Posted on 08/07/2008 11:49:06 AM PDT by Shermy
WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday outlined a pattern of bizarre and deceptive conduct by Bruce E. Ivins, an Army microbiologist who killed himself last week, presenting a sweeping but circumstantial case that he was solely responsible for mailing the deadly anthrax letters that killed five people in 2001.
After nearly seven years of a troubled investigation, officials of the F.B.I. and the Justice Department declared that the case had been solved. Jeffrey A. Taylor, the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, said the authorities believed “that based on the evidence we had collected, we could prove his guilt to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Lawyers for Dr. Ivins reasserted their late client’s innocence and criticized the government for presenting what they called “heaps of innuendo” that failed to link him directly to the crime and would never have to be tested in court. “It was an explanation of why Bruce Ivins was a suspect,” said Paul F. Kemp, who represented the scientist for more than a year before his death on July 29 at age 62. “But there’s a total absence of proof that he committed this crime.”
The conflicting views of Dr. Ivins emerged in a day of emotional crosscurrents. At a morning memorial service at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Md., weeping Army scientists praised Dr. Ivins as a beloved colleague “known for his patience and enthusiasm for science,” as a written program put it. At the same time, at F.B.I. headquarters in Washington, the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, and bureau officials were explaining to survivors of the anthrax attacks and relatives of the five people who died why they believe Dr. Ivins was a mass murderer.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
1990
also,
“Division of Bacteriology, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick, Frederick, Maryland 21701-5011.”
NYT 8/15 -
F.B.I. Will Present Scientific Evidence in Anthrax Case to Counter Doubts
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/washington/16anthrax.html?ref=us
Thanks, you beat me here.
It’s a fascinating article. Ivins’ lawyer was right about the FBI’s “Ivins gave us the wrong strain” story. Also the envelopes are more widespread. Quotes from Rep. Holt saying a recent private briefing raised more doubts, not lessen them.
“For instance, the Justice Department said earlier this month in unsealing court records against Dr. Ivins that he had tried to mislead investigators in 2002 by giving them an anthrax sample that did not appear to have come from his laboratory.
But F.B.I. officials acknowledged at the closed-door briefing, according to people who were there, that the sample Dr. Ivins gave them in 2002 did in fact come from the same strain used in the attacks, but, because of limitations in the bureau’s testing methods and Dr. Ivins’s failure to provide the sample in the format requested, the F.B.I. did not realize that it was a correct match until three years later.
In addition, people who were briefed by the F.B.I. said a batch of misprinted envelopes used in the anthrax attacks — another piece of evidence used to link Dr. Ivins to the attacks — could have been much more widely available than bureau officials had initially led them to believe.
F.B.I. Will Present Scientific Evidence in Anthrax Case to Counter Doubts
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/washington/16anthrax.html?ref=us
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: August 15, 2008
Don’t worry....I think your analysis is better.
Always thought that and always will.
Some people don’t want to know the truth.
It’s better cover it up.
Ten years from now they will say “Zack was right...read page xxx.”
Mark my words.
Your loyal fan.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2062720/posts
Freerepublic thread dedicated to latest NYTimes story.
http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-labsecurity0816.artaug16,0,2049175.story?track=rss
Labs That Perform Bioterrorism Research Proliferating
By DAVE ALTIMARI | Courant Staff Writer
August 16, 2008
The number of individuals performing bioterrorism research on deadly pathogens across the country has jumped to nearly 15,000, and most of them are authorized to work with anthrax, federal records obtained by The Courant reveal.
The proliferation of labs working on vaccines for potential biological weapons — which started after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and subsequent anthrax mailings — has drawn heavy criticism from experts worried that too many people have access to dangerous materials.
.....
mong the concerns is that background checks conducted by the federal government before lab workers are allowed to work with substances such as anthrax aren’t thorough enough, said Gigi Kwik Gronvall, a senior associate at the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
The criteria include that the individual have no convictions of a crime punishable by imprisonment exceeding one year, not be a fugitive from justice or an illegal alien, and that the individual not have been dishonorably discharged from the Army.
