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Congressman wants FBI anthrax briefing
ASSOCIATED PRESS ^ | 10/27/06 | DONNA DE LA CRUZ

Posted on 09/27/2006 2:12:08 PM PDT by TrebleRebel

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 was commonly available and not weapons-grade.

In his letter to Mueller, Holt said the FBI's failure to determine what kind of anthrax was used meant that "resources were diverted and countless agents wasted their time investigating a small pool of suspects, instead of the broader search we now know was needed."

The FBI has conducted 9,100 interviews and issued 6,000 subpoenas.

Holt asked Mueller to have Douglas Beecher, a scientist in the FBI's Hazardous Materials Response Unit, testify before the House Intelligence Committee.

Beecher recently wrote an article in a scientific journal saying there was "a widely circulated misconception" that the anthrax spores were made using additives and sophisticated engineering akin to military weapons production.

FBI spokesman Bill Carter said he did not know if Mueller had received Holt's letter.

The anthrax attacks, in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, killed five people across the country and sickened 17. There were five confirmed anthrax infections and two suspected cases in New Jersey but no fatalities.


TOPICS: Anthrax Scare; Extended News
KEYWORDS: amerithrax; anthrax; anthraxanniversary; anthraxattacksm; antraz; fbi; islam; islamicterrorism; newjersey; nj
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To: jpl
I know you believe the Bureau when they insist that it isn't a cold case. So, when do you think we can look forward to seeing someone doing the perp walk on television?

I think they need to create a level playing field first. With politicians like Rush Holt having total misconceptions about the facts, and with The Washington Post filling everyone's heads with nonsense upon nonsense, the FBI needs to set the record straight about additives in the anthrax and where all the nonsense about coatings came from. Then they need to set the record straight about who went after Dr. Hatfill and why.

Once they clear away the mountain of CRAP built by the media and by politically motivated scientists and politicians, then maybe they can risk making an arrest without near certainty that their arrest will have to overcome a mountain of reasonable doubt in court. An arrest and conviction will depend a great deal on scientific evidence. As long as thousands of scientist believe the crap printed in Science magazine and The Washington Post about additives and the need for additives, the FBI can't make an arrest. The media would make it look like an arrest of some scientist the media never previously suspected is just another part of the FBI's coverup of some secret and illegal U.S. government biological weapons program.

Ed

21 posted on 09/28/2006 11:00:54 AM PDT by EdLake
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To: EdLake
For what it's worth, I do feel kind of bad for Special Agent Montooth and all the rest of the Special Agents, most of whom are patriots and good dedicated people (I even count a friend inside the Bureau).

It's quite a little Catch-22 they've created for themselves there; a real no-win situation all around. As a wise man once aptly noted, "many dark actors playing games" indeed.

22 posted on 09/28/2006 11:12:35 AM PDT by jpl (Victorious warriors win first, then go to war; defeated warriors go to war first, then seek to win.)
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To: Shermy

Scientist....he is a physicist.


23 posted on 09/28/2006 11:28:30 AM PDT by Battle Axe (Repent for the coming of the Lord is nigh!)
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To: jpl
It's quite a little Catch-22 they've created for themselves there; a real no-win situation all around.

I don't think the FBI created the situation. They were just doing their jobs. The nonsense about additives and coatings wasn't their fault. There were a series of errors made by USAMRIID and AFIP which were leaked to the media, and the conspiracy theorists and the media blew everything out of proportion. When people in the government tried to correct the errors, the conspiracy theorists and the media didn't believe a word of the attempts to correct the situation.

Everything seems to indicate that it was the FBI which pointed out the errors made by the two army labs.

I explain all the details about how the additives nonsense got started in Chapter 15 of my book, which I have on-line as a sample chapter. It can be read by clicking HERE.

I also don't think the situation is uncorrectable. All that is needed is to get the media to stop writing crap. That may seem impossible, but it's not - because NOT EVERYONE in the media printed the crap. It just has to be shown that what certain newspapers were printing crap. Then the ones who didn't print the crap will start writing stories about the errors and correct the crap.

If there is a battle over whether it was really crap or not, so much the better. ALL the details will then come out.

Ed

24 posted on 09/28/2006 3:05:50 PM PDT by EdLake
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To: EdLake
"I don't think the FBI created the situation. They were just doing their jobs. The nonsense about additives and coatings wasn't their fault. There were a series of errors made by USAMRIID and AFIP which were leaked to the media, and the conspiracy theorists and the media blew everything out of proportion."

