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Government by Anthrax

farc_it | 11.05.2002 14:47

The call by Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) for an investigation of the Bush Administration concerning the war on terrorism should include the anthrax attacks on Congress of last October. - This is a very clear summary of an appalling depth of horror...

Government by Anthrax

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

source - Richard J. Ochs

Dear Members of the United States Congress, journalists,
scientists and friends:

The call by Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) for an investigation of the Bush Administration concerning the war on terrorism should include the anthrax attacks on Congress of last October.

The full text of the following excerpt is available with references, list of suspects and links at  http://www.freefromterror.net

GOVERNMENT BY ANTHRAX?

by Richard J. Ochs

Who spread the anthrax last October and why? Well, who has that strain of anthrax and who has a motive? Most commentators and the FBI agree that only a select group of Americans have easy access to the Ames strain of anthrax used in the letters mailed last October. But why would any of them want to kill and terrorize Americans?

The clue is in the timing. A chronology of events suggests that the motivation was to boost passage of controversial legislation in Congress last October, called the USA Patriot Act. A number of unlikely "coincidences" associated with the anthrax attacks makes it hard to believe that they were random

CONSIDER THESE "COINCIDENCES"

- The anthrax attacks were concurrent with the debate of Bush's Patriot Act by Congress and the media. All the senators receiving

- anthrax letters were trying to amend the Patriot Act to protect civil liberties and the innocent. Two

- senators received anthrax letters mailed the same day that Senator Feingold blocked an attempt to rush the bill through without discussion or amendments.

- Senator Leahy received an anthrax threat after he expressed reservations about the Bill. As Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, he managed the debate on the Bill.

- Senate Majority Leader Daschle received the first Senate anthrax letter as he led the opposition to the original version of the Bill.

- After receiving the anthrax letter, Daschle switched from
supporting a 2 year limit on the Bill, later defending a 4-year sunset clause as the "appropriate balance." No Republican received an anthrax letter.

- The House and Senate buildings were closed and not reopened until after the Patriot Act was passed. The Supreme Court was shut down

- with an anthrax scare the day after the
constitutionally-challenged Patriot Act was signed by President Bush.

- All the contaminated letters contained the Ames strain of anthrax,
the DNA of which is traced to the original batch preserved in a
university lab in Ames, Iowa. This strain was "weaponized" in Utah
into a potent powder with an elaborate secret technique developed at
Fort Detrick, Md.

- The FBI failed to interview Ft. Detrick anthrax experts for two
months into their investigation, doing it only after the experts
complained to the press of gross incompetence on the part of the FBI.

- The FBI allowed the Iowa state lab to destroy the original batch
of the Ames strain, making tracing the anthrax type more difficult.

- The FBI overruled local homicide detectives who think that an
anthrax expert was murdered, possibly because he knew too much.

A CURIOUS FLOW OF EVENTS

The following is a merger of "A Chronology of Anthrax Events,"
published by the South Florida Sun-sentinel, and the simultaneous
proceedings of the Patriot Bill in Congress as reported in the local
press.

Sept.16 - Anti-terrorism bill proposed.

Sept.18 - Two letters containing Ames anthrax are postmarked in
Trenton, N.J., addressed to Tom Brokaw of NBC Nightly News and the
New York Post.

Sept.28 - Boy visiting ABC network in New York contracts anthrax.

Oct.2 - USA Patriot Act anti-terrorism bill is introduced in
Congress.

Oct.3 - Tabloid editor of Boca Raton Sun, Florida, hospitalized with
anthrax and dies two days later.

Oct. 3 - Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (Dem., S.D.) says
he doubts the Senate could take up the anti-terrorist legislation
before next week, as the administration had asked. Attorney General
John A. Ashcroft accuses Senate Democrats of dragging their feet.

Oct. 4 - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (Dem.,
Vt.) accuses the administration of reneging on an agreement on the
anti-terrorist bill. Some warn that "lawmakers are were overlooking
constitutional flaws in their rush to meet the administration's
timetable."

Oct. 6 - Under the headline, "Glow of bipartisanship seems to dim,"
the Baltimore Sun reports: "opposed by most Senate Democrats,
Ashcroft complained about the rather slow pace [over his request for
law enforcement powers] hard feelings remain."

Oct. 8 - Under the headline, "Cracks in Bipartisanship Start to
Show," The Washington Post reports, "Congress has lost some of the
shock-induced unity with which it first responded to the [9/11]
attacks."

Oct.9 - Senator Feingold blocks an attempt to rush the Patriot Act to
a vote with little debate and no opportunity for amendments.
Feingold criticizes the Bill as a threat to liberty.

