Posted on 08/13/2008 5:38:47 PM PDT by ZACKandPOOK
“and had graduated the June before the graffiti incident.”
errata — This phrase should be deleted.
It confuses the timeline by 20 years. It can be solidly established, however, that Ivins did not follow Haigwood to Gaithersburg. He came first. Then he and his wife moved to Frederick. Then Haigwood came. The suggestion that he moved in down the block makes for a great fictional stalker narrative but never happened.
1. I get 3,680 hits when I google
“moved in down the street” Ivins Haigwood
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22moved+in+down+the+street%22+Ivins+Haigwood&btnG=Search
That’s a pretty BIG MISTAKE when anyone working at a public library computer could have confirmed for free that Ivins had moved from Gaithersburg Frederick in January 1981 and that Haigwood arrived in Gaithersburg later.
Bells like this whopper are hard to unring. The same mistakes were evident as they unfolded in the coverage of Hatfill — but it took 5 years to unring them.
2. It is likely that Ivins served as peer reviewer on scientific journals relating to vaccine and animal challenges. However, this probably is not ascertainable except through the family attorney or close colleagues. (Some journals publish lists of reviewers at the end of each year, but most do not, and to my knowledge, there is no central database listing names for those that do.)
3. Her lab notebook which later she came to guess had been stolen by Ivins was stolen in 1979. What month was it stolen (to then be returned). Ivins and his wife moved to Frederick in 1979.
On reading a longer version of the AP article, I see Dr. H refers to the Letter to the Editor was to the Frederick News-Post. Does anyone have a copy they could email and the date? Thanks!
And I believe he kept copies of his letters.
Another cover up PING
“Defends hazing
It seems that every time I read an article in the News-Post about college fraternities or sororities, the tone of the article is decidedly negative. “Frat member floats kitten in punch,” (April 15, 1983) continues that unfortunate tradition.
As a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma, one of our nation’s oldest and most prestigious sororities, I am continually dismayed by attempts of the media and other outsiders to disparage the Greek System. I am specially incensed at vitriolic attacks on our practices of “hazing,” which non-Greeks fail to realize serve numerous valuable functions that I would like to briefly enumerate.
First of all, hazing strengthens the mettle of pledges by preparing them for the many trials they will surely face in later life. Secondly, hazing builds loyalty to the pledge class and to the overall organization. Last, but not least, hazing is the final stage of the all-important weeding-out process.
Charges that actives are to blame for accidental injuries which sometimes occur during pledge hazing are totally without foundation. No active ever forces any pledge or initiate to do anything in a sorority or fraternity — an individual is free to depledge at any time.
Charges that hazing and other related activities are detrimental to the academic performance of pledges obviously come from individuals who don’t realize that the primary education in a college or university environment doesn’t come from reading a book or sitting in a classroom, but rather from dynamically interacting with one’s peers.
No one ever hears non-Greeks laud the accomplishments of those within their ranks, yet the proud Halls of American History are lined with men and women who were members of fraternities and sororities. No matter what the press may say about us, I’m still proud to be in a sorority, proud to be counted among our country’s very best.
NANCY L. HAIGWOOD
10265 Ridgeline Drive, Gaithersburg
I’ve subjected the email that FoxNews correspondent Cathering Herridge was waving around to scanning electron microscope (SEM) — or was it a Transmission electron microscopy (TEM).
I get confused on the difference. I also zoomed in on it using a big screen tv — and I have bifocals.
As best as I can make out it is titled “HOT News.” It is from Bruce himself. He wrote it to his friend Patricia Fellows, who had left for SRI. This is the email that recounts how one fellow in his examination found that it matched most closely what another fellow had made. The media reports that the FBI suggests that it was an attempt to deflect suspicion. The email is a little confusing, and one might interpret it as meaning the stuff made by the one fellow linked to USAMRIID at Ft. Detrick rather than at Battelle. Hurried writing in emails or internet posts can be like that.