Rubbish. It's believing in some grand "series of errors" by two different military labs that requires conspiracy theorists, not the other way around as you'd like to pretend.

Two military labs said: weaponized anthrax.

FBI's response: call the investigation "Amerithrax" and insist that a lone American mailed the bio-weapon two days prior to 9/11/2001, just as the Northern Alliance's leader Massoud was being assasinated.

Uh huh. Yeah, sheer coincidence.

Not!

25 posted on 09/28/2006 3:16:55 PM PDT by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Southack
So where does the real problem lie?? The Gorelick Wall?

Same as Oklahoma City, Able Danger??????

26 posted on 09/28/2006 3:23:51 PM PDT by Sacajaweau (God Bless Our Troops!!)
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To: Sacajaweau

Who knows. The public doesn't have enough information. The obvious answer from what little data is available is that the anthrax attacks came from the Pakistani ISI, but that with Musharraf doing the surprise side-change (ala Italy switching from Axis to Allied in WW2), that we couldn't just go after our new ally.

Hence, the anthrax investigation has to be squashed for geopolitical reasons.

But that's just a guess.

What's not a guess is the timing. The anthrax letters were mailed just as Al Qaeda assasinated Afghanistan's Massoud prior to their attack on the U.S.

Likewise, it is no guess that two different military labs independently found that the anthrax was weaponized professionally.

Obviously the anthrax came from a military power.

Obviously the timing and targets and contents of the letters suggest Al Qaeda.


27 posted on 09/28/2006 3:29:47 PM PDT by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Southack
There were a series of errors made by USAMRIID and AFIP which were leaked to the media, and the conspiracy theorists and the media blew everything out of proportion."

What a total bullshitter Ed Lake is. This is what Ed Lake defines as an "anonymous leak" to the media:

http://www.afip.org/images/public/nl081002.pdf

The AFIP lab deputy director, Florabel Mullick, said "This [silica] was a key component. Silica prevents the anthrax from aggregating, making it easier to aerosolize.
28 posted on 09/28/2006 3:39:48 PM PDT by TrebleRebel
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To: Sacajaweau; cgk; jpl; EdLake; genefromjersey; TrebleRebel; Khan Noonian Singh; Peach; muawiyah; ...
Hail, Hail...the gang's all here.

We all need to set a time and meet right here on Freepers and open some tall cool ones.
Maybe October 5 at 4 p.m. EDT....The moment that poor Bob Stevens expired five years ago.
Hopefully, we can celebrate the arrest.

For those of you who do not know, I have been interviewed. If you want details, I will tell you privately. The perp is probably watching. But we are watching you too.

Those are special ops guys parked across the street!!!

Sacajaweau asked what is the problem.....

Ed Lake says it is cognitive rigidity or something like that. We all have our personal views and we are pretty much stuck on them. Evidence in another direction needs to be reiterated for us to finally concede.

That was what was the matter with the FBI in the beginning. They just couldn't believe that this had been planned and executed right under their tax paid noses.

The anthrax attack is part of 9-11. But it did not go well. So they are regrouping and preparing for another try.
29 posted on 09/28/2006 3:43:50 PM PDT by Battle Axe (Repent for the coming of the Lord is nigh!)
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To: Southack
I agree with the majority of what you say. But believe Alqueda was WMD shy. They needed a knowledgeable source. I think what plays right is Iraq to friends in Pakistan to Alqueda in Afghanistan to USA handoff.

Generally, their plans are "no witness" plans which would lead me to believe that ONE of the 9-11 hijackers brought the stuff in.

The targets GUARANTEED that it would make the news and give the enemy "let's see what the USA will do" insight.

The first hit on the Towers GUARANTEED it would make the news.

30 posted on 09/28/2006 3:49:08 PM PDT by Sacajaweau (God Bless Our Troops!!)
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To: jpl
It's the 800,000 Postal employees against whom the attack was made. Now the attackers didn't realize there were that many or that the potential for exposure would be so widespread in USPS, but that's what happened.

If you can imagine the "payout" to those folks comparable to the "payout" to the folks attacked in the World Trade Center, you begin to get the idea why some budget mad bureaucrat in the bowels of Justice Department might not want this attack attached to the 9/11 event.

31 posted on 09/28/2006 4:07:39 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: TrebleRebel
The Congress-critter is in error about the letters being mailed in Mercer County. They were all entered in Boca-Raton, Florida.

