Posted on 03/22/2002 11:41:11 PM PST by kattracks
It's a bit complex, but the main idea is all the anthrax envelopes were mailed in S. Florida by a single individual.
That individual placed each envelope in a different collection box.
This was a wealthy neighborhood full of rich retirees with loud mouths. USPS regularly puts extra collection boxes in such places just to shut them up (handling complaints costs lots of money).
Little mail originates in these places. When the hijacker dropped a letter into the box it fell into a standard flat tray. (There are letter trays and flat trays. One is for letters and the other is for flats - large envelopes and magazines are called flats.)
The collection driver simply pulls the trays from the collection box and replaces each with a new empty tray. He stacks the trays up in his vehicle. Since they have only 1 letter in them, these trays are readily misidentified as empty equipment, or MTE.
Empty equipment from S. Florida is regularly sent to Philadelphia BMC. It is distributed from there to postal facilities in New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania.
There's more to it, but it would have been strange to have these letters show up anywhere else but New Jersey!
A Postal Inspector nearly died of anthrax due to complications which were clearly covered in Ken's book. The CDC didn't bother to advise the doctors caring for the Inspector of what was known about the progression of inhalation anthrax. The FBI apparantly hadn't bothered to consult with the CDC either.
A big problem here is that these various federal agencies have top managers who are too brain dead to realize that there is expertise elsewhere.
This might well have something to do with the salarycap on federal employment plus the need for federal managers to be first-class a$$ki$$ers even if this is a dangerous practice which may destroy the Republic.
9/11 demonstrates why our federales have got to be smarter and tougher than the gang we have presently.
You are exactly right. I am so angry that the New York Times is taking credit for "breaking" this story. This information was out there back in October for any one of the media morons who wanted to investigate it. The only place I saw this hospital-hijacker connection discussed was right here o n Free Republic.
You: Sure they would.
Not the FBI. The people there are looking to protect themselves and their own positions. No one in the FBI would ever admit that they haven't gotten necessary expertise externally when they didn't have it in-house.
Now, someone else in the government might have said that. Or the reporter might have taken a report from the FBI and added his own interpretation based on extra research (interviews with the people involved).
The interesting thing now is that they have a problem on their hands. Between the FBI's numerous statements and the extensive dissemination of Rosenberg's theory, large numbers of people now believe that the anthrax attack was carried out by a lone domestic nut. The propaganda has been too convincing. How are they going to back out of it?
At this point, many people won't believe the truth when the government finally decides to reveal it. They'll say that it's just an excuse by the Wolfowitz camp and the neoconservatives to go to war with Iraq.
Did you notice that the John Doe #2 story from Oklahoma City is suddenly back? And it looks like it's suddenly considered credible in the mainstream media.
(Removing my tin-foil hat).
Removing it is probably a mistake :-).
And came back to the USA via Newark, N.J.
No one in the press is even asking about the Anthrax attacks. It's almost as if they never happened. Weird.
Fred, why would they need anthrax vaccinations if they were going to die anyway? Cipro--or another very strong broad-spectrum antibiotic, but the vaccines would not be necessary given their life expectancy.
You: And came back to the USA via Newark, N.J.
Atta's travels were very extensive. He drove thousands of miles in rental cars in his final few months. Here's one example: On August 15, 2001, he rented a car and drove it 1,915 miles. Where did he go? By Aug. 19, he was back; we know because he rented a small 4-seat airplane in Lantana, FL, on Aug. 19, 20, and 21, flying it for four hours a day.
With all this traveling, he could have carried the anthrax back from Prague in April and then brought it anywhere in the U.S. We really don't know.
Something here doesn't add up. Lets say the terrorists were involved with anthrax and somehow got infected. The last thing they would do is go to the doctor who might make a correct diagnosis and bring attention to them, and a lot of questions. Who were you with? Where do you think you came in contact with anthrax. Who have you had close contact with. etc.
It would be like smuggling in an atomic bomb and going to the doctor and saying I don't feel well I think I have radiation poisoning.
This thing just doesn't pass the smell test. - Tom
There was a report several months back,
that one of the 19 resided in
(not just travelled to)
a couple dozen cities
across the USA
(including several places in NJ).
His reasons were unknown,
but one can make a chilling hypothesis.
The man wanted to stay alive until Sept. 11.
What was he supposed to do?
Kick the bucket and miss his moment of glory??
As you must realize you do not have to be in a jurisdiction to put it down as a return address.
The thing the FBI was confused about were the cancellation marks. They are in New Jersey.
All that meant was that the pieces were cancelled in Jersey and not Florida. That's because they got were lost in the mail in Florida, yet discovered in flat trays in New Jersey, and tossed into 010!
This is a normal situation. Happens all the time. It's happening as we speak!
The window drop at Boca Raton was contaminated. I am certain a half dozen or more flat trays were also contaminated. In later handling those very same trays which were contaminated with anthrax went on to contaminate other mail destined for folks in New York and Connecticut. Two of them died.
It was not cross-contamination from mail - it was contamination by contaminated equipment!
I am taking a break for a while to watch Indiana University kick Kent State out of the arena!
Unfortunately I didn't meet up with any femme fatale foreign agents in Prague.
Look, this New Jersey business is absolutely meaningless. We have about 25% of the total population of the United States living within 200 or so miles from this place. All kinds of folks are constantly coming and going in Jersey.
Now, when you talk about Boca Raton, you have something.
I think you vastly over-estimate how much attention the general public -- even the educated, broadsheet-reading public -- has been paying to this story. At most, people just have some general, fuzzy, back-of-the mind perception that "Oh, yeah, they never caught the guy, but they think maybe it was some lone nut." It's not like people are locked into that. Nothing definitive has ever been said -- in fact, every official statement on the anthrax has been a masterpiece in the art of saying nothing in as many words as possible. If a few more tidbits like this latest revelation are dribbled out over the coming weeks, then Bush goes on TV and says "It's Iraq -- the bombing starts in five minutes," nobody will bat an eyelid. Besides, what choice did Bush have? Realistically, could he have gone on TV last October and said: "Saddam destroyed the WTC, tried to destroy the White House and the Capitol, and I can't hit back because he would kill millions of people and turn New York City into a useless patch of wasteground --please bear with me while I try to come up with something"? Politics is the "art of the possible." The benefits and costs of any course of action must be judged against the alternatives. That's what executives do. Bush knows that. That why he's got the big office.
The $64K question is, who controls the anthrax -- Saddam, or al-Qaeda? My own belief is that Saddam controls it, based on the following arguments: (a) the anthrax hasn't been used, except in a threat/deterrent mode and (b) Saddam is known to have cracked the weaponization problem, whereas the indications are that al-Qaeda, while they have big dreams, are still somewhat amateurish in their technical capabilities. If Saddam supplied it, he'd definitely want to control it, inasmuch as he is a sitting duck for US nuclear retaliation. However, any conclusions must be considered highly tentative, given the fragmentary information in the public domain. I hope and suspect that that the picture is clearer to Bush and Cheney, given that they are privy to raw intelligence data, minus the rumors and spin.
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