"Avian Flu" vs. The Anthrax Terrorists...that got away

Conspiracy: Anthrax Attacks
by The History Channel

Saturday, Oct. 01, 2005

Just two weeks after the September 11 tragedy news outlets in New York and Florida became targets of the first bio warfare attack in United States history when letters tainted with anthrax were discovered.

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Soon two more envelopes were found, sent to prominent US Senators. Within weeks five people were dead, seventeen seriously sickened, and untold thousands exposed to the deadly bacterium.

Four letters, with similar handwriting and containing identical strains of anthrax would eventually be found. The second pair of letters contained refined anthrax that could only be prepared by highly skilled scientists in tightly controlled environments. The most startling discovery - the anthrax was a variety of the Ames strain, long favoured by and under the control of the US bio-defence community.

Suspicion immediately centred on domestic terrorists, perhaps scientists actively working in the bio-defence community. The FBI, dubbing the case "Amerithrax" began what many consider its most technically challenging case ever.

With a limited pool of suspects and only a few realistic labs where the bacterium could originate, many expected a quick resolution to the case. However, weeks turned to months, then months to years with little indication that the FBI was closing in on a viable suspect.

As journalists investigated the story disquieting facts began to emerge. Stories of harassment and discrimination at high security military labs led to further tales of lax security and disappearing toxins, including some samples of Ames strain anthrax. Attention soon focused on the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Disease (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, a member of the Federation of American Scientists, began to challenge the FBI’s official stance on the case. She speculated the anthrax terrorist was actually a government insider with access to top-level technology and equipment and eventually went so far as to theorise the attacks could have been part of a government sponsored risk assessment test that went awry.

Her theories began to mirror those of FBI insider Don Foster, a textual analyst and Vassar professor hired by the bureau to work on the anthrax suspect profile and to analyse the various letters to vet out clues. Presenting his theories to superiors, Foster was met with indifference and disinterest. Meanwhile, Rosenberg was invited to speak before a Senate Judicial Committee. Days later, the FBI began a series of high profile searches that, while not culminating in an arrest, served to place a potential suspect before the public: so-called "person of interest" Steven Hatfill.

Hatfill has vehemently denied involvement in the case and no hard evidence links him to the crimes. But his name refuses to disappear. Is he a viable suspect? Or merely a convenient scapegoat like Dr. Ayaad Assaad, a former USAMRIID bio weapons researcher who was the target of a suspicious hoax letter and smear campaign in the days leading up to the initial mailings?

Almost three years after the attacks the unanswered questions continue to grow. Is the FBI capable of solving this mystery or are they perhaps dragging their feet, anxious to protect the US government from embarrassing questions about rogue scientists and a bio weapons program that was supposedly discontinued in 1972?

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