Posted on 10/02/2002 6:59:02 AM PDT by mrustow
She's b-a-a-a-ck!
Remember Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg? She's the tenured Marxist activist who from circa October 2001 until August, with the media's consent, manipulated coverage of last fall's anthrax attacks, in which five people were murdered and over a dozen sickened by anthrax-contaminated letters. She also engineered the smear campaign that sought to railroad scientist Dr. Steven J. Hatfill for the anthrax attacks.
On September 22, 2002, Rosenberg published a long op-ed essay in the Los Angeles Times, in which she sought to resurrect her discredited theory, according to which the anthrax killer was an insider from the American biodefense program at USAMRIID (the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases), at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, Maryland, and to take some more cheap shots at the man whose career and life she has sought to destroy, Steven Hatfill.
The motive for Rosenberg's campaign is her desire to destroy America's biodefense program, and thus leave America defenseless against biological attack. Rosenberg is a Marxist; as former Marxist Irving Louis Horowitz once observed, contemporary Marxists believe that anything that harms the United States helps the Third World. Rosenberg targeted Hatfill because he opposed bioweapons protocols Rosenberg supports, and because while living in the former Rhodesia (since 1980, Zimbabwe), he had supported Rhodesia's white apartheid regime, while she apparently supports the black apartheidists who eventually prevailed, and who have since 1980 been led by genocidal dictator Robert Mugabe.
Beginning in late December or early January, Rosenberg began spreading two main stories, the "American" and the "European" version, plus "soft" and "hard" variations, respectively. She told American reporters that the anthrax killer was a biodefense program insider, who had sent the letters not to kill anyone, but to warn the public of the danger of biological warfare. The Baltimore Sun's Scott Shane dubbed this the "bioevangelist" theory. Rosenberg told more gullible European reporters, that the anthrax killer was a scientist who worked for the CIA, and who carried out the attacks on Agency orders. In her "soft" variant, Rosenberg claimed that she had come up with her own "profile" of the attacker, based on publicly available information; in the "hard" variation, she insisted that she had FBI sources.
Rosenberg has tended to pair the American and soft versions, and the European and hard versions, respectively. What the European journalists didn't know was that the version Rosenberg was feeding them came not from "FBI sources," but from the defunct Chris Carter TV series, Millennium.
On July 22, I advised Hatfill, that if he wanted to stay out of jail, he'd better take the offensive.
Barbara Hatch Rosenberg adopted a low profile beginning about August 11. That was the same day that Steven Hatfill held the first of two dramatic press conferences, in which he named Rosenberg as one of his tormentors:
"The only thing I know about her views is that she and I apparently differ on whether the United States should sign onto a proposed modification of the international biological weapons convention. This was something I opposed to safeguard American industry, and I believe she favored. "I am at a complete loss to explain her reported hostility and accusations. I don't know this woman at all. "In any event, within several days after Dr. Rosenberg's reported comments in Congress, the FBI called me again at home. I was asked if these agents could look at my apartment and swab the walls for anthrax spores. I was surprised at the request. Anthrax is a deadly inhalational disease.""According to The Frederick (Md.) News-Post of June 27, 2002, in June 2002 a woman named Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, who affiliates herself with the Federation of American Scientists, saw fit to discuss me as a suspect in the anthrax case in a meeting with FBI agents and Senate staffers. I don't know Dr. Rosenberg. I have never met her, I have never spoken or corresponded with this woman. And to my knowledge, she is ignorant of my work and background except in the very broadest of terms.
And yet, according to an August 11 AP story, Rosenberg insisted to Associated Press reporter Laura Meckler, "I have never mentioned any names, not publicly, not to the FBI, not to the Senate committee or staff, not to anyone. I have never said or written anything that pointed only to one specific person. If anyone sees parallels, that's their opinion."
Rosenberg made a similar denial to the New York Times' Eric Schmitt.
Rosenberg's denials are nonsense on stilts. She had long claimed to have a "profile," but she didn't have a profile, she had a person, Hatfill, from whom she derived the profile. Her reference to Hatfill as "Mr. Z," in a June report she'd posted at the web site of Red Flags Weekly, was a transparent dodge.
The motivation for Rosenberg's denials is transparent: She fears a libel lawsuit from Hatfill. But in the June 26 Hartford Courant, reporters Dave Altimari and Jack Dolan wrote that "Hatfill's name came up during a [June 18] meeting between Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a biological weapons expert from the Federation of American Scientists, and staff members of Sens. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., and Thomas A. Daschle, D-S.D., both of whom were sent anthrax-contaminated letters. FBI agents were present at the meeting, sources said." Altimari and Dolan added, "For months, Rosenberg has been publicly prodding the FBI to take a closer look at Hatfill." (Hatfill's reference to the Frederick News-Post, was to an article which repeated the Hartford Courant story.)
