The Anthrax Attacks Remain Unsolved

[seemslikeadream]

The Anthrax Attacks Remain Unsolved

The FBI disproved its main theory about how the spores were weaponized.

By EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN

The investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks ended as far as the public knew on July 29, 2008, with the death of Bruce Ivins, a senior biodefense researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Md. The cause of death was an overdose of the painkiller Tylenol. No autopsy was performed, and there was no suicide note.

Less than a week after his apparent suicide, the FBI declared Ivins to have been the sole perpetrator of the 2001 Anthrax attacks, and the person who mailed deadly anthrax spores to NBC, the New York Post, and Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. These attacks killed five people, closed down a Senate office building, caused a national panic, and nearly paralyzed the postal system.

The FBI's six-year investigation was the largest inquest in its history, involving 9,000 interviews, 6,000 subpoenas, and the examination of tens of thousands of photocopiers, typewriters, computers and mailboxes. Yet it failed to find a shred of evidence that identified the anthrax killer—or even a witness to the mailings. With the help of a task force of scientists, it found a flask of anthrax that closely matched—through its genetic markers—the anthrax used in the attack.

This flask had been in the custody of Ivins, who had published no fewer than 44 scientific papers over three decades as a microbiologist and who was working on developing vaccines against anthrax. As custodian, he provided samples of it to other scientists at Fort Detrick, the Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio, and other facilities involved in anthrax research.

According to the FBI's reckoning, over 100 scientists had been given access to it. Any of these scientists (or their co-workers) could have stolen a minute quantity of this anthrax and, by mixing it into a media of water and nutrients, used it to grow enough spores to launch the anthrax attacks.

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Consequently, Ivins, who was assisting the FBI with its investigation, as well as all the scientists who had access to the anthrax, became suspects in the investigation. They were intensely questioned, given polygraph examinations, and played off against one another in variations of the prisoner's dilemma game. Their labs, computers, phones, homes and personal effects were scrutinized for possible clues.

As the so-called Amerithrax investigation proceeded, the FBI ran into frustrating dead ends, such as its relentless five-year pursuit of Steven Hatfill, which ended with an apology in 2007 and Mr. Hatfill receiving a $5.8 million settlement from the U.S. government as compensation. Another scientist, Perry Mikesell, became so stressed by the FBI's games that he began to drink heavily and died of a heart attack in October 2002.

Eventually, the FBI zeroed in on Ivins. Not only did he have access to the anthrax, but FBI agents suspected he had subtly misled them into their Hatfill fiasco. A search of his email turned up pornography and bizarre emails which, though unrelated to anthrax, suggested that he was a deeply disturbed individual.

The FBI turned the pressure up on him, isolating him at work and forcing him to spend what little money he had on lawyers to defend himself. He became increasingly stressed. His therapist reported that Ivins seemed obsessed with the notion of revenge and even homicide. Then came his suicide (which, as Eric Nadler and Bob Coen show in their documentary "The Anthrax War," was one of four suicides among American and British biowarfare researchers in past years). Since Ivins's odd behavior closely fit the FBI's profile of the mad scientist it had been hunting, his suicide provided an opportunity to close the case. So it held a congressional briefing in which it all but pronounced Ivins the anthrax killer.

But there was still a vexing problem—silicon.

Silicon was used in the 1960s to weaponize anthrax. Through an elaborate process, anthrax spores were coated with the substance to prevent them from clinging together so as to create a lethal aerosol. But since weaponization was banned by international treaties, research anthrax no longer contains silicon, and the flask at Fort Detrick contained none.

***

Yet the anthrax grown from it had silicon, according to the U.S. Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. This silicon explained why, when the letters to Sens. Leahy and Daschle were opened, the anthrax vaporized into an aerosol. If so, then somehow silicon was added to the anthrax. But Ivins, no matter how weird he may have been, had neither the set of skills nor the means to attach silicon to anthrax spores.

At a minimum, such a process would require highly specialized equipment that did not exist in Ivins's lab—or, for that matter, anywhere at the Fort Detrick facility. As Richard Spertzel, a former biodefense scientist who worked with Ivins, explained in a private briefing on Jan. 7, 2009, the lab didn't even deal with anthrax in powdered form, adding, "I don't think there's anyone there who would have the foggiest idea how to do it." So while Ivins's death provided a convenient fall guy, the silicon content still needed to be explained.

