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Hidden with code "Policy Violation" |
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"By Way Of Deception..." |
Current rating: 3 |
by Jeremy R. Hammond reposted by DAN "Mr. Clumsy Deception" Disinfo
(No verified email address) |
14 Aug 2003
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In the weeks following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, a series of letters containing a powder form of the anthrax virus were mailed to various individuals. One such letter, postmarked on the 18th, was mailed to Tom Brokaw at NBC. Another was addressed to the editor of the New York Post. On October 9, similar letters were mailed to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. |
The anthrax in the letters was identified as being of the "Ames" strain. At least five labs were reported to have the Ames strain, all of which received their samples from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland. [1] The Washington Post reported that
The particles in those letters were extremely small and the formulation very pure, with far more spores per gram than the U.S. offensive bioweapons program had achieved at its pinnacle in the late 1960s. Small size and high purity are crucial if infectious quantities are to become airborne and inhaled to cause the most deadly form of anthrax.
According to the Post, scientists and biological warfare experts were "surprised by the revelation" that Dugway Proving Ground, a U.S. Army installation in Utah, had been working on a powdered form of the Ames strain since 1992. [2]
On September 21, a letter was mailed to Quantico Marine Base accusing Egyptian-born Dr. Ayaad Assaad, [3] a former USAMRIID scientist, of being "a potential biological terrorist". On October 2, Assaad was called into the FBI field office in Washington, D.C. for questioning. The author of the letter had written, "I have worked with Dr. Assaad, and I heard him say that he has a vendetta against the U.S. government and that if anything happens to him, he told his sons to carry on." Assaad explained afterward that "The letter-writer clearly knew my entire background, my training in both chemical and biological agents, my security clearance, what floor where I work now, that I have two sons, what train I take to work, and where I live." [4]
Such harassment was nothing new for Dr. Assaad. When he was working at Fort Detrick, he was the target of ethnic discrimination. A group of co-workers who referred to themselves as "the camel club" wrote a poem degrading Arab Americans, which read, "In (Assaad's) honor we created this beast; it represents life lower than yeast." The "beast" was a rubber camel fitted with "sexually explicit appendages", which, the poem notes, would be given each week "to who did it the least." After Assaad brought the harassment to the attention of his supervisor, two of the "camel club" members, Dr. Philip Zack and Dr. Marian Rippy, voluntarily left Fort Detrick.
After the interview, the FBI assured Assaad that they believed the anonymous letter was a hoax. FBI spokesman Chris Murray later confirmed that Assaad had been cleared of suspicion. However, despite the strangely coincidental timing of the "hoax", he also declared that the FBI was not investigating the source of the letter. [5]
Professor Barbara Rosenberg, the director of the Federation of American Scientists' Chemical and Biological Weapons Program (who has been outspoken regarding the anthrax letters and has put together her own analysis of the situation and profile of the perpetrator), said that the FBI was "dragging its heels" on the investigation and suggested that there were "government insiders" who knew of a "common suspect". She described this suspect as "a former Fort Detrick scientist" and questioned whether the FBI "may be dragging its feet and may not be so anxious to bring to public light the person who did this". [6] Rosenberg also explained that "the FBI is looking at this person, and it's likely that he participated in the past in secret activities that the government would not like to see disclosed." She also said, "I know that there are insiders, working for the government, who know this person and who are worried that it could happen that some kind of quiet deal is made that he just disappears from view." [7]
Looking further into Professor Rosenberg's analysis, she also states that the motive of the perpetrator "was not to kill but rather to raise public fear" (two of the letters urged their recipients to "take penacilin now") and suggests one possible motive of being influencing Congress "to increase spending on biodefense." She notes that, in this regard, "the attacks have been phenomenally successful."
