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WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 — A federal judge in Virginia on Thursday upheld a ruling by a magistrate judge that The New York Times must disclose the identities of three sources used by Nicholas D. Kristof for columns he wrote on the deadly anthrax mailings of 2001. The judge, Claude M. Hilton of Federal District Court, ruled that last month’s opinion was “not clearly erroneous or contrary to law.” The order is part of a case of defamation brought against The Times by Stephen J. Hatfill, who asserts that columns by Mr. Kristof suggested he was responsible for the attacks. The...

A federal judge gave the New York Times a brief reprieve from an order forcing it to identify confidential sources for columns about the 2001 anthrax attacks, but the paper could still face the possibility of being held in contempt of court as soon as tomorrow. Judge Claude Hilton of Alexandria, Va., issued a two-day stay of a magistrate's order that would have required the Times to name the sources by yesterday. The order came in a libel suit filed by a former Army scientist, Steven Hatfill, who claims he was defamed by five columns written by Nicholas Kristof in...

A federal judge has ordered the New York Times Co. to disclose the confidential sources used by Nicholas D. Kristof in columns that explored whether a former Army scientist was responsible for the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks. The ruling, made public yesterday, came in a lawsuit filed by the former scientist, Steven J. Hatfill, contending that the paper defamed him in a series of Kristof columns in 2002 that identified him as a "likely culprit." Hatfill has been identified by authorities as a "person of interest" in the anthrax-spore mailings that killed five people and sickened 17. No one has...

Nobody has been arrested for the anthrax mailings of 2001, but many people have paid for the crime. Five died and at least 17 others got sick. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been frustrated. Careers have crumbled. Taxpayers have gotten socked for billions of dollars to shore up bioterror defenses that some experts say still fall short. Now, an analysis from the FBI itself, buried in a microbiology journal, is raising more questions about the investigation. In the August issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology, FBI scientist Douglas Beecher sought to set the record straight. Anthrax spores mailed to...

CHESTER, Pa. -- On Nov. 15, 2001, Irshad and Masood Shaikh found themselves standing under the darkest cloud imaginable: The brothers had become suspects in the worst bioterrorism attack in American history. An FBI SWAT team battered down their front door, pointed semiautomatic rifles at Irshad's wife and carried out the first raid on a private home in the federal investigation of the anthrax attacks. Agents in moon suits carted out the Shaikhs' computers, medicines and books and swabbed the television set for anthrax spores.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006 · Last updated 11:43 a.m. PT http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1153AP_FBI_Anthrax.html Congressman wants FBI anthrax briefing By DONNA DE LA CRUZ ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER WASHINGTON -- A New Jersey congressman said Wednesday it should have taken the FBI days, not years, to determine the anthrax used in 2001 that killed five people was much less sophisticated than believed. Democratic Rep. Rush Holt asked FBI Director Robert Mueller for a classified briefing about the status of the bureau's investigation into who was behind the attacks. Several published reports this week said the FBI had acknowledged the anthrax used in the attacks...

US attacks used 'common anthrax' At least five people died in anthrax attacks in 2001 Investigators believe anthrax used in a series of attacks in the US in 2001 was not of military grade as originally thought, a US newspaper reports. The Washington Post paper says the FBI has widened its investigation into the source of the anthrax after finding it was of a more common variety. "There is no significant signature in the powder that points to a domestic source," an expert told the paper. Anthrax powder, sent by mail, killed five people in the US in October 2001....

New Anthrax Theory Offered FBI Scientist Says Little Expertise Needed September 22, 2006 By DAVE ALTIMARI, Courant Staff Writer Five years after an anthrax mail attack killed a Connecticut woman and four others, an FBI microbiologist has provided a little-noticed clue into why the criminal investigation has stalled. Contrary to a widely held theory among anthrax experts, the killer needed no sophisticated equipment or intimate knowledge to produce the anthrax mailed to two U.S. congressmen, Douglas Beecher wrote recently in a trade magazine for microbiologists. Anthrax experts and many media reports have long theorized that the killer would have needed...

