Scientist's anthrax claim was bogus

Milwaulkee Journal Sentinel ^ | October 4, 2001 | GRETCHEN SCHULDT

[Clinton's a rapist]

A week after the terrorist attacks on America, a highly educated scientist told Milwaukee police that he was building an anthrax delivery system in his basement, according to documents filed in federal court.

In these times of heightened alert, the remark earned the man a visit from FBI agents armed with a search warrant, who took the man's computer, and keypads from a telephone and a microwave oven, according to court records. But no deadly anthrax.

As it turns out, police were responding to a neighbor dispute, and the man was intoxicated when he made the anthrax comments to police.

FBI spokeswoman Cathy Fahey said no further investigation is planned and the man, whose resume says he has a doctorate in nuclear and environmental chemistry, is not likely to be charged.

The affidavit says the man apparently was intoxicated when he made the anthrax statement to police just days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks left the nation with heightened vigilance against potential biological or chemical threats.

About 200 pounds of anthrax spores released upwind of Washington, D.C., could kill up to 3 million people, according to a government study.

Police were summoned to the man's west side home Sept. 18 by his mother, who feared he would get into a physical confrontation with a neighbor over damage her son allegedly did with a lawn mower to the neighbor's property.

The woman "indicated that her son was usually not violent, but had recently developed an alcohol problem and is unable to control his temper after drinking," according to the affidavit by FBI Special Agent Parker Shipley.

The affidavit was filed last week in support of a request for a search warrant. The search was conducted Friday.

The affidavit says the man told officers he had worked for subcontractors of the U.S. Departments of Defense and Energy as a senior research scientist.

His resume, which he provided to the officers, "indicates that his specialty is in the areas of radio chemistry, military ordnance and munitions, and decontamination," the affidavit says.

The man's employment history was verified with a former employer, the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio. He was fired twice - in 1996 and 1999 - from his job there as a senior research scientist, according to the affidavit and the man's resume, which also was filed in court.

Battelle "had reason" to search the man's home after he was fired the second time, the affidavit says.

The searchers found chemicals that were not illegal to possess, but an informant told the FBI that the man "has the knowledge and experience to utilize the chemicals that were found in his basement to make a lethal chemical agent," the affidavit says.

[a_witness]

My predictions stand: we won't be arresting a "domestic" anthrax culprit or attacking Iraq anytime soon.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by soon. George W. Bush is not going to allow Saddam Hussein to terrorize the world. We will attack and destroy his regime.

[gumbo]

Uncle Saddam, OTH, is in a much tighter spot

Have you seen this yet? Iraqi Defector Tells of Work on at Least 20 Hidden Weapons Sites

[Alamo-Girl]

Absolutely fascinating! Thank you!!!

The religious zeal to justify their intentions of murder and suicide comes through loud and clear to me. It reminds me of this verse out of the Bible:

They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. - John 16:2

[Robert357]

So, you are saying that we have not yet exposed the source of the Anthrax because we want to not critize the Pakistani Government and their intelligence community's role in the support of Al Queada, until we have Bin Laden and crew taken care of??? I wonder if the leader of Pakistan will clean house after he is informed of the source of the Anthrax and what was done at the India Parlament?

[Clinton's a rapist]

No, I'm saying that GW Bush has understood for months now that Iraq is threatening to massively retaliate against the US civilian populace if we attempt to kill Saddam or remove him from power in retaliation for 9/11. If he points the finger at Iraq, he has to act. But if he acts, the "real thing flies" and Manhattan becomes an uninhabitable wasteland and millions of Americans may die. So, the game is, how can the feds stall concluding the anthrax investigation until the public lose interest and the nuclear-biological stalemate with Iraq becomes smply a tacitly-accepted, politely unmentioned fact of life.

[Mitchell]

I found a sample of Marwan Alshehhi's handwriting. He was one of the 9/11 terrorists, a cousin of Mohammed Atta. The two shared a Florida apartment and took flying lessons together.

The sample is a hotel registration card that Alshehhi filled out:

I found this on a handwriting analysis site. It looks real, but I don't know the original source. (The site appears to be honest. They also have copies of the so-called terrorist suicide notes that we've discussed; I verified that the images they post are identical to the images at the FBI web site.)

The most important thing to notice is that Alshehhi wrote the dates as: "8-26 - 9-2-01". Notice the American date order (month-day-year). This goes against some people's claim that the American ordering of the dates in the anthrax letters suggests that the anthax letters were written by an American, not a Middle Easterner. This hotel registration card confirms that the 9/11 terrorists were sufficiently familiar with our customs that they would write dates in the order we normally use. [Just to jog everyone's memory, the anthrax letters are all dated "09-11-01".]

