Bruce Ivins
Posted on 08/29/2008 7:25:37 AM PDT by Prunetacos
When Norm Covert, a conservative former Fort Detrick public affairs officer, and attorney Barry Kissin, liberal activist opposing Detrick's biolab expansion, agree that Bruce Ivins was not the anthrax killer, either the world's spinning off its axis, or the truth is staring us so hard in the face we'd have to be blind to miss it. Covert's piece this week in thetentacle.com establishes what many in our community, including scientists and support staff at USAMRIID, past and present, know: Bruce Ivins had nothing to do with preparing or sending the anthrax letters. --
(Excerpt) Read more at fredericknewspost.com ...
ping
ping
Safe to say.
“And now, the late Dr. Bruce Ivins, apparently dead of an overdose of medicine, is accused. The FBI says its “creative application” of science led it to identify the DNA of the culprit B. anthracis as being on a beaker in Dr. Ivins’ lab. The evidence does not indicate what implicates Dr. Ivins, except that it was identified as “his” beaker in “his” lab.
Dr. Ivins and more than one hundred researchers, assistants, veterinarians and others have used the lab for its work on the vaccines. They dirtied the lab in analyzing the envelopes and contents, which had been mailed to the Florida editorial office of a weekly tabloid newspaper, NBC News in New York City and the office of Sen. Tom Daschle (D., SD) in Washington.
Scientists at Fort Detrick would love to get their hands on this scientific breakthrough. The FBI says it will ultimately publish peer reviewed papers on it. The bench work probably would constitute a boon to the team at Fort Detrick, which has labored since 1980 to develop an improved medical countermeasure against B. anthracis.
“Alas!” or, “Hark!” whatever the better exclamation, the arrival of envelopes containing “white powder” at Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign offices in Denver, CO, and Manchester, NH, last week sounded a familiar note.......”
August 27, 2008
White Powder and 007
Norman M. Covert
http://www.thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=2747
mark
From what I can tell, nobody who actually knows the man seems to believe he did it, with the exception of his brother, who appears to have been estranged from the family for like 25 years.
“When a conservative former Fort Detrick public affairs officer, and a liberal activist opposing Detrick’s biolab expansion, agree that Bruce Ivins was not the anthrax killer...”
there is no logic in this leading statement, which makes me think the whole article is junk.
George Bush and John Kerry agree we should spend $50 billion on AIDS in Africa. Does this make it right?
Very interesting. Thanks for posting.
“When a conservative former Fort Detrick public affairs officer, and a liberal activist opposing Detrick’s biolab expansion, agree that Bruce Ivins was not the anthrax killer...”
“there is no logic in this leading statement, which makes me think the whole article is junk.”
Yea, you’ve got a good point there.
Is it then fair to say that you believe that Ivins WAS the anthrax mailer?
“Norm Covert, a conservative former Fort Detrick public affairs officer] echoes what is widely reported by reputable scientists. The anthrax in the mailings, he says, was “highly bred, weapons-grade ... with a silica coating and a slight electrical charge so that each particle repelled the other ... each particle no more than five microns.” Ivins had neither the expertise nor the equipment to create such a sophisticated form of anthrax.....”
Who is Norman Covert and what did he know?
Army’s ‘Anthrax Tower’ Still Stands, Sentry to Germ’s Longevity
“When it gets into spore form it can hide just about anywhere,” Covert said of anthrax.
Electric frying pans with a solid form of the compound paraformaldehyde were placed throughout the building then heated, releasing clouds of poisonous gas inside the sealed structure. Bacteria, similar to anthrax, were left inside to serve as “markers” indicating whether the gas worked.
“But, because it was anthrax, they could only say that it was 99.9 percent safe,” Covert said, adding that everything inside the building had potentially been exposed to the microscopic bacterium.....”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,37508,00.html
Sorry-
Ping.
Who is Norm Covert and what does he know:
A History of Fort Detrick, Maryland
Cutting Edge...A History of Fort Detrick, Maryland” was originally compiled and written by Norman M. Covert, Fort Detrick’s public affairs officer and historian from 1977 to 1999.
Mr. Covert has retired from his Fort Detrick position and lives in Frederick, Maryland.
http://www.detrick.army.mil/cutting_edge/index.cfm
“From what I can tell, nobody who actually knows the man seems to believe he did it, with the exception of his brother, who appears to have been estranged from the family for like 25 years.”
‘Blindsided’ By Suicide
This year, the plan had been for Charles to see Bruce at home in Fredrick, Md., in August. Then the suicide happened. Charles and his son were shocked. Charles said they were “blindsided” by it.
While Charles had been vaguely aware that his brother was depressed and that the anthrax investigation was weighing on him, he didn’t understand how much. He figured it came with the territory.