Agency says it remains committed to solving the 5-year-old mystery WASHINGTON - The top FBI official in charge of the investigation into the deadly anthrax attacks has left the case, NBC News has learned. Richard "Rick" Lambert had been the inspector of the so-called AMERITHRAX case since September 2002, and had run every aspect of the five-year-old investigation. Just last month, he was transferred to the Knoxville, Tenn., field office of the FBI as its special agent in charge, according to the FBI. Lambert was the public face of the case, and his transfer is sure to fuel speculation that...

NEW YORK - Every September, like many, I feel sick and frightened around the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. But it was the weeks following September 11th that would forever change my life. You may remember hearing about Tom Brokaw’s assistant who got sick after coming in contact with a letter containing a deadly amount of anthrax. I was the person who first opened that letter, before Tom's assistant became sick. You have not heard my story. ------------------- Around September 18, 2001, I headed to work as a desk assistant at ‘NBC Nightly News.’ One of my jobs was opening...

Judith Miller, The New York Times reporter at the center of the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby case, reveals that she received advance word about a terrorist plot that turned out to be 9/11 - but the Times spiked the story. Miller spent 85 days in jail before finally disclosing that Libby was the source who confirmed to her that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative. Miller - who's no longer with the Times - never wrote a story about Plame. But she's more troubled by another story that didn't run - the one about 9/11. Miller began investigating al-Qaida after...

TRENTON, N.J. -- Officials have found two missing vials of anthrax mislabeled at a state lab among the samples taken from the postal facility that processed tainted letters in 2001. The vials were among thousands of negative samples. There was a transcription error in the numbers when they were labeled, state epidemiologist Eddy Bresnitz said. Officials disclosed they had lost track of the vials nearly two weeks ago. Officials said they thought it was a clerical error and that no anthrax was actually lost. The FBI was investigating how the vials were misplaced. The anthrax vials were among 19,000 samples...

The perp is here on a student VISA. He is Islamic and Middle Eastern. He may be a member of Al Queda. English is not his primary language, he may be a proficient computer user or coder especially if Al Queda. He was given anthrax and perhaps more biochems – of various grades. They may have been made in Iraq – they may have been made here. He did not develop them himself. He knows lab procedures. He is fairly diligent in handling the anthrax, but he is not perfect. He knows Dr. Malik, chairman of the Islamic Society of ...

FBI officials said yesterday that investigators are still working diligently to find whoever was responsible for the anthrax-bacteria-laced mailings, which killed five people, sickened 17 others and led to the temporary shutdown of the House, Senate and Supreme Court buildings and numerous postal facilities. They said they are getting assistance from forensics experts and scientific researchers from law enforcement agencies, the intelligence community, university laboratories and private corporations...... *** In the past year, the number of FBI agents on the case has dropped from 31 to 21, authorities said. During the same time, the number of postal inspectors has fallen...

'Missing from his (The Presidents Quantico) address, however, was any reference to the strikes on U.S. soil that occurred in the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, from a biological agent called anthrax -- a grave, ongoing and unsolved threat.. A small amount of powder in five letters managed to kill five people in Washington, Florida and New York, and sickened... The U.S. postal system was brought to its knees in several cities... Congressional offices were evacuated. The cost of responding to the attacks on the U.S. Postal Service alone reached an estimated $1 billion, and that's not counting the additional...

The US Justice Department filed a motion Friday to quash testimony by wife of bioweaponeer William Patrick III in the lawsuit: Steven J. Hatfill, M.D. v. Attorney General John Ashcroft, The Department of Justice; The Federal Bureau of Investigation (et al). Headed by former federal prosecutor Tom Connelly, pro bono attorney's for Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, the former person of interest in the anthrax letters case, have been quietly doing battle behind the scenes with attorney's for the US Justice Department, in the United States District Court for The District of Columbia. Dr. Steven Hatfill's life was publically dismantled, rendering...

