2001 Anthrax attacks
Date | September 18, 2001 - October 9, 2001 |
---|---|
Location | Washington DC, West Palm Beach, Florida, New York |
Perpetrators | The cabal |
Blamed on | Bruce Ivins |
Type | Bioterrorism |
Weapon | Anthrax |
Deaths | 5 |
Injured (non-fatal) | 17 |
Exposed by | Matt DeHart |
Interest of | Emergent BioSolutions, Michael B. Green, Graeme MacQueen, Operation Dark Winter, Russell Welch |
Subpage | •2001 Anthrax attacks/Timeline |
Description | A week after 9/11, weaponised anthrax spores was sent from a US lab to media offices and to two U.S. Senators who were obstructing the rollback of civil liberties. A $100M FBI investigation concluded that posthumously blamed a "lone nut" researcher. In 2015, the FBI head of the investigation sued the US Attorney General alleging that exculpating evidence had been withheld. |
The 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, (FBI case name Amerithrax), occurred over the course of several weeks beginning a week after the September 11 attacks. Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news media offices and two U.S. Senators, Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, killing 5 and infecting 17 others. The ensuing investigation, said by the FBI to have become "one of the largest and most complex in the history of law enforcement"[1], cost around $100,000,000[2] and blamed Bruce Ivins, a "lone nut" anthrax researcher. Richard Lambert, the FBI officer who was put in charge of the investigation, says that it suffered from intense compartmentalisation and lack of critical resources (such as bioweapons experts). He sued the FBI in 2015, alleging that they were concealing evidence that could have exonerated Ivins.[3][4]
Contents
Official Narrative
Beginning a week after 9-11, letters were sent containing the text "2001-09-11" and "Death to America. Death to Israel".[5] They also contained weaponised anthrax spores.
Initially assumed to be the work of Al Qaeda, the attack was later discovered to be the work of "lone nut" Bruce Ivins, a bioweapons researcher at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland, a BSL4 facility. On July 29, 2008 he killed himself by taking a drug overdose because he felt that the FBI were closing in on him. His motives remain unclear. Details of their $100,000,000 investigation need to be kept secret for reasons of national security.
Problems
Many people have problems with the official narrative, most notably, Richard Lambert, the chief investigator for the FBI in charge of the case.[6] Lambert filed a lawsuit in April 2015 alleging legal malpractice, claiming (amongst other things) that evidence which would have definitely exonerated Ivins was suppressed.[7][6]
Connection Between Robert Stevens and Alleged 9/11 Perpetrators
Gloria Irish was a real estate agent in Boca Raton, Florida. She was also the wife of Michael Irish, an editor for the Sun newspaper (now the Tampa Bay Times) in Boca Raton. Some time before the 9/11 attacks, Gloria showed houses to two of its alleged perpetrators, Marwan al-Shehhi and Hamza al-Ghamdi[8]. On 5 October 2001, Robert Stevens, a journalist who worked for the same newspaper as Gloria's husband, died as a result of pulmonary anthrax. His murder would be the first death attributed to the Amerithrax attacks.
Preparation
- Full article: Operation Dark Winter
- Full article: Operation Dark Winter
In June 2001 Operation Dark Winter a two day "terrorism exercise" was staged "wherein senior former officials would respond to a bioterrorist induced national security crisis".[9]
As "a precaution", according to the Washington Post, Cipro was administered to Dick Cheney and his close staff on the evening of 9/11 as the Vice President was secreted off to an undisclosed location, days before the first anthrax letters were mailed.[10], on the advice of Jerome Hauer. Bush's reactions to the anthrax mailings were, at best, slow and he took every opportunity to invoke "Osama Bin Laden" in the rhetoric he employed in his public utterances about them. [11]
"Investigation"
Steven Hatfill
- Full article: Steven Hatfill
- Full article: Steven Hatfill
The FBI accused Fort Detrick scientist, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, of carrying out the attacks and pursued him for years[When?]. In 2008, the US Justice Department agreed to pay him $4.6 million to settle his lawsuit.[12] In 2014, after "a decade of lawsuits" he cleared his name.[13]
Official conclusion
A "lone nut" - Bruce Ivins
- Full article: Bruce Ivins
- Full article: Bruce Ivins
Bruce Ivins was a microbiologist, vaccine and bioweapons researcher at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. He allegedly committed suicide by taking a drug overdose on July 29, 2008. On August 6, 2008, he was officially declared the "lone nut" behind the Amerithrax Attacks, 8 days after his alleged suicide. On February 19, 2010, the FBI formally closed its investigation. No direct evidence implicating Ivins was presented and some documents relating to the investigation remain under seal. [14]
Conspiracy Charge
Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who was a target of a letter, clearly stated that he disbelieved the "lone nut" narrative:
“If [Bruce Ivins] is the one who sent the letter, I do not believe in any way, shape or manner that he is the only person involved in this attack on Congress and the American people. I do not believe that at all. I believe there are others involved, either as accessories before or accessories after the fact. I believe that there are others out there, I believe there are others who could be charged with murder. I just want you to know how I feel about it, as one of the people who was aimed at in the attack."”
Patrick Leahy (September 2008) [15]
Some commercially-controlled media quoted him briefly, but his remark was generally ignored.