“I knew that he and just about everyone at Fort Detrick was under a microscope after” the anthrax attacks, he said. “He never did give me any details about what was going on, but I am sure he was being investigated.”
Charles said Bruce just told his older brother that the FBI had questioned him.
“He was feeling pretty depressed over the investigation,” Charles said. “Of course, who wouldn’t? So, I felt like a brother. He needed some support, so I was going to fly up there and be an objective listener.”
Charles had already rehearsed what he was going to say. “I was going to have a little tough-love chat with him about different things,” he said. “You know, one brother to another. Basically, sometimes you need someone in the family to say, ‘Straighten up, feel better and don’t let it knock you down.’”
Charles never got the chance to have that conversation. His brother killed himself just weeks before their annual holiday was set to begin. But even after his brother’s suicide, Charles said it was hard for him to accept the idea that his brother could have been behind the anthrax mailings. “I just can’t imagine that, ever.”
A Look At The Evidence
But it became clear that Charles had never actually seen the evidence against his brother or read the affidavits accompanying the FBI’s search warrants. And as he read the evidence for the first time, wordlessly handing pages to his wife Nita, pointing out passages, darkness crept into his expression.
After several minutes of reading, he looked ashen. “I’m stunned now, I am just totally stunned,” he said.
He picked up the affidavits and straightened them on the table before him. Then he sank into himself and put his face in his hands. “The evidence that you showed me today has really gotten me.” He thought for a moment. “It threw me for a loop, really did, really just flabbergasted me.”
As Charles and his wife read the affidavits, they appeared to fill in the blanks — the way only people who knew Bruce could do. They read the poems he wrote about feeling like he was two people, instead of just one. They read about Bruce sending packages to someone with a fictitious return address. They winced. They seemed to know who Bruce was sending packages to, even though the name on the affidavit was redacted. Then Charles sighed.
“It’s just tough for me to deal with, that’s all. Just tough for me to deal with,” he said.
Asked if it seemed like the brother he knew, Charles said, “No, it does not, that’s the part that just stuns me.”
Did things in the affidavit seemed to ring true? Did others seem hollow or false? Charles shook his head.
“I’m not going to go there,” he said. “I don’t know what to think. It’s difficult.”
Asked if he thought it was possible that the FBI was right, Charles said, “Ah, well, it is always possible the FBI is right.”
Charles emphasized that he didn’t necessarily think the FBI was right this time about his brother. But he didn’t rule it out either.
Related NPR Stories
Aug. 10, 2008
Charles Ivins Says Brother’s Suicide ‘Blindsided’ Him.....”
Bruce Ivins grew up in the City of Lebanon in Warren County.
People who work and live there say they were tipped off that Ivins was part of an FBI investigation. They say FBI agents spent several days in the Warren County community in the Spring asking many questions about Ivins.
Downtown business owner Mike McMurray said, “We didn’t really know what it was so when this news came out it was like, uh oh.”
McMurray also owns the house Ivins grew up in.
“I remember the FBI asking if there was anything in the house unusual,” McMurray added, “I’d say what do you mean, unusual? They said, I can’t say.”
Ivins brother Tom lives in Middletown, about 10 miles from Lebanon. He hasn’t talked to Bruce in 20 years, and said nothing to defend his brother.
“It was his own fault, I thought,” said Tom Ivins. “What he did, he screwed himself up. He got involved with the wrong people.”
Tom Ivins said the FBI asked him a lot of questions too.
“They talked to me about my personal history, relationship with my two brothers,” said Ivins.
Bruce Ivins graduated from Lebanon High School in 1964. His brother describes Bruce as smart. Bruce was involved in a long list of activities including Honor Society, Track, Choir and Science Fair.
The people who run the Warren County History Center in Lebanon say FBI agents spent hours in their library looking for records of Ivins’ family history.
Downtown business owners say agents also stopped in Heritage House Gifts and spent some time in the basement. This is the same building where Ivins’ father ran a drug store years ago. Bruce worked in the store until going to college.
The store owner says agents left her store with nothing.
“There’s a lot of history to the building but who would have guessed this would have been the history,” said Laura Ferguson.
Tom Ivins says his brother probably didn’t work alone.
He’s confident that if others were involved, the FBI will be after them too.”
Bruce Ivins
Conclusive evidence of means, motive and opportunity are missing
Case Analysis in a Nutshell
1. Ivins cannot be placed at the Princeton mailbox at either of the two times he would have to have been there.
2. There are additional hoax letters that have not been discussed by FBI in the information released Wednesday; may we assume Ivins could not be placed at those mailbox locations during the requisite windows of opportunity?
