[CrossCheck]

Sounds plausible to me. Is there still a foreign possibility?

[Miss Marple]

It is also possible that this was done by a foreign national working in one of these labs. There are plenty, as we have seen from our experience with Los Alamos.

Besides that possibility and the one mentioned in the article, it is also possible that this was done by someone who wanted to make the military labs look bad, or who wanted to help the democrats by letting them be victims, or who wanted to make money on anti-anthrax measures....

There are a host of possibilities and motives. The danger from Iraq is not a knee-jerk reaction. The paper has conveniently forgotten Iraq's attempted assassination plot targeting the first President Bush.

[Nitro]

He works in the US, his name is Sam, we gotta get RIID of him!

USAMRIID, that's it!

[Blueflag]

Let me put on my tin foil hat. It's always good to follow the money. For the DEMOCRATIC senators who got the mailings, what funding do they control (or enjoy in their home states)?

The author makes an excellent point-- these letters were not about killing, they were about 'raising the spectre of bio-terror.' With less than 100 insiders as potential perps, I bet the FBI is close. Then if they dig deeper for a motive, we can find who wanted the perp(s) to act.

[OldFriend]

I'm sticking to my first conclusion. A micro-biologoy professor at Princeton. He's arab, the post office that collected the letters is close to the university and the man no doubt has some willing accomplices.

[Arkie2]

What! The right wing militias didn't do this? The Christian right didn't do this? Will there be any apologies from the folks who jumped to that conclusion? I'm not holding my breath.

[muawiyah]

Remember, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the Minneapolis (red) Star and other major daily newspapers DID NOT GET ATTACKED.

Only tabloids and free broadcast media suffered an attack.

The perpetrator's profile must include these facts - this one does not.

At the moment you could as well put your money on an advertising sales manager at the Washington Post as anyone. After all advertising sales are down and this is a very competitive business.

[He Rides A White Horse]

"I don't think that he was trying to kill anybody," said Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a microbiologist who has studied the attacks for the Federation of American Socialist Scientists.

[He Rides A White Horse]

The Federation of American Scientists is a globalist, antigun, leftist organization spewing the usual tripe. Go look at their website.

[He Rides A White Horse]

All studies indicate that, in both the military and criminal sphere, the greatest percentage of violent deaths occur from the use of light weapons and small arms.

-Oscar Arias Sánchez, A Scourge of Guns

From ASMP (Armed Sales Monitoring Project)

[He Rides A White Horse]

Another gem from their website: To the militia ideologues, gun control legislation - especially the Brady Law and restrictions on assault weapons - are major stratagems in a secret government conspiracy to disarm and control the American people and abolish their Constitutional right "to keep and bear Arms." They are also obsessed with the role of government in two recent events - the Branch Davidian confrontation in Waco and the Randy Weaver siege in Idaho - which they interpret as signs of impending tyranny. Their conspiracy-haunted views include the belief that mysterious "black helicopters" are surveilling Americans across the West, that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is secretly establishing concentration camps for American dissidents (including militia proponents), and that the federal government, in league with some nefarious "New World Order," is planning a "takeover" of the United States by UN troops. The answer, say these extremists, is ultimately, necessarily, paramilitary resistance.

An armed and aroused citizenry, they assert, must be mobilized and ready for a call to war. For most, if not all, of the militias, the fear of government confiscation of their weapons is a paramount concern. Samuel Sherwood, head of the "U.S. Militia Association" in states: 'When they come around to collect weapons, we'll have the legal and lawful structure to say 'no' to that." Sherwood has stated further: "Go up and look legislators in the face, because someday you may have to blow it off." Randy Trochmann of the "Militia of Montana" gets tougher: "If and when the federal government decides to confiscate weapons, people will band together to stop them. They are not going to give up their guns." And the "enemy" easily becomes nightmarish: Robert Pummer, a leader of the "Florida State Militia," says that his group is "capable of defending ourselves against chemical and biological agents."

Although thwarting gun control is the chief aim of the militias, they seek to turn the clock back on federal involvement in a host of other issues as well, e.g., education, abortion, and environmental protections. A case in point is Norman Olson, until this past weekend a regional militia commander in northern Michigan. Olson, a Baptist minister who owns a gun shop, has envisioned violence erupting if present government policies continue, declaring: "We're talking about a situation where armed conflict may be inevitable if the country doesn't turn around."

It's obvious what their agenda is.

Anti-abortionists, progunners, Christians are bad.

