Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said today the financial crisis that has pounded the country -- coupled with higher inflation -- is taking a toll on the economy and poses a major challenge to Fed policymakers as they try to restore stability....the most challenging to Fed policymakers "in memory''.
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A forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was ordered on White House stationery and probably came from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a new transcript of a conversation with the Central Intelligence Agency's former Deputy Chief of Clandestine Operations Robert Richer posted Friday.
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THE FORGOTTEN ANTHRAX PROPAGANDA________________
Colin Powell waving the vial of anthrax at his UN Security Council presentation on February 5, 2003, making a fabricated case for war in Iraq.
CIA Director George Tenet (left), Director of National Intelligence John Negropante (right), perfectly positioned for the cameras as if to stand behind everything Powell presented.
FBI was told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials
In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda, but investigators ruled that out, the Daily News has learned.After the Oct. 5, 2001, death from anthrax exposure of Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, Mueller was "beaten up" during President Bush's morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide.
"They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official told The News.
On October 15, 2001, President Bush said, "There may be some possible link" to Bin Laden, adding, "I wouldn't put it past him." Vice President Cheney also said Bin Laden's henchmen were trained "how to deploy and use these kinds of substances, so you start to piece it all together."
Third, there is the Democracy Now podcast on anthrax, which includes an interview with Greenwald, and an anthrax researcher who personally new Ivins. These interviews also include sound bites of McCain linking the Anthrax letters to Iraq on the David Letterman Show in 2001, as well as Bush, both knowing full well (per FBI) that there in fact was no link to Iraq, or even "Islamic militants" inside or outside the US!Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News
...If the now-deceased Ivins really was the culprit behind the attacks, then that means that the anthrax came from a U.S. Government lab, sent by a top U.S. Army scientist at Ft. Detrick. Without resort to any speculation or inferences at all, it is hard to overstate the significance of that fact. From the beginning, there was a clear intent on the part of the anthrax attacker to create a link between the anthrax attacks and both Islamic radicals and the 9/11 attacks. This was the letter sent to Brokaw:
The letter sent to Leahy contained this message:We have anthrax.By design, those attacks put the American population into a state of intense fear of Islamic terrorism, far more than the 9/11 attacks alone could have accomplished.You die now.
Are you afraid?
Death to America.
Death to Israel.
Allah is great.
Much more important than the general attempt to link the anthrax to Islamic terrorists, there was a specific intent -- indispensably aided by ABC News -- to link the anthrax attacks to Iraq and Saddam Hussein. In my view, and I've written about this several times and in great detail to no avail, the role played by ABC News in this episode is the single greatest, unresolved media scandal of this decade. News of Ivins' suicide, which means (presumably) that the anthrax attacks originated from Ft. Detrick, adds critical new facts and heightens how scandalous ABC News' conduct continues to be in this matter.
During the last week of October, 2001, ABC News, led by Brian Ross, continuously trumpeted the claim as their top news story that government tests conducted on the anthrax -- tests conducted at Ft. Detrick -- revealed that the anthrax sent to Daschele contained the chemical additive known as bentonite. ABC News, including Peter Jennings, repeatedly claimed that the presence of bentonite in the anthrax was compelling evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks, since -- as ABC variously claimed -- bentonite "is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program" and "only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons."
