The Luigi Andrea ("Anthrax") Warren Deception

A MEMBER OF THE RHODESIAN GESTAPO AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN NAZI PARTY

2009-12-01T00:59:00.001-08:00

I WAS WRONG ABOUT STEVEN HATFILL MAILING THE ANTHRAX SPORES BUT RIGHT ABOUT HIM HAVING BEEN A MEMBER OF THE RHODESIAN GESTAPO AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN NAZI PARTY: LOOK AT WHAT THE FBI STATED IN IT'S APPLICATION FOR A SEARCH WARRANT:

16. Steven Hatfill has made statements suggesting that he has previously prepared and used biological agents, including anthrax, on human beings outside the United States. On April 21, 2002 the FBI interviewed a witness (deleted) who recalls several statements Hatfill made in (deleted) describing his years in Africa in the late 1970's and early 1980's.

17. According to (deleted) Steven Hatfill stated in (deleted) that he (Hatfill) served as a mercenary for the Rhodesia military from 1979-1980, during the very years Rhodesian military and intelligence units are believed to have employed toxic chemical and biological agents against rebels in the closing years of a long and brutal civil war that led to the collapse of the Rhodesian government and the formation of the Zimbabwe state. During a 24 month period in 1979 and 1980, the rebel-held areas of Rhodesia experienced the worst outbreak of anthrax in world history - more than 10,738 human cases, 182 of them fatal. The epidemic spread to six of eight provinces in a country where anthrax had previously been rare, and only the insurgent controlled areas (supporting the guerilla war) were affected. According to (deleted) Hatfill stated that he served in the Rhodesian "Selous Scouts" and worked as a consultant to the Rhodesian Special Branch - the very units that are believed to have been responsible for the anthrax attacks in 1979-1980. Hatfill produced a document purportedly showing the "LD-50" lethal dose rates of anthrax and other biological agents that was based on data he collected while working for the Selous Scouts in Rhodesia. ("LD-50" is the amount of a solid or liquid material that it takes to kill 50% of the human population in a single dose,) Hatfill also boasted that he advised the Rhodesian Special Branch how to lace clothing distributed in rebel-held provinces with a lethal mixture of Organophosphate pesticide and Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) in order to kill rebel opponents. (deleted) stated Hatfill claimed that his suggestion of adding DSMO made the mixture much more deadly and hundreds were killed as a result. Deleted the former head of the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organization during the civil war, has publically admitted that the Rhodesian government deliberately distributed poisoned clothing that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of rebels and civilians.

http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/anthrax/Released-02-458Warrant.pdf

I accused Hatfill of sending out the anthrax-laced letters on the basis of his former South African Nazi Party (AWB) membership combined with numerous other factors. My information that he was a Nazi came from Dr. John Michie[i] who was acquainted with Hatfill when Hatfill was a student conducting research for a Master of Science degree under the supervision of the Head of the Radiobiology Laboratory; Dr. Lothar Böhm. Dr. Michie was a staff member of the Laboratory conducting separate research projects, independently of Böhm/Hatfill. Hatfill told Dr. Michie and other hospital staff members that he was a AWB member and showed him a photograph to prove it in which he posed in full Nazi regalia with the AWB’s fuehrer, Eugene Terre Blanche. In a subsequent autobiography Hatfill admitted to his Nazi connection but of course played it down, “South Africa was in political turmoil when I was there. In 1983, out of curiosity I attended a few rallies sponsored by the fanatical right wing group known as the AWB. I had my photograph taken next to the radical leader of the AWB, Eugene Terre Blanche, a man I thought a dangerous fool. I subsequently had the photograph made into a Halloween card added a funny title to it, and gave this to a few friends as a joke. In light of some nonsense I have read regarding my activities at the time I might specify that I never trained AWB shock troops at the Milnerton Pistol Club or elsewhere. I am not aware that the Cape Town suburb of Milnerton had a pistol club. The AWB could have found a far better instructor than me out of the thousands of ex-servicemen of Afrikaner ancestry. (The A in AWB stands for Afrikaner. The AWB was an organization of rightwing individuals of Dutch colonist ancestry whose ancestors fought the British during the Boer War. As a general rule these folks did not have a great deal of time for anyone who spoke only English as I did.”

The AWB was no “fanatical right wing group” like the John Birchers, it was the South African Nazi Party. Although primarily an Afrikaner movement, with Afrikaans as their sole official language, the AWB also had English-speaking white members. Before this autobiography was released by the Justice Department Hatfill denied that the photo ever existed. When this author pointed this out to Pat Clawson,[ii] former Hatfill pro bono spokesman, he said that even if Hatfill lied to him about the existence of the photograph, it did not mean he mailed out the anthrax. The Weekly Standard got in on the act, “And nothing links Dr. Hatfill to Eugene Terre Blanche (Terre Blanche denies the connection) -- except a risibly [ludicrous, arousing laughter] amateurish South African news-service story, which cites a photograph that no one can find, and an unnamed ‘former colleague’ who says Hatfill once claimed to have run a Resistance Movement training session (whose leader denies that).”

This information on Hatfill was further corroborated when he was denied a CIA security clearance due to his AWB connections and because of his work for racist Rhodesia’s Central Intelligence Organization. Hatfill: “At the end of February 2002, a year after my application for clearance had been aborted by the termination of the contract for which I had sought it, I was surprised to receive a letter from the CIA advising me that my application had been turned down due to my involvement with Rhodesian authorities twenty years earlier. I did not need and was not at the time seeking CIA clearance. I was under the impression that my file had been closed pending possible re-application for clearance work under a contract for which it would be needed. Since I objected to the adverse conclusions drawn from my time in Africa, however, I appealed the negative determination. My appeal is pending at this time.”

There was good reason for this researcher to suspect a fat beer-bellied Nazi pig, a former Rhodesian intelligence agent and an individual who conned his way into the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland by using a forged instrument. Hatfill was asked about this,

Q. You were not awarded a Ph.D.?

A. Somewhere around 1998 approximate there.

Q. You learn in 1997?

A. I’m not sure, 1998 or 1999, possibly -- anyway, I learned that I did not receive it.

Q. And how did you come to that understanding?

A. In an exchange of e-mails with Rhodes University. I don’t recall the specifics.

Q. In any job applications that you’ve submitted, have you ever attached a copy of a diploma?

A. Yes, on one. National Institutes of Health [the institution that placed Hatfill at Fort Detrick].

Q. And that diploma states that you have a Ph.D.?

A. Yes. Don’t know what was going through my head.

Q. Is that document a forgery?

A. Yes.

Q. Take me through the steps in which you created that forged diploma.

A. I don’t recall, it’s a decade ago. I was talking to one of the guys in the pub and he said he was a computer guy. He said ‘I’ll whip one up for you.’ [This was] while I was at Oxford.

Q. So the diploma was created in 1997?

A. I don’t recall a specific time.

Fort Detrick is to germs what Fort Knox is to gold. In 1941 the US Chemical Warfare Service developed Camp Detrick, Frederick, Maryland as a biological agents development site. In 1969 it became known as USAMRIID after President Nixon disestablished the bioweapons program in 1968. Hatfill should not have been allowed with a thousand feet of Fort Detrick; he most certainly should not have been allowed access to a Biosafety Level 4 Suite. These laboratories are designed to prevent infectious microbes from being released into the environment and provide the highest possible level of safety to scientists carrying out experiments. Biosafety Level 4 uses several measures to ensure infectious agents are properly contained or destroyed. They include micro filtration of air, air-lock buffer zones, space suits with positive-pressure air supply, chemical decontamination, and decontamination at high temperature for long periods of all materials produced in the facility. Since he had Level 4 access Hatfill also had access to the less dangerous Level 3 labs, where experiments with anthrax and other bacteria were conducted. There, Hatfill had access to the exact strain of the bacteria that was included with the anthrax letters.

You can rest assured Hatfill will never have contact with America’s deadliest germs again! Biologists at U.S. Army labs will now have to undergo Top Secret background checks to work with anthrax and other bio-agents. Anthrax is the second-highest biohazard risk, but access to it has not required such security clearance in the past. In order to even be in the same room with anthrax now scientists will have to have a special key and Top Secret clearance.

A Nazi with access to the identical strain of anthrax as found in the letters? Nazism is a criminal conspiracy to commit genocide and is illegal in many countries, including France, England and Canada. What other American microbiologist who worked with the most deadly biological agents known to man had been a member of the Nazi party? The FBI and the media and myself had good reason to suspect him.

None-the-less when it comes to the anthrax mailings now Hatfill is the new Richard Jewell – Jewell was a harmless man who was falsely accused of being the Atlanta Olympic Park bomber. Hatfill will receive almost $3 million in cash and an additional $150,000 annually for the next 20 years to settle a lawsuit he filed in 2003, charging the FBI and U.S. Justice Department with leaking information to the news media in order to link him to the mailing of letters that contained anthrax spores. By doing so the Department of Justice tacitly admitted that Hatfill was innocent. I was demoralized. I had falsely accused Hatfill of a horrendous crime and helped put him through the wringer. My heart went out to this poor Nazi bastard.

HATFILL’S EARLY YEARS: Hatfill’s father Norman Hatfill stated: “I am told when my great grandfather came into Indiana he changed the spelling of his name when he married to distance himself from the feuding Hatfields”[iii] and he also stated, “I am a descendent of the Hatfields and have always been told that the spelling was changed to Hatfill by one of my ancestors when he moved to Illinois from Kentucky or West Virginia.”

Dr. Steven J. Hatfill was born was born on October 24, 1953 in St. Louis, Missouri. According to his cousin Peter Hatfill, a school principal in Jerseyville, Illinois, Hatfill and his sister were adopted shortly after birth. His foster mother Shirley Anne, a housewife, was born September 9, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. She married Norman Hatfill on August 6, 1949 in Connersville, Indiana. Shirley Hatfill passed away in Mattoon January 17, 2008. Norman Hatfill survives, as do “Steve Hatfill and his special friend Peck Chegne of Washington, D.C.; Mrs. Hatfill was a member of the First United Methodist Church where she had been a Sunday school teacher. The Hatfill family owned a thoroughbred horse farm in Ocala, Florida, and several Florida waterfront condominiums.” Steven’s foster father Norman was an electrician[iv] and part-time horse breeder who was raised in Illinois. He became president of the Electric Laboratories and Sales Corporation in 1968, an electric meter manufacturer and repair company.

Hatfill grew up in Mattoon. A source that wishes to remain anonymous reported: “I went to elementary school with Steve and he was diabolical then. You better hope they find the information they need to get him off the street. If you question this, he lived on Western Avenue and his grade school was Hawthorne in Mattoon, Illinois.” A source reported: “And, what about letters he wrote to people in Mattoon when he was in Africa? He thanked someone for all the persecution he had in high school that made him a mercenary.” Hatfill graduated from Mattoon High School in May 1971 then went on to study basic biological and chemical undergraduate courses at Southwestern College, Winfield, Kansas, beginning, September 1971.

Newsweek Magazine reported that Military records show Hatfill was a Marine Corps Reservist from October 1971 to June 1972 then discharged. Hatfill said he was part of the United States Marine Corps Officers Candidate Program (PLC). PLC lets a student complete their academic career uninterrupted at the college or university of their choice. If they maintain an overall “C” average or higher, upon graduation, they will be commissioned as a Marine Second Lieutenant. Details of his brief Marine career were blacked out on his official transcript.[v] A source with access to Hatfill’s military records finally cleared things up, “Regarding his military activity in the U.S. Marine Corps, Dr. Hatfill spent six weeks in an undergraduate summer program which he received academic credit. He was never discharged as reported in the Newsweek article.”[vi]

Rather than become a college dropout, Hatfill enrolled in a program where he would study practical medicine overseas. In the middle of his studies, around 1973, he spent eight months at a Methodist mission hospital in Kapanga, Zaire, (Republic de Congo) that had been operated by Glenn J. Eschtruth, M.D.[vii], and his wife, Lena Eschtruth since 1960. Lena Eschtruth: “Nobody sent him, I don't even know how he knew about us. But you don't kick a kid out. You know how it is: When you're young, you can set the world on fire.” Dr. Eschtruth was suspected by the KGB of reporting back to the CIA or to Air Force Intelligence on communist activity in sub-Saharan Africa.

A blog entry[viii] reported, “By contrast, western medicine was dispensed at the mission hospital under the direction of Dr. Glenn Eschtruth, the only surgeon within 100 miles of Kapanga. In 1976 an enigmatic character named Hatfill appeared without warning in Kapanga to volunteer as a health assistant at the mission hospital. The 19-year-old daughter of Lena and Glenn Eschtruth had a brief sad marriage with Hatfill, and after Dr. Eschtruth's murder Hatfill left the US to became a specialist in biological warfare. Hatfill studied and practiced medicine in Rhodesia and the Republic of South Africa, while serving with their special military forces. Returning to the US in the late 1990s, Hatfill was employed by the US Army Medical Research Institute to work on Ebola and other viral diseases. Hatfill's knowledge of biological warfare pathogens and toxins caused him to be interrogated by the FBI in association with the anthrax-by-mail incidents in October 2001.”

Hatfill wrote: “As a college undergraduate during the early 1970’s I had a chance to spend a formative year in Africa working as a volunteer public health assistant at a remote Methodist Mission hospital in Katanga Province of Zaire, now called the Congo. There I participated in a number of rural village health care projects and vaccination programs including the WHO Smallpox eradication program. Working in this area I developed an interest in tropical medicine and public health as it applies to developing countries.” He did not mention that he fell in love with Dr. Eschtruth’s daughter Caroline who was preparing to return to the United States to attend college. Caroline Eschtruth (born June 19, 1957, at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida) worked at her father’s clinic as a practical nurse.

In 1974 Hatfill stated that he “returned to the United States from Africa and completed my undergraduate degree at Southwestern College finishing with a Bachelor of Arts in July 1975. I then enlisted in the U.S. Army.” Hatfill enlisted in the US Army on June 20, 1975, at the age of 21. Hatfill’s 1997 resume stated: “June 1975 to June 1977 United States Army 7th Special Forces Group, JFK Center for Special Warfare [Ft. Bragg]. Practical Experience United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate Program...served with US Army Special Forces after college graduation where my commanding officer was Col. Charles Beckworth, who was later to lead the abortive hostage rescue mission into Iraq.” The Colonel’s name was Beckwith and the rescue mission was in Iran. Beckwith wasn’t at Fort Bragg until the late 1970’s.

Hatfill wrote that in the spring of 1976, he began the Special Forces Qualification Course however he said he was discharged from active duty on July 2, 1976 and joined the Army National Guard. But according to Hatfill’s Curriculum Vitae[ix] from June 1975 to March 1978 he served in the United States Institute for Military Assistance at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.[x] Hatfill’s MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) was 05B2S, Special Forces Communications Specialist - Radio Operator. There was even more confusion about his military career and Newsweek Magazine reported: “He did a three-year stint in the Army, stationed in the United States, but did not rise above the rank of private.” The Baltimore Sun reported: “Army records show Hatfill began Special Forces training at Fort Bragg on January 23, 1976, but was academically dropped only one month later in February 1976 and never completed the training.”

During casual conversations Hatfill claimed to have served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and was discharged after his plane was shot down and he broke his back. Hatfill’s college alumni publication reported he served in the Special Forces in Vietnam, based on information that he provided. Hatfill made himself into a hero in Vietnam. However, his military record showed that to be false. He joined the military in 1975, when Vietnam was ending. Hatfill served variously in the Army, Army Reserve and National Guard from February 1975 to January 1981 but how long he lasted in each of these services is a whole other question.

Hatfill: “After active duty I returned to my hometown in Illinois where I worked as a factory security guard for a brief period.” Hatfill married 19-year-old Caroline Ruth Eschtruth on October 11, 1976, at the Pinnebog United Methodist Church, Pinnebog, Minnesota.

Meanwhile, on November 11, 1975 Agostinho Neto the head of the MPLA (the Communist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) became President of the People’s Republic of Angola (supported by Cuba and the USSR). At the same time, the FLNA (the non-Marxist Congo-centered National Front for the Liberation of Angola) and UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) proclaimed the People’s Democratic Republic of Angola (supported by the United States and South Africa). Seven months into his marriage, on April 1977 Lena and Glenn Eschtruth and a number of foreign missionaries and aid workers in the Kapanga area were placed under house arrest by mercenaries who had invaded Zaire from Angola. The Marxist regime of President Agostinho Neto had accused Zaire of harboring and training pro-Western guerrillas who were defeated in 1976 by Neto's forces with the help of Soviet and Cuban-directed troops. On April 19,1977 when the Zairian troops, with western assistance routed the Communist invaders, Glenn Eschtruth became the only foreign detainee to be executed by the departing mercenaries.

The blog entry continues, “Missionaries of all denominations communicated with one another by short wave radio. For this purpose Dr. Eschtruth had large ham radio antenna in back of their ranch house. One evening Glenn sent word to a ham operator in South Jersey, who contacted my family that I was okay. This vital communication equipment would later cost Dr. Eschtruth his life. In early 1977 mercenaries directed by Soviet and Cuban troops invaded Zaire from Angola, and the missionaries and aid workers in Katanga Province were placed under house arrest. As the Zairian troops repelled the invasion, Dr. Glenn Eschtruth was seized by the rebel gorillas who accused him of working for the American CIA. His body was found in shallow grave not far from Kapanga, making him the only foreign national killed in the invasion. “Even after her husband's brutal murder, the strong commitment of Dr. Eschtruth's wife Lena to assisting in the health care of the peoples in Africa caused her to return to Zaire as a nurse at the mission station run by the Enright family near Lake Kafakumba in Katanga Province. Lena commanded a medical riverboat which was a floating clinic for delivering medicine to villagers along the Lualaba River, the name given to the upper extension of the Zaire River.”

Eschtruth was singled out for death by the invaders because the KGB had supplied them with information about coded transmissions emanating from his ham radio equipment. Doctor Eschtruth was marched away, and his body was found in a shallow grave some distance from Kapanga. He is buried at the mission hospital in Kapanga.[xi] It is now common knowledge that the CIA used missionaries as spies. After an intense campaign by religious and civil liberties groups the rules covering CIA recruitment of missionaries were adopted in 1977. The groups had raised objections to disclosures that the CIA had used clergy in covert operations. The rules forbad the CIA from hiring or establishing any intelligence relationships "with any U.S. clergy or missionary whether or not ordained, who is sent out by a mission or church organization to preach, teach, heal or proselytize." Eschtruth was probably a CIA asset but another possibility exists. There might be a correlation between Hatfill being a Special Forces radio operator and the Rev. Eschtruth being killed because of a ham radio antenna. Perhaps it was Hatfill who transmitted the suspicious radio signals?

The death of Hatfill’s father-in-law instilled a deep hatred in Hatfill for African Communists. “He would talk about running around in the bush and throwing grenades in Zimbabwe and that sort of thing,” Edward Rybicki, who met Hatfill at the University of Cape Town, said. He also boasted about shooting grenades into the Zimbabwe offices of the African National Congress, (ANC) which was fighting to overthrow white rule in South Africa, Rybicki added. Another source added: “Hatfill once told me that he'd killed a terrorist, whose sandals he took as a souvenir.” Hatfill told his friends that his father-in-law’s death "caused me to undertake some actions other people wouldn't understand.”

Hatfill earned Medical Laboratory Technician Certification in August 1977: “Training and Certification as a Medical Laboratory Technician (MLT) from the American Society of Clinical Pathologists.” Sometime in 1977 Caroline and Steven Hatfill separated. On February 22, 1978 Kamin Marie Hatfill, the daughter of Steven Hatfill and Caroline Eschtruth was born. In May 1978, Caroline and Steven divorced. Hatfill told a friend his wife had “died in the Congo.” In 2002, although he never re-married, Hatfill said: “I have a family, and until recently, I had a reputation, a career and a bright professional future.” Caroline Eschtruth married John Brian McIver a few years later. A source reported: “Let’s say there's no love lost between Steven Hatfill and Caroline Hatfill who did not even tell him she was pregnant before he left for Rhodesia. She would not accompany him to Rhodesia despite his rather cruel pressure tactics. Hatfill did not realize Kamin existed until she had her first child [with McIver]. Kamin traced Hatfill down and they were re-united. Hatfill, “In 1978, I decided to attempt a career in tropical medicine. Given my love for the African continent as a result of my undergraduate experience and my interest in tropical medicine, it was an easy decision to study tropical medicine in this region of the world where these diseases were prevalent.” Love for Africa? To put it in politically incorrect terms, Hatfill wanted to kill every nigger he could get his hands on!

RHODESIA AND ANTHRAX: Since Hatfill never received a B.S. Degree from Southwestern, it was impossible for him to be admitted to a medical school in the United States. Hatfill continued, “I thus applied to the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine in Salisbury Rhodesia, one of the few first rate medical schools in Africa, where my G.I. Bill educational benefits would apply. I was accepted for admission in 1978. I arrived in Rhodesia in March 1978, underwent immigration and university admission and started medical school a week later. I was 27 years old.” The question has been asked, why and how an American citizen joined Rhodesia’s medical school. “The only time we admitted non-Rhodesians is when a student came from a country without a school of medicine,” explained a source. How did Hatfill enter medical school?

Marlene Burger of the South African Mail and Guardian reported Hatfill was admitted because he had come to the attention of an anatomy professor at Godfrey Huggins named Robert Burns Symington through the white racist network. Robert Symington shared Hatfill’s desire to maintain White rule in Rhodesia - the Whites in Rhodesia were never more than five percent of the population yet they ran the show in its entirety. In a system more repressive than apartheid in neighboring South Africa, this minority regime retained power by controlling the police, military, politics, and economy. When England refused to grant independence to Rhodesia because of its racist system, the Rhodesian government led by Ian Smith unilaterally declared independence in 1965. The U.S. joined the U.N. in imposing sanctions against Rhodesia. Nixon punched a hole in these sanctions in 1971. The Carter administration reinstated sanctions in 1977 one year before Hatfill arrived.

Hatfill tried to make it seem as white racist rule had ended shortly after he moved to Rhodesia: “Shortly after I started my studies, the white government led by Ian Smith came to an end and a transitional government for the country came into power. Within a year the country was renamed Zimbabwe / Rhodesia and Bishop Abel Muzorewa became the country’s first black prime minister [he held office for only a few months in 1979]. While I proceeded through my first two years of medical training, Zimbabwe remained engulfed in a civil war pitting the government of Bishop Abel Muzorewa against the insurgent movements led by Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe.”

Marlene Burger, “It was Robert Burns Symington who arranged for Hatfill to study medicine at the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine in Rhodesia and served as his mentor. Although serving at the time as a signaler with US Special Forces, Hatfill went to Rhodesia in 1978 after spending eight months as a health assistant at a Methodist mission hospital in Kapanga, Zaire.” Symington, a professor of anatomy, was the father of Rhodesia’s biological warfare program. Symington experimented with the odorless and colorless organo-phosphate, parathion. Organo-phosphates are extremely difficult for anyone other than an expert to detect in an autopsy. The poison must enter the body’s largest hair follicles, underarm or around the crotch. Smearing on underwear is the most efficient method.[xii]

According to Peter Stiff, a senior officer in the Rhodesian British South African Police Force Symington was the scientist behind countless poisonings. In a book published in 1985 Stiff records a conversation in which Symington (who he calls Sam Roberts) offers an operator Thallium with which to kill a man. “It was said there were some months when Sam Roberts killed more terrorists than the Rhodesian Light Infantry. In April 1978 a group of 17 ZANLA terrorist guerillas who had been on operation staggered across the Mozambique border to the safety of their protected rear bases. They were vomiting, defecating and writhing with pain. Transported to Beria where they were hospitalized, they died mysteriously, one by one over a period of three days.” The operator asked how this had happened and Symington replied, “Special Branch knew where they were based. We doctored some sacks of corn meal with Thallium and deposited them in a farm store they were going to raid for food. They did, naturally burning it down afterwards, as was their practice.”

A senior staff member at the University of Zimbabwe School of Medicine stated, “I did suspect that Symington was connected to the military, but I did not know his connection with Hatfill. I only thought Hatfill had come (into medical school) via the military since he had connections with the Rhodesian army.” The source was one of Symington’s colleagues in the school’s department of anatomy and also a lecturer of Hatfill.

Black students at the then-University of Rhodesia had always suspected Symington of engaging in sinister bio-chemical experiments in conjunction with the Rhodesian military. He was one of the major focus points of the 1972 student demonstration. Unable to reconcile himself to black majority rule at independence and fearful of reprisals, Symington moved to South Africa circa 1981, where he died of a heart attack in a swimming pool a year after joining the University of Cape Town.

The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), an NGO, reported, “Although one former member of the Special Branch of the Rhodesian police - a force that was still designated, quaintly, as the British South African Police - claimed that he and his colleagues were aware of the use of poisons as early as 1973, the first clear evidence of this dates from 1975 or 1976, when the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organization apparently asked doctors and chemists from the University of Rhodesia to identify and test a range of chemical and biological agents that could be used as a fear factor in the war against nationalist guerrillas. Professor Robert Symington, head of the clinical program in the university's Anatomy Department, then recruited several colleagues and students to carry out this research.”

This program continued into the late 1970’s and Hatfill, one of Symington’s more motivated students, began to work on the culturing of anthrax for him. Symington recommended Hatfill for an elite unit - the Selous Scouts - as Symington was in charge of the Selous Scouts biowarfare program. Hatfill stated, “The racial composition of the Rhodesian Army was approximately 90% black and 10% white soldiers reflecting a basic demographic of the country at that time. Several of my medical school classmates performed military duties during their medical school vacations. One of my classmates was killed on active duty and one was severely injured. Although it was not required of any foreign national to serve in the military, I volunteered to serve in a reserve unit during my vacations from medical school. I participated in active call-ups from 1978 until the end of the war in 1980. My rank was rifleman (equivalent to a private in the U.S. Armed Forces). During my active duty call ups, I served first in the Rhodesian Regiment, in a long range reconnaissance unit of that regiment, in a newly formed Special Forces unit [Selous Scouts] and finally as a medic assigned to a Special Branch (police) / Selous Scout base.”

While Hatfill was in the Selous Scouts, the Selous Scouts used the anthrax Hatfill had cultured as a weapon against the guerilla forces that was attempting to topple the minority government of Rhodesia. Did young Hatfill help design mobile bioweapons labs to produce the anthrax in the bush? The Special Branch of the Selous Scouts was a combination of Army Special Forces soldiers and Special Branch police officers. The Selous Scouts were comprised mainly of black African collaborators and a few white soldiers. But the Special Branch was entirely white, because no black African could be trusted to carry out a genocidal mission. It was an elite Gestapo-like police/army unit that tortured terrorist suspects until they gave up their comrades. Hatfill needed a cover for his work and was referred on to as “a volunteer junior Scout medic.” He was dispatched to a field hospital at a base called Fort Bindura. There, he bandaged wounded captured guerilla fighters and acted as an assistant of sorts for the true Scouts medics. The FBI found a graduation certificate from a Scouts’ tracking course and a good conduct certificate when it searched Hatfill’s apartment. He joined the Scouts in 1978 when the anthrax outbreak started and left the Scouts in 1980 when the anthrax outbreak ended.

THE ANTHRAX OUTBREAK: Symington and Hatfill were key players in this biological warfare project, which resulted in the world’s worst recorded outbreak of anthrax in the latter phase of Zimbabwe’s liberation war, between 1978 and 1980. Hatfill and Symington helped cause over 10,000 cases, most of them coetaneous, unleashed against black guerrillas through his participation in the white army's much-feared Selous Scouts. Selous Scouts / Special Branch covertly distributed the deadly anthrax spore among the hungry cattle of the Rhodesian tribal trust lands. The logic was kill the black man’s cattle, and food for the Rhodesian guerrillas dies with them; kill the cattle and blame the guerrillas and win a psychological victory at the same time. In 1978-1980, vollum would be the strain of choice for an anthrax attack.

From 1989 to 1992, Dr. Meryl Nass, MD,[xiii] researched the epidemiology of the largest outbreak of anthrax in history in Rhodesia in the late 1970s and realized that an inexplicable spike in the casualty figures had occurred during the years 1979 through 1980. Before this Rhodesia reported only an average of thirteen human cases a year before 1978. However, in the two years 1979/1980, a staggering 10,738 human cases were recorded and 182 humans died of the illness. Thousands of cattle were infected and slaughtered. No commercial, white-owned farms were affected. Even more puzzling was the way in which the anthrax spores were transported over very large distances - across areas where no bovine cases were known to have occurred. Jeremy Brickhill, a white Zimbabwean activist who joined the guerrilla forces during the war of liberation, was himself a victim of a South African military hit squad in 1987, when he was severely injured in a car bomb attack, alleged that by 1975 clinical trials were performed on human guinea pigs - little-known political detainees - at a remote Selous Scout camp provided by Rhodesia’s Central Intelligence Organization. By 1976, the Central Intelligence Organization and the Selous Scouts Special Branch carried out the actual deployment of the successfully tested biological weapons in target areas. South African military and security personnel who not only acted as advisers and monitors, but also played some part in the development of the chemical and biological agents, assisted these men. When the war was over, the biological warriors slipped back south across the border, returned to South Africa, and studied the lessons of Rhodesia.

In December 1998 Health Minister Timothy Stamps of Zimbabwe began an investigation into the use of anthrax. The government’s probe was announced as suspicions strengthened that some possible side effects of those germs could be responsible for fatal diseases prevalent in Zimbabwe, including anthrax. Former Rhodesian premier Ian Smith quickly dismissed this as a “lot of rubbish.” Health Minister Stamps said anthrax, which breaks out often in some parts of Zimbabwe killing mainly livestock, was laboratory-devised. “I am sure the anthrax was a laboratory-devised virulent type…and one suspects that it was specifically developed as a weapon against an overwhelming number of people who were regarded as enemies to those who occupied power at the time,” he said.[xiv]

Hatfill had this to say about this anthrax outbreak in his autobiography, “In this part of the world, anthrax outbreaks occasionally occurred. During the time I was in Zimbabwe / Rhodesia there was a major outbreak of anthrax in certain rural areas. This outbreak was extensively scientifically and medically researched on site and found to have arisen from an unusual long period of drought compounded by a breakdown in rural veterinary services. The result of this research was published in several peer-reviewed scientific papers: Davies, JCA. “A Major Epidemic of Anthrax in Zimbabwe - African Journal of Medicine 1983 [two more citations involved studies by Davies and were dated 1982 and 1985]; Kaufmann AF. “Observations on the Occurrence of Anthrax as Related to Soil Type and Rainfall Salisbury Medical Bulletin, 1990.” I had nothing to do with the research or writing of any of these studies of the incidence of anthrax in Zimbabwe.”