The FBI's answer was that the anthrax contained only traces of silicon, and those, it theorized, could have been accidently absorbed by the spores from the water and nutrient in which they were grown. No such nutrients were ever found in Ivins's lab, nor, for that matter, did anyone ever see Ivins attempt to produce any unauthorized anthrax (a process which would have involved him using scores of flasks.) But since no one knew what nutrients had been used to grow the attack anthrax, it was at least possible that they had traces of silicon in them that accidently contaminated the anthrax.

Natural contamination was an elegant theory that ran into problems after Congressman Jerry Nadler pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller in September 2008 to provide the House Judiciary Committee with a missing piece of data: the precise percentage of silicon contained in the anthrax used in the attacks.

The answer came seven months later on April 17, 2009. According to the FBI lab, 1.4% of the powder in the Leahy letter was silicon. "This is a shockingly high proportion," explained Stuart Jacobson, an expert in small particle chemistry. "It is a number one would expect from the deliberate weaponization of anthrax, but not from any conceivable accidental contamination."

Nevertheless, in an attempt to back up its theory, the FBI contracted scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Labs in California to conduct experiments in which anthrax is accidently absorbed from a media heavily laced with silicon. When the results were revealed to the National Academy Of Science in September 2009, they effectively blew the FBI's theory out of the water.

The Livermore scientists had tried 56 times to replicate the high silicon content without any success. Even though they added increasingly high amounts of silicon to the media, they never even came close to the 1.4% in the attack anthrax. Most results were an order of magnitude lower, with some as low as .001%.

What these tests inadvertently demonstrated is that the anthrax spores could not have been accidently contaminated by the nutrients in the media. "If there is that much silicon, it had to have been added," Jeffrey Adamovicz, who supervised Ivins's work at Fort Detrick, wrote to me last month. He added that the silicon in the attack anthrax could have been added via a large fermentor—which Battelle and other labs use" but "we did not use a fermentor to grow anthrax at USAMRIID . . . [and] We did not have the capability to add silicon compounds to anthrax spores."

***

If Ivins had neither the equipment or skills to weaponize anthrax with silicon, then some other party with access to the anthrax must have done it. Even before these startling results, Sen. Leahy had told Director Mueller, "I do not believe in any way, shape, or manner that [Ivins] is the only person involved in this attack on Congress."

When I asked a FBI spokesman this month about the Livermore findings, he said the FBI was not commenting on any specifics of the case, other than those discussed in the 2008 briefing (which was about a year before Livermore disclosed its results). He stated: "The Justice Department and the FBI continue working to conclude the investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks. We anticipate closing the case in the near future."

So, even though the public may be under the impression that the anthrax case had been closed in 2008, the FBI investigation is still open—and, unless it can refute the Livermore findings on the silicon, it is back to square one.

Mr. Epstein is currently completing a book on the 9/11 Commission

.

[Pele'sDaughter]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36565308/ ... day_people

Exonerated anthrax suspect: FBI harassed me
Steven Hatfill was investigated for years before being cleared; no apologies


The man falsely accused by the FBI of sending letters laced with deadly anthrax spores has received a big settlement from the government, but never an apology for destroying his life.

What’s more, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill told TODAY’s Matt Lauer during his first interview since the September 2001 attacks, neither the Justice Department nor the FBI has been held accountable for breaking the law and lying in their pursuit of him.

“I love my country,” Hatfill, 56, told Lauer. But, he added, “I learned a couple things. The government can do to you whatever they want. They can break the laws, federal laws, as they see fit … You can’t turn laws on and off as you deem fit. And the Privacy Act laws were put in place specifically to stop what happened to me. Whether we’re at war or have been attacked, the foundation of society is that you hold to the laws in place. I used to be somebody that trusted the government. Now I really don't trust anything.”

“Did they ever apologize?” Lauer asked.