Some of them were canceled at a facility in New Jersey, of course, but the mere fact of cancelation is not proof of mailing at that location.

There are many routes by which any particular piece of mail may end up in any postal facility.

I share the Representatives concern over the FBI having pi$$ed away millions of dollars chasing a will o the wisp through the fetid and fevered swamps.

The second Tom Daschle was out of the Senate, the whole focus of the investigation should have changed anyway.

32 posted on 09/28/2006 4:12:23 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: EdLake
No "scientist" was involved. Several Freepers have fingered the source of the anthrax. I've identified the folks in involved in carrying out the attack, and how they carried it off.

It's really low tech stuff guys. But someone in the chain of causality knew, in general, how USPS field operations work ~ probably the letter carrier working as a messenger for the Blind Sheikh and his gang who tried to blow up the WTC more than a decade ago

Fortunately that individual is in custody. It's worth noting that other Freepers pinned down the Blind Sheikh's lawyer as one of the bad people, and proved she'd shared the stage with Cindy Shehan and that crowd.

It's a hop and a skip from there to Barbara Hatch Rosenberg and her gang of girl blame casters, and maybe from there to the bedchambers of the lead FBI investigator who just got transferred off this case.

Nothing like the "out"~fox~"ed" investigating the hen house.

33 posted on 09/28/2006 4:22:09 PM PDT by muawiyah
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To: Battle Axe; pokerbuddy2; Mitchell; Allan; Sacajaweau; cgk; jpl; EdLake; genefromjersey; ...

"Hail, Hail...the gang's all here"

Our annual reunion! Some names of yore here.

A little excitement of late. Before scientists, using their names, stated additives were added to anthrax germs to make them "floaty." Now, for the first time directly to the public, we have an FBI official stating there were no additives, a position heretofore rumored the FBI held. A "natural silicon" ruckus?

So, what's so secret about their reports and tests from both sides? They should release these per freedom of Information act or otherwise. I can't think of a legitimate reason why the reports shouldn't be released -it won't teach any bad guys anything, especially if the test just show pure anthrax.



34 posted on 09/28/2006 4:22:26 PM PDT by Shermy
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To: Sacajaweau

Every year we enroll literally thousands of foreigners in our colleges and universities. They are taught the same stuff right along with us.

They have the backing of rich families or state sponsors and can get extra tutoring and stay through to the PhD. level and beyond. Then we turn around and hire them as employees, set them up in state of the art labs.


35 posted on 09/28/2006 4:36:21 PM PDT by Battle Axe (Repent for the coming of the Lord is nigh!)
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To: Shermy; Battle Axe; genefromjersey; TrebleRebel; Nick Danger; Cicero; FairOpinion; JustPiper; ...

Anthrax Reunion, wow!

And... Look who's back on topic (many of you will know whose blog this is):

http://hatfill.blogspot.com/


36 posted on 09/28/2006 4:49:33 PM PDT by cgk (I don't see myself as a conservative. I see myself as a religious, right-wing, wacko extremist.)
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To: Shermy
What's so secret?

The status quo.

Fear is a much larger weapon than the anthrax itself. If we were to paralyze the big lumbering economy, it would be worse than 50,000 people dying. Because everyone would die a little.

So the powers that be don't want to let anyone think that this could have been cooked up in any sort of a makeshift fashion. That notion is very unsettling.
37 posted on 09/28/2006 5:14:24 PM PDT by Battle Axe (Repent for the coming of the Lord is nigh!)
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To: cgk

I might as well weigh in, too !

Ed,as you know, I read and wrote a review of your book - noting I disagreed with you on certain aspects.

On of the things I disagreed with was your analysis od the handwriting-which I believe is quite consistent with the sort of printing one finds on hand-lettered posters.

I also think - but am not well enough informed to be sure-that the "doodling" you mention in the letters is,perhaps,not doodling, but an indication the writer was accustomed to one of the Germanic scripts.


38 posted on 09/28/2006 5:21:54 PM PDT by genefromjersey (So much to flame;so little time !)
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To: genefromjersey
I'm not Ed and I didn't write no book!!

kidding... was that for EdLake?

39 posted on 09/28/2006 5:31:27 PM PDT by cgk (I don't see myself as a conservative. I see myself as a religious, right-wing, wacko extremist.)
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To: EdLake

You are *so* busted in posts #25 and #28.


40 posted on 09/28/2006 10:04:11 PM PDT by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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