Three of the studies were by the same scientist and another was written ten years after the anthrax outbreak. Hatfill’s attorneys contended that after the column was published, Professor Milton Leitenberg told Kristof that Hatfill had no connection to that outbreak, which was not bioterrorism but had natural causes.[xv] Peter Stiff who not in some classroom but in Rhodesia disagreed with Leitenberg - as did Col (Dr.) Jim A. Davis who was “uncertain” that this program did not exist. Davis is Deputy Director of the US Air Force’s Counter-proliferation Center and also Deputy Director of the Department of Future Conflicts. Milton Leitenberg is a lowly college professor and a Cold War retread that specializes in debunking biowarfare reports. He is associated with the biowarfare establishment.[xvi]

Hatfill didn’t consider his participation in bio-genocide relevant and stated: “I especially object to having my character assassinated by reference to events from my past which bear absolutely no relationship to the question of who the anthrax killer is. As a substitute, the press and now the public have been offered events from my past going back 20 or more years, as if this were critical to the matter at hand. In fact, it is not. No more than any of you, I do not claim to have lived a perfect life. Like your selves, there are things I would probably do or say differently than I did 10 or 20 or more years ago. Modern information-retrieval technology, coupled with sufficient motivation, can lead to anyone's life and work being picked apart for every error, wrinkle, failed memory or inconsistency. Mine can; so can yours.”

RHODESIAN SPECIAL AIR SERVICE: Hatfill also served in the C. Squadron of the Rhodesian Special Air Service. In his Curriculum Vitae Hatfill said he had “active combat experience with the Rhodesian Special Air Service.” The Nuclear Threat Institute reported, “As for anthrax, this same source said that anthrax spores were ‘used in an experimental role in the Gutu, Chilimanzi, Masvingo, and Mberengwa areas...to kill off the cattle of tribesmen,’ harmful incidents that were then attributed by Rhodesian Army psychological operations officers to infiltrating guerrillas. For his part, former Officer Commanding Counter Terrorist Operations Michael John McGuinness said he was surprised to learn from some of his colleagues that anthrax had been disseminated on at least one occasion. The Selous Scouts had originally been asked to carry out the task, but their commander Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Reid-Daly had refused because he thought it would be too risky for his men. In the end, members of the Rhodesian Special Air Service (SAS) regiment delivered the anthrax by dropping it from an aircraft near Plumtree, on the Botswana border.” At first Michael John McGuinness had denied the Scouts ever engaged in B/W and said they wouldn't have welcomed an American's help anyway. “We didn't trust foreigners with that sort of thing,” he said.[xvii]

Hatfill’s Curriculum Vitae had him serving simultaneously in the United States Institute for Military Assistance and two Rhodesian military units. Was Hatfill was a Defense Intelligence Agency asset? Although American foreign policy was ostensibly that of opposing white supremacist regimes, the DIA and CIA had an intense interest in counter-insurgency campaigns being waged against Communist rebel elements. The earliest corroboration of the Selous Scout anthrax operation was a secret report sent by a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency officer to the Pentagon. “According to [source deleted], a member of the Rhodesian Selous Scouts admitted in 1978 that ‘they’ had tried biological warfare techniques to kill terrorists. The most logical method of delivery of the anthrax was an anthrax-laced cattle food.”[xviii] Hatfill reportedly returned to the United States frequently during his stay in Rhodesia. This would have provided an opportunity for the DIA to debrief him about the counter-insurgency operations being carried out in Rhodesia. Hatfill claimed to have been a double agent during the time he spent in Africa, which meant he was spying on Rhodesia for the United States, but there is evidence that he was actually a triple agent and his loyalty was to Rhodesia. Years later Hatfill would flunk a CIA polygraph test when questioned about his connection to Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organization.

Hatfill has a big mouth and couldn’t help bragging about how many Africans he killed. Marlene Burger reported, “Several of Hatfill's acquaintances said he had hinted over the years at having been involved in the world's worst recorded anthrax outbreak, which killed at least 180 of more than 10,500 human victims between 1978 and 1980 in the Rhodesian Tribal Trust Lands. The outbreak is believed to have been caused deliberately by Rhodesian security forces with the assistance of the late Professor Bob Symington, head of the anatomy department at the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine in Harare and father of a crude but effective bio-warfare program launched against guerrilla fighters and confirmed in recent years by senior ex-Rhodesian military officers.”[xix]

He bragged to Stan Bedlington who hadn't seen Hatfill for a while, but still had vivid memories of him. They'd first met at a Baltimore bioterrorism conference. Bedlington, a retired CIA agent, had spent six years as a senior analyst with the CIA Counter-terrorism Center. Hatfill was working as a virology researcher at Fort Detrick. Soon they ran into each other again at Charley's Place in McLean, then a favorite hangout for the U.S. intelligence community. Agents and officials from the CIA and Pentagon mingled with private consultants and law enforcement agents. Most were cleared to handle classified information, but after long workdays and a few drinks, the conversation often veered to tales of dark intrigue and, occasionally, into drunken bluster. Hatfill, who first showed up there with men whom Bedlington recognized as bodyguards for Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar bin Sultan bragged about being an ex-Green Beret. He walked with a slight limp and told people it was the result of being shot during combat. In a convincing British accent that he could turn on at will, he described parachute jumps and commando training he did under the direction of the British Special Air Service. He detailed his exploits as a member of the Selous Scouts, an elite counterinsurgency unit of Rhodesia's white supremacist army that became notorious for brutality during that country's civil war. He even recounted a devastating outbreak of anthrax poisoning in the Rhodesian bush in the late 1970s, an event later suspected to be part of an effort by the Selous Scouts to control guerrilla uprisings.[xx]

Pat Clawson did not believe Hatfill was involved in the anthrax attacks in Rhodesia and stated: “Well the issue had come up and Hatfill addressed it in previous statements about what he had been doing in Rhodesia and Hatfill denied right from the beginning that he’d ever had any kind of involvement in any of that kind of stuff.” If Hatfill denies it then it never happened. Clawson took Hatfill at his word, just as he believed Hatfill when he told him that the photo of himself and Eugene Terre Blanc never existed.

WOUTER BASSON AND THE SELOUS SCOUTS: Wouter Basson was William Patrick’s South African counterpart. In 1982 Wouter Basson founded Project Coast, South Africa's biological warfare program. According to a source the biological materials inventory assembled by Project Coast included over 80 strains of anthrax, of which 30 are "virulent," 12 "very active" and 3 "deadly WMD," the latter of which include the Ames strain.[xxi]

Evidence suggested Wouter Basson might have known Hatfill because of Basson and Hatfill’s connection with the Special Branch of the Selous Scouts. Although Basson was based out of South Africa, he had an intense interest in Special Branch activities because if it worked against insurgents in Rhodesia it might also work in South Africa. Wouter Basson: “I've never met Hatfill. I believe he was a South African Defense Force member but he was never involved in 7th Medical Battalion.”[xxii] Basson had dealings with the Selous Scouts and many Selous Scouts who left Rhodesia were quickly integrated into special units of the SADF. A witness at the Basson murder trial, Mr. K., testified that he had been one of the founding members of the Selous Scouts in Rhodesia. He left Rhodesia in 1978 and joined the South African Defense Force as a member of Special Forces in 1979. In the same year he was approached by the Commander of Special Forces, General Loots and the Minister of Defense, General Magnus Malan and instructed to establish a covert unit within Special Forces that would adopt the modis operandi of the Selous Scouts. To this end Mr. K. was instructed to establish a front company under which cover the unit would operate. Initially an estate agency by the name of NKJM was established, however since none of the founder members had any knowledge of the real estate business they soon changed the name to NKTF Security Consultants. The Unit was known as Operation Barnacle. The chief objective of the unit was elimination of identified State enemies and the carrying out of super-sensitive covert operations, which could include eliminations. Other objectives of the unit included the elimination of members of own forces who threatened to expose covert operations. Intelligence gathering. Ambushes. Combat intelligence. Conducting of chemical operations. Mr. K. told the court that he had not personally been involved in operations involving the use of chemicals. Mr. K. testified that during 1979 and 1980 he had recruited former Rhodesia soldiers and members of the South African Defense Force to the unit. Due to the nature of pseudo operations carried out by the unit most of the operators recruited were black. Pseudo operations required that the members of the SADF unit infiltrate SWAPO under the guise of being SWAPO members.

Mr. C, who may not be named in terms of a court order, for fear of reprisals was another witness against Basson. Mr. C. was a Selous Scout from 1970 to 1980, specializing in pseudo operations. After joining the SADF's Special Forces in 1980, he spent another 10 years conducting pseudo operations and also joined the Civil Cooperation Bureau. Mr. C. said he first met Basson “in passing” in then Rhodesia in the late 1970s. This happened in the communal mess at the Selous Scouts Head Quarters outside Harare. Basson was in a group of South African security force members who had gone to Rhodesia to take part in joint operations with the Selous Scouts. Again Basson denied being in Rhodesia in the late 70s and it was in fact impossible for him to have been there, since he was a full-time medical student until 1981. From 1980, Mr. C. was stationed in Nelspruit, conducting pseudo operations and working for the Civil Cooperation Bureau. Basson was acquainted with numerous members of the Selous Scouts with no medical background. When he came across one that had such a background it would have definitely aroused his interest.

Yet another reason that indicated Hatfill was involved with Basson was that Basson testified that he was the author of the psychological profile of the Special Forces operator. He said he had been asked to compile the profile when it was found that although medical doctors qualifying as Special Forces members had a 75% pass rate, other recruits had only a 50% pass rate. Asked why this should be, Basson pointed out that it was easier to turn an intelligent being into a strong and hardened military operator than to turn a physically strong person into an intelligent being.

In May 1979 former French Foreign Legionnaire Charles “Chris” Timothy Pessarra,[xxiii] 50, who served in the Rhodesian army, saw Wouter Basson inject five unconscious guerrillas with a solution on board a “death plane” from which they were then thrown out over Mozambique after a powdered substance was sprinkled on their bodies. The unconscious guerrillas had been disguised in the camouflage uniforms of the Selous Scouts, complete with firearms and false papers. Pessarra assumed the intention was to drop them over Mozambique where their bodies would spread “contamination” among whichever guerrilla force recovered them. Pessarra said the top-secret death flight had been under the control of the Selous Scouts.[xxiv]

During Basson’s trial in South Africa in early 2000, in answering questions relating to the testimony of an earlier witness that Basson had been in Rhodesia, Basson said he was aware of allegations that chemical and biological weapons had been used in Rhodesia because in 1981, he was summonsed by the then chief director counter-intelligence and told that a container of poisons had been uncovered as part of an ANC arms cache. It was a green metal trunk and Basson had to examine the contents. Being still a novice, he landed up in hospital as a result. He was told that the ANC had captured the trunk of toxins from the Selous Scouts. It contained mainly insecticides, which were analyzed at the University of Pretoria by Dr. Willie Basson.

South Africa later attempted a program similar to that of the Selous Scouts Special Branch of toxic warfare, this one involving the poisoning of livestock feed. Asked if he had ever heard about poison being added to cornmeal Basson said that during the mid-1980s he heard that the Council for Scientific Research had been asked to test mealie-meal from Sector 10 of the Operational Area (Ovamboland - now part of Namibia) that had been contaminated with swimming pool chemicals. This made no sense to him, since the particular chemical supposedly used, is the one, which measures pH level in pools, and it changes color when wet, so the mealie-meal would presumable also have changed color when used.

Basson, who is persona non-gratis in the USA, said the FBI contacted him to ask about Hatfill, and he'd never heard of him. He said Hatfill had no contact with South African Special Forces or intelligence.[xxv] The records of Project Coast were destroyed after being transferred to CD-ROM. At an unspecified date after this the American authorities reportedly showed an unwelcome interest in the disks, requesting access to them. President de Klerk refused this request, and the National Intelligence Agency then ordered that security surrounding the disks be stepped up even further, since the disks had become a potential espionage target.

Hatfill continued his narrative: “The war ended in 1980, with the election of Robert Mugabe’s political party and his appointment as Prime Minister. (Mugabe remains in power to date, to the generally recognized misfortune of his country and countrymen). Following the end of the conflict the countries name was changed to Zimbabwe. I continued my medical studies and in my third year took part time employment as a medical assistant and an industrial health clinic. I also had a national (Zimbabwean) scholarship that took care of my medical school fees, and part time evening job as bartender. The medical school training program was lengthier than that of U.S. medical schools, including such extra subjects as community dentistry and mandatory community service in small rural hospitals for several weeks at a time. In 1983 I also performed the first of several large-scale surveys of rural health in the poorer areas of Northern Zimbabwe, eventually published in the scientific literature. I graduated from medical school in 1984.”

On November 11, 1983 Hatfill received notice that had failed his final exams. He threw a fit and when the guards came to subdue him he resisted, and threw the guard into a plate glass window. Hatfill nearly was arrested and chucked out of university but thanks to Professor Symington he was allowed to stay on for an extra six months to re-take his exams, and passed in 1984. Hatfill graduated from Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine in April 1984 and received a Medical Degree. His resume stated: “Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons. Includes all basic medical sciences and clinical studentships (Andrew Fleming Teaching Hospital). Rotating Internship at the Paul Kruger Hospital in the Republic South Africa. Attended Educational Council for Foreign Medical Graduates USA (ECFMG) - Certificate No. 376-621-9.”

This indicated that Hatfill spent a good deal of time in South Africa when he was studying in Rhodesia and that he probably had a long standing relationship with the South African Nazi Party, the AWB. By the end of the 1970s, South African Defense Force military intelligence was a principal source of funding for the Rhodesian counter-insurgency program, including the Selous Scouts. The Rhodesian defense budget was very small, and the regime had one rudimentary chemical and biological warfare plant that received outside aid from South Africa. In assisting Rhodesia, South African researchers continued to work on CBW and land mine projects.

Hatfill was registered with the South African Health Practitioner Council from January 1984 to May 2001.[xxvi] He holds Medical License No. RSA-MP28117 South African Medical and Dental Council. This did not make sense. Hatfill graduated in April 1984. He obtained his medical registration in January 1984, before he graduated. Did Hatfill have a forged diploma? Hatfill’s friend John Voster recalled: “I first met him when I was in the Rhodesian Army in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. After Zimbabwe got independence he moved to Cape Town and worked for several General Practitioners in the city.”

Hatfill then attended Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG). If you are an international medical graduate and wish to enter an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education accredited residency or fellowship program in the U.S., you must be certified by ECFMG. You must also be certified by ECFMG if you wish to take Step 3 of the three-step United States Medical Licensing Examination. Most states in the U.S. also require ECFMG certification, among other requirements, to obtain a license to practice medicine. Hatfill claimed he passed this test but he was never certified to practice medicine within the United States. Despite this lack of American credentials, he was allowed to experiment with America’s deadliest germs.

In October 2002 and in May 2003 FBI agents went to Zimbabwe and South Africa in search of information on Hatfill trying to dig up information on his role in the Rhodesian army's biochemical weapons. The FBI reportedly had success with two teams of agents and also talked with former commanders of the Special Branch of the Selous Scouts. Peter Stiff told the agents “There was quite a lot of ZANLA guerrillas killed with toxins, maybe a couple of thousands or so.” In May 2003 the FBI spoke with Hatfill’s professors at Stellenbosch University.

SOUTH AFRICA: Hatfill wrote, “Three weeks after my graduation from medical school [April 1984], I traveled to South Africa to begin a 12-month medical internship at a teaching hospital in the Transvaal, where I studied with some of the most skilled medical doctors in the country. Near the end of my internship, I applied to serve as a medical doctor at the South African research base in Antarctica, and also applied for a training program in aviation medicine. I was accepted for both programs. I underwent training as a flight medical examiner at the South African Institute for Military Aviation Medicine as a civilian doctor (which was how all civilian flight medical examines gained certification) and also competed a 14-month period of duty as a civilian medical officer in Antarctica.”

Hatfill said he earned a Diploma in Aviation Medicine in August 1985. “Postgraduate training and medical certification course in Aviation Medicine, conducted at the Institute for Aviation Medicine, Republic of South Africa. Includes; Clinical use of a high-speed centrifuge facility, sensorimotor pathology, high altitude physiology, cold weather medicine, flight crew physical standards, ejection seat injury: Certification No. 85-104, Flight Medical Examiner.” However when a South African newspaper attempted to back up this assertion it was unable to do so. Hatfill claimed that between 1991 and 1993 he was “Consultant Flight Surgeon to 30 Squadron Air / Sea rescue unit based at Yesterplatt Air Force Base, Cape Town.” An Air Force spokesperson said 30 Squadron was amalgamated with 22 Squadron in 1991.

In July 1986 P.C. Chigwanda and Hatfill published an article titled: “Prevalence of Untreated Disease in Rural Zimbabwe.”[xxvii] In 1986 Hatfill was a medical officer in Antarctica where he was a team physician for at the South African National Antarctic Expedition. “Science Leader at the SANAE Antarctic Base in Queen Maude Land, Antarctica for a 14 month tour of duty where I performed research on pineal / hypothalamic dysfunction for the NASA, Johnson Manned Space flight Center.” When a researcher contacted the SANAE he received the following response: “Dr. Hatfill was on the 1986 / 1987 SANAE Expedition (December 1986 to March 1987) in the capacity as Team Doctor only. There is no such position as Science Leader on the expedition.” Hatfill only spent four months, not fourteen, in the Antarctica. People who had dealings with Hatfill during this Antarctic visit, described him as “committed, but unfathomable.” One expedition member said he was vague about his background. In 1986 Hatfill presented a paper entitled: “Biomedical Aspects of a Twenty Year Manned Spaceflight Exploration Program” to the National Space Council, Washington, D.C. during their 1986 design of America’s future space policy. This paper was based on his visit to the South Pole.

In March 1987 Hatfill began work on a Master’s Degree (Master of Science) in Microbial Genetics and Recombinant DNA University of Cape Town, Thesis: “The Pathogenesis of ALPV, a New Insect Picornavirus.[xxviii] Includes; Isolation of a new picornavirus, standard techniques in Molecular Biology, bacterial genetics, plasmid amplification, genetic manipulation, DNA sequencing and Transmission Electron Microscopy.” He received this Masters degree in September 1988. On October 14, 1987 Hatfill co-authored a paper entitled “The Antarctic Midwinter Syndrome-Possible Implications for Long-Duration Manned Spaceflight” and presented it to the XXIV International Congress of Aviation Medicine. Note that he lists it as the XXIV (24th) meeting. But, in actual fact, it was the Thirty-Fifth International Congress 1987 Invitations, Programs, List of Attendees – Capetown.[xxix]

Hatfill: “Two weeks after arriving back in Cape Town from Antarctica I began a Master’s Degree program in Recombinant DNA at the University of Cape Town. I also practiced medicine part-time, working evenings and weekends in a low-income black township. I maintained a special account at the local pharmacy near my medical practice in Capetown where I would send my poorer patients to get their medications. There I partially covered the cost of their drugs for them out of my own pocket. Later, I served as a weekend casualty officer treating uninsured patients (black and white) at the Conradie General Hospital in Cape Town. I finished my Master’s Degree in 1988. My Master’s thesis analyzed the pathogenesis of a polio-like virus that affects small insects. I then joined an established private practice medical group in Cape Town and worked with this group for a year. During my period of full-time practice, I developed an interest in leukemia, and in particular a special interest in therapy induced (or secondary) leukemia. This is a leukemia that develops in some patients who have undergone chemotherapy or radiation therapy for another type of cancer. The treatment causes damage to the body’s bone marrow and some patients develop an aggressive leukemia thereafter. In 1988 I enrolled for a second Master’s Degree in the radiobiology department of the University of Stellenbosch Medical School. Initially my research was conducted part-time and on weekends, and I continued full-time medical practice. The result of some of my research was later published in the British scientific journal Leukemia Research. Steven Hatfill, Ralph Kirby, Lothar Bohm, (1990) Hyperprolactinemia in acute myeloid leukemia and ectopic expression of prolactin in blast cells from a patient with M4 subtype.[xxx] Following the publication of my research, I was offered a medical residency in hematology and a small laboratory to continue my research. I left my private medical practice under a special dispensation given by the university that allowed me simultaneously to finish my second Master’s Degree, while undertaking my medical specialty in hematology. I finished my second Master’s Degree in medical biochemistry / radiation biology in 1990. Over the next three years I published a number of scientific papers while I continued to pursue my medical specialty.”

NAZI PARTY MEMBER: Hatfill’s autobiography confirmed the reports of Dr. John Michie who stated that in early 1987 or early 1988, Hatfill claimed he used the Milnerton Shooting Association's shooting range in Table View, South Africa, for training the Afrikaner Resistance Movement's elite Aquila Brigade, Terre Blanche's bodyguards. Leonard Veenendaal a committed member of the AWB was a personal bodyguard to Terre Blanche, who described Veenendaal as “my little fanatic” because of his propensity for violence. Members the AWB waged an illegal and violent campaign aimed at forcing UN peace keeping troops out of Namibia and rendering the general election impossible. In line with this objective Leonard Veenendaal and the German neo-Nazi Horst Klenz carried out a grenade attack on an UNTAG regional office at Outjo in South West Africa on August 10 1989, during which the building was “substantially” damaged and a security guard, was killed.

Terre Blanche, the worst of a rotten lot, had been selected out of 20,000 Police Officers to guard John Vorster, the State President and Prime Minister who took over for Henrick Verwoerd. Despite the fact that Vorster had been Justice Minister during the Verwored administration, this Prime Minister's views on racism became a disappointment to Terre Blanche. In 1973, with 6 other racists, one schoolteacher, two lawyers, two former policemen (Mr. Terre Blanche was one) and two farmers broke off from the Nationalist Party and founded the AWB in the small town of Heidelberg, just south of Johannesburg. From this committee of seven, the AWB emblem, “Three Sevens”, was created to resemble the swastika. His movement increased from 7 founding members to a number of 70,000 out of a White population of 3.5 million.

In 1983 the AWB announced it had formed the Blitzcommando, an action group.[xxxi] During the State of Emergency (1984 to 1986) there were many reports of AWB violence against unarmed non-whites. From 1984 the AWB began 'Volkshulpskema' schemes for the collection and distribution of food and clothes for poor Afrikaans households. At the same time, large bodies of uniformed AWB supporters began disrupting National Party meetings in small Transvaal towns, on each occasion swamping the gathering with superior numbers and taking over the rostrum. The AWB became an increasingly conspicuous feature of any right wing anti-government occasion despite its professed disapproval of party politics. The AWB was especially in opposition to the then-banned African National Congress. The ruling National Party considered the AWB to be little more than a fringe group, so while not officially endorsed, they were able to operate relatively unhindered. However in 1986, white police officers took the unprecedented step of using tear gas against Terre Blanche and the AWB when they disrupted a National Party rally. Right-wingers, under the swastika-like banner of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement, battled Government supporters in fist-fights and hoisted their leader, Terre Blanche onto the stage before the police threw tear-gas canisters inside the packed hall. More tear gas was thrown outside the hall after hundreds of whites fled the building and right-wingers milled around policemen.

In November 1983, Terre Blanche and two aides received suspended jail terms for the illegal possession of weapons, including Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifles. In 1985 200 or so of Terre Blanche's followers, all bearing weapons, gathered in a barn, reportedly to discuss the possibility of an armed response to black protest. And when tensions built in 1986 between a white suburb of the town of Krugersdorp, just west of Johannesburg, and a black township nearby, armed white vigilantes from the AWB took to patrolling the streets. Hatfill denied having been a bodyguard for Terre Blanche, but he had previously denied having his photo taken with Terre Blanche so why believe him?

Dr. Michie: “I would be quite prepared to testify to what I heard (the boast that he was the combat trainer of Aquila in the Western Cape) and saw (Hatfill in Aquila uniform in the group photograph with Eugene Terre Blanche). I can also provide the names of 5 other past (Zeena Nackerdien, Suzi de Roubaix, Therina Theron) or present (Frieda Verheye, Tony Serafin) staff of the Radiobiology Laboratory who heard and saw the same. Lothar Bohm also saw the photograph, but he has been threatened by Hatfill with litigation over his email to Ralph Kirby, so I don’t think that he will talk. From what I observed of Hatfill, I am sure that he would have had multiple copies of that photograph made, to hand out to his “friends”. I was told by someone (Simon Cooper?) that he sent them out with his Xmas cards! I am sure that the FBI must have come across many “interesting” photographs when they searched his properties. A few months ago, I bumped into a married couple (ex-Pharmacology Department staff) in one of the shopping malls and was told that Hatfill had invited the husband to join him in training with the AWB/Aquila - in setting up a AWB/Aquila / Brandwag roadblock / car search training session at a camping ground in Melkbos, wearing his neo-Nazi regalia. Dave Woodsford (owner of the Lion’s Head bar at the time) told me that Hatfill used to wear his uniform when he was regaling his drinking buddies with his bs. He must have bought the uniform because he was seen wearing it on a number of occasions.

“It suddenly struck me that the article that appeared in the Cape Argus on October 6^th 1987 may have also been covered in the Afrikaans press and maybe I will find the picture of Hatfill with Eugene Terre Blanche. The Argus article was being discussed in the tearoom of the Radiobiology Laboratory when Hatfill walked in, listened for a while, and then made the boast that he was a member of Aquila/AWB and was the armed-combat trainer in the Western Cape. I knew that the part about being a armed-combat trainer was a load of crock since Keith Conroy was a member of Milnerton Shooting Association of which I was/am a member and I knew that he was the trainer. In fact, the Argus article captions on a number of the photographs identify “The Western Cape Brandwag leader, Mr. Keith C.” He ‘backed-up’ his claim a few days later by presenting us with the Black & White photographs one of which was the posed group shot of Hatfill with Terre Blanche and others. This was posted on the board of the seminar/tea room, where it remained for a long time. It was probably removed when the laboratory was due to receive visitors who might not have liked what they saw. I suspect that it went into the bin.”[xxxii]

By changing the date the photo was taken to 1983 in his autobiography Hatfill tacitly admitted that while he was living in Rhodesia but spending a lot time in South Africa, he was a member of the AWB for at least five years during its most active time.

Currently Terre Blanche served a jail sentence of six years in prison for attempted murder. Terre Blanche was found guilty in 1997 of hitting Paul Motshabi over the head and neck with a blunt object. Motshabi was in a coma for a month and suffered permanent brain damage.[xxxiii] That same year Terre Blanche was sentenced to one year in prison for assaulting petrol attendant John Ndzima in 1996.

A source that was involved in a research project with Hatfill recalled that Hatfill had been involved in a serious road accident with a black mini-bus taxi, which resulted (he claimed) in his being helicoptered to a hospital. He remarked to this colleague afterwards that: “at least I took out three of those black f----ers.” Terre Blanche served six months of the sentence and emerged from prison considerably thinner than his former self. He told the press: “Of all the prisons in the country I was taken to one in Bophuthatswana. There I was, one of four Boers (white farmers) with 400 (black) Tswanas. Correctional Services was not the least worried about my safety. I hope they will again put me in a single cell.”

Hatfill was aware of the fact that American Nazis were enamored with anthrax: “In the mid '90s, one Larry Wayne Harris, a self-proclaimed member of the Aryan Nation, made up a phony letterhead on which he requested some bubonic plague bacteria from the American-type culture collection. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the organism that causes the Black Death. As I recall, he received some of it by mail.” Another member of the Aryan Nations once bragged he had a stash of anthrax from digging up a field where cows had died of the disease in the 1950s.[xxxiv]

According to Clawson, Hatfill never made any pro-Nazi, anti-black or anti-Jewish remarks; in fact Hatfill gave money to numerous black panhandlers. Clawson said that Hatfill told him he met AWB members in South Africa but thought they were morons. He also said he met ANC members - an organization that was banned for part of the time he lived in South Africa. If Hatfill had met ANC members he would have either killed them or turned them into the police in a heartbeat.

EXPERIMENTS WITH ANTHRAX & ENVELOPES: Hatfill continued, “I treated black and white patients throughout. During this time I also gained a certification in diving medicine from Simon’s Town Navel Base near Cape Town, which offered a limited number of openings for civilian physicians.” Hatfill claimed he received a Diploma in Diving and Submarine Medicine in September 1989. “Postgraduate training and medical certification course in Underwater Medicine conducted at the Institute for Naval Medicine, Simonstown Republic South Africa. Includes; Respiratory and diving physiology, clinical rotations, the design and use of mixed gas decompression tables, medical and psychological aspects of submarine operations, review of research concerning the high-pressure nervous syndrome and anesthetic reversal: Certification No. 8801 - Diving Medical Officer / Hyperbaric Medicine.” The Maritime Institute at Simon’s Town Naval Base said he had not been a student there. A colleague reported that Hatfill had boasted to him that he had learned underwater photography with Jacques Cousteau!

Hatfill: “At no time during my stay in South Africa was I ever a member of the South African military, police or other defense institution. I was simply a medical doctor working on post-graduate studies routinely providing medical care to disadvantaged (black) patients. I also joined and served a co-treasurer for an organization devoted to improving the living conditions of destitute (black) people living in numerous shanty towns that dotted the area surrounding Cape Town.”

Despite his assertion to the contrary Hatfill was part of the South African military and completed various South African Defense Force military-medical assignments, serving as a medical officer, while obtaining three separate master's degrees.

While Hatfill was in South Africa work was being done that involved anthrax being sent through the mail. During the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings in South Africa the following testimony was recorded regarding the projects that were undertaken at Roodeplaat: The prosecutor Mr. Vally asked what experiments were conducted with Anthrax? Dr. Mike Odendaal responded, “There's one, on June 9, 1989, Spore En Brief. Those were Anthrax spores and they were supposedly put onto the glue part of the envelope. I did not prepare the envelope, but I provided the spores.” Odendaal said he was not aware what they were going to be used for and was asked, “Were you aware whether it could be done or not, whether spores could be put onto the gum of an envelope?” and he answered, “I suppose it could be done, but I don't think it's a very good idea to immobilize or to incapacitate someone, because I doubt whether it will be effective. I've got my doubts [whether it would kill someone], but strictly speaking, it could happen depending on many factors. I don't think it would be detectable, no.[xxxv] Odendaal was the former head of the Department of Microbiology, Roodeplaat Research Laboratories from 1984 to 1992.

Hatfill wrote, “I continued my medical specialty training in hematology and continued my research into therapy induced leukemia throughout the early 90’s. I also earned another Master’s Degree, this one in the field hematology / pathology.” Hatfill gained a Master of Science degree at the University of Stellenbosch's medical school in 1990 while working in the radiobiology laboratory in the department of radiation oncology. His resume reads: “Master’s Degree (Master Science) in Medical Biochemistry / Radiation Biology (December 1990). Research Fellowship University of Stellenbosch Medical School, Radiobiology Laboratory. Includes; cell culture, colony culture assay, immunocytochemistry, experimental animal care and drug pharmacokinetics, metabolite analysis, secondary neutron generation at the Faure National Accelerator center.”

In 1990 Hatfill and Ralph Kirby published a paper entitled: “Hybridization studies to localize a new insect picornavirus in aphid tissue sections.”[xxxvi] Professor Ralph Kirby of Rhodes University's Department of Microbiology said he could not believe Hatfill was behind the anthrax attacks. Kirby said he and Hatfill had worked together at Rhodes on several research projects in the early 1990s. “With my personal knowledge of him, he doesn't fit the profile. He fits the profile of what the FBI are looking for, but their are about or 30 other people that fit that profile,” said Kirby. Hatfill's passion was Ebola. “He collected samples from the indigenous areas where the disease comes from in North and Central Africa,” he said.