Following this assertion of a possible motive, it is worth noting that on October 24, the USA PATRIOT Act, or the "anti-terrorism" bill was rushed through Congress. Representative Ron Paul, who opposed the bill, said, "It's my understanding the bill wasn't printed before the vote--at least I couldn't get it. They played all kinds of games. The bill definitely was not available to members before the vote."[8]
Although it is perhaps tangential to our purposes here, it is interesting to note that Professor Rosenberg also adds that "a significant bio-terror attack today would require the support of a national program to succeed." The anthrax attacks, she points out, "have not altered that stance", noting the U.S. opposition to "every international effort to monitor the ban on the development and possession of biological weapons by states or to strengthen the toothless Biological Weapons Convention in any way." She cites her attendance of a meeting in Geneva, "where diplomats from six continents struggled in the face of U.S. intransigence to map out a joint strategy for combating the global biological threat." Regarding this meeting, she writes that
The United States had demanded that a formal Biological Weapons Convention conference, scheduled to take place during two weeks in November, should instead disband in one day with only an agreement not to meet again until 2006. To make sure that the American resolve prevails in this setting where international consensus is de rigueur, the U.S. demand was accompanied by an overt threat to disrupt any further proceedings with accusations that would make productive international action impossible. At that Geneva meeting, the assembled diplomats, representing the political spectrum from our closest allies to declared enemies, were uniformly frustrated. They find it hard to comprehend why a country that has just been the victim of bioterrorism should stand in the way of peaceful efforts supported by all its allies to deter bioterrorism. [9]
On February 25, 2002, White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer was asked, "Does the White House feel the government has a full handle now on the inventories of anthrax at universities, at military facilities?" Fleischer answered,
To the best of all the information that we have received here, that was never a question. The military laboratories, other laboratories accounted for their anthrax--the military laboratories accounted for their anthrax, those under federal purview. And so that has not been a question, the best that I've been briefed on that topic. [10]
It becomes clear, looking at the factual record, that Mr. Fleischer had not been fully briefed on that topic. Documents from a 1992 internal Army inquiry had revealed that specimens of anthrax, along with other viruses, such as Ebola, were reported missing from Fort Detrick during the same period of time that reports of employee rivalry and discrimination were prevalent. The documents report that someone had been conducting unauthorized research in the lab late at night--research apparently involving anthrax. The Hartford Courant, which was consistently one step ahead of other news sources in the anthrax case, interviewed two scientists who left in 1997 on account of the bitter work environment. The scientists said that security at Fort Detrick was so lax at the time, that "it wouldn't have been hard for someone with security clearance for its handful of labs to smuggle out biological specimens."
The missing specimens were reported missing in February of 1992, after Lt. Col. Michael Langford took command of what was deemed a "dysfunctional pathology lab" and ordered an inventory to be taken. And yet, what troubled Langford more than the missing specimens, according to the Courant, was the "'surreptitious' work being done in the pathology lab late at night and on weekends." Investigators learned that someone had been in the lab at unusual hours and had used the electron microscope to conduct some research. Dr. Mary Beth Downs discovered that someone had used the microscope to take photos of slides. The microscope imprints each photo with a label, and apparently this person had forgotten to reset the label. Subsequently, when Downs took some photos of her own slides, she was surprised to see "Antrax 005" (sic) printed on her negatives. Furthermore, the counter on the camera had been rolled back in order to conceal the fact that the pictures had been taken.
The documents from the Army inquiry reveal that a Lt. Col. Philip Zack was recorded by a surveillance camera entering the lab at 8:40 pm on January 23, 1992 (Zack, no longer employed there, had left Fort Detrick in December of 1991 over the allegations of harassment towards Dr. Assaad, as we have already seen). Apparently, he had been let in by a close friend, Dr. Marian Rippy, who testified, "I can tell you, there was no suspicious stuff going on there with specimens." [11] Of course, contrary to Dr. Rippy's claim, it seems quite apparent that there had, in fact, been a considerable amount of "suspicious stuff" going on at the lab.
