brewer, who will periodically attend White House press briefings for Raw Story. Brewer is also a contributor at BTC News. He was the first reporter to ask about the Downing Street memo and the Pentagon analysts scandal at White House briefings.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Zyxius,

Depending upon your definition of 'terror', the people challenging the writ of the government are doing just that - terrorizing innocent civilians.

I understand that you disagree with the methodology used to combat these people, preferring the rule of law (which is a somewhat more complicated demand than it appears, requiring its own discussion, given the FCR in the Tribal areas) but surely you are not suggesting that these militants spreading chaos are a figment of our imagination?

 

[Zyxius]

Zyxius,

Depending upon your definition of 'terror', the people challenging the writ of the government are doing just that - terrorizing innocent civilians.

I understand that you disagree with the methodology used to combat these people, preferring the rule of law (which is a somewhat more complicated demand than it appears, requiring its own discussion, given the FCR in the Tribal areas) but surely you are not suggesting that these militants spreading chaos are a figment of our imagination?

This sounds like a spill over from our discussion on another thread. All I'm trying to show here is that the Bush regime lied about many of the things that scared people into letting him set up his WoT regime. Leading scholars, politicians, academics, intellectuals and activists agree that the Bush regime has used scare tactics to bring about the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, get the US into Afghanistan, get the US into Iraq, etc. There is ample proof that the Anthrax scare was a hoax which led to Congress quickly approving the Patriot Act. The hoax about weapons of mass desctruction got Bush the Iraq War he wanted. And the Hoax about the US having PROOF that Usama Bin Laden orchestrated 9/11 got them into Afghanistan.

The issue of "terrorists" themselves is another subject. One could argue that Bush is a terrorist...but that is not the purpose of this thread.

 

[maqsad]

What the hell? Never publicly named as a suspect? Why wasn't this story covered better?




Anthrax suspect commits suicide -DAWN - International; August 02, 2008

Anthrax suspect commits suicide​

WASHINGTON, Aug 1: A US government scientist has committed suicide just as he was about to be charged in the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks that sparked widespread panic in the United States.

Bruce Ivins, 62, died on Tuesday. He had worked for 18 years at the US bio defence research laboratories at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where he prepared anthrax used in vaccine experiments, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Prosecutors were mulling whether to seek the death penalty against Ivins, who was never publicly named as a suspect in the seven-year-old case that left five people dead and spooked the country just weeks after the Sept 11 attacks, The Washington Post reported.

The FBI had no immediate comment.

“We are not making any official comment or statement at this time,” Debbie Weierman, spokeswoman for the FBI’s Washington field office, said.

In a statement, Ivins’s attorney, Paul Kemp, confirmed the investigation and asserted his client’s innocence.“For more than a year, we have been privileged to represent Dr Bruce Ivins during the investigation of the anthrax deaths of September and October of 2001,” Kemp said.

“We are saddened by his death, and disappointed that we will not have the opportunity to defend his good name and reputation in a court of law. We assert his innocence in these killings, and would have established that at trial,” he said.

Ivins was a world-renowned scientist who had “fully cooperated” with the investigation for six years, assisting the government “in every way that was asked of him”, the attorney said.

“The relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo takes its toll in different ways on different people, as has already been seen in this investigation,” Kemp said.

“In Dr Ivins’s case, it led to his untimely death. We ask that the media respect the privacy of his family, and allow them to grieve.”

Ivins’s death came a month after the Justice Department paid a former “person of interest” in the case, Steven Hatfill, a bio weapons expert who once worked at Fort Detrick, almost six million dollars in a settlement over the FBI’s public pursuit of him.

Soon after the settlement, Ivins’s access to sensitive areas at work was limited, the Los Angeles Times reported, adding that he was to be forced to retire in September.

The Times said Ivins had been informed of “impending prosecution” in connection with the case, citing sources familiar with the FBI investigation.

Five people died after handling anthrax-tainted letters that were addressed to prominent politicians and journalists in the deadliest bio-terrorism attack in US history.

Ivins had even helped the Federal Bureau of Investigation analyse one of the envelopes filled with anthrax spores sent to a US senator’s office in Washington.

His death on Tuesday, with no mention of suicide, was announced to his former colleagues in an email, the Times reported.

“People here are pretty shook up about it,” Caree Vander Linden, a spokeswoman for the agency where he worked, was quoted as saying.

A friend told the Times Ivins died of an overdose of prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine and a former co-worker said he had been treated for depression and had threatened suicide.