And in an August 8 story, USA Today reporters Kevin Johnson and Toni Locy wrote that, Rosenberg does not name Hatfill in her writings, but she has told authorities that she is referring to him.
In June, Henry Kelly, the president of the Federation of American Scientists, refused to post Rosenberg's newest report on the anthrax case, because it clearly pointed to one person. According to an August 19 web log entry written for the FAS web site by Stephen Aftergood,
"Rosenberg, a scientist at the State University of New York who also chairs the FAS Working Group on Biological Weapons, has been an outspoken critic of the FBI investigation and has publicly and privately advanced her own theories concerning who might have been responsible for the anthrax attacks.
"'Rosenberg's remarks on this topic do not represent the views of the Federation of American Scientists," wrote FAS President Henry C. Kelly in a letter to the editor of the Hartford Courant published on July 1."
"Accordingly, the Federation declined to post on its web site a June 2002 analysis by Rosenberg that purported to identify a 'likely perpetrator.'
"The Federation obviously encourages its members to provide officials with information and analysis that might be pertinent to the solution of a crime like the anthrax attacks, said Kelly.
"But 'FAS opposes any effort to publicly identify possible suspects or 'persons of interest' outside of a formal law enforcement proceeding and has not published such accusations,' said Kelly."
Soon after Steven Hatfill's first press conference (August 11), "Red Flags," the socialist medical web site which had posted Rosenberg's June "Mr. Z" report, took it down. FAS and Red Flags both sought to protect themselves from defamation lawsuits by Hatfill.
In the August 3 Washington Times, reporter Guy Taylor quoted Rosenberg as telling him that on August 1, the same day as one of the FBI's highly publicized searches of Hatfill's home, she was visited by agents and, "They kept asking me did I think there might be a group in the biodefense community that was trying to land the blame on Hatfill.... Maybe [Dr. Hatfill] was being set up. That's my speculation of what [the agents] thought." Taylor continued, "'I just cannot imagine that it was a bona fide conspiracy,' she said, adding that she told the FBI she had heard nothing to suggest a group was trying to frame Dr. Hatfill."
The preceding passage has a surreal quality; the main suspect of any such conspiracy would be none other than Barbara Hatch Rosenberg! And the FBI agents asking the questions knew full well of Rosenberg's role in Hatfill's misery – after all, she'd sought them out.
I think that the real reason for the agents' questions, was to let Rosenberg know that the Bureau would be in charge of the spin machine that she had previously controlled.
In early September, Rosenberg announced that she had come up with a new anthrax report, but would be sharing it solely with the FBI. That was clearly another move to limit her liability.
For an indication of how little the mainstream media has changed its ways of covering the anthrax case, note that in Reuters reporter James Vicini's September 5 article, FBI Criticized for Failing to Solve Anthrax Case, Vicini confounded those who criticized the Bureau for having wasted time dogging Hatfill, with Rosenberg, who was behind the anti-Hatfill campaign.
Which brings us back to Rosenberg's September 22 L.A. Times op-ed. While repeating her unsupported theory that a biodefense insider was the anthrax attacker, she could not resist taking swipes at Hatfill, albeit in a fashion designed to limit her liability:
"The anthrax investigation has raised questions about the nature and value of the work at Ft. Detrick and has brought to light the granting of security clearance and free access to highly dangerous biological agents to someone with falsified credentials – very disturbing whether or not he turns out to be the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks."
The anthrax investigation has not raised any questions about "the nature and value of the work at Ft. Detrick" (read: USAMRIID), but that was a segue to an attack on Hatfill. Since Steven Hatfill did inflate his credentials, Rosenberg can get away with her weasely language. But she omitted noting that his access was to "dangerous biological agents" such as the Ebola virus, for which he is a recognized, world-class researcher. As the saying goes, a half-truth is a whole lie.
The ultimate irony is that Rosenberg is charging a leading scientist with being unqualified to do his speciality, in an article for which she has misrepresented her own professional status. Rosenberg identified herself to the Los Angeles Times as "a research professor of molecular biology at State University of New York at Purchase." In fact, she is a "research professor" of environmental science, a much less prestigious title. And there is no "state university" in Purchase; Rosenberg's employer, Purchase College, is a four-year, state performing arts school, for which she neither teaches nor conducts research.
