New York Times Complicit in FBI Anthrax Coverup

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/02/new-york-times-complicit-in-fbi-anthrax-coverup/

New York Times Complicit in FBI Anthrax Coverup
by 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.

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.”

Apparently 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.

Shane calls his 5,200-word article “the deepest look so far at the investigation.” Titled “Portrait Emerges of Anthrax Suspect’s Troubled Life,” it is primarily a hatchet job on Bruce Ivins. Filled with innuendo and unsubstantiated allegations, the purpose of the article is clearly to solidify the perception that Ivins was the killer, and to pooh-pooh the widely held belief that the anthrax came from a CIA or military lab in Utah or Ohio.

Shane dismisses these beliefs breezily, stating: “The Times review found that the FBI had disproved the assertion, widespread among scientists who believe Dr. Ivins was innocent, that the anthrax might have come from military and intelligence research programs in Utah or Ohio.” Not a single piece of evidence is presented to back up this sweeping claim.

Halfway through his article, Shane springs another shocker on us. “By early 2004, FBI scientists had discovered that out of 60 domestic and foreign water samples, only water from Frederick, Maryland, had the same chemical signature as the water used to grow the mailed anthrax.”

Really? Do FBI scientists think that anthrax researchers go to the kitchen sink for the water they use to grow the anthrax? According to Wikipedia, biochemistry labs use only highly purified water, such as double-distilled. Distilled water is created by boiling water and collecting the steam. To obtain double-distilled water, the process is done twice, so that all impurities and minerals are removed. Distilled water has the same chemical signature, namely none, no matter where in the world it originates.

[annabanana]

1. I am just plain sick of the constant lies. . . . . .n/t

[seemslikeadream]

2. How can anyone believe ANYTHING they say ?

[Orrex]

3. They're complicit in justifying the war in Iraq, too.

And also for Gore's "defeat" in 2000.

But that's the Liberal Media for you...

[seemslikeadream]

4. I could name a couple of other "complicits"

but I'd like the thread to stay in GD

[EFerrari]

5. The bit about the water in Frederick is bs just like the rest of the FBI claims.

And, remember that Kristof publicly pilloried Hatfill and later issued a non-apology?

You bet they're complicit.

[babylonsister]

6. Not the paper with the best writers in the world, or so I'm told.

There isn't one paper that tells the truth. How sad.

[goforit]

7. This is just plain evidence that our own military attacked the United states of America.

Seemslikeadream????
Thanks for keeping the flame alive.

I've always believed that mihop was enacted by this administration and am sadenned
even more that the new administration refuses to investigate.

Does Cheney still rule????

All three branches of Gov't are still acting like he does.
Is Cheney still bullying ALL???

[Mr. Sparkle]

8. It seems some people high up during the Bush Administration though they had it all figured out!

And the New York Times played its part in the cover up, though unwittingly. They should come out publicly and say who their source was or at the very least give it to the new head of the FBI.

[EFerrari]

9. The Washington Post, the LA Times and the AP were all forwarding faxes

from the FBI during the so called Ivins investigation. Every single story they printed turned out to be false. So, if sloth is complicity, they are all complicit.

Shane at NYTs actually did the best work during that late phase. He demolished the idea that Dr. Ivins was the "sole custodian of the flask" from which the anthrax powder was developed. That was FBI's main talking point.

Then, six months later, Shane publishes tripe, regurgitating every debunked story as if it's gospel. What happened?

ETA: Link to the article Shane knew better than to write:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/us/04anthrax.html?_r=1

[Mr. Sparkle]

12. Interesting! Its clear that there is an organized campaign of miss information.

I really hope they flush the bums out because by the sounds of it, they are inside of government.

[tomp]

10. you can believe nothing from the government or the media. nt

[leveymg]

11. Judy Miller: CIA anthrax program was designed to prove that Iraq had mobile WMD trailers.

Chalabi's "Curveball" hoax about Saddam's alleged mobile bio-weapons labs was based on speculation within US and Israeli intelligence sources about Iraqi anthrax trailers. The notion apparently originated in 1994 when Israel claimed Iraqis were transporting biological agents in red-painted icecream trucks. See, http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0329-05/htm . Hatfill actually designed such a trailer on a CIA contract, and oversaw its contruction at a site near Ft. Detrick. The alleged possession of mobile germ labs then became a major part of the Bush Administration's case for invading Iraq and set off a great anthrax trailer hunt inside Iraq that turned up nothing more than weather balloons at an abandoned desert airbase. Judy Miller, an associate of Chalabi and Naor Gilon (the Mossad Chief of Station in DC), played these allegations to the max in her role at The Times in support of the invasion scheme. She also rode along with the unit that searched Iraq in vain for Saddam's WMD. See, http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/05/27/times/index.html. After Hatfill was accused of being a suspect in the anthrax attacks, Miller was the source that broke Hatfill's role building these trailers. See, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE6DB133AF931A35754C0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all.

Furthermore, right after 9/11, it came out that Israeli sources had spread an apparent hoax that Saddam had attempted to smuggle large quantities of anthrax into the US and Britain in 1998, and that Iraq had given Mohamed Atta anthrax. See, www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2001/me_iraq_10_27.html Someone else responsible for spreading the hoax that Iraq was behind the anthrax attacks was our old friend, John McCain. http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/01/mccain-anthrax-iraq/.

Israeli sources were also behind allegations, later refuted by U.S. and UN investigators, that Syrian, Lebanese, and Iranians had secretly trucked all of Saddam's WMDs out of Iraq, and had hidden them in the Bekka Valley and at sites in Syria. See, http://www.analyst-network.com/articles/20/SyriasRoleinDestabilizingIraq.doc.


Small world, isn't it?

[EFerrari]

13. So, was the anthrax "attack" about facilitating the boondoggle in Iraq?

and the domestic boondoggle that is the Patriot Act? It sure looks like it.

[leveymg]

14. That would follow from this line of evidence

Hatfill was part of the network, Ivins much more peripherally so.

[Kurovski]

15. K&R. (nt)

[pleah]

16. K&R

[GentryDixon]

17. I can tell you Dugway sent a Hazmat team

to clean the Hart Senate Building.

[Octafish]

18. Biowarfare Patsy.

Was Bruce Ivins the Anthrax Killer?

Gee. Who's that sound like?