3. No official evidence has come forward indicating the nature of the Daschle/Leahy spore preparation, nor whether Ivins possessed the knowledge regarding its production, or access to the necessary equipment.
4. No convincing motive has been presented, although a variety of implausible motives have been suggested.
5. Although many other people with a strong motive can be identified, there is no evidence they were investigated by FBI and exculpated
6. “The FBI sought out the best experts in the scientific community and, over time, four highly sensitive and specific tests were developed that were capable of detecting the unique qualities of the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks.” However, details about the microbial forensic analysis have not been released, and may not be available for months or years pending publication. Scientists doubt that any forensic analysis can do more than identify the precise strain of anthrax.
7. The pre-franked envelopes could not be identified as coming from Ivins’ post office, as initially claimed, but were instead sold in multiple post offices, none of which was definitely in Frederick.
8. Ivins was not the “sole custodian” of the RMR-1029 strain; over 100 people had access to it and they may have shared it with others. How was Ivins selected as a suspect and the others exonerated?
9. Handwriting analysis has not linked him to the crime.
10. He could not be linked to the Quantico letter that fingered Dr. Assaad. He could not be linked to any efforts to finger Dr. Hatfill.
11. No physical evidence links him to the crime: this includes the tape on the letters, fibers, human DNA, spores in his car, home or personal effects, evidence of any kind he travelled to the areas where the letters were mailed, including purchasing enough gasoline for a 7 hour trip to Princeton, twice.
12. He passed two polygraph examinations at Fort Detrick.
13. Since the FBI has been unable to build a convincing case against any one individual in the 7 years since the letters were sent, why didn’t it focus on identifying a conspiracy of individuals who together may have been able to perform the complex actions required to send the anthrax letters and hoax letters?
Posted by Meryl Nass, M.D.
Kristof Eases Guilty Conscience With a Series of ‘What If’ Scenarios
It’s not easy being mean
You have to give Nicholas Kristof his due, the man is not totally incapable of feeling. After using the New York Times for his personal vigilante crusade to take down the men who instigated the anthrax attacks in 2002, Kristof has been feeling guilt pangs for perhaps being over-zealous with his information to the FBI.
This is relevant now because the man that Kristof originally fingered as the culprit, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, was exonerated while the purported real criminal, Bruce Ivins, recently committed suicide before he was able to be tried. And Nicholas bucks it up like a true gentleman and issues a public retraction and apology to Hatfill, albeit eight years after the fact.
But Nick isn’t content to let the matter drop, and wants the American public to walk a mile in his shoes with these fun hypothetical scenarios. What would you do if you were presented with questionable information of the “maybe wrong” variety but realized you were perhaps sitting on a big story?
Hypothetically speaking, of course, what would you do if:
You learn that the local high school girls’ basketball coach has been repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct and has left three previous schools under a cloud of suspicion. The school authorities seem paralyzed and are encouraging the teacher to move again before the next school year, but the police have not been involved. The coach says he is leaving the area and probably teaching. He pleads with you to let the matter drop and hints that a scandal might drive him to kill himself. Do you write anything?
There should be a whole book of these questions that they pass out in Journalism 101. The line between professional and personal integrity can sometimes be murky, to be sure, but is using an exercise from Donnie Darko really the best method for pleading your case?
“No Duh” is a product of fear, Kristof.
http://www.jossip.com/kristof-eases-guilty-conscience-with-a-series-of-what-if-scenarios-20080828/
The City of Wasilla, Alaska, launched its first website in 2002.
http://web.archive.org/web/20021014100257/http://www.cityofwasilla.com/
Mayor’s Office
Welcome to Wasilla!
We are very excited about our brand new online presence, and we hope our residents and visitors alike will find it useful and informative.
http://web.archive.org/web/20021015063654/www.cityofwasilla.com/mayor/
Maybe Amerithrax, to inspire confidence, just needed a better website?
"Wade's attorney tries to discredit bloodhounds' work HEARING: Lucy, Tinkerbelle tracked murder suspect's scent. According to Levy's filing, Tinkerbelle and Lucy's handlers Dennis Slavin and Bill Kift, were part of the misdirected investigation of Steven Hatfill, a government researcher wrongly implicated in 2001 anthrax letter mailings. Hatfill sued the government for hurting his reputation, winning a $5.82 million settlement. The attacks were later linked to Bruce Ivins, another researcher, who killed himself last month. Lucy and Tinkerbelle are specially-trained dogs from California who travel the country helping the FBI sniff out criminals. Investigators flew the bloodhounds and their handlers to Alaska roughly two weeks after Schloss went missing in early August 2007........." http://www.adn.com/crime/story/509628.html
What are Sarah Palin’s views of the anthrax mailings? What are Biden’s? What are McCain’s? What are Obama’s?
