Anthrax terrorists outfox the FBI

FOUR years after the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks, which brought fresh terror to the US days after the September 11 hijackings, the biggest criminal investigation in American history has gone cold.

The failure to solve one of the most baffling and sinister terrorist cases of modern times has not only led to intense frustration for the FBI, but has also prompted the British widow of one of the victims to sue the US Government.

Bob Stevens, a British picture editor from Berkshire who worked in Boca Raton, Florida, was one of five people who died in and seventeen who became ill in September and October 2001, after coming into contact with a weapons-grade strain of anthrax posted to media organisations and the offices of two Democratic senators in Washington.

His widow, Maureen, who believes that the anthrax came from a government biodefence laboratory in Maryland, spoke yesterday of her anger and frustration at the failure of the FBI to make an arrest in the case. She is suing the Government for $30 million (nearly £17 million),alleging that security lapses at the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases in Fort Detrick led to her husband's death. Much of her case is aimed at getting leading bioterrorism experts to testify in court.

There's nothing coming out it's just amazing, Mrs Stevens said. I've had one meeting with the FBI. I have had little communication with them. I would have thought they wanted to talk more.

She said that she found the case difficult to talk about, because of anger and other emotions, and that she and her lawyer were just meeting a stone wall.

The failure to make one arrest in the case has astounded and dismayed many Americans. FBI agents and officials from the Postal Inspection Service have conducted more than 8,000 interviews on four continents and served more than 5,000 subpoenas. They have travelled to Afghanistan twice.

In the past year, the FBI says, the number of agents on the case has dropped from 31 to 21, a far cry from the hundreds assigned to the investigation in its early weeks. Despite a $2.5 million reward for information leading to a conviction, the case is going nowhere, a former investigator said.

The favoured theory has remained consistent: that the culprit is an American scientist who had access to the anthrax.

Spore-laden letters were posted on September 18 and October 9, 2001, to media organisations in New York and Florida, and to the offices of Tom Daschle, then the Senate Democratic leader, and a colleague, Senator Patrick Leahy, of Vermont. Five people were killed Mr Stevens and two postal workers, and also a New York hospital worker and an elderly Connecticut woman, whose deaths were not a direct result of the mail attacks.

Panic gripped Washington, with the Senate, House of Representatives, Supreme Court building and numerous postal facilities being shut down. The letters included photocopied notes referring to the September 11 attacks and Islamic rhetoric.

Investigators soon determined that the anthrax used was the Ames strain, most commonly used in American biodefence research. Attention focused on Fort Detrick, and in particular on Steven Hatfill, an American biodefence expert who worked at the facility between 1997 and 1999.

Dr Hatfill, who has not been charged and fiercely denies any involvement, was named as a person of interest by John Ashcroft, then the Attorney-General.

Numerous tips have proved fruitless. Two years ago the FBI spent three weeks draining a pond near Fort Detrick, believing that the culprit may have discarded materials there. The pond yielded nothing.

Another tip, apparently from an inmate in Guantanamo Bay, led agents to fly to Kabul, the Afghan capital, in May last year, and then to the Kandahar mountains but nothing was found.

US scientists have still not been able to identify the laboratory from which the anthrax came, but other facilities have been investigated, including one at Louisiana State University and another in Utah.

Sept 25, 2001 Erin Connor, an assistant to an NBC journalist, opens a letter postmarked Trenton, New Jersey, containing a brown granular substance Oct 5 Bob Stevens, picture editor of the Sun newspaper, dies in Boca Raton, Florida.

Oct 10 Anthrax is found in a sorting office that handles post for the White House

Oct 12 A case of anthrax is reported in New York City; Connor becomes the first person to test positive for skin anthrax

Oct 15 A letter containing anthrax is received by Tom Daschle, the leader of the United States Senate

Oct 21 and 22 Two male postal workers at the office in Washington that sorts post for Capitol Hill die

