Posted on 06/30/2008 11:21:27 AM PDT by jpl
If the left wants an example of the Bush Administration’s incompetence in the war on terror, they’ve got it in the case of former government scientist Dr. Steven Hatfill, who was falsely accused of the anthrax murders. The U.S. Government “has determined that settlement is in the best interests of the United States and has agreed to pay Dr. Hatfill and his attorneys $2.825 million dollars and purchase for Dr. Hatfill an annual annuity of $150,000,” the Department of Justice said in a statement released on Friday, June 27. But there was no apology for ruining an innocent person’s life and career.
(Excerpt) Read more at aim.org ...
I fully agree with him 100% that the New York Times should still be forced to pay Hatfill for Kristof's libelous articles. Hopefully the appeals court will remand that back again.
Also, it is critical that we continue to fight hard against a blanket Shield Law for the press, or else they will be able to destroy with impunity the lives of people that they don't like because of political reasons.
Ping.
Kincaid is right. Bush’s failure to clean out the FBI, CIA, and State Dept. has left this country more vulnerable.
As bad as it is, bureaucratic incompetence is perhaps the least worrisome aspect to this case. Shouldn’t we also consider the possibility that someone within the FBI purposely routed the investigation away from the real suspects and toward an innocent man.
I do not doubt that the vast majority of FBI agents are honest hard working patriots but this is the same agency that allowed Robert Hanssen to pass secrets to the Russians for over 15 years.
Mother Jones columnist discusses FoxNews report.
“FBI’s Anthrax Gone Completely Cold,” Mother Jones, June 30, 2008
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/06/8842_has_the_anthrax.html
It is worse than this actually. You cannot fix the bureaucracies when the political appointees are a bunch of 2nd rate political hacks. The now begone Secretary of the Air Force, and the horse jockey whose ineptitude in managing FEMA are symptomatic of the problem. Gates and Petraeus were not Bush insiders. Bush had to run through all the incompetents that he put in place before competence was finally force on him in a last act of desperation.
I don't think much of right wingers who think Dr. Hatfill is innocent because they believe foreigners sent the anthrax letters. That's like saying that they don't believe in the Easter Bunny because they believe that Easter eggs come from Martians.
FWIW, Kincaid started talking about Dr. Hatfill being innocent on August 20, 2002.
I was saying the same thing -- for better reasons -- on August 12.
I do not doubt that the vast majority of FBI agents are honest hard working patriots but this is the same agency that allowed Robert Hanssen to pass secrets to the Russians for over 15 years.
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And this also proves Bush’s incompetence, I suppose.
Journalist/blogger Nicholas Stix seems to have had it right back as early as July 22 of '02. Here's a thread from way back then.
There's a longtime Freeper regular here whose handle I won't mention who incredibly STILL believes that Hatfill was involved. He's annoying me with personal e-mails to tell me "it's not over yet, you just wait and see." Yet he won't openly and directly say so any more in any of these threads, which I know he's reading, because he posts here all the time.
Yeah, my email inbox is filled with the same things.
Ed’s theory is the same “bioevangelist” theory except that his candidate was not nearly as good as Dr. Hatfill.
for what its worth, I think it was kida related. But, they don’t want the truth to come out. Can you say cover-up? Think about it, draining ponds, raiding girl friends houses, press convoys traveling to watch searches, NY Slimes involvement, etc.. Its just my opinion.
The daughter of the prosecutor to whom the head of the investigation was reporting — the fellow who pled the Fifth Amendment regarding the leaks in depositions by Hatfill’s counsel — represents the suspect of the other squad pro bono.
In a filing unsealed this Spring, Dr. Ali Al-Timimi’s lawyer explained that his client “was considered an anthrax weapons suspect.” Al-Timimi was a microbiologist who had worked in the building housing the “Center for Biodefense” funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (”DARPA”)
Dr. Al-Timimi’s counsel summarizes:
“we know Dr. Al-Timimi:
* was interviewed in 1994 by the FBI and Secret Service regarding his ties to the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing;
* was referenced in the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (”Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”) as one of seventy individuals regarding whom the FBI is conducting full field investigations on a national basis;
* was described to his brother by the FBI within days of the 9-11 attacks as an immediate suspect in the Al Qaeda conspiracy;
* was contacted by the FBI only nine days after 9-11 and asked about the attacks and its perpetrators;
* was considered an anthrax weapons suspect;
[redacted]
* was described during his trial by FBI agent John Wyman as having “extensive ties” with the “broader al-Qaeda network”;
* was described in the indictment and superseding indictment as being associated with terrorists seeking harm to the United States;
* was a participant in dozens of international overseas calls to individuals known to have been under suspicion of Al-Qaeda ties like Al-Hawali; and
* was associated with the long investigation of the Virginia Jihad Group.
***
The conversation with Al-Hawali on September 19, 2001 was central to the indictment and raised at trial. Al-Timimi called Dr. Hawali after the dinner with Kwon on September 16, 2001 and just two hours before he met with Kwon and Hassan for the last time on September 19, 2001.
[911 imam] Anwar Al-Aulaqi goes directly to Dr. Al-Timimi’s state of mind and his role in the alleged conspiracy. The 9-11 Report indicates that Special Agent Ammerman interviewed Al-Aulaqi just before or shortly after his October 2002 visit to Dr. Al-Timimi’s home to discuss the attacks and his efforts to reach out to the U.S. government.