In October 1990, the South African Armed Forces Journal ran an article by Hatfill entitled “Military health strategy during the global AIDS pandemic” that pointed out that since the U.S. military tested recruits for AIDS so should the South African military.[xxxvii] In 1994 Hatfill claimed he was a member of the Advisory panel on AIDS of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. The Weekly Mail and Guardian reported that SADF military officials used the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) facilities to obtain and develop different strains of germs, some of which were highly toxic to humans.[xxxviii]

Hatfill related: “From 1987 to 1990, I continued advanced degree studies and served as Emergency Medical Officer for the Conradie General Hospital, Cape Town. Surgical experience includes trauma management, burns with skin graft management, common thoracic and abdominal emergencies, and open/closed fracture reductions. I have performed over 40 Cesarean sections, several hundred normal vaginal deliveries, and administered over 400 general anesthetics during training and medical practice. Assigned to the 2nd Medical Battalion (Territorial Army Reserve) South African Defense Force. I hold certifications in Diving and Submarine Medicine and Aviation Medicine.” He claimed to have served a rotating general internship in medicine, pediatrics, surgery, obstetrics / gynecology, accident and emergency.

An official of the Western Cape provincial health authority, after consultation with hospital authorities, reports that Hatfill performed no obstetrical procedures at Conradie Hospital and, in fact, appears to have had no association at all with that hospital. Dr. Steven Dresch reported: “Concerning Steven Hatfill's claims that he held the post of Emergency Medical Officer at Conradie Hospital (1987- 1990) and that his University of Stellenbosch “M. Medicine / Board Certification in Hematopathology (June 1993)” included “clinical rotations through coagulation / homeostasis, hemolytic and platelet disorders, immunohematology and blood transfusion medicine, hematology-oncology and the bone marrow transplantation unit (Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town),” Hatfill applied for a registrar post at Groote Schuur Hospital in 1993, but never took up the post.

Note how vague the part of his autobiography is where he claims to like Black Africans. He did not name the organization devoted to improving the lives of poor blacks did he? We are supposed to take him at his word. It is interesting to note that the AWB had a program to feed and house impoverished Afrikaners at this time.

On July 7, 1991 Hatfill authored a paper entitled “Thalidomide Induced Apoptosis in a Patient with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia” for the XII South African Pathology Congress. In 1991 Hatfill and Professor Lothar Bohm published a paper titled “Morphological differentiation of K562 Leukemia cells induced by Thalidomide.” Lothar Bohm, professor of medicine at Stellenbosch who leads the Department of Radiation Oncology where Hatfill worked said, “He was unpopular because he just did not respect other people's lives and their work and their needs in the lab,” said. “He was the sort of person who would go in the labs late at night at take pieces of equipment without asking.” The FBI accompanied by a South African detective interviewed Dr. Bohm at his house in May 2003. They wanted to know such things as whether he knew where Hatfill went to out of working hours, did he have any connection with Project Coast, etc.

The paper stated, “The lineage and state of differentiation of cells in the mammalian haemopoietic [formation of blood cellular components] compartment is associated with specific patterns of homeobox gene expression [a DNA sequence found within the genes that are involved in the regulation of the development of plants, fungi and animals].[xxxix] Agents which influence homeobox gene expression are thus of great interest in the study of human leukemias. Retinoic acid has direct regulatory actions on homeobox gene transcription[xl] and can induce select human leukemia cell lines to undergo terminal differentiation [loose their nuclei but remain functional] in vitro.[xli] Retinoic acid is also a known teratogen for vertebrate fetal limb-bud development. The drug Thalidomide[xlii] duplicates some of the teratogenic effects. To investigate Thalidomide for other retinoid-like effects, we exposed cultures of human leukemia K562 cells to the metabolites generated in a Thalidomide hepatic-microsomal enzyme drug metabolizing system.[xliii] Here we report evidence that a single 2 h pulse-exposure to Thalidomide metabolites induces K562 cells to undergo morphological differentiation in vitro. We also demonstrate a significant cytotoxic [the quality of being toxic to cells] effect for these metabolites.”

Thalidomide was originally marketed as a sedative in 1954. However, in 1961 it was quickly withdrawn from distribution when its teratogenic properties were discovered - it caused numerous birth defects when it was used as a tranquillizer for pregnant women and children were born without limbs. In 1994, speculation that thalidomide teratogenicity is linked to the repression of angiogenesis [the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones] spawned a new wave of clinical investigations that expanded the use of thalidomide for the treatment of various malignancies, including multiple myeloma, melanoma, renal-cell carcinoma, and prostate cancer.

Hatfill was ahead of his time in 1991 and must be given credit for finding an innovative use for Thalidomide. The only problem was that he did not perform the experiment that would verify his theory. As usual Hatfill was so convinced he was right he only pretended to do the lab work. Other scientists could not reproduce it until they refined Hatfill’s technique. Irreproducible experiments do not go over well in the scientific world. On September 17, 1993, Lothar Bohm realized Hatfill never performed this experiment that was for his Master’s Thesis. Böhm, subsequent to the awarding of the Master’s wrote this email to Hatfill’s Ph.D. supervisor (Ralph Kirby) at Rhodes University to warn him that he suspected that Hatfill had made up data/results which were used in two Scientific/Medical publications and his Master’s.

“Dear Ralph: Don Hendry gave me your address. Two problems here: Our new 560 bp PCR product still does not give continuous melts. In touch with DIAGEN it turns out that the handbook refers to a method called G-clamping to stabilize DNA and generate decent Y-fragments. Regrettably neither Steven Hatfill nor you came up with this solution. Steven has been seeing our poor melts for the last 9 months. We are rather disappointed if not to say PISSED OFF with so much ignorance, carelessness and indifference…nine months of time plus 4000 odd Rand wasted. You are both DEEP in our memory. A Japanese worker has problems in reproducing the Thalidomide work on K562. After some correspondence relating to buffers and drug metabolism using S-9 fraction he still cannot do it. When I discussed the problem with Steven it became clear that he could not have done the experiment as his handling of the S-9 fraction indicated total confusion. Taking these observations and the wonderful TGE melt mitochondrial DNA referred to in the Lancet paper it also transpires that the experiment could not have been done by Steven Hatfill because essential parts of the TGE machine accessories were still unopened. It goes to show that Hatfill takes great liberties with the truth. I think you may wish to be on guard when you assess his Ph.D. thesis not to risk a scandal. I can only pray that the Japanese worker is not going to blow the whistle-but with increasing interest in Thalidomide somebody else might. I find it utterly distasteful and unprofessional to practice science in this way and I am reassessing my position regarding Steven Hatfill and asking you again for advice. Lothar Bohm[xliv]

In September 2003 Bohm said, “He understands Hatfill's research has now been successfully duplicated.” Judging from how many times it is cited in the leukemia – Thalidomide literature it must have been reproduced at some time or another. In an email from Hatfill Bohm was threatened with a lawsuit over recordings journalists had made of his views on Hatfill over the email he sent to Ralph Kirby. The man who exposed Hatfill as a Nazi, Dr. John Michie stated: “Bohm is not comfortable that his association with Hatfill has become public. He is trying to cover his back. Hatfill should have been asked to substantiate his claim. When he was alerted to Hatfill's association with Amerithrax in an email from Zeena Nackerdien, he told Tony Serafin and myself and probably others that he had suspected that Hatfill had cooked the books, since a Japanese researcher couldn't reproduce the thalidomide research. Ironically, that person, Yuichi Hashimoto, has cited the thalidomide work. Therina Theron who was his Masters of Science / Ph.D. student, also couldn't reproduce the thalidomide research. She couldn't get the TGE apparatus to work - the supplier of the equipment was called in and he pointed out that the electrodes were incorrectly wired by Hatfill, not Therina and that essential parts had not even been unpacked.”

Dr. Michie reported, “One glaring anomaly that I picked up was that Hatfill states in his thesis and in the Leukemia Research article that he dissolved both thalidomide and TCPO in aqueous solutions. If you look up the properties of these two substances in the Merck Index, you will find that they are “sparingly” soluble in water…they have to be dissolved in certain organic solvents such as dioxane.” The researcher who attempted to duplicate Hatfill’s experiment, Yuichi Hashimoto is a Professor at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at the University of Tokyo. It is unclear if where he eventually published the paper on the confirmed Hatfill’s experiment but he did come to the conclusion that Thalidomide is valuable in the treatment of leukemia. Thalidomide is now being used to treat certain forms of Leukemia and Hatfill is given credit for his pioneering work: “In vitro data supporting other direct effects of thalidomide include the work of Hatfill et. al. A single 2-hour pulse-exposure of thalidomide metabolites induced morphologic differentiation of human leukemia cell line K562. Thalidomide has been noted to inhibit TNF-alpha production by stimulated lymphocytes.”[xlv]

On April 10, 1991 Hatfill authored a paper entitled “Design Considerations for a NASA Biobehavioral Research Laboratory in Antarctica for the NASA Solar System Exploration Division, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas.” He also submitted to the South African Pathology Conference in July 1991, “Thalidomide Induced Apoptosis in a Patient with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.” In 1991 Steven J. Hatfill published “Immuno-cytochemical identification of nuclear estrogen receptors in human acute myeloid leukemia.”[xlvi] From 1991-1994 Hatfill was supervisor for two Masters Degree Candidates at the University of Stellenbosch.

In 1992 Hatfill and three other hematologists authored a paper “Mitochondrial DNA Mutations in Myelodysplastic Syndrome.” Myelodysplastic syndromes are a group of diseases in which the bone marrow does not function normally and not enough normal blood cells are made. They are fatal disorders that lead to death either through bone marrow failure or by transformation to leukemia.[xlvii] Hatfill was a Guest Lecturer at the National Cancer Institute in 1992 and received a travel grant award from the Medical Research Council (UK) in 1992, 1993. From 1992 - 1994 Hatfill said that he taught Undergraduate Hematology at the University of Stellenbosch Medical School.

In 1992 Hatfill published “Apoptotic megakaryocyte dysplasia in the myelodysplastic syndromes.”[xlviii] In August of 1992 Hatfill and Ralph Kirby published “Mitochondrial mutations in the myelodysplastic syndrome.”[xlix] In July 1992 he authored a paper entitled “Possible Risks for Leukemia Induction by Chronic Exposure to Low-Dose VZE Radiation During Long-Duration Space Missions for the Lunar/Mars Exploration Office, Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas.” In 1993, Hatfill claimed to have served as Chairman of the Experimental Biology Group (Republic of South Africa) and claimed to have been a member of the Blood Transfusion Utilization Committee - Tygerberg Medical Center. The Experimental Biology Group has no record of Hatfill’s chairmanship. Tygerberg’s Blood Transfusion Committee also found no traces of Hatfill. In 1993 Hatfill and Ralph Kirby, published: “A role for mitochondrial DNA in the pathogenesis of radiation induced MDS and secondary leukemia.”[l]

Hatfill was then employed as a medical doctor in the Department of Hematology, where he completed his MS. He received board certification while studying for a doctoral degree, and practicing in a South African clinic. Hatfill studied for Board certification in Hematological Pathology from June 1993 to August 1994. His resume read: “Master of Medical Science / Board Certification in Hemato-pathology (June 1993).” Hatfill: “I was a three-year resident specialist training in blood and bone marrow disorders at the University of Stellenbosch, Republic of South Africa. I performed clinical rotations through coagulation homeostasis, hemolytic and platelet disorders, immuno-hematology and blood transfusion medicine, hematology-oncology and the bone marrow transplantation unit at the Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa. I performed pathology rotations through forensic, hematology, and chemical pathology toxicology. I established a de-novo departmental molecular hematology laboratory for Ig / TCR (T Cell Receptor) rearrangement studies and directed this laboratory, during my medical residency training from 1991 through 1993 and in 1994. External funding grants came from Ames Diagnostics and Amersham, UK.” Hatfill alleged he headed the molecular hematology laboratory on the Tygerberg campus of the University of Stellenbosch between 1991 and 1993. A spokesperson says he was a clinical assistant.

HATFILL’S BOGUS DOCTORATE DEGREE: Hatfill claimed to have completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Oxford University in South Africa in 1992. He claimed he earned a doctorate in “Molecular Cell Biology/Biochemistry” from Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. “Ph.D. Degree in Molecular Cell Biology (August 1994). Completed by experimental work, thesis, Rhodes University, Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology.” External Thesis Examiners were listed as the Argonne National Laboratory (USA) and NASA Center for Special Studies, Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (USA). “Thesis demonstrated mitochondrial DNA topology changes in high LET radiation-induced MDS and leukemia, as a possible basis for biological dissymmetry.” This was a paper Hatfill had already published.

Hatfill was a Senior Clinical Scientist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Nuffield Department of Pathology Oxford University, England from 1994 to 1995 and claimed he was a member of the Royal Society of Medicine, London. The Royal Society of Medicine had no record of this.[li] Hatfill then faked a reference from the distinguished Oxford Professor James O. D. McGee to apply for his next job back in the United States. One version of his c. v. claimed he had a medical degree from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Edinburgh, a body that doesn't exist. Another said his medical degree was gained at Edinburgh in 1984. Fiona Sinclair, membership administrator for the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, stated: “A full search of our records has been conducted, both in Edinburgh and in Glasgow, and there is no record of Dr Steven Jay Hatfill having obtained any college qualification. We have no records of Dr. Hatfill at all.” Hatfill claimed to have been a member of an AIDS advisory panel organized through the Council for Scientific Industrial Research on AIDS in 1994. The Council for Scientific Industrial Research never convened an AIDS advisory panel. Hatfill: “Following the completion of my medical specialty training and the submission of my PhD. thesis in 1994 I returned to the United States. I stayed at my parents’ horse farm in Florida, painted horse barns, and briefly relaxed from the hectic pace I had maintained for almost two decades. Six months later I traveled to England for a post-doctoral position at Oxford University where I spent a year doing cancer research as a senior clinical scientist.” On December 5, 1994 Hatfill and Ralph Kirby presented an abstracted entitled Mitochondrial DNA Length Polymorphism in MDS at the 36th Annual Meeting, American Society of Hematology.

BACK TO THE UNITED STATES: When Hatfill returned to the United States in 1994, he took a research fellowship at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland and resumed his research in diseases of the blood. Post-doctoral fellowships at the National Institutes of Health are given to those who have expertise in a given area, and an awarded PhD degree is one piece of evidence that the data underlying the researcher's thesis has undergone some type of review and meets a certain standard. Awarding a fellowship to someone who has misrepresented a degree is serious for a position that involves scientific research. It goes to the integrity of the researcher.

Hatfill’s autobiography stated, “Following the completion of my medical specialty training and the submission of my PhD. thesis in 1994, I returned to the United States.” According to Rhodes University Registrar Stephen Fourie, Hatfill was registered as a doctoral candidate from 1992 to 1994 and submitted a thesis, but he was never given the degree. Pat Clawson said that Hatfill thought he got the degree in 1994. In 1995 Hatfill told the NIH he had the degree. An NIH official said the agency has what appears to be a photocopy of a doctoral degree from Rhodes bearing Hatfill's name, certified as authentic by a British law firm. This law firm, Ferguson and Bricknell reported: “The copy Rhodes University D. Phil certificate [reprinted in this book] does appear to be a certified copy, made at our Headington office (situated just around the corner from the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford). We note that the [book] states that the document was 'certified as authentic by a British law firm'. The effect of the Solicitor's certificate in this case is to confirm that the photocopy is a true copy of the document from which it is taken. The original document is not certified as authentic by this firm.” He still claimed the degree in 1997 but sometime between 1997 and 1999 (after he had obtained jobs at NIH and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases - USAMRIID) he corrected his error when he realized that he might loose his job if this falsification was discovered. In a 1999 resume, the reference has changed from “Ph.D. Degree” to “Ph.D. Thesis.”

Hatfill received an National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Intramural Research Training Award Fellow, September 1995 to September 1996, September 1996 to September 1997, approved for September 1997 to September 1998, salary between $40k and $43k. From December 11, 1995 to December 14, 1995 Hatfill presented an abstract entitled HIV Infection in Experimental Histoculture. Annual Meeting, American Society for Cell Biology. In 1995 Hatfill published Clinical Significance of the Malfunction of the CD44 Locus in Malignancy.[lii] Hatfill had this chronology of events; “In 1996 I received a research fellowship at the National Institutes for Health. As a member of the NASA/NIH Center for Advanced Tissue Culture staff I worked on a newly discovered technique for the culture of explanted human tissues. The technique was in the process of being proven as a test tube model for AIDS treatment and held promise for a number of other areas of medical research as well. At the same time I attended classes and studied part time for the NIH core course in clinical research designed to teach investigators the proper research methods for testing new drug and therapy effectiveness. The part time course took a year to complete. The wonderful research team I was a part of at NIH was highly productive and we published numerous papers demonstrating the value of our technique for solid tumor cancer studies of the lung, prostate and salivary gland.”

In 1996 Hatfill published a paper entitled an Epidemiological Study of Serious Haematological Diseases in the Pofadder Area. In the early 1980’s the South African Atomic Energy Corporation had sampled groundwater from a number of boreholes in the Pofadder area in the North Western Cape as part of a geological programme. Hydrochemical analyses indicated that certain aquifers contained relatively high concentrations of uranium, arsenic and fluoride as well as elevated levels of radioactivity. The departments of Internal Medicine and Community Health of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Stellenbosch noted that a number of cases of people suffering from hematological anomalies have been reported from the area around Pofadder. These hematological values differed from the normal ranges to a significant extent. Hatfill’s paper determined that a correlation existed between the contamination and increased blood diseases.[liii]

From June 25, 1996 to June 27, 1996 Hatfill presented a paper on “Experimental HIV Infection in a NASA Designed RWV Lymphoid Tissue Bioreactor” at the NASA Symposium on Cell Biology and Protein Crystal growth, International Congress for In-Vitro Biology. That same year Hatfill published: “In-vitro Maintenance of Normal and Pathological Human Salivary Gland Tissue in a NASA Designed Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor.”[liv]

The fluid-filled rotating wall vessel bioreactor is a recently developed cell culture device that is able to successfully integrate cell-cell and cell-matrix co-localization and three-dimensional interaction with excellent low-shear mass transfer of nutrients and wastes, without sacrificing one parameter for the other. Designed at the Johnson Manned Spaceflight Center, the RWV bioreactor consists of a cylindrical growth chamber that contains an inner co-rotating cylinder with a gas exchange membrane.[lv]

In July 1996 Hatfill took a course in Biology of Disease Vectors: “Postgraduate training conducted at the Arbovirus Infectious Disease Research Laboratory and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) - Rocky Mountain Laboratory. Includes; Vector biology, Dengue, VEE, and other Mosquito / Tick Born Diseases, Plague, Lyme Disease, Malaria, Trypanosomiasis. Field collection and Identification of Insect Vectors, Molecular Biology and Pathogenesis of Vector-born Disease.” Hatfill explained, “I then turned my attention to human bone marrow and to research involving infection disease agents, including the infectious agent causing Lyme disease and a strain of malaria that infects chickens. Also about this time I started focusing professionally on emerging viral infectious disease. These are natural but rare or previously unknown diseases that suddenly emerge in a given human population, cause great damage then rapidly disappear. The 1918 flu pandemic is one example, as is the Ebola virus. Like many other scientists I had recently read the book The Hot Zone about the Ebola virus outbreak in Reston, Virginia, which caused disease only in monkeys and not humans. Coincidently, a few weeks later Dr. Mike Bray, a researcher from the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) gave a talk at NIH about a mouse adapted strain of the Ebola virus. I spoke with Dr. Bray afterwards and we agreed to a joint collaboration to see if the Ebola virus could be cultured in the new tissue culture system my colleagues and I were working on. If it could we could use the technique to culture the virus in both human and monkey tissues in an attempt to see how the infection progressed in these different tissues. It might also permit us to use the technique as a replacement for the monkey and other animal models developed to study the disease. The Ebola virus can be safely handled only within the special ‘space suit’ containment labs at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where I did not work. I made the appropriate arrangements to transfer loaded tissue bioreactors from NIH to Fort Detrick. There they were taken into the high containment facility and experiments safely performed by resident USAMRIID scientists, not including myself. As this work was progressing I became increasingly aware of the potential public health risk caused by the release of a virulent virus in a densely populated area. The more I learned about biological warfare the more alarmed I became about this potential threat. Several anthrax hoaxes had by then been described in the media, with some legislation being passed by Congress. (Nunn-Lugar Defense Against Weapons of Mass Destruction Act of 1996) to assist in the training of first responders (i.e. fire and police) to manage potential terrorist attacks similar to the Sarin nerve agent attack by Japanese terrorists on the Tokyo subway.”

From January 22, 1997 to January 26, 1997 Hatfill presented an abstract entitled “Viral Factors Determining the Course of HIV Infection in Human Lymphoid Tissue In-Vitro” at the 4th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. From March 1 to 7, 1997 Hatfill presented an abstract entitled “Long-Term In-Vitro Maintenance of Histologically Intact Human Prostate Tissue in a NASA Designed Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor” at the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology Congress. In June 1997 Hatfill took a Core Course in Human Clinical Research, from the National Institute of Health which was a ten month intensive course in basic epidemiological methods and design of clinical research, regulations involving human subjects research, monitoring patient oriented research, the role of the Institutional Review Board, statistical data analysis and research study funding. Conducted at the Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. From June 22, 1997 to June 26, 1997 Hatfill presented a paper entitled “Human Lymphoid Tissue for In-Vitro Anti-HIV Drug Testing” at the 2d Joint Conference of the Strategic Program for Innovative Research on AIDS Treatment and the National Cooperative Drug Discovery group for the Treatment of HIV Infection in Vienna, Virginia.

In 1998 Hatfill co-authored “Maintenance of Human Prostate Tissue Without Exogenous Hormonal Support in a NASA Designed Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor (RWV)” for the Journal of Urolology that was described as being “in press”. That year Hatfill prepared a manuscript titled “In-vitro Generation of Kaposi Sarcoma Lesions by HHV-8 in the NASA Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor.” Hatfill also prepared a manuscript titled “In-vitro Amplification and Identification of Lyme Disease in Human Tissue Biopsies Cultured in the NASA RWV Bioreactor.” A paper on this subject was presented at the U.S. and Canadian Academy of Pathologists Annual Meeting, Boston, 1998. That year Hatfill[lvi] prepared a manuscript titled “Tissue Explant Culture in the NASA RWV Bioreactor: A Possible Universal Culture System for Infectious Human Pathogens.” Hatfill and Peter Jahrling, made progress on a paper titled “Pathogenic Differences Between Ebola Reston and Ebola Zaire in the NASA Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor.”

“Experiment Design: Attempts will be made to culture a variety of infectious pathogen types in the same simple media (RPMI-1640, 15% FCS) containing human tonsil tissue explants maintained in the Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor. In addition, a human liver and epithelial tissue equivalent will be formulated from established cells lines grown on cytodex microcarrier beads. These will be co-cultured with the tonsil explants. Known pathogens which have proved to be difficult to isolate by normal protocols, will be introduced into the Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor culture media and allowed to incubate with the tissue and tissue equivalents for two weeks.

“Aim of Experiments: To demonstrate the potential ability of the RWV bioreactor to act as a universal pathogen culture system for the primary isolation of previously unrecognized pathogens during outbreaks of emerging disease. By demonstrating the ability of the Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor to culture a variety of known pathogens of different classification, i.e. RNA viruses, Retroviruses, DNA viruses, Parasites, Spirochete bacteria, etc., we hope to demonstrate the applicability of the Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor system for de novo [anew] primary pathogen isolation protocols. At present, the de novo isolation of previously unknown or unrecognized emerging disease pathogens requires elucidating the proper culture media or permissive cell line applicable for growth of the pathogenic agent in culture. A few examples serve to illustrate the difficulty inherent in this process using conventional technology. The 1970’s outbreak of Legionaries Disease required for months to identify the causative agent as a bacterium. The HIV-1 retrovirus required over 2 years to isolate and the 1993 outbreak of Myuro Canyon disease in the four-corners region of the United States took seven weeks to grow this Hantavirus in culture. Clearly these timelines are unacceptable with respect to many public health threat scenarios for emerging disease agents. By utilizing the ability of the RWV to maintain a normal three-dimensional cytoarchitecture and microenvironment for a number of tissues, the possibility of using human tissue explants for primary pathogen isolation becomes a distinct possibility.

“Preliminary Results: As previously described, the Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor has demonstrated its ability to culture the HIV-1 virus. In addition, the Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor has now demonstrated the ability to culture and amplify the Ebola virus in human tonsil tissue explants.

“Plans: The Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor will be used in an attempt to culture Treponema pallidum, the causative agent of syphilis. This organism is notorious for its resistance to culture by conventional methods. In conjunction with assistance from the Armed Forces Institute for Pathology, the Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor system will be used to culture Legionnaires Disease. The USAMRIID will also attempt to culture Hantavirus[lvii] (Muryo Canyon agent) in the Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor.”

FORT DETRICK: From September 18, 1997 to September 18, 1998, Hatfill was a Senior Research Associate, who worked on developing a vaccine for the deadly Ebola virus, among other projects, at Fort Detrick. Ebola, an untreatable virus rapidly kills 80% to 90% of the humans it infects, and no one knows where it lurks in the years between its small-scale outbreaks, up to now confined to central Africa. Scientists in the former Soviet Union reportedly weaponized the virus. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) listed Ebola as a “select agent” in 1996, meaning that at least three antiterrorism statutes regulate it. Ebola is also one of the potential bioterrorism agents now targeted by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Hatfill's work was the result of a two-year fellowship sponsored by the National Research Council. On September 4, 1997 his status as an Intramural Research Training Award Fellow had been replaced by an appointment as a Special Volunteer, September 1997 to September 1998. His salary $57.6k (20 hours per week work time?) was paid by the Department of Defense, U.S. Army, Fort Detrick, Maryland. At Fort Detrick, Hatfill never had nor needed security clearance, according to Chuck Dasey, a spokesman for the facility. Hatfill was not an official employee of USAMRIID - which would have required a mandatory national agency security check but was a Special Volunteer from the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development, vouched for by its Director, Arthur S. Levine. In 1998 Hatfill co-authored a paper entitled, “Pathological differences between Ebola Reston and Ebola Zaire in the NASA RWV Bioreactor.” This was followed by “Cidofovir treatment for Smallpox and Monkeypox orthopoxvirus infections” in preparation.

Hatfill wrote, “In 1997 I was offered a National Research Council position at USAMRIID at Fort Detrick. My task was to refine the tissue culture system so as to compare Ebola infection in human and animal tissues and (as a hematologist) to dissect the bleeding disorder, which the disease caused in the Ebola animal models of human disease. The work at USAMRIID was exciting but dangerous. It was difficult to work with the tissue culture system and the Ebola virus in the space suit, even more difficult to work with the small mice and guinea pigs. The guinea pigs were the worst because they were large enough to be difficult to hold still while injecting the virus. One careless mistake or a bit of inattention and a simple needle stick injury would be translated into a slow and painful death for a disease for which there was no vaccine and no cure. It had happened before with other viral agents and researchers in other centers. I believe that researchers in this field are unsung heroes. I gave a final public lecture on the potential threat of biological terrorism shortly after I started work at USAMRIID. The next day I was called into the Commander’s office and told no longer to speak publicly without official permission. The hypothetical attack in my talk had been on the White House, and the Secret Service was upset. The Commander was a man I greatly respected, as well as my boss, and his objection was more than sufficient to end my brief tour on the public lecture circuit discussing potential biological terrorism scenarios without first obtaining official permission from USAMRIID. A small spot on my lung caused by previous exposure to tuberculosis in Africa meant that I could not gain respiratory clearance until the medical clinic at USAMRIID was sure that the spot was not active. The classical HEAF test for diagnosing this was not possible because I had received several previous vaccinations against tuberculosis while overseas. The whole process took 6 or 7 months during which time I concentrated on the Ebola work. By the time my initial vaccinations had been completed, the issue of the destruction of the last remaining research quantities of smallpox at the CDC in Atlanta was the question of the day. Proponents for destroying the small research quantities of the smallpox virus at the CDC claimed there was no animal model to study the disease. The group I was attached to at USAMRIID had developed an animal model of a related virus called Monkeypox. My boss put me to work on an animal study designed to show that the anti-viral drug Cidofovir could be used to treat Monkeypox in animals, and hence smallpox in humans. After about a year at USAMRIID I began to receive the normal series of vaccinations against anthrax. This was required for anyone working as I was, in building 1412 where the anthrax studies were also being done. Although my primary work occurred in another area, everyone had to be vaccinated against anthrax. A security computer kept track of where anyone in the main building or in building 1412 were located. Who entered, where, when and for how long, were logged in. This information is presumably available today. The bacteriology division kept pretty much to themselves and as I did not work on anthrax, I had no idea where the anthrax was stored, nor did I know which strain of anthrax was in use.” Hatfill’s advisor at USAMRIID, John Huggins stated “USAMRIID’s biocontainment facilities stored wet spore anthrax – not the dry, aerosolized kind used in the attacks – but Hatfill neither knew where it was stored nor had access to the secure facilities in which it was studied. USAMRIID research personnel were given access only to labs in which they worked – and for Hatfill that was only the virology lab.”[lviii] Dr. Huggins also testified that Dr. Hatfill never worked with anthrax at USAMRIID and that after Dr. Hatfill left USAMRIID in September 1999 he would have had absolutely no access to any of USAMRIID’s biocontainment facilities.[lix] This implies that before he left he had access.

Hatfill continued, “My role has expanded to include research on anti-viral therapeutics for orthopoxvirus and filovirus infections using rodent and non-human primate models. I am the primary civilian consultant to the Aeromedical Isolation team at USAMRIID, where I participate in field training exercises, provide training seminars, and have significantly upgraded the AIT's capability for in-flight patient monitoring. I have participated in the development of an advanced human organ culture system for infectious disease research at USAMRIID. This was used to document tropic differences between Reston Ebola and Zaire strains. Concurrent work outside of USAMRIID includes the historical development and theoretical applications of Caulder's equations/tables.[lx]

Hatfill took a Biosafety Level 4 Course, USAMRIID in September 1997 during which he was certified training in the ILC Dover Chemturion encapsulating suit and certification / clearance to operate in a Biosafety Level 4 (BSL-4) environment for research on exotic viral pathogens (Ebola, Marburg Hemorrhagic Fever). Respiratory and medical clearance to conduct research on Biosafety Level 3 pathogens (Plague, Anthrax, and Monkeypox). According to Mark Buller, a St. Louis University professor who is currently studying how terrorists could use genetic engineering to enhance poxviruses, Monkeypox is easier to obtain and produce than smallpox. Hatfill could have modified Monkeypox viruses and created a previously unseen strain of biological weapon, however, this was not his goal.[lxi]

On October 8, 1997 Hatfill gave another briefing at the Defense Special Weapons Agency. In October 1997 Hatfill studied the Management of Biological Warfare Casualties at the USAMRIID. “Full course for medical and incident consequence management of personnel exposure to Anthrax, Tularemia,[lxii] Plague, VEE,[lxiii] Orthopoxvirus (Smallpox), Filovirus (Ebola, Marburg and Reston virii), and the SEB,[lxiv] BOTOX (botulinum toxin) and Ricin biological toxins.”

In 1997 Hatfill was an Instructor SAIC Weapons of Mass Destruction Domestic Preparedness Hospital Provider Course. Hatfill designed programs and training equipment for Navy Seals, and SAIC colleagues say he often sat at his desk designing mock bioterror training devices, including a backpack that could be used by enemies to spray germs on the battlefield. He trained CIA agents in counter-proliferation, and shuttled to U.S. embassies abroad to teach bioterrorism preparedness. In 1997 Hatfill, published “Tissue Culture in Microgravity.”[lxv] That same year Hatfill published “Lymphocyte Trafficking and HIV Infection of Human Lymphoid Tissue in a RWV Bioreactor.”[lxvi] Although Hatfill’s primary expertise at SAIC – as in his previous laboratory positions – was virology, he filled in for other instructors and taught about biological weapons.[lxvii] On November 18, 1997 Hatfill gave a briefing to SHIELD at the U.S. State Department.

