The Bush administration is quite happy for the FBI to be led around by Barbara Rosenberg -- for now.
Look very carefully at the interestingly-named "Amerithrax" investigation.
I recommend everyone check out the FBI's Amerithrax web site thoroughly; follow the links, read the text, look at the pictures, play the WAVs. It won't take you very long. Then ask yourself: what is the real purpose of Amerithrax?
The Amerithrax investigation is in the process of being very publicly discredited. Almost every big-name paper in the country has now run an editorial deriding the FBI and the apparent attempt to "Jewell" Dr. Steven Hatfill. The Amerithrax crew -- two men and a dog, basically -- has been putting on a brave show, flashing Steve Hatfill's picture around Princeton, NJ, asking residents if they remember seeing him mail a letter ten months ago.
Nothing will come of this, of course.
Louisiana State University, which hired Hatfill last month on a DOJ-funded contract as a $150K/yr bioterror response trainer, put him on one-month's paid leave on August 2, promising to review his status at the end of that period. On or before that date, the matter of Steven J. Hatfill will become a dead issue. Which means that the "rogue scientist" myth will be dead, for all intents and purposes.
Which means that the question people will be asking themselves is, who gave Mohammed Atta the anthrax?
On September 2, just over a week before the orgy of retrospectives and navel-gazing which will accompany the 9/11 anniversary, President George W. Bush will return to Washington, rested from his one-month vacation in Waco, TX. It may be anticipated that one of the first items on his agenda will be to establish the context for the next phase of the War on Terrorism, including fulfilling his promise to "make the case" for his stated goal of removing Saddam Hussein, by any and all means necessary.
The White House served notice a few days ago that "making the case" will involve "talking more" about the disputed story of Mohammed Atta's visit to Prague to meet with an Iraqi intelligence agent. What does "talking more" about this incident mean? Will this be a generalized, airy-fairy, philosophical discussion about the impossibility of knowing anything for certain? Or will it be something else?
Hands up who still can't see where this is going. Anyone?
Maybe something's going to break on the anthrax front soon.