Clintonized FBI Fingers 'Right-Wing Hate Groups' in Anthrax Probe

In a move reminiscent of the botched FBI investigations of the Clinton era, the bureau is actively pursuing weak leads suggesting "right-wing hate groups" are involved in the recent wave of anthrax attacks on the U.S.

Meanwhile, clear circumstantial evidence pointing to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden appears to have been placed on the back burner.

Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, the U.S. hadn't suffered a single case of inhalation anthrax since 1976.

Still, probers continue to insist they see no connection between the events of that day and the anthrax-laden letters sent out the next week to every branch of the U.S. government, the CIA, the big three network news divisions and the headquarters of prominent newspapers from New York to Florida.

"Everything seems to lean toward a domestic source," one senior FBI official told the Washington Post Saturday. "Nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist-type operation."

Steve Coz, for instance, whose National Enquirer headquarters in Florida was the first to be hit with an anthrax attack, complained two weeks ago that Al-Qaeda terror kamikaze pilot Mohamed Atta had been spotted in a local drugstore with reddened hands - a condition he thought could be a symptom of cutaneous anthrax.

Another detail the FBI seems anxious to overlook: The widely reported visits by Atta and his co-conspirators to Florida airfields, where they inquired about renting cropdusters and the size of the chemical loads the planes could disperse.

The bureau seems none too interested in other potential evidence that could tie Atta to the anthrax assault.

"In Florida, agents haven't tested cars or residences used by some of the hijackers, including those of Mohamed Atta," reported the Wall Street Journal Thursday. "FBI officials said testing isn't a priority, because they assume that by now, the hijackers' cars and apartments would have been cleaned, removing any trace of anthrax."

Ken Alibek, who headed up the Soviet Union's biological weapons program, said the FBI's "assumption" is wrong. He told the Journal that investigators should be conducting extensive testing for anthrax traces in vehicles used by suspects and in all places that a suspect resided.

Alibek's advice notwithstanding, Special Agent Rene Salinas told the paper, "At this time, there are no plans to go back and check [Atta's car and apartment] for traces of anthrax."

The FBI's belief that so-called domestic terror groups are behind the bioterror scourge is also belied by Friday's reports that anthrax found in a letter sent to Sen. Tom Daschle contained bentonite, a substance weapons experts say is Iraq's signature.

While some analysts point out that bentonite was also used in U.S. anthrax production, the Journal reported Friday that those stocks "were destroyed in the 1960s."

Dr. Khidhir Hamza, a former top official in Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, also disagrees with the FBI's domestic terrorism hunch.

"This is Iraq's work. Nobody [else] has the expertise outside the U.S. and outside the major powers who work on germ warfare. Nobody has the expertise and has any motive to attack the U.S. except Saddam to do this. This is Iraq. This is Saddam." (Read NewsMax.com's exclusive report on Dr. Hamza's comments.)

Saturday's news that the Czech government now confirms several meetings betweeen Atta and a top Iraqi intelligence official in Prague last June - combined with reports last week that bin Laden was able to purchase anthrax from a factory in the Czech Republic - add further legitimacy to suspicions of a foreign bioterror tie. (See Osama Bought Anthrax.)

Still, as the evidence mounts of Al-Qaeda and Iraqi involvement, the FBI seems hell-bent on looking the other way.

"Ultra right-wing organizations - including a particular West Coast group - have become a key focus of the massive federal investigation into the murderous anthrax attacks," the New York Post reported Thursday.

"Our feeling is the anthrax does not point to an international terrorist group," an FBI source told the Post for its front-page report.

"The FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service are considering a wide range of domestic possibilities, including associates of right-wing hate groups and U.S. residents sympathetic to the causes of Islamic extremists," reported Post star Bob Woodward.

What actual evidence does the FBI have of a homegrown anthrax plot? Not much, at least if published reports are any indication.

Charges against suspected domestic bioterrorist Larry Wayne Harris, who was thought to be targeting Las Vegas with "weapons grade anthrax" earlier this year, had to be dropped after the "suspicious biological agent" he was carrying turned out to be a harmless anthrax vaccine.