On May 21, 1998 Hatfill, and Jerome Hauer then New York City's emergency preparedness director spoke on Biological Terrorism, at a Council on Foreign Relations, Special Meeting in New York City. His speech was entitled “Building a 'Biobomb': Terrorist Challenge and U.S. Response.”[lxviii] At this seminar he demonstrated one of his favorite bioterrorism scenarios: a terrorist using a wheelchair to sneak past White House security with a biological agent. Hauer was appalled. After the presentation, he says, he called Hatfill aside and told him he "had gone too far. It was too detailed, too specific to go into in a public forum." Hatfill listened, Hauer says, but shrugged it off. Hatfill, “Jerome Hauer was not appalled. I had invited Jerome Hauer to speak with me at the Council on Foreign Relations, considering at the time he was in charge of emergency medical preparedness. This sounds like complete nonsense. He didn’t pull me aside and say I had gone too far or too detailed or too specific. We did have a few chats about an unclassified subject.”

On June 16, 1998 Hatfill lectured at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies / George Washington University Terrorism Studies Group - Conference on Biological Terrorism Emerging Threats of Biological Terrorism: Recent Developments. The title of his lecture was “Flexible and Rapid Mass Casualty Redistribution Following a Large Area Coverage Biological or Chemical Incident.” Hatfill showed slides of anthrax victims and delivered this lecture while Professor Brenner moderated:

“We've heard the threat today from Dr. Kenneth Alibek, [who headed the Soviet Union’s biological weapons program during its peak years before defecting to the United States in 1992] Dr. William Patrick, and Dr. John Huggins for biological threats of biological terrorism. We've heard conventional countermeasures. We've heard of a number of programs of advanced countermeasures. It now becomes necessary to discuss worst-case scenarios and that concerns ways of management, or possible ways of management, of large areas covered by biological agent. I've been working with Brigadier General Third Army Medical Command in the United States Army Reserve to try to develop a system for flexible and rapid transportation of mass casualties from a contaminated area to a rear area while maintaining life support and critical care functions for the casualties.

“When we're dealing with a large area of coverage event, this can be exceedingly complex. A single area of a city may be affected or multiple areas of the city at the same time or closely thereafter, and terrorists may be involved with both chemical weapon releases, as well as with the biological agent. One of the most dramatic open source experiments that have been described for a large area of coverage occurred on September 21, 1950, where a naval vessel did an open air simulation test releasing spores of the same size and weight as anthrax, but nonpathogenic to humans, over the city of San Francisco. This was conducted off a naval vessel two miles offshore and the results are illustrated in this diagram. If this had occurred with actual anthrax, there's a possibility that several hundred thousand people could have contracted a fatal pulmonary infection. These types of dispersal scenarios in the most part are covert. There's no indication that a biological agent release has occurred until the incubation period for the particular disease has expired. This is a typical case history. An emergency department, normal operations and patients begin to appear. The terrorist event has occurred the week before. The incubation period for the agent is now open and these previously healthy individuals start coming in requiring rapid intensive care including mechanical life support, mechanical ventilation. This is a slide of inhalational anthrax. We only have a few hours once predominantly respiratory symptoms develop. The patient needs to be intubated; they need to be mechanically ventilated. Their blood pressure needs to be supported with medications.

“Some coetaneous cases may appear. This is coetaneous anthrax, the vegetative bacteria multiplying in the blood stream and the tissues release a number of toxins, with a massive edema, malignant edema. Over 50 percent of those exposed to the agent plume end up with inhalation anthrax. Over 50 percent of the inhalation anthrax victims develop cases associated with hemorrhagic meningitis. This is the membrane covering the brain. A great deal of these patients will be brought in as casualties probably all having epileptic fits. Surrounding area and surface contamination is possible as well as intestinal cases may appear. This is hemorrhagic infection of the lymph nodes and intestines and a small destruction section of the bowel through disruption of his blood supply.

“Until recently, the medical trains would not have been sufficient for the mass evacuation of casualties from a high concentration attack area to rear definitive area treatments. Recently, Northrop Grumman has come out with a specialized stretcher. This is called LSTT stretcher. It stands for Life Support and Trauma Transport. Essentially, this is a self-contained unit with a giant ventilator I.V. fluid infusion pump and with full monitoring capability. Patients put on the stretcher can be intubated, stabilized, and transferred. The second concept that's become important is that of intermodal transportation. This is the use of containers of goods or contents by a variety of different methods.

The inside of these hospital cars can be made to different sizes. Along with this comes a mortuary embalming station. Arms Corps in South Africa originally developed this, with the concept that patients are embalmed onsite. This negates mass burials or graves. The remains are preserved. It can handle 800 bodies an hour. The bodies are embalmed, put into body bags, and stored at room temperature for later burial when the incident is over. The system would work like this: If these trains are placed -- and we'll estimate you'll need somewhere around 27 trains to cover the United States -- but if all other traffic is cleared off of the rails, you'll be no more than four to six hours rail travel to a major metropolitan area. Notification. We are estimating this will be the Reserves or the National Guard handling these trains.

Hatfill had visions of a biochemical apocalypse. He understood that biological warfare had terrible consequences that were not fully appreciated. He realized that massive casualties would occur if a metropolitan area were hit. But the more he made references to anthrax, the more he looked guilty in the anthrax attacks.

On June 29, 1998 Hatfill gave a Briefing to the FBI, Joint Terrorism Task Force, Washington D.C. Field Office during which he displayed slides of anthrax victims. On July 8, 1998 he gave another briefing at the Central Intelligence Agency, Counter-Terrorism Center, new headquarters building. On July 11, 1998 Hatfill presented an abstract entitled “Pathogenesis of Lethal Ebola Virus Infection in Adult Immunocompetent Mice” to the American Society of Virology, Annual Meeting in Vancouver, Canada. On July 14, 1998 he gave a briefing at the Pentagon, for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict. On August 11, 1998 he gave another briefing for the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Medical Affairs, at the Pentagon.

In August 1998 Hatfill finished Emergence,[lxix] and had it copy written. On September 29, 1998 Hatfill briefed the Joint Terrorism Working Group, United States Army Military District of Washington. Fort McNair, Washington D.C. Hatfill’s Special Volunteer status was renewed for September 1998 to September 1999. His employer was only identified as the Department of Defense. Same salary, but 10 hrs / was noted. On October 26, 1998 Hatfill and D. F. Barbish presented a Briefing Paper to the National Security Council, Old Executive Office Building-Room 302 Washington, D.C.

Hatfill’s autobiography: “Around this time I started to hear reports of what was being discovered by weapons inspectors concerning Iraq’s biological warfare program. Believing that Iraq remained a serious threat I volunteered to be on a future UNSCOM inspection team. I never heard anything in response to my application, and eventually the weapons inspectors were thrown out of Iraq. At home I tried to project how this military threat might be addressed by the United States Armed Forces. I was aware of the level of training the military were receiving in the field of weapons of mass destruction as by this time I was teaching a small portion of a course developed by SAIC on biological weapons proliferation. The course, funded by the CIA, was designed for members of the military and intelligence communities. I felt that although the nuclear and chemical weapon arena were well covered by our military there were very serious deficiencies in the training of our troops to deal with biological warfare programs. Accordingly, in 1999 I wrote a white paper to outline my ideas regarding the role for the U.S. Armed Forces in dealing with such threats. I also set out to design a training program to met what I felt was an urgent need. For this I enlisted the help of some individuals knowledgeable in the field of large-scale state-sponsored biological weapons programs. This project was not sponsored by USAMRIID but was my individual effort. When the training outline was completed, I gave a copy to the Commander of USAMRIID and the Special Operations / Low Intensity Conflict Office at the Pentagon in November 1998.” In his deposition in Hatfill v Ashcroft he stated, “First I did not consider myself an insider in U.S. biodefense. I wasn’t skilled in working with anthrax. Up to date vaccination was not true. I had no training or experience in covering evidence. That’s not me. ‘May have had an UNSCOM connection?’ That was before my time.”

In 1998 Hatfill was an instructor at the CIA’s Non-Proliferation Course and he was also an instructor at the DIA’s Joint Military Attaché School (DHM-3C). In 1998 Hatfill co-authored a manuscript titled “Flexible and Rapid Mass Casualty Redistribution Following Large Area Urban Coverage by Chemical and Biological Warfare Agents.” Presumably also in 1998 Hatfill submitted a manuscript titled “Integration of the First Responder ALERT System with DSWA (Defense Special Weapons Agency formerly Defense Nuclear Agency) and DARPA (Defense Program Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Consequence Management Technologies for an Improved Non-military Defense Against Chemical and Biological Terrorism” and prepared a manuscript with John Huggins, Michael Bray and M. Matrinez entitled “Cidofovir Treatment for Smallpox and Monkeypox Orthopoxvirus Infections.” In December 1998, at Temple Beth Ami in Rockville, Maryland he “described the problems encountered with developing anthrax as a weapon.” On January 20, 1999 National Institute of Child Health and Human Development lab head Leonid Margolis reported that he had changed Hatfill’s termination to December 31, 1998.

Hatfill said he was immunized against anthrax at this time. Hatfill: “Like all researchers, working at Building 1412 at Fort Detrick previously, I had received a limited number of anthrax vaccinations. This is required for all researchers. However, a yearly booster is required to maintain immunity. I have last been inoculated in my records beginning in 1999, and since December 2000, I am as susceptible to anthrax as any of you.” A study done in the 1990’s at Fort Detrick revealed that seven out of eight monkeys given two doses of anthrax vaccine two weeks apart were protected for two years.[lxx] In September 1999, Hatfill co-authored an article in The Journal of Surgical Services Management entitled “Answering the Chemical and Biological Warfare Threat,” which urged the public health community to step up efforts prepare for a chemical or biological attack. On September 1, 1999 Hatfill gave a briefing at the U.S. Army Command Center at the Pentagon. On September 21, 1999 Hatfill spoke at the VA Hospital Regional Conference on “The Large Area Coverage Biological Incident.”

SAIC: Hatfill, “During the last few months of my National Research Council fellowship [at Fort Detrick], I was offered a job by Science Applications International Corp (SAIC), which I took. The salary I was offered was well above the $48,000 dollars a year I made while risking my life to perform research on the Ebola virus. I started at SAIC in January 1999, and became a leading instructor of the National Domestic Preparedness Weapons of Mass Destruction Hospital Casualty Management Course, as well as for a Veterans Administration training program for the management of casualties caused by Weapons of Mass Destruction. I also served as an observer and evaluator for TOPOFF 1, the largest national biological warfare management exercise ever conducted in this country. I developed a special biological warfare defense curriculum for the U.S. State Department and trained U.S. Embassy Medical Personnel in Egypt and Thailand. I served as a technical consultant to operational units of the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy and instructed at the Military Defense Attaché Training School. In 1999 I designed and implemented the Biological Weapons Defense section of a WMD training package conducted for the United States Air Force, and helped deliver this on-site at Insurlik AFB – Turkey, Lakenheath AFB-England, and Misawa AFB, Japan. I visited USAMRIID on business on several occasions during my time with SAIC, and I taught at USAMRIID several times. During all these visits I was treated just like any other visitor to the Institute. I had to pass through security, and had to have a constant escort until the time that I left the building. At no time was I near any of the laboratories.”

In January 1999 Hatfill was granted a Secret Clearance by the Department of Defense to work at the McLean, Virginia offices of SAIC, a large defense contractor, headed by Admiral Bobby Inman, a high ranking member of America’s intelligence community. With a sprawling campus in McLean, it did work for a multitude of federal agencies. Many projects were classified, and SAIC's tight relationship with the CIA had led to a standing one-liner: "What is SAIC spelled backwards?" CIA’S. At SAIC Hatfill trained U.S. Special Forces, embassy employees, emergency workers, and other government officials to respond to biological attacks, served as a lecturer for the State Department on the medical effects of chemical and biological agents. Judge Claude M. Hilton ruled, “Plaintiff designed and gave classified lectures on biological weapon production to the CIA, the DIA, and special operations units of the armed forces. In addition, Plaintiff attended a classified lecture, which described the process for producing powdered anthrax, and on at least one occasion, delivered a lecture on weaponizing anthrax. In September 1999, Plaintiff co-authored an article in The Journal Surgical Services Management entitled “Answering the Chemical and Biological Warfare Threat,” which urged the public health community to step up efforts prepare for a chemical or biological attack. Pursuant to a SAIC contract with the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, Plaintiff supervised the creation of a simulated biological weapons laboratory inside a shipping container and trained forces how to recognize and destroy such containers. Government officials sought Plaintiff’s advice on matters of national security and bioterrorism, and considered him an expert in biological weaponry.” At SAIC, Hatfill designed and taught bioterror preparedness courses, but his responsibilities also included "black," or classified, biowarfare projects. One of Hatfill's major roles was working with the Joint Special Operations Command, which handled U.S. military counterterrorism operations. At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Hatfill led grueling training for Army commandos preparing for covert missions to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction, according to friends and former colleagues. He conducted counter-terrorism training for Defense Intelligence agents and did a "super job," says DIA spokesman Don Black.

Glasberg claimed that at Science Applications International, “he got low-level security clearance for one project.” In his resume Hatfill stated that he held a Secret Security Clearance. Hatfill wrote, “After being hired and starting work at SAIC, I received an interim Department of Defense contractor Secret clearance and a full contractor Secret clearance some months later. I used this clearance only a few weeks each year, if I was tasked to work on occasional classified projects for the Armed Forces. The vast majority of my work at SAIC pertained to non-classified established projects being implemented by the United States Department of Defense, Health and Human Services, and Justice. On top of my long work hours, I continued to maintain a small teaching schedule for several government agencies, including the CIA, the Navy, the Army and occasionally the Marines or Capitol Police. Most of these lectures were done at the unclassified level, and often for free, as a public service in the national interest.”

SAIC is heavily involved in counter-terrorism: David A. Kay, senior vice president of the SAIC is a former UNSCOM inspector who led the initial nuclear inspections in Iraq in the early 1990's.[lxxi] Hatfill would blame Kay for his dismissal from SAIC. SAIC honcho Ben Haddad stated that his company was involved in the war in Iraq, but he refused to discuss how. Many of SAIC's long-standing defense contracts involved supporting the command and control centers for U.S. military or intelligence agencies.

On February 3, 1999 Hatfill gave a briefing to the Underground Facilities Working Group, DARPA. In February 1999 Hatfill attended a Chemical and Biological Weapons Proliferation Course that was entitled: “Principles of Chemical and Biological Weapon Development, Dual Use and Dedicated Production Facilities, Munitions, and Weapons Effects Countermeasures. Sponsored by the CIA Biological Warfare Division.”

While at SAIC Hatfill and Dr. Joseph Soukup commissioned a 28-page report dated February 1999 depicting a hypothetical anthrax attack by mail. In April 1999 Hatfill attended a course entitled: “Toxic Chemical Training Course for Medical Support Personnel” that was sponsored by U.S. Army Medical Command and conducted at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Edgewood Area, Maryland. “Mandatory Training Program Under (AR) 50-6 for Chemical Warfare Duty Positions.” On April 20, 1999 Hatfill presented a paper entitled “Technology Working Group on Rapid Diagnostics” to the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies.

In late 1999 Hatfill was arrested for public drunkenness at 4 a.m. in McLean, Virginia. Hatfill's attorney, Thomas Carter, described Hatfill to the judge as a “medical doctor holding an extremely important position in government. He is on a government assignment in Cairo and Bangkok until December 2, 1999.” The charges were dropped. On February 17, 2000 Hatfill was in Japan at the International US / Japan Joint Conference on Disaster Preparedness in Tokyo speaking about “Roles of Information Technology in Consequence Management of Large-Scale Biological Attack.” In August 2000 Hatfill trained forces at MacDill Air Force Base, in Tampa, using a makeshift bioterror kitchen lab that he built himself out of scavenged parts, as well as biosafety cabinets taken [or borrowed] from USAMRIID. In October 2000 Hatfill completed studies with both the USAMRIID in management of biological warfare casualties and with the CIA on bioweapons proliferation.[lxxii]

In the Spring or Summer of 2001 Hatfill told his college alumni magazine “Steven Hatfill [Southwestern College, Winfield, Kansas] 1975 is a specialist in biological warfare and its defense, and has completed training to become a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq. The training involved five weeks of intensive study in France with 52 other scientists from U.N. member nations. When inspectors are given permission to re-enter Iraq, Hatfill will be on the first team of inspectors. The U.N. training continues a peripatetic career that began while Hatfill was studying for his biology degree at Southwestern: He took a year off to work with a Methodist doctor in Africa. After graduating from SC Hatfill received a medical degree from the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine in Rhodesia, with board certification in hematological pathology from South Africa. The South African government recruited him to be medical officer on a one-year tour of duty in Antarctica, and he completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Oxford University in England. He has three separate master's degrees in microbial genetics, medical biochemistry, and experimental pathology, as well as a Ph.D. in molecular cellular biology. Hatfill's postdoctoral appointments include the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland and USAMRIID at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where he studied new drug treatments for the Ebola virus. His military background includes the United States Army's Institute for Military Assistance, the Rhodesian SAS, and Selous Scouts. He holds certifications in military aviation medicine, and diving and submarine medicine. Hatfill now works for SAIC and lives in Frederick, Maryland.”[lxxiii]

In September 2001 Hatfill was also a consultant for the Navy Seals, designing mock bioterror training devices, including a backpack that could be used to spray deadly germs on the battlefield. He trained CIA agents in counter-proliferation, and visited U.S. embassies to lecture on bioterrorism preparedness.

HATFILL’S ALIBI: Hatfill released a time sheet from Science Applications International Corp that shows that on the days when the letters were probably mailed, September 17, 2001 and September 18, 2001 he put in 14, 13.5 hours respectively. His timesheet shows a lot of work activity for those days, with more entries than the days before them and after them. Was Hatfill establishing an alibi for the days of the mailing by working long hours, and then instead of returning home after work driving four hours to Princeton and four hours back? This would be a total of 22 hours leaving two hours to sew up any loose ends. Hatfill could have made the eight-hour roundtrip to New Jersey, mailed the letters and gone to work the next day. He did not live in doorman building. Nobody kept track of whether his car was in the lot or not. He has no wife or kids staying with him. He is a physically strong individual and missing a night's sleep wouldn't affect him.

Hatfill has time sheets that he presented at his press conference that indicated that he was credited for 13, and 11.25 hours of work in that company's McLean, Virginia offices on Columbus Day Monday October 8, 2001 and Tuesday October 9, 2001 respectively. This was when anthrax letters were allegedly mailed from New Jersey, which Hatfill claimed would have made a 8 hour roundtrip from SAIC offices in suburban McLean, Virginia, to central New Jersey unlikely. National Public Radio confirmed that on Saturday October 6, 2001 Hatfill was at a wedding in Baltimore with his girlfriend. On Sunday October 7, 2001 he claimed he had a hangover at was at his girlfriends’ apartment sleeping it off.

Hatfill could have gotten off work at 8 pm on Monday October 8, 2001 or Tuesday October 9, 2001 driven 8 hours to Princeton and back, mailed the letters and gone to work the next morning. Or he could have driven down to Princeton on Sunday or Sunday night assuming that his girlfriend had agreed to alibi him. Peck Chegne is his alibi for that Sunday and Sunday night, the only one to see him all day as he slept. Peck Chegne is a Malaysian-born widowed mother of two who had come to the United States from Kuala Lumpur and worked at a financial consulting firm. We have to take her word that he was inside with her all day and night. Alibis from close family members are regarded with suspicion by law enforcement however I can’t see her providing an alibi for a mass murderer. When Peck hooked up with Steve she never signed on for homicide.

Hatfill stated, “It is definitely not good to be the girlfriend of a person of interest. My girlfriend was locked inside an FBI car and hauled off to FBI headquarters and interrogated for hours, without once being told she has the right to leave any time she wished. Her requests for a lawyer were delayed and made difficult. 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. She was screamed at by FBI agents and told that the FBI had firm evidence that I had killed five innocent people. This was told to her by FBI agent Jennifer Grant and FBI agent Pamela Lane. Can you imagine that? The FBI trumpets that I am not a suspect, and the woman I love is told the FBI -- told by the FBI that I am a murderer. This is the life of a person of interest, Mr. Ashcroft. But that's not all. My girlfriend was told that she better take a polygraph examination and cooperate, or else. Her home checkbooks, computers, private papers and car were seized. As for her home, it was completely trashed, as is appropriate for the home of a girlfriend of a person of interest. Some of her delicate pottery was smashed. The glass on a $3,000 painting was broken. This painting was wrapped in bubble wrap, by the way. Neatly stacked boxes awaiting shipment to her new home were ripped open, instead of opened with due regard to their contents. Ladies and gentlemen, we have pictures of how FBI left this apartment, her apartment, which, at the time of the raid, was neatly prepared for a move to Louisiana, with all her belongings packed in nicely stacked boxes. This is one of the pictures. I refuse to allow my girlfriend -- to this treatment, as the girlfriend of a person of interest. She is not here today. I love you. I will not state her name here [Peck Chegne b 1958]. And I ask the news media, please, for common decency, if you know it, please leave her alone. She will not make a statement.” The Feds didn’t buy the alibi as it relied solely on her word and not the word of neutral, uninvolved parties.

Hatfill, “We know that four anthrax letters were mailed September 17, 2001 September 18, 2001 and October 8, 2001 and October 9, 2001. On these days, as indeed for many weeks after September 11, my colleagues and I at SAIC were working overtime in our McLean, Virginia, office on national defense issues. My time sheets from the company, which are being distributed here, show that on these days I worked respectively 14 hours, 13 1/2 hours, 13 hours, and 11 1/4 hours at the office. Yes, I know, it's possible that time cards could have been altered. Well, I'll tell you SAIC goes to extreme lengths to ensure this process can't happen. In addition, the FBI long ago interviewed all of my colleagues at SAIC, and each confirmed that I was, like them, continuously hard at work in the office during this entire period. All right then, I could have driven or surreptitiously somehow transported myself to Trenton or Princeton or wherever from the D.C. area, mailed the letters and returned unnoticed. With any luck, I would not have been caught speeding on the highway, and maybe I could have made the eight-hour round trip in enough time to return to work unnoticed and exhausted and continued with another 13-hour day. I have little to say about the nonsense of this sort. If it pleases you to advance and research this theory, then please the more power to you. As for me, I was living and working in the D.C. area the entire time when the anthrax letters were mailed. Mr. Ashcroft knows this -- or he should know this, notwithstanding my status as a person of interest.”

In early November 2001 Hatfill taught two weeks of counterterrorism training for the Defense Intelligence Agency. Dressed in military clothing, Hatfill used role-playing exercises to teach agents how to negotiate with Afghani tribal leaders. DIA officials thought so highly of Hatfill that they appealed to SAIC in March 2002 to let him train another group of intelligence agents bound for Afghanistan with or without a CIA clearance. SAIC had fired Hatfill, who was coming under increasing scrutiny from the FBI. But the company agreed to let him stay on as a volunteer to run the course, which included a mock bioterror attack staged in an old West Virginia highway tunnel. At night, he camped under the stars.

In November 2001 Hatfill published “Haematological, Biochemical and Coagulation Changes in Mice, Guinea-pigs and Monkeys Infected with a Mouse-adapted Variant of Ebola Zaire Virus” in the Journal of Comparative Pathology. “Ebola Zaire virus from the 1976 outbreak (EBO-Z) was recently adapted to the stage of lethal virulence in BALB/c mice through serial passage. In the present study, various parameters were examined in groups of mice and guinea pigs and in three rhesus monkeys after infection with mouse-adapted EBO-Z. The virus caused fatal disease not only in mice but also in guinea pigs, in which the course of illness resembled that produced by guinea-pig-adapted EBO-Z. Mice, guinea pigs and monkeys showed similar hematological and biochemical disturbances, but coagulopathy was less striking in mice than in the other two species. The virus caused severe illness in all three monkeys, one of which died. In the lethally infected monkey the degree of viraemia and the hematological, serum biochemical and coagulation changes were greater than in the other two animals, an observation that may prove to be of value in predicting fatal outcome. All three monkeys developed disseminated intravascular coagulation. The two survivors were completely resistant to challenge one year later with non-adapted EBO-Z. In general, the clinical and pathological changes produced in the three species resembled those previously described in guinea pigs and non-human primates infected with non-mouse-adapted EBO-Z. It was noteworthy, however, that mouse-adaptation appeared to have resulted in a degree of attenuation for monkeys.”

During November 12, 2001 to November 23, 2001 Hatfill was at Porton Down where he trained as a United Nations bioweapons inspector so he could be on call to go to Iraq. During the course he worked with other scientists inside a mock-up of an Iraqi germ warfare laboratory, which might be concealed as an innocent looking diary or brewery or pharmaceutical plant. Hatfill did very well in the course, favorably impressing instructors with his intelligence and forceful personality. “He asked all the right questions and was likable and outgoing,” said one. Hatfill went along with the view that Sadaam Hussein was behind the anthrax letters. “We have got to stop him,” he said. He told the other would-be inspectors that he was going to spend his free weekend at Oxford, where he had worked at the John Radcliffe Hospital in the mid-1990's. His travel expenses to Britain were paid by the Foreign Office.

In March 2002 Hatfill lectured at a training session for the DIA's Chemical and Biological Intelligence Support Team at Camp Dawson, West Virginia. The DIA was training agents to work in Afghanistan, then to later go to Iraq and other countries suspected of conducting bioweapons programs. These DIA and CIA agents were placed in the 75^th Exploitation Task Force, which searched for WMD in Iraq. The DIA had to beg SAIC to allow Hatfill, who had lost his security clearance, to participate. For this work Hatfill received letters of accommodation from the DIA and the State Department. The State Department commented: “An employee of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security wrote a letter of recommendation last summer. It was written without proper authorization and was not cleared elsewhere in the State Department, so it was personal views of an employee who worked with him.”[lxxiv] Hatfill continued to work on the germ trainer doing it on his own, using his own money, even after he lost his clearance and received no further pay.

Hatfill blamed his dismissal from SAIC on David Kay: “Finally, Plaintiff challenges the statement that his private writings showed animus to federal agencies. Plaintiff claims that one writing in particular only showed dissatisfaction with one individual, an individual who was instrumental in suspending his security clearance. However, Plaintiff also authored a letter writing, in which he described the government’s conclusions with respect to a CIA security decision as dated and illogical. Plaintiff has offered no evidence to contradict the veracity of these facts, or of the underlying gist that Plaintiff was displeased with the government’s decision to terminate his security clearance.”[lxxv] Victor Glasberg said SAIC has since offered Hatfill settlement payments, which he rejected, and more work, which he accepted. Hatfill: “Ironically, I was called back to SAIC on numerous occasions to assist with projects I started as well as to help with new projects. SAIC eventually had to contract for my continued services through Louisiana State University.” A spokesperson for the State Department and for SAIC confirmed that Hatfill worked on a SAIC-State Department contract in the spring 2002, after Louisiana State University hired him. While he was still at SAIC, Hatfill helped create the biological warfare defense program for the State Department, according to Benjamin A. Haddad of SAIC. The public affairs office for the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security confirmed that SAIC holds that contract, and that Hatfill worked on it after he went to Louisiana State University “for a brief period of time, probably for about a month, from April to May 2002.” Hatfill was on Louisiana State University’s payroll by the end of April. Still living in Maryland, he was an adjunct professor who prepared course materials for training police and other emergency workers who respond to terrorist attacks. Hatfill traveled to Baton Rouge in order to find an apartment as he was eventually going to move there. He also worked on the program to protect State Department personnel and State Department facilities from terrorist attacks.

Hatfill attended a State Department meeting on embassy security in postwar Afghanistan. FBI agents interviewed Hatfill for two-hours in March 2002. A brief search of his apartment was conducted. In all the FBI interviewed Hatfill four times during this period. On May 9, 2002 Washington, D.C. police stopped Hatfill’s vehicle. Hatfill was drunk and didn't have a driver's license. He refused to take a sobriety test and told the officers to go to hell. He eventually pleaded guilty to driving while impaired and was sentenced to 11 months of supervised probation. Hatfill was supposed to lecture at a conference entitled “Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Frightening Future for Primary Care Providers” in May 2002 - June 2002 but the conference was canceled.

Hatfill wrote, “In June 2002, one Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a self-proclaimed biological weapons expert whom I do not know, with whom I have never spoken or corresponded, and who to my knowledge is ignorant of my work and background except in the broadest of terms, saw fit to denounce me as a prime suspect in the anthrax letters in meetings with Senate staffers involved with the anthrax inquiry. The only thing I know about her views is that she and I apparently differed on whether the United States should sign onto a proposed modification of the International Biological Weapons Convention. This was something I opposed and I believe she favored. One week after Dr. Rosenberg’s comments, the FBI asked if its agents could have a look at my apartment and swab the walls for anthrax spores. I was surprised at the request. After all, anthrax is a deadly substance. Like all researchers working in building #1412 at Fort Detrick I had been inoculated against anthrax. But a yearly booster is required to maintain immunity and I had last been inoculated in 1999. Since December 2000 I was – and have been – as susceptible to anthrax infection as any of you. So I was surprised at the notion that I might have brought anthrax to my home and would have been amused were it not for the fact that the matter was so serious. I agreed without hesitation and signed the forms to have my car, apartment, and a small storage area in Florida examined. I keep some books, a couple of paintings, and some big game horns from Africa stored in the Florida site. The FBI agents had promised that the search would be quiet, private and low-key. Within minutes of signing the release to have my residence and car searched, however, television cameras, satellite TV trucks, reporters and a news helicopter were swarming around my apartment block. FBI personnel arrived in a huge truck with hazardous materials technicians fully garbed in protective gear – space suits. I had previously actually helped train some of the FBI personnel doing the search of my apartment. Responding to my surprise and dismay, the agent in charge apologized to me saying that the request for the search had come from high up. It was clear from the media circus that this was not an ordinary investigatory initiative. A written and televised media frenzy ensued (and continues to date) with reporters and columnists writing, stating and repeating the most outlandish defamatory accusations possible about me. Repeated senior FBI statements that I am not a suspect, that nothing has been found to implicate me in the crimes at issue, and that I have at all times readily cooperated with the investigatory authorities, have fallen on deaf ears. The individual FBI agents with whom I came in contact during this entire process are sons and daughters of which America can be justifiably proud. They are fine men and women doing their best to protect their country. As a scientist in the field of biological warfare defense, I had never had any reservations about assisting in the anthrax investigation in any way that I could. This is the price we pay for choosing to work in this field, and the cost is more than offset by the satisfaction we all gain in doing work that is important for the security of our country.”

