Keeping Fear Alive

"The only al Qaeda person was the undercover guy."

When attorney Jim Hardy was chosen to represent the seven men accuse of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago he probably thought he was being asked to defend committed terrorists. Instead he discovered that not only were the men not radical extremists there was no evidence beyond the word of an FBI "informant" that the men were planning any "spectacular acts of violence".

So how were these supposedly innocent men lured into implicating themselves as the latest petty actors in Bush's "war on terror". Apparently the FBI's favorite sting operation goes like this: Infiltrate some cash poor, off beat group in a minority neighborhood then have your informant, usually a former drug convict granted a reduced sentence, to promise the hard luck group a big pay-off if they'll swear to wage "jihad" or pledge allegiance to "al-Qaeda".

In the case against the Miami seven the goverment's "key" evidence was a video of them pledging "bayat," to Osama bin Laden in a March 16, 2006. Their ultimate conviction after three hung juries hinged on testimony that supposedly showed that they had taken photographs and video of "possible targets", including the Miami FBI building, a courthouse complex and a synagogue.

But Narseal Baptiste, the plotter's so-called ringleader, insisted in all three trials that he was only going along with the informant in hopes of getting the $50,000 the man had promised for his struggling construction business and a community outreach program. In fact, no actual evidence of a plot ever surfaced during any of the trials. Despite the flimsiness of its case the government was still given three bites at getting a conviction for what amounts to a "thought" crime.

"Any cases that involve someone's mental intent, their intention when they made certain statements, are always difficult," said Matthew Orwig, a former U.S. attorney who monitored the case. "It was a must-win for the government. They needed some vindication."

Now just as Obama is promising to close our torture gulag at Guantanamo Bay a virtual copycat crime is amazingly "uncovered" in New York. The FBI may be unable to spot potential hijackers, an anthrax killer, or the Bernie Madoffs of the world, but they've got deep and unimpeachable sources tracking every two bit hoodlum, crook and dreamer struggling to survive the 'hood and likely to carry a grudge against "the system".

Maybe, given that criteria, the FBI should also be recruiting folks like Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. We all know their outraged circles have folks with similar grudges. Some of them could surely be nudged into "acting out" - especially if it meant keeping the American public shaking in its boots. Of course, seeing they've got a whole lot more to risk-- they'd be a lot more expensive to bribe.

Truthiness, Death and Evidence

On Monday, October 27, 2008 Joby Warrick of the Washington Post wrote:
"Trail of Odd Anthrax Cells Led FBI to Army Scientist"
"The anthrax poisoning case against Bruce Ivins won't be made in court, but it is compelling, the FBI says. Although the late Army scientist's lawyer dismisses the case as “heaps of innuendo,” federal records reveal a far-reaching, exhaustive investigation that required newly invented technology and depended on mutant bacteria.

It took the experienced eye of a career scientist to notice that the strain of anthrax used in the 2001 attacks had strange properties. While most batches have one mutation or none, this one had five, indicating someone had painstakingly cultivated it. Though dozens had access to Ivins' secret stash of that strain, only he had the skills to prepare it, investigators say.

The FBI's bold conclusion had come in response to suspicions voiced by Senator Leahy and several other members of Congress that Ivins was not the only culprit.

Washington Post, Thursday, September 18, 2008; Page A18
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick J. Leahy(D-Vt.) yesterday broke a years-long public silence about the anthrax-mailing case to cast doubt on the FBI's assertion that a bioweapons researcher acted as the lone culprit in the deadly attacks.

The Senator's skepticism was bewailed by Ed Montooth, the FBI special agent in charge of the anthrax investigation and who described the evidence against Bruce Ivins as "overwhelming". Montooth responded to Ivins' "suicide" by saying: "We were truly disgusted after we knew he had killed himself, because we knew the only way we'd have justice was to be in court."

One would think that with all the non-stop hype surrounding 9-11 that the T.V. news mavens would be breathlessly covering the story that had everything-- a potential deadly attack on sitting U.S. senators, a dead FBI scientist and a convenient yet mysterious suicide. But the T.V. chattering heads could barely hide their disinterest.

