Posted on 09/18/2010 7:25:47 AM PDT by Justice Department
The Government Accountability Office has launched an investigation into the scientific methods used by the FBI to determine that Fort Detrick researcher Bruce Ivins was the sole perpetrator of the 2001 anthrax attacks. U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, who represents the New Jersey district from which the letters were mailed, requested GAO's involvement as early as 2007, but renewed his efforts after the FBI announced it had closed its Amerithrax investigation last February.
Holt and four other lawmakers originally proposed a list of 10 questions for GAO to help answer, including how the anthrax spores used in the attacks compared to anthrax produced in this country and in locations around the world, what amount of time and material would go into creating the quantity of anthrax spores used in the attacks, and why the FBI had not yet been able to close the case.
The FBI questioned Ivins, a researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, throughout the entire investigation, but named him as the suspect only after he committed suicide in July 2008.
Many of Ivins' former co-workers and several lawmakers -- including Sen. Chuck Grassley, one of the four who helped Holt pursue the GAO investigation and who has been a vocal critic of the FBI's work on the case -- are still not convinced the FBI adequately proved Ivins' guilt.
"The American people need credible answers to many questions raised by the original attacks and the subsequent FBI handling of the case," Holt said in a news release. "I'm pleased the GAO has responded to our request and will look into the scientific methods used by the FBI."
Specifically, the GAO investigation will seek to answer three main questions:
n What forensic methods did the FBI use to conclude Ivins was the sole perpetrator, and how reliable are those methods?
n What scientific concerns and uncertainties still remain regarding the FBI's conclusion?
n What agencies monitor foreign containment labs, and how do they monitor those labs?
Holt had also requested that several House of Representatives committees question the FBI's methods and results, and he has called for a commission similar to the one that looked into the government's response to the Sept. 11 attacks. Neither effort has made much progress thus far.
"It's still a priority for him," said Holt spokesman Zach Goldberg. "He continues to get supporters for it, but it hasn't gotten traction in the larger Congress, which is certainly disappointing. He still feels that this is something that needs to be looked at for a variety of reasons -- that the families deserve answers to a myriad of questions."
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, who represents Western Maryland, was not part of the group that signed the letter to GAO but has been working to get more answers since the FBI closed the Amerithrax case.
"I welcome the forthcoming investigation by the Congress' General Accounting Office of a series of important unanswered questions about the FBI's investigation," Bartlett said.
"These questions have undermined the credibility of the FBI's conclusions."
The GAO investigation will be the first congressionally directed review of the FBI's case; another review, done by the National Academy of Sciences, was requested by the FBI itself two years ago.
The NAS investigation is scheduled to wrap up by the end of the year. In GAO's letter to Holt confirming it would look into the FBI investigation, Ralph Dawn Jr., GAO managing director of congressional relations, wrote that to avoid any overlap between the two groups' investigations, they would first review the NAS study before determining the scope of the GAO one.
Goldberg said the GAO would start its investigation soon, if it hadn't begun already. He said the GAO hadn't announced a timeline for its investigation but said that Holt wasn't worried about rushing things along.
"Of course (Holt) wants it to be comprehensive and not rushed in any way," Goldberg said. "The important thing is that the questions get addressed."
What’s your take on the J-Lo letter?
I was working on a web page about the J-Lo letter when the news about Bruce Ivins broke. So, it's still a "work in progress." But, I think it has all the known information. It's HERE
I think the facts make it perfectly clear beyond any doubt that the J-Lo letter had nothing to do with the anthrax letter.
“Laboratory records obtained by The New York Times show that the anthrax supply labeled RMR-1029, which the F.B.I. linked to the attacks, was stored in 1997 not in Dr. Ivins’s laboratory, in Building 1425, but in the adjacent Building 1412. Former colleagues said that its storage in both buildings at different times from 1997 to 2001 might mean that the bureau’s estimate of 100 people with physical access to it was two or three times too low.”
No. The 9/11 terrorists' rent money came into contact with anthrax, but the specifics of how/where haven't been released by relevant government agencies.
And, you know the "relevant government agencies" have the information and are keeping it secret because ... God told you so? ... Because you had a dream about it? Because a psychic told you? How?
Southack, you still haven't answered the key question: Who is behind all these secrets you fantasize about, and how many people are involved in the criminal conspiracy to frame Dr. Ivins in order to cover up who really killed four innocent Americans? In one post you claim there is no conspiracy, but in the next post you talk about "relevant government agencies" protecting the real murderers. You need to clarify this. It appears to be the arguments of a total scatterbrain.
The media never seems to be able to get ANYTHING right about the anthrax case.
Here's what I wrote on my web site on March 23, 2010:
"The conspiracy theorists and True Believers (including some in the media) have also claimed that flask RMR-1029 was sometimes stored in Building 1412 because one version the log for flask RMR-1029 showed Building 1412 as its location. Someone even suggested that it was always stored in Building 1412 until 2004 when Ivins requested it be moved to Building 1425. But page 98 of pdf file #847443 reports on a phone call from Dr. Ivins to the FBI where Ivins explains that flask RMR-1029 was never taken to building 1412, they only took aliquots to 1412. And page 10 in pdf file #847444 contains statements that flask RMR-1029 was NEVER stored in building 1412, but was ALWAYS stored in building 1425. It appears that when the shipments of spores from Dugway arrived, there was some thought of keeping them in Building 1412, but that never happened even though the form temporarily said it did."
The form you posted shows the flask to be in Building 1425 where Ivins worked.
There is also a form at one of the links I posted which shows it to be in Building 1412, but that form has only the first inventory line filled in. As I said, they thought they were going to store it in 1412, but it was NEVER stored there. Ivins makes that VERY clear in his statements to the FBI in the second pdf file I linked.
I answered Southack's post first because it didn't require any research.
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