Posted on 08/04/2008 8:00:01 PM PDT by Shermy
WASHINGTON — After four years of painstaking scientific research, the F.B.I. by 2005 had traced the anthrax in the poisoned letters of 2001 to a single flask of the bacteria at the Army biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., according to government scientists and bureau officials.
But at least 10 scientists had regular access to the laboratory and its anthrax stock — and possibly quite a few more, counting visitors from other institutions, and workers at laboratories in Ohio and New Mexico that had received anthrax samples from the flask at the Army laboratory.
To get that far, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had helped invent what was virtually a new science, microbial forensics, the use of biochemical clues to track a germ weapon to its source.
...But at that point, the science had largely reached its limits. To figure out who in the narrowed pool of scientist-suspects was the perpetrator, the F.B.I. would have to rely on traditional gumshoe investigative methods: interviewing colleagues and family members, searching houses and cars, doing surveillance, and assessing personalities.
About 18 months ago, investigators appear to have sharpened their focus on Bruce E. Ivins, a veteran anthrax researcher, whom they placed under intensive surveillance as they examined every aspect of his life and work.
Since Dr. Ivins’s suicide last week, F.B.I. officials have said prosecutors were preparing to indict him for sending the anthrax letters, which killed five people, although charges appear to have been a few weeks away.
...But the investigators found some personal quirks, according to law enforcement officials and people who knew the scientist well. They found that Dr. Ivins, who had a history of alcohol abuse, had for years maintained a post office box under an assumed name that he used to receive pornographic pictures of blindfolded women.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No, there is a sorority by that name at Princeton, but it doesn’t have a physical house.
Some say that he learned about possible indictment and immediately killed himself because of that. I don't believe it. Anyone can be indicted for anything, it doesn't mean anything; it only means that the DA can start building his case, and ultimately it all ends in court.
How long does anyone think that would take? The DA wasn't anywhere ready to even cause the grand jury to indict yet. And then what? If the government has lots of material on the guy his lawyers would want some serious time to read it all. Meanwhile Mr. Ivins would be on bail, since he was clean as a whistle for his whole life.
So suppose that takes two years and then a trial starts. How long that would take? I think it will take some time to present all the evidence to the jury, and then double that to present all the counter-evidence, all the arguments and such. If they can wrap it up in a year I'd be amazed. So we are now at three years before anything serious can possibly happen.
Now, we all have difficulties in our lives now and then, even some serious difficulties. Do we just go and off ourselves at the first hint of trouble? As a rule, no; only the most immature teenagers do that. Bruce Ivins was 62 years old, hardly a teenager. At that age if people kill themselves they have a good reason. I don't believe that a prospect of conviction 3 years down the road could be it. This is a long time, and many things could happen. Even if convicted, one could be soon released on medical grounds, or one could die from natural causes. So why would Bruce kill himself? Here are some possibilities.
The bulk of the prosecution case, as far as it is known today, hinged on Duley. Wikipedia is quite harsh on this witness: "Ivins, however, had no criminal record, whereas Duley herself has a history of convictions for driving under the influence, in addition to drug-related criminal charges and charges of battery by her ex-husband.[27]. Duley's credibility as a person and the credibility of her charges have been questioned on several other grounds[26]. Any competent lawyer would have impeached her testimony, or at least seriously damaged it in jury's opinion.
Another "accusation" against him is the purported profit from the vaccine that he designed. So where is the money, was he a trillionaire? No, he wasn't because he worked for hire, as an employee, and the employer (the government) would get all the profit. Per Wikipedia: "However, biological warfare and anthrax vaccine expert Dr. Meryl Nass has expressed skepticism of this purported motive, pointing out that "Historically, government employees do not receive these royalties: the government does"." So yet another accusation goes into the trash can.
Again, I believe that the threat of a future trial alone can't possibly be the cause of a suicide, even if Mr. Ivins was guilty. That trial would be a long distance ahead, and many things could change. For example, in only few months from now a new President will be elected, and priorities may change.
IMO, the most likely cause of his suicide is in psychological pressure that investigators applied to him. Again per Wikipedia: "Dr. W. Russell Byrne, a colleague who worked in the bacteriology division of the Fort Detrick research facility, said FBI agents "hounded" Ivins by twice raiding his home and that Ivins had been hospitalized for depression earlier in the month." Having seen Hatfill's plight, he could easily take the easier way out, regardless of his actual guilt. However we saw many cases (Jewell, Wen Ho Lee, Hatfill and others) when the authorities just did their best to convict someone, anyone, just to get rid of a case.
