Anthrax: Hatfill Manuscript Prompted FBI Forest Searches

Global Security Newswire ^ | February 7, 2003 | Mike Nartker

[Allan]

Here's some more fun for you, Satan.

[The Great Satan]

The FBI’s use of Hatfill’s manuscript as an inspiration for new tactics in its investigation, which has progressed for more than 1 1/2 years without notable results, could indicate a sense of desperation

...or it could be just more of the same.

AN ANTHRAX EXPERIMENT YOU CAN TRY AT HOME

[The Great Satan]

Hatfill currently lives in limbo — sitting “in his girlfriend’s apartment making fruitless calls looking for employment” and “watching CNN,” said Patrick Clawson, Hatfill’s personal friend and spokesman.

Anybody seen Hatfill's girlfriend? Wanna know a secret? She doesn't exist.

[The Great Satan]

The FBI might have intended the searches to be only a publicity stunt, Clawson said. They were just to fool “the American public that Johnny G-Man was on the job,” he said.

This much is true.

[The Great Satan]

It must really chap Colin Powell's hide that the FBI won't arrest Hatfill, or even empanel a grand jury to grill him and his pals, especially when we're asking the UN to start a war over Saddam's missing anthrax. That's incongruous and embarassing, to put it mildly. Or is it?

[The Great Satan]

The search of the area was inspired by a section of a bioterrorism-related manuscript recovered from Hatfill’s apartment last year, said the former U.N. inspector, citing a confidential source.

This manuscript is Dr. Hatfill's unpublished Clancy-esque thriller, Emergence. In Emergence, Saddam Hussein launches a biological terrorist attack on the United States, using Palistinian terrorists as proxies. At the end of the novel, Bagdhad is incinerated by a US nuclear strike.

Interesting, no? What could be the significance of that?

[The Great Satan]

This may be of interest. See if you can work out what's going on here.

[Travis McGee]

Life imitates art?

[The Great Satan]

Life imitates art?

Art imitates art.

[AndyJackson]

It must really chap Colin Powell's hide that the FBI won't arrest Hatfill, or even empanel a grand jury to grill him and his pals

Perhaps the FBI has not arrested Hatfill or empaneled a grand jury because the FBI has no evidence that is credible enough to attain and indictment.

If the FBI has no evidence, then it should frost neither Colim Powell, nor any good conservative who believes that this battle and all of the battles we fight are about defending our Constitution and the rights subscribed therein.

[The Great Satan]

If the FBI has no evidence, then what is this all about, exactly?

[The Great Satan]

They turned to the hot topic of anthrax. The powder in the letter mailed to Senator Daschle's office had been found to be potent, prompting officials to suggest its source was likely an expert capable of producing the bacteria in large amounts. Tenet said, "I think it's AQ" – meaning al Qaeda. "I think there's a state sponsor involved. It's too well thought out, the powder's too well refined. It might be Iraq, it might be Russia, it might be a renegade scientist," perhaps from Iraq or Russia.

Scooter Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, said he also thought the anthrax attacks were state sponsored. "We've got to be careful on what we say." It was important not to lay it on anyone now. "If we say it's al Qaeda, a state sponsor may feel safe and then hit us thinking they will have a bye because we'll blame it on al Qaeda."

"I'm not going to talk about a state sponsor," Tenet assured them.

"It's good that we don't," said Cheney, "because we're not ready to do anything about it."

                             — Bush at War, Bob Woodward, pp 248-249

[mommadooo3]

Former u.n. inspector....confidential sources...anthrax that has been traced to 'out-of-country' places/makers...

WHO writes the paychecks for that 'former u.n. inspector'?

Everything that has been written, r.e. Hatfill, that is calling him 'guilty', just doesn't pass the smell test. AND, if his manuscript closely matches current events, then WHY isn't Tom Clancy painted with the same brush of 'guilt'?

[ggekko]

IMHO, the Hatfill investigation has been a wild goose chase from the beginning. Under Clinton, the FBI was coerced into treating every terrorist event as potentially being homegrown. I do not believe it an exageration to say that Clinton partially saved his presidency by spinning the Oklahoma City bombing as an idigenous, "right-wing nut" attack. The investigative threads uncovered by Jayna Davis in Oklahoma City linking Mcveigh and Nichols to Iraqui inetlligence were never pursued by the FBI.

The FBI was reasonably good at domestic counter-intelligence under Hoover but is has been all downhill since that point. The Bureau has become hogtied and increasingly politicized to the point of being nearly useless in counter-intelligence operations.

[The Great Satan]

WHO writes the paychecks for that 'former u.n. inspector'?

A more interesting question would be: WHO writes the paychecks for Steve Hatfill?

[The Great Satan]

IMHO, the Hatfill investigation has been a wild goose chase from the beginning.

...which President Bush could have shut down with a single phone call any time in the last twelve months. But he didn't. Why not? Because Dr. Hatfill's brainchild, Amerithrax, is serving a very useful purpose. Can you guess what it is?

[mommadooo3]

Well, who WAS writing the checks for Hatfill?

[The Great Satan]

Well, who WAS writing the checks for Hatfill?

The DOJ. You know, that outfit that runs the FBI.