From CNN and MSNBC to the big three broadcast networks few offered more than sporadic seconds to the anthrax investigation. In fact a viewer of CNN or MSNBC the day after the FBI/DOJ presented their initial "evidence" fingering Ivins would have seen and heard no mention of the anthrax story. Which we now know was not only flimsy but perhaps a complete fabrication.

Source: The Raw Story
Poisonous anthrax that killed five Americans in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks doesn't match bacteria from a flask linked to Bruce Ivins, the researcher who committed suicide after being implicated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a scientist said.

Spores used in the deadly mailings ``share a chemical 'fingerprint' that is not found in the flask linked to Bruce Ivins,'' wrote Roberta Kwok citing Joseph Michael, a scientist at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Michael analyzed letters sent to the New York Post and offices of Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, and found a distinct "chemical signature" not present in the flask known as RMR-1029, which Ivins could access in his laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

``Spores from two of those show a distinct chemical signature that includes silicon, oxygen, iron, and tin; the third letter had silicon, oxygen, iron and possibly also tin,'' Kwok wrote. ``Bacteria from Ivins' RMR-1029 flask did not contain any of those four elements.''

[Read more: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Anthrax_spores_dont_match...]

Sheila Casey points the finger at the NYTimes for pushing the FBI's fraudulent case against Ivins. Dissident voice, Sheila Casey, February 26th, 2009

Back in 2001, just months after the anthrax attacks that killed five people, several articles came out in mainstream newspapers that pointed clearly to the CIA and Army as the most likely sources of the weaponized anthrax. Articles in The Baltimore Sun, Miami Herald, Washington Post and New York Times laid out the facts that incriminated Battelle Memorial Labs in West Jefferson, Ohio, and the Army’s lab at the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah as the only logical sources for the anthrax. These facts, as reported in 2001, include:

1. For over a decade, Army scientists at Dugway have been making weapons-grade anthrax that is “virtually identical” to the anthrax used in the attacks.

2. The anthrax used in the 2001 attacks was extremely concentrated, with a trillion spores per gram. The Dugway anthrax had a similar concentration.

3. The FBI was increasingly focused on US government bioweapons research programs as the source of the deadly anthrax.

4. Both the lab in Utah and the lab in Ohio received anthrax samples from the United States Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, although USAMRIID deals only with wet anthrax and ships it wet.

5. The investigation was focused on the Dugway anthrax, and Dugway was described as the only facility that was known to be weaponizing anthrax.

6. One FBI official said that the CIA’s anthrax was “the best lead we have at this point.”

7. Army officials said that Fort Detrick did not have the equipment for weaponizing anthrax.

The FBI has never explained what became of this initial focus on the labs in Utah and Ohio. Instead, after the death of Fort Detrick anthrax researcher Bruce Ivins in July, 2008, the FBI attempted to make the case that Ivins was the murderer and all other suspects had been cleared of suspicion.

"The FBI has never explained what became of this initial focus on the labs in Utah and Ohio. Instead, after the death of Fort Detrick anthrax researcher Bruce Ivins in July 2008, the FBI attempted to make the case that Ivins was the murderer and all other suspects had been cleared of suspicion.

Since Ivins’ death, the media have, with very few exceptions, passively swallowed the line dispensed by the FBI, and have acted as little more than stenographers in parroting the hollow arguments presented by the FBI that Ivins is guilty.

On December 12, 2001, The Baltimore Sun published a seminal article by Scott Shane that clearly laid out just how strong the evidence was against the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. Subtitled “Organisms made at a military laboratory in Utah are genetically identical to those mailed to members of Congress,” Shane’s article also includes this eyebrow-raising line: “Scientists familiar with the anthrax program at Dugway described it to The Sun on the condition that they not be named.”

Casey concludes: "Apparently (NYTimes journalist), Shane has forgotten all that he reported seven years ago. Now with The New York Times, Shane’s latest piece, published January 4, 2009, raises troubling questions about the independence of The Times, and the memory hole that Shane must have used to shunt away all that he once knew about the case the FBI code-named Amerithrax.

All of which at best adds up to say that when the press and members of Congress are feeling intimidated by a government's "Executive Power" (let us not forget that along with Leahy and other high profile Democratic senators-- Tom Brokaw, NBC and the NYPost also received the deadly letters) the Truth is most likely to die in its crib, a scorned and unwanted orphan.