[DEBATE] : Congress Asks: Who Misled the Anthrax Investigation by Pointing at Iraq?

[Riaz K Tayob]

Congress Asks: Who Misled the Anthrax Investigation by Pointing at Iraq?

Friday 12 September 2008

by: Bill Simpich, t r u t h o u t | Report

photo
Following five anthrax-related deaths in 2001, a bioterrorism team held 
a news conference at the Capitol to demonstrate anthrax cleanup 
procedures. (Photo: Kenneth Lambert / AP)

On September 16, the House Judiciary Committee will hold oversight 
hearings to review the FBI's role in investigating the 2001 anthrax 
attacks, followed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on the 17th. (Glenn 
Greenwald, August 20 interview with Charles Grassley).

Chairmen Senator Patrick Leahy and Congressman John Conyers have asked 
FBI Director Robert Mueller to attend. Conyers has specifically asked 
Mueller to address whether White House officials initially pressed the 
FBI to show the attacks were linked to Iraq, why Steven Hatfill was a 
key suspect in the investigation and why Bruce Ivins kept his security 
clearance for so many years.

If these committees hope to uncover the truth, they have to order 
several journalists and scientists to provide the basis for their claims 
that Iraq was a prime suspect in these attacks. No shield law protects 
journalists or their sources who plant phony evidence in a terror 
investigation.

Journalist Gary Matsumoto, other journalists and their sources have 
repeatedly provided false information about the contents of the anthrax 
used in the 2001 attacks. These sources claimed the anthrax was milled, 
that it was coated and that it had additives. Any of these telltale 
factors would be critical evidence that would indicate the need of 
several specialists working as a team - hence, "state sponsorship" and 
possible Iraqi involvement. Every one of these claims was wrong, but 
played a key role in leading the US into war. Later, these same claims 
were used to justify the war.

The FBI resisted the pressure to focus on Iraq - it had sole custody of 
the evidence and quickly knew that these sources had it wrong. After 
genetic analysis showed the anthrax was derived from the Ames strain 
used in the US military biodefense program, the FBI released a profile 
on November 9, 2001, indicating a domestic terrorist was responsible. 
The early finding of one trillion spores per gram was compelling proof 
that the anthrax came from the US program - no other country can attain 
anything near that level of purity. (William Broad, New York Times, 
Terror Anthrax Linked to Type Made By U.S., 12/13/01, 
http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/nyt.html#nyt11213.)

In November 2002, during the build-up to war with Iraq, FBI 
counterterrorism chief Tom Carey told ABC "the information that came out 
there that led weapons inspectors and others to suspect the Iraq 
connection was wrong information." Just three weeks ago, the FBI 
confirmed their anthrax findings in a transcribed scientific briefing.

Despite the FBI's knowledge of this misinformation, it appears that 
professor Barbara Hatch Rosenberg's sources succeeded in misleading the 
FBI into a four-year wild goose chase - looking at virologist Stephen 
Hatfill - until a new team of agents was appointed to re-examine the 
evidence in 2006.

Did the FBI Investigate Those Who Were Misleading the Investigation?

Did the FBI try to determine who planted phony evidence designed to 
finger Iraq as the state sponsor of the anthrax attacks? From 2001 to 
the present, this investigation has been surrounded with misleading 
claims about the nature of the anthrax. The initial goal was to push the 
US into a war with Iraq. Then, the goal became to justify the US occupation.

The FBI knew this case was being used by the Bush administration for 
political gain. Terry Turchie, a chief of the FBI's counterterrorism 
division in the 1990s, has spoken candidly on this subject:

In hindsight, it's easy to see what was going on. The president wanted 
to invade Iraq. The first attempt to find justification was anthrax. It 
didn't work. The next attempt involved developing the "relationship" 
between al-Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence. It didn't work. Finally, Saddam 
Hussein possessed and was preparing to use against the United States 
weapons of mass destruction. It held the day.

Turchie adds, "When one person with integrity (Joseph Wilson) tried to 
influence the outcome by drawing a different conclusion for the Bush 
administration, his wife's identity as a CIA employee was leaked to the 
media." (Simon Barrett, "The WSJ and ABC Blow Hot (Anthrax Laced) Air 
Over Hatfill and the FBI," 7/1/08.

After Judith Miller of The New York Times used that leak, she spent 
several months in jail until she admitted that Scooter Libby repeatedly 
talked to her about Valerie Plame, a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) 
expert, before Robert Novak's column publicly identified Plame as a 
covert CIA operative.

