Posted on 03/22/2002 11:41:11 PM PST by kattracks
Florida is also heavily populated but the density is nowhere near that of New Jersey, nor are there numerous Saudi Arabians in the Palm Beach area.
That some aspect of this event would incidentally include New Jersey is not unlikely. That any aspect would include Boca Raton is exceedingly unlikely as an incidental matter.
I can go down the street about 1/4 mile and stop into any one of 5 halal butcher shops. They have give-away newsletters concerning the various Islamic communities in the US. Some of these newsletters come from New Jersey. Some are from Detroit. Others are locally generated. A terrorist would have ample resources to use to concoct fake return addresses in New Jersey.
So far not a single person who has been detained in New Jersey has been demonstrated to have any real relationship to the anthrax attack. There were people detained. There were thorough searches of homes and businesses. Cars were examined in great detail. The lifestyles and relationships of hundreds of people were looked at with a fine-toothed comb. Mailboxes were ripped out of the ground and studied.
On the other hand we now have a confirmation that at least one of the Florida based attackers was diagnosed as having an anthrax-like infection, and he was treated. Two others in Florida sought medications for what could be cutaneous anthrax. One of the victims in Florida was married to a woman who was known to two of the attackers.
The evidence points to Florida, and to people in Florida who had relationships with some people in New Jersey, Virginia and South Carolina. The logical conclusion is the anthrax attack was mounted from Florida by terrorists residing in Florida. An accurate understanding of normal postal operations illuminates the process.
New Jersey's not just an incidental coincidence of a place in this.
Where I would take issue with you is that I do not believe that there are warring factions within the government trying to get control over public perceptions,
I agree with you on this.
and competing with each other to get their spin out. IMO, everything is coming from the top. I cannot imagine Bush tolerating infighting on a matter of this gravity.
I'm not suggesting infighting. It's just hard to keep information under wraps when a lot of people know it. Things come out in conversation; even a hint is all that's needed to give a good reporter a lead.
Also, the Johns Hopkins group is not part of the Bush administration and may feel no particular compunctions about revealing information; that would be quite different from a White House leak.
I also believe that, if you watch very carefully, all official actions and statements fit into a coordinated plan.
As I said early on in this conversation, this may have been leaked officially, as part of the ramp-up of public opinion against Saddam Hussein, and also to keep the Rosenberg theory from becoming established as "something everybody knows is probably true."
Since that plan involves a certain degree of misdirection and secrecy, and probably some outright lying, it has sometimes been undercut by indpendent journalistic inquiry.
But, in this case, how would a reporter have gotten started without a new lead? I can't think of any existing public information that would have served as a lead.
Here's the interesting question I mentioned: How did the FBI dig this up in October? Dr. Tsonas says that he didn't remember the incident until it was pointed out to him. I really wonder what lead let the FBI (or any investigator) discover this incident at all.
However, most "connected," elite media journalists got to be that way by keeping their heads down, so the problem is limited. The misdirection has also carefully exploited built-in media biases, e.g. towards seeing camo-clad, Bible-thumping militiamen and venal defense contractors and rogue CIA men under every bed, to contain this problem, so far with considerable success.
This is true. The danger is that the "careful exploitation" may get turned around, becoming far too widely believed and outliving its usefulness. (This may have happened with the Oklahoma City bombing, and, if so, the government would now find it very difficult to extract itself from the lie.)
FBI checks Rutgers copy machines
January, 16 2002 — 9:29 a.m.
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — FBI agents examined Rutgers University photocopying machines last week, looking for links to four anthrax-tainted letters mailed from central New Jersey.
Two agents arrived Friday at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, a Rutgers affiliate in Piscataway, and asked protein biochemist Richard Ebright for the access code needed to operate the photocopiers.
"I asked whether it was related to the (anthrax) investigation," he said Tuesday. "The male investigator said, 'We can't leave any stones unturned so we're turning over stones,' or something to that effect."
The agents spent about 10 minutes at each Waksman Institute photocopier, making copies and slipping them into a portfolio or large envelope, Ebright said.
He said agents tested photocopiers in other buildings, but he did not know which ones or how many machines.
"It's obviously the geographic link," Ebright said. "The letters were mailed from this state, not more than 30 miles from this location."
Rutgers spokeswoman Sandra Lanman said Tuesday that it is "the university's policy is not to comment on investigations by outside agencies."
No anthrax research is conducted at Rutgers, Lanman said.
FBI spokeswoman Sherri Evanina would not comment Tuesday on the Rutgers visit or say whether similar tests were conducted elsewhere.
"Of course the investigation is ongoing into who sent the anthrax letters," Evanina said. "We're pursuing all possible leads."
Experts say photocopiers leave subtle clues on paper that can narrow the search for where copying was done.
At least four anthrax-laced letters passed through a Trenton-area mail facility. Two, addressed to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post, were postmarked Sept. 18. Two others were postmarked Oct. 9 and mailed to Sens. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
Doctors typically don't remember their cases without reference to the records.