Qaeda Letters Are Said to Show Pre-9/11 Anthrax Plans WASHINGTON, May 20 -Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan began to assemble the equipment necessary to build a rudimentary biological weapons laboratory before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, letters released by the Defense Department show.... The letters are among the documents recovered in late 2001 after the invasion of Afghanistan that United States intelligence officials have frequently cited as evidence that Al Qaeda was working to develop biological weapons.The letters...detail a visit by an unnamed Qaeda scientist to a laboratory at an unspecified location where he was shown "a special confidential room"...

WASHINGTON -- Anthrax has been confirmed in samples collected from the two Pentagon mail facilities that were at first closed last week and then declared free of the pathogen, United Press International has learned. The head of the company that was accused of contaminating the samples sent from those facilities -- a detached building on the Pentagon grounds in Arlington, Va., and the other in Falls Church, Va. -- said the presence of anthrax was detected independently by two government laboratories. Robert B. Harris, president and chief executive officer of Commonwealth Biotechnologies Inc. in Richmond, Va., also said the anthrax...

The latest anthrax reports in military mailrooms -- off-again, on-again, first positive, then negative -- raise an important observation, which is to observe, in retrospect, the MSM's absolutely, totally incurious attitude toward the 9/11 related anthrax attacks during the election cycle.There were no anthrax-related questions at the debates, no anthrax investigations by the media, no retrospective stories.Likewise with the so-called 9/11 commission.It was as if -- it never happened.Why?? It was, like Ann Coulter said, as if the MSM had their hands over their ears and humming aloud at the thought that someone might bring the subject up.And there's a...

By John D. Banusiewicz American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, March 14, 2005 - Defense Department officials confirmed that a positive test for the presence of anthrax bacteria during routine mail operations today led to the evacuation of a Pentagon outbuilding. However, officials stressed, subsequent tests have been negative.

WASHINGTON - A hazardous materials team on Monday investigated an alarm triggered by sensors that detected the presence of chemical or biological agents at the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s mail delivery building, a military spokesman said. Officials shut down the facility, which is in a separate structure on the northwest side of the Pentagon grounds, shortly after the sensors were triggered around 10:30 a.m. EST, spokesman Glenn Flood said. It was expected to remain closed until at least Tuesday while the investigation continued.

A federal judge ruled yesterday that U.S. Postal Service officials had no special responsibility to alert workers at the Brentwood postal facility to deadly anthrax contamination in the building and cannot be sued by the employees. --------------------- U.S. District Judge Rosemary M. Collyer said she found ample reason to believe that the officials showed deliberate indifference to worker safety by keeping the plant operating for four days after they privately confirmed the toxic spores had spread through the facility. ---------------------- Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said, "We can't imagine that in the end that courts will sanction government supervisors...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The New York Times asked a federal judge Friday to dismiss a libel lawsuit against the paper filed by a bioterrorism expert named by the FBI as a "person of interest" in the 2001 anthrax attacks. Times attorney David Schulz told the judge that no reasonable reader would walk away from the columns in question with the impression that the newspaper was accusing Steven J. Hatfill of any crimes.

Judge admonishes government lawyers in anthrax lawsuit case

For more than two years, Steven Hatfill has lived life in legal limbo. Publicly branded a 'person of interest" in the anthrax case, he's never been charged with any crime. Now Hatfill is striking back, in a libel lawsuit against one of his many armchair accusers. Court documents show that Hatfill has filed suit against Donald Foster, an English professor at Vassar College who wrote about Hatfill in the October 2003 issue of Vanity Fair. Hatfill claims Foster and other defendants defamed him by leaving 'no doubt in the minds of reasonable readers that he was imputing guilt for the...