FurnaceZilla attacks Wasilla Alaska
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5D0EL8ez7Pc
silica coating
Norm Covert, a conservative former Fort Detrick public affairs officer] echoes what is widely reported by reputable scientists. The anthrax in the mailings, he says, was “highly bred, weapons-grade ... with a silica coating and a slight electrical charge so that each particle repelled the other ... each particle no more than five microns.” Ivins had neither the expertise nor the equipment to create such a sophisticated form of anthrax.
Tuesday, December 16, 2003 Are the FBI Now Conducting a Real Investigation? After the enormously important disclosures made in Gary Matsumoto's article in Science Magazine entitled Anthrax Powder: State of the Art? there is now evidence that the FBI have begun ro realize that they can no longer pretend about the advanced nature of the anthrax powder sent to the senate.
The Daschle anthrax had a distinct trait that made it a deadly product. It was coated with silica
With no coating (A) the particles clump together due to Van der Waals forces. These forces are very short range (a few nanometers) and they fall off in an extremely non-linear fashion as something like r^6, where r is the distance. This means that if particles are able to get close enough to each other to invoke these Van der Waals forces they may become bonded together almost irreversibly. Thus uncoated anthrax particles or spores would be much less likely to cause inhalational anthrax - since when they clump together they would be larger than the 5 microns minimum diameter necessary to become trapped inside lung alveoli.
However, when coated with silica (B), the particles of anthrax cannot physically get close enough together to invoke the short range Van der Waals forces. The anthrax spores will remain as separate entities - and thus be capable of lodging inside lung alveoli where they will find a favorable environment to become biologically active, producing lethal toxin in the process.
To summarize:
The Daschle anthrax had a distinct trait that made it a deadly product. It was coated with silica but it is unknown publicly what method was used to coat the Daschle anthrax with silica - nevertheless it is almost certain that the FBI know this. One of the puzzling questions is why the FBI commissioned Dugway to make anthrax samples using fairly crude equipment but without silica coatings. Not surprisingly none of these products were capable of producing primary aerosols - silica is essential for this.
Finally it is important to realize that such weaponized anthrax products cannot be engineered to be lethal from first principal design. In other words, I can’t simply deduce that a certain amount of silica will give me the most lethal product. The rubber hits the road when these anthrax particles are inhaled inside real lungs. The only way to develop a product that is lethal is to process scores of different formulations and test them on monkeys using a strict design of experiments approach. Once the most lethal formulations are discovered it can then be deduced what silica coating densities are the most favorable and the formulations can then be tweaked. Such a process would take years of development by a team of specialists and with state sponsorship
Members of an EPA and United States Coast Guard cleanup crew prepare to enter the American Media Inc. office building in Boca Raton, Florida, where at least two people contracted anthrax through a deliberately contaminated letter mailed to the facility in October, 2001.
I don't know who you are trying to convince with this nonsense. The transcript of the August 18, 2008, roundtable scientific discussion is now available HERE
It is explained a dozen different ways in the discussion that the the attack spores were NOT coated with silica. And it was NOT necessary to have a silica coating on the spores for the spores to have the effect they did.
And we also have pictures of the attack anthrax HERE
The picture on the left shows a clump of spores with at least a thousand spores in it. NO silica. It's what was in the senate letters.
If you simply cannot believe the facts, you have a serious problem. But there is no need to tell me about it. I don't care.
Norm Covert went to Chaplain School, not to MIT. He's a media guy. Do you really believe media people know more about science than scientists? If so, then you would undoubtedly accept the nonsense that a journalist wrote in Science magazine over what scientists say about that nonsense.
I’ve had it confirmed that this below was the technique. It used silicon dioxide or a siliconizing solution in the culture medium. See FBI WMD head and consulting scientists who have aerosolized anthrax using siliconizing solution.
“The micro-droplet technique combines cell cultures (micro-droplets) in a liquid media with hydrophobic silica (a sandlike substance), which coats the micro-droplets. The coating allows the micro-droplets to maintain a consistent shape that offers more surface area for replication.” Adequate aeration, another step in the replication process, is achieved through spaces between the silica-encapsulated droplets.
The major advantages of the micro-droplet technique over liquid fermentation and surface cultivation include the portability of the process, minimal power supply needs, and lack of requirement for a complex infrastructure for the process, Bailey explains.
http://gazette.gmu.edu/articles/5545/
Biodefense Researchers Invent Process to Help Create Biofriendly Products
April 13, 2004
Someone implying he was Bruce Ivins created a YouTube account and one of his two comments concerned gouging the eye out of the mole (relating to an episode of the “mole”).
Was that Bruce?
