Monday, August 04, 2008

'Amerithrax' — not a simple US affair

Aug.4, 2008



'Amerithrax' — not a simple US affair

THE death of the man described as the top suspect who terrorised the US seven years ago using anthrax-laced letters adds another dramatic twist to a bizarre tale and it leaves more questions unanswered.
When the letters surfaced in the US in what was immediately labelled as the "Amerithrax" affair in weeks after the Sept.11 attacks, it was immediately implied by US officials that Saddam Hussein and his agents were behind deadly white powder doing the rounds. It was easy for many to accept it without question, given Iraq's record of having developed chemical weapons and done research on biological weapons.
Some of the envelopes contained a letter which was laced with the anthrax toxin. The message contained a simple reference to " "09-11-01" and phrases such as "Death to Israel" and "Allah is Great."
However, as the affair developed — the powder killed five and sent numerous victims to hospitals in September and October 2001 — it became apparent that Iraq had nothing to do with it. By then, it also became clear that there was no link between Iraq and the Sept.11 attacks despite insistence to the contrary by top Bush administration officials.
It was only recently it was suggested that Bruce E. Ivins, a brilliant but troubled US Army scientist, could have been behind the "Amerithrax" affair and that he had released the anthrax to test his cure for the toxin. The central link was that all of the samples obtained in the anthrax cases in Florida, New Jersey, New York and Washington were genetically identical. It suggested that it could have come from the same source.
And now Ivins is dead in what was said to be a suicide a week after a social worker, Jean C. Duley, filed handwritten court documents saying she was preparing to testify before a grand jury. She said Ivins would be charged with five capital murders.
The Justice Department said only that "substantial progress has been made in the investigation" but said it may be able to release more information about the case soon. The department is expected to decide within days whether to close the investigation.
In June this year, the Justice Department cleared Ivins' colleague, Steven Hatfill, who had been wrongly suspected in the case. Hatfill received $5.8 million as damages.
The department's explanation that Ivans wanted to test his cure for anthrax is not deemed to be satisfactory because it does not answer many other questions.
Among those demanding a "complete accounting" of the investigation is former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, whose office received a letter containing anthrax in 2001.
He says: "It's been seven years, there's a lot of unanswered questions and I think the American people deserve to know more than they do today."
Indeed, it is not only the American people but also the rest of the world deserve to know more than what they have been told so far because there has always been suspicion that the Sept.11 attacks and the anthrax mailings were linked and the impact of the two events was felt throughout the world and many innocent people paid for them dearly.