Posted on 03/23/2002 12:09:09 PM PST by ex-Texan
Report: Links Between Sept. 11 Hijacker, Anthrax
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Florida doctor who treated one of the alleged Sept. 11 hijackers last June for a dark lesion on his leg said after reviewing his notes weeks after the attack that the lesion was consistent with anthrax, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
The newspaper said a new memorandum prepared by experts at the Johns Hopkins Center for Biodefense Strategies about Dr. Christos Tsonas' assertion had renewed debate about a possible link between the hijackers and anthrax-laced letters that killed five people in the United States in October and November.
But it quoted an FBI spokesman as saying exhaustive testing had failed to link the alleged hijackers to anthrax and nothing new had emerged to indicate otherwise.
The Times said Ahmed Alhanzawi went to the emergency room of Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, last June and told Tsonas a dark lesion he had on his leg had developed after bumping into a suitcase two months earlier.
He was accompanied by Ziad Samir Jarrah, the paper said. Both Alhanzawi and Jarrah -- among the 19 men identified by U.S. officials as hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks -- died together with the rest of the 44 people aboard United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in rural Pennsylvania. Three other hijacked airliners smashed into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people.
Tsonas said he cleaned the wound on Alhanzawi's leg and prescribed an antibiotic. He had no thought of anthrax, a disease extremely rare at the time in the United States and unfamiliar to many doctors, the Times said.
After federal investigators found the medicine among Alhanzawi's possessions, they went to Tsonas in October with pictures of the two men and the doctor's own notes from the June emergency room visit.
"I said, 'Oh, my God, my written description is consistent with cutaneous anthrax,"' Tsonas recalled, according to the Times.
Tsonas could not immediately be reached for contact.
Johns Hopkins biodefense center experts, who interviewed Tsonas, said the anthrax diagnosis was the most coherent interpretation of the available data, the Times said.
"Such a conclusion of course raises the possibility that the hijackers were handling anthrax and were the perpetrators of the anthrax letter attacks," it quoted the memorandum as saying.
Federal investigators have said they are targeting someone with knowledge of science, possibly a scientist with military links, in their hunt for those behind the anthrax attacks.
The Times quoted FBI spokesman John Collingwood as saying the possibility of a link between the alleged hijackers and the anthrax attacks had been fully investigated months ago.
"Exhaustive testing did not support that anthrax was present anywhere the hijackers had been. While we always welcome new information, nothing new has in fact developed," the Times quoted Collingwood as saying.
The apparent cutaneous anthrax episode in the article was in June, 2001. Here are some interesting facts:
The Washington Times 7/20/00 Bill Gertz "…..The FBI is investigating former Department of Energy counterintelligence chief Notra Trulock for possible disclosure of classified information, a Bureau spokesman said last night………. "The FBI received information from other government agencies that classified information was subject to possible compromise," said FBI spokesman John Collingwood said when asked about the computer raid. "The FBI, working with the Department of Justice, has an obligation to at least preliminarily determine the facts and determine if further investigation is warranted." Mr. Collingwood declined to say whether the FBI had obtained a warrant to search Mr. Trulock's Falls Church, Va., home…………. But other people close to the probe said the two FBI agents took the computer from the residence without a search warrant and that it belonged to the landlord of the town house on the 6000 block of Midhill Place………The computer was turned over to the FBI voluntarily, they said…….The action followed the publication of an article by Mr. Trulock critical of the Clinton administration in the current issue of National Review magazine…….."
...As public criticism mounted, the White House asked a senior FBI official, John Collingwood, to attend a "political strategy session" with senior presidential advisers on how to deal with the growing scandal.120 On the same day, the White House took the highly unusual step of releasing a confidential FBI statement confirming that the bureau was investigating possible criminal misconduct in the Travel Office.121 Thus, in addition to allegations of cronyism underlying the firing of the career employees, the White House came under fire for misusing the FBI, an independent investigative agency, for its own political ends, a charge that would surface time and again as the White House attempted to contain and manage embarrassing and potentially incriminating information through contacts with federal investigative agencies. Protocols required that White House contacts with the FBI go through the Department of Justice, and "[b]y calling on the FBI to help save the Administration from embarrassment, the White House appeared to be deviating from two decades of efforts to insulate the law-enforcement agency from even the appearance of Presidential manipulation."
"Exhaustive testing did not support that anthrax was present anywhere the hijackers had been. While we always welcome new information, nothing new has in fact developed," the Times quoted Collingwood as saying.
So what we have here is the NY Times saying, that Reuters said that (Clinton friend) Collingwood said blah blah blah. All of this makes the current "Gubment" look statist to a bunch of people on this thread.... Hmmmmm?
1) It took the heat off of U.S. muslims.
2) It helped to pacify the herd while government control was vastly extended.
3) It helps cover for the pitiful security measures at airports (yes Dorothy we should profile!!) that punish our citizens without adding anything to security.
4) The tinfoil hat crowd are really on to something when they say that justice, Fibbie, and BATF are part of a conspiracy to steal our rights.
5) Discrediting the right wing helps the immigration lobby immensely.
What are you sources and quotes on this claim?
Considering all the "coincidental" links that surfaced between the Atta-gang and the distribution of the anthrax, I never, ever, understood why the lone right wing wacko theory took hold in some circles.Because during 8 years of Clinton the FBI focused almost exclusively on "right wing terror groups". Now that's all they know. To admit it was radical Muslim terror groups is to admit they've been wasting their time chasing bogeys for the last 9 years.
When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
What are you sources and quotes on this claim?
Have you been in Rip Van winkle mode?
The question was simple. You chose not to answer it. You've now posted twice on the subject and have not given a quote and source.
Good point.
At present all the official statements have stated that there is no conclusive evidence about who was behind these anthrax attacks. George W. Bush, Tom ridge, and John Asjhcroft have all declined to specifically assign blame. Sources in the FBI have been responsible for almost all the stories stating a totally domestic source of the attacks. we had all better realize there are many forces at work within our Federal Government and some of them view the September 11, 2001 events as nowhere near the importance of establishing expandeing and entreching their petty empires.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
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