The "Iraq-Did-It" Lobby of Matsumoto, Ross, Jacobsen and Spertzel Beat 
the Drums of War

During the height of the terror surrounding the attacks, Gary Matsumoto 
(with the aid of Brian Ross of ABC News and others) claimed the anthrax 
contained bentonite, an aluminum-based clay that is a trademark of the 
Iraqi anthrax weapons arsenal.

Although the bentonite story quickly collapsed, Matsumoto has been 
joined over the years by certain ideologically driven right-wing 
scientists who support the "Iraq-Did-It" theory. His primary sources, 
who are not anonymous, are Stuart Jacobsen, Defense Advanced Research 
Projects Agency (DARPA) research chemist and Free Republic blogger (see 
his "Technical Intelligence" article on the anthrax attacks), and 
Richard Spertzel, an ex-Iraq WMD inspector, who is a virulent 
right-winger and a favorite source of The Wall Street Journal. (See 
Spertzel's August 5 Wall Street Journal editorial, which states, "Ivins 
is innocent - look at state sponsored terrorism."). Spertzel's editorial 
didn't include any hint of his comment in a letter he wrote last year: 
"I have believed all along that Iraqi intelligence had their dirty hands 
on this event." Spertzel was the weapons inspector, who FBI 
counterterrorism chief Tom Carey said was working with "misinformation."

Matsumoto, Jacobsen and Spertzel have been the public face of the 
stories over the years, claiming that 1) the anthrax was finely milled, 
2) that it had a coating, with 3) an additive - silica, polyglass, or 
(in Matsumoto's case) bentonite. If any of these three claims were true, 
it would point to a state sponsor such as Iraq. The committee needs to 
call these men as witnesses and ask, "Are you the source of these lies, 
or who is feeding you these lies?"

The FBI had sole custody of all the evidence, and has known the nature 
of the anthrax all along: It was not milled. It had no coating. It 
contained no additive - no silica, polyglass or bentonite. These factors 
are why the key suspects were those with access to the anthrax at Fort 
Detrick, rather than Iraq. This case took seven years to reach this 
point because of these lies.

The Initial Suspect, Steven Hatfill, Was Singled Out by the FBI 
Precisely Because of His Role in the "Iraq-Did-It" Lobby

Dr. Stephen Hatfill, a virologist and lecturer on the medical effects of 
biological agents, hated the FBI's theory of domestic origin. In the 
first months of the investigation, he offered to serve as a consultant 
to ABC's Brian Ross, telling him and his staff they were "wasting their 
time looking at American scientists" and boasting "he could prove" that 
"Saddam Hussein and Iraq" were behind the attacks. (Ross Deposition in 
the Hatfill case, 3/23/06)

Hatfill's belief that "Iraq did it" was central to the belief of many in 
the FBI that Hatfill was the prime suspect. One FBI agent testified that 
for several years Hatfill was "one spore away from indictment." Again, 
all the evidence in the FBI's hands pointed to US origin, not Iraqi 
origin. There was a long chain of corroborating evidence based on 
Hatfill's unique expertise in working with anthrax.

Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a professor affiliated with the Federation of 
American Scientists, talked to Ross about Hatfill's reputation. Hatfill 
worked with a white supremacist group in South Africa known as the 
"Selous Scouts," who allegedly had used anthrax against a black tribe in 
the 1978 to 1980 period. Hatfill claimed to have a PhD from Rhodes 
University, which was later found to be false, and he forged signatures 
to support that claim. Judge Claude Hilton, in a recent court ruling, 
described how Hatfill gave classified lectures to the CIA on bioweapons 
production and once delivered a lecture on how to weaponize anthrax . 
Although the Justice Department (DOJ) has now exonerated Hatfill of any 
role in the anthrax case, Hatfill is no choir boy.

Who Convinced Barbara Hatch Rosenberg That Hatfill Was the Prime Suspect?

In December 2001, Rosenberg wrote a memo stating that she believed "the 
perpetrator is an American microbiologist who has access to 
recently-weaponized anthrax or to the expertise or materials for making 
it." The recently deceased Bruce Ivins, who only recently became the 
FBI's chief suspect, was a microbiologist who had such access at Fort 
Detrick. There is solid evidence Ivins had stalked members of a certain 
sorority since college days and had harbored homicidal tendencies for a 
number of years. The FBI should have at least carefully scrutinized 
Ivins throughout their investigation. But that didn't happen - in fact, 
Ivins himself analyzed the Daschle anthrax and came to the scene of one 
of the Hatfill searches.

In February 2002, Rosenberg wrote a second memo, changing the 
description of her prime suspect to "an insider in US biodefense, 
doctoral degree in a relevant branch of biology [Hatfill was a 
virologist] ... experienced and skilled in working with hazardous 
pathogens, including anthrax, and avoiding contamination, works for a 
CIA contractor in Washington, DC area."

