Posted on 03/09/2007 8:41:11 AM PST by jpl
(CBS) They followed him. They brought bloodhounds into his home. The attorney general identified him to the world as a "person of interest" in the first major bioterrorism attack in the nation's history.
But five years after letters sent through the U.S. mail containing anthrax killed five and injured 17, the FBI has yet to charge Dr. Steven Hatfill. In 2003, he sued the government.
The resulting depositions of FBI personnel and law enforcement records obtained by 60 Minutes provide an inside look into one of the FBI's biggest investigations ever and raise the possibility that the bureau may have a cold case on its hands.
Correspondent Lesley Stahl's report, which contains revelations from those depositions, will be broadcast this Sunday, March 11, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Hatfill, a scientist who worked at an Army laboratory where the strain of anthrax used in the attacks was stored, is the only "person of interest" named publicly in the case. He has maintained his innocence all along.
Hatfill is suing the government for destroying his reputation by, among other things, naming him "a person of interest." According to depositions taken for Hatfill's suit and obtained by 60 Minutes, the FBI official who oversaw the investigation says the bureau was looking at many more people.
"There were … 20 to 30 other people who were also likewise identified as 'persons of interest' in the investigation,' " the FBI's Richard Lambert says under oath.
60 Minutes has learned that today at least a dozen of those other people still have not been eliminated as so-called "persons of interest."
Hatfill charges in his suit that the FBI leaked information about him that was distorted and damaging. After the deadly mailings, evidence-sniffing bloodhounds reportedly "went crazy" at Hatfill's apartment, according to a Newsweek story.
60 Minutes has learned that the bloodhounds reacted similarly at the home and office of another scientist, too. And two of the dogs have been wrong on a number of occasions, including a serial rape case in which a man in California was arrested and jailed, based largely on the evidence from the dogs. He was ultimately exonerated with DNA evidence.
To quell the leaks, FBI Director Robert Mueller instituted a tactic known as "stovepiping," whereby the various squads assigned to the case stopped sharing information with one another.
In his deposition, the FBI's Lambert said he opposed Mueller's order because barring investigators from exchanging information "… would inhibit our ability to 'connect the dots' in a case of this magnitude …" just as it had leading up to 9/11.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, agrees that stovepiping undercut the investigation. He also charges that the FBI used the leaks to cover a lack of progress in the case.
"I believe … they wanted the public to believe that they … were making great progress in this case," he tells Stahl. "It's just turning out to be a cold case."
60 Minutes has also learned that the FBI's biggest hope to crack the case turned out to be a dead end created by one of its own investigators.
Early on in its investigation, the bureau was able to lift trace amounts of DNA from one of the envelopes used in the attacks. Agents hoped this forensic evidence would hold the key to solving the crime. But the amount of DNA recovered was so minute the bureau decided not to test it, fearing that doing so would use up the sample without yielding results.
The FBI then improved its DNA-testing technology so it could accurately test the microscopic sample. They then discovered that the DNA belonged to one of its own investigators who had contaminated the envelope.
I will offer several reasons why things lean toward him or are made to lean toward him: First, he did have a draft on his home computer of a novel...strangely enough...about a bioterror attack. Not enough to convict anyone...but it makes you look hard at the guy.
Second...while not generally known amongst the public...at least around the experts in the field...Hatfill commissioned a 1999 report on the risk of anthrax being sent via the mail. Again, it makes the investigative team look more closely at you (while you may be totally innocent).
Third....those dang FBI Bloodhounds with scents from the anthrax letters "went crazy" during the search of Hatfill's apartment (this came from Newsweek...so we have to be careful in suggesting it is 100 percent true or only 50 percent true (the Newsweek variation of the week).
Fouth....strangely enough...Hatfill lives in the same state as the mailbox where several of the anthrax letters were mailed. Here...guilt by mailbox association...which just isn't good enough to convict....but makes you the target of investigation.
