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Former FBI Agent Says White House Pressured Bureau To Blame Anthrax On Bin Laden, Al Qaeda
The New York Daily News reports:
In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda, but investigators ruled that out, the Daily News has learned.After the Oct. 5, 2001, death from anthrax exposure of Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, Mueller was "beaten up" during President Bush's morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof 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 told The News.
On October 15, 2001, President Bush said, "There may be some possible link" to Bin Laden, adding, "I wouldn't put it past him." Vice President Cheney also said Bin Laden's henchmen were trained "how to deploy and use these kinds of substances, so you start to piece it all together."
But by then the FBI already knew anthrax spilling out of letters addressed to media outlets and to a U.S. senator was a military strain of the bioweapon. "Very quickly [Fort Detrick, Md., experts] told us this was not something some guy in a cave could come up with," the ex-FBI official said. "They couldn't go from box cutters one week to weapons-grade anthrax the next."
Josh
Zachary
Holy fucking shit, Batman!
August 4, 2008 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not really a tinfoil hat guy (most of the time), but is there anyone else out there who thinks that the scientist who did this might have been pressured into doing it? I mean, what was his motivation, otherwise? And isn't it possible that Cheney and his henchmen put him up to it?
And is it only a coincidence that the senator targeted was Tom Daschle? (I wonder whether our friend Thomas Bean has any thoughts on that.)
-- ARG
August 4, 2008 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't forget Dick Cheney telling Patrick Leahy to "go fuck yourself".
So I guess now this has established some kind of coverup of malfeasance/incompetence by pointing the finger at Bin Laden without any evidence?
August 4, 2008 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
They also pointed fingers at Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Go read Glenn Greenwald's blog. ABC News was told by four sources that the anthrax was connected to Iraq, and they've never said who the sources were who apparently deceived them in order to advance their political agenda.
Another question is whether, if he did it, this guy acted alone.
August 4, 2008 11:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, there are others who wonder. They wonder because they are sane; not because of the aluminum wrap.
August 4, 2008 12:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
**Why would you think the guy is guilty. Haven't see anything pointing that way other than a lunatic blond "theripist's" ravings and some overwrought articles in some major papers.
August 4, 2008 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, c'mon.
It's coincidence, just like when one of the bankers in Iran-Contra hung himself under a bridge while the whole thing was unfolding.
August 4, 2008 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Difference between a dictatorship and a democracy....
In a democracy, the culprits will never have to pay the penalties...
August 4, 2008 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
http://sutherlandsalute.blogspot.com/2007/09/fbi-obstructs-anthrax-false-flag.html
..."After realizing that the anthrax attacks looked like a domestic job,Boyle called a high-level official in the FBI who deals with terrorism
and counterterrorism, Marion "Spike" Bowman.
Boyle and Bowman had met at a terrorism conference at the University of Michigan Law School. Boyle told Bowman that the only people who would have the capability to carry out the attacks were individuals working on U.S. government anthrax programs with access to a high-level biosafety lab. Boyle gave Bowman a full list of names of scientists, contractors and labs
conducting anthrax work for the U.S. government and military....
..."Soon after I informed Bowman of this information, the FBI authorized
the destruction of the Ames cultural anthrax database," the professor said. The Ames strain turned out to be the same strain as the spores
used in the attacks.
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."
At that point, recounted Boyle, it became very clear to him that there was a coverup underway. He later discovered, while reading David Ray
Griffin's book on the 9/11 attacks, The New Pearl Harbor, that Bowman was the same FBI agent who allegedly sabotaged the FISA warrant for
access to [convicted co-conspirator] Zacharias Moussaoui's computer prior to 9/11. Moussaoui's computer contained information that could
have helped prevent the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
In 2003, Bowman was promoted and given the Presidential Rank Award by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote a
letter to Mueller, chastising the organization for granting such an honor to an agent who had so obviously compromised America's security.....
...Boyle alleged that due to his activities as a lawyer, he was interrogated by an agent from the CIA/FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force in the summer of 2004. The agent tried to recruit him as an informant to provide the FBI with information on his Arab and Muslim clients. When he refused, according to Boyle, the FBI placed him on the government's terrorism watch lists.
August 4, 2008 11:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
thomasBean, you come off so much better without caps. [Not that you wouldn't feel compelled to scream at the top of your lungs if you were one among the many who actually could connect dots to diabolical scale tipping (shall I say it that way)and nobody would listen.]