At least 20 abortion clinics have been evacuated in the last three years after receiving anthrax threats - including powdered letters. All turned out to be hoaxes.

The only U.S. prosecution for domestic bioterrorism to date was for a man who had mailed out two suspicious vials along with the note, "You have just been contaminated by anthrax."

Though the threat alone was a crime, the vials themselves turned out to contain nothing more toxic than tap water.

In fact, of the more than 300 homegrown anthrax scares investigated by the FBI in the last three years, all proved to be bogus - until bin Laden put the U.S. in his crosshairs on Sept. 11.

Still, federal probers seem anxious to round up the usual suspects, no matter how unconvincing the evidence. One supposed hot lead currently being pursued: the gun show connection.

"The FBI has been making inquiries about a Nebraska man who for several years has been selling manuals at gun shows that provide information on making chemical and biological weapons," the Wall Street Journal reported Friday. If the FBI thinks the unidentified suspect actually possesses any anthrax, it isn't saying so.

Then there's the ever popular militia angle, which the bureau is reportedy following with little apparent reason:

"In Michigan, FBI agents have met several times since Sept. 11 with Ann Arbor police to talk about the whereabouts and capabilities of local militiamen," the Journal noted.

"[There's] some concern that people in that element might see Sept. 11 as a good way to get more notoriety and exposure," the local police chief told the paper, citing no other evidence.

Even the Southern Poverty Law Project, which monitors U.S. hate groups and is seldom reluctant to point fingers, told the Post they have seen no evidence of a domestic group capable of launching a sophisticated anthrax attack.

If these reports reflect the true thrust of the FBI's anthrax investigation, it's clear the bureau has yet to overcome eight years worth of Clintonization, where the only leads pursued were the ones that supported predetermined outcomes.

In fact, the bureau's decision not to test Atta's apartment for trace anthrax seems like déjà vu all over again.

Recall the Vincent Foster death case, where FBI agents told Congress there was no need to analyze blond hairs found on Foster's body or carpet fibers on his clothing.

Or Flight TWA 800, where investigators were uninterested in talking to 300 witnesses who said they saw a missile strike the plane.

With blunders like these, it's no wonder Mideast terrorists thought they could get away with anything.

FBI thinks it's the rednecks --- HAAHAAHAAAAHAAAHAAAHAAAAA.

Is this the same FBI that had Atta-Boy on their "watch list"?

Hey FBI lurkers: Does "watch list" mean you JUST WATCH THE TERRORISTS AND LET THEM DO WHATEVER THE H*LL THEY WANT, AND NOT INTERFERE? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE.

FBI, weren't you the ones with that traitor with the sh*t-eating grin who operated under your noses for years, selling information to the Russians? How many more are there like him?

Aren't you the same FBI that spent the last decade trying to squelch deadly terrorists like the Branch Dividians at Waco, and the infamous seditious alien Elian Gonzales?

And is this not the same FBI that has been spending the majority of its resources investigating Medicare chiselers and copyright infringers, and other threats to our lives?

To the utter exclusion of trying to defeat domestic terrorism?

You clowns need to look in the mirror and be ashamed.

Then you need to all resign and soak your heads for a couple of hours.

The terrorists are guilty of half of what happened on September 11, and you and the CIA are guilty of the other half.

Incompetent fools.

So, I am reassured.

If you Barney Fifes think IT WAS the rednecks who did this, then I am feeling pretty comfortable that IT WAS NOT the rednecks.

Someone is being set up for a crack-down.

I've been reading the same stuff in the foreign press.

For example, check out this story:

Anthrax attacks' 'work of neo-Nazis'

Neo-Nazi extremists within the US are behind the deadly wave of anthrax attacks against America, according to latest briefings from the security services and Justice Department.

Experts on 'survivalist' groups and extreme-right 'Aryan' militants have been drafted into the investigation as the focus shifts away from possible links with the 11 September terrorists or even possible state backers such as Iraq.