Fifth....the return address on an anthrax envelope was the name of a school in Zimbabwe...strangely enough...where Hatfill once lived. This is the most odd part of the entire script here. A really creative writer...would just pull a city off the Atlas...but maybe the quilty party just isn't that creative...who knows?
So while everyone wants to give Hatfield the complete bill of innocence....the FBI has to keep looking at him because of the stupid evenidence at hand. If not Hatfield...then again...the offender knew a vast amount of history on him and was ready to link him to the whole episode...to keep the FBI from ever diving into lesser options. This is like linking drugs and Anne Nichole Smith together in the same sentence...you can't avoid it....but then the final cause might not have been drugs.
Pepsi,Hatfill did not live in NJ. As far as I know,he never did.
As to people knowing a great deal about Hatfill, one need look no further than certain "activists" within the Federation of American Scientists,who considered him persona non grata. (He had worked in South Africa during the apartheid regime,had a permit to carry and sometimes made it obvious he carried, refused to go along with fashionable ideas,etc.,etc.)
I have my own cast of suspects in mind,and, if had just a tiny bit more,would forward their names to the FBI;but,since I lack that "tiny bit", I'd rather let someone else solve the case than impugn someone's reputation.
(As you can see, I'd never make it as a journalist !)
"First, he did have a draft on his home computer of a novel...strangely enough...about a bioterror attack."
Don't frame it as a secret. He filed it publicly with the copyright agency. Not a surprise he would write such a thing, there were other books like that at the time.
"Second...while not generally known amongst the public...at least around the experts in the field...Hatfill commissioned a 1999 report on the risk of anthrax being sent via the mail."
Again framed as a secret. It is widely known. That was his job, and "anthrax" letters were flying around at the time. It would be more suspicious if he/govt. didn't take such an interest.
"Third....those dang FBI Bloodhounds with scents from the anthrax letters "went crazy" during the search of Hatfill's apartment"
They were not bloodhounds. They were not FBI. They were not the usual dogs FBI in the area use. They went to California to get "ringers", dogs using pseudo-science to frame people. How does one get a "scent" off a months old, and sterilized envelope? Dog experts publicly denounced these ringers.
"Fouth....strangely enough...Hatfill lives in the same state as the mailbox where several of the anthrax letters were mailed."
Nope.
"Fifth....the return address on an anthrax envelope was the name of a school in Zimbabwe...strangely enough...where Hatfill once lived. This is the most odd part of the entire script here. A really creative writer...would just pull a city off the Atlas...but maybe the quilty party just isn't that creative...who knows?"
Nope. The writer used a semblance of the name of a school in the USA zip code on the letters.
Did you even bother to take the time to read the post at all? The dogs you're talking about are completely unreliable!
Either you're incredibly stubborn, or you're a spokesmouth for the F.B.I. or the New York Times or something.
1. Postal processing equipment tends to pulverize anthrax to an even finer character than the best commercial equipment designed to do the job.
2. It takes 2 to 3 days before the anthrax can begin leaking directly through the paper of a USPS embossed postage envelope ~ so they taped those envelopes up just enough to avoid having the anthrax spill out too early in the attack.
This means they had some pretty sophisticated support behind them. I'd suggest the Iraqis helped them directly by providing some pretty standard anthrax from their "samples" used for product testing. However, the Iraqis had earlier looted the Kuwait main post office and stolen ALL of their mail processing equipment. It was state of the art ~ best you can buy anywhere. I knew several men in the Kuwait post office who were hauled away by the Iraqi Army, presumably for the purpose of operating that equipment for the purpose of determining how it worked to aid or hinder a bio-war attack through the mail.
The attack was obviously planned with two major targets, and maybe as many as ten secondary targets in mind.
First, they sent the letters to addresses which would be routed through 6 major airports ~ 3 in New York and 3 in the Washington DC area. That is, the pieces would be routed, inside mail equipment (trays), through LaGuardia, Newark, JFK, Dulles, Reagan National, and Baltimore airports ~ which are the principal points of access to America's financial capital, that is New York City, and America's political capital, that is Washington DC.