The FBI obtained its first search warrant of Hatfill's property in June 
2002, commencing a futile four-year wild goose chase. Hatfill proceeded 
to subpoena virtually every reporter involved in the case and obtained 
orders that forced them to reveal sources - with Matsumoto as a glaring 
exception. Matsumoto interviewed Hatfill just a few days before he wrote 
a major anthrax article for The Washington Post during October 2002, and 
promised to go to jail before revealing Hatfill was a source. (Hatfill 
v. Ashcroft, Docket #235-4, Exhibit 38)

So another big question is: Who got to Barbara Hatch Rosenberg between 
December 2001 and February 2002? As a personal adviser to President 
Clinton on bioweapons in 1998, she was a mighty force in keeping the 
heat on the FBI to quickly find a domestic culprit. She has indicated 
willingness to correspond by email, and queries have been posed to her. 
In our email exchange to date, she said she "learned more," but "she 
can't discuss her discussions with Brian Ross." The answers might be a 
key factor in solving this case.

We do know that one of her sources appears to have been Gary Matsumoto. 
Rosenberg writes that a "reporter who writes on the anthrax vaccine" 
unsuccessfully tried to convince her in late 2001 that "four labs have 
told him that under the electron microscope the sample looks just like 
material obtained by UNSCOM in Iraq." Are these "four labs" related to 
the "four former and present Fort Detrick scientists" that Brian Ross 
claimed as his bentonite source?

The most well-known reporter on the dangers of the anthrax vaccine was 
Matsumoto. His 2004 book, "Vaccine-A: The Covert Government Experiment 
That's Killing Our Soldiers," accuses Dr. Bruce Ivins as the inventor of 
an experimental anthrax vaccine that Matsumoto claims caused the spread 
of Gulf War Syndrome throughout the US armed forces from 1991 to the 
present. The DOJ's theory of the case is that "by launching these 
attacks, [Ivins] creates a situation, a scenario, where people all of a 
sudden realize the need to have this vaccine," and that Ivins mailed the 
anthrax to justify the need for an effective anthrax vaccine. (Eric 
Lipton, The New York Times, August 9, 2008)

The only reporter mentioned in the FBI's search warrant affidavits for 
Bruce Ivins is Matsumoto. The warrant states that Matsumoto filed 
Freedom of Information Act requests just three weeks before 9/11, 
demanding that Ivins provide numerous notebooks regarding his vaccine 
research. Ivins's response was, "We've got better things to do than 
shine his shoes and pee on command." Matsumoto subsequently complained 
in his book that Ivins refused to give him an interview.

After 9/11, a Disinformation Campaign Tried to Blame the Anthrax Attacks 
on Iraq

After 9/11 and the ensuing anthrax attacks, the focus of Matsumoto and 
certain media colleagues turned to a peculiar kind of terrorist - one 
who warned his potential victims and tried to limit the loss of life.

One week after the 9/11 attacks, the first wave of anthrax letters were 
sent to the media. Notes inside said, "This is anthrax. Take Penacilin 
[sic]." That sure didn't sound like al-Qaeda. Some of the envelopes' 
seams were even taped, to keep the anthrax spores inside. The 
perpetrator became known in some circles as the "bioevangelist."

Experts suggested the perpetrator's plan may have been to give a shot in 
the arm to the vaccine industry. With a handful of Fort Detrick 
scientists at the center of the FBI's list of approximately 20 to 50 
suspects, there was the potential for a quick break in the case.

Meanwhile, Democratic majority leader Tom Daschle and Judiciary 
Committee chair Patrick Leahy were two of the main opponents of 
President Bush's attempt to get the PATRIOT bill passed despite its 
numerous threats to fundamental civil rights. Bush was insisting that he 
wanted the bill passed "in 24 hours."

On October 12, New York Times reporter Judith Miller opened an envelope, 
only to find white powder on her face, sweater and hands. She was 
wrapping up a book on bioterror, later released as "Germs." She thought 
that the odds were high that it was a copycat crime, but admits "her 
calm evaporated" when she found out that NBC had a confirmed report of 
anthrax earlier that day.

ABC also took a hit with the real anthrax - one of its staffers wound up 
in the hospital. So did CBS, The New York Post, and The National 
Enquirer. One reporter died.