My contention is ALL the letters were mailed there by the same individual(s).
My prior postings detail how this could have happened.
That's it -- thank you. The way the article was written, I had unthinkingly imagined them interviewing Tsonas about the diagnosis first and only then finding it among Alhaznawi's possessions. But it must have been the other way around.
[The sheer number of prescriptions for routine antibiotics in the S. Florida area in, say, the 6 months preceding the anthrax mailings must have been huge. Tsonas was interviewed in October. It's inconceivable that they went through all the prescriptions and the corresponding diagnoses in just a couple of weeks; it doesn't sound like a computer search would be of much help when the patient presents with a supposed bump from a suitcase. But your explanation makes sense.]
At this point, it's natural to ask if there were other cases of anthrax treated among the hijackers.
Single piece rate First Class Mail could be mailed anywhere and still be "postmarked" in a different place. This is not unusual!
Yes, and the FBI arrested the accomplice on November 2 of last year only, as with this little tidbit about the hijacker having cutaneous anthrax, they haven't been exactly shouting it from the rooftops.
From the memory hole:
Anthrax Interrogations
Three Pakistani Men Face Questioning
ABC News, November 5, 2001.
Nov. 5 — Three Pakistani men faced questioning in the anthrax investigation today after being taken into custody near the contaminated postal facility in Hamilton Township, N.J.
One man, identified as Allah Rakah, was detained Friday. After FBI agents raided his residence, agents wearing protective gear searched the apartment, his car, which had Florida license plates, and a nearby mailbox.
A neighbor across the street said he called the FBI after seeing the man handling what the neighbor considered a suspicious plastic bag of letters.
"I noticed the gentleman late at night — maybe 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, — take a plastic bag, a clear plastic bag, with envelopes in it and placed it softly in the car, on the passenger side of the car, and locked it," the neighbor said.
The other two men were taken into custody earlier last week in an FBI raid at another nearby apartment building.
The manager of the building said FBI agents asked the men for handwriting samples and a neighbor said she saw the two men being taken out of an apartment where four other men of Middle Eastern descent lived. The two detained men were being held on immigration charges. Anthrax-laced letters mailed to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's office on Capitol Hill, NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw in New York and the New York Post were processed at the Hamilton Township facility near Trenton, N.J.
All three of the handwritten notes inside were dated "09-11-01," the date of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, and contained the message: "DEATH TO AMERICA. DEATH TO ISRAEL. ALLAH IS GREAT."
Hundreds of FBI investigators and postal inspectors continue to canvas the Trenton area in a search for clues they hope will lead them to the perpetrators of the bioterror attacks.
Anybody seen Allah Rakah lately?
Anthrax probe narrows to N.J.
By MARTIN MERZER, SETH BORENSTEIN and TOM AVRIL Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - Investigators have found the mailbox used by the person who sent two anthrax-tainted letters, federal officials said yesterday. A source said the FBI is hunting several suspects, including a Pakistani who overstayed his visa.
"The FBI has been able to identify the site where the letters were mailed," said Tom Ridge, director of the Office of Homeland Security. Asked specifically if he meant post office or mailbox, he said: "Mailbox."
He would not discuss the location of the mailbox, but postal inspectors said "multiple mailboxes" had been identified and removed west of Trenton, N.J. Most of the attention focused on Ewing, a town of 35,700 people about six miles northwest of Trenton.
Ridge also confirmed that all three samples of anthrax recovered so far in Florida, New York and Washington are identical and appear to have "come from the same batch." "The tests to date have concluded that the strains are indistinguishable," he said. Nevertheless, the anthrax "may have been distributed to different individuals to infect and to send into different communities."
The female New Jersey mail carrier who developed skin anthrax served 570 addresses - mostly private homes but also some apartment buildings - in Ewing, according to Tony Esposito, a postal inspector. She did not pick up mail from public boxes, co-workers said.
Two anthrax-laden letters - one sent to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, the other to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle - were postmarked at a regional mail center that serves the Ewing-Trenton area.
A second postal employee at that regional center, a 35-year-old man, has developed skin anthrax on his neck, health and postal officials said yesterday. In New York City, the same disease was contracted by an employee of The New York Post, the newspaper announced.
In all, eight cases have been confirmed in New York, New Jersey and Florida, and five media companies have been struck by anthrax. A South Florida man died; the others are being treated.
At the White House, spokeswoman Claire Buchan confirmed that a single mailbox had been identified by authorities. "That is a lead that is being strongly pursued," she said.
According to a U.S. law enforcement official who has been briefed on the case, the FBI is trying to track down a small number of people in connection with the anthrax that was mailed from the Trenton Main Post Office in Hamilton Township.
One of them, said the official, who requested anonymity, is the Pakistani national who has disappeared.
This did not happen.
This was news on ABC 5 months ago. The "box" was a misnomer for sortation bin on a piece of letter sorting equipment inside the post office.
Lack of knowledge of how the post office really works has been the bane of the FBI and Tom Ridge!
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