If there were less compartmentalization among scientists and investigators — and the public spent more time informing itself about Zawahiri’s effort to infiltrate US and UK biodefense establishment — there would be less sensitivity about this email.
Ivins always argued passionately that Al Qaeda was responsible for the mailings. See WSJ.
A bioevangelist theory, IMO, was always mistaken. The investigators on the one investigator squad were just not in a position to judge the quality of their sorority theory. Besides, it was their job to develop the best possible case under a bioevangelist theory. Which they seem to have done.
But let’s assume for the sake of argument that the FBI is not as confused as it seems and they were just caught off-guard by Dr. Ivins’ suicide. And they are making this up as they are going along — using intense surveillance, electronic and otherwise, in the hopes of bringing this case to a successful resolution.
While we wait to have some more shoes dropped, consider this: Who are the FBI undercover operatives? Where’s Waldo? In an investigation this well-funded, surely the DOJ has more imaginative use for its resources than paying GS-11’s to follow other people around to public libraries. They must be doing some really cool stuff with undercover agents and electronic mikes spiked through bedroom walls.
Remember: look around. Look to your left. Look to your right. If you can’t spot the undercover FBI operative, it’s probably you.
And if you don’t know where Aafia Siddiqui has been for the past 5 years, you may not be read into the case.
Consider the dummy office they set up for suspected spy Robert Hanssen.
There were so many waves going through that office he might have just as well been in a microwave.
Are we really going to get our insights from Amerithrax from press accounts that suggest, for example, that Ivins moved to Gaithersburg and lived a block away from Dr. Haigwood — when the readily available news articles from the time show he and his wife had moved from Gaithersburg in January 1981?
Amerithrax is far more interesting than this stupid concocted sorority narrative that on its face never made any sense and was not a coherent theory. Mind you, it was perfectly appropriate for a probable cause affidavit and we would want the FBI to leave “no stone unturned.”
Once an FBI fan-boy, always an FBI fan-boy.
“Initial Questioning of Aafia Siddiqi in Afghani”
Very interesting, thanks for the ping.
Interesting thread and this letter says ‘school’ is a code word for al-qaeda.
How often has it appeared in the zawahiri posts?
Broad and Sanger, “In Nuclear Net’s Undoing, a Web of Shadowy Deals,” New York Times, August 25, 2008
http://www.blueridgenow.com/article/20080825/ZNYT03/808250363/1042/NEWS&title=In_Nuclear_Net__x2019_s_Undoing__a_Web_of_Shadowy_Deals
re Khan and anthrax
Oh, the tangled web we weave...
In the house of anthrax
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=876941
Nov 22nd 2001 | KABUL
According to The Frederick (Md.) News-Post of June 27, 2002, in June 2002 a woman named Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, who affiliates herself with the Federation of American Scientists, saw fit to discuss me as a suspect in the anthrax case in a meeting with FBI agents and Senate staffers. I don’t know Dr. Rosenberg. I have never met her, I have never spoken or corresponded with this woman. And to my knowledge, she is ignorant of my work and background except in the very broadest of terms.
The only thing I know about her views is that she and I apparently differ on whether the United States should sign onto a proposed modification of the international biological weapons convention. This was something I opposed to safeguard American industry, and I believe she favored.
I am at a complete loss to explain her reported hostility and accusations. I don’t know this woman at all.
In any event, within several days after Dr. Rosenberg’s reported comments in Congress, the FBI called me again at home. I was asked if these agents could look at my apartment and swab the walls for anthrax spores. I was surprised at the request. Anthrax is a deadly inhalational disease.
I’m not sure why you posted this 6 year old article but I’d be glad to share my view on BHR.
BHR’s 2001 analysis was very lucid as was her 2008 analysis.
I disagreed strongly with her in December 2001 as to the motive and disagreed with her that Dr. Hatfill was at all involved. I was in email contact in mid-Decemmber 2001 and immediately sensed it was going to be a long haul.