[IANA head] Bassem Khafagi was questioned about Dr. Al-Timimi before 9-11 in Jordan, purportedly at the behest of American intelligence. [redacted ] He was specifically asked about Dr. Al-Timimi’s connection to Bin Laden prior to Dr. Al-Timimi’s arrest. He was later interviewed by the FBI about Dr. Al-Timimi. Clearly, such early investigations go directly to the allegations of Dr. Al-Timimi’s connections to terrorists and Bin Laden — [redacted]”
The letter by Al-Timimi’s counsel attached as an exhibit is equally meaty. An example of an additional detail is that in March 2002, Dr. Al-Timimi spoke with Dr. Al-Hawali (Bin Laden’s sheik who was the subject of OBL’s “Declaration of War”) about assisting Moussaoui in his defense.
The filing and the letter exhibit each copy defense co-counsel, the daughter of the lead prosecutor in Amerithrax. That prosecutor has pled the Fifth Amendment concerning all the leaks hyping a “POI” of the other Amerithrax squad, Dr. Steve Hatfill.
Separately, in an e-mail obtained by FOX News, scientists at Fort Detrick openly discussed how the anthrax powder they were asked to analyze after the attacks was nearly identical to that made by one of their colleagues.
“Then he said he had to look at a lot of samples that the FBI had prepared ... to duplicate the letter material.” “Then the bombshell. He said that the best duplication of the material was the stuff made by [name redacted]. He said that it was almost exactly the same — his knees got shaky and he sputtered, ‘But I told the General we didn’t make spore powder!’”
FOX News reports:
“The FBI has narrowed its focus to ‘about four’ suspects in the 6 1/2-year investigation of the deadly anthrax attacks of 2001, and at least three of those suspects are linked to the Army’s bioweapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, FOX News has learned.
Among the pool of suspects are three scientists — a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax scientist and a microbiologist — linked to the research facility, known as USAMRIID.”
It was more than a happy coincidence for Ayman Zawahiri and Mohammed Islambouli that an active supporter of the Taliban and supporter of jihad was a US biodefense insider. Microbiologist Al-Timimi worked in the same building as famed Russian bioweapons scientist Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID Deputy Commander and Acting Commander Charles Bailey, who would publish a lot of research with the “Ames strain” of anthrax. Al-Timimi was a current associate and former student of Bin Laden’s spiritual advisor, dissident Saudi Sheik al-Hawali. Ali would speak along with the blind sheik’s son at charity conferences — the blind sheik’s son served on Al Qaeda’s WMD committee. Al-Timimi’s mentor Bilal Philips was known for recruiting members of the military to jihad. The first week after 9/11, FBI agents questioned Al-Timimi. He was a microbiology graduate student in a program jointly run by George Mason University and the American Type Culture Collection (”ATCC”). Ali, according to his lawyer, had been questioned by an FBI agent and Secret Service agent in 1994 after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had a high security clearance for work for the Navy in he late 1990s and in 1996 for two months had worked for the White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card when he was Secretary of Transportation. As time off from his university studies permitted, Ali was an active speaker with the charity Islamic Assembly of North America.
The Al-Timimi prosecutor and the Al-Timimi defense counsel are duking it out this week in Alexandria (VA) over an indictment filed on June 26, 2008 of Dr. Sami Al-Arian who refuses to testify before a grand jury. The prosecutor was the one who had the recent success on appeal in the Fourth Circuit’s affirmance of the conviction of Al-Timimi’s colleague Benhkhala.
Turley says he can’t say who the targets of the grand jury investigation are — only the witnesses and family can choose to do so.
Al-Arian Arraigned On Contempt Charges Tampa Tribune July 1, 2008
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/jul/01/me-al-arian-arraigned-on-contempt-charges/
I know. And he believes that, gosh darnit, the correct "bioevangelist" is going to be arrested and charged any day now.
bump
“When in October 2001 there was there was an outbreak of anthrax attacks, Dr. Rice told the White House Chief of Staff [Andrew Card] in my presence, “I didn’t take this job to work on things like that.” Things like Americans getting killed. Unfortunately, the line between what is domestic national security and what is foreign national security is not a bright demarcation in the real world, not a distinction that our enemies honor.”
Richard A. Clarke, YOUR GOVERNMENT FAILED YOU (2008) p. 352
Clarke in his new book urges the importance of open source information to intelligence analysis and argues it is often overlooked. He says that often the best way to get information is to call the person with the information and ask. He mentions
Alex Rossmiller, STILL BROKEN: A RECRUIT’S INSIDE ACCOUNT OF INTELLIGENCE FAILURES FROM BAGHDAD TO THE PENTAGON (Ballantine Books, 2008)
“The CIA Director recalled the fact that the two al Qaeda terrorists were in the United States as soon as heard about the attacks.
***
The Helgerson Report notes that not one or two, but sixty (60) CIA personnel knew about the presence in the United States of al-Hazmi and al-Midhar and did nothing to tell the FBI.” p. 168
“So we prefer to think that repeated incompetence is what happened because we disdain conspiracy theories and would rather not confront the alternative.”
(p. 170)
Note: The “911 imam,” Ali Al-Timimi’s fellow Falls Church imam who coordinated with him, counseled the two hijackers in San Diego and then in Falls Church.
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