[Dialogue] Emailing: Doubts About Anthrax Story - CommonDreams.org.htm

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Published on Tuesday, August 5, 2008 by The Baltimore Sun
<http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nation/bal-te.anthrax05aug05,0,7051572.sto
ry>  

Doubts About Anthrax Story

by Stephen Kiehl

Survivors of the 2001 anthrax attacks and relatives of those killed by the
deadly powder said yesterday that they want a full accounting from the FBI
of its investigation to date, and they are not yet convinced that Bruce
Ivins, the government scientist who killed himself last week, was
responsible.
<http://www.commondreams.org/archive/wp-content/photos/0805_10_1.jpg> 0805
10 1

Federal authorities are expected to meet this week with the victims'
families in Washington to discuss their investigation, after which the FBI
could close its nearly seven-year-old anthrax case and publicly release its
findings. But with reports emerging that the case against Ivins is largely
circumstantial, some wonder if real closure will ever come.

"I don't know whether this is the right person or not," said Maureen
Stevens, the widow of Robert Stevens, a photo editor at the Sun, a
supermarket tabloid, who was the first killed in the fall 2001 attacks.
Stevens said she has gone to Washington twice before for meetings, but
nothing came of them. She said she received an e-mail from the FBI informing
her of this week's meeting.

"I don't know if we'll hear anything from them that will convince me that
they've gotten to the bottom of it," Stevens said.

Ivins died last Tuesday after federal investigators had spent a year
watching his house near Fort Detrick in Frederick, following him, and
interviewing him and his colleagues at the U.S Army Medical Research
Institute of Infectious Diseases. Ivins' lawyer has said the scientist was
innocent.

"I think he's a convenient fall guy. They can say, 'OK, we found him, case
closed, we're going home,'" said Dr. Kenneth W. Hedlund, the former chief of
bacteriology at Fort Detrick who hired Ivins. "The FBI apparently applied a
lot of pressure to all the investigators there [at Detrick], and they found
the weakest link."

The FBI has not yet said how it was able to connect Ivins to the attacks.

But the Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal, relying in part on
unnamed sources, reported that investigators employing new technology were
able to find a genetic link between the specific anthrax strain recovered
from the letters and the bodies of victims and the one found in an office
and other "nonlaboratory space" where Ivins worked in 2001.

The New York Times reported that investigators intensively questioned his
children, Andrew and Amanda, now both 24. One former colleague, Dr. W.
Russell Byrne, said the agents pressed Ivins' daughter repeatedly to
acknowledge that her father was involved in the attacks.

"It was not an interview," Byrne said. "It was a frank attempt at
intimidation."

Byrne said he believed Ivins was singled out partly because of his personal
weaknesses. "If they had real evidence on him, why did they not just arrest
him?"

The Associated Press, quoting unnamed government sources, reported yesterday
that Ivins had a lengthy obsession with the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority,
which has a chapter house near the Princeton, N.J., mailbox from which the
anthrax letters were sent. However, the report says the FBI can't place
Ivins in Princeton the day the letters were mailed.

Hedlund said Ivins was a bacteriologist and lacked the expertise to convert
the anthrax into the deadly form that was used in the 2001 mailings to
government offices and newsrooms.

Rep. Rush Holt, who represents the central New Jersey district where the
anthrax letters were mailed, said circumstantial evidence is not enough,
especially after the series of mistakes made in this case. The FBI spent
years investigating Steven J. Hatfill, another scientist who worked in the
same lab as Ivins. The government recently agreed to pay a $5.82 million
settlement to Hatfill.

Holt sent a letter to FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III asking that Mueller
appear before Congress to provide an account of the investigation.

"One of the reasons they need to lay this out is so that the public can be
confident that they are protected," Holt, a Democrat, said in an interview
yesterday. "The post office workers, the general public, the local police -
they are all owed an explanation. They would like to have closure."

David Hose, 65, contracted anthrax while working at a mail facility in
Sterling, Va. He said he didn't believe Ivins was responsible for the
attacks, nor does he have any faith in the FBI's ability to close the case.

"They just mumble and bumble around," he said. "It's like a TV show."

Sun reporter Frank Roylance contributed to this article.

C Copyright C 2008, The Baltimore Sun

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13 Comments so far 


1.	

