I think the only scandal the textbooks may ever mention will be the Monica escapades and the impeachment. The mountain of others will be ignored/overlooked. . .
Posted on 12/29/2001 12:00:48 PM PST by elenchus
Did President Clinton's principal military supporter, retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, betray America and subject us to the anthrax threat and other bioterrorism attacks?
In the most important piece of investigative journalism to date on the bioterrorism threat in general, and the anthrax attacks in particular, author and political scientist Edward J. Epstein (in a Wall Street Journal editorial article) attempts to trace the possible source of the anthrax which has killed several Americans, terrified a nation and cost billions of dollars. The trail leads Epstein to a tangled web of active and shell corporations apparently owned by "Fuad El-Hibri, a Lebanese Arab with joint German-U.S. citizenship; his father, Ibrihim El-Hibri; and possibly other undisclosed investors." In the course of forming those companies, establishing them in America, becoming an American citizen and creating the companies which controlled both America's anthrax vaccine and possibly the world's principal stock of the deadliest strain of anthrax, El-Hibri appears to have made a large payout to Admiral Crowe, former Chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, of stock in one or more of the web of companies, according to Epstein.
Our analysis of the timeline shows that it was around this time that Admiral Crowe endorsed President Clinton for his first term as President of the United States, and then was nominated by Clinton to be Ambassador to Britain and Northern Ireland.
Among others he reports on, Epstein recites the following El-Hibri corporate acquisition stages leading to control of the deadly strain of anthrax that poses the greatest threat to America and the west--as well as America's source of the anthrax vaccine:
"David Franz, who headed the biological-research program at Fort Detrick between 1987 and 1998, said that when the Army wanted to conduct defensive experiment on the Ames strain, it had to obtain the "information" from a British military lab that did experiments with Ames anthrax in the powdered form. Evidently, the virulent Ames strain had been sent from the U.S. to Britain, and, after the U.S. destroyed its stockpiles in the 1970s, samples had to be obtained from the British facility at Porton Downs, specifically from the Center for Applied Microbiology and Research (CAMR). Martin Hugh-Jones, a scientist at Lousiana State University who received a sample from CAMR in the 1990s, recalls that it was marked "October, 1932." So the matching sample traces not only to the U.S. but to Britain.
"The security of the British anthrax bacteria is complicated by its privatization. In 1993, at the time it was supplying the virulent Ames strain sample, CAMR was privatized by the British government and became part of Porton Products Ltd. Porton Products was owned by Speywood Holdings Ltd., which, in turn, was owned by I&F Holdings NV, a Netherlands Antilles corporate shell owned by Fuad El-Hibri, a Lebanese Arab with joint German-U.S. citizenship; his father, Ibrihim El-Hibri; and possibly other undisclosed investors...."
Epstein continues:
"Even more intriguing, Mr. El-Hibri's interest in anthrax vaccines did not stop with CAMR. In 1998, he arranged a leveraged buyout of the Michigan Biological Products Institute. MBPI, which originally had been owned by the state of Michigan, held the exclusive contract for providing the U.S. government with anthrax vaccine. While its vaccine worked well against the Vollum strain of anthrax (used by Russia), it was more problematic against the Ames strain. So it had conducted tests with the virulent Ames strain on guinea pigs, mice and monkeys with mixed results. BioPort's spokeperson confirmed that it had access to the virulent Ames strain for testing on animals.
"To take over MBPI, Mr. El-Hibri became an American citizen, and gave retired Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a large block of stock in Intervac, one of the corporations involved in the maneuver. The controlling shareholder was the same I&F Holdings used to take control of the British biotech lab, CAMR.
"He then renamed the company BioPort. BioPort, which controlled America's anthrax vaccine, was apparently of some interests to scientists in Afghanistan since an environmental assessment report of its planned laboratory renovations was turned up in the house of a Pakistani scientist in Kabul."
Epstein's investigative piece passingly mentions the El-Hibri stock payout to Admiral Crowe, but overlooks the fact that Crowe was the highest level military leader to endorse Clinton in 1992. Soon after this endorsement, President Clinton nominated Admiral Crowe to be U.S. ambassador to Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Crowe served in the United States Navy for 47 years, retiring in 1988. His assignments included Commander in Chief of the Allied Forces, Southern Europe; Commander in Chief, U.S. Naval Forces, Europe; Command in Chief, U.S. Pacific Command; and Commander, Middle East Force, based in Bahrain. At the time of his nomination by Clinton, he was counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in the District of Columbia, professor of Geopolitics at the University of Oklahoma and Chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
It has been reported that Admiral Crowe has owned as much as 13% of BioPort stock and that it was under his watch as a member of the Joint Chiefs that Saddam Hussein was given anthrax to use against the Iranians (although neither of these points could be independently verified at the time of this writing). For a number of internet reports on these topics see: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=crowe+anthrax+hussein
Epstein also overlooks the ironic fact that in the year 2000, President Clinton awarded Admiral Crowe the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest civilian award. (http://www.vnis.com/vetnews/veterans/veterans2000/veterans2000-160.htm#2)
Epstein's original Wall Street Journal editorial is available at: http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95001637
As chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Crowe lied about the position of the Vincennes when it shot down the Iranian Airbus.
Both were appointed to the Naval Academy in 1942. Crowe graduated in 1946. According to this website poor eyesight prevented Stephens from being commissioned. Their friendship going back to academy days is also mentioned here.
...with a now exposed ANTHRAX Link popping up in this very thread about a Payed-Off Former Admiral who's Endorsement of CLINTON in the 1992 Election got him past his Draft-Dodging past with the Voters.
...What/Who ever benefits -The Enemy Within- CLINTONS the Most.
They were due for a reinspection in Dec. Wonder if that actually happened?
Here's a secret for you - and really keep this one quiet - letter mail addressed to folks on the House and Senate side is actually examined for bombs and sometimes x-rayed for content in a separate facility long before it goes into any of those office buildings.
There, now you know the secret.
This business of "attacking a building" must also account for all the other buildings through which those letters traveled. For example there's the Brentwood facility. Maybe somebody wished to shut it down and make it's records inaccessible to investigative personnel?!?!?!?
...I have also seen reports that the ONE thing BILL CLINTON wants to disappear from Washington D.C. is the Impeachment Evidence against him stored in the FORD Senate Office Building, especially the Evidence of his XX Violent Rape of JUANITTA BRODERICK.
...We have yet to see the last Attacks on OUR Ford Senate Office Building.
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