...VDB: Exactly. And in a way, it’s like the hunt for Bin Laden: since there’s no good news, there’s just complete radio silence from the White House. I’m wondering if you’re satisfied with the progress of that [anthrax] investigation —
Leahy: [Face a thundercloud now and voice emphatic and loud enough to turn heads at nearby tables] No! [Then again] No!
VDB: — and do they keep you apprized in any way of the progress of it?
Leahy: [More quietly] I’ve had discussions.
VDB: Yeah.
Leahy: I’m a little sensitive on this one, because two people died touching an envelope I was supposed to open.
VDB: Sure.
Leahy: I feel badly for them, and for their families. And we spent three years, Marcelle and I couldn’t go anywhere without heavily armed people around us. Finally, I said, This guy’s not going to try anything, and our family wants our privacy back. [Meditatively] I wish they had turned this investigation over to some good sheriff or police chief somewhere. I think it’s been very badly handled.
Exactly.
I’ve read all the responses to my original comments at # 7 and some of those statesments made in refutation I know to have been recently found inaccurate. I don’t want to get into the “who’s right and who’s wrong argument”, as that is what the bad guys want - us good guys fighting among ourselves. That is ultimately what the anthrax letters were supposed to do, just as in the attack at OKC when Bill Clinton blamed “right wingers” and ordered the FBI not to investigate the John Does.
One thing I will say that was well established even in 1986: terrorism can’t proliferate unless someone, somewhere has lots of money to fund such activities, and it is usually, though not always, a nation which provides the funding. That’s why it’s called state sponsored terrorism (duh!). So, take your pick of ME countries. Logic will tell you which ones, namely the radical theocracies and rampant dictatorships, are likely to pull such a stunt.
And for whatever reason of the moment, various groups, normally at odds with one another, will cooperate long enough to do us, or Israel, great harm. COMINT I was familiar with back in the early ‘80s indicated that 60% of all terrorist groups had the same three names at the top of the chain of command.
So, what happened between 1986 and 2001? The Presidency of Bill Clinton was what happened. How many good people left government, or were forced out, I don’t know. But the CIA I knew back in the mid-80s was superior to what it is today.
And who has so much money that they can spend it on activities that don’t benefit their own people. It’s that old truism - follow the money.
Frankly, I don’t trust ANYTHING coming out of the CIA anymore.
And one thing I’ve noticed in these postings has been seduction by myriad details. We have to keep our eyes on the ball. God is in the details, truly, and those have their place but we should not take our eyes off the big picture. Who would benefit from attacking us and are they fellow travelers, putting aside differences to work together.
Who has the means, the money, and the MOTIVE to attack us with anthrax.
The domestic angle about the anthrax attack is every bit as pathetic as Bill Clinton blaming right-wingers for the Murrah Building attack in Oklahoma City. Jaina Davis put a nail through the head of that snake. It was an Iraqi Republican Guard officer who drove the Ryder truck, filled with explosives and accompanied by Timothy McVie, who drove up to the front of the building and set it to explode.
MOTIVE - Saddam Hussein never, ever, stopped fighting the Desert Storm War. We had humiliated him in front of all other Arab nations and he wanted payback. He was willing to work with anyone who had the same goal, destruction of the U.S.A. What? You guys think he was too ethical to work with the Muslim Brotherhood or Al Qaeda? He never hesitated to supply the Palestinian groups with cash.
In the early 80s the Ayatollah Khomeini used a Phalangist Christian as a paymaster to arrange for two Syrian Intelligence pukes to make a bomb that was handed off to a Palestinian suicide car driver who in turn killed our Ambassador to Lebanon and two other people.
MOTIVE. Who wanted to hurt the United States and had the anthrax to do it with at that moment in time.
Wow, even a moron like Patrick "Leaky" Leahy was able to figure that one out. Impressive!