This story posted at rense.com is another example of the surprising right-wing reaction against Ashcroft's police state. The report speculates that the motive behind the anthrax letters was a reatively innocent pecuniary one of generating revenue for drug firms. I find this hard to believe. Why resort to crime when you have an admin that is so accomodating to lobbyists? The real motive - that of fingering Saddam - is still too hard to admit, I guess.
Hakki
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http://www.rense.com/general18/fbim.htm
FBI Implicated In Anthrax Mailings Cover-Up
News Release
Tetrahedron Publishing Group
FBI officials may be implicated in a conspiracy to impede justice in the anthrax mailings case, if not treasonous dereliction of duty, according to a growing number of scientists and consumer advocates. After officials cited the likeliest origin of the powdered anthrax was the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, or its Ohio-based supplier and CIA-contractor, Battelle Memorial Instititue (BMI), FBI Director Robert Mueller announced the bureau has no intention of investigating anyone with, or formerly with, their chief suspect-BMI.
Just weeks ago, major progress in the FBI's investigation seemed forthcoming. The New York Times and Washington Post revealed that BMI, Dugway's anthrax facility supplier and chief administrator had contracted with the CIA (in project "Clear Vision") to produce, albeit illegally, the 1 trillion spore-per- gram strain of anthrax under investigation. BMI, while heading the U.S. military's "Joint Vaccine Acquisitions Program" worth more than $1 billion in vaccine contracts, commissioned America's top anthrax expert, William C. Patrick, III, to deliver a report on the powdered anthrax's prospects for being spread through the mail.
Thus, by mid-December, the public, including health scientists urged to help federal officials identify suspects, realized that someone with high level security clearance, a "black-op budget," access to the BMI/Dugway anthrax labs, and vaccine sales incentive, most likely took BMI's powdered anthrax, and prepared it for mailing from Trenton, NJ; St. Petersburg, FL; Atlanta, GA; and Malaysia.
For the first time since the 1975 Frank Church congressional investigation of the CIA for illegally stockpiling anthrax and other biological weapons, the public learned that the CIA had been violating the international Geneva Accord moratorium on biological weapons development-a revelation somewhat embarrassing to American diplomats engaged in the global "War on Terrorism."
The day before Christmas, an Op Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal additionally implicated BMI, and potentially the FBI, along with rogue elements within the CIA, in an international conspiracy to commit and cover-up the anthrax mailings crime. BMI and Bioport, a Michigan-based offshoot of Britain's leading biological weapons organization at Porton Down, were previously reported to be collaborating on the manufacture and supply of America's only anthrax vaccine. Dr. Robert C. Myers, Chief Operating Officer of BioPort, told a Senate Appropriations Committee in 1996 that he "was part of a team of organizations, led by Battelle Memorial Institute . . . " The Journal writer Edward Jay Epstein cited the testimony of U.S. Army bioweapons official David Franz concerning America's reliance on British intelligence provided by Porton Down officials regarding the development and use of the powdered Ames strain of anthrax. Thus, the FBI's disregard of foreign suspects, especially Porton Down, with direct links to Biopor
More evidence of the FBI's intentional ineptitude came from the Columbus Dispatch. Though the Washington Post reported that the FBI was allegedly pursuing the possibility that financial gain was the motive behind the anthrax mailings, and that "two laboratories" were especially implicated, that is, BMI and Dugway, a contradictory announcement was relayed the same day (Dec. 21, 2001) by Ohio Senator Mike DeWine. Based on an ABC News report concerning a BMI employee who had been under FBI investigation for an anthrax threat, FBI Director Robert Mueller had, according to The Dispatch, assured Senator DeWine that the bureau was not investigating, nor intending to investigate, anyone with, or formerly with, BMI.
Currently then, the FBI has no intention of investigating its chief suspect, despite the grave likelihood that the remaining mystery will continue to exact massive economic and socio-political tolls.
These proceedings have bewildered and even outraged many scientists and public health professionals from whom the FBI requested assistance.
(...)