RINF.COM: L'ALTERNATIVE DE RUPTURE DE NOUVELLES
Samedi 2 août 2008
RINF.COM: L'ALTERNATIVE DE RUPTURE DE NOUVELLES
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RUPTURE DES NOUVELLES |
Les réponses dans le cas d'anthrax ont pu être mortes avec le suicide
Samedi 2 août 2008 Discutez ce rapport dans les forum de RINF > AP | Il a été presque sept ans, mais les gens à Oxford, conn., se rappellent toujours les ouvriers dans des costumes de hazmat, récurant les sièges de l'église luthérienne d'Immanuel pour les spores invisibles de l'anthrax. Ils se rappellent d'aligner pour être examinés pour la toxine, et d'avoir peur pour ouvrir leur courrier. Ils se rappellent 94 ans Ottilie Lundgren - une veuve église-allante, un secrétaire juridique long-retiré et une victime la plus peu probable des bioterrorist. « N'importe quoi de pareil que vous obtenez jamais vraiment plus de, » Thomas Condon, un ami de Lundgren, ont indiqué vendredi. « Il reste toujours dans votre mémoire. » Pour le reste de nous, les années entre alors et maintenant l'ont rendu facile d'oublier la crainte et la terreur qui ont saisi la nation pendant les attaques d'anthrax-par-courrier, et pour perdre la voie de la recherche frustrée ce long échoué à les résout. Vendredi, toutes ces mémoires sont revenues inondation. Après des années de futilité, les investigateurs ont dit qu'ils avaient préparé pour charger un scientifique de gouvernement, Bruce E. Ivins, avec hacher la parcelle de terrain, avant qu'il ait commis le suicide cette semaine. Les réponses finales peuvent jaillir sont mortes avec lui. Quand les attaques d'anthrax ont commencé, la fumée se levait toujours du puits carbonisé du centre commercial mondial. LES États-Unis les chasseurs à réaction pris position, prête à lâcher leurs bombes sur le régime provoquant de l'Afghanistan. Á tout moment, les Américains se sont dits que, les terroristes pourraient jaillir acte encore. Personne ne pourrait dire où ou quand ou, le plus sinistre, comment. Toujours, quand un photographe de la Floride, Bob Stevens, mort de l'anthrax inhalé oct. 5, 2001, il a capturé relativement peu de notification et a remué plus de douleur que la crainte. Alors un collègues de Stevens des' a été diagnostiqué. Et des autres. Des jours plus tard, un aide aux bureaux de New York des nouvelles de NBC a été diagnostiqué. Les investigateurs l'ont tracé à la poudre contenue dans une lettre mystérieuse. Il a été timbré septembre. 18 et, dans ce qui deviendraient un détail familier, expédié d'une boîte aux lettres dans le centre ville rangé de Princeton, la New Jersey. Peu après, une lettre semblable, également pré-emboutie et sans toute adresse de retour, atteinte les bureaux de Capitol Hill du Chef Tom Daschle de majorité de sénat. À l'intérieur de, un ouvrier a trouvé la même poudre et un message de refroidissement. « Vous allez mourir, » il avez lu. Even before the first report of anthrax, post-9/11 worries had sent a book on germ warfare up to the No. 2 spot on Amazon.com’s list of best-sellers. Now the hypothetical bioterror threat was becoming real. “I could probably drop a package of Sweet n’ Low and evacuate this building,” a Florida county official, Ken Pineau, said at the time. At some Army-Navy stores, clerks imposed limits on how many gas masks a single customer could buy. At pharmacies, sales of ciprofloxacin — the antibiotic used to combat anthrax — multiplied by 10. “In Cipro we trust,” a solemn Tom Brokaw told his “NBC Nightly News” audience. By November 2001, five people were dead — Ottilie Lundgren the last among them — and 17 others were sickened. Workers in bubble suits decontaminated federal office buildings in Washington after anthrax letters were discovered there. The attacks shut some postal substations for years. Who would do this? The letter to Daschle hailed Allah, and speculation focused on Arab terrorists. The first victim, it was noted, lived in Lantana, Fla. near an airfield where 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta rented planes. Perhaps that was the key. But there was no evidence to back that up, and hoaxes did not clarify the situation. Letters containing white powder were sent to scores of Planned Parenthood clinics, fueling conjecture that the plot was the work of far-right zealots. But investigators who analyzed the anthrax dismissed both ideas. The toxin was a sophisticated form, carefully manufactured by someone who was highly skilled. By the early months of 2002, investigators were zeroing in on 20 to 30 scientists they said had both the knowledge and opportunity to send the anthrax letters. The only name that surfaced: Steven J. Hatfill, a biowarfare expert who had worked at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. Federal officials repeatedly identified him as a “person of interest.” By August of that year, it was clear Hatfill was the prime suspect. FBI agents wearing protective gloves searched his apartment and a storage locker. They found no trace of anthrax. “I want to look my fellow Americans directly in the eye and declare to them, ‘I am not the anthrax killer,” Hatfill said. “I know nothing about the anthrax attacks. I had absolutely nothing to do with this horrible crime.” But the investigation continued to focus on him. In June 2003, investigators drained 1.45 million gallons of water from a pond eight miles from Fort Detrick. The drastic step came after divers found a plastic box with two holes cut into it that some investigators theorized could have been used to safely fill envelopes with deadly anthrax spores. The pond produced a gun, a bicycle and fishing lures — but no further evidence. Later that summer, Hatfill sued the Attorney General John Ashcroft and other federal officials, accusing them of turning him into a scapegoat. The investigation ebbed and flowed, with little outward sign of progress. In 2006, the FBI changed the leadership of the team investigating the attacks. It’s not clear when their attention turned to Ivins. The microbiologist had briefly been the subject of some controversy in late 2001, when Army internal reports showed he decontaminated an area of Fort Detrick lab’s for anthrax without reporting it to his superiors. Ivins apologized and was not disciplined. In fact, he was praised. In 2003, he shared the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service, the highest honor given to civilians Defense Department employees, for his work on a vaccine for anthrax. Years later, investigators turned their attention from Hatfill to him. They interviewed the latter man’s family and colleagues, developing a picture of a man both brilliant and emotionally unstable. Maryland court documents show he recently received psychiatric treatment and was ordered to stay away from a woman he was accused of stalking and threatening to kill. Friends said he knew the FBI was on his tail and that he felt hounded. Investigators raided his home twice. Agents in cars with tinted windows conducted regular surveillance. In late June, the Justice Department settled its suit with Hatfill, agreeing to pay him $5.8 million — and, at least in the public perception, exoneration. About two weeks later, police were called to Fort Detrick to speak with Ivins. He was taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation because of concern he was a danger to himself or others. He was eventually released. This past Tuesday, he committed suicide at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. His lawyer blamed the death on the government’s “relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo.” The scientist’s death brought back memories of the terror visited by the anthrax attacks, but leaves many questions unanswered. “I think the FBI owes us a complete accounting of their investigation and ought to be able to tell us at some point, how we’re going to bring this to closure,” Daschle told The Associated Press. “It’s been seven years, there’s a lot of unanswered questions,” he said, “and I think the American people deserve to know more than they do today.” ___ Associated Press Writer John Christoffersen in New Haven, Conn., contributed to this story. Discuss this report in the RINF forums > Have Your Say: Answers in anthrax case may have died with suicide This entry was posted on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 at 8:30 pm and is filed under War & Terrorism News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. 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