I wonder how many university labs were recipients of samples from that flask- particularly in California.
here’s an old forgotten item:
AUGUST 2001 (MORE THREATENING LETTERS SIMILAR TO ANTHRAX LETTERS LATER MAILED TO DASCHLE AND BROKAW ARRIVE AT FOX ADDRESSED TO HANNITY) The letters arrived before Sept. 11 but were addressed in the same kind of block letter handwriting used in Daschle and Brokaw missives. They apparently contained no anthrax.
Each line in the printed address clearly sloped downward to the right, the paper said. The envelopes bore a postmark from Indianapolis, where the Post Office discovered yesterday [OCT 31, 2001] that some of its equipment is contaminated with anthrax.
Hannity said that he’d begun receiving the suspicious mail last winter [2000late-early2001?] and again in August [2001].
“When I saw the Tom Daschle envelope and the Tom Brokaw envelope, I immediately was stunned,” Hannity told listeners. “It was the exact same handwriting that I had recognized. ... When I saw it I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s the same guy.’”
The “Hannity & Colmes” co-host revealed that in addition to the letters with an Indianapolis postmark, “one or two were from Trenton (N.J.),” where traces of anthrax have also been reported. Hannity said he hasn’t gotten any more of the letters since the Sept. 11 attacks and hasn’t been tested for anthrax exposure. -—————FROM AN ARTICLE DATED Thursday, Nov. 1, 2001VIA 38 posted on 09/05/2003 9:38 AM PDT by Princeton | To 37
SEPTEMBER 26, 2001 : (ANONYMOUS LETTER IS POSTMARKED ON THIS DATE ALLEGING THAT RESEARCHER ASSAAD WAS PLANNING TO MOUNT A BIOLOGICAL ATTACK) looked into the allegation [an anonymous letter the FBI had received, purportedly from an Assaad co-worker, warning that Assaad might be planning to mount a biological attack ] ...The letter was dated Sept. 26, 2001, eight days after the first batch of anthrax-laced letters went out but before their effects became known. -- "FBI anthrax probe revisits former Detrick researcher," by DAVID DISHNEAU, The Associated Press, 5/16/2004, 6:32 p.m. ET
Other good clues.
The chief difference was that a stretch of DNA was flipped head to tail in some bacteria in the attack strain, but not in any other samples.
Further, the attack strain contained bacteria with both the flipped and the unflipped DNA, showing that it was a mixture of two strains, which analysts later found reflected a mix of origins — 85 percent from the Dugway Proving Ground of the Army in Utah and 15 percent added at Fort Detrick, according to one person close to the investigation.
Did anybody tell the FBI that yet?
: )
“Each line in the printed address clearly sloped downward to the right, the paper said.”
Wonder what that means?
It just means the address was tilted, not level. There are photos out there of the anthrax mailing envelopes- if you can find one of them it will become obvious what is meant. Most people’s handwriting or printing slopes one way or another particularly when there are no notebook guidelines to go by. It’s not so easy to keep all lines level.
The teach this technique at the agent in charge school, along with ministering propaganda and wholesale lying. The FBI is a danger to our civil liberties. I don't believe anything they leak to the press.
Aftermath of FBI "saving the children" at Waco.
Federal JBT kidnapping Elian Gonzalez under color of authority and while armed with automatic weapons.
I hope the media continue to examine the additives versus no additives angle. I hope they point out that for the FBI to say “don’t worry, trust us, there were no additives” isn’t really going to be enough. Only the full, unredacted AFIP lab reports and other reports will suffice at this stage.
Spertzel discusses the silica and polyglass binder below:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121789293570011775.html?mod=todays_us_opinion
Bruce Ivins Wasn’t the Anthrax Culprit
By RICHARD SPERTZEL
August 5, 2008; Page A17
Over the past week the media was gripped by the news that the FBI was about to charge Bruce Ivins, a leading anthrax expert, as the man responsible for the anthrax letter attacks in September/October 2001.