Within a week of Professor Rosenberg’s meetings on Capitol Hill, on June 25, 2002 the FBI conducted another consensual search of Hatfill’s apartment. The evidence taken in that search was returned on July 12, 2002. FBI Special Agent Robert Roth stated, “I talked to him on – around July 27, 2002 or so because he had promised to come back in to finish that polygraph and I think that’s the point at which he said he injected Glasberg into the deal and said he wasn’t going to sit for the poly. And August 1, 2002 when we did the search warrant and a subpoena I served on him probably a year and a half ago. At least a couple of times returning evidence. So whatever we’re up to. I didn’t count how many times it was [I spoke with him].” On the day of the search, Dr. Hatfill had agreed to meet with FBI special agents assigned to the Washington Field Office. The meeting was held at an office leased by the FBI in Frederick, Maryland, approximately 50 miles from Washington, D.C. At the conclusion of the meeting, Dr. Hatfill consented to have FBI agents search his Frederick, Maryland apartment. A dozen FBI agents searched a refrigerated mini-storage unit in downtown Ocala, Florida. These agents removed boxes from a locker rented by Hatfill after his parents sold their horse farm 12 miles west of Ocala. The items that were removed included videotapes, film and photographs. On Hatfill’s computer hard drive; agents discovered the first draft of Emergence. The FBI indicated it found no anthrax and had anthrax spores been found in Dr. Steven J. Hatfill's Frederick apartment, he would be in jail.[lxxvi] The FBI also conducted a second search of Dr. Hatfill’s storage unit in Ocala, Florida and again the press was present. There were four searches—two of Dr. Hatfill’s apartment and two of his Florida storage unit. The FBI seized several items in these searches, including notes regarding the anthrax mailings, a container of Cipro, an antibiotic effective against anthrax and a spinner flask of anthrax stimulant.

June 25, 2002 was the next time Hatfill agreed to speak with FBI Agents: Bob Roth: “It was my understanding to keep him close by for questions. Because typically when I do consent searches, I actually want the person right there with me. For clarification if nothing else. You find something and you may not understand why is this here? There may be a very legitimate reason why this is here. And so you want – because they are the one who gave you consent to do the search, obviously.”

Stephen L. Guillot Jr., director of the National Center for Biomedical Research and Training at Louisiana State University, said that the FBI contacted him a few days after agents searched Hatfill's apartment and storage unit. “They told me Steve was not a suspect and was not on any list.” Guillot said. He said he was satisfied that Hatfill had been cleared of any role in the anthrax mailings. Hatfill wrote, “On leaving SAIC I secured a position with Louisiana State University to wrote with a consortium of universities on important federally funded problems for biological defense. I was constantly being called back to SAIC to assist with project I had started, as well as to help with new projects. SAIC eventually undertook to contract for my continued services through Louisiana State University, a process that continues today (July 2002). I continued to work wit SAIC because of the close association I had with my superb team there and my desire to help as requested in the completion of important contracts. I consider several of the projects in question to be of national importance for the defense of my country.”

Hatfill lectured at Louisiana State University, and on July 1, 2002, became a brief full-time employee for Louisiana State University, where he played a role in the TOPOFF program, a massive, federal program begun in 2000 to “test” the reactions of government agencies in the face of simulated terrorism events. Hatfill design a single simulated biological weapon “scenario” involving release of the plague virus for TOPOFF. Hatfill claimed to have worked just one afternoon on this project, and claimed his role was unknown to some of the personnel responsible for the project.[lxxvii] Hatfill had a role in the management of TOPOFF and in the administration or evaluation of any “tests” given. Hatfill was an associate director of Louisiana State University's National Center for Biomedical Research and Training, which is supported by grants from the Justice Department to train emergency personnel to handle bioterrorist attacks. His job title was Associate Director, Division of Continuing Education and his salary $150,000 a year.

The State Department’s position was that Hatfill was a contract employee with SAIC. The State Department had a contract with SAIC to provide advice and guidance on the training programs in our Chemical Biological Countermeasures Office of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security. Dr. Hatfill worked on this program part-time, as part of this contract, from mid-April 2002 until mid-June 2002.

On August 1, 2002 the FBI told Glasberg that it wished to conduct another search of Hatfill’s home. The way the FBI saw it Hatfill refused so the agents obtained a search warrant and tossed his crib. “Upon learning from Dr. Hatfill that the search was underway, Glasberg phoned Special Agent Roth to ask why he had ignored his voicemail message offering to cooperate. Special Agent Roth acknowledged listening to the phone message, but contended he did not understand the offer of cooperation. Glasberg requested that Special Agent Roth save the voicemail message to settle the issue of its content. Special Agent Roth refused to guarantee the safekeeping of the voicemail. Glasberg then wrote to Kenneth Kohl, the Assistant United States Attorney for the District of Columbia assigned to the anthrax investigation, to alert him to the situation and request the voicemail message be secured. Kohl never responded to Mr. Glasberg’s letter. Hatfill does not know whether the government preserved or destroyed this evidence.”

Glasberg claimed that Hatfill refused another polygraph test on his advice, but was willing to co-operate with the FBI. As stated searching his refrigerator, agents found a canister of Bacillus thuringiensis, or BT a pesticide widely used on insects—which USAMRIID adopted for study in 1995, after UNSCOM discovered that BT was Iraq’s favored anthrax simulant. On August 1, 2002 the FBI questioned Hatfill at a nearby hotel while they tossed his pad after obtaining a search warrant. FBI SA Bradley Garrett: “We took him out away from the apartment complex so they [the media] would not have access to him. Well, we did go to a hotel.” After this August 2002 search Hatfill was put on thirty-day administrative paid leave from his job at Louisiana State University on August 2, 2002.

Through Clawson, Hatfill issued a statement saying, "I'm becoming desperate to find ways to clear my name, and I'm willing to consider any scientific test that may be appropriate." The FBI was willing to oblige:

August 2002 was a big Hatfill month. Attorney General Ashcroft, or one of his deputies, approved the FBI's installation of electronic eavesdropping equipment in Hatfill's apartment and on his private residential telephone line. Since that time, special agents of the FBI have listened in on every conversation Hatfill has had while in his apartment or while using his telephone. In order to initially obtain a court order to electronically eavesdrop on Dr. Hatfill, and for each subsequent monthly extension of that Title III order, an FBI special agent was required to swear under oath to a federal district court judge that there was probable cause for belief that particular communications concerning [the anthrax murders] will be obtained through such interception. Government agents have been aware since the fall of 2002 that Dr. Hatfill knew of the electronic surveillance.

Patrick Clawson reported: “The FBI is following him. Surveillance comes and goes. Some days it's very intense; some days it's not visible at all. But the FBI has been continuing their investigation of him. And apparently they are coming up empty. And not long ago they were following him very closely on the Interstate - he was driving from D.C. up to Frederick Maryland, and they were in front of him, behind him and on the side of him as he was going up the freeway.”

The FBI was not intent on preventing his escape, it was making sure he didn’t mail out any more anthrax. Pat Clawson: “The FBI has used a cavalcade of vehicles, and Hatfill is driving around Baton Rouge with FBI agents two or three feet off his bumper. Hatfill occasionally has tried to speak with the FBI agents, but they have ignored him.” On several separate evenings, Hatfill and Clawson said, a virtual caravan of cars set out behind Hatfill, some racing ahead while others kept on his bumper. Hatfill believes that his telephone is wiretapped and that the night he received a telephone invitation to meet a friend and get some fresh, homemade potato soup, the FBI agents heard the call and set out after him. He said he believes five cars followed him. He met his friend at a restaurant in Northern Virginia and had an ice tea. While he was in the restaurant two people came in who he believes were FBI agents. After he picked up the soup and started to leave, he said his friend approached a black Mustang with two men it and offered them his business card, but they refused to talk to him. Later in the evening, after Hatfill returned home, a surveillance car drove past his residence with a video camera openly pointed out the window. The FBI was finally doing something right! Hatfill volunteered to wear a portable GPS electronic tracking system at all times so that the FBI could know his whereabouts. The FBI declined his offer. He also offered to let an FBI agent or employee ride with him. This offer was also declined.

Hatfill was leaving his Maryland apartment for a new residence in Louisiana and threw some stuff he no longer needed in a dumpster behind the complex. The FBI, who had him under surveillance, assumed he was destroying evidence. With this information the FBI got a search warrant and searched his apartment for a third time and also searched the trash containers in front of Hatfill's home. Neighbors found a suit to protect against chemical contamination, a vest with loops to attach 40 rocket-propelled grenades (a souvenir from the grenade attack on the ANC office), and a “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” technical manual, a 30-pound dumbbell, a Purple Heart medal and a rug with the CIA emblem emblazoned on a field of blue.[lxxviii]

Hatfill stated in August 2002, “I want to give you, the American people, an idea of what it is like to be named a person of interest by the attorney general of the United States. John Ashcroft has now twice publicly told the American people that I am a person of interest in last year's anthrax attacks. Most recently, several days ago at a news conference in Newark, New Jersey, the FBI says I am not a suspect, and then it does not use the term, ‘person of interest.’ Mr. Ashcroft, however, continues to do this publicly, and I am here to complain about this and its consequences. My attorneys have filed an ethics complaint on Mr. Ashcroft's conduct, as well as that of others involved in this matter. And I will be very interested to learn how well the Justice Department will police itself. Mr. Ashcroft has repeatedly testified to his strong Christian values, and I highly respect him for this. Unlike many others, I was delighted when he was selected for his appointment to this high public office. In practice, however, by openly, repeatedly naming me as a person of interest, Mr. Ashcroft has not only violated Justice Department regulations and guidelines, which bind him as the nation's top law enforcement official, but in my view, he has broken the 9th commandment: Thou shalt not bear false witness. I have never met Mr. Ashcroft. I don't know him. I've never spoken with him. And I do not understand his personalized focus on me.”

Hatfill tried to sound like a fundamentalist Christian. He knew he could not con Ashcroft who had studied the FBI documents on him and knew he had a checkered past but he might be able to convince the American public that he was just another Christian Republican who had been singled out for no good reason.

“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, either because of the crime is too difficult to solve or because the authorities are proceeding in what can mildly be called a wrong-headed manner.”

Hatfill was taunting the FBI when he said the crime is too difficult to solve because he knew he had outsmarted the FBI. “A wrong-headed manner” meant that the FBI should not be looking for a rogue scientist but should be focusing on Iraq. Wrong-headed sounds like ass ways to me. But Hatfill knows best. Hatfill is the third foremost authority on biological warfare in the US. The Federal Government should have listened to Hatfill as he was always “right-headed” then there would have been no need for the wake up call. Hatfill kept bellyaching about being called a person of interest – Hatfill’s attorney explained, “To prioritize the various leads that needed to be investigated, the FBI created a formal list of persons of interest. This term – which was invented specifically for this investigation by Special Agents John Kerr and Bob Roth – was a way of classifying persons who met one or more specific criteria that justified further investigative scrutiny. Generally speaking, the more criteria a person happened to meet, the higher that person would be on the constantly changing list. The reason a new term was invented was that the persons of interest list was intended by the FBI to include people who were very definitely not suspects or subjects; indeed, agents recognized from the start that the vast majority of persons of interest were innocent of any wrongdoing, and in many cases entirely above suspicion. The agents also recognized, however, that if the names of these persons of interest were made public, it would be bad for the investigation and even worse for the people named. Among other things, publication of someone’s person of interest status had the potential to stigmatize and humiliate that person, subject him to a risk of physical harm, and interfere with his employment and other relationships. It could also compromise the investigation by providing the perpetrator(s) with a roadmap of how the investigation was proceeding, or by influencing statements made to investigators or by helping associates of the persons of interest evade questioning. For these reasons, the person of interest list was designed only for internal FBI use.” Actually the FBI was being polite when it labeled Hatfill POI because in reality he was a full-fledged suspect.

Hatfill continued, “It then becomes unnecessary for the FBI and other authorities to produce a warm body, but since there's no suspect and the authorities have nothing on which to base a prosecution, they pick a serviceable target. This should preferably be a person about whom mysterious questions can be raised, someone with an interesting or colorful background.”

In other words law enforcement should ignore the fact that Hatfill was a soldier in Rhodesia assigned to the Selous Scouts because it is too romantic, as if it were taken from some adventure novel about a soldier of fortune.

“Then they give him a prejudicial label, person of interest. And they leak appropriate rumor and innuendo to the press. Then they sit back and watch uncharged and presumptively innocent person be picked apart by journalists looking for hot stories. It soon becomes inconsequential that the stories have no bearing on the crime at issue. What is useful is that the FBI can be seen to be on the job. The press is hot on the trail and the public is satisfied, as Mr. Ashcroft continues to say without any explanation that progress in anthrax letter attacks is being made. God help us all if the FBI's pursuit of Mr. Ashcroft's person of interest -- me -- represents that progress.”

The Scott Shane and Nick Kristof reporting had a bearing on the crime at issue. The press would not have cared about the details of Hatfill’s life had he not been a suspect in the anthrax attacks.

“I helped bring into being a useful bio-defense training program for first responders, police and fire departments. Because of this label as a person of interest, reporters have -- some reporters have placed a malicious and absurd interpretation on this, and suggested it's not a blueprint for this, but it's a blueprint for the anthrax attacks. Rising to the occasion, the FBI grilled me about this. Almost a quarter century ago, I lived in a city that had a suburb named Greendale. The FBI and some in media willingly linked this with a nonexistent Greendale school that appeared in the return address on four anthrax letters. ABC News even reported as a fact that I lived next door to that nonexistent school for four years, citing unidentified government gumshoes.” There was a middle school located in Greendale that was informally known as Greendale. But even if there was not, the Greendale suburb link still remained.

“Reporters and conspiracy nuts have laid out my entire life history on the Internet. My daughter, a policewoman in Detroit, with a child, even found her name and home address published, a reckless and dangerous act that invites retaliation from criminals, as every police officer will tell you.”

This was a reference to the material I posted on the Jewish Defense Organization website. Hatfill calls me a conspiracy nut because I co-authored a book that stated that rogue elements of the CIA were involved in the John Kennedy assassination. I never posted his daughters home address. According to the internet archives on October 3, 2002 the website contained these words, “The accident was on 23 Mile Road, about 10 miles north of his and Kamin’s residence. Kamin, who became a policewoman, was married on March 1, 1997, in St. Clare Shores, Michigan to William Harry Bode.” Clawson said it was another website but did not have the URL, however, he does have a printout of the site.

“Remember your own travail, Mr. Ashcroft, when persons opposed to your selection as attorney general dug up elements of your past? I could dwell on this at length, but my principles bar me from doing so here. In any event, Mr. Ashcroft, you asked for that. I did not. And I wonder how you would cope, being on the end of media frenzy that I have been enduring this entire summer. When the attorney general as a person of interest labels you, presumptively responsible persons seem to lose all inhibitions in referring to you.”

In 1998, Ashcroft gave an interview to the Southern Partisan, a South Carolina White Supremacist quarterly promoting the Confederacy, slavery and Jim Crow. Ashcroft said, "Your magazine also helps set the record straight. You've got a heritage of doing that, of defending Southern patriots like [Robert E.] Lee, [Stonewall] Jackson and Davis. Traditionalists must do more. I've got to do more. We've all got to stand up and speak in this respect, or else we'll be taught that these people were giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted agenda." When Ashcroft was Attorney General of Missouri he fought against integration. In other words Hatfill is suggesting the both himself and the AG were wrongly labeled “racists.”

“Following my first press appearance, Mr. Kristof once again wrote about me. Once again, his column was inaccurate. He said, for example, that I had failed three successive polygraph examinations since January. This is a total lie. 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 and the examiner was satisfied that I had told the truth. In any event, Mr. Kristof never called me about this allegation, nor did he call my attorney, nor my friend Pat Clawson, who's been helping me with this news media hurricane. Mr. Kristof, why do you write such things? Why did you not at least check your facts or ask comment from my representatives or me? What have I done to injure you in this manner? I have another question, too. Why do you permit yourself to be used as a vehicle to leak irreparably damaging information about me to the public? Such as for example, your statement that I was under constant surveillance by the FBI? It's bad enough that that statement is true, and I lived with the consequences. But must it be gratuitously broadcast so that others might keep away from me from fear of contamination? Why is it necessary, right or fair, Mr. Kristof, for you to write these things? The answer, of course, is that I am a person of interest, as well as to Nicholas Kristof and the Attorney General, John Ashcroft. We are today distributing copies of my lawyer's communications with the Times and Mr. Kristof about these matters, and will agree to publish an op-ed reply from me to what they have published about me for months. So far they have not agreed to do this, but keeping silent.”

“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.”

That was a pretty broad search warrant so there must have been plenty of probable cause.

“Let me return to my life as a person of interest. I am openly followed by the FBI agents and in cars and on foot, 24 hours a day. Going down to store for a pack of gum yields a parade of FBI cars sometimes following me closely as two to four feet from my rear bumper. And the FBI leaks for use by cooperative journalists the fact I'm being tailed 24 hours seven days a week. 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. The fact that you love and work for your country will be turned against you by means of the ridiculous suggestion that your patriotism prompted you to murder five innocent persons so that a statement can be made regarding our lack of preparedness against a biological attack. All this reminds me of Kafka's novel, The Trial. Perhaps that story is the source of Mr. Kristof’s Mr. Z. All the above is what it's like living as a person of interest designated by John Ashcroft, the attorney general, and I cannot do anything about it. I haven't been charged with any crime. Again, the Justice Department has told the press that there is no evidence that I've committed a crime. I have to contend with a moving target of rumor, innuendo, fantasy, half-truths, and now the super-duper bionic bloodhounds that the FBI recently pulled out of a hat. The Justice Department has repeatedly claimed its making significant progress in the anthrax investigation. I sure hope so, because I want the anthrax mailer or mailers found and punished to the maximum extent our society will allow. But what does any of this have to do with me?

“He should know, in fact, that while the anthrax letters are mailed from New Jersey and the first anthrax incidents occurred in Florida, I did not set foot in either of these states in September or October of 2001. We know, by the way, that some of the September 11th terrorists did. The FBI's focus on me seems to have eclipsed the need for appropriate inquiry into elementary, scientific aspects of the anthrax investigation. It took the FBI seven months after the letter attacks before they turned to assistance to Bill Patrick, the top dry-powder biological warfare expert in our country. How sensible is that? What inquiries have been made into who received the Ames strain of anthrax at any time prior to the fall of 2001? Until the mid 1990s, regulation of the traffic in dangerous bacteriological pathogens was very poorly controlled and poorly documented -- in some cases, non-existently documented. Saddam Hussein received his weaponizable strains of anthrax from the United States, from the American-type culture collection formerly in Rockville, Maryland.[lxxix] In the mid 1990s, one Larry Wayne Harris, a self-proclaimed member of the Aryan Nation, made up a phony letterhead on which he requested some bubonic plague bacteria from the American-type culture collection. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the organism that causes the Black Death. As I recall, he received some of it by mail. Largely as a result of this incident, policies and procedures governing the availability of forms of transmission of dangerous germs were strengthened. It is generally known that anthrax bacteria can live for decades in the soil or other hospitable environments. I don't think previous samples can be accounted for. Again, we still have to learn if the powder in question in the anthrax letters was prepared by sophisticated methods known only to select scientists or by more crude methods using information readily available on the Internet. Speaking of the Internet, the American people should know that the complete top-secret recipe for making smallpox into a sophisticated dry-powder biological weapon was recently posted by the U.S. government on the Internet by mistake for several weeks when a mistake at the U.S. Patent Office resulted in this material becoming open source. Thank God the document in question has finally been removed from the Internet, but not before anyone with an interest, foreign or domestic, would have had time to view it and download it. To my way of thinking, the lack of proper scientific input into this investigation is best illustrated by the fact that I am the one who had to suggest to the FBI the blood tests that they could perform on me to help rule me out as a suspect in this terrible crime. The test measures antibody levels, which would mark either my exposure to anthrax recently or a recent anthrax vaccination, not one that I've had two years ago. At long last, the government has agreed to my proposal, and I'll shortly be providing blood samples as I originally suggested. I hereby openly request the FBI make public the full results of these forthcoming tests, their conclusions based on these tests, and the scientific basis for the tests and the conclusions.”

Dr. Martin Hugh-Jones, an epidemiologist who researches anthrax and maintains a world-renowned anthrax database, said that Hatfill could have handled anthrax spores without personal contamination. Therefore, blood tests that did not detect anthrax exposure or did not detect evidence of an anthrax vaccine could be irrelevant. A person with Hatfill's reported skills "can minimize exposure," Hugh-Jones said. "This is a guy who had himself photographed wearing a do-it-yourself hazardous materials suit." Hugh-Jones stated that, after the anthrax mailings, he himself constructed anthrax-protection garb using plastic bags and plastic gloves. He said he also demonstrated that it was possible to use clear plastic bags and simple tools to place anthrax spores into an envelope without personal contamination. Clements also said that after handling anthrax spores, a person "might not have antibodies (in the blood)." A blood test could yield markers (antibodies) for a previous anthrax exposure, Hugh-Jones said. "However, the concentration is what you go by," he said. Hugh-Jones said it would be difficult to reach conclusions about a person's history of anthrax exposure without also knowing a person's previous concentrations of these markers at different periods of time. Clawson said Hatfill understood the importance of measuring the changing concentrations of antibodies in his blood and was working with the FBI to design tests that measure his blood over time. "He has offered to take blood samples three times during a six-week interval and to have the results compared to the wealth of data that exists on the anthrax vaccine to show that he has not been vaccinated since leaving Fort Detrick," Clawson said. Reading from Hatfill's statement, Clawson said, "What we are looking for is a detectable level of antibody titer (concentration) that would not be consistent with vaccination or exposure to anthrax over the past year." In addition, Hatfill "has not been exposed to anthrax, so far as he knows. Steve Hatfill voluntarily submitted three blood samples to the FBI. Each was given two weeks apart in the autumn of 2002. He also offered to provide handwriting exemplars, but the FBI declined his offer. Steve has waived his privacy rights and he has asked the FBI to make public the results of the blood tests. So far, they have declined to do so. I want you to clearly understand: Steve has volunteered information and cooperated with the FBI throughout this investigation. He has given them everything they have asked him to provide. Alan, I know you and I differ on this, but you and the FBI are focused on the wrong guy. Steve had nothing to do with the anthrax attacks and he certainly is not the bigot you have portrayed on your website. You and the FBI have done him an enormous injustice. Believe me, there's no one who wants the anthrax case solved more than Steve. He wants the FBI to solve this case soon so he can get his name cleared and his reputation restored. You might want to follow up with the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility to see what - if any - action they have taken on Victor Glasberg's complaint letters of last August.”

As to guilt or innocence, the evidence from Dr. Hatfill's blood sample would probably not be conclusive either way. If he was negative that doesn't mean he could not have used good technique and avoided any exposure. If he was positive, then it could easily be because of exposure to the microbe at the Army biowarfare defense laboratory at Fort Detrick. On the other hand, a positive result would not necessarily incriminate him, provided that the level of antibodies was not too high. The anthrax vaccine, which Dr. Hatfill has reported receiving three years ago, is not highly purified and may contain many other bacterial components, and so a small positive signal from his blood might be attributable to vaccination itself.

Hatfill, “I also proposed to give handwriting samples to the FBI so that they may draw conclusions regarding the likelihood that I wrote the anthrax letters. Here, too, I openly request the results of this examination, including all work sheets and analyses, be made public when completed. I ask the media to please monitor these tests, and the press, for their release if the government is not forthcoming. The one certain progress that the FBI has made in this investigation is its inability to find any evidence connecting me with the anthrax letter attacks. This is after an eight-month inquiry, and Lord knows how much taxpayer money has been poured into this effort to uncover my presumed guilt. I believe that sensible persons involved in the anthrax investigation have concluded that I have nothing to do with the anthrax letter attacks. But they are in a rough place. If the FBI does not have me as a person of interest, then what does it have? What it has is a stalled investigation, characterized by a lack of proper scientific investigation and expertise, its single-minded dedication to the use of so-called profilers. Remember, these are the folks that described the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, as a well-dressed manual laborer. It has a lack of the most basic understanding of the relevant biology by many frontline and senior FBI investigators. It has an investigation that is characterized by the apparent avoidance any of any major avenues of inquiry, except the one decided upon by the attorney general. Most importantly, it is driven by a compelling and overwhelming desire that the FBI look good at any cost, regardless of the price in individual freedom, due process, common decency and civil liberties.”

Hatfill didn’t think much of the FBI’s biological forensic abilities - It has a lack of the most basic understanding of the relevant biology by many frontline and senior FBI investigators.

“I believe that I may actually get arrested when all this is said and done, and if it occurs, it will have nothing to do with anthrax. It will have everything to do with my being named the national person of interest. This title will first have caused painstaking inquiry into my past, the peccadilloes and all. Second, it will have given the authorities enormous incentive to justify their massive financial expenditure and the thousands of man-hours of effort arising out of their pursuit of me, and their heedless exposure of me and defamation as a murderer. For these reasons, even as I stand before you proclaiming my innocence of this terrible crime, I believe I shall yet pay a price for having been named a person of interest. If Steve Hatfill isn't the anthrax killer, well, he spit on a government sidewalk or littered in front of a government building somewhere, something he shouldn't have done. I should imagine that a great many Americans, including a host of our nation's political, social and intellectual leaders will be at serious risk of some sort of prosecution under these circumstances. This is the fate of a person of interest. In the end, I will be put at risk for things that inherently lack interest, but because I have been falsely smeared as a person of interest. Remember, please, that you heard this from me first.”

Hatfill was probably referring to the bogus diploma he used to defraud the United States Government. This was a preemptive strike in case the FBI busted him for that. People would say, “He predicted this would happen.”

“I fear what time will do, with the FBI's new powers under the 2001 Patriot Act. 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? I never thought I would live to recite the slogan of the American Civil Liberties Union, but I must tell you, after what I have been through, I wholeheartedly embrace its motto: ‘Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.’’’ Hatfill has changed from Nazi to Liberal! Eternal vigilance? It is the free press that is supposed to expose the United States Government’s wrongdoing yet Hatfill has sued ever publication that went after him in order to suppress their freedom.

“My story is not all sad and negative. I have been buoyed beyond words by the support of my family, friends, past and current colleagues, and even strangers, who, since my first news conference, have warmly greeted me on the streets or in letters. I thank my employer, Louisiana State University, for its incredible sensitivity in balancing its obvious institutional needs in light of my status as a person of interest with my own personal needs and circumstances. Thank you. As poorly as my own government and much of the press have treated me, those persons who mean the most to me have stood by me unflinchingly. For that, ladies and gentlemen, I am eternally grateful. Thank you.”

Hatfill lost his job at Louisiana State University altogether. The firing came on September 1, 2002 a month after the U.S. Justice Department, in August 1, 2002 e-mail, asked Louisiana State University not to use Hatfill on projects financed with Justice Department grants. That restriction would have complicated Hatfill's ability to function at the center. The email: “I want to reiterate that the Office of Justice Programs/Office for Domestic Preparedness directs that Louisiana State University Academy of Counter-Terrorist Education cease and desist from utilizing the subject matter expert and course instructor duties of Steven J. Hatfill on all Department of Justice funded programs.”

Stephen L. Guillot, Hatfill's sponsor who said that the FBI had told him that Hatfill was not on any lists and was not a suspect also got canned. Guillot was director of both the National Center for Biomedical Research and Training and the Academy for Counter-Terrorist Education. One reason Guillot got the boot was that he received the Justice Department communication and held it for a month without fully passing it up the line to senior Louisiana State University administrators. Hatfill's salary was financed with federal grants, and the center got about 97% of its budget from the Justice Department. The Justice Department initiative was a factor in both Hatfill's placement on administrative leave and his subsequent termination.

In March 2003, Hatfill went to a McLean, Virginia hotel room to meet a prospective employer to discuss plans for Hatfill to provide consulting services. Those plans were dashed, however, when at the conclusion of his meeting, he and his prospective employer walked out of the meeting room and were met by FBI special agents conspicuously videotaping the encounter (and the prospective employer). After this the prospective employer no longer had any interest in hiring Dr. Hatfill. FBI SA Robert Roth was asked about this incident:

Q. Let me ask you a hypothetical. If Security Service Group agents or special agents jumped Dr. Hatfill in the hallway with a video camera, not saying it happened, just if that happened within feet of Dr. Hatfill and the prospective employer, that’s fairly overt. Would you describe that?

A. That’s – that sort of description is – yeah, that’s pretty direct and close contact. If something like that happened I am not aware of it.

On May 17, 2003 Hatfill, realizing that the FBI was closing in on him, blew his cool and after being followed to Georgetown, in Washington D.C., got of out of his car and confronted his FBI tail by taking photographs of him. The FBI man began video taping Hatfill. What was Hatfill going to do with the photographs? Was there a threat implicit in his actions? It is not a crime to follow someone. Hatfill claimed the FBI surveillance specialist, Bryan Blankenship, ran over his foot but there was no record of Hatfill having been hospitalized. Steve was sprawled out on Wisconsin Avenue,” Clawson said. “He was dazed. His girlfriend started screaming.” When an officer of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department arrived on the scene, Dr. Hatfill explained to an initially skeptical officer that the people who were following him were FBI agents who followed him everywhere. The officer then spoke privately with the FBI agents, who surprised him by confirming this story. When the agents prevailed upon the police officer to ticket Dr. Hatfill for something instead of ticketing the FBI agent who ran over Dr. Hatfill’s foot, the officer had to ask his superiors if they knew of anything Dr. Hatfill could be ticketed for. Eventually, he wrote Dr. Hatfill a ticket for “walking to create a hazard,” the one and only time the officer had ever written such a ticket, or is likely to. Clawson claimed Hatfill received emergency medical care at the scene of the incident but the FBI stated that he declined treatment. Hatfill was given a $5.00 ticket for “walking to create a hazard” after a policeman spoke with Blankenship. In August 2003 Hatfill and his pro-bono attorney Thomas Connolly fought the ticket but lost.

Judge Walton stated, “The FBI employed faux surveillance against Dr. Hatfill designed not for the covert gathering of evidence but for public consumption. The FBI placed Dr. Hatfill under “surveillance” that was pretty aggressive by surveillance standards. Such overt surveillance can send a message to the public. On one occasion, an FBI agent following Dr. Hatfill drove his vehicle over Dr. Hatfill’s foot. The Agency Defendants rejected Dr. Hatfill’s extraordinary offer to wear a GPS device, surrender his passport, and have an FBI agent in the car with him at all times in lieu of having agents tailing Dr. Hatfill.”[lxxx] Hatfill’s lawyer’s agreed, “For many months the defendants subjected Dr. Hatfill to “surveillance” that was so conspicuous as to be inconsistent with any genuine desire to obtain useful evidence.” The FBI was determined not to let Hatfill do another mailing.

A federal grand jury was empanelled in the anthrax case under the supervision of Roscoe C. Howard Jr., U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia in the summer of 2003. Hatfill's friends and colleagues and his former employers provided numerous documents under grand jury subpoena but apparently no one was called to testify. All the FBI needed was one spore that could be linked to Hatfill. The Justice Department doesn't indict unless they are sure they can win and they can’t win without physical evidence. Clint Van Zandt, a 25-year FBI veteran stated, “unless you have linking physical evidence that a jury can look at and say, ‘Yes, this is proof beyond a reasonable doubt,’ the government would have been stupid to go out and arrest Hatfill.” In 2006 Hatfill purchased a house at 10813 Warwick Avenue in Fairfax, Virginia for 400K.