Globalists, the UN, the pro-aborts, all good.

They have "Leftist" written all over them.

[He Rides A White Horse]

"Profile of a Killer".....too funny.........their website is a "Profile of a Global Communist"

[He Rides A White Horse]

Here's more:

Special Interest Extremists

Special interest extremists continued to conduct acts of politically-oriented crime last year. Violent anti-abortion advocates were responsible for almost all of these activities.

Due to the efforts of the Department of Justice's Task Force on Violence Against Abortion Providers (TFVAAP), the number of abortion-related crimes decreased from 1994 levels. Although the number of incidents declined, the TFVAAP still investigated more than 100 violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act in 1995.

Two of the most prominent abortion-related events in 1995 included the following:

On February 22, 1995, Dr. Elizabeth Karlin, a physician in Madison, Wisconsin, received two death threat letters. Vincent Whitaker--an inmate at a local county jail who was serving a 67-year sentence for reckless injury with a motor vehicle--later admitted writing the letters. On September 12, 1995, Whitaker was tried and convicted of two counts of the FACE Act and sending threats through the U.S. Mail. On November 21, 1995, Whitaker was sentenced to an additional 63 months imprisonment.

In August 1995, John Salvi--the suspected murderer of two receptionists during a December 30, 1994, shooting spree at an abortion clinic in Brookline, Massachusetts--was declared competent to stand trial. Salvi is charged under Massachusetts law with the murders of Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols, and five other counts of aggravated assault.

The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, through the TFVAAP, investigates any instance in which customers or providers of reproductive health services are criminally threatened, obstructed, or injured while seeking or providing services.

Do a search on their website. Enter keywords like I did, such as 'gun control' or 'abortion', and this groups left wing tilt should be obvious.

It's the same garbage from the same "America Last" crowd, except here they call themselves "scientists".

[Rudder]

the murderer showed a knowledge of forensics (apparently not licking a stamp or envelope, for example, to avoid leaving DNA

The author is a doofus. Not licking the envelope filled with anthrax is not evidence of forensic knowledge, but rather evidence of how not to get anthrax when you're engaged in bioterrorism.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

FYI

[beckett]

Is there still a foreign possibility?

In my view there is still very definitely a foreign possibility.

BioPort is the firm that holds the exclusive government contract for producing the anthrax vaccine. BioPort, of course, has many microbiologists on staff who are anthrax experts capable of all of the sophisticated handling of the substance that Kristof limns above. The firm is owned by a German citizen of Lebanese descent, Fuad El-Hibri (his wife is titular owner). Adm. William J. Crowe, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Clinton's ambassador to Great Britain, owns a 13% share.

With BioPort we have hit the tri-fecta of possible motives to spread anthrax:

1. Kristof's theory, i.e., a rogue microbiologist did it because he was unhappy with American preparedness for biological attack. This might be called the "his heart is in the right place" theory and would not necessarily lead to BioPort, but BioPort could not be ruled out. In my view it is highly unlikely. I'm suspicious of it because it moves the focus off higher ranking officials and onto a possible patsy.
2. Since BioPort (InterVac) is the only provider of the vaccine, BioPort management recognized that 9/11 provided good cover to boost the company's stock price dramatically by releasing a small amount of anthrax.
3. El-Hibri sold or provided anthrax to al-Qaeda operatives, to whom, under this theory, he is ideologically committed. Recent reports have shown that avenues were opened up by BioPort that allowed shipment of anthrax to foreign soil.

Kristof's theory does not rule out an al-Qaeda connection to the anthrax scare. The only scenario now ruled out completely, in my opinion, is the one that claimed that some "right-wing nut in a homemade lab" did the deed.

[Nogbad]

The New York Times should stick to subjects they know something about:

In-depth reports on the gay life-style.

[Delta-Boudreaux]

OOPS... My bad.... I thought the tread title was referring to CLINTON

[archy]

He is an American insider, a man working in the military bio-weapons field. He's a skilled microbiologist who did not aim to kill anybody or even to disrupt the postal system. Rather, he wanted to sow terror.

And he was just following orders.

[He Rides A White Horse]

I imagine what Ms. Rosenberg really wants to say is that the perp is a right wing, pro-life Christian with deep ties to the US industrial/ military complex /sarcasm

[RWG]

How do I know all this? Well, I don't exactly...and this should alert the reader to attempts at disinformation, spin, or just distraction. The next concern should be why a paper would take up space with this tin foil propoganda.