July 20, 2004 — FBI agents returned to search the U.S. Army's biological weapons labs at Fort Detrick, Md., as part of a last-ditch effort by the bureau to make a case in the 2001 anthrax attacks, federal officials tell ABC News. The FBI has set a self-imposed Oct. 1 deadline for its agents to build a case that will stand up in court, officials said. After matching the anthrax used in the deadly attacks with anthrax at the Army facility, investigators now hope to further narrow the hunt among the hundreds of researchers who have worked at the Fort...

/table> Some Fort Detrick Labs Closed 10:25 AM Jul 20, 2004 10:25 am US/Eastern Frederick, MD (WJZ)Federal agents are combing a number of laboratory suites at Fort Detrick in Frederick for evidence of the 2001 anthrax attacks. Fort Detrick spokesman Charles Dasey says the labs have been closed since Friday at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, home to the Army's biological warfare defense program. A law enforcement source tells The Associated Press that the activity is related to the anthrax mailings that killed five people and sickened 17 in October of 2001. FBI agents have frequently...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The FBI is searching houses in New York and New Jersey in connection with the spread of the anthrax bacteria in the mail in 2001 that killed five people, a spokeswoman said on Thursday. Law enforcement officials said that searches were under way in the town of Wellsville, New York, which is near Buffalo close to the border with Canada and in another house in Lavallette, New Jersey, 85 miles east of Philadelphia. "The FBI and the U.S. postal inspection service are conducting searches at multiple locations in New York and New Jersey," FBI spokeswoman Donna...

Former Army Scientist Sues New York Times, Columnist By Jerry Markon Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, July 14, 2004; Page A07 The former Army scientist identified by authorities as a "person of interest" in the 2001 anthrax attacks sued the New York Times Co. and columnist Nicholas D. Kristof yesterday, claiming the paper defamed him in a series of columns that identified him as the likely culprit. The lawsuit, filed by Steven J. Hatfill in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, said Kristof identified him as the anthrax killer to "light a fire" under investigators in their probe of the anthrax-spore...

Distinct signature found in ’01 anthrax Discovery raises hope that source can be traced By Scott Shane Sun National Staff Originally published July 4, 2004 In a possible break for the FBI's investigation of the anthrax letters of 2001, scientists have discovered that the mailed anthrax was a mix of two slightly different samples, giving the bacteria a distinct signature that might make it easier to match with a source, according to two non-government experts who have been told of the finding. The discovery that bacteria taken from the letters all grew in the double pattern was made at least...

<p>HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) — The FBI, revisiting an old lead in the anthrax investigation, recently interviewed a former Fort Detrick researcher and his co-workers about his whereabouts when the letters were mailed, he and his lawyer said Sunday.</p> <p>Ayaad Assaad, who now works for the federal Environmental Protection Agency, said the agents also quizzed him Tuesday about his knowledge of producing finely powdered anthrax like that used in the letters.</p>

Sometime in February or March, officials at the Justice Department held a closed-door meeting with a federal judge in Washington, where they laid out what the government knows about the anthrax-letter attacks of 2001. Nobody is exactly sure what the department told the judge during that meeting. People familiar with the presentation say it was held under top-secret conditions; documents were escorted to the courtroom under the supervision of the U.S. Marshals Service, and the judge was not even allowed to keep copies of the papers that were shown to him. But at a hearing on March 29, the judge,...

According to documents obtained by NEWSWEEK, Al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed told U.S. investigators after his capture last year that a high-ranking Qaeda lieutenant known as Khallad originally was "selected" to participate in the 9/11 attacks as a "bouncer"--one of the musclemen assigned to corral and subdue passengers on a hijacked plane. Khallad, a one-legged Yemeni also known as Tawfiq bin Attash, attended a January 2000 "summit" meeting in Malaysia at which he allegedly went over plans for 9/11 with two future hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi. After the meeting, Almihdhar and Alhazmi traveled to the United States....