Then, on October 15, one of the staffers of Democrat majority leader Tom 
Daschle opened an envelope filled with anthrax. Leahy's envelope did not 
reach him or his staff, due to a quarantine placed on the Senate mail. 
Twenty-eight Daschle staffers went to the hospital. The Hart Senate 
Office Building was shut down, causing the biggest exodus from Congress 
since the War of 1812. Panic ensued in Washington, DC, and throughout 
the country. The PATRIOT Act zipped through Congress and became law in 
less than two weeks.

The next day, October 16, Gary Matsumoto, of ABC, floated a trial 
balloon, musing what would happen if it appeared the anthrax was made in 
Iraq, based on aluminum-tainted clay - commonly known as bentonite - as 
the telltale sign of Iraqi manufacture.

On October 17, Judith Miller co-wrote a news analysis citing government 
sources reporting that the anthrax was "finely milled so that it would 
float a considerable distance" and would be easier to reach a victim's 
lungs - one of the aforementioned three telltale signs of state 
sponsorship pointing to Iraq. (She reversed her position in an article 
two months later.)

On October 18, ex-CIA chief James Woolsey wrote a feature for The Wall 
Street Journal that noted the "professionally prepared" anthrax and 
compared Bush's decision about war on Iraq with whether Churchill should 
have kept fighting Hitler when things looked tough during World War II.

On October 21, Spertzel was featured on "Face the Nation," charging that 
the anthrax "most likely" came "from some other country" and calling for 
an attack on Iraq. Following Spertzel, Washington Post foreign 
correspondent Jim Hoagland went so far as to say that even though the 
evidence of Iraqi involvement might not yet exist, it "should bring home 
to us the danger of having a regime in place" that might be motivated to 
attack the US.

On October 24, two Fort Detrick scientists were stunned to find what 
they mistakenly believed to be "probably" an additive of silica in the 
Daschle anthrax sample, in a pattern that suggested Iraqi manufacture. 
When they reported their finding to the White House, the White House 
considered a declaration of war on Iraq on the spot. (Richard Preston, 
"Demon in the Freezer")

On October 26, in this tense atmosphere, Matsumoto, Brian Ross, and two 
other ABC reporters put together a groundbreaking story alleging that 
bentonite was contained in the Daschle anthrax. According to Ross, this 
story was based on four unnamed "former and present scientists" at Fort 
Detrick, and their information had led Ross to believe the bentonite was 
a "brown substance" inside the anthrax. A similar story about a "brown 
ring" around the spores was reported by Amanda Ripley of Time Magazine.

The Iraqi-bentonite story was repeatedly hurtled into the media 
stratosphere for the next 72 hours, until Fort Detrick's Maj. Gen. John 
S. Parker announced that bentonite could be ruled out. "If I can't find 
aluminum, I can't say it's bentonite." (US State Department briefing, 
10/29/01)

Matsumoto countered with a final ABC story of November 1, suggesting 
there might be such a thing as "aluminum-free bentonite," so 
"mineralogists suggest the matter of the bentonite may not be closed."

On the anniversaries of the anthrax attacks in 2002 and 2003, Matsumoto 
amplified his story about the anthrax's probable Iraqi origin, focusing 
on the "coating of silica" and the presence of polyglass. He repeatedly 
referred to his favorite sources, Jacobsen and Spertzel, as well as 
unidentified sources. As mentioned above, he interviewed Hatfill just a 
few days before The Post article, but it is not known if he cited 
Hatfill in the article.

Daschle and Leahy were deeply shaken by Matsumoto's 2002 Washington Post 
story, and asked for an immediate briefing by the head of the FBI 
Investigation (Hatfill Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, Vol. 11, Ex. 
131). This recurring anthrax story aided the Bush administration's 
public relations campaign to convince Americans that Iraq was in 
possession of weapons of mass destruction.

Did the FBI investigate the sources of Matsumoto's yarns of silica and 
polyglass? Two of them were the aforementioned right-wing scientists 
Jacobsen and Spretzel. Have these three men been making up these 
stories, or have they been set up to play the fool?

Did the FBI investigate the source of Miller's report that the anthrax 
was "finely milled"?

Did the FBI investigate the bentonite story, which could have caused an 
immediate war?

The FBI went so far as to have one of their hazardous materials 
specialists, who was at the crime scene, publish an article in a 
scientific journal in 2006 that singled out Matsumoto's articles as the 
reason for the confusion as to the state of the evidence ("no milling, 
no coating, no additives").

Politically-Motivated Leaks Continue to Disrupt the Investigation and 
Justify the War

In the wake of Ivins's death, knowing that the FBI had custody of the 
evidence and was under close scrutiny, Matsumoto claimed that the agency 
had failed to "connect the dots" and falsely said that Hatfill "had not 
worked with anthrax at all." (Time Magazine, 8/15/08; "As It Happens," 
audio interview, 8/1/08,) But Matsumoto pointedly refrained from 
returning to his earlier arguments regarding the presence of "coatings 
of silica" and polyglass, realizing this would go nowhere.