“No, they don’t do that. My father asked them, very early on in the investigation. He said, ‘When all this is over, and you find that my son had nothing to do with this, are you going to apologize?’ And Bob Roth says, ‘No, we don't do that,’ ” Hatfill said, referring to the FBI’s lead investigator in the case, Bob Roth.

“We’ll send Martha Stewart to jail for making false statements. What about these senior people? Nothing’s happening. Is the Justice Department incapable of regulating itself? Without strong regulation, the privileges we give them to investigate us, to conduct their normal anti-crime things, can spiral out of control.”

Hatfill said that at his worst, while unable to get a job and living with his girlfriend, he turned to drink, the glass of wine he took to help him relax turning into two glasses and more.

“I’ve been in a lot of stressful situations over the years. And it ends. This didn’t end. It kept going, going, going, getting worse, worse, worse,” he said of the investigation.


The anthrax attacks began in September 2001, a week after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Letters filled with deadly anthrax spores began arriving at media outlets and at the offices of federal lawmakers. Five people would die in the attacks, and at least 17 others would be infected. Among those to whom letters were addressed was NBC’s Tom Brokaw.

In 2008, the government would finally settle with Hatfill for $5.8 million, although a Justice Department spokesperson said the department “does not admit to any violation of the Privacy Act and continues to deny all liability in connection with Dr. Hatfill’s claims.”

Another researcher, Bruce Edwards Ivins, was identified as the prime suspect. Ivins committed suicide after his name was made public.

Wake of 9/11

In 2001, the immediate assumption was that the anthrax attacks were orchestrated by al-Qaida. Amid intense media attention, investigators attempted to determine the source of the letters.

As someone who was working on biological warfare-related projects for a defense contractor, Hatfill, a respected researcher, said he expected to be among those questioned. So he wasn’t surprised when agents came by to ask him a few questions.

Eventually, they asked if they could take a look at his apartment in Frederick, Md.

“I’m cooperating. I didn’t get a lawyer or anything,” Hatfill told Lauer. He said agents asked to swab surfaces in the apartment and promised, “It’ll be very discreet, quiet.”

“Sure,” he replied. “Knock yourself out.”

But when Hatfill walked out of his apartment with the agents, “there were already news cameras filming me walking to the car.” Overhead, helicopters hovered taking aerial footage. “I was really angry,” he said.

Hatfill cooperated fully in the early stages because he had nothing to hide. He even took a polygraph test, even though he knew that polygraphs are not reliable and sometimes return false positive results.

‘Person of interest’
In July 2002, Hatfill was named a “person of interest” by Attorney General John Ashcroft.

As Hatfill found himself vilified in the media, his anger grew. He told Lauer he blamed the media for the false reports about him, not understanding that the media was reporting false information that came from anonymous government sources.

“I didn’t know this at the time. I just thought it was the press sensationalizing things. It wasn’t till much, much later we learned that it was actually intentionally done by the Justice Department,” Hatfill said.

Hatfill said he survived only because he had faithful friends who refused to abandon him, even when ordered to by the FBI.

“I was fortunate that I had a band of brothers and they never left my side. I still work with them to this day. Patriots, soldiers, highly decorated men. And that gives you the strength, just to be in their company, to carry on.”

He is angry that the government feels that it can tell people to abandon their friends.

“I don’t know of any law that permits the FBI to go by your closest friends and say, ‘You’re not to associate with Dr. Hatfill.’ What they’re trying to do is socially isolate you as part of the stress.”

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Of course the anthrax story is still open BUT beware the Kiss-of-Death messenger...

Edward Jay Epstein is a spook disinformationist who has been muddying up the JFK assassination for decades now.
He's about do the same mud job for 9/11 in a book but he needs to pre-market himself as credible.

So he's infiltrating the internet Left with his article about the anthrax cover-up. ("Cognitive infiltration.")
Just like a bunch of other alphabet infiltrators:

> Vincent Bugliosi, former Los Angeles D.A. who fronted a big pro-Warren Commission disinfo book and then became loud about indicting WBush for murder.

> Manuel Garcia, Lawrence Livermore Labs weapon scientist who published 9/11 disinfo but recently published an anti-racism article.

> Jane Mayer, a Wall Street Journal/New Yorker magazine mockingbird who published 'The Dark Side' decrying torture but also peddling bushels of disinformation about everything from 9/11 to Vietnam to Korean War biological weapons.