Judge grants six-month stay in anthrax civil suit Wed April 28, 2004 JILL BARTON Associated Press WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - A judge delayed until June a lawsuit filed by the widow of a man killed by anthrax, siding with federal attorneys who argued the suit jeopardized the government's investigation into the 2001 attacks. Justice Department attorneys told U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley they are at a crucial stage in the anthrax investigation, and that it's a matter of national security to delay the lawsuit. In a January court filing, the attorneys said six months could allow them to...

I recently found some interesting articles about anthrax, the domestic theory, and Hatfill that gave me some new ideas to consider. Foremostly, I found that the first comments espousing the domestic theory often arose in the context of a war on Iraq, or finishing the war, depending on how you look at it. For years the government tried to build the consensus to getting rid of Saddam. Before and immediately after 9/11 Bush made it clear he wanted to complete the job. Interestingly the first voice after 9/11 against finishing off Iraq and dissuading consideration that the anthrax was Iraqi...

Outside View: FBI Behind the Anthrax Curve Posted March 15, 2004 By Lawrence Sellin On Feb. 23, the Washington Times reported the FBI official in charge of the probe into the 2001 anthrax mailings said the investigation still has top priority among the bureau's unsolved cases but acknowledged the anthrax sender may never be caught. "Despite our very, very, very best efforts, we still might not be able to bring it home," said Assistant Director Michael A. Mason, who heads the FBI's Washington field office investigating the case. This is in stark contrast to the Nov. 17, 2001 comments of...

The most famous bioterrorist episode of recent times has been the series of anthrax-laced envelopes mailed from Trenton, New Jersey in September and October 2001 to various newspaper and government offices. In spite of enormous media coverage and painstaking investigation by the FBI, aided by hundreds of thousands of tips from the public and by dozens of teams of scientific researchers, thus far neither the Anthrax Mailer himself (or, against all supposition, herself) nor the source of the anthrax has been identified. In its investigation of the anthrax mailing case, the FBI has relied heavily on specialists. While specialized knowledge...

<p>The FBI official in charge of the probe into the deadly 2001 anthrax mailings said the investigation still has top priority among the bureau's unsolved cases, but he acknowledged the anthrax sender may never be caught.</p> <p>"Despite our very, very, very best efforts, we still might not be able to bring it home," said Assistant Director Michael A. Mason, who heads the FBI's Washington field office, which is investigating the case.</p>

Hartford-(AP) -- F.B.I. agents are reportedly asking questions about an anonymous tip received during the deadly 2001 anthrax scare. According to a document obtained by The Hartford Courant, the F.B.I. summoned a scientist from the U.S. Department of Environmental Protection to the bureau's office in Washington D.C. last week. The newspaper did not name the scientist, but said investigators wanted to know whether he wrote a letter accusing a fellow E.P.A. scientist of being a potential terrorist. The scientist told federal investigators on Wednesday that he had nothing to do with the letter, but the document suggests he might be...

Link between ricin, anthrax mailings? WASHINGTON - The discovery of ricin in a Senate office building has prompted the FBI and other federal investigators to consider whether the case could be connected to the unsolved anthrax attacks of late 2001, which killed five people and sickened 17 others. Investigators and lawmakers stressed Tuesday that it was much too soon to determine if there is any link between the cases. But FBI and postal officials noted a number of superficial similarities. "That is obviously one of the main lines of inquiry that we're pursuing," one FBI official said Tuesday. "There are...

Judge doubts Hatfill suit will harm anthrax probe Scientist's claim that leaks wrecked his career elicits understanding at hearing By Scott Shane Sun Staff January 27, 2004 WASHINGTON - A federal judge said yesterday that he is not convinced that allowing a lawsuit by Dr. Steven J. Hatfill to proceed will endanger the FBI's investigation of the anthrax letters that killed five people in 2001. During a motions hearing, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton expressed sympathy for Hatfill's claim that government leaks have wrecked his career, the basis for the suit he filed in August against Attorney General John...