One of his two brothers, Thomas Ivins, told the Times he was not surprised by the suicide.

“He buckled under the pressure from the federal government,” Thomas Ivins said, adding that FBI agents came to Ohio last year to question him about his brother.

“I was questioned by the feds, and I sung like a canary” about Bruce Ivins’s personality, Thomas Ivins said. “He had in his mind that he was omnipotent.”—AFP

 

[pkpatriotic]

Fort Detrick Scientist "Commits Suicide" as Anthrax investigation closes in
by Wayne Madsen
Bruce Ivins, a microbiologist at the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland, reportedly committed suicide after ingesting prescription-strength Tylenol and codeine, as the FBI prepared to charge him in the anthrax attacks weeks after the 9/11 attack in 2001.

Ivins was part of the FBI team that investigated the anthrax sent in letters to the Senate's Democratic leadership.

In March of this year, Fox News reported: ""The FBI has narrowed its focus to 'about four' suspects in the 6 1/2-year investigation of the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, and at least three of those suspects are linked to the Army'™s bio-weapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland . . . Among the pool of suspects are three scientists '” a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist '” linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID. The FBI has collected writing samples from the three scientists in an effort to match them to the writer of anthrax-laced letters that were mailed to two U.S. senators and at least two news outlets in the fall of 2001, a law enforcement source confirmed." It is now believed that the microbiologist in question was Ivins. The other suspects have not yet been identified. Although the FBI said the four Fort Detrick personnel were suspects, WMR previously reported that some Fort Detrick personnel were in a whistleblower status concerning knowledge of the perpetrators of the anthrax attacks.

Fox News' March report stated: "Fox News obtained an email from a USAMRIID employee describing how he was surprised to learn the powdered anthrax was produced at Fort Detrick. The e-mail written by the employee who had been asked to compare the anthrax sent through the mail with that produced at Fort Detrick read in part: "Then he said he had to look at a lot of samples that the FBI had prepared . . . to duplicate the letter material . . . Then the bombshell. He said that the best duplication of the material was the stuff made by [name redacted]. He said that it was almost exactly the same . . his knees got shaky and he sputtered, 'But I told the General we didn't make spore powder!'"

WMR reported on July 3, 2008: "WMR has now learned from an informed source in Frederick, Maryland, the location of Fort Detrick, that the author of the email was in the highest echelons at USAMRIID. Previously, WMR learned from an official of the National Guard Bureau in Provo, Utah that the aerosolized anthrax used in the attacks was originally produced at the US Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, the location of the government's only aerosolized anthrax production facility in the country, and sent to Fort Detrick for use in the postal system attacks in 2001."

On October 5, 2005, WMR reported on the major reason behind the Army's anthrax attacks on American citizens and political leaders: "It should be recalled that Congress originally passed the Patriot Act during an anthrax attack on the offices of the Senate Democratic Majority Leader and the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Although the anthrax used in the attack was traced to a strain maintained by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, the perpetrators were never found."

On April 8, 2002, this editor wrote the following for CounterPunch: "Now that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has officially put the anthrax investigation on a back burner, it is time for Americans to think the unthinkable: that the FBI has never been keen to identify the perpetrator because that perpetrator may, in fact, be the U.S. Government itself. Evidence is mounting that the source of the anthrax was a top secret U.S. Army laboratory in Maryland and that the perpetrators involve high-level officials in the U.S. military and intelligence infrastructure.

Forget unfounded conspiracy theories. The evidence is overwhelming that the FBI has consistently shied away from pursuing the anthrax investigation, in much the same way it avoided pursuing leads in the USS Cole, East Africa U.S. embassies, and Khobar Towers bombings.

On April 4, ABC News investigative reporter Brian Ross broadcast on ABC World News Tonight that after six months the FBI still had hardly any clues and no suspects in its anthrax investigation. A Soviet defector, the former First Deputy Director of Biopreparat from 1988 to 1992 and anthrax expert, Ken Alibek (formerly Kanatjan Alibekov), now a U.S. government consultant, made the astounding claim that the person who is behind the anthrax attacks may, in fact, been advising the U.S. government. After having passed a lie detector test, Alibek was cleared of any suspicion.

