It's not like Agent Bowman hasn't dropped the ball before. It was he along with FBI Supervisory Special Agent Michael Maltbi who decided it wasn't even worth trying to file a FISA warrant the contents of Zacarias Moussaoui's computer hardrive.
<>The Judiciary Committee has been investigating FISA problems at the FBI, including holding closed hearings where Mr. Bowman and others were questioned about the Moussaoui case.
<>Mr. Grassley said a 26-page electronic communication from the Minneapolis agents contained information that "a reasonable person would have concluded" was sufficient to obtain a FISA warrant.
He said the application should have gone forward to the Justice Department and the FISA court.
Instead, he said, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Michael Maltbie concluded there was not enough information and that Mr. Bowman agreed, although he was aware Mr. Maltbie had "removed certain information before making a presentation of questionable accuracy and length to the national security law unit."
Mr. Grassley said if the application had gone forward and a warrant issued, the agents would have found information in Moussaoui's belongings linking him both to a major financier of the hijacking plot and to an al Qaeda boss who met with at least two other hijackers while under surveillance by intelligence officials.
After his stellar work on the Moussaoui case, Bowman was naturally given a Presidential Rank of Meritorious Service award. I suppose a fresh new Medal of Freedom wasn't available at the time.
It should also be noted that there are others with a different opinion and view of the source of that Anthrax used in that fateful 2001 attack. From the WaPo Sept 2006
What was initially described as a near-military-grade biological weapon was ultimately found to have had a more ordinary pedigree, containing no additives and no signs of special processing to make the anthrax bacteria more deadly, law enforcement officials confirmed. In addition, the strain of anthrax used in the attacks has turned out to be more common than was initially believed, the officials said.
As a result, after a very public focus on government scientists as the likely source of the attacks, the FBI is today casting a far wider net, as investigators face the daunting prospect of an almost endless list of possible suspects in scores of countries around the globe. "There is no significant signature in the powder that points to a domestic source,"
You wonder if any of these people have ever watched an episode of CSI and know what DNA is? Whether cultures from the Ames lab were or weren't a source for the Anthrax is now only a matter of speculation and supposition since the originals have been destroyed. Preserving them would have gone a long way to helping establish that Ft. Detrick or any other U.S. lab as suspected by Dr. Boyle clearly were not involved in the Attack.
So if it wasn't "weaponsized" could it still have come from an Defense Lab or was it just run of the mill anthrax, the kind you find at your local Walmart? (More from Wapo)
Whoever made the powder produced a deadly project of exceptional purity and quality -- up to a trillion spores per gram -- but used none of the tricks known to military bioweapons scientists to increase the lethality of the product. Officials stressed that the terrorist would have had to have considerable skills in microbiology and access to equipment.
So who are the terrorist with "considerable skill in microbiology and access to equipment" - are they hiding out in the caves of Afghanistan or maybe they're somewhere North, South, East and slightly West of Tikrit by now? The lack of "additives" may not neccesarily mean that the Anthrax wasn't made at someplace like Ft Detrick, it simply means that additives that would have given it a more unqiue and distinctive signature weren't added (yet). Particular when the point of the Attack clearly wasn't to maximize leathality, it was to foment fear and help shift U.S. policy to a more fascist stance.
<>But again, this is mere speculation - proof one way or the other seems to be in short supply.One may or may not believe Dr. Boyle, one may or may not feel that his cause for alarm and claims that this smacks of a "deliberate cover-up" are legitimate, I for one certainly have my doubts, but....
One thing is certain, in the wake of 5 Million Missing Emails, you just have to wonder...
UPDATE: As pointed out by a DKOS commenter - this doesn't have to be a "conspiracy" for Boyle to be largely correct about the possible source of the Anthrax. All it takes is one nutball with access to materials and the will to use them. Again from the WaPo.
"In my opinion, there are maybe four or five people in the whole country who might be able to make this stuff, and I'm one of them," said Richard O. Spertzel, chief biological inspector for the U.N. Special Commission from 1994 to 1998. "And even with a good lab and staff to help run it, it might take me a year to come up with a product as good."
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