In a major development, potentially as significant as the capture of Saddam Hussein, investigative journalist Richard Miniter says there is evidence to indicate Saddam's anthrax program was capable of producing the kind of anthrax that hit America shortly after 9/11. Miniter, author of Losing bin Laden, told Accuracy in Media that during November he interviewed U.S. weapons inspector Dr. David Kay in Baghdad and that he was "absolutely shocked and astonished" at the sophistication of the Iraqi program.

In a major development, potentially as significant as the capture of Saddam Hussein, investigative journalist Richard Miniter says there is evidence to indicate Saddam’s anthrax program was capable of producing the kind of anthrax that hit America shortly after 9/11. Miniter, author of Losing bin Laden, told Accuracy in Media that during November he interviewed U.S. weapons inspector Dr. David Kay in Baghdad and that he was "absolutely shocked and astonished" at the sophistication of the Iraqi program.....Miniter said that Kay told him that, "the Iraqis had developed new techniques for drying and milling anthrax—techniques that were superior to anything...

Two years after the anthrax letter attacks, senior administration officials say they have fresh concerns about the nation's vulnerability to terrorist attacks with the deadly germ. The officials said their fears had intensified in part because they now recognized that anthrax spores could be more widely dispersed than previously believed. In addition, they said, terror suspects with ties to Al Qaeda have told questioners that the group has been trying to obtain anthrax for use in attacks. One indication of concern was a secret cabinet-level "tabletop" exercise conducted last month that simulated the simultaneous release of anthrax in different types...

Feds Still Fear Anthrax Attack NewsMax.com Monday, Dec. 29, 2003 In the wake of a mock attack exercise last month that showed antibiotics in some cities could not be distributed and administered quickly enough and that a widespread anthrax attack could kill thousands, administration officials say they have growing consternation about terrorist attacks with the deadly germ. According to a report in the NY Times, the officials said that anthrax spores could be more widely dispersed than previously believed. Furthermore, during interrogations with terror suspects in custody, it has come to light that the al-Qaeda terror group has been actively...

<p>Bush was asked during a recent White House meeting whether American credibility was on the line in the search for illicit weapons.</p> <p>CNN's David Ensor examines claims that the Bush administration overstated the threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (part 1).</p>

<p>The CIA has been quietly building a case that the anthrax attacks of 2001 were in fact the result of an international terrorist plot.</p> <p>U.S. officials with access to intelligence reports tell us the information showing a terrorist link to the anthrax-filled letters sent by mail in the weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks is not conclusive. But it is persuasive.</p>

WASHINGTON - Disclosure of what the FBI knows about the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks could enable terrorists to engineer biological weapons to escape detection, the FBI says in documents filed in response to a lawsuit by a scientist labeled a "person of interest" in the case. Citing the criminal investigation and national security concerns, the Justice Department is trying to persuade a federal judge to delay the lawsuit filed by Dr. Stephen J. Hatfill, who contends the government invaded his privacy and ruined his reputation by leaking information to the media implicating him in the attacks. Hatfill has denied any...

A BRITISH terror suspect held by the Americans at Guantanamo Bay has confessed to plotting to kill Tony Blair in an anthrax strike on the Commons, it was claimed last night. Moazzam Begg, one of nine Britons detained at Camp Delta in Cuba, has agreed to plead guilty over an elaborate Al Qaeda plot as part of the deal returning him to the UK, his lawyer said. The 36-year- old father- of-three has allegedly confessed to planning to fly an unmanned plane from Suffolk to London and drop the bacteria over Westminster. The confession would be in exchange for a...

When the anthrax mailers penned the message, "YOU CAN NOT STOP US. WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX," the threat included a chilling nuance that remains largely unrecognized. "ARE YOU AFRAID?" asked the attackers. "Yes," should have been the answer, according to some biodefense experts, who think that the anthrax spores mailed to Senators Thomas Daschle (D-- SD) and Patrick Leahy (D--VT) in the fall of 2001 represented the state of the art in bioweapons refinement, revealing telltale clues about the source. This view is controversial, however, because others dispute the sophistication of the Senate powder, and a schism now exists among...