But despite the seemingly powerful narrative that Ivins committed suicide because investigators were closing in, this is still far from a shut case. The FBI needs to explain why it zeroed in on Ivins, how he could have made the anthrax mailed to lawmakers and the media, and how he (or anyone else) could have pulled off the attacks, acting alone.
I believe this is another mistake in the investigation.
Let’s start with the anthrax in the letters to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. The spores could not have been produced at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, where Ivins worked, without many other people being aware of it. Furthermore, the equipment to make such a product does not exist at the institute.
Information released by the FBI over the past seven years indicates a product of exceptional quality. The product contained essentially pure spores. The particle size was 1.5 to 3 microns in diameter. There are several methods used to produce anthrax that small. But most of them require milling the spores to a size small enough that it can be inhaled into the lower reaches of the lungs. In this case, however, the anthrax spores were not milled.
What’s more, they were also tailored to make them potentially more dangerous. According to a FBI news release from November 2001, the particles were coated by a “product not seen previously to be used in this fashion before.” Apparently, the spores were coated with a polyglass which tightly bound hydrophilic silica to each particle. That’s what was briefed (according to one of my former weapons inspectors at the United Nations Special Commission) by the FBI to the German Foreign Ministry at the time.
Another FBI leak indicated that each particle was given a weak electric charge, thereby causing the particles to repel each other at the molecular level. This made it easier for the spores to float in the air, and increased their retention in the lungs.
In short, the potential lethality of anthrax in this case far exceeds that of any powdered product found in the now extinct U.S. Biological Warfare Program. In meetings held on the cleanup of the anthrax spores in Washington, the product was described by an official at the Department of Homeland Security as “according to the Russian recipes” — apparently referring to the use of the weak electric charge.
The latest line of speculation asserts that the anthrax’s DNA, obtained from some of the victims, initially led investigators to the laboratory where Ivins worked. But the FBI stated a few years ago that a complete DNA analysis was not helpful in identifying what laboratory might have made the product.
Furthermore, the anthrax in this case, the “Ames strain,” is one of the most common strains in the world. Early in the investigations, the FBI said it was similar to strains found in Haiti and Sri Lanka. The strain at the institute was isolated originally from an animal in west Texas and can be found from Texas to Montana following the old cattle trails. Samples of the strain were also supplied to at least eight laboratories including three foreign laboratories. Four French government laboratories reported on studies with the Ames strain, citing the Pasteur Institute in Paris as the source of the strain they used. Organism DNA is not a very reliable way to make a case against a scientist.
The FBI has not officially released information on why it focused on Ivins, and whether he was about to be charged or arrested. And when the FBI does release this information, we should all remember that the case needs to be firmly based on solid information that would conclusively prove that a lone scientist could make such a sophisticated product.
From what we know so far, Bruce Ivins, although potentially a brilliant scientist, was not that man. The multiple disciplines and technologies required to make the anthrax in this case do not exist at Army’s Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Inhalation studies are conducted at the institute, but they are done using liquid preparations, not powdered products.
The FBI spent between 12 and 18 months trying “to reverse engineer” (make a replica of) the anthrax in the letters sent to Messrs. Daschle and Leahy without success, according to FBI news releases. So why should federal investigators or the news media or the American public believe that a lone scientist would be able to do so?
Mr. Spertzel, head of the biological-weapons section of Unscom from 1994-99, was a member of the Iraq Survey Group.
The Media is really dragging this guy through more and more mud as the case goes on.
bump
Treatment at Shepherd Pratt for two weeks could turn anyone suicidal ... we need to see details of his treatment.
What drug treatment did Ivins receive at Shepherd Pratt?
Why was the prime suspect allowed to work at Ft. Detrick long after he became a suspect?
Duley is a social worker ... who decided she should be described as a psychologist?
It's like she was some sort of follow-up person for "discussions" of his alcohol problem ~ which she quite obviously shares (bwahahahaha).
There are obviously 2 or more professionals involved in this part of his life, and Duley is just one of them. She probably suffers from paranoia as well.
“It’s not so easy to keep all lines level.”
It’s also hard to keep inside the lines when using crayons.
“So what is their motive?”
I have heard from more than one source, that the NYT was thoroughly penetrated by the CIA many years ago, and has functioned, not only as a propaganda arm of the left, but as a propaganda arm of the CIA. The more I look at this issue, the more I suspect that the CIA (or rogue elements from within it) might have been behind the anthrax attacks.
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