Posted on 05/07/2009 2:43:35 PM PDT by Justice Department
A long-awaited review of the scientific evidence relating to the investigation of the 2001 anthrax letter attacks is finally getting off the ground. The study, to be conducted by the National Academies, will check the validity of the scientific techniques used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in solving the case. What the study will not do, as spelled out in the academies’ official description of the study, is issue a verdict on whether U.S. Army researcher Bruce Ivins was indeed guilty of the crime, as concluded by FBI officials.
The FBI has been under pressure to disclose its full case against Ivins since 29 July 2008, when the researcher committed suicide. The death precluded a trial and prompted accusations from some quarters that the FBI had hounded an innocent man to a tragic end. FBI officials responded with press conferences detailing some of the facts of the case including the scientific methods used to trace the anthrax in the letters to a flask under Ivins’s charge at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick, Maryland. At a September hearing last year before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Robert Mueller announced that the agency would ask the academies to vet the science behind the conclusion.
The FBI will pay the academies $879,550 for the study, which is expected to take up to 15 months.
The National Academies perform an unparalleled public service by bringing together committees of experts in all areas of scientific and technological endeavor. These experts serve pro bono to address critical national issues and give advice to the federal government and the public.
Love your tag line!
Anthrax Ping.
NAS Spends $879,550 in effort to find objective scientists and fails!
Objectivity Not a Human Condition, NAS finds!
Who are they going to find to check the work done by Paul Keim on anthrax genetics? How do they find such a person? The FBI used the top scientists in almost every scientific field involved in the investigation. Should the NAS use second-level or third-level scientists to do the verification?
Richard Spertzel will probably volunteer. Here's what he once told the world:
"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."
He seems ready to start working on reproducing the attack anthrax. All he needs is money.
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