> Thom Hartmann, a big 'progressive' mouth on (formerly) Air America Radio who has publlshed two disinformation books on the big assassinations of the 1960s for the Boyz of Langley.

> Jim Marrs, a former military intelligence officer-turned-journo who established himself as a JFK expert and then also became a leading exponent of 'monsters from outer space' with his 1996 book, 'Alien Agenda.' He's contaminating the 9/11 Truth movement and his website links to all the worst CIA disinfo and fellow disinfoteers.

[MinM]

Of course the anthrax story is still open BUT beware the Kiss-of-Death messenger...

Edward Jay Epstein is a spook disinformationist who has been muddying up the JFK assassination for decades now.

So he's infiltrating the internet Left with his article about the anthrax cover-up...

Jim DiEugenio has done some recent stuff on Epstein. John Simkin has some good stuff at his sites too...

Show #469
Original airdate: April 8, 2010
Guest: Jim Lesar /Jim DiEugenio
Topic: JFK Assassination Research

# Play Part Three Interview - Jim DiEugenio

# Jim discusses his article Arianna Huffington, Tina Brown and the New Media: Death at an Early Age?
# Jesse Ventura's book 'American Conspiracies' has now reached # 7 on the best seller list
# Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post and Edward J Epstein
# Edward J Epstein, James Jesus Angleton and Yuri Nosenko
# George DeMohrenschildt, The Paines and Lee Harvey Oswald
# DeMohrenschildt's suicide looked anything but...
# An entry alarm was tripped shortly before DeMohrenschildt was shot
# Even the CIA did a study that discounted Epstein's credibility...
http://www.blackopradio.com/archives2010.html

http://www.ctka.net/pr1199-epstein.html

***

Edward Jay Epstein - The Education Forum

ctka v huffpo - The Education Forum

James Jesus Angleton - The Education Forum

Edward Jay Epstein

[AhabsOtherLeg]

Hatfill said he survived only because he had faithful friends who refused to abandon him, even when ordered to by the FBI.

“I was fortunate that I had a band of brothers and they never left my side. I still work with them to this day. Patriots, soldiers, highly decorated men. And that gives you the strength, just to be in their company, to carry on.”

For what it's worth, I think the FBI were on the right track with Hatfill. I hope the "band of brothers - patriots, soldiers, highly decorated men" he was working with at the time have settled down a bit since then. They're an odd bunch, Hatfill and co., and not many of his highly decorated men got their medals for their services to America. Not directly, anyways.

[julie doceanie]

My head is spinning in a nauseating disinfo whirl. This article of Epstein’s seemed so ridiculous (Ft. Detrick doesn’t have the equipment to coat anthrax spores in silicon? Dr. Ivins didn’t have the skill set? --What???) that I wanted to go back to Glenn Greenwald’s discussions of the subject on Salon.com back in 2008, because I remembered that they were detailed and raised interesting questions.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn ... print.html

But before I could get to Greenwald’s archives, I was confronted with a slick and amazingly uninformative story reviewing a new book about James Earl Ray on Salon’s home page.

http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller ... index.html

So I got sidetracked and nauseated, have to go to bed.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

The day that CIA-media announced that Hatfill had won his lawsuit against the USG for harassment and defamation was the day
that Congressman Jefferson was busted for having an illicit substance in his freezer. Money.

Why?
To displace any internet inquiry into Project Jefferson, the most likely source for that uber-weaponized anthrax.

It's called news cycle management using...right.

[Nordic]

The day that CIA-media announced that Hatfill had won his lawsuit against the USG for harassment and defamation was the day
that Congressman Jefferson was busted for having an illicit substance in his freezer. Money.

Why?
To displace any internet inquiry into Project Jefferson, the most likely source for that uber-weaponized anthrax.

It's called news cycle management using...right.

Well, it didn't work. Google "Project Jefferson" and see what you get.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Context. It's about visibility in the news cycle and online on June 4, 2007. Not your search today.