Oct.9 - Identical anthraxed letters are postmarked in Trenton, N.J.,
with lethal doses to Senators Daschle and Leahy.

Oct. 10 & 11 - The original batch of the Ames strain of anthrax is
destroyed with the permission of the FBI, making tracing the anthrax
type more difficult.

Oct.11 - First Senate version of the Bill passes.

Oct.12 - First House version of the Bill passes.

Oct.12 - House-Senate debate on Bill starts.

Oct.12 - Second anthrax case reported at NBC in NYC.

Oct.13 - Baltimore Sun reports that the media may have been targeted
for a "coordinated bioterrorism" attack.

Oct.13 - President Bush says: "The anthrax attacks might be tied to
Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaida terrorist network."

Oct.15 - Tom Brokaw of NBC receives anthraxed letter containing
Islamic threats and phrases.

Oct.15 - Senator Daschle's office opens the letter mailed Oct.9,
containing a lethal dose of anthrax. Senator Leahy's similar letter
was misrouted to Virginia.

Oct.16 - The Senate office buildings shut down.

Oct.17 - House of Representatives shut down; 28 congressional
staffers test positive for anthrax.

Oct.17 - The New York and Florida letters are found to contain the
Ames strain.

Oct.18 - An assistant of CBS Dan Rather contracts anthrax.

Oct.21 - 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."

Oct. 24 - 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.

Oct.25 - 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."

Oct.26 - Senate passes the final version Patriot Act.

Oct.26 - President Bush signs the constitutionally questionable USA
Patriot Act.

Oct.27 - Supreme Court shut down with anthrax scare.

November - No more anthrax letters received by anyone.

November - Congressional buildings reopened.

November - Three top anthrax experts with knowledge of the U.S.
bioweapons program died under suspicious circumstances within a ten
day period.

CONGRESS TERRORIZED

The atmosphere of terror in Congress was expressed by Representative
Dennis Kucinich of Ohio: "... a state of siege trap[s] us in a state
of fear, ill equipped to deal with the patriot games, the mind games,
the war games...." He lamented the physical and psychological
disruption and disorientation of lawmakers at a time when calm
objectivity was required for wise decisions. No doubt, the
terrorized senators accepted an anti-terrorism bill more threatening
to the rights and wellbeing of citizens than they otherwise would
have. They granted more power to the President than they otherwise
would have.

New York Times commentator William Safire wrote under the heading,
"Seizing Dictatorial Power," that "Bush admits to dismissing the
principles of law and the rules of evidence that undergird America's
system of justice."

The anthrax letters to the media can be considered peripheral to
political targets. They guaranteed publicity and heightened general
hysteria. Janette Rainwater, Ph.D., wrote that anthrax threats are
useful "in creating panic and, in this case, providing a climate
wherein legislation curtailing civil liberties can be passed."

The anthrax scare at the Supreme Court likewise put a chill on their
mission to defend civil liberties. Whether the anthrax is believed to
have come from foreigners or Americans, the threats resulted in the
granting of more power to the Executive Branch by the Legislative and
Judicial Branches, seriously damaging "checks and balances."

FBI COMPROMISED?

The FBI's performance since the anthrax attacks has indicated either
gross incompetence, conspiracy or cover up. The FBI allowed the Iowa
state lab to destroy the original batch of the Ames strain on Oct.10
and 11, making tracing the anthrax to its origins impossible. The
Bureau was criticized by Congress for not securing critical material
evidence in one of the most frightening attacks on public health this
country has ever seen. Moreover, the Baltimore Sun reported on
Dec.9: "Two months after the FBI mobilized hundreds of agents to
investigate the anthrax attacks, the bureau still has not interviewed
the only Americans with experience producing anthrax for use as a
weapon: aging veterans of the U.S. biological warfare program based
at Fort Detrick."

According to Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg of the Federation of
American Scientists (FAS), "The source of the mailed anthrax, or the
information and materials to make it, is a U.S. government program."
The Baltimore Sun reported on Dec.9, 2001, that "Organisms made at a
military lab in Utah are genetically identical to those mailed to
members of Congress." On February 5, Rosenberg wrote in the FAS
webpage: "For more than 3 months now, the FBI has known that the
perpetrator of the anthrax attacks is American."

BBC News reported on March 14 that "Dr. Rosenberg, an acknowledged
authority on U.S. bio-defense, claimed that the FBI is dragging its
feet because an arrest would be embarrassing to the U.S.
authorities." The BBC asked, "Has the FBI found the whole case too
hot to handle?"