Oct 29 Fresh anthrax spores are detected at the Supreme Court, prompting justices to meet outside the building for the first time in its 66-year history

http://www.janrainwater.com/htdocs/Anthrax-USArmy.htm

Capitol Hill Anthrax Matches Army's Stocks 5 Labs Can Trace Spores to Ft. Detrick By Rick Weiss and Susan Schmidt Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, December 16, 2001; Page A01 Genetic fingerprinting studies indicate that the anthrax spores mailed to Capitol Hill are identical to stocks of the deadly bacteria maintained by the U.S. Army since 1980, according to scientists familiar with the most recent tests. Although many laboratories possess the Ames strain of anthrax involved in this fall's bioterrorist attacks, only five laboratories so far have been found to have spores with perfect genetic matches to those in the Senate letters, the scientists said. And all those labs can trace back their samples to a single U.S. military source: the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Md. "That means the original source [of the terrorist material] had to have been USAMRIID," said one of the scientists. Those matching samples are at Fort Detrick; the Dugway Proving Ground military research facility in Utah; a British military lab called Porton Down; and microbial depositories at Louisiana State University (LSU) and Northern Arizona University. Northern Arizona University received its sample from LSU, which received its sample from Porton Down. Dugway and Porton Down got their samples directly from USAMRIID.

"I thought the case was solved?"

March 15, 2005

Anthrax alarm closes three mail facilities
By Daniel Pulliam
dpulliam@govexec.com

Anthrax detection systems at two Pentagon mailrooms sounded alarms Monday, resulting in the evacuation of four buildings and the shutdown of the Postal Service's facility that handles government mail.

Initial overnight tests on the samples from the Pentagon's Remote Delivery Facility in Arlington, Va., turned up positive, according to officials at the Health and Human Services Department. Tests on a second set of samples from the Pentagon-leased Skyline office complex in Falls Church, Va., discovered hours after the first alarm sounded, are not yet complete.

The positive samples are being tested at the Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., to determine whether the spores are capable of causing disease. Results from this type of test usually take 24 to 48 hours, but an HHS spokesman said results could be available later today.

The Skyline office complex, located at 5111 Leesburg Pike in Falls Church, Va., remains closed along with the Remote Delivery Facility, but county officials said the general public is not at risk of exposure. About 275 Defense Department workers were potentially affected and 209 postal workers.

Defense employees who might have come into contact with anthrax are being asked to provide nasal swabs and are being given a three-day regimen of antibiotics. Initial anthrax symptoms - which usually do not take effect for several days - include fever, sweats and chills.

HHS spokesman Bill Hall said the only material that shows the possible existence of anthrax spores is the material from the Pentagon's Remote Delivery Facility. Since all government mail is radiated to kill bacteria, the detection of anthrax does not necessarily mean that the anthrax was alive.

Mailroom bacteria sensors are designed to detect material that might or might not be dangerous, Hall said. More precise tests that examine the material's DNA structure proved that the material in the Remote Delivery Facility was anthrax.

"There's no identified piece of mail, no powder," Hall said. "All we have is the sensors going off."

Postal Service spokesman Gerry McKiernan said there was no evidence of anthrax yet at the now-closed USPS facility. Sensors at the facility that sends mail to the Pentagon did not go off. The Defense mail facilities also handle interoffice mail and packages from outside couriers.

"We don't know if it was a piece of mail that caused [the Pentagon sensors] to go off," McKiernan said. "Nothing is amiss and nobody is sick. We don't have any reason to believe anybody has been contaminated."

Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, anthrax was deliberately spread throughout the U.S. postal system in letters, leading to 22 cases of infection and five deaths.

CDC spokesman Llelwyn Grant said the agency is consulting with the Postal Service on doing environmental sampling at the facility that handles government mail. They are also providing postal workers possibly exposed to anthrax with safety recommendations.

"Based on the information made available to the CDC, we feel that the risk to postal workers is low, but we can't say that there is zero risk," Grant said. "Based on this information we believe it is prudent to take precautionary steps."

ANTHRAX MAILER:
lone wolf within the United States loner, opportunist

Los Angeles Times
Saturday, November 10, 2001

Profile of anthrax mailer portrays loner, opportunist.
Mail sorter may have spread anthrax.

Grim anthrax details released.

Washington -- The FBI increasingly is convinced that the person behind the anthrax attacks is a lone wolf within the United States who has no links to terrorist groups but is an "opportunist" using the Sept. 11 events to vent his rage, investigators said yesterday.

Based on case studies, handwriting and linguistic analysis, forensic data and other evidence, authorities do not believe at this point in their five- week investigation that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network was behind the anthrax attacks, FBI officials said.

FBI investigators said at a news briefing that they likely are looking for an adult male with at least limited scientific expertise who was able to use easily obtained laboratory equipment for as little as $2,500 to produce a high- quality grade of anthrax.

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