While these reports were quickly forgotten by the media, the FBI began "turning up the heat" on a man named Steven Hatfill, a former Army bioterrorism scientist who had previously worked at Fort Detrick. The FBI searched has apartment on several different occasions and combed through his garbage. Although the FBI asserted that Hatfill was not a suspect, an August 2 search of his apartment, which is located near Fort Detrick, was conducted with a warrant. When asked concerning this latest search, FBI Director Robert Mueller declined to comment, saying only that, "We're making progress in the case." Hatfill's attorney noted that "He is one of many scientists who are undergoing the same scrutiny by the authorities, but for some reason, his name keeps popping up." [12]
Hatfill denied any involvement in the anthrax attacks and said that the FBI was attempting to make him the "fall guy" for a stalled investigation. Although the FBI conceded that they had no evidence linking Hatfill to the crime, they refused to issue a statement clearing him of responsibility. While federal officials maintained that there were dozens of scientists who were being investigated, Hatfill was the only person to be served a search warrant. Hatfill complained about the "outrageous official statements and calculated leaks to the media leading to a feeding frenzy operating to my great prejudice." [13]
New York Times contributor Nicholas D. Kristof, who had written a series of articles about the anthrax case, stated in an August 13 editorial that "It's time for me to come clean on 'Mr. Z'". He explains that he had been writing since May about "a former U.S. Army scientist who, authorities say privately, has become the overwhelming focus of the investigation into the anthrax attacks last fall." Kristof, who had never provided a name other than "Mr. Z", continued on to assert that "Mr. Z named himself: He is Steven J. Hatfill" while at the same time noting that "There is not a shred of traditional physical evidence linking him to the attacks."
It is interesting to note that, despite the fact that there was "not a shred of traditional physical evidence" that Hatfill was responsible for the anthrax attacks, Kristof would have his readers believe that Mr. Hatfill had all but confessed to the crime, having "named himself" as "Mr. Z". Of course, this assertion, which can be called nothing less than absurd, completely ignores the fact of Hatfill's repeated statements of innocence. Furthermore, it becomes clear, when one looks at the actual, factual, account, that it was the government, led by John Ashcroft, and the media, led by Mr. Kristof himself, who were solely responsible for having "named" Hatfill as a "person of interest" and as the chief suspect, "Mr. Z".
Kristof further claims that Hatfill "has also failed three successive polygraph examinations". He also notes that "Top administration officials would love to find an Iraqi connection, but would settle for solving the case." He closes by saying that "there is reason to hope that the bureau may soon be able to end this unseemly limbo by either exculpating Dr. Hatfill or arresting him." [14] Of course, the FBI did neither, but rather persisted in this "unseemly limbo". But at least our confidence in the FBI may be reassured on some level, since they would "settle for solving the case" in the event that an "Iraqi connection" cannot be suitably constructed. Also, one assertion made by Mr. Kristof which one would be hard-pressed to refute is this: "If Mr. Z were an Arab national, he would have been imprisoned long ago."[15] Hatfill responded to the allegations against him by saying,
This assassination of my character appears to be part of a government-run effort to show the American people that it is proceeding vigorously and successfully with the anthrax investigation… My life is being destroyed by arrogant government bureaucrats who are peddling groundless innuendo and half information about me to gullible reporters who, in turn, repeat this to the press under the guise of news.
In response to Attorney General John Ashcroft labeling him as a "person of interest", Hatfill stated, "My lawyers can find no legal definition for a 'person of interest.' I, however, have a working definition: A 'person of interest' is someone who comes into being when the government is under intense political pressure to solve a crime, but can't do so." He mentioned Barbara Hatch Rosenberg and Nicholas Kristof as being the two most prominent individuals who had implicated his involvement, although Rosenberg issued a statement, saying,
I have never mentioned any names in connection with the anthrax investigation, not to the FBI, nor to media, nor to Senate Committees or staffs, not to anyone. I have never said or written anything publicly that pointed to one specific person. Anyone who sees parallels is expressing his own opinion. It is the FBI that has gone out of its way to make one suspect's name public. I presume they must have had some good reason for doing that; only time will tell. But if the publicity was not an important part of their investigative strategy, I think it was reprehensible. [16]
Hatfill also disputed Kristof's allegation regarding the polygraph testing, saying,
I have not taken, let alone failed, three polygraphs on anthrax since January. I had one polygraph session which the FBI did administer to me in January, and I was told I passed… Mr. Kristof, why do you write such things? Why did you not at least check your facts or ask comment from me or my representatives? … Why do you permit yourself to be used as a vehicle to leak irreparably damaging information about me to the public?
