Posted on 06/09/2003 7:07:25 PM PDT by John H K
As the FBI began draining an entire pond today in its 20-month-old anthrax probe, investigators remained focused on one man in the hunt for the perpetrator, ABCNEWS' World News Tonight reported.
And today's unusual move appears to be the FBI's last, best shot at proving what it so far has been unable to prove, that former government scientist Steven Hatfill was the anthrax killer.
Five people died and more than a dozen others were sickened in the rash of anthrax attacks targeting Congress and media outlets in the fall of 2001.
The decision to drain the pond in Maryland's Frederick Municipal Forest was based on what federal officials say is no more than a growing circumstantial case against Hatfill, federal law enforcement sources said.
The FBI's working theory, sources said, is that Hatfill, who lived eight miles away in Frederick, Md., next to U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases where he worked, used makeshift lab equipment to put finely powdered anthrax in envelopes, and then dumped the equipment in the pond. Hatfill has vehemently denied any involvement in the anthrax attacks, and his spokesman reiterated that today.
"They can drain the Pacific Ocean and they're not going to find any evidence that Steve Hatfill was the anthrax killer because he's had no involvement whatsoever," said Hatfill spokesman Pat Clawson.
The Sweater Box Mystery
But the circumstantial case is continuing to develop. The FBI was led to the pond last year by bloodhounds, including one named Tinkerbell, tracking the scent picked up from Hatfill and the anthrax letters, federal sources said.
Over the Christmas holiday, FBI divers recovered what they think was a piece of the makeshift equipment used to load the anthrax, a plastic sweater box with two hand-sized holes cut in it, sources said.
Other circumstantial evidence that has sources said has led the FBI to continue its focus on Hatfill includes his presence in Florida, around the time an anthrax-laced letter was mailed to the American Media Co. in Boca Raton, Fla.
Also, sources said, Hatfill made an admission to the FBI that he was taking the powerful antibiotic Cipro at the time of the anthrax attacks, which he reportedly said was for a nasal infection.
Cipro is the treatment prescribed for suspected anthrax poinsoning, and was given preventatively to thousands of people at the peak of the anthrax attacks.
Still, none of that circumstantial evidence has produced an arrest, leaving the FBI draining a 1-acre pond, a process that is expected to take three to four weeks and cost $250,000.
"If the FBI had any facts tying Steve Hatfill directly into the anthrax case, I don't think he'd be out walking the streets right now," said Clawson.
Hmmm, let's see. They searched the ponds five months ago, but tests on the vials for anthrax are still ongoing. Why do I suspect we are being fed a bunch of bullsh*t here? And what could be the purpose of feeding us a bunch of bullsh*t about this "investigation"?
Oh, he'll probably get a big bonus.
In recent months, FBI agents visited Insight magazine writer Timothy Maier in Washington to discuss an article on Hatfill published in January 1998, along with a photograph that shows Hatfill, clothed in a homemade protective suit and gas mask, demonstrating how someone could concoct bioagents in a home laboratory. The article has attracted intense interest since the 2001 letter attacks, and Maier said he was surprised that it took agents so long to question him about it.Now for the rest of the story, as detailed by Maier himself last April:Maier said two agents interviewed him about the photograph, which Hatfill had provided the magazine. Agents seemed interested in examining details in the photo, such as a tiny magnet on a refrigerator, in an attempt to pinpoint the location where Hatfill had set up a makeshift lab to demonstrate his theory.
In 1998, to illustrate how easy it would be for a terrorist to produce anthrax, Hatfill donned a hazardous-materials suit at a makeshift lab in an undisclosed location and posed for a photographer as if he were making the deadly biological weapon. While Insight published that photo in 1998, it took nearly two years for the FBI to visit this magazine's office and inquire about the photo - which was in fact a National Institutes of Health file picture. The FBI had assumed that Insight photographers took the picture, even though the credit clearly was given on the photo caption.
Now, regarding "Greendale", recall our friends down in North Carolina going to college to learn all about engineering and pharmacology. If you do a www.google.com search of names significant in their lives, e.g. "greensboro", "greendale", "school", and also one of the targets, "brokaw", you will get a handful of results.
One such result is "www.beachcomber.com". This consists of a myriad of address files for all sorts of things all over the world. Once in the file. Search for Washington DC. Search for "schools". Search for "Schools and Instruction - Aircraft Flight Training".
Looks like we are getting hot!
Another one of your references was "Tom's Celebrity List". It pops right up with an Adobe list (which explains some of the peculiarities of the format we see in the destination addresses, e.g. "Building" set on its own line in the address block. Now, do a search in the PDF search engine to find "Brokaw".
Even hotter!
Tom may have other lists. I haven't looked for them. One can envision a list called "Congress ~ Leadership".
There has been an assumption that the material in the return address had something to do with the point of origin. It is much more likely those are simply code reference names used by AlQaida members to find sites on the internet containing information they required to do their jobs. When it came time to address the letters they simply combined those codes. Same with the ZIP Code in the return address. In reverse it's a town out on I-81 where they are or were persons of interest. It is coincidentally a NJ location before it's reversal.
All very interesting given the fact that some folks like to use I-81 to drive from Greensboro NC to locations in the North thereby avoiding the congestion on I-95 nearer the coast.
Now, who's going to take home all the fish those guys catch?
"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies." -- Winston Churchill
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.