A reader might be skeptical as to how much mischief Rosenberg could have created. Rosenberg got Senators Patrick Leahy and Tom Daschle – recipients of two anthrax-contaminated letters last fall – to apply pressure to the FBI. In turn, the FBI harassed Hatfill; invented a phony story about bloodhounds in order to fraudulently induce a federal judge to issue a criminal search warrant which was executed before a tipped-off media on August 1; and on August 1 sent an e-mail to Steven Hatfill's employer, Louisiana State University, illegally ordering it to cease and desist employing Hatfill in any Justice Department-funded program, which amounted to a federal blacklisting of Hatfill, whose field is funded entirely by the Justice Department. Not only was Hatfill terminated, but his boss at LSU, Steven Guillot, was also fired for his failure to immediately violate Hatfill's rights.
But surely scientists would know better, you ask. Consider the following e-mail I received from a scientist just the other day:
"I held my annual house party last night for all the people that work for me, along with their significant others. The subject of going to war with Iraq came up, as well as last year's anthrax attacks. None of these people are news-junkies but they do follow the news. It was interesting to observe that every single one of them regarded the anthrax attacks as a closed case. I heard quotes like 'Yeah, it was that guy who used to work at the bioweapons lab.'"
Barbara Hatch Rosenberg still holds the key to Steven Hatfill's fate, and remains central to the media-political maelstrom that has engulfed Hatfill.
But who cares about Hatfill, anyway? According to an ABC News poll published on Tuesday, only 20 percent of Americans feel that the government is trampling their civil liberties. Everything's fine, as long as somebody else is getting stomped on.
Hey, let's party!
To comment on this article or express your opinion directly to the author, you are invited to e-mail Nicholas at adddda@earthlink.net .
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I title it:
Portrait of a Possible Frame Job
1. FBI rushes out its “profile” last year. Seems to picture a conservative-like male. I question whether the background info that makes up the profile is biased by only including American instances of Anthrax mail hoaxes, which involved anti-abortion hoaxers and militia types. Hanging on to the profile provides CYA value for investigators. Also, perhaps a Clintonite “need” to frame this as right-wing domestic has been speculated - note that off the bat they named the investigation “Amerithrax.” Such spins the investigation from the beginning, also for the armchair investigators and journalists.
2. Last year “expert” Barbara Rosenberg begins her ever evolving research. Eventually she claims ability to “profile.” Clearly, she speaks to many in the industry, though, since she learns specs about Hatfill (he wasn’t the first insinuated). She says she has contacts inside the biowarfare industry, and outside. Not surprising.
3. Theories fly in the public. There’s Zack, the Egyptian guy, the Iraqi woman, etc.
4. About the same time these names come up, Rosenberg creates her latest “profile” in January 2002. A “profile” is supposed to match the psychological type of person whom presumably did the crime. Her “profile” seems more to pick out a certain person, with facts about him she learned that are not part of a profile of motivation, but just seem to pick him out. Her facts may be out of date, or assumed, about Hatfill. Below is her profile in bold face, with my comments. Please note that although she has referred to it as her profile, in print on her website she calls it a “possible portrait.” IMO, a portrait suitable for framing.
Possible Portrait of the Anthrax Perpetrator, by Barbara Rosenberg
Insider in US biodefense, doctoral degree in a relevant branch of biology
- Hatfill.
Middle-aged American
- If not Hatfill, what’s her psychological basis for picking out a “Middle aged” person, and “American”
Experienced and skilled in working with hazardous pathogens, including anthrax, and avoiding contamination
- Hatfill. But this really isn’t a requirement of sending some stuff in the mail.
Works for a CIA contractor in Washington, DC area
- Hatfill. Why not a university or some other place? Why is fact relevant in an unbiased “profile?” She’s picking out Hatfill.
Has up-to-date vaccination with anthrax vaccine
- Presumption, but wrong. Besides mentioning Barbara, Hatfill made a point in his speech that he had not had an innoculation in two years time. He knows Barbara’s “profile” and this is the one fact he could dispute, so he went out of the way to mention it.
Has clearance for access to classified information
- Hatfill. But, so many others, if it’s an “insider” case. If it’s an insider case, the point is obvious. And what information?
Worked in USAMRIID laboratory in the past, in some capacity, and has access now
- Hatfill, more or less.
Knows Bill Patrick and has probably learned a thing or two about weaponization from him, informally
- HATFILL. She knows that Hatfill, among his many other things done, worked on a paper with Patrick, the one allegedly about Anthrax in the mail, but was about many things, apparently.
Has had training or experience in covering evidence
- Use gloves, cellophane tape and leave no fingerprints? Learn that from any tv show. David Tell notes in his article Remember Anthrax?