We have all been yanked around by such self interested gorillas who were (and are) prepared to sacrifice the guiltless and the innocent for their small minded PNAC aims. It is so stupefying that the biggest junior high school bullies have stolen the keys to the kingdom to ride roughshod over the rest of us, that nobody wants to believe it still. The difference is, the biggest junior high school bullies didn't have armies and intelligence agencies at their command. The jimmied "evidence" linking the anthrax spores to al Qaeda is just one picayune example from the mountain of abomination that results from such a combo of callowness and power as the Cheney/Bush bunch have.
We haven't seen the tip of the iceberg of the crap we are going to eat for this. And our children. And our grandchildren. And theirs.
It's because we were shocked into disbelief and inaction that we will be blamed. We didn't change it. We let it go on.
August 4, 2008 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yup.
It is "shit sandwich time" for everyone except those (like Pelosi, Reid, insiders) who moved their dollars into euros or gold.
Who killed the Kennedys'...when after all it was you and me?
I gave alot of scum with badges a chance to stand up....................and...............they all stood down despite the fact that they had the facts, the law, and the power to do what was right?
No excuses from a corrupt fatface "suckerfish of hope" known as DON SRSTKA, ass South Dakota Atty General in charge of SIOUX FALLS' COVERUPS OF OUTRAGEOUS CRIMES.
SRSTKA has my medical complaint.
This complaint alleged outrageous crimes by secret badge boys who were "just following orders" from the top.
August 4, 2008 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/anthraxsuspect.html?q=anthraxsuspect.html
Go TO LINK to see story on MOSSAD'S DR ZACK, who was at Ft Dedrick...was on videotape in the lab with out a reason...and...ZACK is tied to CHERTOFF, MUKASY, ADL , B
NAITH B'RITH....Mossad.
August 4, 2008 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
As the FBI rapidly backpeddles on the original story that an indictment against Ivins was imminent, the truth becomes murkier and opportunities for speculation become rife.
The blabbermouthed "counselor" is a BSW, CSC-AD. That is, she has a bachelors of social work and is licensed by the State of Maryland as a Certified Superivised Counselor for Alcohol and Drugs.
She apparently recently graduated from Hood College, having been listed on the honor roll for the Spring 2007 semester there.
She has several DUI convictions in the State of Maryland.
For some reason, she received some nice ink in the local paper, (Frederick News-Post) on her treatment of prescription drug addicts and the wonders of Suboxone in treating them. Why a BSW is quoted regarding the efficacy of a prescription drug therapy for any medical reason, including addiction, is ludicrous. Only a licensed physician (probably psychiatrist at her clinic) would be prescribing and should be the only person talking about the benefits or lack there of for a prescription drug. Ms. Duley not only is a recent graduate with her BSW, she is only licensed to provide counselling with supervision.
This woman likes to talk and get her name in the paper. How did she get such good ink on a subject she is clearly unqualified to discuss?
That she is used so prominently to discredit Dr. Ivins makes one wonder. What is going on? What is being hidden? What is the real story, because the original is already undergoing massive editing and undoubtedly will continue to be changed.
Something is clearly being covered up. What?
August 4, 2008 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
You hit it on the head, the family should file tort chatges on her, I mean as a counselor her blabbing was not the way to handle "inpatient" records. Even if she was in a 12-step program, or thought she knew anything about it.. she erred.
Then you ask, why did she run to the press?
What was her motive?
Yeah that is ths strangest part of the story.. the lack of a motive for this lady to react as she had..
August 4, 2008 8:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
What seems odd to me is that Dr. Ivins was allowed to maintain his clearance and position at Ft. Det. during this investigation. I'm left to wonder what clearance he had if it's indeed true that he had such marginal psychatric evaluations for the length of time they're claiming. I'd think the FSO at Ft. Det. would have sidelined him immediately following his shrink's eveluation...
Also, isn't it required by law that if a patient makes credible threats to public safety a councellor is required to report it to law enforcement?
It just seems like there's too much logical disonnance...
PS. Don't criticize my spelling, I'm an engineer :/
August 4, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
You don't have to swallow the idea that Bush/Cheney caused the attacks to believe they deliberately manipulated the attacks and the investigation to support the war in Iraq. Everyone knows they are capable of that. When we get ABC to disclose who planted the fake story tying the anthrax attacks to Iraq, we'll be ready for the next step.