Or is it an FBI or CIA honeytrap? (a website created for the purpose of capturing IPs of interest)
It is unusual that he used something so close to his real name given the standard is something totally fake. For example, beginning in 2006, he used Prunetacos.
http://www.youtube.com/bruceivi
Ivins death is fortuitous in that it allows the FBI to “close” the case and to make all the allegations about Ivins that it wants as one “cannot libel the dead.” It also allows them to “establish” that the crime was committed by the politically correct sort of perpetrator- a lone nut- that has nothing to do with Islamic terrorism. The most important thing is always that whatever the crime, it may not be understood as possibly perpetrated by any Moslem for any Islamic reason.
A number of states* retain the offense of blackening the memory of the dead in their criminal libel laws.
It is not true Ivins moved in down the block from Haigwood. He came first. He and his wife then moved to Frederick. Then Dr. Haigwood came. This was all readily knowable by the Associated Press though the most rudimentary checking of contemporaneous published reports. Thus, it is regrettable that there was no correction. While these criminal laws are rarely enforced (and would never be enforced against media just reporting in good faith on news of public interest), it nonetheless points to the interest that the FBI and press “get it right.”
See, e.g., Colo. Rev. State. Sec. 18-13-105 (1998) (making it a felony to “knowingly publish or disseminate, either by written instrument, sign, picture, or the like, any statement or object tending to blacken the memory of one who is dead);
Ga. Code Ann. Sec. 16-11-40 (1998) (same)
Idaho Code Sec. 18-4801 (1998) (same)
Nev. Rev. State Ann. Sec. 200.510 (Michie 1998) (same)
N.D. Cent. Code Sec. 12.1-15.01 (1995) (same)
12 Okla. St. Sec. 1441 (1995) (same)
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. Sec. 73.001 (West 1998)
Utah Code Ann. Sec. 45-2-2 (1998)
“It is unusual that he used something so close to his real name given the standard is something totally fake. For example, beginning in 2006, he used Prunetacos.”
Yipes!
“Islamic reason”
Oxymoron?
Re: ‘Gary Matsumoto’
Quotable Quotes:
“Tell Matsumoto to kiss my ass.”
“In the weeks immediately prior to the attacks, Dr. Ivins became aware that an investigative journalist who worked for NBC News had submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests on USAMRIID seeking detailed information from Dr. Ivins’s laboratory notebooks as they related to the AVA vaccine and the use of adjuvants. On August 28, 2001, Dr. Ivins appeared angry about the request providing the following response in an e-mail:
“Tell Matsumoto to kiss my ass. We’ve got better things to do than shine his shoes and pee on command. He’s gotten everything from me he will get.”
Bruce Ivins
Matsumoto
Matsumoto: “Ivins created Gulf War Syndrome” - then, “Iraq’s anthrax has bentonite”
The lead search warrant affidavit deepens the questions about Matsumoto. Matsumoto fingered Ivins as the one who created
“Gulf War Syndrome”, which had Ivins very angry just three weeks before the anthrax attacks began. Within 60 days, Matsumoto is claming that Iraq’s anthrax has bentonite. What gives?
Before the warrant, here’s some of the public evidence:
1. Ivins was described by Dr. Nass in her 1999 report to Congress as “the leading anthrax vaccine researcher” at Fort Detrick.
2. Matsumoto blamed Ivins for causing Gulf War Syndrome with his work on the anthrax vaccine in the period prior to 2001.
3. After the anthrax attacks, Matsumoto joined ABC News’ Brian Ross and others in the bentonite story blaming Iraq on October 26.
4. Matsumoto backed off this story only slightly in another story on November 1, but continues to emphasize the Iraq connection.
5. During the run-up to war in October 2002, Matsumoto continued to point squarely at Iraq in his Washington Post article, while shifting from bentonite to silica as the additive in his Washington Post article.
6. In late 2003, Matsumoto wrote a big article for Science Magazine - still looking at Iraq - and claiming that the spores were coated with silica, which proved military engineering from an “industrial source”.
7. Ed Lake seriously criticized Matsumoto for ignoring the findings of Professor Matthew Meselson and former “bioweaponeer” Ken Alibek, who looked at the Daschle anthrax and said that there was NO coating of the spores.
8. Matsumoto didn’t consider what Meselson and Alibek had seen, relying solely on a graph from a spectrograph.
9. FBI forensic scientist Beecher’s article in 2006 named Matsumoto as the man who had it wrong that there was any coating with silica. This would indicate that almost any microbiologist could have done it, rather than military engineering by either Iraq or Dugway or Battelle. This marked a big shift in the FBI’s handling of the case, and I believe new chief investigators came into play at about the same time. (I do realize that Beecher was later criticized in the same journal for not adequately sourcing his statement). I’m still waiting to see real evidence of “coating”.
