Posted on 10/24/2001 6:37:29 AM PDT by rdavis84
THE MENA ANTHRAX POISONING CASE
On the weekend of September 21, 1991, Arkansas State Police Investigator Russell Welch met with IRS Investigator Bill Duncan to write a report on their Investigation of Mena drug smuggling and money laundering and send it to Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh. Investigator Welch had been ordered by Major Doug Stephens to meet with Duncan over the weekend in Arkansas Attorney General Winston Bryant's office. Welch had just opened a case concerning the theft of sexually explicit photographs which could have been used to blackmail state officials.
On Friday, September 20, Welch went to one of the prisons near Pine Bluff and interviewed the person who had actually taken the photographs. A person whose best friend was very close to Barry Seal. The next morning, Saturday, he and his wife, Debbie Welch, made the three hour drive to Little Rock.
Returning to Mena on Sunday, Welch told his wife that he didn't feel too well. He thought he had gotten the flu. Monday the symptoms were worse. By Tuesday Welch was certain that he had a serious case of pneumonia. He had had pneumonia before and recognized the symptoms. Tuesday night he could hardly walk and his wife took him to the local hospital. The doctor gave him some over-the-counter cold tablets and sent him home.
But, Welch's condition deteriorated further to the point where his wife took him to another doctor in Mena the next day. Dr. Calleton, a Vietnam vet, immediately called the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and told Welch's wife to get him to Fort Smith immediately. The doctor told her that he should go by ambulance but she might be able to get there faster if she left right then. He called the CDC one more time before they left.
In Fort Smith a team of doctors were waiting. Dr. Calleton had called them twice while Welch was in transport and they had been in contact with the CDC. Later the doctor would tell Welch's wife that he was on the edge of death. He would not have made it through the night had he not been in the hospital. He was having fever seizures by now.
A couple of days after Welch had been admitted to St. Edwards Mercy Hospital, his doctor was wheeling him to one of the labs for testing when she asked him if he was doing anything at work that was particularly dangerous. He told her that he had been a cop for about 15 years and that danger was probably inherent with the job description. She told Welch that they believed he had anthrax. She said the anthrax was the military kind that is used as an agent of biological warfare and that it was induced. Somebody had deliberately infected him. She added that they had many more test to run but they had already started treating him for anthrax.
It took Welch a while to digest what the doctor had told him. Welch knew that in his business if you couldn't document something and/or corroborate it somehow, then it never happened. The next day, in the hospital room, the doctor told Debbie Welch, that they believed her husband had military anthrax and they were going to treat him for it. The doctor also told Debbie that Russell was very sick now and it was going to get worse before it was over, because the disease was going to have to run its course. She was right. The following day Arkansas State Police Investigator Andy Wiley was in Welch's room and heard the doctor repeat the diagnosis.
This time Welch told the doctor that he read about an outbreak of anthrax in some cattle in southeastern Arkansas a couple of weeks earlier. The doctor told Welch and his visitors that the warfare biological agent is not the same as the cow disease. She shook her finger in Welch's face and said emphatically, "No, somebody did this to you. Somebody sprayed you in the face." She described how the infectious agent is carried in canisters. She said, "This is the same stuff that Saddam Hussein was going to use on our troops." Investigator Wiley wrote down the names of Welch's medication and later confirmed that he was, in fact, being treated for anthrax. Other state police officers went to the hospital room, periodically, to help
Debbie Welch, who stayed in the private room with her husband day and night for the entire 14 days that Welch was hospitalized. Investigator Charles Lambert and Investigator Bobby Walker were among those that heard the doctor discuss Welch's circumstances and the anthrax.
The treatment was very effective against the anthrax but had severe side effects. Welch suffered a partial kidney failure. The doctor said it was a calculated risk that she had to take when she decided to treat him for anthrax. Welch was a weight lifter and stayed in good shape. The doctor told him that if it hadn't been for that the chances are that he still might not have survived the disease. The doctor also credited his physical conditioning when he gained back most of the 40 percent of his renal functions which had been lost due to the anthrax treatment.
After this incident, Welch spent time trying to figure out how he could have gotten the anthrax. One possibility, he finally concluded, was through envelopes carrying padding material in which the infectious agent, Bacillus anthracis, can be transmitted. The Arkansas State Police used these for a while to mail microcassette tapes containing investigator's dictation.
Welch's padded envelopes were returned to him with the tops torn off. When he complained to the secretary, Kim McBride, in Hope, Arkansas, she told him that the padded envelopes were not torn when she mailed them. Welch told his supervisor, Lt. Finis Duvall. Rather than do an investigation to find out who was tampering with official state police mail, some of which was sensitive, Lt. Duvall just said, "Well, I'll be damn... wonder who's doing that."
Last Fall a news team from a British television program called "The Big Story" traveled through Mena. The anchor for the show told Welch that he had worked for three years in South Africa. He said that sending biological warfare agents through the mail was a commonly used weapon during a particular ongoing war in that part of the world. After Welch got out of the hospital he never again received any torn envelopes.
Welch was discharged from the hospital on October 8, 1991. From there on, Welch's career in the State Police never was the same. He suffered harassment, transfers, unwarranted criticism, and public hearings of his performance. His superiors in the state police were concerned that he was answering questions from the press now that Bill Clinton was seeking the presidency. At one point he was interrogated about whether or not he was writing a book. After nineteen years of honorable service, solving difficult cases, being requested by victims and their families in other parts of the state to be assigned to their investigations, Welch was being humiliated like an enlistee in military bootcamp.
