Posted on 06/09/2003 7:07:25 PM PDT by John H K
As the FBI began draining an entire pond today in its 20-month-old anthrax probe, investigators remained focused on one man in the hunt for the perpetrator, ABCNEWS' World News Tonight reported.
And today's unusual move appears to be the FBI's last, best shot at proving what it so far has been unable to prove, that former government scientist Steven Hatfill was the anthrax killer.
Five people died and more than a dozen others were sickened in the rash of anthrax attacks targeting Congress and media outlets in the fall of 2001.
The decision to drain the pond in Maryland's Frederick Municipal Forest was based on what federal officials say is no more than a growing circumstantial case against Hatfill, federal law enforcement sources said.
The FBI's working theory, sources said, is that Hatfill, who lived eight miles away in Frederick, Md., next to U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases where he worked, used makeshift lab equipment to put finely powdered anthrax in envelopes, and then dumped the equipment in the pond. Hatfill has vehemently denied any involvement in the anthrax attacks, and his spokesman reiterated that today.
"They can drain the Pacific Ocean and they're not going to find any evidence that Steve Hatfill was the anthrax killer because he's had no involvement whatsoever," said Hatfill spokesman Pat Clawson.
The Sweater Box Mystery
But the circumstantial case is continuing to develop. The FBI was led to the pond last year by bloodhounds, including one named Tinkerbell, tracking the scent picked up from Hatfill and the anthrax letters, federal sources said.
Over the Christmas holiday, FBI divers recovered what they think was a piece of the makeshift equipment used to load the anthrax, a plastic sweater box with two hand-sized holes cut in it, sources said.
Other circumstantial evidence that has sources said has led the FBI to continue its focus on Hatfill includes his presence in Florida, around the time an anthrax-laced letter was mailed to the American Media Co. in Boca Raton, Fla.
Also, sources said, Hatfill made an admission to the FBI that he was taking the powerful antibiotic Cipro at the time of the anthrax attacks, which he reportedly said was for a nasal infection.
Cipro is the treatment prescribed for suspected anthrax poinsoning, and was given preventatively to thousands of people at the peak of the anthrax attacks.
Still, none of that circumstantial evidence has produced an arrest, leaving the FBI draining a 1-acre pond, a process that is expected to take three to four weeks and cost $250,000.
"If the FBI had any facts tying Steve Hatfill directly into the anthrax case, I don't think he'd be out walking the streets right now," said Clawson.
Leahy was in and out of some serious committee leadership positions. During one stint his staff submitted a number of pro-Israel bills under his name.
There was plenty of reason for AlQaida to target Leahy. Besides that, he's demonstrably stupid. His attackers might well have thought him to be in the practice of opening his own mail.
Nope. Any links?
Pitiful
Of course there's the possibility that this man is simply incredibly unlucky.
I guess the logic is similar to Hatfill had a locker in Florida...AMI is in Florida, therefore we should say hmmm.....
Well that explains why both places are messed up!
This is curious, though:
including one named Tinkerbell, tracking the scent picked up from Hatfill and the anthrax letters
What do the (usual unamed sources) mean "the" scent? If this was just one scent why bother with the pond since Hatfill would already be connected to the letters since he supposedly smells just like them? How could they give the dog both Hatfill's scent and the anthrax letter scent simultaneously? and if they didn't do it simultaneously, then which scent sample did the dog use to follow a trail to the pond? (And what was on the OTHER end of that trail?)
And why hasn't Hatfill been detained since we're now detaining loads of people on terror charges with evidence that seems thinner than this alleged evidence? Is this guy connected to Islamicists in some way we don't know about? In other terrorist cases, FBI sources are named, or other sources are often nemed. In stories about Hatfill, none of the sources are named. I'm curious as to why a few Cuba/Iraq-loving leftists stick to Hatfill like ticks but don't stick to anyone else. This whole tale is just plain weird.
And if I'm not mistaken, didn't Hatfill's lawyer bring up Hatfill allegedly getting bumped by the people tailing him before this news of another pond search hit the news? was it common knowledge the FBI was going to drain the pond on this date before the lawyer brought up the bumping incident? If not, does the lawyer somehow know when the FBI is going to search the pond? Or if it was known, is the lawyer just trying the usual defense ploy of getting their point of view out there first, maybe to get sympathy for Hatfill? Were there any witnesses to the bumping incident?
