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5 years later, anthrax deaths a mystery
Despite cold trail, effort to find source of germs continues
(09-20) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Five years after anthrax killed five people and introduced America to high-tech bioterrorism, one of the biggest crime mysteries of the 21st century remains unsolved.
FBI agents and U.S. Postal Service inspectors have pursued hundreds of leads and interviewed scores of scientists who work with the deadly anthrax bacteria, but the investigation now appears to be languishing.
"No matter what anybody says, if it is five years out and we are not even seeing any smoke from the investigation, then I would say definitely that this case is cold right now," said Christopher Hamilton, a former FBI counterterrorism official who worked on the anthrax investigation and is now a counterterrorism expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a nonpartisan think tank. "This thing is just sitting out there with nothing happening."
The murders-by-germ in the weeks immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks added to a jittery nation's anxieties and triggered a massive hunt for the perpetrator who used the U.S. mail to spread the bacteria.
Hundreds of FBI personnel worked the case at the outset, struggling to discern whether the Sept. 11 al Qaeda attacks and the anthrax murders were connected before eventually concluding that they were not.
A senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation insisted that "the investigation is still ongoing and intensely active." The official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said there "are a number of pending and very important leads that are being pursued."
Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington, D.C., field office, which is leading the investigation, said "the FBI considers this case to be a priority" and that FBI Director Robert Mueller has asked for briefings every Friday on developments.
The FBI and Postal Service have conducted 9,142 interviews, issued over 6,000 subpoenas and executed 67 search warrants in the investigation, she said.
There are currently 17 FBI agents and 10 postal inspectors working the investigation, and two additional FBI agents are being added next month, she said.
One high-profile change is that the FBI's longtime lead investigator on the case transferred earlier this month to run the agency's field office in Knoxville, Tenn.
The anthrax investigation began after a Florida photojournalist died on Oct. 5, 2001, from an infection produced by the bacteria. Within days, anthrax-laced letters were uncovered at news outlets in New York City and at the Washington office of Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., then the top Democrat in the Senate. In November, anthrax turned up in a letter sent to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
The letters contained similar hand-written notes. The letter to Leahy read: "You cannot stop us. We have the anthrax. You die now. Are you afraid? Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great."
In addition to the Florida victim, two U.S. postal workers in Washington, a New York hospital worker and an elderly Connecticut woman died from anthrax-borne infections.
The government reacted by shutting some congressional offices and the Supreme Court building in Washington, while postal facilities throughout the U.S. were put on high alert to watch for anthrax-tainted mail. Some government buildings were closed for months to allow for costly cleanups.
The anthrax attacks led governments and businesses around the nation to devise new safety procedures for handling mail. Some offices asked mail handlers to wear surgical masks and plastic gloves for self-protection.
To this day, mail sent to government offices in Washington is irradiated to destroy any dangerous bacteria.
Anthrax is a naturally occurring bacteria and only rarely infects humans. However, the anthrax used in the attacks had been finely milled to make it more easily inhaled, thus increasing its lethality and suggesting a high degree of scientific competence by the perpetrator.
If not treated rapidly with antibiotics, inhaled anthrax can trigger a deadly infection by swelling body parts, flooding the lungs with fluid and igniting internal hemorrhaging.
The FBI has spent much of the ensuing five years in efforts to identify the laboratory where the anthrax -- dubbed the Ames strain -- originated. This is a challenging task because the Ames strain -- named for a lab at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa -- has been widely studied in research centers around the country.
To narrow the list of suspects, the FBI has enlisted the help of 29 government, commercial and university laboratories to develop a profile of the anthrax used in the attacks. They are looking for a microbial fingerprint based on the theory that different scientists use different production techniques to make anthrax spores, and these varied production techniques impart different chemical and physical signatures.
In the course of its anthrax probe, the Justice Department announced in 2002 that Stephen Hatfill, a medical doctor and biowarfare expert, was a "person of interest" to investigators.