In a statement made very relevant by the signing of the PATRIOT Act into law, Hatfill stated that
When you are a "person of interest", your home is subject to search based on statements in sealed affidavits which your lawyers are not permitted to see. The result is a search-and-seizure of your property, even as you stand with a hand of continuing cooperation extended to the FBI. Armed with a secretly obtained government search warrant, FBI agents can enter your home with impunity and take virtually anything they want, including your car registration, your tax records, your car keys, the deeds to your house, if you have one, your apartment, rental agreements, cell phone, pagers, unused bank checks, checks made out to you but not yet cashed, clothing. They can keep these items for as long as they want, unless you go out and retain and pay a lawyer and you can convince a judge that you should get your property back.
He also relates how his girlfriend was "hauled off to FBI headquarters and interrogated for hours", how her "requests for a lawyer were delayed", and how her purse, "although not on the search warrant, was taken from her and its contents examined after the interrogation process while she was being driven back to her residence." He relates how she was "screamed at by the FBI and told that the FBI had firm evidence that I had killed five innocent people", duly noting the twisted irony that "The FBI trumpets that I am not a suspect, and the woman I love is told…by the FBI that I am a murderer." He continued on to relate how his girlfriend was ordered to take a polygraph test, and how her "checkbooks, computers, private papers and car were seized" and how her home was "completely trashed". He reports that his "closest, most personal friend was told by the FBI that they have firm evidence that I mailed the anthrax letters" and how,
In complete violation of normal investigative procedures, the FBI have circulated only my photograph at a crime scene--a photographic one-man lineup--in an attempt to find someone to testify that they remember seeing me in the area almost a year ago. As a "person of interest", you cannot win.
Hatfill further refuted the allegations by noting that the time sheets from his company verify that he was at work in Virginia at the time the letters were mailed from Trenton, New Jersey. He requested that the FBI make public blood samples which would show whether he had been exposed to anthrax, and to make public a proposed analysis of his handwriting. "I fear what time will do," he said, "with the FBI's new powers under the 2001 Patriot Act"--following which he asked the reasonable questions, "What will this country be like 10 or 20 years from now? Will it be like the America I love and would unhesitatingly risk my life to defend, or will it evolve into a suspicious society where uncharged 'persons of interest' live in fear of damaging police and media intrusion?" [17]
Following this, Hatfill was fired from his government-funded job at Louisiana State University. Commenting, he said, "My life has been completely and utterly destroyed by John Ashcroft and the FBI. I don't have a job and 20 years of training has gone down the drain. My professional reputation is in tatters. All I have left is my savings and that will be exhausted soon because of legal bills." The University cited a "fire at will policy", giving no reason more specific than that it is "in the best interest of Louisiana State University to terminate its relationship with Dr. Steven Hatfill." [18]
Speaking on the topic of the FBI "dragging its heels" in the investigation, the World Socialist Web Site noted the interesting fact that
While the agency sent out letters to 20,000 microbiologists asking for their cooperation in the probe, it did not even open the Leahy anthrax letter for two months, did not collect anthrax strains from government and university labs until five months has passed, and still has no completed elementary forensic tests. This pretended probe is a cover for the high-level protection being accorded the principal terror suspect. Just how high this protection goes is not clear. But a very suggestive fact was uncovered last month in the course of a lawsuit filed by the right-wing Judicial Watch group, seeking documents on the anthrax attacks under the Freedom of Information Act. Judicial Watch charged, and the White House has now confirmed, that the anti-anthrax drug Cipro was distributed to White House staffers on September 11, nearly four weeks before the first anthrax attack was made public. [19]