Interestingly, Alibek is President of Hadron Advanced Biosystems. On October 2, 2001, just two days before the first anthrax case was reported in Boca Raton, Florida and a week and a half before the first anthrax was sent through the mail to NBC News in New York, Advanced Biosystems received an $800,000 grant from NIH to focus on very specific defenses against anthrax. Hadron has long been linked with the CIA. The links include charges by many former government officials, including the late former Attorney General Elliot Richardson, that the company's former President, Earl Brian, illegally procured a database system called PROMIS (Prosecutors' Management Information System) from Inslaw, Inc. and used his connections to the CIA and Israeli intelligence to illegally distribute the software to various foreign governments.

Ross reported that U.S. military and intelligence agencies have refused to provide the FBI with a full listing of the secret facilities and employees working on anthrax projects. Because of this stonewalling, crucial evidence has been withheld. Professor Jeanne Guilleman of MIT's Biological Weapons Studies Center told ABC, 'We're talking here about laboratories where, in fact, the material that we know was in the Daschle letter and in the Leahy letter could have been produced. And I think that's what the FBI is still trying to find out.'

The first major media outlet to accuse the FBI of foot dragging was the BBC. On March 14, the BBC's Newsnight program highlighted an interview with Dr. Barbara Rosenberg of the Federation of American Scientists. After claiming the CIA was involved, through government contractors, in secret testing of sending anthrax through the mail, Rosenberg, someone with close ties to the biological warfare community, has been attacked by the White House, FBI, and, not surprisingly, the CIA.

The BBC also interviewed Dr. Timothy Read of the Institute of Genomic Research and a leading expert on the genetic characteristics of anthrax. Read said of the two strains, 'They're definitely related to each other ... closely related to each other.' However, Read would not go so far as to suggest the Florida strain, known as the Ames strain, and that developed at the U.S. Army's top secret Fort Detrick biological warfare laboratory - officially known as the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases -- were one and the same.

William Capers Patrick III was part of the original Fort Detrick anthrax development program, which 'officially' ended in 1972 when President Nixon signed, along with the Soviet Union and United Kingdom, the Biological Weapons Convention. Nixon had actually ordered the Pentagon to stop producing biological weapons in 1969. It now seems likely that the U.S. military and intelligence community failed to follow Nixon's orders and, in fact, have consistently violated a lawful treaty signed by the United States.

Last December, the New York Times claimed Patrick authored a secret paper on the effects of sending anthrax through the mail, a report he denies. However, Patrick told the BBC that he was surprised that as an expert of anthrax (he was a member of the UN biological warfare inspection team in the 1990s), the FBI did not interview him right after the first anthrax attacks.

The BBC reported that Battelle Memorial Institute (a favorite Pentagon and CIA contractor and for whom Alibek served as biological warfare program manager in 1998) conducted a secret biological warfare test in the Nevada desert using genetically-modified anthrax early last September, right before the terrorist attacks. The BBC reported that Patrick's paper on sending anthrax through the mail was also part of the classified contractor work on the deadly bacterial agent.

The Hartford Courant reported last January that 27 sets of biological toxin specimens were reported missing from Fort Detrick after an inventory was conducted in 1992. The paper reported that among the specimens missing was the Ames strain on anthrax. A former Detrick laboratory technician named Eric Oldenberg told The Courant that while at Detrick, he only handled the Ames strain, the same strain sent to the Senate and the media. The Hartford Courant also revealed that other specimens missing included Ebola, hanta virus, simian AIDS, and two labeled 'unknown,' a cover term for classified research on secret biological agents.

Steven Block of Stanford University, an expert on biological warfare, told The Dallas Morning News that, 'The American process for preparing anthrax is secret in its details, but experts know that it produces an extremely pure powder. One gram (a mere 28th of an ounce) contains a trillion spores . . . A trillion spores per gram is basically solid spore . . . It appears from all reports so far that this was a powder made with the so-called optimal U.S. recipe . . . That means they either had to have information from the United States or maybe they were the United States.' (author's emphasis).

Block also told the Dallas paper, 'The FBI, after all these months, has still not arrested anybody . . . It's possible, as has been suggested, that they may be standing back because the person that's involved with it may have secret information that the United States government would not like to have divulged.'"

The "secret information" about the anthrax attacks is now leaking out in a torrent and the perpetrator, as many suspected seven years ago, is the U.S. government. So the question begs to be asked -- if the U.S. government would subject its own citizens to a bio-warfare terrorist attack, could it have also engineered plane hijackings and the demolition of the World Trade Center with the assistance of Saudi, Israeli agents, and private military contractor agents? The record now suggests the answer to that question is a clear and very loud "Yes."