But I mischaracterized the day off the top of my head. Oops. Mea culpa. Still, I'm right.
It was instead a day that Hatfill was specifically tying the CIA-media to the FBI to prove he was being falsely tried in the press-

http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/Hatfill125.pdf

.....
The media companies and reporters have opposed Dr. Hatfill’s motion
to compel in part on the ground that the motion is premature. See Opp’n ABC, Wash. Post,
Newsweek, Isikoff, Klaidman & Lengel Mot. Compel Docs., June 1, 2007 (Dkt. 181); CBS
Broadcasting Inc.’s Mem. Opp’n Mot. Compel Docs., June 1, 2007 (Dkt.182); Stewart’s Mem.
Opp’n Mot. Compel Docs., June 1, 2007 (Dkt. 183); Assoc. Press & Balt. Sun Co.’s Opp’n Mot.
Compel Docs., June 1, 2007 (Dkt. 184).

9. On June 4, 2007, Dr. Hatfill moved to compel further testimony from one reporter
who had previously testified pursuant to a subpoena from the Southern District of New York.
That reporter had previously testified that he obtained information he reported about Dr. Hatfill
from two FBI employees. However, on the ground of the reporter’s privilege, this reporter
refused to disclose the sources’ identities or any other identifying information. The reporter
opposed Dr. Hatfill’s motion. The matter has been fully briefed and is set for argument on June 19 before Judge Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York.
10. Extending the discovery deadline for Dr. Hatfill to pursue the identities of the
anonymous DOJ and FBI officials who leaked information about Dr. Hatfill will not affect any
deadlines set in this case. Currently, the Court has scheduled a June 26 hearing on the motions...
.....

[hava1]

i always thought my sister was involved in that, but i dont know which agency employs her, she is married now to an american spook who is very shady, and i also don't know who exactly employs him from the array of orgs. (my assumption has to do with dates/location/flights).
its the same MO, usually the israelis involved eventually immigrate to the USA and their name appears on the republican party's donations...
same shit, and does that really matter.

[elfismiles]

Tonight 6-7pm CST

YOU KNOW that we haven't been told the whole truth about the 2001 anthrax attacks and related matters. This documentary seeks out the rest of the story. I'll be interviewing the director and producer on my radio show today from 4-5 PM, Pacific Time.
88.9 FM in Orange County, CA
or streaming anywhere in the world at www.kuci.org
http://www.anthraxwar.com

www.OutTheRabbitHole.com
www.MySpace.com/OutTheRabbitHole

Anthrax War - Dead Silence
www.anthraxwar.com

http://www.facebook.com/rglarson

You can also tune in via
www.AnomalyRadio.com

http://vimeo.com/channels/43943
http://www.youtube.com/user/liamh2


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nK13PjBILQI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjpfHpo15zI

[JackRiddler]

Epstein engages in all kinds of disinfo, but this article is straight reportage and almost nothing we didn't know. Presumably a plum in advance of his book. I agree with the idea that Hatfill was probably not involved, but part of the milieu from which the attack came. Since the FBI's predetermined conclusion was that it was going to be one guy responsible no matter what, they weren't going to go beyond Hatfill, or ever touch Project Jefferson and the like.


IN THE YEARS BEFORE...

• Operation Clear Vision: reconstructing Russian anthrax bombs (1997-2000)
- State Department objected: violation of biowarfare conventions
State Dept. official quoted as saying: "A bomb is a bomb is a bomb."
- Pentagon, CIA insisted, went ahead with research.
- Suspended by White House in 2000.

• Revival of programs under Bush administration.
- Operation Jefferson (West Jefferson, Ohio: Battelle Memorial Institute)
- Supermarket terrorism ($1 million budget)
- Sept. 4th: Judith Miller allowed to report from facility by Pentagon after French objection.


Next to Old Rec Hall, a 'Germ-Making Plant'
New York Times
September 4, 2001
By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/04/inter ... 4BIOW.html

CAMP 12, NEVADA TEST SITE, Nevada - In a nondescript mustard-colored building that was once a military recreation hall and barbershop, the Pentagon has built a germ factory that could make enough lethal microbes to wipe out entire cities.

Adjacent to the pool tables, the shuffleboard and the bar stands a gleaming stainless steel cylinder, the 50-liter (53- quart) fermenter in which germs can be cultivated.