Apparently, Matsumoto's colleagues Spertzel and Jacobsen have not got 
the word. Spertzel wrote an editorial in the August 5 Wall Street 
Journal that continues to claim "the spores were coated with a 
polyglass" that bound silica to each particle, based on a supposed FBI 
leak. Similarly, Jacobsen continues to write articles blaming Iraq for 
the anthrax attacks based on this phony evidence.

The FBI is not immune to stories about leaks, in the face of pressure to 
solve the case. Both the FBI and the DOJ were forced to admit to dozens 
of leaks in the Hatfill case. Leakers included case agents, public 
information officers and even the US attorney himself. These leaks 
caused Director Mueller to issue an order saying that the investigation 
would be compartmentalized, with many of the case agents not allowed to 
talk to each other.

Between this compartmentalization caused by leaks and the misinformation 
created by reporters who say they relied on "leaks," is it any wonder it 
took seven years to start cracking the case? In 2004, tests pointed to 
Fort Detrick as the source of the spores. But the match between Ivins's 
flask and the Daschle anthrax was not made until two years ago, with a 
new FBI investigative team re-examining all the evidence in the case. It 
turned out that the FBI had obtained the key flask sample that was 
critical in moving the case forward from Ivins back in early 2002.

Rosenberg and Judith Miller should be asked to come forward with their 
full stories about what they know. The Judiciary Committee has the power 
to call Matsumoto, Ross, Spertzel and Jacobsen and force them to either 
tell the truth or go to jail for refusing to provide the malevolent 
sources that led the US toward war.

»

Bill Simpich is a civil rights attorney in the San Francisco Bay Area. 
He can be contacted at bsimpich at gmail.com.
Comments

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live.
Congress is impotent!
Sun, 09/14/2008 - 03:10 — Anonymous (not verified)
Congress is impotent!
The FBI never explains Ivins
Sun, 09/14/2008 - 02:23 — Thomas (not verified)
The FBI never explains Ivins suppose desire to kill senators, National 
Enquirer & The New York post....Tom Brokow....The only targets.. Other 
sicknesss & death was by cross mail contamination...The spores were so 
small that they got through the microscopic holes in the paper 
itself.........It was manufactured VERY professionally.. Paragraph below 
written Oct. 2004 ...Imagine you were the anthrax terrorist but too 
powerful for even the FBI to charge, too powerful to even investigate. 
Imagine your coconspirators were too secret and protected for law 
enforcement to even question. Imagine if, instead of hiring forensic 
experts to try to introduce doubt into any case against you, you could 
marshal all the scientists of the US germ warfare programs, all the 
agents of the FBI, and assign them to pin your crimes on someone else. 
Imagine that the FBI isn't allowed to consider what enemy the targets 
had in common, that they can't demand the CIA or the DOD tell them who 
might have produced the anthrax, that they can't even ask who had the 
authority to order it sent, and that they can't investigate the prime 
suspect. . Imaging an anthrax terrorist so powerful he could order the 
assassination of the scientists who had been instructed to produce the 
anthrax and/or mail it. Imagine being an anthrax terrorist so powerful 
you can kill the people you swore to protect, so powerful you can get 
away with it. Imagine George Bush as the anthrax terrorist. t. 2004 
Imagine you were the anthrax terrorist but too powerful for even the FBI 
to charge, too powerful to even investigate. Imagine your 
co-conspirators were too secret and protected for law enforcement to 
even question. Imagine if, instead of hiring forensic experts to try to 
introduce doubt into any case against you, you could marshal all the 
scientists of the US germ warfare programs, all the agents of the FBI, 
and assign them to pin your crimes on someone else. Imagine that the FBI 
isn't allowed to consider what enemy the targets had in common, that 
they can't demand the CIA or the DOD tell them who might have produced 
the anthrax, that they can't even ask who had the authority to order it 
sent, and that they can't investigate the prime suspect. . Imaging an 
anthrax terrorist so powerful he could order the assassination of the 
scientists who had been instructed to produce the anthrax and/or mail 
it. Imagine being an anthrax terrorist so powerful you can kill the 
people you swore to protect, so powerful you can get away with it. 
Imagine George Bush as the anthrax terrorist. See 
http://www.newsgarden.org/columns/anthrax/anthraxtargets.shtml

http://www.truthout.org/article/congress-asks-who-misled-anthrax-investigation-pointing-iraq