Steve Hatfill Addresses America
August 17, 2002
By Jay LeBoeuf

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Steve Hatfill. I'm a medical doctor, a biomedical scientist, an international man of mystery, and a whirlwind in the sack.

I am a loyal American. I love my country. And when I say my country, I mean the USA, and not Rhodesia or South Africa, both of which I have also loved, but not anymore, for various reasons.

I called you out here today to tell you all that I had nothing whatsoever to do with the mailing of the anthrax letters that terrorized America over ten months ago. And furthermore, anyone in the press or biomedical community who contends or suggests that I was somehow involved in these horrific acts is asking for an envelope full of finely milled, weaponized payback, if you get my drift.

Yes, it's true that, in the course of my multifaceted career, I have worked for most of the heads sprouting from the shoulders of that thrashing hydra known as the military-industrial-intelligence complex.

And yes, it's true that, over the last three decades, I have amassed an impressive background in all manner of biological terror methods and techniques. I was considered such an expert, in fact, that I was hired by UNSCOM to go into Iraq after the Gulf War and seek out Saddam's biological weapons stockpiles.

And yes, it's true that I was once commissioned by the government to do a study on the feasibility of sending anthrax through the mail as a terrorism method.

And yes, it's true that I wrote a novel a couple years ago, explaining in excruciating detail the exact methods by which a bio-terror attack could be waged against the Congress.

One misconception I want to clear up right now, however, is this notion that I personally worked with anthrax bacteria. In fact, I am a virologist, not a bacteriologist. My specialty is with the Ebola virus and monkeypox, not anthrax. It was an entirely different kind of laboratory-created genocide I was researching there at Fort Detrick... which happens to be the place where the anthrax that was used in the terror attacks most likely came from, and is also where my UNSCOM partner colonel David Franz was stationed... but so what? If I say I never touched the stuff, I never touched it. Case closed. "My word is bond," as we used to say in the Selous.

Besides which, surely, none of the above-mentioned facts gives the FBI the right to hassle me, or to give me the business.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I am here today to let you know that the FBI has, indeed, been hassling me. And what's more, they have been giving me the business.

Allow me to fill in some details� Last fall, two FBI came by my office and asked me to take a polygraph test. I jumped at the chance. Later, a polygraph was administered and, after reviewing the charts, the examiner told me that I had passed. I had nothing to do with the anthrax letters! So it should have been case closed, right? You'd think I would be in the clear, right? Continuing to hassle me would be, like, double jeopardy, right? As it turns out, no� that's wrong. Three times wrong.

A few months after those first FBI interviews and the polygraph, the private sector got involved. I got a call from a reporter who all but accused me of mailing the anthrax letters. Two days later, a former colleague told me that this same reporter had phoned him and made similar accusations. Let me tell you, I hadn't been that upset since way back in my Selous Scout days, when I was part of the white supremacist counterinsurgency forces fighting black rebels in Rhodesia, and a mysterious outbreak of anthrax killed two hundred villagers, not too far from where I was quartered at the time.

So now, all of a sudden, the FBI starts hassling me again. They want to sweep my apartment again, and they want to bring their hounds this time. Those dogs went nuts! They just tore the hell out of the place. And do you know who had to clean it up? Me. That's who. And along with the hounds, they brought TV crews, helicopters, and a huge truck full of hazardous-materials technicians all decked out in their moonsuits. The neighbors were aghast. Needless to say, I was mortified.

And now, after all that, they're talking about placing me under surveillance! Or even getting a handwriting expert to compare my writing to that on the anthrax letters. Just because of some loopy coincidence involving the return address on the letters having some similarities to a neighborhood near where I lived in Rhodesia. Handwriting experts! The ultimate invasion of privacy! I mean, what do they take me for, some kind of Arab?!

Which reminds me... I wish to object in the strongest possible terms to having my character assassinated by reference to events from my past which bear absolutely no relationship to the question of who the anthrax killer is.

Did I mention I was a member of Rhodesia's Selous Scouts?

Besides, how bad could I possibly be if, as the New York Times has recently revealed, the Bush administration is still allowing me to go on semi-covert operations in Central Asia under an assumed identity? Do you really think the US Government would still be making use of my services if they thought I was in any way responsible for the attempted bio-terror assassination of the Democratic leadership in Congress and the Senate? An assassination attempt that led to the accidental deaths of five innocent people?

Come on!

But enough chit-chat. The time has come for me to wrap this up, and get down to brass tacks. Basically, gentlemen, I know you're listening, and it all boils down to this: I will not be railroaded.

I am a loyal white American. I am extremely proud of the work I have done for the United States and for my country and her people. Even the stuff I'm not so proud of anymore, I'm still kinda proud of it. If this investigation continues to go the way it has been, and I am backed into a corner, I want certain individuals to know that I'm no fool. I didn't walk into this thing ass-backwards, you know. Certain guarantees were made, and I expect those guarantees to be honored. I know you know I know things. I know you know I know how to protect myself. I won't let you make me your Lee Harvey Oswald.

So go ahead, keep pushing. See what it gets you. See how long your house of cards can stand up to the hurricane of truth, if it is ever unleashed. And trust me gentlemen, if anything happens to me, it WILL be unleashed.

I bid you all a good afternoon.

 
Editor's Note: Dr. Hatfill's actual public statement may be read in it's entirety here.

Other sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/13/opinion/13KRIS.html
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jul2002/anth-j03.shtml
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=134396
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/01/26/assaad/index_np.html