Now, the search warrant affidavit shows that Matsumoto was working with NBC in August, 2001, and that Ivins was furious at Matsumotio in August 28, 2001 for attempting to ferret out details about his vaccine work. Keep in mind that both ABC and NBC were two of the five media outlets known to have received anthrax in the first wave of mailings dated Sept. 18, 2001:
“Beginning shortly after the first Gulf War and through 2001, USAMRIID and Dr. Ivins was the focus of public criticism concerning their introduction of a squalene adjuvant (or additive) to the AVA anthrax vaccine, which was blamed for the Gulf War Syndrome. In 2000 and 2001, as evident by the e-mails above, that same anthrax vaccine was having problems in the production phase at Bioport, a private company in Michigan responsible for manufacturing the vaccine. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had suspended further production of Bioport, and the U.S. government, specifically the Department of Defense, was running out of approved lots of the vaccine. The situation placed pressure on select staff members at USAMRIID, including Dr. Ivins, who were part of the Anthrax Potency Integrated Product Team (IPT). The purpose of the IPT was to assist in the resolution of technical issues that was plaguing Bioport’s production of approved lots of the vaccines.
“In the weeks immediately prior to the attacks, Dr. Ivins became aware that an investigative journalist who worked for NBC News had submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests on USAMRIID seeking detailed information from Dr. Ivins’s laboratory notebooks as they related to the AVA vaccine and the use of adjuvants. On August 28, 2001, Dr. Ivins appeared angry about the request providing the following response in an e-mail: “Tell Matsumoto to kiss my ass. We’ve got better things to do than hsine his shoes and pee on command. He’s gotten everything from me he will get.”
In early 2002, shortly after the anthrax letter attacks, the FDA re-approved the AVA vaccine for human use, production at Bioport resumed, and anthrax research at USAMRIID continued without interruption. As mentioned previously, one of the anthrax letters postmarked on September 18, 2001 was addressed to Tom Brokaw, NBC News in New York. Dr. Ivins thereafter received “the highest honor given to Defense Department civilians at a Pentagon ceremony on March 14, 2003” for his work in “getting the anthrax vaccine back into production”.
Someone should get Matsumoto’s side of these stories - that date both before and after the crucial events of late 2001. You can see my analysis and sources (and my call to support Glenn) at my article in Truthout http://www.truthout.org/article/the-anthrax-attacks-sunlight-is-best-disinfectant
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
What about the “schism” that developed amongst scientists familiar with the Daschle-Leahy anthrax samples? Well, Matsumoto is an establishment journalist, which means that he is not permitted to think aloud in public. So he is careful to separate the John Ashcroft designation of Steven Hatfill in August 2002 as a “person of interest” from what follows way below in the article, and careful not to integrate the two facts into a coherent narrative, but to his full credit he does all that he can with a picture that is worth a thousand words. Hatfill is grimacing in fury, not the furtive guilt of a trapped perpetrator:
About-face
By the fall of 2002, the awe-inspiring anthrax of the previous spring had morphed into something decidedly less fearsome. According to sources on Capitol Hill, FBI scientists now reported that there was “no additive” in the Senate anthrax at all. Alibek said he examined electron micrographs of the anthrax spores sent to Senator Daschle and saw no silica. “But I couldn’t be absolutely sure,” Alibek says, “because I only saw three to five of these electron micrographs.” Even the astonishingly uniform particle size of 1.5 to 3 micrometers, mentioned in 2001 by Senator Bill Frist (R-TN), now included whopping 100-micrometer agglomerates, according to the new FBI description recounted by Capitol Hill aides. The reversal was so extreme that the former chief biological weapons inspector for the United Nations Special Commission, Richard Spertzel, found it hard to accept. “No silica, big particles, manual milling,” he says: “That’s what they’re saying now, and that radically contradicts everything we were told during the first year of this investigation.”
Glassy finish
More revealing than the electrostatic charge, some experts say, was a technique used to anchor silica nanoparticles to the surface of spores. About a year and a half ago, a laboratory analyzing the Senate anthrax spores for the FBI reported the discovery of what appeared to be a chemical additive that improved the bond between the silica and the spores. U.S. intelligence officers informed foreign biodefense officials that this additive was “polymerized glass.” The officials who received this briefing—biowarfare specialists who work for the governments of two NATO countries—said they had never heard of polymerized glass before. This was not surprising. “Coupling agents” such as polymerized glass are not part of the usual tool kit of scientists and engineers making powders designed for human inhalation. Also known as “sol gel” or “spin-on-glass,” polymerized glass is “a silane or siloxane compound that’s been dissolved in an alcohol-based solvent like ethanol,” says Jacobsen. It leaves a thin glassy coating that helps bind the silica to particle surfaces.