The apparatus, which includes a latticework of pipes and other equipment, was made entirely with commercially available components bought from hardware stores and other suppliers for about $1 million - a pittance for a weapon that could deliver death on such a large scale.

The factory was built by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, an arm of the Pentagon that works to contain the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Officials said the project was intended to assess how hard it would be for a terrorist or rogue nation to assemble a germ factory.

-------------

9/11/01


• Sept. 11th: White House staff (Cheney people) put on Cipro.

-• Lexis reveals several dozen stories with warnings about potential for anthrax attacks in the weeks between Sept. 11 and beginning of attacks (many cited by Ed Lake at his "anthrax investigation" site). Rumsfeld, Hyde, Bush all deliver scare stories Oct. 1.

• SEPT. 24: Agriculture Dept. orders no crop duster flights (supposed Atta & anthrax connection)

-------------

SEPT. 16: PATRIOT Act proposed.

SEPT. 18: Postmark of Trenton, NJ anthrax mailings to NY Post and NBC (also CBS? ABC?)

SEPT. 22: First symptoms in NY area (undiagnosed).

OCT. 2: USA PATRIOT Act introduced in Congress.

OCT. 3: BOB STEVENS DIAGNOSED WITH INHALATION ANTHRAX. No letter ever found.

OCT. 4: Tommy Thompson, from the White House:
"I want everybody to understand that sporadic cases of anthrax do occur in the United States.... [A]t this point in time, it's an isolated case, and there is no other indication [of] anybody else [who] has got anthrax."

Patrick Leahy expresses opposition to USA PATRIOT Act.

OCT. 5: Bob Stevens dies.

OCT. 9: Postmark of Trenton, NJ mailings to Daschle & Leahy (Kennedy? Levin?).
USA PATRIOT Act blocked in committee by Feingold.


OCT. 10-11: IOWA STATE UNIV. DESTROYS ORIGINAL AMES STRAIN WITH FBI & CDC APPROVAL
James Roth, College of Veterinary Sciences. - Who had this bright idea? (NYT reported)

THAT WEEK: New York in anthrax panic. 9/11 investigation cut in half.

OCT. 15: Daschle staff opens anthrax mail.
Bush points finger to Osama (BBC).

OCT. 16-17: Senate office buildings shut down.

OCT. 24: House passes USA PATRIOT Act (unread).

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) confirms rumors circulating in Washington that this sweeping new law, with serious implications for each and every American, was not made available to members of Congress for review before the vote. "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, kept the House in session all night, and it was a very complicated bill. Maybe a handful of staffers actually read it, but the bill definitely was not available to members before the vote."


OCT. 26: Senate passes USA PATRIOT Act. Bush signs.

NOV. 17: Leahy letter arrives (had been misrouted).
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED? ANTHRAX ATTACKS END.


Barbara Hatch Rosenberg:
"A classified report dated February, 1999 discusses responses to an anthrax attack through the mail. The report, precipitated by a series of false anthrax mailings, was written by William Patrick, inventor of the US weaponization process, under a CIA contract to SAIC. The report describes what the US military could do and what a terrorist might be able to achieve. According to the NY Times (12 Dec. 01) the report predicted about 2.5g of anthrax per envelope (the Daschle letter contained 2g) and assumed a poorer quality of anthrax than that found in the Daschle letter. If the perpetrator had access to the materials and information necessary for the attack, he must have had security clearance or other means for accessing classified information, and may therefore have seen the report and used it as a model for the attack."

www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2833 ... ge=printer

FBI's Theory On Anthrax Is Doubted
Attacks Not Likely Work Of 1 Person, Experts Say

By Guy Gugliotta and Gary Matsumoto
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, October 28, 2002; Page A01

A significant number of scientists and biological warfare experts are expressing skepticism about the FBI's view that a single disgruntled American scientist prepared the spores and mailed the deadly anthrax letters that killed five people last year.

These sources say that making a weaponized aerosol of such sophistication and virulence would require scientific knowledge, technical competence, access to expensive equipment and safety know-how that are probably beyond the capabilities of a lone individual.

