Anthrax Coverup: A Government Insider Speaks Out
By Steve Watson http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/24273
discussion and link also found at: http://www.911blogger.com/taxonomy/term/226
Is it possible that the anthrax attacks were launched from within our own government? A former Bush 1 advisor thinks it is.
Francis A. Boyle, an international law expert who worked under the first Bush Administration as a bioweapons advisor in the 1980s, has said that he is convinced the October 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people were perpetrated and covered up by criminal elements of the U.S. government. The motive: to foment a police state by killing off and intimidating opposition to post-9/11 legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the later Military Commissions Act.
"After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush
Administration tried to ram the USA PATRIOT Act through
Congress," Boyle said in a radio interview with Austin-based
talk-show host Alex Jones. "That would have set up a police
state.
"Senators Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) and Patrick Leahy
(D-Vermont) were holding it up because they realized what this
would lead to. The first draft of the PATRIOT Act would have
suspended the writ of habeas corpus [which protects citizens from
unlawful imprisonment and guarantees due process of law]. Then all
of a sudden, out of nowhere, come these anthrax
attacks."
"At the time I myself did not know precisely what was
going on, either with respect to September 11 or the anthrax
attacks, but then the New York Times revealed the technology
behind the letter to Senator
Daschle. [The anthrax used was] a trillion spores per gram,
[refined with] special electro-static treatment. This is
superweapons-grade anthrax that even the United States government,
in its openly
proclaimed programs, had never developed before. So it was obvious
to me that this was from a U.S. government lab. There is nowhere
else you could have gotten that."
Boyle's assessment was based on his years of expertise regarding
America's bioweapons programs. He was responsible for drafting the
Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 that was passed
unanimously by both houses of Congress and signed into law by
President George H.W. Bush.
After realizing that the anthrax attacks looked like a domestic
job, Boyle called a high-level official in the FBI who deals with
terrorism and counterterrorism, Marion "Spike" Bowman.
Boyle and Bowman had met at a terrorism conference at the
University of Michigan Law School. Boyle told Bowman that the only
people who would have the capability to carry out the attacks were
individuals working on U.S. government anthrax programs with
access to a high-level biosafety lab. Boyle gave Bowman a full
list of names of scientists, contractors and labs conducting
anthrax work for the U.S. government and military.
Bowman then informed Boyle that the FBI was working with Fort
Detrick on the matter. Boyle expressed his view that Fort Detrick
could be the main problem. As widely reported in 2002
publications, notably the New Scientist, the anthrax strain used
in the attacks was officially assessed as "military
grade."
"Soon after I informed Bowman of this information, the FBI
authorized the destruction of the Ames cultural anthrax
database," the professor said. The Ames strain turned out to
be the same strain as the spores used in the attacks.
The alleged destruction of the anthrax culture collection at Ames,
Iowa, from which the Fort Detrick lab got its pathogens, was
blatant destruction of evidence. It meant that there was no way of
finding out
which strain was sent to whom to develop the larger breed of
anthrax used in the attacks. The trail of genetic evidence would
have led directly back to a secret government biowarfare
program.
"Clearly, for the FBI to have authorized this was obstruction
of justice, a federal crime," said Boyle. "That
collection should have been preserved and protected as evidence.
That's the DNA, the
fingerprints right there. It later came out, of course, that this
was Ames strain anthrax that was behind the Daschle and Leahy
letters."
At that point, recounted Boyle, it became very clear to him that
there was a coverup underway. He later discovered, while reading
David Ray Griffin's book on the 9/11 attacks, The New Pearl
Harbor, that Bowman was the same FBI agent who allegedly sabotaged
the FISA warrant for access to [convicted co-conspirator]
Zacharias Moussaoui's computer prior to 9/11. Moussaoui's computer
contained information that could have helped prevent the attacks
on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
In 2003, Bowman was promoted and given the Presidential Rank Award
by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)
wrote a letter to Mueller, chastising the organization for
granting such an honor to an agent who had so obviously
compromised America's security.
During the anthrax scare, the House of Representatives was
officially shut down for the first time in the history of the
republic. Once opposition from Leahy and Daschle evaporated in the
wake of the attempts on their lives, the USA PATRIOT Act was
rammed through. Testimony by Representative Ron Paul (R-Texas)
revealed that most members of Congress were compelled to vote for
the bill without even
reading it.
"They were going to move to suspend the writ of habeas
corpus, which is all that really separates us from a police
state," Boyle said. "And that is what they have done now
with respect to enemy combatants [in the Military Commissions Act
of 2006]." Boyle added that lawmakers are now arguing that
Amendment XIV, which guarantees due process of law to all
Americans, does not mean what it has been taken to mean and that,
under the Military Commissions Act, any U.S. citizen can be
stripped of
citizenship and be labeled an enemy combatant.
Continued Boyle: "In other words, they have taken the
position that at some point in time, if they want to, they can
unilaterally round up United States native-born citizens, as they
did for Japanese-Americans
in World War II, and stick us into concentration camps."
Boyle asserted that top officials, such as White House legal
advisor John Yoo and former Assistant Attorney General Jack
Goldsmith (now a professor at Harvard Law School), are pushing for
the legalization of torture as well.
"The Nazis did the exact same thing," said Boyle.
"They had their lawyers infiltrating law schools. Carl
Schmidt was the worst, and he was the mentor to Leo Strauss, the
[ideological] founder of the
neoconservatives. So the same phenomenon that started in Nazi
Germany is happening here, and I exaggerate not. We could all be
tortured; we could all be treated this way."
Boyle stressed that it is vital to keep up the pressure on Senator
Leahy, who now chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, giving him
subpoena power. Since Leahy was himself a target, he may have
sufficient motivation to get to the bottom of the attacks. The FBI
and the Justice Department have so far refused full disclosure to
Congress.
In addition to his credentials as a government advisor, Boyle also
holds a doctorate of law magna cum laude and a Ph.D. in political
science, both from Harvard University. He teaches international
law at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. Boyle also
served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International
(1988-92) and represented Bosnia-Herzegovina at the World
Court.
Boyle alleged that due to his activities as a lawyer, he was
interrogated by an agent from the CIA/FBI Joint Terrorism Task
Force in the summer of 2004. The agent tried to recruit him as an
informant to
provide the FBI with information on his Arab and Muslim clients.
When he refused, according to Boyle, the FBI placed him on the
government's terrorism watch lists.
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