Mad Scientists and Ecology Nuts? (Anthrax investigation related)

BioHazard News ^ | June 7, 2003 | Gene Finneran

[FairOpinion]

The subject of the anthrax mailings of September and October 2001 has become the focus of considerable online "cult" activity.

Using a search engine, you will find people who blame the CIA, people who insist it was all a devious Israeli plot, and folks who blame a sinister Wall Street cabal--the attacks, as I recall, were triggered by a decline in the Dow Jones average.

There are those who claim some sort of right-wing "bio-evangelist" was responsible, and others who point the finger at those "Greenpeace ecology nuts", or at Iraqi secret agents operating out of the UN. One researcher suggested a certain microbiologist in the Midwest, who had, it would seem, drinking problems. This researcher pointed out the fact the man was in police custody at the time of one of the mailings, and opined it was awfully convenient to have such an alibi.

Then we have Steven Hatfill, who has been identified as a "person of interest" by the Justice Department, and who, as a consequence, "enjoys" 24/7 FBI surveillance. Hatfill is definitely of interest: Anyone who can teleport to Princeton, NJ, where the mailings occurred, while working a 13 hour shift at a closely guarded government lab, is absolutely amazing.

I can understand the FBI perspective: If Hatfill really is the "mad scientist" behind the anthrax mailings, the Bureau has an obligation to make sure he doesn't get the chance to do any more harm--civil liberties be damned!

The problem, as I see it, is that the FBI may be operating on the strength of a profile: the one used to help identify snipers and mad bombers--a category into which an anthrax mailer could easily fall--IF madness is the motive for the mailings.

The problem with profiles is an odd one. They are often "on the money"--often enough to make finding someone who fits the profile the "official focus" of the investigation; and when an investigation becomes so focused, and so much a part of the mind-set of the agency, upper management is inclined to disregard any reports that suggest the Emperor is buck naked, and to remind would-be mavericks they face transfer to Snakebite, South Dakota if they keep "wasting time".

Meanwhile, BIOHAZARD NEWS volunteer Ross Getman's theory of al-Qaeda involvement (http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze43v8m/ ) is largely ignored: usually by folks who are more interested in debating over how many anthrax spores can cluster on the head of a pin. I, for one, think Ross is definitely onto something.

I came to that conclusion after several weeks of studying the available online information, and taking one more step: I made it a point to find out what else was going on in the world at the approximate time of the mailings.

The first mailings are believed to have been made on or about September 18, 2001. On that date, President Bush declared he wanted Osama bin Laden--dead or alive. Also on that date, Jews in the United States began celebrating Rosh Hoshana, an important holy day.

The second mailings are believed to have been made on October 8, 2001.On that date, the long-anticipated bombing of Afghanistan began (bringing, as The Princetonian observed, a period of stunned silence to two competing campus groups: one favoring military action; the other calling for peace.)

I can readily visualize the first mailing as a response to the gauntlet thrown down by the President, and as a logical follow-up to the Sept. 11th attacks.

I can also visualize someone in Princeton, where the mailings occurred, waiting patiently for an official announcement of war on the Taliban--an announcement the media had been expecting, but had no advance notice of. That announcement would be the signal for the second batch of mailings: an exquisitely timed counter-attack.

The mailings seem to have been designed to produce terror--and possibly a few casualties. The notes accompanying them were taunting and arrogant. The method of folding the deadly powder into the letters was a crude "apothecaries' fold"--used in the US during the late 19th and very early 20th centuries, but probably most likely to be used currently in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

Taking everything together, the anthrax mailings sound very much like a successful al-Qaeda operation.

[FairOpinion]

"Taking everything together, the anthrax mailings sound very much like a successful al-Qaeda operation."

It sure does to me too.

[FairOpinion]

ping

[The Great Satan]

"Taking everything together, the anthrax mailings sound very much like a successful al-Qaeda operation."

Hardly likely. If Al-Qaeda had this technology, we'd all be dead by now. The threats were simply Saddam Hussein's parachute, and they worked like a charm.

[John H K]

Normally Al Quaeda tries to kill people. The anthrax attacker went out of his way to try to kill as few people as possible with the anthrax.

[John H K]

Hmmm...

So George Bush is simultaneously guilty of a conspiracy to fake a WMD threat from Iraq to justify an invasion, and a conspiracy to cover up the fact that Iraq was behind the anthrax attacks?

Usually when you have two opposing idiotic and retarded conspiracy theories from opposite ends of the political spectrum such as the ones above, neither are true.

[FairOpinion]

So why couldn't Saddam have given AQ some anthrax, as you put it some time ago, "AQ is really just Saddam's body shop". I can beleive that.

[The Great Satan]

So George Bush is simultaneously guilty of a conspiracy to fake a WMD threat from Iraq to justify an invasion, and a conspiracy to cover up the fact that Iraq was behind the anthrax attacks?

It's called finessing the situation. Which is what you do when your blackmailed. My prediction: no charges, no grand jury, no death chamber for Hatfill. Your prediction, again?

[The Great Satan]

So why couldn't Saddam have given AQ some anthrax, as you put it some time ago, "AQ is really just Saddam's body shop".

Well, he might have spotted a tab to Atta. Bin Laden is just a background figure in the whole 9/11 story, someone who was played up because we needed a bogey man we could go after quickly, and with impunity. He made some recruiting videos, that's about the sum total of his contribution to the thing.