Actually, though, all he exhibited was a bare minimum of human brain function and an animal instinct for self-preservation. Ask yourself: Would you be willing to touch with your bare hands, much less lick with your tongue, an envelope containing two billion spores of the universe's most dangerous bacterium? The question answers itself
May have had an UNSCOM connection
- Hatfill, maybe. “Just by coincidence” some information was floating around that he had been a member, and Barbara is hedging her bets, because her info is less than perfect. In August explained he was never a member, but was on a “standby list” - I guess like a substitute teacher. http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/08/01/anthrax.investigation/
Has had a dispute with a government agency
- HATFILL. He had a beef with his employment, failing a lie detector test on some irrelevant questions. Think about it, what has this to do with any unbiased profile? Nothing. She’s naming a person.
Has a private location where the materials for the attack were accumulated and prepared
- Anybody. What, do it in public? Perhaps this explains the repetitive investigations by the FBI of his storage space near his parent’s house in Florida. Maybe some Senate staffer said aha! He has a private location! It fits Dr. Barbara’s profile!
Worked on the letters alone or with peripheral encouragement and assistance
- Barbara the psychology-expert again. Loner. Ok, that’s what the FBI profile said.
Fits FBI profile
- Fair enough. What’s the profile? From link above:
Mueller said an FBI profile of the suspected anthrax mailer -- a lone person living within the United States with experience working in labs and smart enough to "produce a highly refined and deadly product" -- had not changed.”
- Why stick to a “profile”. Why not investigate all avenues? Has Atta’s old haunts (“private locations”) in South Florida been tested with the latest equipment, like those used at AMI last week?
Has the necessary expertise, access and a past history indicating appropriate capabilities and temperment
- Meaningless. Just reiterating Hatfill-like expertise.
Has been questioned by FBI
- Hatfill. And so, many others. This fact has no place in a “profile”. Just embellishment to make her “profile” look good.
________
That’s her profile/portrait. A picture of Hatfill.
5. In first part of 2002, Barbara makes the tour, touting her “profile”, numerous papers report of it, and her opinions. Naturally, people want the case solved. She repetitively claims she, or the insiders know who did it, and the FBI isn’t cooperating. Conspiracies and coverups are rumored.
6. In June, “Mrs. Rosenberg, chairman of the biological arms-control panel for the Federation of American Scientists, told The Washington Times she had been expecting a visit from the FBI since June, when she briefed staffers with the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees”
Rosenberg gets her chance with impressionable staffers, who know 99% less than any lurker here. Perhaps the staffers were impressed with her “erudition”, reported to the bosses, and they pressured the FBI to make arrests, and follow this scientific evidence as framed by Rosenberg. People want arrests, credit for pushing the FBI to move. Some in FBI, or at least the Justice Department, might have been impressed by this academic’s evidence. I recall pics at the time they were first searching his home, the Justice Dept. team was all smiles, like they made the case, and a certainty of their case. I’d bet that they were more impressed than the FBI which hadn’t been targeting Hatfill. They probably pushed the FBI to act against Hatfill more rigorously. (Obviously no freepers in that J.D. group, freepers “fisked” Rosenberg often.
8. Another push probably came from Nicholas Kristof’s articles in the NY Times. The NY Times carries weight, and is read much. Kristof’s articles were basically rehashes of Rosenberg for the “quality paper” crowd. Infamously, there is his “Mr. Z” portrait. The piece basically named Hatfill in Rosenberg fashion, colored with conspiracy and insinuations of FBI muddleheadness. At the time Hatfill’s name was already out there, so the secrecy was unneeded, yet lent credibility and authority to the story. And it’s the NY Times! I can imagine politicos in DC, unfamiliar with the details, were shocked, and wanted answers and things to get done, etc. Heck, it was in the NY Times!
9. Then came the searches, the focus on Hatfill’s name from the authorities, etc. You all know this story.
10. Many here have felt she was framing, or “pinning” Hatfill for a long time. Others agree (maybe we helped in the discussion):
Unconventional Detective Bears Down on a Killer (September 4)
”...That view still doesn't sit well with some scientists, although few are willing to criticize her in public. "My feeling is that if there is such a conspiracy, the FBI is not a part of it," says Steven Block, a biophysicist at Stanford University who has advised the U.S. government on bioweapons. Some scientists also felt that it wasn't a coincidence that Rosenberg's profile of the attacker fit one person. "She just seems to be too anxious to pin this on [Hatfill]," says Peter Jahrling, a senior USAMRIID researcher, who says Rosenberg's comments about the case led him to decide early on that she had Hatfill in mind. Rosenberg maintains that she never named Hatfill or anyone else in comments to the FBI or in her statements.”and
Both admirers and detractors agree that she has pushed the FBI forward. "Without question, she's influenced this investigation," says Block, who also strongly suspects that the culprit, if not a U.S. citizen himself, has ties to the U.S. bioweapons program.”