"In my opinion, there are maybe four or five people in the whole country who might be able to make this stuff, and I'm one of them," said Richard O. Spertzel, chief biological inspector for the U.N. Special Commission from 1994 to 1998. "And even with a good lab and staff to help run it, it might take me a year to come up with a product as good."

Instead, suggested Spertzel and more than a dozen experts interviewed by The Washington Post in recent weeks, investigators might want to reexamine the possibility of state-sponsored terrorism, or try to determine whether weaponized spores may have been stolen by the attacker from an existing, but secret, biodefense program or perhaps given to the attacker by an accomplice.

The Defense Department and FBI refused repeated requests from The Post to discuss recent developments in the anthrax investigation. But in some important respects, the official version of events -- developed in part during the early, frantic days of the probe -- is at odds with the available evidence, the experts say. (...)

[JackRiddler]

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=21232

[DrVolin]

Written a long time ago, all based on media reports:

Here's some work I posted on another board a few years ago, along with a RigInt post-script of stuff I've found out since then.

The Anthrax attacks and the Connecticut Connection

Until recently, the only named person of interest in the 2001 anthrax attacks had been Dr. Steven Hatfill, a government bio-weapons researcher. Nothing seems to connect Hatfill directly with the anthrax attacks, and he makes sense as a suspect mainly because of his job. A few weeks ago, the FBI identified a new person of interest, Dr. Kenneth M. Berry, a physician with ties to the development of bio-terror counter-measures. Once again, the job fits, but this time there are additional ties which may prove important. These do not imply that Dr. Berry is guilty of these attacks, but they do suggest that the FBI may be getting closer to their real source.

Of all the Anthrax cases generated by the attacks, only one is truly puzzling: that of 94 year old Ottilie Lundgren of Oxford, Connecticut. She was seemingly unconnected to any of the media agencies and political organizations being targeted, geographically isolated from the other cases, and rarely left her home. Cross-contamination of her mail has been blamed, but anthrax spores were never found at her residence. Her case is an outlier in an otherwise fairly straighforward epidemiology, and any hypothesis which integrates her case more tightly with the others must be examined closely. Dr. Berry's identification as a person of interest adds a few data points which finally bridge some of the distance between Ottilie Lundgren's tragic death and the rest of the Anthrax distribution.

Dr Berry graduated high school and got his first medical job in Danbury Connecticut, 23 miles from Ottilie Lundgren's Oxford residence. His parents still live in the Danbury area. Along with 81 year old Connecticut inventor Ed Wicks, Berry started a business to market systems to clear office buildings of biological and chemical contaminants in the event of terrorist attacks.

Another Danbury area resident, Michael Kielty, has recently made the news. Mr. Kielty was killed in a small plane crash while on a flight from Waterbury-Oxford airport to New York, a trip he frequently made. Mr. Kielty was being investigated by the FBI for undisclosed reasons. He ran a
business which provides call answering services to medical professionals and which has two call centers in upstate New York, where Dr. Berry maintains a residence. Dr. Berry's other residence is in Dover Township, New Jersey. The Anthax letters were all post-marked in New Jersey.

Dr. Berry and Mr. Kielty have something else in common. They were both involved in unsuccessful anti-terror business ventures in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Dr. Berry attempted to market Mr. Wicks' system for decontaminating buildings, and Mr. Kielty tried to sell the FAA a bar code scanner which he said would improve security at airports.

Whereas the Lundgren case was in many ways an isolated point before the identification of Dr. Berry as a person of interest, it now finds itself much more strongly connected to the other anthrax cases. Kielty and Berry, through their post-9/11 business ventures, connect the Oxford
area with counter terror efforts and thus with the 9/11 attacks. Wicks, the Connecticut inventor and Berry's business partner represents a link to Lundgren's generation. Berry has strong links to both New Jersey and the Danbury, Connecticut area.

Positing a strong Connecticut connection to the anthrax attacks seems a good way of explaining the seemingly inexplicable Lundgren case. The Berry-Kielty story may be the first step to establishing such a connection.

RigInt post-script: Ottilie Lundgren worked as a legal secretary and Republican party activist in the 1950s in Hartford. She worked for and married Carl A Lundgren, who was head of the Connecticut Unemployement Commission under Prescott Bush, when he was Governor of that state.