'We've been zeroing in on a number of hate groups, especially one on the West Coast,' a source at the Justice Department told The Observer yesterday. 'We've certainly not discounted the possibility that they may be involved.'

The anthrax crisis, which grew last week, had by Friday night spread to mailrooms at CIA headquarters, the Supreme Court and a hospital, and yesterday three traces were found in an office building serving the US Capitol.

'There are a number of strong leads, and some people we know well that we are looking at,' the Justice Department said. 'These are groups organised into militia and "survivalist" movements - which pull out of society and take to the hills to make war on the government, and who will support anyone else making war on the government.'

Investigators are examining threatening letters sent to media organisations - some dated before the 11 September attacks - which did not contain anthrax but contained similar messages and handwriting style as those which later did. The theory is that the anthrax attacks were planned - and the killer germ was obtained and treated - long before the carnage of 11 September.

Speaking to The Observer yesterday, the Justice Department official said: 'We have to see the right wing as much better coordinated than its apparent disorganisation suggests. And we have to presume that their opposition to government is just as virulent as that of the Islamic terrorists, if not as accomplished.

'But that is, in its way, one of the most compelling possible leads in the anthrax trail - that it is not really al-Qaeda's style, but rather that of others who sympathise with its war against the American government and media.'

The official said the investigation had, in the past week, drafted in special teams from the Civil Rights division of the department to reinforce the international terrorism teams. The American neo-Nazi Right is motivated above all by its loathing of the federal government, which it believes is selling out the homeland to a 'New World Order' run by masons and Jews.

Its insane politics have propelled numerous attacks and armed stand-offs over the past eight years, culminating in the carnage at Oklahoma. Now the anthrax investigation is zooming in on possible connections between these neo-Nazis and Arab extremists, united by their mutual anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel. Such alliances have been common among neo-Nazis in Europe, but have played a lesser role in the US. However, monitoring of the hate groups shows they are now embracing al-Qaeda's terrorism as commendable attacks on the federal government.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal centre in Los Angeles said that at a meeting in Lebanon this year, US neo-Nazis were represented alongside Islamic militants. 'There's a great solidarity with the point of view of the bin Ladens of the world,' said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Centre, which monitors the far right. 'These people wouldn't let their daughters near an Arab, but they are certainly making common cause on an ideological level. They see the same enemy: American culture and multiculturalism.'

Neo-Nazi websites, including the largest umbrella organisation, the National Alliance, show support for al-Qaeda. Billy Roper, the alliance's membership coordinator posted a message within hours of the 11 September attacks, reading: 'Anyone who is willing to drive a plane into a building to kill Jews is all right by me. I wish our members had half as much testicular fortitude.' Another group, Aryan Action, praised the attacks of 11 September, saying: 'Either you're fighting with the Jews against al-Qaeda or you support al-Qaeda fighting against the Jews.' Others outwardly support the anthrax mailing.

One message, entitled 'No Sympathy for the Devil', was posted in several chat rooms by right-winger Grant Bruer, whose racist writings are circulated among supremacist groups. It reads: 'Is there not a single person who has received these anthrax letters that isn't an avowed enemy of the white race? Tom Brokaw, Tom Daschle and the gossip rag offices have all been 100 per cent legitimate targets. Who among us has the slightest bit of sympathy for these pukes?'

Right-wing groups have had an interest in anthrax and other biological agents. A member of the Aryan Nation group once bragged he had a stash of anthrax from digging up a field where cows had died of the disease in the 1950s. Larry Wayne Harris was arrested after trying to obtain three vials of bubonic plague from a mail-order science company.

The trail leading investigators to groups from the domestic ultra-right - rather than the al-Qaeda terror network - comes as a dramatic twist in the confused crisis. Last week, parallel evidence appeared to be linking the now rampant anthrax attacks to another trail: leading from Iraq and through the Czech Republic, with al-Qaeda militants as the likely couriers.

The shift in the investigation echoes that which followed America's other infamous terrorist attack: the destruction of the federal government building in Oklahoma City in 1995. The bombing was initially thought to be the work of Arab extremists, but turned out to be the work of the Aryan supremacists.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.