The Anthrax Letters: The Finger Points at Whom?

by Bill Sardi by Bill Sardi

DIGG THIS

Late Friday, June 27, 2008, when news viewing is low and Americans are busy finishing their work week and getting home for the weekend, and with many Americans on summer vacation and away from their normal sources of news, the Justice Department announces it has settled a lawsuit with "a person of interest" in the 2001 anthrax mail case. The "person of interest" was Steven Hatfill, identified by attorney general John Ashcroft as a potential suspect because he had worked at the Army’s infectious diseases laboratory at Ft. Detrick, Maryland from 1997 to 1999.

Hatfill’s attorneys had filed a case against the Federal Government for violation of privacy rights. Hatfill will receive $2.825 million up front and $150,000 a year for 20 years.

“I don’t think anyone would believe the Department of Justice would . . . pay that kind of money unless they felt there was significant exposure at trial,” said Brian Sun, a defense lawyer who represented nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee in a leak case. (Boston Globe)

Exposure? Yes, exactly what would be revealed if Hatfill’s case were to go on?

There is nothing new I’m going to write here about the anthrax letter attacks, but I’m just wondering if the American public can put all the events together and come to a conclusion on their own without waiting for the news media, which is apparently complicit in delivering the government’s version of the anthrax fiasco, to do the thinking for them?

It is undeniable that whoever released the anthrax letters directed them at members of the opposing party (Senator Tom Daschle, the first letter, and Senator Patrick Leahy, the second letter, both who opposed the Patriot Act).

The news media was also targeted, first the tabloid press (the National Enquirer at American Media in Boca Raton, Florida) that often is the first to release news, and then ABC, CBS and NBC news and the New York Post, all in New York. Was this an effort to hush the press from investigating and reporting on the events surrounding 9-11?

In those days following 9-11 the American public was led to believe all sorts of things regarding the anthrax letters. One version was that the Middle Eastern terrorists who hijacked planes and directed them at the World Trade Center towers, were somehow implicated and may have even brought anthrax to the U.S. from a foreign land. But when our own scientists were employing DNA fingerprinting technology that was leading up to the doorsteps of military biological warfare laboratories in Utah and Maryland, the story had to change. Hatfill became the scapegoat.

USA Today reporter Tony Locy refused to reveal her sources in her news report implicating Hatfill in the anthrax case. In all, a US District Judge ordered five reporters at various news organizations, including the Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and CBS News, to answer questions about who provided them information about the Hatfill investigation. Vanity Fair and Reader’s Digest also released their versions of the Hatfill case. Isn’t this how the federal government taps the news media to release propaganda and make it appear it is coming from independent journalists?

In a written statement, Hatfill’s lawyers said, “We can only hope that the individuals and institutions involved are sufficiently chastened by this episode to deter similar destruction of private citizens in the future — and that we will all read anonymously sourced news reports with a great deal more skepticism.” (International Herald Tribune)

Chastised? The taxpayers paid the monetary price. The case is unsolved and agents involved in pursuit of the anthrax terrorists (FBI, postal inspectors) have not lost their jobs. The settlement with Hatfill stops further pursuit and revelations of government complicity in this case. Hatfill was never charged, just slandered. That is all that government need do, create public suspicion.

Somehow, someone swiped anthrax from a military biological warfare laboratory and used it to kill 5 and infect 17. Someone who walks in and out of the doors at these military labs was involved. They are still at large, and probably still have access to the anthrax. Whoever the anthrax terrorists are, they had a motive in those early days after 9-11 to hush the news media and target leaders of the Democratic Party.

Since we are only left with our own suspicions, just who do you think master-minded the anthrax letter attacks?

According to an Associated Press report (October 23, 2001), "On the night of the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House Medical Office dispensed Cipro (the antibiotic used to treat anthrax) to staff accompanying Vice President Dick Cheney as he was secreted off to the safety of Camp David, and told them it was u2018a precaution,’ according to one person directly involved." The first anthrax letters were not postmarked till September 18.

Bill Sardi Archives