“it contained an additive that affected the spore’s electrical charges “
“In a meeting I attended in September 2006, a presentation was made by a scientist who had worked on samples of anthrax collected from letters involved in the same incident in October 2001; that scientist described the anthrax spore as uncoated but said that it contained an additive that affected the spore’s electrical charges (D. Small, CBRN Counter-Proliferation and Response, Paris, France, 18-20 September 2006; organized by SMi [www.smi-online.co.uk]).
“it contained an additive that affected the spore’s electrical charges “
“In a meeting I attended in September 2006, a presentation was made by a scientist who had worked on samples of anthrax collected from letters involved in the same incident in October 2001; that scientist described the anthrax spore as uncoated but said that it contained an additive that affected the spore’s electrical charges (D. Small, CBRN Counter-Proliferation and Response, Paris, France, 18-20 September 2006; organized by SMi [www.smi-online.co.uk]).”
‘uncoated but said that it contained an additive that affected the spore’s electrical charges ‘
The multiple disciplines and technologies required to make the anthrax in this case do not exist at the Army’s Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases
“Richard Spertzel, UNSCOM’s biological weapons chief from 1994-199, had described an exquisitely weaponized anthrax contained in the letters to Senators Leahy and Daschle that “far exceeds that of any powdered product found in the now extinct U.S. Biological Warfare Program.” These included anthrax spores of 1.5-3.0 microns necessary to make a pure spore mix, a polyglass that tightly bound hydrophilic silica to each particle (to prevent clumping) and a weak electrical charge to optimize dispersion by means of repulsion with no other propellant required. Spertzel concluded:
The multiple disciplines and technologies required to make the anthrax in this case do not exist at the Army’s Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Inhalation studies are conducted at the institute, but they are done using liquid preparation, not powdered products.”
FBI Frame-up of Bruce E. Ivins Made Simple
On Wednesday, August 8, 2008, the Department of Justice held a news conference announcing that Bruce E. Ivins, a former anthrax researcher for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), was the sole person responsible for the 2001 anthrax attacks. Headed by U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor and FBI Assistant Director Joseph Persichini, the presentation was noteworthy for often not answering relevant questions, but instead referring reporters to several dozen court documents they had just been provided. After hurriedly reading one of these documents I decided to hedge my strong conclusion in an essay that the FBI had persecuted and framed Ivins in order to protect the actual perpetrators until determining enough facts to decide the matter. I stated, “The most important question is whether Ivins was provided with fully weaponized cutting-edge anthrax that he could use by merely drying it out as the FBI case requires. If not, then the cover-up explodes in the face of the FBI.” See “911 Plotters Bury the Evidence of Anthrax as their Follow-up Punch” http://tinyurl.com/694avu And, indeed, the cover-up had exploded in the face of the FBI and DOJ.
Richard Spertzel, UNSCOM’s biological weapons chief from 1994-199, had described an exquisitely weaponized anthrax contained in the letters to Senators Leahy and Daschle that “far exceeds that of any powdered product found in the now extinct U.S. Biological Warfare Program.” These included anthrax spores of 1.5-3.0 microns necessary to make a pure spore mix, a polyglass that tightly bound hydrophilic silica to each particle (to prevent clumping) and a weak electrical charge to optimize dispersion by means of repulsion with no other propellant required.
Spertzel concluded:
The multiple disciplines and technologies required to make the anthrax in this case do not exist at the Army’s Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Inhalation studies are conducted at the institute, but they are done using liquid preparation, not powdered products.
Furthermore, the FBI spent 12-18 months trying to “reverse engineer” the Daschle-Leahy anthrax without success. The FBI case against Ivins gives him 7½ hours in the evening over the course of three days to prepare his first concoction sent in letters postmarked September 18, 2001 and roughly 15½ hours over eight days to prepare the Senate anthrax letters postmarked October 9, 2001. But after reading the first DOJ document, that was suggestive and not apparently made from whole cloth, I was seized by the possibility that the FBI might have been concealing that Ivins had been working with fully weaponized anthrax in order to disguise a violation of the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention treaty to which the U.S. is a signatory, hence the hedge in my essay (made on the final day of OPEDNEWS window for editing one’s essays.)
Direct inspection of the BTWC rules out that concern. Apparently what matters is in the heart or mind: one can make fully weaponized materials so long as the purpose in doing so is in some part defensive or prophylactic, as was Ivins’s purpose in testing the efficacy of anthrax vaccines.
The question is thus whether Ivins was working with fully weaponized materials. The answer is that he was not.
Neither the DOJ oral presentation, nor anything in any of its documents states or implies this during a public presentation whose purpose was to convince the American public that the FBI “got the right man” this time. They cannot even bring themselves to say that the spores in Ivins’s possession were of the same consistent tiny size of 1.5-3.0 microns that made them so deadly — something they would surely say were it so.