Finally, here is a dated article (when the FBI zeroed and harassed Hatfill with the same zeal as they did Ivins later) about another Ft. Detrick former scientist, who did have access, even motive (to blame Arabs), and an interesting profile. Dr. Zack for some reason is not a suspect while he fits the profile of the crime closer than Ivins. He is Jewish and a dual Israeli citizen, it happens, with a demonstrated hatred for Arabs (see how he persecuted his Egyptian co-worker and was fired for it), much like many of the neoconservatives behind the war on terrorism agenda that they wrote well before 9/11. There is sufficient prima facia evidence here to consider him a suspect whose behavior was both malicious and suspicious. Yet the FBI says now that Ivins is the ONLY suspect and they are convinced he would have been found guilty, contrary to a larger body of evidence and lack of witnesses.Anthrax Mystery: Questions Raised over Whether Government Is Framing Dead Army Scientist for 2001 Attacks
The FBI’s prime suspect in the October 2001 anthrax letters case died last week in an apparent suicide. Bruce Ivins was an elite government scientist at the biodefense research lab in Fort Detrick, Maryland. He was among the nation’s top experts on the military use of anthrax. But many of his colleagues have expressed deep skepticism over the FBI’s claims. We speak to anthrax expert Dr. Meryl Nass and blogger Glenn Greenwald. [includes rush transcript]
Guests:
Glenn Greenwald, attorney and blogger at Salon.com. His recent posts include “Vital Unresolved Anthrax Questions and ABC News”, “Additional Key Facts Re: The Anthrax Investigation” and “Journalists, Their Lying Sources, and the Anthrax Investigation”
Dr. Meryl Nass, expert on anthrax and editor of the blog AnthraxVaccine.blogspot.com
While Media Spotlights One Anthrax Suspect, Another Is Too Hot to TouchOriginal news investigative articles from the Hartford Courant are noteworthy too about Dr. Zack, and furthers the details:Before the investigation of Dr. Hatfill captured national headlines, another insider scientist had come under FBI scrutiny without much media fanfare. It was easy to miss the few stories published in January 2002 about Lt. Col. Philip Zack, who, like Hatfill, also had access to a well-equipped laboratory with lax security. Zack, moreover, actually worked with military-grade anthrax at Fort Detrick.
Dr. Zack left Fort Detrick in December 1991 amid allegations of unprofessional conduct. The Jewish scientist and others were accused of harassing their co-worker, Dr. Ayaad Assaad, until the Egyptian-born American scientist quitInexplicably, the national press ignored these documented unauthorized visits to a top-secret government lab embroiled in the anthrax attacks. Did journalists fear being labeled anti-Semitic for casting suspicions on a Jewish scientist?
She is convinced that the FBI knows who sent the anthrax letters
Documents from the inquiry show that one unauthorized person who was observed entering the lab building at night was Langford's predecessor, Lt. Col. Philip Zack, who at the time no longer worked at Fort Detrick. A surveillance camera recorded Zack
Zack left Fort Detrick in December 1991, after a controversy over allegations of unprofessional behavior by Zack, Rippy, Brown and others who worked in the pathology division. They had formed a clique that was accused of harassing the Egyptian-born Assaad,who later sued the Army, claiming discrimination.
Assaad said he had believed the harassment was behind him until last October, until after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
He said that is when the FBI contacted him, saying someone had mailed an anonymous letter - a few days before the existence of anthrax-laced mail became known - naming Assaad as a potential bioterrorist. FBI agents decided the note was a hoax after interviewing Assaad.
D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h
Quote of the Day:
"Do you want our government to have the ability to track where you went, how you went, how you got there and when you got home? It would be naïve for someone to think this information will not be abused in the future. Virtually every decade these kinds of files have been used to violate people's privacy."
-- Brian Schweitzer, Governor of Montana
Subject: Chertoff threatens governor, governor threatens Chertoff
We knew that the state of Montana was resisting the REAL ID Act, but we just learned some of the details of that resistance. The story is so good we had to share it, in case you hadn't heard . . .
Brian Schweitzer, the governor of Montana, wrote a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. The letter informed Chertoff that Montana would not be complying with the REAL ID Act. Our quote of the day supplies one of the reasons for Governor Schweitzer's rebellion. In response to the letter . . .
Secretary Chertoff called Governor Schweitzer and threatened him. Chertoff told Schweitzer that Montana residents would be banned from airplanes, or subjected to severe, time-consuming inspections at airports.
The Governor countered with his own threat, "How about we both go on 60 Minutes a few days after the DHS starts patting down Montana driver's license-holders who are trying to get on the planes and both of us can tell our side of the story."
Chertoff didn't like that suggestion. He said, "I see the problem. We need to get this fixed."
So far, the "fix" involves granting Montana and all other rebellious states an extension of the deadline for complying with the REAL ID Act. But the real fix is to repeal REAL ID.
Have you protested to your elected representatives that the Secretary of Homeland Security has been threatening the citizens of states that don't comply with REAL ID? If not, please do so. You can mention the Chertoff-Schweitzer exchange in your personal comments. Ask Congress to repeal the REAL ID Act. You can send your message here.
If you've sent a REAL ID Act message recently, consider sending another "I am not afraid" message. We have a lot of new people who probably aren't familiar with our "I am not afraid" campaign. You can check it out here.
Please also consider making a donation to further our work. You can do so here.
Thank you for being a part of the growing Downsize DC army.
Jim Babka
President
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.D o w n s i z e r - D i s p a t c h
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