Merged Anthrax Case Solved?

[Kestrel]

I am interested to hear from those who think Ivins was framed and/or murdered: what evidence do you see exonerating him? I will admit that the government has not yet proved their case to my satisfaction. But the CT crowd has provided no evidence that clears him.

This may, in fact, be a key component to the government case. Only a few people had access to the anthrax, and all the others have been cleared, leaving Ivins as the only person who could have done it.

According to an article in yesterdays WSJ more than a few people had access.

In addition, more than 100 people had access to the anthrax in question, a larger number than many had previously believed. The FBI didn't find any anthrax spores in Dr. Ivins's three cars or in his house.

 

[BeAChooser]

http://newsdetails.blogspot.com/2007/05/technical-intelligence-in-retrospect.html

Monday, May 28, 2007

Technical Intelligence in Retrospect: The 2001 Anthrax Letters Powder

Authors: Dany Shoham; Stuart M. Jacobsen

Published in: International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Volume 20, Issue 1 March 2007 , pages 79 - 105

... snip ...

Special attention is paid to a reconstructive analysis of the sabotage spore powder (SSP) contained in the lethal letters, and its structure.

... snip ...

As a technical intelligence tool, then, the best clues to the provenance of the SSP are the details of the artificial spore coatings. These coatings require a team of specialists to develop. And this is a multidisciplinary effort involving microbiology, chemical engineering, materials science, aerosol physics, possibly live testing, and finally quality assurance. A highly disciplined design of experiments is required, followed by several iterations of parameter adjustment before a high quality powder like the SSP can be developed. In other words, to create a "one off" powder such as the SSP with a siloxane binder that had never been used before in such an application and achieve success on the first attempt would be impossible. A trail of evidence in some state-sponsored bioweapons laboratory somewhere in the world where all of this development work took place must exist. Russia is known to have pioneered the use of the combined silica/binder approach to dry powder BWs. The SSP producer certainly exploited this or some advanced version of this technology.

... snip ...

So Ivins developed this coating all by himself with no one noticing????

 

[bruto]

The only person to have claimed Ivins was unstable is this Jean Duley woman who describes herself as a "theripist" (sic). Considering the fact that she (rather than Ivins) had a criminal record and had recently been contacted by the FBI, her statements sound very much like she had been fed a pile of garbage by them.

Check out salon.com and Glenn Greenwald. Her convictions are there and she most certainly wasn't a therapist!

Before you invest too much in that misspelling, you should probably make sure that it was her own. If I read your other remarks on this correctly, the misspelling was contained in the restraining order. But Duley requested the restraining order orally at a hearing. I don't think it's customary for people to write out their own restraining orders and if that is the case a typographical or spelling error in the restraining order implies nothing at all about the person requesting it.

This has nothing to do with the character of Duley or Ivins - only the question at hand of whether the spelling error is relevant. If it is not, then making a point of it will not end up to your credit.

 

[Kage]

Mr. Ivins was a practicing Catholic, involved in pro-life activism. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy were being targeted right before the 9/11 attacks as Catholics who should be excommunicated for aiding and abetting abortion. In the September 26 email, Ivins wrote:

I find this piece of evidence particularly persuasive. The biggest hole, aside for the release of detailed physical evidence linking Ivins to the production of the anthrax, is why he chose his targets. Even a deranged individual has some logic, and why the particular set of targets was chosen is intimately linked to motive. If mayhem was the object of the attacks, why not send the letters more broadly to senators of both parties, the president, etc. If the attacks were pro-choice based, why not send the letters to abortion clinics and NARAL offices?

More time will be needed to evaluate the evidence, and I do not pretend to have any sort of understanding of these attacks just yet. However, the more outrageous CTs fall short for all the same reasons as the 9/11 conspiracy garbage.

 

[boloboffin]

I've posted a diary to Kos about the work hours evidence. I conclude that it's questionable but inconclusive. Of course I expect the FBI to do a little cherrypicking to make a probable cause case for a search warrant, but some additional information could help fill that particular bit of circumstantial evidence in.

I just haven't seen beyond a reasonable doubt yet. This isn't going to go away until the FBI release everything it's got, not just everything that makes Ivins look bad (as search warrants tend to do).

ETA: Oh, would you like the link to my Kos diary? Here it is.

 

[gdnp]

ETA: Oh, would you like the link to my Kos diary? Here it is.

By my reading of the time logs, it seems that all of Ivins evening lab work was done after 6 pm, and most of it much later. Thus he did not "work late", he left and came back in.

I don't know how far he lives from the lab, or what his family life was (perhaps he went home for dinner), but as someone who has put in many late lab hours over the years, I always preferred staying late to a round trip if I could avoid it.

Of course, if you wanted to minimize the chances of anyone else interrupting you, or even knowing that you were in...

Didn't he keep lab notebooks? The usual procedure is to date entries. Anything that would account for the late nights?

 

[boloboffin]

 

[gdnp]

"Escape from home" still doesn't explain why he left and came back. I suppose he may have just gone out for dinner, but if I had 2 hours of extra work to do, I'd stay until 7 then go home and eat.