Hatfill was never charged and has denied any involvement in the attacks; he is suing the Justice Department and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who publicly identified him as the "person of interest."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/20/MNGEAL8O7B1.DTL
Despite cold trail, effort to find source of germs continues
(09-20) 04:00 PDT Washington -- Five years after anthrax killed five people and introduced America to high-tech bioterrorism, one of the biggest crime mysteries of the 21st century remains unsolved.
FBI agents and U.S. Postal Service inspectors have pursued hundreds of leads and interviewed scores of scientists who work with the deadly anthrax bacteria, but the investigation now appears to be languishing.
"No matter what anybody says, if it is five years out and we are not even seeing any smoke from the investigation, then I would say definitely that this case is cold right now," said Christopher Hamilton, a former FBI counterterrorism official who worked on the anthrax investigation and is now a counterterrorism expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a nonpartisan think tank. "This thing is just sitting out there with nothing happening."
The murders-by-germ in the weeks immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks added to a jittery nation's anxieties and triggered a massive hunt for the perpetrator who used the U.S. mail to spread the bacteria.
Hundreds of FBI personnel worked the case at the outset, struggling to discern whether the Sept. 11 al Qaeda attacks and the anthrax murders were connected before eventually concluding that they were not.
A senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation insisted that "the investigation is still ongoing and intensely active." The official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly, said there "are a number of pending and very important leads that are being pursued."
Debbie Weierman, a spokeswoman for the FBI's Washington, D.C., field office, which is leading the investigation, said "the FBI considers this case to be a priority" and that FBI Director Robert Mueller has asked for briefings every Friday on developments.
The FBI and Postal Service have conducted 9,142 interviews, issued over 6,000 subpoenas and executed 67 search warrants in the investigation, she said.
There are currently 17 FBI agents and 10 postal inspectors working the investigation, and two additional FBI agents are being added next month, she said.
One high-profile change is that the FBI's longtime lead investigator on the case transferred earlier this month to run the agency's field office in Knoxville, Tenn.
The anthrax investigation began after a Florida photojournalist died on Oct. 5, 2001, from an infection produced by the bacteria. Within days, anthrax-laced letters were uncovered at news outlets in New York City and at the Washington office of Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., then the top Democrat in the Senate. In November, anthrax turned up in a letter sent to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.
The letters contained similar hand-written notes. The letter to Leahy read: "You cannot stop us. We have the anthrax. You die now. Are you afraid? Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great."
In addition to the Florida victim, two U.S. postal workers in Washington, a New York hospital worker and an elderly Connecticut woman died from anthrax-borne infections.
The government reacted by shutting some congressional offices and the Supreme Court building in Washington, while postal facilities throughout the U.S. were put on high alert to watch for anthrax-tainted mail. Some government buildings were closed for months to allow for costly cleanups.
The anthrax attacks led governments and businesses around the nation to devise new safety procedures for handling mail. Some offices asked mail handlers to wear surgical masks and plastic gloves for self-protection.
To this day, mail sent to government offices in Washington is irradiated to destroy any dangerous bacteria.
Anthrax is a naturally occurring bacteria and only rarely infects humans. However, the anthrax used in the attacks had been finely milled to make it more easily inhaled, thus increasing its lethality and suggesting a high degree of scientific competence by the perpetrator.
If not treated rapidly with antibiotics, inhaled anthrax can trigger a deadly infection by swelling body parts, flooding the lungs with fluid and igniting internal hemorrhaging.
The FBI has spent much of the ensuing five years in efforts to identify the laboratory where the anthrax -- dubbed the Ames strain -- originated. This is a challenging task because the Ames strain -- named for a lab at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa -- has been widely studied in research centers around the country.
To narrow the list of suspects, the FBI has enlisted the help of 29 government, commercial and university laboratories to develop a profile of the anthrax used in the attacks. They are looking for a microbial fingerprint based on the theory that different scientists use different production techniques to make anthrax spores, and these varied production techniques impart different chemical and physical signatures.
In the course of its anthrax probe, the Justice Department announced in 2002 that Stephen Hatfill, a medical doctor and biowarfare expert, was a "person of interest" to investigators.
Hatfill was never charged and has denied any involvement in the attacks; he is suing the Justice Department and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, who publicly identified him as the "person of interest."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/20/MNGEAL8O7B1.DTL