All of this was being done at the hands of men appointed by Bill Clinton and Jim Guy Tucker. An honest cop just trying to do his job, Welch finally left the State Police on January 16, 1996. After 20 years on the force, he left a poor and disillusioned man. Even though Welch and Duncan sent boxes of evidence to Lawrence Walsh in Washington, Walsh never showed any interest in Mena at all.
[Excerpt from the book "Mena - a tale of drugs and politics" scheduled for publication this summer.]
[Published in the April 1, 1996 issue of the Washington Weekly]
Copyright (c) 1996 The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com)
Most likely is. This is the Washington Weekly article that they (Wash. Weekly) did the investigating for.
There's also extensive Court Transcripts available wherein Welch outlines Hutchinson's part in the coverup. Want that copied to this?
I and several others talked to Leach's folks about his report on Mena that was NOT released. We paid for it, but we don't get to see it.
Must be National Security, or sumpthin' , huh? :-)
Leach's folks were about as frustrated as we were that it couldn't be released. Nothing against Leach, I just believe he chose to continue Living.
He said that "Something Happened in Mena" before the report was complete. Now he knows what.
Of course, "We Can't Handle It!"
I think leach got whiplashed when they put that muzzle on him.
Evidentally the envelopes did NOT travel through the mail in a torn condition, hence no poisoned postal workers. It's also pretty evident that the the Bill-Clinton-corrupted Arkansas state police force wasn't going to do anything about it. IMO it's not too much of a leap to think that the worst among the corruptees could have tampered with the envelopes right there in Welch's office and cleaned them up after the exposure was accomplished, hence no poisoned co-workers. Welch himself is proof that there are members of the Arkansas State Police who are NOT corrupt, but who do they turn to when something like this happens? The fish rots from the head down.
Investigator Wiley wrote down the names of Welch's medication and later confirmed that he was, in fact, being treated for anthrax. Other state police officers went to the hospital room, periodically, to help Debbie Welch, who stayed in the private room with her husband day and night for the entire 14 days that Welch was hospitalized. Investigator Charles Lambert and Investigator Bobby Walker were among those that heard the doctor discuss Welch's circumstances and the anthrax.
These men are further examples of integrity and personal loyalty within the Ark. State Police. Think for a minute what is meant by these officers 'helping Debbie Welsch' by periodically going to the hospital room where she was basically standing guard over her husband. Yeah, it helps emotionally to have friends drop by, but IMO they also posed a risk to anybody who might have happened by to be sure the 'job' on Welch got finished.
Whatever happened to that guy?
It was the first thing I thought of when we were told there'd been no such cases since 1976. It makes me wonder if there have been other such cases that a) never got diagnosed or b) had the reports suppressed.
There was a case in Oklahoma where a perfectly healthy man (Miller?) was going to present evidence in that case that involved the Lums, Ron Brown's son and McLarty. He suddenly came down with a mysterious disease and died within a few days. Remember, if Welch had not been taken to a doctor who had military experience and knowledge of Anthrax, his poisoning would never have been diagnosed either, let alone cured.
I'm going to be off-line for some time now so if you flag me on something and I don't answer right away, that's why. I like this new system for self search because we can find posts to us even if we can't log on for several days.
Ron Miller, investigated by authorities over the sale of his company, Gage Corp. to Dynamic Energy Resources, Inc. was the man who tape recorded Gene and Nora Lum and turned those tapes (and other records) over to congressional oversight investigators. The Lums were sentanced to prison for campaign finance violations, using "straw donors" to conceal the size of their contributions to various candidates.
Reportedly a healthy man, Ron suddenly took ill on October 3rd, and steadily worsened until his deah 9 days later. (This pattern fits Ricine poisoning or Anthrax) Owing to the strangeness of the illness, doctors at the Integris Baptist Medical Center referred the matter to the Oklahoma State Medical Examiner's Office.
The Oklahoma State Medical Examiner's Office promptly ran tests on samples of Ron Miller's blood, but has refused to release the results or even to confirm that the tests were ever completed.
I believe it's that old sad story about going to the outhouse and the Hogs got him.
BDD and OKCS, any chance you guys know somebody local who might have some info on this one? IF this was anthrax, it can be hung directly around the Clintons' necks, or at least their henchmen. Thanks to your and several other Freepers' efforts, WE know the links to M.E. terrorists and the Clintons via OKC bombing (and other events).
At the very least we KNOW that they knew about and covered up the M.E. connection. Obviously many of us also believe it went far beyond stifling the truth in order to use the atrocity for their own gain.
Lots of people are awakening to the fact that the Clinton administration had foreknowledge of the atrocity. Some of those people still try to pretend it was a sting gone bad. More of us understand that it was AT LEAST allowed to proceed for the Clintons' benefit. Some of us believe the connection is tighter than that, but this is hard to PROVE.
If the Clintons or "their people" can be shown concretely to have used a terrorist tool like anthrax, it will be easier for the more uninformed to make the next steps in understanding just how much of our trouble comes from enemies BOTH foreign and domestic. One step at a time. Many people already blame the Clintons at least in part for the 9/ll atrocity because of their weak and cowardly responses to Bin Laden's other terrorist attacks.
The Ghigliotti case probably is never going to be questioned because it's been tidily and publically put away. But if the Oklahoma State Medical Examiner's Office has refused to make their diagnosis public, they must have some reason (public panic?) for concealing it. MAYBE someone there had too much integrity to make a false diagnosis, but was willing to keep it quiet for the "public good".
Which brings us to our present attacks. Whoever is sending the anthrax mail has probably infected themselves. What the FBI needs to check into recent deaths of young Muslim men. If they slammed into skyscrappers, I wouldn't be surprised if those who volunteered to do the mailings were silently allowed to die a warrior's death, then had funerals quietly within the Muslim American community.
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