Another silly story that may or may not bear on a Privacy Act or government disclosures related to “Greendale School”.
On June 26, 2002, ABC’s Brian Ross first reported on the Morning Show,
“Hatfill, who has worked closely with the military and CIA anthrax experts, has frequently shocked colleagues with his statements and demonstrations of how easily terrorists could make biological weapons. In this photo in 1998, he demonstrated how a terrorist could make a deadly plague in a common kitchen.
INVESTIGATORS also are intrigued by the fact that Hatfill lived for years near a Greendale Elementary School while attending medical school in Zimbabwe. Greendale School, as you recall, was the phony return address used in the anthrax letters. Hatfill has told ABC News he had nothing to do with the deadly anthrax mailings, but he says he understands his background and comments make him a logical subject of the investigation.”
Now who told them that? Investigators? Or someone from outside the investigation. Hatfill’s friend Stan Bedlington reports that he came up with the Greendale point and was describing it to CNN.
Dr. Bedlington, in the Fall of 2001, political scientist and former senior CIA counterterrorism analyst, said: “Frankly, when I heard the news [of 9/11], I thought, ‘It’s got to be biochemical.” “This is frightening enough and yet, you could take a small plane and sprinkle anthrax over New York City and wipe out half the population.” He wrote a very insightful Op Ed piece in the Washington Post, dated October 28, 2001, in which he discusses the importance of piercing Osama Bin Laden’s myth of invincibility. He evidenced the sophistication of his knowledge by pointing to the influence of the Egyptian writer named Qutb on the Al Qaeda leaders.
But by August 2002 (in an interview with CNN’s Paula Zahn) he was talking about anthrax-smelling bloodhounds and the fact that Dr. Hatfill lived near a place (Greendale) used in the return address. He curiously said the “evidence was mounting.”
From an August 4, 2002 interview:
BLITZER: Stan Bedlington, take a look at this, I want to put it up on the screen, the return address of one of the letters. Look at this, fourth grade, Greendale School, Franklin Park, New Jersey, then the zip code. Greendale School — there is no Greendale School in Franklin Park, New Jersey. But, Greendale, as far as you know, did ring an alarm bell, when you heard that mention of that word.
BEDLINGTON: Yes, it did. Steve Hatfill got his MD at what is now the University of Zimbabwe. It had another name in those days. And I looked it up on the Internet. And, in fact, it is located in Greendale, which is a suburb of Harare. So you have what I think is an amazing coincidence between the two names.
Dr . Bedlington knew Dr. Hatfill from weekly lunches at a bistro in McClean where former work colleagues get together to swap stories, and once had been shown, privately, a scrapbook of mock pictures of Dr. Hatfill preparing plague in his kitchen (Dr. Bedlington recalls the discussion as relating to anthrax).
There is no Greendale School in Zimbabwe — even though there are many in the United States. No Greendale Primary School or Greendale Elementary School. There never has been. ABC led the pack repeatedly getting it wrong in suggesting that there was a Greendale School that Hatfill lived nearby, in a neighborhood of Harare. ABC’s Brian Ross has relied on a source named Pete Velis who has spent his own money urging his biodefense insider theory with a twist. Velis argued that the CIA was framing Hatfill. Hartford Courant followed on the Greendale point, relying on ABC. My posting of the City Atlas listing and the numbers of the two Greendale schools did little to stem the false reports. The closest in name is Greengrove, which was a considerable ways from the University. And if you started counting Greendales rather than Greendale Schools, then perhaps most people in the United States are just as closely connected to some Greendale. Most important of all, a perp simply has zero reason to use a name from his past. Indeed, the only reason to use the same address on both envelopes — which helped the second letter be identified before being received — is if something is being intentionally communicated.
There are 18 Greendales in the US. 6 Greendale Elementary Schools. As well as a Greendale Elementary School in Maryland near Andrews AFB in Prince George’s County that was closed.