Gronvall said there are other concerns in addition to inadequate background checks.
“Nobody is checking to see if people being approved to work with anthrax or other biological agents actually have the scientific skills to work with it,” Gronvall said.
Of the 399 institutions registered to work with biological agents, 234 are working with anthrax, the records show. Many of them are working with, or at least storing, the “Ames strain,” which was used in the anthrax mailings.
Martin Hugh-Jones, a professor at Louisiana State University, said obtaining permission to work with that strain has become almost like a status symbol for labs. LSU was one of 16 laboratories identified by the FBI as working with the Ames strain of anthrax before the letters were mailed.
Those labs were a mix of private companies that do work for the federal government, such as Battelle Memorial Institute, based in Columbus, Ohio, and universities, such as LSU and the University of Scranton.
One of the USDA-registered labs is on Plum Island in New York, 8 miles off Connecticut’s coast. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security plans to upgrade the security level of the lab and the research conducted there, although the lab is likely to be moved from the island to some other location, most likely in Mississippi. Also in New England, Boston University is building a level 4 lab.
....
(8/14, tip to TR)
The new Catherine Herridge video can be viewed at http://www.foxnews.com/video/index.html?CMP=KNC-YahooPI
You have to search for “anthrax” - then click on the August 1 video titled “Anthrax suspect commits suicide, Suspect dies as FBI close in.
Note the transcript is slightly different than the one written up here:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,397325,00.html
Zack,
Here is a question I’d like you to ask one of your experts:
The recovered letters
with the anthrax in them,
to which lab were they taken,
a BL3 lab or a BL4 lab???
You saw the anthrax simulant expert’s opinion they were loaded wet and then it was dried, right? If so, and if it is feasible, why doesn’t that suffice? Load it. Put it in a plastic bag. You’re done. No muss. No fuss.
I can’t find it now — must have deleted it — but I did get another opinion from a biothreat analyst (former government; PhD) who said if microencapsulation were done, a BL-4 would be necessary. But when I showed him the opinion of the fellow who makes the stuff, he said it was the best opinion he’s seen. (That was the fellow who said it could be loaded wet and then evaporated). Then upon being put in a plastic bag, it’s done. As you know, I distinguish between those who make the stuff (even if just simulant) and those who don’t. I’ll ask him to ask Ken next weekend.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/17/opinion/17pubed.html
The Public Editor — Headlines and Exonerations
By CLARK HOYT
Published: August 16, 2008
LATE on Aug. 8, the Justice Department finally exonerated Steven J. Hatfill, acknowledging six years after labeling him a “person of interest” that he was not the man who killed five people with anthrax attacks on Congress and news organizations in 2001.
If the intent was to call as little attention as possible to what amounted to a painful admission of error — Hatfill said his life and career were ruined by government leaks that wrongly painted him as the murderer — the timing could not have been better. It was a summer Friday afternoon [like the latest story], and the news was about to be swamped by the opening ceremonies at the Olympics. Weeks earlier, in a terse, two-paragraph statement, the Justice Department had announced that it was settling a lawsuit by Hatfill with a deal that would cost taxpayers $4.6 million.
...
Nicholas D. Kristof, a Times Op-Ed columnist, intends to be more stand-up. He pointed to Hatfill as someone needing closer investigation in a series of columns in 2002 castigating the F.B.I. for “an unbelievably lethargic” investigation of the anthrax attacks. Now that Hatfill, a former government biologist, has been formally cleared, Kristof told me he plans to write a column looking back on the case and apologizing to Hatfill for any “extra scrutiny and upheaval the columns brought to him, and wrestling with the journalistic issues involved.”
...
Allan,
What did you think of the FBI’s claim that Ivins was the culprit and his co-worker’s report that he had a Speed Vac rather than a lyophilizer?
She said a Speed Vac could fit under the safety hood and a lyophilizer could not. But she says that he would not have had time to use a Speed Vac.