Or is the announcement about the pond draining an attempt to do damage control for the incident where Hatfill was bumped by his official pursuers?
How many other of the persons of interest are associated with this pond or live or work in its vicinity?
Have we heard anything at all about the other thirty persons of interest? If not, why not? Why all the leaks abotu one suspect among several? Why isn't the press the LEAST bit curious about the others?
Other circumstantial evidence that has sources said has led the FBI to continue its focus on Hatfill includes his presence in Florida, around the time an anthrax-laced letter was mailed to the American Media Co. in Boca Raton, Fla.
Do they know for certain when the Boca Raton letter was mailed - or are they guessing?
And speaking of 911, remember the UK politician Galloway, whose file was found in Baghdad? In theory he was only being bribed by Iraq- but if so, why this plea for Afghanistan? :
SEPTEMBER 14, 2001 Friday (UK : GALLOWAY ON AFGHANISTAN) : During an emergency debate in the House of Commons, Labour MP George Galloway issues an impassioned warning against an all-out assault on Afghanistan, warning that such action could create "10,000 Osama bin Ladens". http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,554018,00.html
Maybe it had something to do with this- now a jump from Afghanistan & Al Qaeda to Iraq & Al Qaeda, mere days after 911:
SEPTEMBER 16, 2001 : (IRAQ HAS BEEN PROVIDING AL QAEDA WITH FUNDING, LOGISTICS & TRAINING : IRAQ TRANSFERRED MILLIONS TO BIN LADEN AGENTS VIA LEBANESE BANKS IN DIPLOMATIC BAGS OVER LAST 4 MONTHS) The Pentagon is also preparing to strike against Iraq after it emerged that Saddam Hussein has been providing bin Laden's terrorist network with funding, logistical back-up and advanced weapons training. Over the past four months senior Iraqi intelligence officers have met representatives from al-Qaeda, bin Laden's international network, in Pakistan. They are believed to have transferred at least £2.7 million to his agents via diplomatic bags in cash or Lebanese bank accounts over the past year. - "Bush finalises battle plan," Daily Telegraph, September 16, 2001
Someone else was in Florida around that time:
SEPTEMBER 16, 2001 : (PALESTINIAN, BOMB THREATS) Nabil Sarama, a Palestinian is arrested while near a pay phone in Orlando, FL which had been used to phone in bomb threats. A search of his suitcase turned up a kit capable of making between eight and 12 box cutters like the weapons used by the Sept. 11 hijackers. He also had a California DMV ID card, a Georgia driver's license, four Florida IDs and a Palestinian Authority passport. Later, in northern California, an Immigration and Naturalization Service affidavit alleged that Nabil Sarama, a Palestinian, made a false statement to obtain a permanent residency card. http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:KTUumEdQ2o0C:www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/15/attack/main311414.shtml+%22Mohdar+Mohamed+Abdoulah+%22&hl=en
Government computer records show that between 1994 and 2001, Sarama entered the United States at least five times through at least five ports and also used passports from Israel and Jordan. http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:vv7R9PUJB4MC:foi.missouri.edu/603detained.html+%22Mohdar+Mohamed+Abdoulah+%22&hl=en
And what's this guy's role?
SEPTEMBER 17, 2001 : (IRAQI SHAKIR HELD BY QATAR, LET GO) Six days after September 11, Qatari authorities picked him up for questioning – but let him go. Yet a search of Shakir's apartment in Doha, the country's capital, yielded a treasure trove, including telephone records linking him to suspects in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and Project Bojinka, a 1994 Manila plot to blow up civilian airlines over the Pacific Ocean. U.S. officials found an even more startling link, according to intelligence documents obtained by NEWSWEEK: Shakir had been present at a January 2000 Qaeda "summit" in Malaysia that was attended by two of the 9-11 hijackers. Authorities believe that the summit may have been a planning session for both the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole and 9-11. Shakir quickly left Qatar. - "AL QAEDA'S MAN IN IRAQ?, " Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman with Mark Hosenball and Steve Tuttle, © 2002 Newsweek, Inc.