 

[boloboffin]

This is what the FBI has told us:

This is what I consider the most damning evidence. Ivins is logging major, unprecendented, and unsupervised hours in a lab capable of producing the anthrax in the mailings right before each mailing, and he had very little other time during this period.

At the Kos diary, I show there's still a lot of September night hours before this chart starts to perhaps establish a pattern that's not so damning. However, you're looking at the bulk of the October night hours right there. November and December are in a normal range with other months.

And when you realize that the second mailing was much more processed and lethal, the guilty verdict starts suggesting itself.

Odds are we've got our terrorist.

ETA: Or at least one of them.

 

[BeAChooser]

Odds are we've got our terrorist.

So with the massive committment of about 20 extra hours, Ivins was able to create a highly sophisticated coating for the anthrax that the FBI was unable to recreate even after years, untold manhours, and presumably millions of dollars? Yeah, sure.

 

[gdnp]

So with the massive committment of about 20 extra hours, Ivins was able to create a highly sophisticated coating for the anthrax that the FBI was unable to recreate even after years, untold manhours, and presumably millions of dollars? Yeah, sure.

Your evidence that the FBI has been unable to reproduce the form of Anthrax used in the attacks? I must have missed that in their official announcement.

Besides, Ivins was an anthrax expert. I was not aware that FBI agents had particular expertise in microbiology or bioweapon production. The anthrax must have been produced by someone. Much as you would like it to be Saddam, Ivins looks like the guy.

 

[BeAChooser]

Your evidence that the FBI has been unable to reproduce the form of Anthrax used in the attacks? I must have missed that in their official announcement.

http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1102/111102gsn1.htm

November 11, 2002 ... snip ... The bureau has been working for months to reconstruct the spores, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Nov. 1, according to The Washington Post. "We're replicating the way or ways it might be manufactured, but it is not an easy task," the Post quoted Mueller as saying. "We are going into new territory in some areas," he added.

... snip ...

The FBI's acknowledged months of research into recreating the spores should be an indication that they were probably difficult to produce, Spertzel said. He added that this high level of difficulty should also convince the bureau to shift the focus of its investigation away from Steven Hatfill, the former U.S. Army biologist who has been the public focus of the FBI investigation.

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/EPI/bioter/fbifailsanthrax.html

September 30, 2003

... snip ...

Two years after the nation's deadly anthrax attacks, the FBI still has not been able to re-create the process the killer used to produce the substance sent through the U.S. mail, a top FBI official said Monday.

But Michael Mason, the new assistant director in charge of the FBI's Washington field office, said testing has helped investigators "narrow" some aspects of the investigation and convinced them that the culprit has special expertise.

"We would not have that if reverse engineering had completely failed to provide us with any information or valuable leads," Mason said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121789293570011775.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

By RICHARD SPERTZEL

August 5, 2008

... snip ...

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.

OK?

Besides, Ivins was an anthrax expert. I was not aware that FBI agents had particular expertise in microbiology or bioweapon production.

So you don't think they subcontract?

The anthrax must have been produced by someone.

No kidding.

 

[gdnp]

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?

Because Ivins was not just any "lone scientist", he was an anthrax expert in charge of producing spores.

"He got his name on a lot of these publications because he was providing the spores," said Ezzell, who retired from the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. "That is one of the reasons he was on so many publications. So many of the studies were conducted with his spores."

Yes, I know, Ivins produced "wet spores", not the dry spores that were used in the attack. How tough is it to turn wet spores into dry spores? I don't know. But I bet Ivins did.

Unknown people at the FBI, or subcontracted by the FBI, spent 12 to 18 months back in 2002-2003 trying to reverse engineer the anthrax spores used in the attack. Do you have any evidence that those attempting the reverse engineering had Ivin's knowledge and expertise in anthrax spore production? After the date of the FBI's last quoted press release on this topic in September 2003 the FBI:

1. gave up
2. continued without success
3. succeeded

Do you have any evidence to support one of these alternatives over the others?

 

[boloboffin]

So with the massive committment of about 20 extra hours, Ivins was able to create a highly sophisticated coating for the anthrax that the FBI was unable to recreate even after years, untold manhours, and presumably millions of dollars? Yeah, sure.

That chart only includes the known times on the specific days. Ivins logged over twenty more night hours in B3 before that chart, plus over 11 hours in August. And thinking about how to solve a problem isn't something Ivins would have to log in for.

 

[MaGZ]

It really is too bad for the FBI Hatfield didn't commit suicide when they turned up the pressure on him. This whole thing could have been solved much sooner for all of you skeptics here.

I certainly would like to know for one thing who were the "three well-placed but separate sources," followed by "four well-placed and separate sources" that ABC used to push the Iraq link.

Tell me something skeptics. Were the anthrax attacks false flag terrorism?

Who falsely claimed bentonite was found in the Anthrax and why?

Remember this?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Powell-anthrax-vial.jpg

Is that Fort Detrick Anthrax he’s holding there?

