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.
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
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.
Scientist....he is a physicist.
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
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!
Same as Oklahoma City, Able Danger??????
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
Anthrax Reunion, wow!
And... Look who's back on topic (many of you will know whose blog this is):
http://hatfill.blogspot.com/
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.
kidding... was that for EdLake?
You are *so* busted in posts #25 and #28.
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