Hatfill, “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. Today, I again appear before the TV cameras. I want to look my fellow Americans directly in the eye and declare to them, I am not the anthrax killer. I know nothing about the anthrax attacks. I had absolutely nothing to do with this terrible crime. 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.” “I am not the anthrax killer.” “I am not a crook,” said Richard Nixon. Are we supposed to take the word of this liar, who never passed a law enforcement administered polygraph in his entire life?

[i] Dr. Michie graduated with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Dundee University in 1976. He is a Senior Specialist Medical Scientist working in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Medical Faculty at the University of Stellenbosch. He researches cancer treatments with chemotherapeutic drugs and electro-chemotherapy.

[ii]. Clawson was an investigative reporter for Cable News Network in CNN's Washington bureau from 1986 1988 and also worked for NBC Television and Radio. Clawson launched Virginians for Perot. The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported: Clawson worked in Michigan and returned to St. Louis to join a private investigative firm, Fitzgerald & Dorsey in 1980. It didn't last long. The FBI raided the office in September of that year, tipped off by Clawson that the Clayton agency had paid local police to tap into a national crime database and provide the office with confidential arrest records. It led to fines for the agency, as well as for officers in the Clayton, Florissant and St. Louis police departments, many of who resigned. It also led to Clawson's arrest on charges that he had asked the agency for $5,000 in return for not providing information to help prove the charges against it. A St. Louis County grand jury refused to indict him on the charges, deemed by Clawson as payback for “blowing the whistle on corrupt cops.” Clawson was labeled an “FBI informant” by the Saint Louis Post Dispatch. Clawson told me that Hatfill had lied himself into a corner and was one of the biggest liars on the planet earth. Clawson says he's been the target of FBI black bag jobs. His house in the Shenandoah Valley was broken into at least twice.

[iii]. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~chey/guest1.html GENEALOGY PAGE

[iv]. http://branches.hughessupply.com/elasco/history.html HUGHES SUPPLY

[v]. NJ Star-Ledger 8-5-02 Richard Spertzel Anthrax case entangles U.S. expert FBI scrutinizing scientist who taught biodefense to agent Sunday, August 04, 2002 BY Kevin Coughlin Star-Ledger Staff

[vi]. Hatfill v Ashcroft Defendants Exhibit 48

[vii]. Born April 19, 1928, Peck, Minnesota.

[viii]. http://wuli.com/inferno/index.php?blogid=1&archive=2007-11

[ix]. http://www.forensic-intelligence.org/hatfill.pdf

[x]. The U.S. Army Institute for Military Assistance was an offshoot of the guerrilla operations of the OSS, the predecessor to the CIA. It became the nucleus of men and techniques that would give birth to Special Forces (more popularly known as the Green Berets). In July 1983 it was renamed the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. The Green Berets are known as an elite fighting unit but there is a strong overlapping with the intelligence community. The CIA trains some of it’s agents who operate with military cover at Fort Bragg, and Fort Bragg has the reputation of being a “spook operation.”

[xi]. The Associated Press May 14, 1978, AM cycle Length: 664 words Dateline: Kinshasa, Zaire

[xii]. Goldberg and Mangold Plague Wars McMillan

[xiii]. Dr. Meryl Nass has a BS degree in Biology from MIT (1974) and an MD from the University of Mississippi Medical School (1980). She is a member of the Federation of American Scientists Working Group on Biological Weapons Verification.

[xiv]. http://www.panmacmillan.com/PlagueWars/PDFs/PW_C22pp214_223.pdf Harare’s Blair Financial Gazette Thursday 10 December 1998 Research Institute Biomedical Research Institute of Southern Africa, Health Minister Timothy Stamps, “Probe launched into Rhodesian forces’ use of biological warfare.”

[xv]. Milton Leitenberg Memorandum Re: Further Gratuitous Inaccuracies in the David Tell/Weekly Standard Story, “The Hunting of Steven J. Hatfill” (Leitenberg Dep. Ex. 6);

[xvi]. http://www.cissm.umd.edu/people/profile.php?id=23

[xvii]. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/020826/usnews/26anthrax.htm

[xviii]. http://www.panmacmillan.com/PlagueWars/PDFs/PW_C22pp214_223.pdf

[xix]. http://www.mg.co.za/articledirect.aspx?area=mg_flat&articleid=7349

[xx]. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49717-2003Sep9?language=printer

[xxi]. Stephen P. Dresch, Ph.D. Forensic Intelligence International, LLC 318 Cooper Ave., Hancock, MI 49930; 151 Moore St. SE, Crawfordville, GA

[xxii]. http://www.dispatch.co.za/2002/11/19/easterncape/BASSON.HTM

[xxiii]. 979-285-9903

[xxiv]. http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/1999/10/31/news/news03.htm Sunday Times SA

[xxv]. http://www.dispatch.co.za/2002/11/19/easterncape/BASSON.HTM

[xxvi]. Cape Argus July 4, 2002

[xxvii]. Cent. African Journal of Medicine. July 32 (7) 159-63. 1986 was the first year of the AIDS epidemic that struck Zimbabwe and the possibly exists that Hatfill traveled there to investigate this new disease. In 1998 Chigwanda spoke at the International Conference on AIDS.[xxvii] In January 1999 P.C. Chigwanda supported claims by two journalists that military police repeatedly tortured them for reporting on an alleged coup plot. The journalists said they had suffered severe torture, including electric shocks to their genitals, at the hands of military police and intelligence agents who wanted them to reveal their sources for a report that some soldiers had planned to overthrow President Robert Mugabe in December 1998.

[xxviii] Picornaviruses are among the oldest known viruses and date back to a temple record from Egypt ca. 1400 B.C. They are a diverse group of human viral pathogens that together constitute the most common causes of infections of humans in the developed world. Within the picornavirus family, there are 3 well-known groups of human pathogens: the human rhinoviruses (HRVs); the enteroviruses (EVs) (inc. polioviruses, coxsackieviruses, and echoviruses); and the hepatoviruses (including hepatitis A).

[xxix]. http://www.libraries.wright.edu/special/manuscripts/fsc-40.html

[xxx]. Leukemia Res. 14;(1), 57-62.

[xxxi]. http://ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/1983_11_SAfrica.pdf

[xxxii]. http://www.sabcnews.com/south_africa/crime1justice/0,1009,35340,00.html

http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/1999/10/31/news/news03.htm

Jeremiah Marquez “Man in Anthrax Probe Bragged of Ties” August 8, 4:10 PM ET By, Associated Press Writer Johannesburg, South Africa (AP)

[xxxiii]. New York Times November 17, 18, 1988

[xxxiv]. Southern Poverty Law Center Report on Harold Covington 29 Palamos Road, Leyton, London E10

[xxxv]. http://www.doj.gov.za/trc/special/cbw/cbw5.htm CHEMICAL AND BIO PROGRAM SA

[xxxvi]. J. Inv. Path. 55; 265-271.

[xxxvii]. Hatfill, S.J. 1990. “Military health strategy during the global AIDS pandemic.” Armed Forces (October 1990): 9-10.

[xxxviii]. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-1840031,00.html Tvette Van Breda

[xxxix]. EMBO J. 7, 2131, 1988

[xl]. TIBS 158, 52, 1989; Differentiation 37, 773, 1988

[xli]. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 77, 2936, 1980

[xlii]. Embryopathic Activity of Drugs, Little Brown, Boston, p. 167, 1965; Haematological Cytology, Wolf Med. Pub. Ltd, London, p. 118, 1982

[xliii]. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 78, 2545, 1981

[xliv]. Date: Fri 17 Sep 93 12:47 GMT+200 From: elb@maties.sun.ac.za To: kirby@dtkl.ym.edu.tw Subject: [Steven Hatfill]

[xlv]. Induction of morphological differentiation in the human leukemic cell line K562 by exposure to thalidomide metabolites. Hatfill SJ, Fester ED, de Beer DP, Bohm L. Radiotherapy Department, Faculty of Medicine, University of Stellenbosch, Tygerberg, R.S.A. Leuk Res. 1991;15 (2-3):129-36.

[xlvi]. Leukemia Res. 15;(5), 315-320.

[xlvii]. Hatfill, S. J., Bohm L., Downing, T. G. & Kirby, R. (1992) Mitochondrial DNA Mutations in the Myelodysplastic Syndrome. Lancet,340, 370.

[xlviii]. Hematological Pathology, 6;(2), 87-93.

[xlix]. Lancet, 340; Aug. 8 1992.

[l]. Leukemia Res. 17; (11), 907-903.

[li]. Gary Fields The Wall Street Journal August 12, 2002

[lii]. J. Neurol. Oncol. 26; 209-219.

[liii]. Gartrell K, De Villiers B, Hatfill S. Benadé JG. Epidemiological Study of Serious Haematological Diseases in the Pofadder area.

[liv]. Cell Vision, 3; (5); 397-401.

[lv]. http://www.noor scientific.com/bio_rotary_cell_culture_systems.htm#Bioreactor%20Technology

BIOREACTOR

http://www.noor-scientific.com/bio_rotary_cell_culture_systems.htm More Bioreactor

[lvi] Leonid Margolis and Duray

[lvii]. In 1993, a task force of scientists in New Mexico discovered a previously unknown infectious disease agent that occurs naturally throughout most of North America; it is airborne, and in the absence of prompt medical attention, its infections are usually fatal. This disease is called Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome. A “hantavirus” belongs to a group of RNA virii related to the family Bunyaviridae and, depending on its nature, may be the etiological agent for one of two acute illnesses: Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS). The HFRS-causing hantavirii are endemic to East Asia, while Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome-causing hantavarii are endemic to the New World. But like all virii, the range of their natural hosts, which are rodents, most notably deer mice, dictates their distributions. At the USAMRIID Hatfill used an alias and traveled to Central Asia, where he brought back samples of the HFRS-causing hantavirii.

[lviii]. John Ezzell Deposition (11/21/06) at 60, 63, 66.

[lix]. Huggins Deposition Hatfill v New York Times

[lx]. Cohn, T.A., Caulder, D.L., Gilroy, E.J., Zynjuk, L.D., and Summers, R.M., 1992. The validity of a simple log-linear model for estimating fluvial constituent loads: An empirical study involving nutrient loads entering Chesapeake Bay: Water Resources Research, v. 28, no. 9, p. 2,353-2,364.

http://md.water.usgs.gov/publications/wrir-98-4177/

http://ar.water.usgs.gov/LOCAL_REPORTS/WRIR_01-4217.pdf

[lxi]. David McGlinchey Global Security Newswire October 27, 2003 “U.S. Scientist Highlights Dangers of Enhanced Smallpox, Monkeypox”

[lxii]. Francisella tularensis is a hardy non-spore forming organism that is capable of surviving for weeks at low temperatures in water, moist soil, hay, straw or decaying animal carcasses. It is the organism that causes tularemia, and is one of the most infectious pathogenic bacteria known, requiring inoculation or inhalation of as few as 10 organisms to cause disease. It is considered to be a dangerous potential biological weapon because of its extreme infectivity, ease of dissemination, and substantial capacity to cause illness and death. During World War II, Japan as well the US and its allies studied the potential of F. tularensis as a biological weapon. Tularemia was one of several biological weapons that were stockpiled by the US military in the late 1960's, all of which were destroyed by 1973. The Soviet Union continued weapons production of antibiotic and vaccine resistant strains into the early 1990s.

[lxiii]. Venezuelan equine encephalitis (VEE) virus’s serologoly was first documented in 1960 during a survey of Seminole Indians from the Big Cypress and Brighton reservations. Follow-up investigations conducted by the Center for Disease Control in 1963 and 1964 resulted in the isolation of Florida’s VEE virus from mosquitoes. VEE was weaponized by the United States in the 1950's and 1960's before the U.S. offensive biowarfare program was terminated, and other countries have been or are suspected to have weaponized this agent.

[lxiv]. SEB is superantigen that stimulates the major histocompatibility complex, producing a multi-system disease resembling sepsis: Examples include toxic shock syndrome and staphylococcal food poisoning. SEB is considered an incapacitating agent, although it can be lethal to some exposed victims. Botulinum toxin is derived from the genus of anaerobic bacteria named Clostridia. It is the deadliest poison in the world, although ricin is not far behind.

[lxv]. Science and Medicine, 4 (3) 46-55.

[lxvi]. AIDS Research and Human Retroviruses. 13, 16, 1997.

[lxvii]. Katrina Barlow Deposition (10/26/06) at 34,

[lxviii]. General Meeting, New York, NY Thursday, May 21, 1998

[lxix]. 1. Registration Number: TXu-887-264 Title: Emergence.

Description: 198 p. Claimant: ac Steven J. Hatfill, 1953-, & ac Roger Akers , 1947-

Created: not given on application. Registered: August 26, 1998 Author on C Application: text:

Steven J. Hatfill; revisions & some Text: Roger Akers. Special Codes: 1/B

[lxx]. New York Times August 12, 2002

[lxxi]. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/19/international/asia/19CHEM.html

[lxxii]. Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Frightening Future for Primary Care Providers May 31 - June 1, 2002 Washington DC; June 7-8, 2002 Dallas, TX

[lxxiii]. http://www.ctnow.com/news/nationworld/hc-anthrax0627.artjun27.story?coll=hc-headlines-home NEWS STORY

[lxxiv]. State Department Daily Briefing July 3, 2003

[lxxv]. Case 1:04-cv-00807-CMH-LO Document 277 Filed 01/30/2007 Page 25 of 28

[lxxvi]. http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/3595056.htm The Mercury News AP item July 4, 2002

[lxxvii]. Deposition of Robert Blitzer (Oct. 27, 2006) at 137-38.

http://www.harriswiltshire.com/harriswiltshire/backoffice/upload/documents/Simeone20070618.pdf

[lxxviii]. http://www.ctnow.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=hc%2Dhatfill0812%2Eartaug12 CT NOW

[lxxix]. The White House used the anthrax attacks to push its Iraq war agenda by leaking a false news story that the anthrax sent to Senator Daschle contained bentonite, a tell tale sign that it originated in Iraq, then denying that this was the case.

[lxxx]. Case 1:03-cv-01793-RBW Document 229-3 Filed 04/11/2008 Page 92 of 114

ASSORTED HATFILL INFO

Detrick Plaza Apartments 1709 W 7th St Frederick Maryland 21702 Phone: 301-663-9221

HATFILL AND AWB

Financial Gazette Thursday December 10 1998 Probe launched into Rhodesian forces’ use of biological warfare By Staff Reporter

THE PROSPECT

INSIGHT

Southern Poverty Law Center Report on Harold Covington 29 Palamos Road, Leyton, London E10

Harare’s Blair Research Institute Biomedical Research Institute of Southern Africa. Health Minister Timothy Stamps, Financial Gazette Thursday 10 December 1998 Probe launched into Rhodesian forces’ use of biological warfare By Staff Reporter

SUNDAY TIMES SOUTH AFRICA

TRUTH AND RECONCILATION REPORT

BASSON

NEW SOUTH AFRICA

AIDS link to CCB Probed Sunday Times, South Africa - Sunday, June 21, 1998 Tvette Van Breda

At the end of 1999, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1284 which replaced UNSCOM with the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). During a telephone call to the UNMOVIC office at the UN the author was told that it was impossible to determine if Hatfill worked for UNSCOM and it didn't matter if Hatfill was a Nazi.

HATFILL FALLGUY?

Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Frightening Future for Primary Care Providers May 31 - June 1, 2002 Washington DC; June 7-8, 2002 Dallas, TX

CBS NEWS

NYT June 23, 2002

Anthrax? The F.B.I. Yawns By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF NYT July 2, 2002

Washington Times

NEW LINK

SELOUS SCOUTS MESSAGE BOARD

SOUTH AFRICAN NEWSCLIPPING REGARDING HATFILL

MAIL AND GUARDIAN ON LINE

MURKY PAST OF US BIOWARRIOR

MARLENE BURGER

Two months ago an Internet search for information about Steven Jay Hatfill would have produced less than a dozen results, confined to scientific research bearing his name. This week surfers can choose from close on 7000 "hits", ranging from a 50-page diatribe by the Jewish Defence Organisation -- which dubs the American doctor "Steven Mengele" and challenges him to sue for defamation -- to reports in French, German, Spanish, Danish, even Vietnamese. CONTINUE

THE FORWARD

THE FEATHERMAN FILE of Noteworthy Items in the Press

Hatfill Rumors August 16, 2002: Sources reached by the Forward say they can vouch for stories in South African newspapers reporting that Dr. Steven Hatfill, the scientist under scrutiny by the FBI in connection with the recent deadly anthrax attacks, boasted that he had close ties to imprisoned South African neo-Nazi leader Eugene Terre'Blanche.

Two sources who worked with Hatfill at the University of Stellenbosch in the Western Cape confirmed reports that ran in Cape Times and other newspapers last month saying that Hatfill bragged of connections with Terre'Blanche. Hatfill said he trained elite bodyguards in Terre'Blanche's Afrikaner Resistance Movement, or AWB, in 1987 or 1988, sources told the Forward. A photo of Terre'Blanche surrounded by his brigade, including Hatfill in uniform, hung in the university's radiobiology lab in the department of radiation oncology, where Hatfill worked, sources said. The sources, who asked to remain anonymous, said they were no longer able to find the photo.

Cape Times reported in July that Hatfill trained the AWB's Aquila Brigade. Other South African newspapers in the area that are owned by the same publisher, the Independent News & Media, picked up the story. Reached by the Forward, the Cape Times reporter, Tony Weaver, stood by his article and said it had been corroborated by several sources. He declined to reveal them. "He's very well known about Cape Town," Weaver said about Hatfill.

But an AWB "executive councilor," Andre Visagie, reached in Kimberly, South Africa, denied the connection. Visagie said there was no record or memory of Hatfill's alleged involvement with the AWB and that Terre'Blanche, whom Visagie contacted in prison, never heard of him. "These accusations are aimed at stopping Mr. Terre'Blanche's release from prison," said Visagie, whose leader was sentenced to six years in jail for a beating in 1997 that left a black worker paralyzed.

Visagie also claimed there had been no Aquila training camps where Hatfill was said to have been stationed, and that they only existed in Transvaal, in the north. But Keith Conroy, a former Aquila instructor, who confirmed reports that he was the chief trainer of the AWB's armed wings, told the Forward there were such camps near Hatfill's university. He said, however, that he does not remember meeting Hatfill, and that he would have remembered someone with an American accent.

The American-born Hatfill, a medical doctor, spent 15 years in southern Africa, returning to the United States in 1995. Although the FBI has searched Hatfill's home, they have not labeled him a suspect in the anthrax attacks. Hatfill denounced the news media this week and vehemently denied any connection to the attacks.

Involvement in Rhodesian bioweapons initiatives

2009-12-01T00:50:00.000-08:00

In Anthrax Probe, Focus on Hatfill Relied on Informants
washingtonpost. ^ | Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Posted on 26 November 2008 14:07:42 by Prunetacos

Authorities probing the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks fixed on now-cleared scientist Steven J. Hatfill primarily because confidential informants said they had talked with him about his purported involvement in Rhodesian bioweapons initiatives, according to court documents released yesterday.

The documents cover searches of Hatfill's residence, his car, a rental storage facility in Florida and property owned by his then-girlfriend. But they are perhaps most notable for the sparseness of their details and for the lack of a direct connection between the scientist and the notorious crime.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...

TOPICS: Anthrax Scare; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: anthrax; fbi; hatfill; ivins

After six years of fevered investigation, Hatfill was cleared from involvement by Justice Department officials, who branded another former Fort Detrick, Md., researcher as the sole culprit. In the summer, authorities agreed to pay Hatfill a settlement valued at nearly $6 million to resolve a lawsuit alleging that his privacy rights had been violated.

Weeks later, law enforcement officials said the mastermind behind the attacks, which killed five people and sickened 17, was Fort Detrick scientist Bruce E. Ivins, who committed suicide in July. "Search warrant affidavits are designed to raise suspicion -- that is their express purpose," said Mark A. Grannis, an attorney for Hatfill, in a written statement. "But like so much of what has been written about Dr. Hatfill in the past seven years, the affidavits released today cite sources whose names are unknown and whose credibility cannot be tested. Our repeated experience has been that people make wild accusations in secret, only to retract them under public questioning. Whether or not it was right for the government to rely on this kind of information to obtain a search warrant in 2002, we know in 2008 that Steven Hatfill had nothing to do with the anthrax attacks. It will be unfortunate for all involved if the release of these documents misleads anyone into thinking otherwise."

The documents were ordered released by Chief U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth in a lawsuit brought by two newspapers. The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times sued the Justice Department seeking information on the government's investigation. Prosecutors opposed the documents' disclosure, but Lamberth ruled last week that the public had a right to review them.

The main sworn statement, by FBI Special Agent Mark Morin, cites a tip from a confidential informant about Hatfill's alleged activities in Rhodesia in the late 1970s. The informant told the FBI that Hatfill said he had consulted with rebels there about biological agents at a time when anthrax outbreaks spread in areas controlled by insurgents.

Hatfill also asserted, according to a person whose name is blacked out in the FBI affidavit, that anthrax spores were the most likely biological weapon that would be used in a terrorist attack within U.S. borders. Ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic, would be the drug "of choice" to fend off anthrax infection, Hatfill allegedly told the informant.

Later, according to the documents, authorities searched pharmacy records and found that Hatfill had filled several prescriptions for the drug in September and October 2001, around the time of the anthrax-spore-laced mailings. Hatfill has said in court documents that he was taking Cipro because of sinus surgery.

1 posted on 26 November 2008 14:07:42 by Prunetacos

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Fumbling Bureau of Incompetence

2009-12-01T00:43:00.000-08:00

Fumbling bureau of incompetence

Comments: 14

Last Updated: 9:35 AM, November 28, 2009

Posted: November 28, 2009

Some things can be counted on in Washington -- like finding the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the middle of a major intelligence screwup. The bureau's latest embarrassment involves Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the accused murderer of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood. The gunman's extremism was so obvious that the FBI had identified e-mails between Hasan and Anwar al-Aulaqi, a radical Muslim cleric with apparent ties to Osama bin Laden -- yet decided againsta full investigation. While Army intelligence also didn't follow up, the FBI's the one with the track record of missteps going back years, including: * Having completely missed warning signs of terrorist activity prior to 9/11. * Misidentifying scientist Stephen Hatfill as the culprit behind the October 2001 anthrax attacks, then public harassing him -- resulting in the US paying Hatfill $5.8 million in damages. This occurred even though new measures were supposedly put in place after the Bureau: * Misidentified Richard Jewell in 1996 as the person responsible for the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta. * And mistakenly accused scientist Wen Ho Lee of selling classified technology to China. That list omits more recent FBI embarrassments, like this year's shutdown of its New York office because of a snowstorm and its computer system being crippled for nine days by a cyber-virus. And so, news that the bureau has launched an internal investigation into its handling of Hasan prior to the shooting is hardly reassuring. The Obama administration announced a separate review to see what warning signs might have been missed. That's good, as far as it goes. But, going back to the mid '90s, three consecutive presidents have had to contend with the consequences of "missed signals," bungled investigations and other such errors. What reason is there to believe that this"review" will produce positive results? If President Obama can surpass his predecessors in clearing up a clearly dysfunctional agency, more power to him. Alas, we aren't optimistic.

Some things can be counted on in Washington -- like finding the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the middle of a major intelligence screwup.

The bureau's latest embarrassment involves Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the accused murderer of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood.

The gunman's extremism was so obvious that the FBI had identified e-mails between Hasan and Anwar al-Aulaqi, a radical Muslim cleric with apparent ties to Osama bin Laden -- yet decided against a full investigation.

While Army intelligence also didn't follow up, the FBI's the one with the track record of missteps going back years, including:

* Having completely missed warning signs of terrorist activity prior to 9/11.

* Misidentifying scientist Stephen Hatfill as the culprit behind the October 2001 anthrax attacks, then public harassing him -- resulting in the US paying Hatfill $5.8 million in damages.

This occurred even though new measures were supposedly put in place after the Bureau:

* Misidentified Richard Jewell in 1996 as the person responsible for the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta.

* And mistakenly accused scientist Wen Ho Lee of selling classified technology to China.

That list omits more recent FBI embarrassments, like this year's shutdown of its New York office because of a snowstorm and its computer system being crippled for nine days by a cyber-virus.

And so, news that the bureau has launched an internal investigation into its handling of Hasan prior to the shooting is hardly reassuring.

The Obama administration announced a separate review to see what warning signs might have been missed.

That's good, as far as it goes.

But, going back to the mid '90s, three consecutive presidents have had to contend with the consequences of "missed signals," bungled investigations and other such errors. What reason is there to believe that this "review" will produce positive results?

If President Obama can surpass his predecessors in clearing up a clearly dysfunctional agency, more power to him.

Alas, we aren't optimistic.

Anthrax Attack Used to Justify the Iraq War

2009-12-01T00:38:00.000-08:00

Anthrax Attack Used to Justify the Iraq War

By: emptywheel Friday November 27, 2009 2:00 pm

Glenn Greenwald notes this detail from the British Iraq inquiry.

Yesterday, the British Ambassador to the U.S. in 2002 and 2003, Sir Christopher Meyer (who favored the war), testified before the investigative tribunal and said this:

Meyer said attitudes towards Iraq were influenced to an extent not appreciated by him at the time by the anthrax scare in the US soon after 9/11. US senators and others were sent anthrax spores in the post, a crime that led to the death of five people, prompting policymakers to claim links to Saddam Hussein. . . .

On 9/11 Condoleezza Rice, then the US national security adviser, told Meyer she was in “no doubt: it was an al-Qaida operation” . . . It seemed that Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy, argued for retaliation to include Iraq, Meyer said. . . .

But the anthrax scare had “steamed up” policy makers in Bush’s administration and helped swing attitudes against Saddam, who the administration believed had been the last person to use anthrax.

I’ve written many times before about how the anthrax attack played at least as large of a role as the 9/11 attack itself, if not larger, in creating the general climate of fear that prevailed for years in the U.S. and specifically how the anthrax episode was exploited by leading media and political figures to gin up intense hostility towards Iraq (a few others have argued the same). That’s why it’s so striking how we’ve collectively flushed this terrorist attack down the memory hole as though it doesn’t exist.

As I pointed out earlier this month, the attack and the FBI’s investigation of it is not entirely forgotten. Chuck Grassley asked Robert Mueller about the investigation this spring. But Mueller invented a totally bullshit answer to dismiss the possibility of investigating the FBI’s investigation.

Grassley then goes on to ask about the National Academy of Sciences review of the FBI’s scientific analysis of the FBI’s anthrax case. After Mueller reviews that, Grassley asks whether the FBI would be willing to have an independent review of its “detective work” in the case. Mueller basically says, “no.”

Grassley: Are you opposed to an independent review of the FBI’s detective work, in addition to a review of the scientific evidence?

Mueller: Because of the importance of science to this particular case, investigative steps were often taken to address leads developed by newly evolved science. In addition, the significance of information or evidence we acquired often took on new or enhanced meaning as scientific advances were made. Consequently, a review of the scientific aspect of this case would be the logical first step. There is also ongoing criminal and civil litigation concerning the Amerithrax investigation and information derived therefrom, and an independent review of the FBI’s “detective work” at this time could adversely affect those proceedings.

What an astoundingly bullshit answer!

First, obviously the “detective work” needs to be investigated, if only to explain why the FBI ignored evidence pointing to Bruce Ivins and invented a case against Hatfill. Second, if ongoing litigation (including criminal?!?!?) wouldn’t be hindered by the scientific review, why would it be hindered by a review of the “detective work”? What Muller is more likely saying is just what he admitted with regards to Hatfill: until any civil suits are settled, the FBI doesn’t want to admit to the full extent of its incompetence.

As we have discussed at length, there are reasons to doubt the FBI’s conclusions that Bruce Ivins acted alone (more here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). Indeed, all the FBI has claimed it proved with its nifty new scientific analysis (and Mueller states this) is that Ivins made the strain used in the attack (I’ll leave it to the scientists to address Mueller’s certainty on that front). They certainly have not proven that Ivins mailed the anthrax. Which means, quite simply, they haven’t solved the case.

But Robert Mueller doesn’t want to show the FBI’s work.

Now maybe the FBI realizes they haven’t solved this case, and that’s why they can’t start investigating their own detective work. But if that’s the case, don’t you think they ought to tell the American people that there’s an American bioterrorist running around on the loose?

The FBI investigation ought to be reviewed because the bioterrorist may well be wandering free, and because the FBI showed real incompetence several times during its investigation.

But Glenn points out another reason this investigation ought to be reviewed: because the attack played a key role in drumming up the attack on Iraq.

Unsealed Court Documents

2009-10-23T03:54:00.000-07:00

Headline Archives
AMERITHRAX INVESTIGATION Court Documents

Documents Unsealed September 24, 2008 _{^{(All documents are in PDF format)}} Group 1 - Search Warrant 08-124-M-01 - Search Warrant 08-125-M-01 - Search Warrant 08-160-M-01 - Search Warrant 08-430-M-01 application - Search Warrant 08-443-M-01 Group 2 - Search Warrant 08-489-M-01 - Search Warrant 08-490-M-01 - Search Warrant 08-491-M-01 - Search Warrant 08-492-M-01 - Search Warrant 08-493-M-01 - Search Warrant 08-494-M-01 - Search Warrant 08-495-M-01 Documents unsealed August 6, 2008 - 07-524-M-01 Affidavit in Support of Search Warrant - 07-524-M-01 Attachment - 07-524-M-01 Search Warrant - 07-524-M-01 Search Warrant Affidavit - 07-524-M-01 Search Warrant Application - 07-524-M-01 Search Warrant Return - 07-525-M-01 Search Warrant - 07-525-M-01 Search Warrant Affidavit - 07-525-M-01 Search Warrant Application - 07-525-M-01 Search Warrant Return - 07-526-M-01 Search Warrant - 07-526-M-01 Search Warrant Affidavit - 07-526-M-01 Search Warrant Application - 07-526-M-01 Search Warrant Return - 07-527-M-01 Search Warrant - 07-527-M-01 Search Warrant Affidavit - 07-527-M-01 Search Warrant Application - 07-527-M-01 Search Warrant Return - 07-528-M-01 Search Warrant - 07-528-M-01 Search Warrant Affidavit - 07-528-M-01 Search Warrant Application - 07-528-M-01 Search Warrant Return - 07-529-M-01 Search Warrant - 07-529-M-01 Search Warrant Affidavit - 07-529-M-01 Search Warrant Application - 07-529-M-01 Search Warrant Return - 08-082-M-01 Search Warrant - 08-082-M-01 Search Warrant Affidavit - 08-082-M-01 Search Warrant Application - 08-082-M-01 Search Warrant Return - 08-083-M-01 Search Warrant - 08-083-M-01 Search Warrant Affidavit - 08-083-M-01 Search Warrant Application - 08-083-M-01 Search Warrant Return - 08-084-M-01 Search Warrant - 08-084-M-01 Search Warrant Affidavit - 08-084-M-01 Search Warrant Application - 08-429 Affidavit - 08-429 Affidavit Attachment - 08-429 Application - 08-429 Search Warrant - 08-429 Search Warrant Affidavit Attachment 07524 - 08-429 Search Warrant Attachment 07524 - 08-430 Search Warrant - 08-430 Search Warrant Affidavit - 08-430 Search Warrant Affidavit 07524 - 08-430 Search Warrant Attachment 07524 - 08-430 Search Warrant Return - 08-431 Affidavit 07524 - 08-431 Application - 08-431 Attachment 07525 - 08-431 Search Warrant - 08-431 Search Warrant 07525 - 08-431 Search Warrant Affidavit - 08-431 Search Warrant Attachment - 08-431 Search Warrant Return - 08-432 Affidavit - 08-432 Application - 08-432 Return - 08-432 Search Warrant - 08-433 Affidavit - 08-433 Application - 08-433 Return - 08-433 Search Warrant - Motion to Unseal - Order to Unseal Documents also available at www.usdoj.gov/amerithrax

Hatfill possessed poor morales and values

2009-10-02T05:16:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 28, 2009

A Person Of Interest

Re: Valerie

(I am replying here to post pictures) I agree that Rosenberg should not have been a credible source in this case. As I said... If I were covering this story, I would never use Hatfill's identification because there was no hard evidence to prove he could be convicted.