What they didn't plan on was the letters getting misrouted almost immediately after mailing and traveling by truck to New Jersey in supposedly empty postal equipment.
However, that would simply have been the first targets ~ and only enough anthrax to scare the hell out of everybody in the country would have penetrated the envelopes and the trays carrying them.
Next came the main postal facilities in New York and Washington DC. By the time the letters got there they'd been pumping anthrax out by the millions of spores.
Well, the ones going to New York definitely got sidetracked, but the ones going to DC made it and totally contaminated the main postal processing facility for the capital city for the most powerful nation on Earth.
Some of us got the message. Some didn't.
Then, traveling on through the system, after having been worked over by postal machinery, the anthrax letters got to the main mail room at the US Senate. At that point they successfully contaminated about 15,000 Congressional employees. Although the numbers were never released, at least 10,000 postal workers had been contaminated. Lord only knows how many customers and transportation people were affected, but we do know some people died.
Alas for the terrorists, anthrax is not exactly the worst thing going in this day of Cipro.
If the attack had gone off as planned, at least 25,000 people on Capitol Hill would have died of anthrax. Another 800,000 people in the USPS would have died. Tens of millions of postal customers, particularly in the East Coast, would have died.
I'd suggest that ten more minutes planning and these guys would have pulled off the largest mass murder in history.
So, what were you saying about this not working?
Training your puppies to "smell anthax" means you will have to get new puppies just about every three or four days.
What you must always keep in mind is that letter mail (in particular) is collected in "flat trays" (large postal trays made of a corrugated plastic material).
These trays are placed under letter drops in lobbies, and in the bottoms of street collection boxes.
When the mail has been sufficiently aged (that's an insider's postal joke btw) the tray full of mail will be moved to a processing area, or sent to another facility for processing.
In some parts of the country major mailers send out thousands of mail trays filled with mail every day. In other parts of the country thousands of mail trays arrive, get empty, and just stack up.
Consequently USPS spends a lot of money and time sending empty trays from areas of surplus to places where trays are needed.
Single piece rate First Class letter mail is highly subject to misrouting in today's postal system.
The anthrax letters were obviously misrouted (except for the one with a Florida address), left in some otherwise empty equipment, and shipped to New Jersey (where they have a lot of major mailers). This phenomenon explains how the letters got to where they were found, why they arrived AFTER the 9/11 attack, and what the address information on the letters means.
All of it taken together means it's more likely that Barbara Hatch Rosenburg had something to do with the attack than did Dr. Hatfill.
You're watching too many episodes of 24.
The information you so espouse is nothing more than greater hype than it is reality. It killed a very few people for the effort expended, it does not work as well as you might think as it needs to have a more aerosolized delivery which the method being used was not. It was a poor example and has been used, falsely, as the single threat reason to continue the vaccine to troops only going to Iraq. A vaccine that has no testing, causes over 40% of people to systemically react (At least what is admitted to due to VAERS and passive reporting) and more.
So no, you're wrong.
I understand the FBI's computer database
which they decided (finally) to install
shortly afteer 09-11-01
still isn't in operation.
where are you getting these numbers from?
and your point about the "misrouting" of the mail. I mail interstate letters all the time, they always arrive in a timely manner. why did these end up "in a truck going to NJ"? what were the odds?
ping
Actually, this belief is totally preposterous, and it's beyond incredible that you keep mentioning it.
The first batch of letters was postmarked a week after 9/11 in Central New Jersey. The second batch was postmarked a month after 9/11, also in Central New Jersey. They found a contaminated mail box in Princeton, which is consistent with at least one of the batches being mailed there.
It takes distortion of the facts to the point of absolute absurdity to rationalize that letters mailed in Florida before 9/11 could be postmarked in Central New Jersey on two different dates, with different letters and a different grade of anthrax in the two batches.