Former FBI profiler Cliff Van Zandt, speaking of the letters, had stated that "Clearly, this was somebody trying so hard to make it seem like they are Muslim. But this case has gone beyond the profiling stage. The FBI is in uncharted waters with this case and inventing things as they go along." The Hartford Courant reported that "The highly publicized searches and the repeated references to [Hatfill] as a person of interest go against the FBI creed of doing investigations quietly and behind the scenes, causing some former agents to wonder if such actions are signs of desperation." Former FBI agent Paul Moore noted that "Most investigations don't prosper when they are public, and that's what bothers me about this case. It tells me they have either reached a dead end or their case has a great big hole in it and they are trying to put pressure on this person." [20] The other possible explanation, which Paul Moore fails to recognize, was pointed out distinctly by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, which reported:
Before the investigation of Dr. Hatfill captured national headlines, another insider scientist had come under FBI scrutiny without much media fanfare. It was easy to miss the few stories published in January 2002 about Lt. Col. Philip Zack, who, like Hatfill, also had access to a well-equipped laboratory with lax security. Zack, moreover, actually worked with military-grade anthrax at Fort Detrick.
Dr. Zack left Fort Detrick in December 1991 amid allegations of unprofessional conduct. The Jewish scientist and others were accused of harassing their co-worker, Dr. Ayaad Assaad, until the Egyptian-born American scientist quit, according to an article in Connecticut's The Hartford Courant, the country's oldest newspaper in continuous publication. Dr. Assaad sued the Army, claming discrimination after Zack's badgering.
Inexplicably, the national press ignored these documented unauthorized visits to a top-secret government lab embroiled in the anthrax attacks. Did journalists fear being labeled anti-Semitic for casting suspicions on a Jewish scientist?
Soon after the 9/11 attack, a long, typed anonymous letter was sent to Quantico Marine Base accusing the long-suffering Assaad, Zack's victim in 1991, of plotting terrorism. This letter was received before the anthrax letters or disease were reported. The timing of the note makes its author a serious suspect in the anthrax attacks. The sender also displayed considerable knowledge of Dr. Assaad, his work, his personal life and a remarkable premonition of the upcoming bioterrorism attack. After interviewing Assaad on Oct. 2, 2001, the FBI decided the letter was a hoax. While major newspapers noted that an anonymous letter had accused Dr. Assaad of bioterrorism, none followed up on it after his innocence was established. Zack's name never surfaced again as one of the 30 suspects. When the Washington Report asked Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, Ph.D., a biological arms control expert at the State University of New York, if the allegations regarding Dr. David Hatfill now took the heat off Lt. Col. Philip Zack, she replied, "Zack has NEVER been under suspicion as perpetrator of the anthrax attack."
It is hard to believe that, with his connection to Fort Detrick, Dr. Zack is not one of the 20 to 50 scientists under intense investigation.
Another person not naming names is New York Times reporter Nicholas D. Kristof. In a series of articles published on July 2, 12, and 19, however, he called the anthrax perpetrator "Mr. Z" (not "Mr. H"). Kristof's description of "Mr. Z" sounds very much more like Dr. Zack than Dr. Hatfill.
Is the anthrax culprit, or "Mr. Z," actually Dr. Zack or Dr. Hatfill, or another undisclosed scientist? Is Dr. Hatfill being framed while Dr. Zack stays out of the spotlight? Will the investigation simply peter out without an arrest? Are the US government and the media engaging in a shameful cover-up?...
