Asked whether the anthrax attacks, which began with a letter reportedly postmarked September 18, 2001, counted as a terrorist attack, Townsend tersely replied: “It does in my mind.”
ROFL. Boy, does our government hate being reminded about the anthtrax attacks or what?
The White House and FBI understandably aren’t eager to talk about Amerithrax because access to the strain and weaponization know-how is suspected to have been by an islamist hardliner through a US Army DARPA program. See October 2006 WP, “Hardball Tactics in an Era of Threats.”
In July of 2005, Ali Al-Timimi was given a life sentence for acting as the religious leader of what would come to be known as the “Virginia Jihad Network,” a group of violent radicals that were preparing for holy war against Indians and Americans. He was working closely with Bin Laden’s religious mentor al-Hawali — the man was the express subject of the 1996 declaration of war against the US and the 1998 claim of responsibility for the bombing of the US embassies.
Al-Timimi worked a spitwad’s distance from famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek at DARPA-funded/founded George Mason University’s Center for Biodefense and the former head of USAMRIID Charles Bailey. He had a high security clearance for mathematical work in bioinformatics for the Navy.
Perhaps White House counterterrorism head Townsend and FBI Director Mueller don’t talk about Amerithrax because then they would have to admit that some USG knuckleheads somewhere gave a known islamist hardliner a letter of commendation from the White House and access to the computers at GMU. Al-Timimi’s bionformatics program was jointly run by the American Type Culture Collection (”ATCC”).
The new Bruce Willis “Live Free or Die Hard” movie is very good (for people who like the genre) and illustrates the same point using a fictional plot.
Yippee-kay-yay...
mf
http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com
The few sentences in the TurkishPress.com article are all that was said about the anthrax attacks at the briefing. CSPAN has the entire briefing on their web site HERE. Look for this section:
White House Homeland Security Adviser Fran Townsend
Frances Townsend, White House Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism conducts a press briefing on the national intelligence estimate and other actions to protect the U.S. from terrorist attacks.
7/17/2007: WASHINGTON, DC: 45 min.
The briefing is 45:25 minutes long, and the question about the anthrax attacks is asked at the 39:25 minute point. When Fran jokes in reply, "I’m sure Director Mueller would be delighted to answer that," it gets a big laugh.
It looks like a two-pronged "joke" which seems to be explained this way: #1, she's not about to answer any questions about the anthrax attacks, and #2, she (and probably everyone) knows that Director Mueller also doesn't like to be confronted with questions about the anthrax attacks.
It's not that they don't like being reminded. It's that they don't like being asked questions they cannot answer because it's an "ongoing investigation." At least that's the way it seems to me.