Yes it was false flag terrorism. The anthrax was sent first to the media to insure the public was sufficiently terrorized then to the Senate so they would react in such a way to approve the Bush Administration to go to war against Iraq.

 

[MaGZ]

The problem with Ivins' suicide as I see it is that he just watched his colleague Stephen Hatfield win a rather large settlement and receive his good name back for exactly the same charge. In other words, if it wasn't true, there would have been a lot of grief but the odds were good that it would turn out well for him.

But he shortcircuited that entire process. He could still be a depressed person who lost reason and thought that this time the FBI would have him, evidence or no, but I tend toward the "probably had the right guy this time" opinion.

ETA: A Christian Zionist, if that's what Ivins turns out to be, would have a very available motive to access for these attacks. That is, provoking a war that the suspect had every reason to believe America and Israel would win.

Ivins was a liberal Catholic, not a Christian Zionist. Most Christians believe the Jews to be God's chosen, the exception are those who believe in Christian Identity.

Why would Ivins target two liberal Catholic Senators for death?

 

[MaGZ]

Last night Keith Olbermann discussed possible links with the Bush administration, at least insofar as they (and John McCain) tried to quickly link the anthrax attacks to Iraq. Not really "inside job," but troothers will certainly take that line of interpretation.

As reported in The London Times,
http://www.spiritoftruth.org/cached/Hijacker 'given anthrax flask by Iraqi agent'.htm

 

[MaGZ]

First of all, why do you assume that the men who hijacked the planes were the only ones in America at the time or the only al-Qaeda in the plot? Isn't it likely that there were others supporting the plot? That's what the government seemed to think since they had a nation wide manhunt afterwords and did in fact find some evidence that there were helpers.

Second, why do you assume that the anthrax letter that killed the first person in Florida ... the one that worked a few miles from where the hijackers were staying ... was mailed after 9/11?

When did Stevens contract the anthrax? Some seem to think it happened on September 19th from a letter (the Lopez letter) sent to AMI. But when was the letter mailed and received? MSNBC quoted Newsweek (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3067576/site/newsweek/) saying that the Lopez letter arrived a week before 9/11.

This site, http://www.postalmag.com/editorial14.htm, dedicated to postal employees, also says that the Lopez letter arrived the 4th. Here's another site that says the 4th: http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/anthraxreport.htm.

Newsweek said they spoke to someone (unnamed) at AMI. And I've yet to find a source claiming the letter arrived on the 19th. Perhaps this might resolve the question: http://anthrax2001.blogspot.com/ "The media reports on the AMI letters confirm what the CDC reports in many important details The media reported that Bob Stevens was indeed seen by his colleagues holding a letter close to his face on September 19, 2001. It was pointed out by Phil Brennan writing for Newsmax that this letter that Stevens was seen reading had actually arrived at AMI on September 4, 2001." Phil Brennan said Stevens held it up to his face and then put it down on the keyboard (where traces of anthrax were found). So maybe Steven's contracted the anthrax on September 19th, however the letter arrived at AMI before 9/11. And if it arrived before 9/11 to coincidentally infect someone working within a few miles of where the hijackers stayed, that sort of rules out a domestic terrorist, doesn't it?

Or maybe the source wasn't that letter. We really don't know. But we do know Stevens started showing symptoms some time before October 2nd, when he was hospitalized. This somewhat authoritative report (http://www.fpd.umn.edu/files/GlobalChron.pdf link no longer working (and I don't care to figure out why at this time) said the onset of symptoms was around September 28th. Inhalation anthrax has an uncertain incubation time (from less than a week or two to as much as 2 months). The median time is reported to be 10 days according to one study. The CDC says its generally less than 2 weeks but "due to spore dormancy and slow clearance from the lungs, the incubation period for inhalational anthrax may be prolonged." And according to CNN, Florida Health Secretary Dr. John Agwunobi advised anyone who spent more than an hour in the AMI building since August 1st to report for testing. Just to give you an idea of how uncertain officials might really be about the timeline.

The bottom line is we don't really know when Stevens was exposed. The hijackers killed on 9/11 could indeed have done it within the margins of certainty on what we do know. Or others who didn't kill themselves but aided the plot could have done it. So don't be so quick to rule out that possibility. Especially when you haven't explained how the first case just happened to show up within a few miles of where the hijackers were staying.

Where do you think Atta and his gang got this anthrax?

 

[Pardalis]

As reported in The London Times,
http://www.spiritoftruth.org/cached/Hijacker%20'given%20anthrax%20flask%20by%20Iraqi%20agent'.htm

Can you quote the specific part where it implicates the Bush administration?

All this does is support some of BAC's theory.

 

[MaGZ]

That's my point, I don't, and I don't pretend to.

My position on this is that I don't know who did it, and I prefer to leave the investigation to the professionals. I trust the process will eventually lead to the truth, and will not accuse anyone or anything before evidence is found.

The Justice Department says Ivins was responsible. They are the professional investigators. Do you believe they are correct?