My friend Maurice Clayton argued (and was extremely prolific) on all the detailed reasons there was no basis for a Hatfill Theory — that the underlying elements of the argument (Greendale School, the cabin in the woods, etc.) were wrong or irrelevant. Ivins is just Hatfill Redux. PokerBuddy made the same arguments on FreeRepublic and I agreed with every word he said. It took 6 years to overcome that mistaken view that Hatfill was involved.
But I’m not going to hold it against someone that their view turns out to be mistaken. I’m only going to ask that they inform themselves of all relevant information bearing on alternative theories and seek support for they argue (and cite it). If you’ve studied her analyses, you’ll see that she takes great care in her citation of support. Even though I correspond with her (and had already emailed her that incredible Broad expose above today at 4:45 a.m.), I don’t know her views or conclusions regarding the present state of things beyond a very lucid analysis titled “Gaps” that she circulated on a biological weapons forum earlier this month.
She obviously has caused many in the biodefense field great upset. But I always thought Dr. Hatfill was a great candidate for a “bioevangelist” theory. It’s just that on the merits I thought there was no “there there” (he was innocent) and a bioevangelist theory was misconceived. It was the leaks by prosecutor Seikaly that threw gasoline on a Hatfill Theory and made it rage out of control.
I think Quantico developed the profile (and stuck with it) when instead it was CIA counterintelligence analysis that should have held greater sway (to include an analysis about Ayman’s plan to infiltrate the US government biodefense institutions). Ayman’s intention was to use US-based charities as the group’s infrastructure in the US.
While it has been fashionable for Ed L. to bash BHR for the past 6 years, that’s only because he has nothing else to say. His arguments are limited to:
(1) the FBI never suspected Hatfill and the theory was all BHR’s fault (that’s wrong);
(2) the silicon signature was just due to absorption from the environment (he’s right but he’s not taking the argument to the logical conclusion — that it relates to use of a siliconizing solution in the culture medium that is added to increase concentration by overcoming vander waals forces and then is removed through repeated centrifugation); and
(3) a First Grader wrote the letters.
Now as to his First Grader Theory, which he says is a matter of FACT and he is 95% certain, I don’t whether Aafia’s son is 13, 12, or 11, but I think an adult wrote the letters because it is a simple matter to conceal one’s handwriting using block writing. There’s no reason to involve a child because it adds an unnecessary security risk (and is immoral and not something a parent would do). For example, as an adult, one can just hold the pen differently.
Yesterday Ed admitted that his theory was “overwhelmingly” weaker than an Ivins Theory. I agree. And I would add that the vast majority of people think an Ivins Theory is very weak. Especially if they are scientists. On the reason for the silicon signature, I’ve sent the written opinion re the reason for the siliconizing solution by the head of the air force military lab who has published recently and shared the articles by him and his colleagues. The Sandia lab does not even have any experience with biological processes — and they certainly have not aerosolized anthrax using a siliconizing solution and then measured silicon in the control and in the product that used the method. The product that used the method show the silicon spike but the controls did not.
Ed doesn’t address it because just to discuss the relevant method accounting for the silicon signature would cause his argument — and the dog and pony show put on by the FBI — to implode.
The FBI or CIA leakers can dress up a spy story however they like — as they did in the NYT expose by Broad and his colleague today. But usually the suppression of information is just CYA.
And, in any case, always Follow The Money.
Here, allowing the infiltration by Al-Timimi at the DARPA-funded Center for Biodefense that had the biggest biodefense award in history to do research with the Ames strain of anthrax with USAMRIID, followed the example of the infiltrator Ali Mohammed. It is detailed in Peter Lance’s XXX.
We need to learn from history and stop letting pork-fueled CYA insiders determine our policy. Proliferation of biodefense labs has merely greatly increased the risk by increasing the points of possible infiltration. When the US DOJ allows itself to be part of this CYA approach and to be politicized, that’s when the citizenry — across the political spectrum — need to rise up and say “No more!”
You folks work for us.
The US Attorney spinning Ivins as “the guy” was the personal counselor to Gonzalez on national security. So it is no surprise he’s screwing the pooch.
bump
Thanks granny.
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