August 4, 2008 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you stare into the Abyss long enough the Abyss stares back at you.
August 4, 2008 4:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
The anything for oil strategy?
Hell is paved with petro-dollars.
I'm pretty sure heaven runs on solar!
August 4, 2008 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wouldn't put it past Bush and Cheney to have covertly arranged the anthrax attacks. There are too many holes in this story just as there were the 9-11 "official" government position.
August 4, 2008 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
The White House pressure ties in nicely with the attempt to frame Dr. Ayaad Assaad: a letter denouncing Assad as a terrorist was sent BEFORE the anthrax letters and he was questioned immediately after the anthrax attacks. Did somebody in the White House know about that letter?
The FBI quickly discounted this letter, even as the White House was pressuring them to name a Middle Eastern link to the case.
It was only after the case against Assaad fell over that Ashcroft and others (like Kristof) started fingering Hatfill, and only after that case fell over too that they went after Ivins.
The whole think stinks. It looks like someone at the Fort Detrick lab framed Assaad by sending the letter ahead of their premeditated anthrax attack, and it looks like somebody in the White House knew what was happening, and it looks like the people who did that are now being protected, which would explain why the whole FBI case looks so bumbling, incompetent and illogical.
When you compare this anthrax story with the 9-11 attacks, isn't it odd how this anthrax case has the same shady characters and groups on the sidelines, the same anti-Muslim motives apparent, the same lack of investigation from the corporate media on seemingly critical issues, the same bumbling incompetence from government investigators, the same high-level White House push for political capital...?
Very odd indeed. You would almost think the same people were involved, for the same reasons. The highly politicized 911 Commission cleaned up that other mess. But this time they have screwed it up a whole lot worse.
August 4, 2008 7:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kudos to TPM for getting in on this story.
Please continue with the great work, and see if you can't get to the bottom of the still anonymous ABC sources.
August 4, 2008 8:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah Salon out reported TPM I picked up the story at Buzzflash and read all of it... the story by the FBI doesn't ring true to news hounds..
Greenwald went household name with that reporting
August 4, 2008 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Repeal both PATRIOT Acts and the Military Commissions Act!
Repeal both PATRIOT Acts and the Military Commissions Act!
Repeal both PATRIOT Acts and the Military Commissions Act!
Repeal both PATRIOT Acts and the Military Commissions Act!
Repeal both PATRIOT Acts and the Military Commissions Act!
August 4, 2008 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please explain how the two Democratic Senators who could have stopped the farging PATRIOT Act both were mailed anthrax from a lab overseen by the current Administration . . .
August 4, 2008 8:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is so OBVIOUSLY "false flag" terrorism that's it's become laughable to watch Democrats and Republicans alike still grasping at the idea that their government isn't capable of such evils. Fools.
August 4, 2008 9:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I heard one theorist suggest at the time that Cheney's convenient domestic war games were preparation for a psuedo-response to this anthrax attack, which was originally Deadeye's Reichstag fire.
Remember, Bush was already tanking in the polls, and since he started at less than 50% of the popular vote, one can only imagine what might have happened to hism if 9-11 hadn't saved his presidential legend (read; lie).
But when Bin Laden dumped 9-11 into their laps about the same time, they just transitioned over to that disaster, and the anthrax scam became something of Cheney icing on a Bin Laden cake.
Just the fact Daschle and Leahy, Cheney's arch adversaries, were the recipients of the letters, gives some serious creedence to the tin-foilers among us that Cheney was behind the anthrax attacks, it was a desperation act to save Bush from slipping into the same slump he eventually realized even with 9-11 under his belt.
Just food for thought. I guess I'm suggesting that, while no one from our government actually conspired with Bib Laden, they were glad to co-opt the whole mess,a nd had less-severe disasters of their own planned that they could discard,
because Bin Laden gave them a terrorist gift that just keeps on giving.
Seriously, who needs anthrax attacks when you have two NYC buildings in ashes and dust?
Anyone doubt that the worst of the neocons were toasting Bin Laden privately, for the wonderful things he did to help them salvage Bush's tanking presidency?
August 5, 2008 8:56 AM | Reply | Permalink