During a lecture at Princeton University on Feb.18, Rosenberg claimed
that the FBI has a prime suspect. She called on the public and news
media to keep up the pressure on the FBI., saying some of her
sources, who she described as "government insiders," have confided
fear that the FBI might attempt to deal with the suspect discreetly,
out of the glare of public scrutiny. She wrote on Feb.5: "The
perpetrator is cocksure that he can get away with it. Does he know
something that he believes to be sufficiently damaging to the United
States to make him untouchable by the FBI?"

Stanford biologist Steven Block, a leading expert on biological
weapons, said revealing the identity of the culprit(s) may also
reveal "that the U.S. may be violating" the international treaty
outlawing the development of biological and chemical weaponry. The
U.S. still refuses to ratify the international treaty for bioweapons
facility inspections. A leading anthrax expert, Dr. Don C. Wiley,
who may have been in a position to know of such a cover-up, died
under suspicious circumstances a month after the attacks began.
According to Memphis police officials, the bridge which Dr. Wiley
fell off on November 15, 2002, had a railing "high enough that even
the 6'3" Wiley could not have accidentally fallen over without
assistance." The local police suspicion of homicide was overruled by
the FBI "and other U.S. agencies," who insisted it was a suicide.

Would a U.S. agency kill a non-cooperator? According to former South
African National Intelligence Agency deputy director Michael Kennedy,
when another top bioweapons expert Dr. Wouter Basson refused a job
offer, the CIA allegedly threatened to kill him.

A COVER-UP?

Counterpunch wrote: "Knowledgeable U.S. and foreign intelligence
sources have revealed that Wiley may have been silenced as a result
of his discovery of U.S. government work on biological warfare agents
long after the U.S. signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.
President Nixon had actually ordered the Pentagon to stop producing
biological weapons in 1969. It now seems likely that the U.S.
military and intelligence community failed to follow Nixon's orders."

In fact, since 1972, "South African bio-chemical weapons allegedly
transferred to the CIA included, in addition to anthrax, cholera,
smallpox, salmonella, botulinum, tularemia, thallium, E.Coli, racin,
organophosphates, necrotising fasciitis, hepatitis A, HIV,
paratyphoid, Sarin VX nerve gas, Ebola, Marburg, Rift Valley
hemmorrhagic viruses, Dengue fever, West Nile virus, highly potent CR
tear gas, hallucinogens Ecstasy, Mandrax, BZ, and cocaine,
anti-coagulant drugs, the deadly lethal injection drugs Scoline and
Tubarine, and cyanide."

What the U.S. government would not want divulged is the fact that the
U.S. has been in flagrant violation of the 1972 Convention, Article 1
of which states: "Each State party to the Convention undertakes never
in any circumstance to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise
acquire or retain: 1. Microbial or other biological agents, or toxins
whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in
quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or
other peaceful purposes. 2. Weapons, equipment or means of delivery
designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in
armed conflict."

Dr. Wiley's was not the only suspicious death of a scientist with
knowledge of biological defenses. Just three days before Wiley's
death, Dr. Benito Que, a Miami Medical School cellular biologist died
after "four men armed with a baseball bat attacked him at his car." A
week after Wiley died, Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, a former Soviet
bioweapons scientist was found dead near Britain's biological warfare
center.

For those who disbelieve the possibility that the U.S. Government is
the number one suspect in the anthrax attacks, they are directed to
James Bamford's book on the National Security Agency, "Body of
Secrets." The book reveals that in 1962, chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff Lyman Lemnitzer was planning, along with other members of
the Joint Chiefs, a virtual coup d'etat against the administration of
President Kennedy using acts of terrorism carried out by the military
but to be blamed on the Castro government in Cuba. The secret plan
was code-named Operation Northwoods.

Cuba accused the U.S. of using biological war weapons against it
during the 1970s. In his book, Biological Warfare in the 21st
Century, Malcolm Dando refers to the U.S. bio-attacks against Cuba.
"The American covert campaign targeted the tobacco crop using blue
mold, the sugar cane crop using cane smut, livestock using African
swine fever, and the Cuban population using a hemmorrhagic strain of
dengue fever."

The full text of the above excerpt is available with references, list
of suspects and links at  http://www.freefromterror.net


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nytcov-05.10.02-19:23:03-31084

see also the articles on how to reverse the Patriot Act at:-

farc_it
- Homepage: http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/04.02A.JVB.Patriot.htm

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  1. This just in - from New Scientist — Dunc