Responses
Legal Action
On 2011-07-15, the Justice Department lawyers acknowledged in court papers that the sealed area in Ivins' lab — the so-called hot suite — did not contain the equipment needed to turn liquid anthrax into the refined powder that floated through congressional buildings and post offices in the fall of 2001. These statements were retracted 8 days later.[16]
On 2011-11-29, an 8 year legal battle was finished which exposed slack rules and poor record keeping at the Army’s biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick, the federal government agreed to pay $2.5 million to the family of Robert Stevens, the first person killed in the anthrax letter attacks of 2001, settling a lawsuit claiming that the Army did not adequately secure its supply of the deadly pathogen. As part of the agreement, Justice Department lawyers are seeking to have many documents that were uncovered in the litigation kept under court seal or destroyed.[12]
In 2015, Richard Lambert, the FBI veteran in charge of the case filed a suit against the FBI, claiming that they were concealing evidence that could have cleared Bruce Ivins.[17]
Mail Isolation Control and Tracking program
A secret program entitled the Mail Isolation Control and Tracking Program was instituted in the wake of the 2001 Anthrax Attacks. This was hidden from the public for 12 years until cited by the FBI in its investigation of April 2013 ricin letters. Under the program, the US Postal Service computers photograph the exterior of every piece of paper mail that is processed in the United States — about 160 billion pieces in 2012. These images are kept indefinitely so that mail correspondence can be retroactively tracked at the request of law enforcement.
Building Cleanup
BioONE, a company founded by Rudy Giuliani,[18] cleaned up some of the sites affected by the Amerithrax attacks.[19]
Related Quotations
Page | Quote | Author | Date |
---|---|---|---|
Anthony Fauci | “After the 9/11 attacks, and the mysterious anthrax mailings that began a week later (which said, “TAKE PENACILIN [sic] NOW / DEATH TO AMERICA / DEATH TO ISRAEL / ALLAH IS GREAT”), the desire for biopreparedness became all consuming. Now there were emerging biothreats from humans as well as from the evolving natural world. Fauci’s anti-terror budget went from $53 million in 2001 to $1.7 billion in 2003.” | Anthony Fauci Nicholson Baker | 4 January 2021 |
Robert Kadlec | ““If several kilograms of an agent like anthrax were disseminated in New York City today, conservative estimates put the number [of] deaths occurring in the first few days at 400,000. Thousands of others would be at risk of dying within several days if proper antibiotics and vaccination were not started immediately. Millions of others would be fearful of being exposed and seek or demand medical care as well. Beyond the immediate health implications of such an act, the potential panic and civil unrest would create an equally large response.”” | Robert Kadlec | 1998 |
Operation Dark Winter | “Dark Winter not only predicted the 2001 anthrax attacks, but some of its participants had clear foreknowledge of those attacks.” | Whitney Webb | 1 April 2020 |
Related Documents
Title | Type | Publication date | Author(s) | Description |
---|---|---|---|---|
Document:911 Plotters Bury Anthrax Evidence | essay | 3 August 2008 | Michael B. Green | |
Document:All Roads Lead to Dark Winter | report | 1 April 2020 | Whitney Webb | |
Document:FBI Anthrax Frame-up | article | 19 August 2008 | Michael B. Green | |
Document:American Anthrax | webpage | 1 November 2001 | Joe Vialls |
The Official Culprit
Name | Description |
---|---|
Bruce Ivins | A biodefense researcher at Fort Detrick, Maryland who, the FBI concluded, sent anthrax letters with crude anti-Zionist messages to the US politicians who were holding up the rollback of civil liberties in the wake of 9/11. After an investigation costing around $100,000,000 Ivins was declared to be a "lone nut" responsible for the crime shortly after he was found dead. |
Rating
A thought provoking introduction to the 2001 Anthrax mailings, which were used to cow opposition to the PATRIOT Act, including the remarkable fact that the FBI's case lead has sued the agency, alleging malpractice!
References
- ↑ FBI web site Anthrax case links
- ↑ UG#561 - $100,000,000 to Crack A Lone Nut? (Amerithrax, Gladio, 7/7 and The Conspiracy against Conspiracies), radio show including 1 hour about the Amerithrax case
- ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/09/us/ex-fbi-agent-claims-retaliation-for-dissent-in-anthrax-inquiry.html
- ↑ http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-fbi-hiding-evidence-anthrax-case-20150415-story.html
- ↑ http://www.unwelcomeguests.net/721
- ↑ a b http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2015/04/fbis-amerithrax-case-just-unravelled-ex.html
- ↑ http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1714250-former-fbi-special-agent-in-charge-richard.html
- ↑ Tisch, Chris. "Hijackers linked to tabloid // ANTHRAX" Tampa Bay Times, 20 June 2006, https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2001/10/15/hijackers-linked-to-tabloid-anthrax/
- ↑ http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/events-archive/2001_dark-winter/index.html
- ↑ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011023/aponline201158_000.htm
- ↑ Jerome Hauer Cipro advice to White House
- ↑ a b Anthrax Families To Recieve $2.5 million settlement New York Times, 30th Nov 2011.
- ↑ http://www.newsweek.com/2014/06/27/steven-hatfills-strange-trip-accused-terrorist-medical-adventurer-255295.html
- ↑ F.B.I., Laying Out Evidence, Closes Anthrax Letters Case New York Times 19 February 2010
- ↑ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26759983/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/senator-suspect-had-help-anthrax-attacks NBC News
- ↑ Justice Dept Filing Casts Doubt On Guilt of Bruce Irvins. ProPublica.com. 15th July 2011.
- ↑ http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/04/16/former-fbi-director-alleges-agency-concealing-evidence-in-anthrax-case.html
- ↑ https://www.securityinfowatch.com/government/press-release/10550378/the-associated-press-2001-anthrax-attacks-a-timeline
- ↑ https://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/formeramibldganthraxfree.html
External Sites
- Dr Meryl Nass web site
- Deep Politics Forum Thread
- Anthrax War - 2009 book and film