Double posted.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1490535/posts
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Posted on 09/24/2005 8:08:06 AM PDT by TrebleRebel
Anthrax terrorists outfox the FBI By Tim Reid Failure of inquiry has astonished Americans and angered widow
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.
NI_MPU('middle'); 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.
DEATH IN THE POST
Sept 25, 2001 Erin O’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. Traces of anthrax are found on his computer keyboard
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; O’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
ping
And we all know why -- the FBI spend all their efforts chasing Hatfill and carefully avoided investigating any potential Islamic terrorists.
BTW -- whatever happened to Hatfill's lawsuit against the government?
So Stevens widow is suing the federal government. She seems terribly uninterested in the fact that her husband's boss rented apartments to the 9/11 hijackers. And those same 9/11 hijackers presented to doctors in the area with what was later identified as cutaneous anthrax.
But I guess it's hard to get money from dead men, so she'll sue the government instead. I have a word for her and it rhymes with witch.
I don't doubt Osama's pals are to blame, but whoever mailed those letters was alive after 9/11 and needs to be brought to justice in the form of Lynnie England and a cattle prod.
In fairness to Mrs. Stevens from what I've read in her previous comments she isn't really chasing money, but she just wants answers. The FBI have been less than forthcoming about exactly what they know about the chemical composition of the powder that was sent.
A. They already know who did it and warned about repeats.
It states in this article she believes the anthrax came from a US laboratory. She says this with ZERO proof and ignores other much stronger evidence the hijackers passed along the envelopes for later mailing.
Double posted.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1490535/posts
Wanna hookup?
I did a search and couldn't find it under anthrax.
Thanks for the update.
Hatfill had his career, his reputation and his entire life ruined by the FBI. If anyone deserves compensation, it's him.
I can't imagine what was the FBI thinking to keep harrassing an obviously innocent person, and ignoring the most likely suspects: Al Qaeda terrorists.
Something tells me that investigative work isn't as easy as dressing a Whopper at Burger King! Your way, right away.
Depending on the strains of anthrax its pretty easy to get vaccines from the veterinary catalogs.
It's not easy to get anthrax that is airborne. In fact, the United States has yet to perfect that, but Iraq did.
Just curious. Was the Anthrax sent to Pakistan Ames Strain?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1633619.stm
This incident also fits into the timeline very well. Also, did the letters originate in the US or elsewhere? I've never seen any followup on this. Have you or any one else?
Could all the Anthrax incidents be explained by this find several days ago by Straight Vermonter?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=11431467&method=full
I suppose I can't exactly blame the British powers-that-be for not wanting their own people to know that, or the fact that a Saudi Arabian ran the facility for quite some time.
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