Why do you think a Speed Vac under a safety hood was not sufficient? And what expert opinions are you relying on? Isn’t his co-worker’s comments a tacit admission that with time, a Speed Vac would suffice? I am sincerely interested in any evidence you have a Speed Vac under a safety hood would not suffice and any expert opinion to the effect it would not be sufficient. But your repeated restatement of your assertion does not advance things. Either provide expert opinion or let’s drop it and wait to hear from the relevant experts (which will be forthcoming this week in news reports).
Here is the report that is relevant. Relatedly, when in October did Dr. Ivins first use a BL-4 suite?
August 8, 2008
Ex-colleague questions government’s case against anthrax suspect
By ANDREW SCHOTZ (andrews@herald-mail.com
http://www.herald-mail.com/?cmd=displaystory&story_id=200518&format=html
Ivins’ alleged use of a lyophilizer to make powdered anthrax. Ulrich said Ivins signed out a SpeedVac, but not a lyophilizer, which is too large to fit in a containment hood, or secure protective area.
She said it would take about an hour to dry one milliliter of wet anthrax spores in one vial in a SpeedVac. It would have been impossible for Ivins to have dried more than a liter, which would have been required for the amount of anthrax sent in the letters, in the time frame they were mailed, Ulrich said.
Ulrich was a principal investigator in the diagnostic systems division at USAMRIID.
In terms of the expert who proposed how the anthrax was made, he is the one who made anthrax that performed like smoke. So he is perfectly aware of the performance characteristics of the Leahy product. He has never indicated to me he thinks Ivins is responsible. The product used in the Canadian experiment had similar performance characteristics. It immediately dispersed across the room and leaked before opening. It was made at Dugway. It was the subject of a report that issued on or about September 10, 2001.
I am not denying anything anything your experts
or others
have been saying
though they really haven’t said anything.
I just am waiting for precise information
as to how the anthrax was aerosolized
and inserted into the envelopes.
So far experts and FBI have provided zero information on this.
The fact that the FBI seems to be making up their story
and changing it
on the fly
doesn’t inspire confidence.
Saying it was put in solvent doesn’t do it for me.
I want precise details.
I know nothing about Speed Vacs or lyophilzers.
Hopefully the FBI will address not only the “false sample” claim, but this equipment issue. That is, what equipment he had and why they think a few hours of overtime sufficed if it took 1 hour to make one milliliter and there are 1000 milliters in 1 liter (such as was mailed). I hope the scientific communijty is persuaded by the FBI’s view of the probativeness of the mixed strain issue and inverted plasmid. That narrows the field to 8 isolates and 100 people with known access (and an indeterminate number of additional people who might have gained access surreptitiously).
I guess Duley reasons he would not be agitated unless he was guilty. Guilty people flee. Innocent people about to have their lives destroyed become agitated.
For his part, Dr. Ivins passionately argued that Al Qaeda was responsible. Yet, he reportedly was pressing to FoxNews that the product was a match made by someone linked to USAMRIID. He apparently thought Al Qaeda had accessed the know-how or stolen weaponized product. The Center for Biodefense was doing Ames research with USAMRIID funded by DARPA. It was the biggest biodefense project in history at the time. A man working closely with the 911 imam and Bin Laden’s sheik and recruting people to jihad was 15 feet from the leading anthrax scientist and the former deputy USAMRIID commander. But never mind, Ivins worked late after the US had been attacked and a man in a biohazard suit had been pictured on TIME. Oh, and then he became depressed when the FBI falsely accused him of submitting a false sample and was going to destroy his life imminently.
In Anthrax Case, Hindsight Shifts View of Ivins - WSJ.com
Dr. Ivins, his colleagues said, argued that al Qaeda was responsible. “He was very passionate about this,” former boss Jeffrey Adamovicz said. ...
www.wsj.com/article/SB121824122279026121.html
Sufficient for what?
My little bit of reading indicates
that lypholizers and Speed Vacs are used for drying samples.
Speed Vacs are slower than lypholizers
and generally used for very small samples of DNA, protein, etc.
(about 1 milliliter or so)
So far as I can see neither of these plays any role in aerosolizing the anthrax.
It seems nobody, including your experts, has a clue how it was aerosolized.
Or maybe the people who saw the smoke had lying eyes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.