Quebrando a notícia | Forum | Notícia BRITÂNICA | Notícia dos EUA | Notícia do mundo | Notícia política | Notícia do Sci-Tech | Notícia da guerra & do terrorismo | Notícia dos esportes | Multimedia | Ajuste o homepage

Sábado, agosto 2o, 2008
Discuta este relatório nos forums de RINF >

AP | Foi quase sete anos, mas os povos em Oxford, conexão., recordam ainda os trabalhadores nos ternos do hazmat, scouring os pews da igreja Lutheran de Immanuel para os spores despercebidos do anthrax.

Recordam alinhar até para ser testado para o toxin, e estar receosos abrir seu correio. Recordam 94 year-old Ottilie Lundgren - uma viúva igreja-indo, uma secretária legal longo-aposentada e uma vítima a mais improvável dos bioterrorist.

“Qualquer outra coisa semelhante que você começa nunca realmente sobre,” Thomas Condon, um amigo de Lundgren, disseram sexta-feira. “Permanece sempre em sua memória.”

Para o descanso de nós, os anos têm feito no meio então e agora fácil de esquecer-se do dread e do terror que apreenderam a nação durante os ataques do anthrax-por-correio, e para perder a trilha da investigação frustrada esse longo falhado a resolve-os.

Em sexta-feira, todas aquelas memórias vieram inundando para trás.

Após anos do futility, os investigators disseram que se têm preparado para carregar um cientista do governo, Bruce E. Ivins, com chocar o lote, antes que cometer o suicide esta semana. As respostas finais podem jorrar morreram com ele.

Quando os ataques do anthrax começaram, o fumo estava levantando-se ainda do poço charred do centro de comércio de mundo. ESTADOS UNIDOS. os lutadores de jato moveram-se na posição, aprontam-se para desencadear suas bombas no regime defiant de Afeganistão.

Todo o momento agora, os americanos disseram-se que, os terroristas puderam jorrar ato outra vez. Ninguém poderia dizer onde ou quando ou, o mais ominously, como.

Ainda, quando um fotógrafo de Florida, Bob Stevens, morrido do anthrax inhaled em outubro. 5, 2001, capturou relativamente pouca observação e agitou mais sorrow do que o medo. Um colegas de trabalho de Stevens' foi diagnosticado então. E outros.

Dias mais tarde, um assistente nos escritórios de New York de notícias do NBC foi diagnosticado. Os Investigators seguiram-no ao pó contido em uma letra misteriosa. Foi carimbado Sept. 18 e, em o que se transformariam um detalhe familiar, despachado de uma caixa postal na baixa arrumada de Princeton, New Jersey.

Logo após, uma letra similar, pre-carimbada também e sem algum endereço do retorno, chegado nos escritórios do monte de Capitol do líder Tom Daschle da maioria do Senate. Dentro de, um trabalhador encontrou o mesmo pó e uma mensagem chilling.

“Você está indo morrer,” ele leu.

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

RSS TrackBack URL

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

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. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Loading ...

ADVERTISEMENTS

SITE MAPS

7/7 Afghanistan Alternative-Energy Art BBC Big-Brother Bilderberg Biometrics Bush CIA Climate-Change Cover-Up Cults Culture Database-State David-Hicks David-Ray-Griffin Democrats Demos Drugs Education Entertainment Environmental News EU False-Flag FBI Fraud Free-Speech Freemasons G8 Globalization Guantanamo Health-News History ID-Cards Internet Iran Iraq Israel Law Marches MI5 MI6 Microsoft Military MoD Money Music NASA Neocons NSA Oil Pakistan Podcast Police-State Propaganda RFID RINF Rumsfeld Science Secrecy Security Slavery Space Sports Spying Stephen-Lendman Technology Terrorism Tony-Blair Torture TV UK-News UN USA-News Video Voting Warfare White-House Wolfowitz World-News Yahoo
2003 - 2005 Archives | 2005 - 2007 Archives | 2007 - 2008 Archives | Current Archives | Past Version