The second thing to notice is the use of dashes in the dates, instead of the more common slashes. Dashes were also used in the dates in the anthrax letters.

A difference between the dates here and the dates in the anthrax letters is that the month on the anthrax letters is written as "09", while the months on this registration card are written without the initial "0".

I'm no handwriting expert, but this doesn't appear to be the same hand as the anthrax letters. Of course, the writer of the anthrax letters was apparently trying to disguise his handwriting. He printed, and the writing is very neat and deliberate. This sample is written in cursive, and it was scrawled quickly, so they're difficult to compare.

I won't bother reposting the anthrax letter or envelopes, since I don't see a lot of similarity in handwriting between those documents and this sample. The 6 and the 9 look similar, but the 1, 2, and 8 do not. There's no slant in the hotel card sample. If you do want to compare them yourself, you'll probably find it useful to get a graphics program and enlarge the images.

[muawiyah]

The argument that Middle-Easterners do not use American style "dating" was knocked down when it was observed most of these guys had been in the US for some time, with many of them having worked at convenience stores or as taxicab drivers - those are the type of employers that have their employees writing down dates constantly.

Here's an alternative hypothesis for you - the way the FBI has investigated the anthrax attack it has become clear that someone in a key investigative position is an AlQeada agent. That person has done everything they could to divert the investigation from the Florida connection.

[Alamo-Girl]

Great catch!!! Thanks for the heads up!

[aristeides]

BTTT.

[Mitchell]

The argument that Middle-Easterners do not use American style "dating" was knocked down when it was observed most of these guys had been in the US for some time,

Well, I always thought so, but others didn't. In any case, it's different to have an actual document with American style dates written by one of the 9/11 hijackers just a couple of weeks before the hijacking. It's no longer a matter for speculation -- there's now hard evidence that Alshehhi used American-style dates. And this was in a hotel registration card, obviously written quickly, without much thought.

with many of them having worked at convenience stores or as taxicab drivers - those are the type of employers that have their employees writing down dates constantly.

Did any of the hijackers actually work at convenience stores or as taxicab drivers? I know that many Middle Easterners and other foreigners work at such jobs, but did these specific people?

Here's an alternative hypothesis for you - the way the FBI has investigated the anthrax attack it has become clear that someone in a key investigative position is an AlQeada agent. That person has done everything they could to divert the investigation from the Florida connection.

This seems doubtful, and there's no real evidence for it. I don't think any one person at the FBI could do that, since people like Rumsfeld wouldn't put up with it.

[muawiyah]

Rumsfeld was not a player in this one. And yes, a single individual at the FBI could steer the investigation - that's the way they do these things.

[Mitchell]

Rumsfeld was not a player in this one. And yes, a single individual at the FBI could steer the investigation - that's the way they do these things.

You're probably right that a well-placed individual at the FBI could stymie an investigation, and certainly could steer it in a particular direction. (There's nothing wrong in principle with an investigator judging the appropriate direction to pursue. That's his or her job, but the decision should be based on the evidence.)

But I also think that any connections with a foreign power or with al-Qaeda would necessitate the involvement of the Defense Dept. At the very least, Rumsfeld would be kept informed of the status of the investigation. Also, the Defense Dept., the State Dept., the CIA, and the NSA are more natural places than the FBI to put together information on the anthrax case (assuming that it is, in fact, a foreign military action).

I don't doubt that either incompetence or a mole at the FBI could disrupt the FBI's investigation. But this would not stop the U.S. government's investigation, since that is likely to be centered in defense and foreign policy areas.

Even if the FBI is more competent and trustworthy than it appears to be, the Defense Dept. would be foolish to rely on what is essentially a domestic police investigation in trying to unravel a foreign military attack. And Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are far from foolish.

I'm also very reluctant to talk about a foreign agent manipulating the FBI without some sort of proof. Idle speculation on such things is problematic at best.

[petuniasevan]

How did this old thread end up at the top of the Wisconsin topic?

[piasa]

All that is needed is a conveneint suicide and we have a domestic disgruntled ex-sceintist perp. Perfect.

uh oh...

One of the nation’s top biodefense researchers has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailing assaults of 2001 that killed five, the Los Angeles Times has learned. Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the past 18 years worked at the government’s elite biodefense research laboratories at Fort Detrick, Md..-------Anthrax suspect dies in apparent suicide Los Angeles Times via Kansascity.com ^ | 8/1/08 | David Willman Posted on Friday, August 01, 2008 1:29:15 AM by hole_n_one