SEPTEMBER 18, 2001: (ANTHRAX MAILED TO NBC & NY POST & ?) Trenton, NJ : Mailed anthrax letters to NBC and NY Post(* My note : I don't have the source on this so double check)
SEPTEMBER 20, 2001 : (ANTHRAX HOAX MAILED TO NBC & MAYBE NY POST & ?) St. Petersburg Mailed hoax letter to NBC and possibly to NY Post
SEPTEMBER 20, 2001 : (IRAQ : UDAY HUSSEIN WRITES ABOUT SCENARIOS FO RWAR IN AFGHANISTAN) This convergence of Iraq and al Qaeda interests appeared again in the Iraqi press after September 11, this time in a commentary by Saddam Hussein's son, Uday. Writing in Babil on September 20, Uday sketches the scenarios for the war in Afghanistan he expects to come. Iraq should merely be "the spectator" at first, he writes, because "if we do anything Iraq will be attacked . . . perhaps like the attack of 1991." The Americans will join the Northern Alliance to topple the Taliban, but will then "sink into the Afghan quagmire"--a point that could have been stolen at the time from the New York Times. But then the son of Saddam adds, "In this scenario, there is nothing wrong with Iraq turning from a spectator to an active player on its territory to restore the north, which has been out of its control since 1991." So Iraq's interests are again furthered by bin Laden's terror.
Uday continues: "At this stage it is possible to turn to biological attack, where a small can, not bigger than the size of the hand, can be used to release viruses that affect everything. The attack might not necessarily be launched by the Islamists. It might be done by the Zionists or any other party through an agent. The viruses easily spread by air, and people are affected without feeling it." We now know that the first U.S. anthrax letters were sent on September 18. - "Saddam and the Next 9/11 : The Iraqi dictator and his son talk about the uses of biological weapons," REVIEW & OUTLOOK, OpinionJournal, WSJ.com, Friday, February 14, 2003 12:01 a.m. EST
SEPTEMBER 2001 : (AL-MARRI AND THE STEAMER CHEST) Like so many other Middle Eastern men living in the US at the time, Ali Salem Kahlah Al-Marri became a so-called person of interest to the FBI within a week of the Sept. 11 attacks. The FBI office in Peoria had received a lead from its Indianapolis office regarding a steamer chest that Al-Marri had shipped to the US. The Peoria office also had gotten a call from a salesman at US Cellular who expressed concerns regarding Al-Marri's cell phone account. FBI agents Nicholas Zambeck and Robert Brown began a preliminary investigation and discovered that the Social Security number used by Al-Marri also was being used by two others, someone in California and someone in Illinois. They also found a discrepancy in the date of birth on his enrollment form at Bradley. Al-Marri had first said he was born Feb. 3, 1965, and on a later form listed his date of birth as Sept. 24, 1965. - "Mystery man in 9/11 terror case-Who is Ali Al-Marri? FBI links him to hijackers," by RICHARD T. PIENCIAK, New York Daily News 1/12/03
I almost forgot about this guy in Florida- the same guy whose kid worked for Bonior and who caused a stink when he got tossed from the White House :
SEPTEMBER 26, 2001: (USF PROFESSOR SAMI AL ARIAN) USF Professor Sami Al-Arian appears on FOX News' O'Reilly Factor. Host Bill O'Reilly questions him about alleged ties to terrorism.
As I recall there were many suspicious people in Florida. they may not be capable of making anthrax but they were certainly capable of mailing it. Also, sources said, Hatfill made an admission to the FBI that he was taking the powerful antibiotic Cipro at the time of the anthrax attacks, which he reportedly said was for a nasal infection.
What antibiotic did the Florida pharmacist (a named source) prescribe to the hijacker for that sore on his leg?
Wasn't there a case of neonazis with rather crude anthrax out west some years back?
Of course, if the Israel link is a motive, why didn't the guy or gal send Lieberman a letter?
Pond draining photo-op......$250,000
Van Harp's retirement......priceless
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