According to The Frederick (Md.) News-Post of June 27, 2002, in June 2002 a woman named Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, who affiliates herself with the Federation of American Scientists, saw fit to discuss me as a suspect in the anthrax case in a meeting with FBI agents and Senate staffers. I don’t know Dr. Rosenberg. I have never met her, I have never spoken or corresponded with this woman. And to my knowledge, she is ignorant of my work and background except in the very broadest of terms.
The only thing I know about her views is that she and I apparently differ on whether the United States should sign onto a proposed modification of the international biological weapons convention. This was something I opposed to safeguard American industry, and I believe she favored.
I am at a complete loss to explain her reported hostility and accusations. I don’t know this woman at all.
In any event, within several days after Dr. Rosenberg’s reported comments in Congress, the FBI called me again at home. I was asked if these agents could look at my apartment and swab the walls for anthrax spores. I was surprised at the request. Anthrax is a deadly inhalational disease.
I’m not sure why you posted this 6 year old article but I’d be glad to share my view on BHR.
BHR’s 2001 analysis was very lucid as was her 2008 analysis.
I disagreed strongly with her in December 2001 as to the motive and disagreed with her that Dr. Hatfill was at all involved. I was in email contact in mid-Decemmber 2001 and immediately sensed it was going to be a long haul.
My friend Maurice Clayton argued (and was extremely prolific) on all the detailed reasons there was no basis for a Hatfill Theory — that the underlying elements of the argument (Greendale School, the cabin in the woods, etc.) were wrong or irrelevant. Ivins is just Hatfill Redux. PokerBuddy made the same arguments on FreeRepublic and I agreed with every word he said. It took 6 years to overcome that mistaken view that Hatfill was involved.
But I’m not going to hold it against someone that their view turns out to be mistaken. I’m only going to ask that they inform themselves of all relevant information bearing on alternative theories and seek support for they argue (and cite it). If you’ve studied her analyses, you’ll see that she takes great care in her citation of support. Even though I correspond with her (and had already emailed her that incredible Broad expose above today at 4:45 a.m.), I don’t know her views or conclusions regarding the present state of things beyond a very lucid analysis titled “Gaps” that she circulated on a biological weapons forum earlier this month.
She obviously has caused many in the biodefense field great upset. But I always thought Dr. Hatfill was a great candidate for a “bioevangelist” theory. It’s just that on the merits I thought there was no “there there” (he was innocent) and a bioevangelist theory was misconceived. It was the leaks by prosecutor Seikaly that threw gasoline on a Hatfill Theory and made it rage out of control.
I think Quantico developed the profile (and stuck with it) when instead it was CIA counterintelligence analysis that should have held greater sway (to include an analysis about Ayman’s plan to infiltrate the US government biodefense institutions). Ayman’s intention was to use US-based charities as the group’s infrastructure in the US.
While it has been fashionable for Ed L. to bash BHR for the past 6 years, that’s only because he has nothing else to say. His arguments are limited to:
(1) the FBI never suspected Hatfill and the theory was all BHR’s fault (that’s wrong);
(2) the silicon signature was just due to absorption from the environment (he’s right but he’s not taking the argument to the logical conclusion — that it relates to use of a siliconizing solution in the culture medium that is added to increase concentration by overcoming vander waals forces and then is removed through repeated centrifugation); and
(3) a First Grader wrote the letters.
Now as to his First Grader Theory, which he says is a matter of FACT and he is 95% certain, I don’t whether Aafia’s son is 13, 12, or 11, but I think an adult wrote the letters because it is a simple matter to conceal one’s handwriting using block writing. There’s no reason to involve a child because it adds an unnecessary security risk (and is immoral and not something a parent would do). For example, as an adult, one can just hold the pen differently.
Yesterday Ed admitted that his theory was “overwhelmingly” weaker than an Ivins Theory. I agree. And I would add that the vast majority of people think an Ivins Theory is very weak. Especially if they are scientists. On the reason for the silicon signature, I’ve sent the written opinion re the reason for the siliconizing solution by the head of the air force military lab who has published recently and shared the articles by him and his colleagues. The Sandia lab does not even have any experience with biological processes — and they certainly have not aerosolized anthrax using a siliconizing solution and then measured silicon in the control and in the product that used the method. The product that used the method show the silicon spike but the controls did not.
Ed doesn’t address it because just to discuss the relevant method accounting for the silicon signature would cause his argument — and the dog and pony show put on by the FBI — to implode.
The FBI or CIA leakers can dress up a spy story however they like — as they did in the NYT expose by Broad and his colleague today. But usually the suppression of information is just CYA.
And, in any case, always Follow The Money.
Here, allowing the infiltration by Al-Timimi at the DARPA-funded Center for Biodefense that had the biggest biodefense award in history to do research with the Ames strain of anthrax with USAMRIID, followed the example of the infiltrator Ali Mohammed. It is detailed in Peter Lance’s XXX.
We need to learn from history and stop letting pork-fueled CYA insiders determine our policy. Proliferation of biodefense labs has merely greatly increased the risk by increasing the points of possible infiltration. When the US DOJ allows itself to be part of this CYA approach and to be politicized, that’s when the citizenry — across the political spectrum — need to rise up and say “No more!”
You folks work for us.
The US Attorney spinning Ivins as “the guy” was the personal counselor to Gonzalez on national security. So it is no surprise he’s screwing the pooch.