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Slowness in tracking down anthrax killer is intolerable
There is a suspect, an individual named Steven J. Hatfill, 48. He is a medical doctor who had the means, the motives and opportunity to commit the crime. Hatfill also could benefit from the attacks and he pretends to knowledge that would make his arrest embarrassing to our government. All of this, the FBI denies.
| Coming August 4 |
|
Paranoid fantasy aside, J. Edgar Hoover's guidelines for homeland security work for today. Meanwhile, John Ashcroft could use the services of a dedicated "remembrancer." Read about it in Sunday's "Dateline D.C." column, a Tribune-Review exclusive. |
A final scenario is that "non-suspect" Hatfill has been so deeply involved in U.S. secret operations related to biological warfare that the possibility of him "telling all" has terrified the Justice Department — and not the FBI — into immobility.
Hatfill's resume is unusual. He still works with the U.S. Special Forces, and 30 years ago he was a soldier with the former white regime in Rhodesia. At that time, Hatfill was on the rolls of our Special Forces at Fort Bragg, N.C., but also serving with Rhodesia's Special Air Squadron and the counterinsurgency unit, the Selous Scouts.
As a U.S. citizen, Hatfill was a rarity in that he trained as a medical doctor in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and later served as such on research projects undertaken by the South African Defense Force. Hatfill also was active in Cape Town with the white supremacist terrorist group Afrikaner Weerstandbeweging (the AWB or Afrikaner Resistance Group). There he trained the leader's bodyguards in weapons handling. At the same time, he worked on projects for SADF Gen. Wouter Basson, whose outlandish and gruesome ways of killing opponents for the white South African regime earned him the label "Dr. Death" and a three-year trial on murder charges.
Hatfill worked for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md., from 1997-1999. On June 25, the FBI searched his apartment at Detrick Plaza just outside the main gate of Fort Detrick. The following day, they located and searched a refrigerated storage facility Hatfill rented near Ocala, Fla. At both locations, the FBI agents, most wearing hazmat gear with respirators, removed many boxes of material and swabbed air ducts for anthrax spores.
In 1999, Hatfill resigned from USAMRIID to work for Scientific Applications International Corporation, a defense contractor in McLean, Va., that boasts openly about its many top secret contracts. At SAIC, his yearly salary of $150,000 was some three times more than the U.S. government had paid him. In addition, SAIC continued his security clearances, which gave him continued access to USAMRIID.
In August 2001, Hatfill's security badges were lifted — an act that infuriated him. He already was railing against Congress for constantly cutting bioterrorism research. Was this enough to provoke retaliation?
Despite SAIC pushing for a new clearance, it never came; and in March of this year, SAIC gave Hatfill his pink slip. He began freelance consulting that involves a lot of foreign travel.
By some reports, Hatfill lost his security clearance because he failed — or was evasive in — a number of polygraph tests. His home and other places where he had lived were searched several times by the FBI, with negative results. The bureau said the searches were conducted at Hatfill's request without warrant "to clear his name." The bureau also says he passed a polygraph test and always was very cooperative with them.
Some say that in 1985 Hatfill was working on projects in Antarctica for the South African military; others claim he was working on "Project Coast," an official program developing weapons using viruses that produce Ebola, Marburg and Rift Valley hemorrhagic fevers. We find his range of cooperation astonishing.
When Hatfill was in Zimbabwe, there was a massive anthrax outbreak. More than 10,000 black farmers contracted the disease, and more than 180 people died. There is evidence that the anthrax spores were released by the Selous Scouts, Hatfill's unit. At that time, he was living a few miles from a place called Greendale School. What a strange coincidence that the return address on last year's anthrax letters was "Greendale School" with a false address in New Jersey.
There are other coincidences. On Nov. 15, 2001, Hatfill was in London for a SAIC business meeting. On that date, a letter containing fake anthrax spores was sent from London to Sen. Tom Daschle in Washington (his office already had received a real anthrax letter).
Last year, Hatfill spent many weekends at an isolated farmhouse in the vicinity of Monrovia, Md. Guests and visitors were given doses of Cipro, the antidote to anthrax. Locals, who watched the comings and goings, believe the farmhouse did duty as a "safe house" for the CIA.
In 1999, Hatfill, on behalf of SAIC, commissioned a study of how a spoonful of anthrax could be sent through the mail in an ordinary envelope and opened in an office. Hatfill's colleagues saw instantly that this was a virtual blueprint for last fall's lethal anthrax attacks and notified the FBI.
Investigative reporters for the Hartford Courant, New York Times, Baltimore Sun, American Perspective and other publications have written around the periphery of the story. But this is vacation time, so most reporters with the stories percolating in their heads now have gone fishing!
There are similarities between our Dr. Hatfill and South Africa's Dr. Basson. Now it's time to bring the similarities and coincidences to light. Dr. Death may have beaten the South African system of justice, but his apprentice, Dr. Hatfill, now a "freelance consultant" traveling internationally, must be shown that even "cooperation" in biodefense will not buy freedom from criminal prosecution in Washington.
Dateline D.C. is written by a Washington-based British journalist and political observer.