The handwriting on the envelopes of anthrax powder is very distinguishable. And I think if the FBI asked Hatfill for a writing sample that he would not have remained a "person of interest." Detectives can identify characteristics within an individuals handwriting quite easily...

Although the FBI claims only 30 people in the US have the knowledge to do this. And even though the FBI eventually announced Bruce Edwards Ivins was responsible ... I really think that it is apparent that somebody from Al-Qaeda perpetrated the anthrax attacks.

Envelope & Letter Containing Anthrax

What kind of American would write the note above a week after 9/11...

I think the anthrax came from Al-Qaeda... I think this is very distinguishable handwriting. And it would not take a rocket scientist to distinguish this from a sample of Hatfill's writing.

I think as prospect and working journalists, we must take into consideration:

What did we learn from this assignment?
And how will it make us stronger as journalists?

In response to Hatfill's case... I think that journalists should consider concealing the identity of a "person of interest" or a suspect to avoid destroying a person's reputation, in the event they are never formally convicted.

I believe that by keeping a person's identification confidential unless there is sufficient evidence to charge them under the legislation, will not induce the general public to shun an innocent individual or inhibit a journalist from generating groundbreaking coverage. For example New York Times journalist, Nicholas D. Kristof referred to Hatfill as Mr. Z in the majority of his articles about this investigation. Also if all the journalists whom covered this story addressed Hatfill by his initials or Mr. Z, and not had used his real name, unless he were charged for the anthrax attacks, it would not have destroyed his personal life to the same extent.

Although Hatfill had legitimate reasons to charge the US Department of Justice and Donald Foster with defamation. And he also might not have deserved the extensive media coverage either.

I can't feel sorry for Hatfill since he blames the world for his problems. At the end of the day, the negative coverage did not ruin his life. I think it is safe to say that Hatfill devastated his own life by forging educational credentials on his resume. And I think that is malice itself. Not only did he lie and cheat with his employers and career, he lied and cheated on himself, as well as his friends and the educational institution.
And it looks like we are watching Hatfill getting a taste of his own medicine... Hatfill possessed poor morales and values, and that should hurt him the most. "Two wrongs, don't make a right", and I think I am being brutally honest, and not malicious.

Posted by Alex.S at 8:00 PM

A person of interest ...

2009-09-28T02:53:00.000-07:00

Sunday, September 27, 2009

A person of interest ...

As I tried to squish everything I had down to 750 words for our "Person of Interest" assignment I came across some very fascinating information about Dr. Steven J Hatfill, aka "Mr. Z" - most importantly that Dr. Hatfill was exonerated by the FBI in 2008 of any association in the anthrax attacks.

As I read and read and read through articles about the anthrax attacks, Dr. Hatfill, and the F.B.I.'s investigation I began to see how important it is to question all sources of information and evidence - especially if the evidence is circumstantial. We had discussed linkage in our last class - and it is something I saw a lot of when reviewing our assignment and articles. In the New York Times article, "New Details on F.B.I.'s False Start in Anthrax Case" Dr. Hatfill's lawyer, Mark A. Grannis was quoted saying "... an accumulation of claims from acquaintances can cast an innocent person in a highly suspicious light." Never is this more true, especially when the innocent person is in the line of some very public scrutiny. Just look at the damage that Dr. Barbara Rosenberg's gossipy comments through the FAS forums had done. I really did not know that a lifelong academic pursuit of microbiology would equip someone with the psychological expertise of a criminal profiler! It's amazing how easy it is to link someone to an action with a little bit of imagination and a desire to "pin the perp". Our society demands such swift justice that we tend to avoid steady reason and opt for a brut force reaction.

Here are a few links about Dr. Hatfill & the Anthrax Investigation:

New York Times' topics page on Dr. Hatfill:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/steven_j_hatfill/index.html

New York Times' topics page on Anthrax:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/a/anthrax/index.html

Article on the effects of the FBI's anthrax investigation on some of the suspects:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/10/washington/10anthrax.html?fta=y

OpEd column by Nicholas D. Kristoff that includes an apology to Dr. Hatfill:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/opinion/28kristof.html

This case reminded me a lot of Richard Jewell, a security guard during the 1996 Olympic Bombing in Atlanta - Jewell was caught in a media firestorm that pinned him as a hero, then a bomber and back.

Here is the New York Times topics page on Jewell:
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/j/richard_jewell/index.html

Posted by Crystal Y. at 7:13 PM

The Secret of the Anthrax Attacks

2009-09-21T03:54:00.000-07:00

Tag(s): Al-Qaeda; Anthrax Attacks; Atta; Attack Ad; Bush; Fear; Iraqis; Panic; Secret Government; Secret Keeping; (more...) Secret Tribunals; Weapons (less...)
Add to My Group
September 19, 2009 at 13:46:29

By allan arpajian (about the author) Page 1 of 2 page(s)

opednews.com

For OpEdNews: allan arpajian - Writer

This week marks an anniversary of terrorism which is rarely noted in the mainstream media but is in some ways just as important as the Sept. 11 attacks that had occurred shortly before: the first of the mailings of letters containing deadly anthrax which from September-November 2001 killed five people and infected 17 others. Of all the major events that occurred during the Bush-Cheney tenure in power these attacks were perhaps the strangest and most unexplained. In the aftermath of 9/11 the anthrax mailings increased the general sense of panic and at first, even to objective observers, seemed possibly the second phase of an onslaught by Islamic radicals.

It's no surprise that the administration and their media contingent wasted no time in connecting the mailings with Iraq and Saddam Hussein's alleged bio-weapons program, and it was during this period that the story was put out concerning the supposed meeting in Prague between Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the 9/11 hijackers, and an 'Iraqi agent'. Along with the general significance this 'link' was purported to have came the assertion that the Iraqi may have given a supply of 'weaponized anthrax' to Atta who then presumably passed it to another of the conspirators for use in the mailings after Atta and his cohorts would go up in flames at the WTC and the Pentagon.

It was soon determined, of course, that no such meeting in Prague had occurred, though this did not stop Dick Cheney from continuing to repeat the story years later along with other falsehoods intended to establish a 'connection' between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. As early as mid-October 2001 the authorities began to admit that the anthrax mailings were probably the work of a 'domestic terrorist' rather than al-Qaeda or Iraq. The attacks fortunately tailed off and stopped; 'only' a handful of people had been killed or sickened, and within a short time with all the other things daily happening the entire episode was dropped from the public consciousness.

The investigations were presumably continued, but there was a Keystone Kops atmosphere to them. The scientist Steven Hatfill was named a 'person of interest' in the case, though it was admitted that the FBI had no evidence against him. The fact that a man's career could be ruined in this manner elicited no outrage except from Hatfill himself, who was later successfully to sue the government for millions of dollars. Much later another scientist, Bruce Ivins, was declared the culprit and just before formal charges were to be issued Ivins committed suicide. The case was declared closed (this was in August 2008) and virtually no further public discussion of it has taken place since.

In my opinion we will never have any way of knowing if Ivins was guilty or, if he was guilty but did not act alone, who else was involved and who might have been behind the scenes ordering the attacks. I mention all of this without any attempt to examine the 'evidence' against Ivins because so many bizarre events, with associated deceptions, occurred during the period 2001-2008 that nothing should be surprising any longer. But still, it seems incredible that a major occurrence that convulsed the entire country for a period of two months could be thrown into the memory hole this way even in the age of 24-hour news cycles and the constant displacement of one sensationalistic story by another.

Of course, there has continued to be at least some commentary, mostly by non-mainstream journalists. Some observers have concluded a link does exist between the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax mailings and that this proves the US authorities were responsible for both: click here

At least to my mind, even with all the ink that has been spilled in cyberspace on the 9/11 and associated conspiracy issues these are matters that will probably end up remaining unresolved forever. As with the assassinations of the 1960's there will continue to be partisans of each view and there will never be 'proof' one way or the other that is satisfactory to a majority of objective people. For every 'expert' on one side an 'expert' will pop up on the other to refute him, and among the conspiracy theorists themselves in all these instances there are violent disagreements as to how the crimes were worked and who was responsible, with each faction of theorists dogmatically asserting they are right and everyone else is wrong.

But even in the absence of a definitive answer to the anthrax murders some observations can be made that have wider implications beyond the case itself and can be a key to understanding much of the mess that was perpetrated as part of the 'Great Terror War' during the Bush-Cheney years.

The most common interpretation in the mainstream media of the anthrax terrorist's motivations was that of an intent to convince the US public, or the government, that bio-warfare was an imminent danger and that measures had to be taken to 'protect' us from a 'real' attack that was likely to occur. This seems a bit like the scenario in a number of 1950's horror films such as I was a Teenage Werewolf in which a mad scientist causes havoc because he thinks that by doing so, by creating a monster, he will end up benefiting mankind.

But if the anthrax culprits were trying to give the impression the Iraqis or a sophisticated transnational group like al-Qaeda were responsible, they did an incredibly inept job of it. The crude notes, written in bad English, looked more like the work of a paranoid individual working alone than a government-controlled or al-Qaeda-type operation. Why, indeed, would a 'professional' terrorist leave any message at all? And then, why did the US authorities, if they were attempting to use the attacks to whip up anger against Iraq, eventually admit that it was 'domestic', not foreign, terrorism?

At the time I believed this was in order to defuse the massive panic that could have taken place: a home-grown attacker, a sort of anthrax-Unibomber, would seem less threatening than the Iraqi or al-Qaeda militants if the idea was to create hysteria but not to allow it to get totally out of hand. But if, as stated, the attacks were intended to implicate Middle Easterners there is a strange resemblance to another hoax that came to light a year or so later.

During the run-up to the Iraq war documents suddenly surfaced which the administration began using in order to 'prove' that the Iraqis were purchasing uranium yellowcake 'from Africa' (as Bush melodramatically intoned in his State of the Union address). These, as Hans Blix noted, turned out to be 'crude forgeries' which the inspectors had been able to debunk after doing a few google searches. How on earth did the forgers expect to get away with a stunt like this? How, similarly, did the anthrax mailer think his crudely-composed notes would appear the work of a foreign power mounting a sophisticated bioterrorism attack?

The answer, put simply, is that the people doing these things, whoever they are, as well as those who are taking advantage of and using the situations for their own ends, underestimated the intelligence and common-sense of the public at large and of the professional investigators who were still independent of the War Party and its agenda. We do not know if the administration, or elements within it, were actively complicit in these affairs or simply employing them to advance their plans. But what's mostly revealed is the degree to which incompetence, coupled with arrogance, marked the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld gang's actions. This has always been obvious with respect to their handling of the occupation of Iraq but it was evident in virtually every aspect of their 'performance' in office.

Ineptitude does not seem to accord with the 'Machiavellian' image most of us have of these people, but it was real. And just as they had little regard for the intelligence of third-world people--asserting we would be 'welcomed as liberators' in Iraq while we were bombing their country to Kingdom Come--the administration's respect for the US public was almost nonexistent. This, too, was a sign of their arrogance and incompetence, visible in the way not just Bush but the others comported themselves in interviews and press conferences.

Rumsfeld was perhaps the worst of the triumvirate given the bumbling way he spoke and his ham-fisted comments ranging from insulting the French and Germans as 'old Europe' to deriding the ancient culture of Mesopotamia when the Baghdad museum was looted to the contemptuous way he answered a soldier regarding the lack of armor for military vehicles. ('You can get blown up whether your vehicle is armored or not', etc. etc.) Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld's deputy, when suicide attacks by Iraqi irregular forces began occurring was quoted as saying 'we were unprepared for the extent to which this regime was willing to commit war crimes', though Wolfowitz and his cohorts had repeatedly described Saddam as a latter-day Hitler. Cheney, though smoother and better-spoken was either not intelligent enough to see that repeating the Atta-in-Prague story (among other things) would destroy his own credibility, or assumed the public even in the age of cable news and the Internet was too ignorant and unintelligent to understand the facts. Or most probable of all he was so contemptuous of the public that he did not care what they thought.

In every instance the overriding factor was simply the stupidity with which the administration behaved. That, more than any 'evil' intention, was the hallmark of the Bush gang and their hangers-on and allies, as well as their yes-men and stooges in the media. It was what got us into the 'cakewalk' war which they, the civilian 'leadership', had no idea how to fight and would not have had a clue even if their 'cause' had somehow been justified--in spite of the obvious heroism and competence of our soldiers in the field.

And yet one could say that at least with regard to the anthrax episode the War Party were able to implant in enough people's minds the notion that bioterrorism was the second phase, after 9/11, of the 'war on terror' and that Iraq was a likely source of it. They did not persist in this assertion or follow it up once the initial shock of the anthrax poisonings had subsided, and it is curious that during the run-up to war in late 2002 and early '03 the mailings were rarely mentioned. They obviously did not want the matter looked into any further because it was possible the actual truth about it would be revealed and would destroy their plans.

The administration had known from the start that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks, just as they probably knew there were no 'weapons of mass destruction' within Iraq. This was why they had not the slightest fear of announcing months in advance that Iraq was going to be invaded. Despite the color-coded terror alerts, which always had an air of unreality about them, at no time did either Bush or Tony Blair act as if there were a genuine possibility Saddam would launch covert attacks on us during all those months leading up to the start of hostilities. Wouldn't this have been the normal thing a ruthless dictator who knew his own destruction was imminent would be expected to do, assuming he was in possession of 'weapons of mass destruction' as was being asserted over and over again?

Perhaps, then, in spite of the apparent incompetence with which the anthrax attacks were mounted and then used to stir up fear the results were exactly what the War Party needed. They got their war, and got away with it, and we will have to deal with the consequences for a very long time. But the fact that the attacks have largely been forgotten should stand as a warning to us. Though in the modern age, with the enormous amount of information inundating us daily it's impossible to keep track of everything, there are certain events that should not be let go of. The 'secret' of the anthrax attacks may never fully be solved, but we should at least retain the memory of them and of the significance they held for the larger events of that period

Allan Arpajian is a computer programmer with an additional background in literature and music. He lives in the Philadelphia area.

Another "POI"

2009-09-17T01:14:00.000-07:00

Police in Annie Le case refuse to call Raymond Clark a suspect
September 16, 8:48 PMLA
Legal Examiner
James Hirsen

When asked by reporters whether lab technician Raymond Clark is a "suspect" or "a person of interest" in the homicide of a Yale graduate student, Annie Le, New Haven Assistant Chief Peter Reichard said, "person of interest."

The somewhat ambiguous designation is used by police when they are not confident enough to call a target of investigation a suspect.

Clark, 24, was apprehended Tuesday and placed in handcuffs with a warrant. Investigators scraped under his fingernails, cut locks of his hair and swabbed for his saliva in order to aquire DNA that will be matched with evidence taken from the crime scene.

The term "person of interest" was used in 1996 as a designation for Richard Jewell, the security guard who was inccorectly tied to the Atlanta Olympics bombing. Jewell was ultimately exonerated but claimed that his life was ruined by the reference..

After 9/11 anthrax mailings, scientist Steven Hatfill was deemed a "person of interest" and filed a lawsuit against the government for the label. The suit was eventually settled.

Fame at last - Film Star.......

2009-09-07T04:59:00.000-07:00

.....but then, of course, he's been "acting" all his life......Walter Mitty life of anthrax terror suspect

Full cast and crew for
Anthrax War (2009) (TV)
Directed by Bob Coen

Writing credits (in alphabetical order) Bob Coen
writer Harold Crooks
writer Eric Nadler writer
Cast (in credits order) Bob Coen ... Himself
Francis E. Boyle ... Himself
Jean Patterson ... Herself
Stuart Jacobson ... Himself
Colin Powell ... Himself
Steven Jay Hatfill ... Himself
Bruce Ivins ... Himself
Richard Spurtsell ... Himself
Edward J. Epstein ... Himself
Patrick Leahy ... Himself
Richard Nixon ... Himself
Tom Ridge ... Himself
Steven Dresch ... Himself
David Christopher Kelly ... Himself
John Skur ... Himself
Holmes ... Herself
Norman Baker ... Himself
Gordon Thomas ... Himself
Alan Kerr ... Himself
Julian Perry-Robinson ... Himself
Frank R. Olson ... Himself
Eric Olson ... Himself
Jonathan King ... Himself
Alibek ... Himself
Vladimir Pasechnik ... Himself
Lev Grinberg ... Himself
Wouter Basson ... Himself
Desmond Tutu ... Himself
Chandre Gould ... Herself
Helen Purkitt ... Herself
Dan Wilson ... Himself
Steve Erickson ... Himself
Allen Jeff Moore ... Himself

Produced by Bob Coen ....
producer Natalie Dubois ....
producer Arnie Gelbart ....
executive producer Yves Jeanneau ....
executive producer Christine Le Goff ....
producer Eric Nadler ....producer
Cinematography by Dylan Verrechia (director of photography)
Film Editing by Rosella Tursi
Production Management Isabelle Lemonnier ....production manager
Other crew Kantarama Gahigiri .... production coordinator

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08282009/tv/the_story_behind_9_11__hit_or_myth__186793.htm

2009-08-31T06:12:00.001-07:00

By MAXINE SHEN

WHODUNIT: The view of 9/11 from New Jersey and (inset) Sander Hicks, who has problems with an upcoming TV special .

TODAY'S HOT TOPICS

9/11 Truthers: Return of the Java Jackass

2009-08-31T06:03:00.000-07:00

The Jackass Returns
by Sander Hicks

You know the world is really coming to an end when the New York Post lets me, a leading 9/11 Truther, effectively review, and pan, the new anti-Truther documentary, National Geographic Channel's "9/11: Science and Conspiracy." But that's what happened today. Read it online, or see my scan of the print piece. My jaw is still on the floor.

Let's start with the documentary itself. "Science and Conspiracy" is fundamentally-misconceived, half-hearted, poorly-planned, slapped together, badly written, mis-cast, and self-defeating. It contains four scientific "experiments" pulled off in the New Mexico desert by a bunch of pyrotechnic geeks, the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center (EMRTC).

Should we gloss over EMRTC's ties to Homeland Security and FEMA? Executive Dennis Hunter is their liaison to defense contractor SAIC. (And yes, that SAIC, the one where right-wing anthrax suspect Steven Hatfill labored away alongside Jerry Hauer, who later became Giuliani's mysterious "bioterror expert".) On camera, EMRTC come off as hapless and inept. They can't get their rocket to hit the broad side of a concrete board structure. When it does, it teaches us nothing about what hit the Pentagon, anyway.

Appropriately enough, EMRTC then blow up the concrete board structure with a powerful bomb they make, to show what a "missile" at the Pentagon might have done (if that missile was a bomb inside a concrete board box in the New Mexico desert. Get it? No?) EMRTC then do "tests" with materials that are purported to be sort-of World Trade Center-related, but they don't use the right stuff here either.[For complete article reference links, please see source at: We Demand Transparency here.]

Today's Story in the New York Post Finally Gives Fair Play to 9/11 Truth, What a Big Change from 2005.

The person responsible was a contractor for the CIA and an expert in bio-warfare

2009-08-17T02:06:00.000-07:00

07 August, 2009

ANTHRAX - DEATH TO AMERICA ISRAEL ALLAH IS GREAT

DEATH TO AMERICA DEATH TO ISRAEL ALLAH IS GREAT
(from the anthrax letters)

The notes

The New York Post and NBC News letters contained the following note:

09-11-01
THIS IS NEXT
TAKE PENACILIN NOW (spelling mistake seems intentional)
DEATH TO AMERICA
DEATH TO ISRAEL
ALLAH IS GREAT

The second note that was addressed to Senators Daschle and Leahy read:

09-11-01
YOU CAN NOT STOP US.
WE HAVE THIS ANTHRAX.
YOU DIE NOW.
ARE YOU AFRAID?
DEATH TO AMERICA.
DEATH TO ISRAEL.
ALLAH IS GREAT.

The alleged destruction of the anthrax culture collection at Ames, Iowa, from which the Fort Detrick lab got its pathogens, was blatant destruction of evidence. It meant that there was no way of finding out which strain was sent to whom to develop the larger breed of anthrax used in the attacks. The trail of genetic evidence would have led directly back to a secret government biowarfare program.

"Clearly, for the FBI to have authorized this was obstruction of justice, a federal crime," said Boyle. "That collection should have been preserved and protected as evidence. That's the DNA, the fingerprints right there. It later came out, of course, that this was Ames strain anthrax that was behind the Daschle and Leahy letters."
...
During the anthrax scare, the House of Representatives was officially shut down for the first time in the history of the republic. Once opposition from Leahy and Daschle evaporated in the wake of the attempts on their lives, the USA PATRIOT Act was rammed through. Testimony by Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas) revealed that most members of Congress were compelled to vote for the bill without even reading it.

Read!

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

FBI's Allegation that Ivins was "Sole Custodian" is False

The FBI made numerous claims in today's official press conference. They are largely refuted by Dr. Meryl Nass, an expert on anthrax.

I want to focus on the FBI's primary piece of "evidence": That the anthrax suspect, Dr. Bruce Ivins "has been the sole custodian of RMR-1029 [the specific batch of anthrax used in the attacks] since it was first grown in 1997".

In fact, according to the New York Times:

"After four years of painstaking scientific research, the F.B.I. by 2005 had traced the anthrax in the poisoned letters of 2001 to a single flask of the bacteria at the Army biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., according to government scientists and bureau officials."

(this is the flask containing RMR-1029 concerning which Dr. Ivins was the "custodian").

Sounds bad for Dr. Ivins, right?

Well, the Times article continues:

"But at least 10 scientists had regular access to the laboratory and its anthrax stock — and possibly quite a few more, counting visitors from other institutions, and workers at laboratories in Ohio and New Mexico that had received anthrax samples from the flask at the Army laboratory."

As Dr. Nass points out, "Having received a sample, or obtained it surreptitiously, they would be "custodians" of it too."

So concluding that the anthrax used in the attack to RMR-1029 narrows down the list of suspects to:

At least 10 scientists at Fort Detrick

Numerous visitors to Fort Detrick (including former Fort Detrick scientists, such as this one, who improperly accessed the lab)

Workers at labs in Ohio and New Mexico

And people who might have stole the anthrax from any of the people listed above

That's a pretty big list of suspects. The New York Times has confirmed in a subsequent article:

"Officials admitted that more than 100 people had access to the supply of anthrax that matched the powder in the letters."

Ivins' attorney puts the number at "hundreds of people". His attorney also states that Ivins never denied to the FBI that the anthrax could have come from Ivins' batch.

Its not so clear that Ivins is guilty after all, is it?

Moreover, the sample of RMR-1029 possessed by Dr. Ivins was not weaponized. Many of Ivins' colleagues say that he simply did not have the knowledge to weaponize it into the dry form used in the attacks, while scientists at such facilities as the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah did.

Note: As of December 2001, the following labs worked with the Ames strain of anthrax:

USArmy Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (Ft. Detrick, MD)
Dugway Proving Ground (Utah)
Naval Research Medical Center and associated military labs (MD)
Battelle Memorial Institute (Ohio; plus laboratories in many other locations)
Duke University Medical School, Clinical Microbiology Lab. (NC)
VA Medical Center, Durham (NC)
USDA laboratory and Iowa State College of Veterinary Medicine, Ames (Iowa)
LSU College of Veterinary Medicine
Northern Arizona State University (Arizona)
Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute (IL)
University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque (NM)
Institute for Genomic Research (MD)
Chemical and Biological Defense Establishment, Porton Down (UK)
Center for Applied Microbiology and Research, Porton (UK)
Defense Research Establishment, Suffield (CA)

It is unclear how many of the above labs worked with RMR-1029, but it is possible that the New York Times missed some labs in its list.

The anthrax was probably not manufactured by Ivins or Fort Detrick. Instead, it probably came from the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah:

"Called RMR-1029, it was also referred to by Ivins as "Dugway Ames spores - 1997," apparently from its original point of manufacture, at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, an Army biodefense center administered by a company called Battelle."

Scores of scientists work at Dugway Proving Ground, and the Army Reserve, National Guard and Air Force also operate there:

In addition, Dugway's mission is to test US and Allied biological and chemical weapon defense systems in a secure and isolated environment. DPG also serves as a facility for US Army Reserve and US National Guard maneuver training, and US Air Force flight tests. DPG is controlled by the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command (ATEC).

Given that RMR-1029 likely originated at Dugway Proving Ground, isn't it likely that the originator of the sample kept a sample himself? And given that many hundreds of people from various branches of the military work at Dugway, how difficult would it have been for one of them to take some of the sample?

From Kevin Ryan's recent essay, mention of Battelle :

4. Arden Bement, the metallurgist and expert on fuels and materials who was nominated as director of NIST by President George W. Bush in October 2001, was former deputy secretary of defense, former director of DARPA’s office of materials science, and former executive at TRW.

Of course, DOD and DARPA are both leaders in the production and use of nano-thermites (Amptiac 2002, DOD 2005). And military and aerospace contractor TRW has had a long collaboration with NASA laboratories in the development of energetic materials that are components of advanced propellants, like nano-gelled explosive materials (NASA 2001). TRW Aeronautics also made fireproof composites and high performance elastomer formulations, and worked with NASA to make energetic aerogels.

Additionally, Bement was a professor at Purdue and MIT. Purdue has a thriving program for nano-thermites (Son 2008). And interestingly, at MIT’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology, we find Martin Z. Bazant, son of notable “conspiracy debunker” Zdenek P. Bazant (MIT 2008), who does research on granular flows, and the electrochemical interactions of silicon. Zdenek P. Bazant is interested in nanocomposites as well (Northwestern 2008), and how they relate to naval warfare (ONR 2008). MIT was represented at nano-energetics conferences as early as 1998 (Gordon 1998).

Bement was also a director at both Battelle and the Lord Corporation. Battelle (where the anthrax was made) is an organization of “experts in fundamental technologies from the five National Laboratories we manage or co-manage for the US DOE.” Battelle advertises their specialization in nanocomposite coatings (Battelle 2008). The Lord Corporation also makes high-tech coatings for military applications (Lord 2008). In 1999, Lord Corp was working with the Army and NASA on “advanced polymer composites, advanced metals, and multifunctional materials” (Army 1999).
http://911review.com/articles/ryan/nist_thermite_connection.html

And SAIC:

In an interesting coincidence, SAIC was the firm that investigated the 1993 WTC bombing, boasting that -- “After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, our blast analyses produced tangible results that helped identify those responsible (SAIC 2004).” And the coincidences with this company don’t stop there, as SAIC was responsible for evaluating the WTC for terrorism risks in 1986 as well (CRHC 2008). SAIC is also linked to the late 1990s security upgrades at the WTC, the Rudy Giuliani administration, and the anthrax incidents after 9/11, through former employees Jerome Hauer and Steven Hatfill.

U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

This article was reported and written by Judith Miller (later jailed in CIA spy case), Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad.

Over the past several years, the United States has embarked on a program of secret research on biological weapons that, some officials say, tests the limits of the global treaty banning such weapons.

The 1972 treaty forbids nations from developing or acquiring weapons that spread disease, but it allows work on vaccines and other protective measures. Government officials said the secret research, which mimicked the major steps a state or terrorist would take to create a biological arsenal, was aimed at better understanding the threat.

The projects, which have not been previously disclosed, were begun under President Clinton and have been embraced by the Bush administration, which intends to expand them.

In 2001, administration officials said, the Pentagon drew up plans to engineer genetically a potentially more potent variant of the bacterium that causes anthrax, a deadly disease ideal for germ warfare.

The experiment has been devised to assess whether the vaccine now being given to millions of American soldiers is effective against such a superbug, which was first created by Russian scientists. A Bush administration official said the National Security Council is expected to give the final go-ahead later this month.

Administration officials said the need to keep such projects secret was a significant reason behind President Bush's recent rejection of a draft agreement to strengthen the germ-weapons treaty, which has been signed by 143 nations.

The draft would require those countries to disclose where they are conducting defensive research involving gene-splicing or germs likely to be used in weapons. The sites would then be subject to international inspections.

Many national security officials in both the Clinton and Bush administrations opposed the draft, arguing that it would give potential adversaries a road map to what the United States considers its most serious vulnerabilities.

Among the facilities likely to be open to inspection under the draft agreement would be the West Jefferson, Ohio, laboratory of the Battelle Memorial Institute, a military contractor that has been selected to create the genetically altered anthrax.

Several officials who served in senior posts in the Clinton administration acknowledged that the secretive efforts were so poorly coordinated that even the White House was unaware of their full scope.

The Pentagon's project to build a germ factory was not reported to the White House, they said. President Clinton, who developed an intense interest in germ weapons, was never briefed on the programs under way or contemplated, the officials said.

Designing a Delivery System

In the mid-1990's, the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies stepped up their search for information about other nations' biological research programs, focusing on the former Soviet Union, Iran, Iraq and Libya, among others. Much of the initial emphasis was on the germs that enemies might use in an attack, officials said.

But in 1997, the agency embarked on Clear Vision, which focused on weapons systems that would deliver the germs.

Intelligence officials said the project was led by Gene Johnson, a senior C.I.A. scientist who had long worked with some of the world's deadliest viruses. Dr. Johnson was eager to understand the damage that Soviet miniature bombs . bomblets, in military parlance . might inflict.

Breeding More Potent Anthrax

In the 1990's, government officials also grew increasingly worried about the possibility that scientists could use the widely available techniques of gene-splicing to create even more deadly weapons.

Those concerns deepened in 1995, when Russian scientists disclosed at a scientific conference in Britain that they had implanted genes from Bacillus cereus, an organism that causes food poisoning, into the anthrax microbe.

The scientists said later that the experiments were peaceful; the two microbes can be found side-by-side in nature and, the Russians said, they wanted to see what happened if they cross-bred.

A published account of the experiment, which appeared in a scientific journal in late 1997, alarmed the Pentagon, which had just decided to require that American soldiers be vaccinated against anthrax. According to the article, the new strain was resistant to Russia's anthrax vaccine, at least in hamsters.

American officials tried to obtain a sample from Russia through a scientific exchange program to see whether the Russians had really created such a hybrid. The Americans also wanted to test whether the microbe could defeat the American vaccine, which is different from that used by Russia.

Despite repeated promises, the bacteria were never provided.

Eventually the C.I.A. drew up plans to replicate the strain, but intelligence officials said the agency hesitated because there was no specific report that an adversary was attempting to turn the superbug into a weapon.

This year, officials said, the project was taken over by the Pentagon's intelligence arm, the Defense Intelligence Agency. Pentagon lawyers reviewed the proposal and said it complied with the treaty. Officials said the research would be part of Project Jefferson, yet another government effort to track the dangers posed by germ weapons.