Doesn't it bother you at all that the 9/11 hijackers were DEAD for a week when the first letters were postmarked and DEAD for a MONTH when the second batch of letter were postmarked?
You can mail anything you wish anywhere in the country and there is a very real probability of it getting postmarked somewhere else.
In fact, virtually ALL single piece rate FCM does get postmarked in a different building than where it was entered, or if picked up from a collection box, a different building than the one to which the postal collection route returned.
That's just the way it is.
As I pointed out tens of thousands of people DID get exposed to anthrax, and they took CIPRO and they didn't get sick.
I think you can understand "CIPRO".
It isn't just the postmark. The Senate letters had a New Jersey return address.
Are you saying that was "pure coincidence"?
Do you have any idea what the odds are of your beliefs being true?
Got that from open public stories where you had postal inspectors and fbi agents or other spokespeople addressing that question.
You probably missed it because you didn't have your attention focused on how the anthrax got outside of the envelopes. Initially everyone thought the spores were puffing out of the "wings" on the corners where there's no glue. Turned out the envelopes were covered in tape with only a small edge, top and bottom, not so covered.
A postal inspector managed to piece together all of the tape showing that it came from a single roll, and therefore that all the attack envelopes were prepared at the same time.
This tape thing is very important to the understanding of how the attack proceeded and what kind of information the attackers had to have about postal operations and equipment to make it successful.
They had specific postal information which could be gathered only by someone (Iraq) working with modern postal equipment for the purpose of determining the correct parameters for the attack vehicles, that is, the letters, or packages, etc. I'm sure they studied everything.
It was essentially a team effort.
Now this doesn't mean Barbara Hatch Rosenberg wasn't in on it. The formats for the destination addresses were copied exactly from another source. The format had some strange peculiarities. Turned out that a newsletter placed on the internet by Jews For Life had three of them ~ with the same peculiarities.
They are a conservative, traditional group. Babs Hatch is a modern, secular person who probably does not practice any elements of Judaism. She's also known to be a virulent leftist, and I'll guess she's probably very pro-abortion. What she may have done is selected the addresses from that newsletter for that group with the thought that it was so far from her plane of existence no one would track any of this back to her.
She later on led the attack against Dr. Hatfill.
This does not mean she had nothing to do with the 9/11 attackers and would be my number 1 candidate for providing liaison with certain elements. Think of her as an unindicted/unconvicted Lynne Stewart type.
At the same time a mess of the attackers had a Florida connection, and it was right there in Boca Raton! We have the very first anthrax death popping up there. Three postal facilities were contaminated in that area, and the route from the collection chute area in the Boca Raton facility to the final delivery was well-marked with anthrax spores.
Oh, go dial 1-800-get-over-yourself. If all your going to do is act as if one-upmanship is the game we are playing then I don't give a hoot about a thing you say.
What's obvious to me is you know ZERO about me and about my knowledge of any such thing. Notwithstanding the fact that I was a state firefighter in NY for 7 years working to cover and drilling constantly in the Colonie Village Main Postal Center which handled the region as well as drilled there for NBC possibilities, and notwithstanding I am in my 19th year of military service as an Officer, but then again, you did not ask, you simply looked for a fight and wanted to feel self righteous and feign being offended at my "ignorance"
As I pointed out tens of thousands of people DID get exposed to anthrax, and they took CIPRO and they didn't get sick.
10's of thousands were OFFERED CIPRO and took the antibiotic upon symptoms or if the suspected threat prompted them to do so, NOT just because they were in the same building. Most people need to be tested for tolerance so it was not handed out like candy to pacify the crowd. Especially those who may actually be allergic to it but not have any other allergies.
I think you can understand "CIPRO".
I think you give no room to the possibility that a lot of people here know a great deal more than you would give them even the slightest bit of credit for.
why did they mail a letter to the scandal magazine office in florida? why include that in the target list?
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.