Another too-hot-to-handle story published in the Oct. 31, 2001 Miami Herald described an FBI search for six "Middle-Eastern looking men with Israeli passports stopped in the Midwest the previous weekend." The six men stopped by police were traveling in groups of three in two white sedans. The article noted that, despite law enforcement agencies being on high alert after the Sept. 11 attacks, the men were released—even though they had in their possession photographs and descriptions of a nuclear power plant in Florida and the Trans-Alaska pipeline.
As a result of the scare, the Federal Aviation Administration imposed flight restrictions around nuclear plants nationwide, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission advised the nation’s 103 nuclear plants to fortify security....
An Oct. 26, 2001 article in The Jerusalem Post reported that five Israeli men with box-cutters, multiple passports and $4,000 cash detained in New Jersey on Sept. 11, the day of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, would be deported back to Israel for immigration violations. Those men were seen laughing and posing for photographs with the smoking Twin Towers in the background. The U.S. press also deemed that story not fit to print. [21]
The online publication La Voz de Aztlan also picked up on the clear possibility of a government white-wash of the affair, noting that "Jewish microbiologist Dr. Philip M. Zack may be behind the deadly anthrax contaminated letters" and quotes Dr. Assaad as saying, "This person knew in advance what was going to happen and created a suitable, well-fitted scapegoat for this action. You do not need to be a Nobel laureate to put two and two together." [22]
The inescapable conclusions that must be drawn from all this are that either the FBI has engaged in a government cover-up of the anthrax-letter scare that followed the events of September 11, 2001, or the agency could stand to gain a few more people who are capable of "[putting] two and two together".
They needn't be Nobel laureates.
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[1] "Genetic anthrax analysis won't be 'smoking gun'", USA Today, December 19, 2001
[2] Rick Weiss, "Army's Anthrax Material Surprises Some Experts", Washington Post, December 14, 2001
[3] Barbara Hatch Rosenburg, "Analysis of the Anthrax Attacks", Federation of American Scientists, August 29, 2002
[4] Laura Rozen, "Fort Detrick's anthrax mystery", Salon.com, January 26, 2002
[5] Lynne Tuohy and Jack Dolan, "Arab scientists recount hostility and harassment at military anthrax lab", The Hartford Courant, December 19, 2001
[6] Oliver Burkeman, "'US scientist' is suspect in anthrax investigation'", The Guardian, February 20, 2002
[7] Joseph Dee, "Expert: Anthrax suspect ID'd", The Times, February 19, 2002
[8] "Libertarian Party joins coalition to urge careful deliberation of USA/Patriot Act II"
[9] Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, "Anthrax Pushed Open an Ominous Door", LA Times, September 22, 2002
[10] Press Briefings by Ari Fleischer, February 25, 2002
[11] Jack Dolan and Dave Altimari, "Anthrax Missing from Army Lab", Hartford Courant, January 20, 2002
[12] Jack Dolan and Elizabeth Hamilton, "Scientist Again Under Scrutiny", Hartford Courant, August 2, 2002
[13] Jack Dolan and Dave Altimari, "New Anthrax Clue, Same Hatfill Focus", Hartford Courant, August 14, 2002
[14] Nicholas D. Kristof, "The Anthrax Files", New York Times, August 13, 2002
[15] Nicholas D. Kristof, "Anthrax? The F.B.I. Yawns", New York Times, July 2, 2002
[16] Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, August 11, 2002
[17] Steven J. Hatfill, "CNN Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer", CNN, August 25, 2002
[18] Jack Dolan, "Hatfill Fired From Job", Hartford Courant, September 4, 2002
[19] Patrick Martin, "Who is stonewalling the US anthrax investigation?", World Socialist Web Site, July 20, 2002
[20] Dave Altimari and Jack Dolan, "An Anthrax Widow May Sue U.S.", Hartford Courant, October 9, 2002
[21] Delinda Curtiss Hanley, "While Media Spotlights One Anthrax Suspect, Another Is Too Hot to Touch", Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August 16, 2002
[22] Hector Carreon, "FBI Closes in on Anthrax Terrorist", La Voz de Aztlan, February 26, 2002
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