Luckily, the FBI, or a part of it, is considering whether Rosenberg was being set up to pin Hatfill (politely and tactically not mentioning of suspicion of bad intent on her part):
From August 2
Scientist says FBI asked about setup
A top microbiologist in New York says FBI agents interviewing her Thursday asked whether a team of government scientists could be trying to frame Steven J. Hatfill, a former Army researcher whose apartment in Frederick, Md., was searched for a second time by FBI agents on Thursday.If what I have said here is accurate, or somewhat so, why did she do this?"They kept asking me did I think there might be a group in the biodefense community that was trying to land the blame on Hatfill," said Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a microbiologist at State University of New York.
Mrs. Rosenberg said agents visited her hours before she learned Dr. Hatfill's apartment was being searched.
Hatfill speculated it was because he was against a treaty she was for, but I think he’s fishing there. She may have not liked his “type” she being a lefty, he allegedly fitting a “right wing” personality or something like that. Maybe lefties “contacts” led her down the wrong path. Don’t know. Maybe a law suit will find out.
Okie01 notes that Babs is a friend of another scientist who created a weak report about an anthrax outbreak in Zimbabwe during the civil war there:
Rosenberg may have keyed on Hatfill as soon as she discovered his Rhodesia connection. His claimed service with the Selous Scouts would be very provocative to a leftist.Mix in the previous assertion by one of Rosenberg's associates, Dr. Meryl Nass, that a concurrent anthrax epidemic among black farmers in Rhodesia was actually the result of bio-warfare by the evil white government.
You can almost see the light bulb going on over Rosenberg's head. Though it may have been an embellishment, Hatfill's claimed Rhodesian service would represent prima facie evidence in a leftist's mind. Any ideas or suggestions about the above are welcomed.
The author got it ALMOST right. The school is SUNY Purchase as in "State University of New York"....not Purchase College. It is in fact a State University. It is also one of the most Liberal PERFORMING ARTS Colleges I've ever visited. This type of outlandish fabrication - claiming to be faculty at a school that has neither a history nor any program remotely related to your field of study should be more than enough to discredit Rosenberg. A scribe from the LA Times wouldn't have mixed up a name like Purchase with say other SUNY sites like Binghamton, so I doubt it was a transcription error on the reporter's part.
. The only "Biology" Rosenberg would have been able to lecture on or practice on that campus would be of the Lesbian/Gay Sexual Practices variety. The place is like FAME meets Harvey Milk High.
How many people do you know, when asked where they work (and they know the answer will be published and read)will lie about it? What reasons would someone have to lie about something like that?
Now ask yourself what SCIENTIST would do so? I can imagine some run-of-the-mill Joe giving an incorrect answer by citing a former employer when he or she is new to a job doing it but not a detail-oriented person like a scientist.
IIRC, in one of his exposes on Rosenberg, the author explained that only faculty from four different campuses -- those of the state university centers in Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, and Stony Brook -- may properly refer to themselves as "State University of New York" faculty.
If you did your homework on Rosenberg, you would also know that she stopped operating in a scientific fashion many years ago, and is wholly unreliable where details are concerned.
The reason she would lie about her title is obvious: to give herself a credibility she lacks. Reporters and editors collude with her, because they want her to appear authoritative.
Now, what is your reason for defending a fraud like Rosenberg, while making demonstrably false, if petty, charges against the expose writer? Are you merely a lazy, petty, mischief-maker?
And so, I am concluding for the moment, that you're basically impossible. And so, I still don't feel that I love you.
Maybe the third time will be the charm.
That it is correctly titled SUNY College at Purchase is news to me. All the persons who I know who went there called it SUNY Purchase, in fact, anyone I have ever discussed the school with has called it SUNY Purchase, so I stand corrected. It's a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, really.
What I was trying to point out is that citing Purchase as the school where she was/is employed would have been a huge red flag to many persons. It was to the writer of the article but not to a LAT writer who - one would assume - do a little background research on his or her subject to suppliment what was written and/or fact check. It points to the innacurate nature of what's being put before us as "news" and the lack of credibility of the person making accusations. That persons in Congress would rely on Rosenberg as an authority on the subject in question is troubling. There is an agenda there and there should not be ANY agenda in the quest for answers in all of this.
#7 too. Too tired to check if it's much different.
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