A spokesman for Defense Intelligence, Lt. Cmdr. James Brooks, declined comment. Asked about the precautions at Battelle, which is to create the enhanced anthrax, Commander Brooks said security was "entirely suitable for all work already conducted and planned for Project Jefferson."

The 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, also known as Amerithrax from its Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) case name, occurred over the course of several weeks beginning on September 18, 2001. Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news media offices and two Democratic U.S. Senators, killing five people and infecting 17 others.

How convenient..

Bruce Edwards Ivins, a scientist who worked at the government's biodefense labs at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. Ivins had been told about the impending prosecution and apparently committed suicide by overdosing on Tylenol with codeine as reported on August 1, 2008.

On August 6, 2008, federal prosecutors declared Ivins to be the sole culprit of the crime.

At least 22 people developed anthrax infections, with 11 of the especially life-threatening inhalation variety. Five died of inhalation anthrax: Stevens; two employees of the Brentwood mail facility in Washington, D.C., Thomas Morris Jr. and Joseph Curseen; and two about whom their source of exposure to the bacteria is still unknown: Kathy Nguyen, a Vietnamese immigrant resident in the borough of the Bronx who worked in New York City, and Ottilie Lundgren, a 94-year old widow of a prominent judge from Oxford, Connecticut, who was the last known victim.

The letters contained at least two grades of anthrax material; the coarse brown material sent in the media letters and the fine powder sent to the two U.S. Senators. In addition, it has been suggested the anthrax material sent to an old Post Office Box address of the National Enquirer and then forwarded to AMI may have been an intermediate grade similar to the anthrax sent to the Senate. The brown granular anthrax sent to media outlets in New York City caused only skin infections, cutaneous anthrax. The anthrax sent to the Senators caused the more dangerous form of infection known as inhalation anthrax, as did the anthrax sent to AMI in Florida.

Although the anthrax preparations were of different grades, all of the material derived from the same bacterial strain. Known as the Ames strain, it was first researched at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), Fort Detrick, Maryland. The Ames strain was then distributed to at least fifteen bio-research labs within the U.S. and six locations overseas.

Early reports suggested the anthrax sent to the Senate had been "weaponized." On October 29, 2001, Major General John Parker at a White House briefing said that silica had been found in the Daschle anthrax sample. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge in a White House press conference on November 7, 2001, told reporters that tests indicated a binding agent had been used in making the anthrax. Later, the FBI claimed a "lone individual" could have weaponized anthrax spores for as little as $2,500, using a makeshift basement laboratory.

In late October, 2001, ABC chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross several times linked the anthrax sample to Saddam Hussein; on October 26, "sources tell ABCNEWS the anthrax in the tainted letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was laced with bentonite. The potent additive is known to have been used by only one country in producing biochemical weapons . Iraq.... it is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program...The discovery of bentonite came in an urgent series of tests conducted at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and elsewhere," on October 28, stating that "despite continued White House denials, four well-placed and separate sources have told ABC News that initial tests on the anthrax by the US Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland, have detected trace amounts of the chemical additives bentonite and silica" and several times on October 28 and 29.

These reports were cited in the press, starting almost immediately and for several years following, even after the invasion of Iraq, as evidence that Saddam not only possessed "weapons of mass destruction", but had actually used them in attacks on the United States.

A number of press reports appeared suggesting the Senate anthrax had coatings and additives. Newsweek reported the anthrax sent to Senator Leahy had been coated with a chemical compound previously unknown to bioweapons experts. Two experts on the Soviet anthrax program, Kenneth Alibek and Matthew Meselson, were consultants with the Justice Department and were shown electron micrographs of the anthrax from the Daschle letter. They replied to the Washington Post article "FBI's Theory on Anthrax Is Doubted" (October 28, 2002), reporting that they saw no evidence the anthrax spores had been coated and that more careful investigation of the specimens is necessary.

A week after Meselson and Alibek had their letter published in the Washington Post, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), one of the military labs that analyzed the Daschle anthrax, published an official newsletter stating that silica was a key aerosol enabling component of the Daschle anthrax. The AFIP lab deputy director, Florabel Mullick, said "This [silica] was a key component. Silica prevents the anthrax from aggregating, making it easier to aerosolize. Significantly, we noted the absence of aluminum with the silica. This combination had previously been found in anthrax produced by Iraq."

In February 2005, Stephan P. Velsko of Lawrence Livermore National Labs published a paper titled "Physical and Chemical Analytical Analysis: A key component of Bioforensics". In this paper, Velsko illustrated that different silica coating processes gave rise to weaponized anthrax simulants that look completely different from one another. He suggested that the difference in the look of products could provide evidence of what method the lab that manufactured the 2001 anthrax used, and thus provide clues to the ultimate origin of the material.

White House pushes FBI to blame Al Qaida

Immediately after the anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressured FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove that they were a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda. During the president's morning intelligence briefings, Mueller was "beaten up" for not producing proof that the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide. "They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official stated. The FBI knew early on that the anthrax used was a weaponized version requiring sophisticated equipment and was unlikely to have been produced in some "cave." At the same time, both President Bush and Vice President Cheney in public statements speculated about the possibility of a link between the anthrax attacks and Al Qaida.

Political effects

The anthrax attacks, as well as the September 11, 2001 attacks, have spurred significant increases in U.S. government funding for biological warfare research and preparedness. For example, biowarfare-related funding at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) increased by $1.5 billion in 2003. In 2004, Congress passed the Project Bioshield Act, which provides $5.6 billion over ten years for the purchase of new vaccines and drugs.

A theory that Iraq was behind the attacks, based upon the evidence that the powder was weaponized and some reports of alleged meetings between 9/11 conspirators and Iraqi officials, may have been a contributing prevarication used by the United States government to justify war with that country.

Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg has been a major figure outside the official investigation. A few months after the anthrax attack, Rosenberg started a campaign to get the FBI to investigate Dr. Steven Hatfill. She gave talks and interviews suggesting the government knew who was responsible for the anthrax attacks, but did not want to charge the individual with the crime. She believed the person responsible was a contractor for the CIA and an expert in bio-warfare. She created a profile of the anthrax attacker that fit Dr. Hatfill. Rosenberg spoke before a committee of Senate staffers suggesting Hatfill was responsible, but did not explicitly provide his name. The highly publicized FBI scrutiny of Dr. Hatfill began shortly thereafter.

Director of the CIA George Tenet -- who is a participant of the 911 inside job -- naturally tries to find blame anywhere...

The director of the CIA under the Bush administration until 2006 said in his book At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA .The most startling revelation from this intelligence success story was that the anthrax program had been developed in parallel to 9/11 planning. As best as we could determine, al-Zawahiri.s project had been wrapped up in the summer of 2001, when the al-Qaida deputy, along with Hambali, were briefed over a week by Sufaat on the progress he had made to isolate anthrax. The entire operation had been managed at the top of al-Qai.da with strict compartmentalization. Having completed this phase of his work, Sufaat fled Afghanistan in December 2001 and was captured by authorities trying to sneak back into Malaysia. Rauf Ahmad was detained by Pakistani authorities in December 2001. Our hope was that these and our many other actions had neutralized the anthrax threat, at least temporarily.

EVIDENCE ORDERED DESTROYED

10.10.2001 ** Iowa State (Ames) Anthrax cultures destroyed by order of FBI & CDC :: 70+ years of research kept in more than 100 vials (Ref.)

For historic reflection, here's a breakdown of the elephant events.

SEP10.2001 -- Rumsfeld announces $2.3 trillion missing, declares a 'War on Waste' http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kpWqdPMjmo
SEP11.2001 -- 3/4 hijacked airplanes tricked US air defense, killing almost 3000 and causing the first ever symmetrically perfect collapse of 3 (three) NYC towers owned by "Pullit Silverstein"
SEP11.2001 -- Rumsfeld's 'War on Waste' and the missing 25% of military spending seemingly forgotten by media http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml
SEP11.2001 -- White House staff instructed to start taking Anthrax antibiotic, Cipro http://www.judicialwatch.org/2953.shtml
SEP18.2001 -- First Anthrax letters mailed to NBC, NY Post http://911review.org/Wget/www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm
SEP19.2001 -- First Anthrax letters received http://911review.org/Wget/www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm

OCT02.2001 -- U.S. "anti-terrorism" Patriot Act -- is Introduced to Congress
OCT02.2001 -- Robert Stevens (AMI) checked into hospital, near death, undiagnosed.
OCT03.2001 -- Senate Majority Leader and future anthrax target Tom Daschle (D) suggests the Patriot Act won't pass within the White House's one week timetable. Attorney General Ashcroft accuses Senate Democrats of dragging their feet. http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a100201patriotact#a100201patriotact
OCT04.2001 -- First report of anthrax case, 5pm (Stevens, AMI). http://911review.org/Wget/www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm
OCT05.2001 -- Death of first anthrax victim (Stevens, inhalation anthrax) http://911review.org/Wget/www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm
OCT07.2001 -- U.S. military attacks Afghanistan
OCT08.2001 -- Anthrax letters to Daschle and Leahy mailed http://911review.org/Wget/www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm
OCT10.2001 -- ** Iowa State (Ames) Anthrax cultures destroyed by order of FBI & CDC :: 70+ years of research kept in more than 100 vials ( http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9804EEDF1738F93AA35752C1A9679C8B63 )
OCT11.2001 -- ** Iowa State (Ames) Anthrax cultures destroyed by order of FBI & CDC :: (took 2 days) ( http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9804EEDF1738F93AA35752C1A9679C8B63 )
OCT14.2001 -- Neocons accuse Iraq 'behind US anthrax outbreaks' http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/terrorism.afghanistan6
OCT15.2001 -- Daschle's office opened anthrax letter. http://911review.org/Wget/www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm
OCT16.2001 -- The Senate office buildings shut down.
OCT17.2001 -- House of Representatives shut down; 28 congressional staffers test positive for anthrax.
OCT17.2001 -- The New York and Florida letters are found to contain the Ames strain.
OCT18.2001 -- An assistant of CBS Dan Rather contracts anthrax.
OCT20.2001 -- First mention that source of anthrax letters is probably domestic http://911review.org/Wget/www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm
OCT21.2001 -- Letters to N.Y.Post, NBC and Senator Daschle are found to have identical handwriting of "Death to America, Death to Israel, Allah is Great."
OCT24.2001 -- House passes the final version of the Patriot Act and other previously unpopular Bush projects: Alaska oil drilling, $25 billion in tax cuts for corporations, taps into Social Security funds and cuts in education. (Balt.Sun, Oct.25 & 27; Washington Post, Sept.27, 2001, Juliet Eilperin, pg.A4)
OCT25.2001 -- Congressional mail halted. Senator Daschle switched from supporting a 2 year limit on the Patriot Act to defending a 4 year sunset clause as the "appropriate balance." (Balt.Sun, Oct.10; AP, op.cit. Jessie J. Holland.)
OCT25.2001 -- White House confirmed Anthrax letters contained the Ames strain http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9804EEDF1738F93AA35752C1A9679C8B63
OCT26.2001 -- Senate passes the final version Patriot Act. (AP, op.cit.)
OCT26.2001 -- President Bush signs the USA Patriot Act. (Balt.Sun, Oct.27.)
OCT27.2001 -- Supreme Court shut down with anthrax scare. (Chronology, Sun-Sentinel, op.cit.)
November, 2001 -- No more anthrax letters received by anyone. Congressional buildings reopened. Three top anthrax experts with knowledge of the U.S. bioweapons program died under suspicious circumstances within a ten day period. http://www.freefromterror.net/other_articles/gov_anthrax.html
DEC16.2001 -- Genetically matching anthrax spores found to have originated from Ft. Detrick http://www.mapcruzin.com/news/war121601a.htm
DEC17.2001 -- White House says Anthrax attacks probably originated domestically http://911review.org/Wget/www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm
OCT13.2006 -- FBI's 2001 Anthrax Investigation Has Gone Cold http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/13/AR2006101301417.htmlSo, instead of asserting reality, we can see that there was a clear attempt to point fingers in the direction of any perceived enemy, after destroying evidence that could track the real criminal(s). Didn't the WTC steel also get shipped off before forensics test could be performed?

posted by u2r2h at Thursday, August 07, 2008

No spanking the monkey.......

2009-08-17T01:53:00.000-07:00

Thursday, August 13, 2009

THE HIDDEN ANTHRAX LETTERS SUSPECT

~

Dr. Zack, the real Anthrax hack?

The FBI knows of a man who was caught entering the lab where the Anthrax used in the letters was kept, after he had been fired for a racially motivated attack on a co-worker. So, why was the FBI wasting its time with Steven Hatfill?

To my mind, anyone Ollie North considers a patriot is just the kind of creep who'd come up with a scheme like this. Guilt by association.

2009-08-06T03:37:00.000-07:00

Gee, What's Your Hurry?
Tuesday, July 28

Devlin Barrett, "US on verge of closing anthrax probe after 8 years". July 27

I GOTTA admit that after six-and-a-half years of screaming about how quickly the Terrorist Anthrax Attack on America Herself faded from view once it became clear* that it was a Domestic terror attack, I pretty much stopped reading about it myself a year ago, when it became obvious the FBI had pinned the thing on a dead guy. So it was actually new information for me, when I watched Hunting the Anthrax Killer on the National Geographic Network Sunday night, that they'd tumbled onto the late Dr. Ivins because he'd (allegedly) provided a fake sample of the spores he'd been working with, and because the real sample, like the spores used in the attacks, contained silicon, which all the others did not.

The National Academy of Sciences will be reviewing the Bureau's scientific methods, to which we can add only that we wish there was a National Academy of Politically-Motivated Incompetent Police Work, Plus Judith Miller.

Item: it's the largest, most expensive manhunt in history. Item: within days--hours, maybe--of the attacks on Congress they knew it was the Ames strain, and they knew that meant the US was the source. Item: read those notes above--they were written by Arab Terrorists the same way Jonah Goldberg is ghostwritten by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Yes, yes, yes; an investigation that narrows its focus early will frequently live to regret it, but this one had unlimited fucking funding, and it's not like the "foreign power" angle was going to be tossed out on its ear anyway; but at some point, possessing the information that the strain of anthrax used in the attacks was ours, and, so far as we knew, ours alone,** and having read those letters, someone in authority made the decision to continue pumping resources toward proving it was The Ruskies or that Saddam guy, on the grounds that the light was better there. This is not exactly reassuring.

The program reminded us, too, that the focus on Steven Hatfill, like the earlier focus on Ayaad Assaad--though ultimately much more expensive--was entirely the result of Tipster Bingo. Which means that once the lab boys were finished we could have cut costs by reducing the investigation to a couple of secretaries.

Sure, sure, hindsight's 20/20, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, but look: word that they'd found the Ames strain--and the erroneous story that the Congressional anthrax was "weaponized"--was going around by November, 2001. So were the whispers that when we "stopped" our bioweapons program at Nixon's order in 1969 it didn't mean we, like, stopped or anything. And it's almost precisely at this point that public hysteria--remember, bioweapons was the "active" scare, unamenable to security measures, unlike air travel--disappears, the door slams shut, there's a guard posted, and everyone else sorta wanders away. In December the Baltimore Sun officially breaks the story that the US has an active dry-anthrax (i.e. weapons) program, Tom "Limousine Liberal" Daschle says it looks like someone connected to the US military is responsible, and George W. Bush says "We'll keep you informed as developments arise," which are essentially his last words on the subject, at least until John "Bring Me The Credit Card Overdrafts of 100 Arabic-Sounding Legal Aliens" Ashcroft nails Dr. Hatfill in public. From this point it's difficult to find much reporting on the case except that of the Judith Miller Times, the fun-loving genocidists at WaPo, and the tub-thumpers at The Weekly Standard, whose insistence that it was the work of Saddam & Al-Qaeda, LLC., should have been enough to convince all sane people that it couldn't possibly be. Judy and the Posters were still hawking that angle a year later, even after the spotlight had been turned on Hatfill, and Hoosier Attack Representative Mike Pence had written to Ashcroft, asking if he'd please, please get the investigative focus back on Saddam Hussein?

In other words, just months after the anthrax attacks continued, and amplified, the Justification of the Global War of Civilizations and Shitting Your Pants, the administration's henchmen were lying outright about the case despite its earth-shaking consequences. Our Way of Life hangs in the balance, according the them, and they're busy playing politics (yeah, shocking, I know; but how much worse is the refusal to investigate?). Our own biological weapons program, the one that didn't exist, is effectively ignored when it comes time to consider just how evil Saddam Hussein, bioweapons aspirant, truly is. And it takes six years after completion of the DNA and chemical profiles of the strain to locate it among a finite number of samples in domestic labs, or, coincidentally, just unto the beginning of the next Presidential campaign.

I dunno if it was Ivins. Opinions vary. If the science is to be believed there's more than a strong suggestion from the provenance of his working materials, but it's not my fault the Bureau's lab work is perpetually clouded in suspicion. It is a case where the Lone Nut theory seems plausible. I've got a little problem with the proffered motive--that Ivins' anthrax vaccine was being blamed for Gulf War Syndrome, and was no longer being administered to the troops, and he wanted it reinstated--but then you don't have to prove motive. Whether they could prove the rest of it is moot. But all that's a lot less interesting to me than how the story, and the panic, was manipulated, and how easily it was dropped when the truth hit close to home.

Then again, the other thing that interests me is why Cheri "Home Alone" Daniels, later First Lady of Hoosierland, alone among Cabinet-level Spouses and Miscellaneous Dependents, was mailed a supposedly bulging envelope of what turned out to be talc while her hubby was in D.C. single-handedly wrecking the US economy. But maybe that's just me. And maybe we'll get the answers during the 2012 Presidential campaign, eh Mitch?

_____________
*to everyone except Judith Miller and Bill Kristol.

**or everyone except Judith Miller and Bill Kristol.

Labels: Remembering the Bush Administration (Now In Retrospect)

2 comments:

map106 3:48 PM EDT

Well, after having embarrassed myself repeatedly on this site today, I still have to say:

I absolutely love (not even in a manly way) your writing style.

You're the only thing keeping me from insanity or senility.

Joyful Alternative 12:04 AM EDT

I have always figured it was Hatfill. I watching still watching a little TV, back in the days when he was accused, and some guy said he and Oliver North could vouch that Steven Hatfill was a patriot.

To my mind, anyone Ollie North considers a patriot is just the kind of creep who'd come up with a scheme like this. Guilt by association.

CIA leak judge says reporters need limited shield law

2009-08-04T00:28:00.000-07:00

CIA leak judge says reporters need limited shield law

By The Associated Press
08.03.09

CHICAGO — The federal judge who presided over Washington’s CIA leak case and a separate case involving a journalist’s sources said Aug. 1 that reporters must have some protection against courtroom attempts to find out their sources but it should be limited.

Courts should not be able to “just willy nilly extract information from reporters,” U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton of Washington told an American Bar Association panel on proposed shield legislation.

Shield legislation now pending on Capitol Hill would give reporters some protection against having to reveal their sources. But both House and Senate bills contain exceptions for national security and other sensitive matters.

The panel at the ABA’s annual meeting consisted of Walton, Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, media lawyer Guylyn Cummins and Chicago Sun-Times reporter Abdon Pallasch. The moderator was Stephen J. Wermiel of the American University College of Law.

Walton presided over the trial in which former Vice President Dick Cheney’s onetime top aide, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted of lying to a federal grand jury investigating the leak to the news media of Valerie Plame’s identity as a Central Intelligence Agency operative.

During that investigation, former New York Times reporter Judith Miller was sent to jail for 85 days by another judge for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury about a source who spoke to her about the matter.

In a separate case, Walton held USA Today reporter Toni Locy in contempt for refusing to identify sources for stories about the 2001 anthrax attacks. Walton ordered Locy to personally pay fines of up to $5,000 a day unless she identified officials who discussed Steven J. Hatfill, who was named a person of interest in the anthrax attacks but was eventually exonerated by the Justice Department.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia later threw out the contempt order against Locy.

While Walton said Aug. 1 that there were dangers in an unlimited shield for reporters, he added: “I do believe reporters should have some level of protection.”

Pallasch spoke about the concerns of reporters who believe that if they are forced to name their sources of information the sources will be afraid to talk.

Pallasch noted that prosecutors have acknowledged that their investigations sometimes begin with news reports based on tips from sources who sought to remain anonymous.

“If you don’t confide in reporters … how do we get the tip?” he said.

Chicago’s U.S. attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor who had Miller jailed, said those calling for a shield law should realize what they are asking for when they seek unlimited protection.

Even federal agents couldn’t offer unlimited protection to a source willing to disclose the hiding place of Osama bin Laden, Fitzgerald said.

“Even the president can’t do that,” he said.

Fitzgerald said the leak in the Plame investigation was not from a whistleblower trying to expose official corruption but “the leak was the crime.”

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

2009-08-03T04:44:00.000-07:00

Holt on anthrax mailings: Investigate the investigators

Daniel Tencer Raw Story Sunday, August 2, 2009

Until the US holds a “broader inquiry” into the investigation of the 2001 anthrax mailings, US House Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) won’t be satisfied that there isn’t a mass killer on the loose in his home town. Holt — whose 12th Congressional district of New Jersey includes a postal facility from which some of the anthrax letters were mailed during the 2001 biological terrorism scare — says that the FBI “suffers from a credibility gap” because of the many mistakes made by the bureau during its long investigation into the first serious case of biological terrorism on American soil. “
If the technical and scientific procedures [used by the FBI] are as flawed as the non-technical procedures, they certainly deserve a look,” the Frederick, Md., News-Post quoted Holt as saying. At the FBI’s request, the National Academy of Sciences has convened a 15-member panel to review the scientific soundness of the FBI’s eight-year-long investigation into the anthrax mailings. According to Elie Dolgin at Nature magazine, the FBI believes the scientific review of its own investigation to be “unprecedented.” The panel will be allowed to review the genetic and chemical elements of the FBI’s investigation, but not “any other aspects of the investigation not related to the science.”

That’s what has Holt worried.

“I have fundamental concerns about how this was conducted and lingering doubts about the conclusions — and a lot of others do,” Holt told the Washington Post in an interview.

“I’d like to be able to assure my constituents in New Jersey that there is no longer a murderer at large, and that we’re prepared to deal with the next bioterrorist attack,” he said.

Five people died and at least 21 were sickened during a spate of anthrax letters sent immediately in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Beginning September 18, 2001, envelopes containing deadly anthrax spores were sent to a number of high-profile figures, including two leading Democratic Congressmen, Tom Daschle (D-SD) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT). NBC newsman Tom Brokaw also received an anthrax letter. Those three were not among those who became ill, but a reporter from the Sun tabloid died, as did two postal workers and two individuals whose link to the anthrax was never discovered.

Due to comments like “Death to America, death to Israel” in the letters, many initially speculated that an Islamist militant group, or the Iraqi government, may have been behind the mailings.

But other observers credited the anthrax attacks with creating the necessary environment, in government and the media, for the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, an omnibus security bill passed in late 2001 that significantly expanded governmental power and was attacked for reducing civil liberties. Some suspicious eyes turned towards government employees.

Some of those suspicions were seemingly confirmed in 2002, when New Scientist magazine published an article stating that the anthrax strain in the letters was identical to the military-grade anthrax created in US government labs.

The Department of Justice soon fingered Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, a government virologist, as a “person of interest” in the case, but never charged him. In June of last year, the US paid Dr. Hatfill $5.8 million to settle a suit he had brought against the federal government.

Prosecutors wasted no time pointing to a new suspect: Bruce Ivins, a microbiologist at the US Army’s biodefense lab at Fort Detrick, Md. Ivins committed suicide last year, allegedly after learning he would be indicted in the case.

The scientific panel’s work began one year almost to the day after Ivins’ suicide. Its review is expected to take as long as 18 months.

Dubious studies

2009-07-31T01:57:00.000-07:00

Dubious Study

Originally published July 31, 2009

Some months ago, we editorialized our hope that the FBI-commissioned National Academy of Sciences study on the anthrax mailings case would clarify the guilt or innocence of former Fort Detrick microbiologist Bruce Ivins.

Local lawyer and peace activist Barry Kissin took us to task for the editorial, saying, in effect, that the NAS study would not speak to Ivins' culpability, even though, as Kissin said, the FBI "has done its best to pretend that it is the science in Amerithrax that largely establishes Ivins' guilt."

Two quotes in News-Post reporter Adam Behsudi's Sunday story on Ivins and the NAS study speak volumes on this subject. The first is from Gerard Andrews, director from 2000 to 2003 of the bacteriology division at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Infectious Diseases -- and Ivins' supervisor for about five years.

Relating to the anthrax flask -- to which Ivins had access -- that the FBI asserts was the origin of the strain used in the fatal mailings, Andrews says: "It very likely came from that flask, but who cares, hundreds of people had access, if not more. Dozens of labs were sent that sample."

And from Jeff Adamovicz, who headed up the division after Andrews left: "The FBI knows full well the distribution of that strain. They've been focused on USAMRIID since day one."

The FBI's case against Ivins is almost wholly circumstantial. It includes his strained behavior while under suspicion and surveillance by the FBI, which he was aware of before apparently committing suicide in July 2008.

While the NAS study may well validate the scientific protocols used by the FBI in its investigation, that would not prove Ivins' guilt. That point cannot be too strongly made.

However, another avenue of discovery has been proposed. In March, Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., introduced the Anthrax Investigation Act in Congress. The bill would establish a national commission akin to the one created to study the 2001 terrorist attacks. Unfortunately, this bill remains stalled in Congress.

Ivins' family and those of the victims of the anthrax mailings -- and indeed, all those who worked with Ivins at USAMRIID -- need and deserve to have this case solved.

Even if Congress does create this commission, however, Ivins' guilt or innocence may never be proved. Still, it would be only fair and fitting that the FBI's characterization of him as the only viable suspect be re-examined in earnest. If there are a number of other facilities and individuals who cannot be excluded from consideration as the source of the anthrax used in the fatal mailings, that fact should be a major part of any conclusion about this case.

We urge our congressional representatives to support this legislation. The mailings took place in Holt's district, so he has a personal reason to be involved. But the accused man and the laboratory where he worked should also make it a personal issue for Maryland's congressional delegation.

Local filmmaker works on anthrax documentary

2009-07-31T01:47:00.000-07:00

Photo by Graham Cullen

Salyer McLaughlin helped produce the National Geographic Channel special "Hunting The Anthrax Killer," which centers on Bruce Ivins, the man the FBI believes is responsible for the anthrax mailings of 2001.

Originally published July 31, 2009
By Ron Cassie News-Post Staff

A year after the apparent suicide of Frederick scientist Bruce Ivins, a TV documentary explores the FBI's case against the man the agency blames for the 2001 anthrax mail attacks that killed five people.

"Hunting the Anthrax Killer," showing at 10 p.m. today on the National Geographic Channel, casts doubt on the investigation and the science that led FBI agents to Ivins. The one-hour documentary includes interviews with Ivins' former supervisor at Fort Detrick, Jeff Adamovicz; U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J.; Claire M. Fraser-Liggett, director of the Institute for Genome Sciences and professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School in Baltimore; Joseph Michael, one of the scientists employed by the FBI to investigate the case; Ayaad Assaad, a former Fort Detrick scientist briefly investigated before being exonerated; Scott Shane, New York Times journalist; and Paul Kemp, Ivins' attorney.

Frederick filmmaker Salyer McLaughlin served as a production consultant on the project and shot some of the footage of the 2008 Capitol Hill hearings surrounding the investigation, including Sens. Arlen Specter and Patrick Leahy expressing their doubts about the strength of the FBI's case against Ivins. McLaughlin filmed Frederick and Fort Detrick for the documentary, served as the project's still photographer and helped produce the re-created events.

McLaughlin and his wife, Rhonda, own I.D. Films, a locally based digital media production company. The couple said they began researching the case after attending Ivins' funeral last year. Rhonda McLaughlin described Ivins as an acquaintance and family friend.

"Because of that (connection to Ivins), we had a stronger interest in investigating the case," Salyer McLaughlin said. "As well, it happened in our backyard and it's an important story to tell as a filmmaker."

McLaughlin originally teamed with the A&E channel to do a story on the Ivins investigation, but that project was terminated, he said. McLaughlin wasn't pleased with the direction of the A&E project, which he described as more sensationalized and personality-driven.

"National Geographic is more science-oriented, and that's what we wanted to focus on," he said. "We'd heard National Geographic was working on a similar project at that same time, and after the relationship with A&E ended we gave them a call and took everything we had to them."

"Hunting the Anthrax Killer" is produced and directed by Tria Thalman.

Central to the doubts cast on Ivins' guilt is the number of other people, about 100, who the investigators acknowledge had access to the same anthrax strain.

The film also highlights Adamovicz's claims that Ivins did not have the time or access to create the dry weaponized version of the mailed anthrax -- which he said would take 35 weeks of lab work to convert.

The documentary includes examples of mistakes the FBI has acknowledged in the investigation, such as originally focusing on scientist Steven Hatfill.

In the end, the film seemed to posit that the FBI blamed Ivins more because of his history of personal troubles than any airtight scientific evidence.

"Hunting the Anthrax Killer" does not speculate on who might have sent the deadly letters, other than to say that many scientists at several U.S. labs worked with the same strain.

McLaughlin said he is developing a feature film based on the 2003 book "The Killer Strain" by Marilyn W. Thompson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist at The Washington Post.

The Luigi Andrea ("Anthrax") Warren Deception

A MEMBER OF THE RHODESIAN GESTAPO AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN NAZI PARTY

ASSORTED HATFILL INFO

MAIL AND GUARDIAN ON LINE

MURKY PAST OF US BIOWARRIOR

MARLENE BURGER

THE FORWARD

THE FEATHERMAN FILE of Noteworthy Items in the Press

Involvement in Rhodesian bioweapons initiatives

Fumbling Bureau of Incompetence

Fumbling bureau of incompetence

Anthrax Attack Used to Justify the Iraq War

Anthrax Attack Used to Justify the Iraq War

Unsealed Court Documents

Headline Archives

Hatfill possessed poor morales and values

Monday, September 28, 2009

A Person Of Interest

A person of interest ...

Sunday, September 27, 2009

A person of interest ...

The Secret of the Anthrax Attacks

Another "POI"

Fame at last - Film Star.......

http://www.nypost.com/seven/08282009/tv/the_story_behind_9_11__hit_or_myth__186793.htm

By MAXINE SHEN

9/11 Truthers: Return of the Java Jackass

The person responsible was a contractor for the CIA and an expert in bio-warfare

07 August, 2009

ANTHRAX - DEATH TO AMERICA ISRAEL ALLAH IS GREAT

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

FBI's Allegation that Ivins was "Sole Custodian" is False

No spanking the monkey.......

PLANET OF THE CHIMPS #2

Thursday, August 13, 2009

THE HIDDEN ANTHRAX LETTERS SUSPECT

The FBI knows of a man who was caught entering the lab where the Anthrax used in the letters was kept, after he had been fired for a racially motivated attack on a co-worker. So, why was the FBI wasting its time with Steven Hatfill?

To my mind, anyone Ollie North considers a patriot is just the kind of creep who'd come up with a scheme like this. Guilt by association.

CIA leak judge says reporters need limited shield law

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Dubious studies

Local filmmaker works on anthrax documentary