On coincidences what about “Franklin Park?” Franklin Park is the name of a small neighborhood in an unincorporated area next to Fort Lauderdale. It is sometimes called “Fort Lauderdale” but is not part of the city proper. At 2542 Franklin Park Drive is Masjid Al-Iman mosque. It is a mosque where Jose Padilla of WMD (though radiological - as far as we know) fame worshipped. Also worshipping there was Islamic Group member Adham Hassoun and the hotly sought “Jafar the Pilot”, who was acquainted with MIT-educated Aafia Siddiqui. In a May 2001 letter to his followers, Ayman Zawahiri, head of Al Qaeda’s ten-year quest to weaponize anthrax, used “school” as code to refer to his militant group the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Green is symbolic of Islam. Dale means “river valley.” Ayman is very nostalgic for the Nile Valley that he needed to leave after being imprisoned after Sadat’s assassination.
Coincidences can be surprising. But the Greendale conjecture always seemed an unsound point to rely on in publicly suggesting that a medical doctor was guilty of murdering people. As Richard Spertzel, who has told the Baltimore Sun that he has met Hatfill but does not know him well, said: “He’s being railroaded.”
As it turns out, the FBI’s interest in Dr. Hatfill stemmed significantly from his work on a mock-up of an anthrax lab for the purpose of training Special Operations personnel. F.B.I. agents pulled the lab over as it was being hauled to Ft. Bragg to check it again even though they had spent two weeks examining it. The Pentagon was allowed to keep and use the trailer in preparation for the war with Iraq. Training sessions were by Dr. Hatfill sometimes and other times by Dr. Patrick. Dr. Hatfill responds to an interrogatory response in his civil rights litigation: “William C. Patrick III, once a very close friend and colleague of Dr. Hatfill has broken off communication with him for fear of being associated with Dr. Hatfill and the Anthrax attacks.” Col. Bill Darley, spokesman for the United States Special Operations Command in Tampa, Fla., told the New York Times: “We are not growing anthrax or botulinum toxin. None of this equipment is functional. It looks like — it is — the real stuff, but it’s nonfunctional.” The nonfunctional mock-up was built on an 18-wheel trailer and outfitted with specialized, commercially available, lab equipment.
“No way in the wildest dream could it have been used to make anything,” William C. Patrick III is quoted as saying. Dr. Hatfill planned the design and supervised its construction at a shop in Frederick, about a mile from his apartment. For some training sessions, he reportedly used the anthrax simulant called Bacillus globigii, which would commonly be used for such purposes. The mock-up was known as “the can.”
So in the Fall of 2002, while the FBI was investigating him, Hatfill trained Defense Intelligence Agency employees on ways to search for biological weapons, worked with Army’s Delta Force, and sat in on a State Department meeting on embassy security in postwar Afghanistan. He received letters of commendation for his work from officials at the DIA and the State Department. In Iraq, DIA and CIA agents worked with the 75th Exploitation Task Force in the search for biological weapons.
“If the facts were known, most Americans would be deeply grateful to Dr. Hatfill for his service to our nation,” spokesman Pat Clawson is quoted as saying. “Steve Hatfill knows nothing about the anthrax attacks. He is a loyal American and patriot who loves his country. At the DIA’s request, he did this work even though he had been terminated by Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC) at the considerable frustration of FBI agents who thought he was responsible for the anthrax mailings.
It might be very difficult to find someone who fit a “bioevangelist” theory better than Dr. Hatfill. Even a Dr. Berry theory always seemed a Hatfill-lite. Absent Al-Timimi sharing the same fax number and maildrop as the leading anthrax scientist and the former deputy of USAMRIID — who had working pursuant to the biggest biodefense award in history using Delta Ames under a contract with USAMRIID — a Hatfill Theory might be expected to go the distance and cross the goal line. But all those who, upon being apprised of the facts of Al-Timimi and his connections to this AQ sheik or this jihad recruiter or this EIJ founder or this “911 imam” etc., have not changed their mind, are suffering from cognitive rigidity. They might start by doing some background reading on the militants, for example, by reading Berger or Wright or Scheuer. For work more narrowly on this issue of infiltration, there is Lance’s TRIPLE X. For those whose mind is not open to considering the alternative hypothesis — like Ed who hasn’t gone his keen observation that the hijackers were all dead — let’s hope you don’t work for the Amerithrax Task Force.