In fact, the topic is sedulously avoided even though — or precisely because — it is essential to making the case against Ivins. Better, Jeffrey Taylor, who seemed to have a weak grasp of the evidence, in his opening remarks gave away the fact that the anthrax in the letters did not come directly from the flask with the sample of spores “RMR-1029” that Ivins monitored and that were reportedly a genetic match to the anthrax that killed its victims. Mr. Taylor advised:
As the court documents allege, the parent material of the anthrax spores used in the attacks was a single flask of spores, known as “RMR-1029,” that was created and solely maintained by Dr. Ivins at USAMRIID. This means that the spores used in the attacks were taken from that specific flask, regrown, purified, dried and loaded into the letters.
If there is a png list for anthrax or bio weapons please put me on there
FBI Frame-up of Bruce E. Ivins Made Simple
On Wednesday, August 8, 2008, the Department of Justice held a news conference announcing that Bruce E. Ivins, a former anthrax researcher for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), was the sole person responsible for the 2001 anthrax attacks. Headed by U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor and FBI Assistant Director Joseph Persichini, the presentation was noteworthy for often not answering relevant questions, but instead referring reporters to several dozen court documents they had just been provided. After hurriedly reading one of these documents I decided to hedge my strong conclusion in an essay that the FBI had persecuted and framed Ivins in order to protect the actual perpetrators until determining enough facts to decide the matter.
I stated, “The most important question is whether Ivins was provided with fully weaponized cutting-edge anthrax that he could use by merely drying it out as the FBI case requires. If not, then the cover-up explodes in the face of the FBI.” See “911 Plotters Bury the Evidence of Anthrax as their Follow-up Punch” http://tinyurl.com/694avu And, indeed, the cover-up had exploded in the face of the FBI and DOJ.
Richard Spertzel, UNSCOM’s biological weapons chief from 1994-199, had described an exquisitely weaponized anthrax contained in the letters to Senators Leahy and Daschle that “far exceeds that of any powdered product found in the now extinct U.S. Biological Warfare Program.” These included anthrax spores of 1.5-3.0 microns necessary to make a pure spore mix, a polyglass that tightly bound hydrophilic silica to each particle (to prevent clumping) and a weak electrical charge to optimize dispersion by means of repulsion with no other propellant required. Spertzel concluded:
The multiple disciplines and technologies required to make the anthrax in this case do not exist at the Army’s Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Inhalation studies are conducted at the institute, but they are done using liquid preparation, not powdered products.
Furthermore, the FBI spent 12-18 months trying to “reverse engineer” the Daschle-Leahy anthrax without success. The FBI case against Ivins gives him 7½ hours in the evening over the course of three days to prepare his first concoction sent in letters postmarked September 18, 2001 and roughly 15½ hours over eight days to prepare the Senate anthrax letters postmarked October 9, 2001. But after reading the first DOJ document, that was suggestive and not apparently made from whole cloth, I was seized by the possibility that the FBI might have been concealing that Ivins had been working with fully weaponized anthrax in order to disguise a violation of the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention treaty to which the U.S. is a signatory, hence the hedge in my essay (made on the final day of OPEDNEWS window for editing one’s essays.)
Direct inspection of the BTWC rules out that concern. Apparently what matters is in the heart or mind: one can make fully weaponized materials so long as the purpose in doing so is in some part defensive or prophylactic, as was Ivins’s purpose in testing the efficacy of anthrax vaccines.
The question is thus whether Ivins was working with fully weaponized materials. The answer is that he was not.
Neither the DOJ oral presentation, nor anything in any of its documents states or implies this during a public presentation whose purpose was to convince the American public that the FBI “got the right man” this time. They cannot even bring themselves to say that the spores in Ivins’s possession were of the same consistent tiny size of 1.5-3.0 microns that made them so deadly — something they would surely say were it so.
In fact, the topic is sedulously avoided even though — or precisely because — it is essential to making the case against Ivins. Better, Jeffrey Taylor, who seemed to have a weak grasp of the evidence, in his opening remarks gave away the fact that the anthrax in the letters did not come directly from the flask with the sample of spores “RMR-1029” that Ivins monitored and that were reportedly a genetic match to the anthrax that killed its victims. Mr. Taylor advised:
As the court documents allege, the parent material of the anthrax spores used in the attacks was a single flask of spores, known as “RMR-1029,” that was created and solely maintained by Dr. Ivins at USAMRIID. This means that the spores used in the attacks were taken from that specific flask, regrown, purified, dried and loaded into the letters.
The FBI’s reputation is greatly inflated by its own PR staff.
Always has been always will be.
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