	TheLorax August 5th, 2008 3:40 pm 

	This will be another unwinnable battle for the "hard to fool".
Just as the 9/11 truth crowd is labeled as "conspiracy nuts" by the insanely
gullible, so will the naysayers about the "official" anthrax story.
Soon the new website "Debunkinganthraxconspiracies.com" will be born and
we'll all cheer the FBI for their brilliant police work and Homeland
Security for their execllent job.
Remember kiddies - all these events 9/11, Afghanistan, train bombings, Iraq,
car bombings, Syria, Iran, Guantanamo, torture, the Patriot Act,
wiretapping, FISA, etc. are all part of a Islamic plot to take away our
freedoms cause they hate us. Osama Bin Laden planned it with his cell phone
from a cave in the Pakistan mountains. (Must be Verizon since they have more
bars everywhere)

2.	

	cactuspie August 5th, 2008 4:06 pm 

	Still no mention of the elephant in the room. The selectivity of the
government officials who received the letters and their relationship to
getting the Patriot Act passed. That's the real story here.

	Nothing to see here. Move along.

3.	

	NativeSon August 5th, 2008 4:44 pm 

	The Lorax is oh so right on.

	The only reason the Bush administration and the FBI, CIA, and every
single person involved in this Government have attained the power they have
is because this is a corrupt culture. Otherwise there would have been a
large surge of "whistle sales" in DC in answer to the needs of the "whistle
blowers" during this latest administration; just one of many other corrupt
administrations-coming from a corrupt culture.

	Unfortunately there are not enough people of integrity in this
culture to take any control over the others. In fact, it seems that the
American people as a whole have little use for integrity, or intelligent
approaches to problems that in most cases were created by their own
excesses, and lack of integrity.
So they fool themselves and go to insane extremes to fool others as this
story is an excellent example.

	The fact that there are most likely thousands of people who believe
the original story, and then stretch the imagination to astrological
proportions in order to maintain their own self deception is a direct
indication that this story will in just a few days-maybe even hours-- be
forgotten and replaced with a close examination of what Mrs. McCain or Mrs.
Obama wore to the latest fund raiser, or what the polls are saying about the
"next Messiah"-who's gonna save us all.

	The people who died as a result of the Anthrax exposure, whether it
came from one branch or another, died as a result of even just one person
who knew what was happening remaining silent. Those DEAD people are simply
"collateral damage" no different than the wedding party bombed a few weeks
back in Afghanistan, or the thousands of innocent people who lost their
lives or survived to be refugees in both Iraq and Afghanistan as a direct
result of this administration's corruption; the corrupt participants and the
corrupt society that gave them the power.

	This is the same corruption that has been present throughout the
history of the USA. Even in light of the recent "apology for slavery", the
same body of government still has not moved to abide by the treaties it
signed with the tribes in the late nineteenth century-and still does not
abide by today.

	America you are doomed to failure because you are a corrupt society.
To those few members who have integrity, my heart goes out to you. You are
on the brink of extinction, and there are no members who want you to
survive; you remind them that they live a lie. There are not enough of you
to matter, and certainly not enough to take control or to make amends for
the mistakes of history. Good luck--you will need it in the coming years.
Like the fictional Noah, your children IF you survive, will be the ones who
"replenish the earth" .
But try and remember this--IF--
--is the middle word of l-"IF"-e--

	As for me, I was taught by the ones who cheated my people that there
is a God who dispenses justice to the "sinners". I do not believe this but
in case I am wrong about this I know that I will have this one last thing
available to me.
On judgement day, I will slap that Gog's face, and blame him or her for
having made me the son of a great people who ended life surrounded by liars
and cheats and thieves and cowards. 

	And I will not submit my intelligence and integrity by giving my
worship; even in the face of Hell--because I have lived in America-where
Hell was invented-Hell will mean little to me when I am dead.

4.	

	Poet August 5th, 2008 5:24 pm 

	How the mighty have fallen-deservedly so! Does anybody believe
anything the FBI alleges, says, or claims anymore? What a bunch of
bureaucratic fumbling clowns these brutes have become. 

	I listened to NPR the other day and they interviewed numerous
relatives, neighbors, and co-workers all of whom said they flat out don't
belierve any of the FBI claims regarding Bruce Ivins. Several of them
believe that if he did commit suicide, it was provoked by the FBI
harasssment of him.

5.	

	stephenkeister August 5th, 2008 5:34 pm 

	One account that I came across noted that the M.E. listed Tylenol
ingestion as the method of suicide. I recall an account I read in one of the
medical journals I subscribed to some 30 years ago re a series of suicide in
the U.K. At that time it was pointed out that these folks took up to 100
tablets and died a very slow, horrible death from liver failure.

6.	

	Bane Richter August 5th, 2008 6:04 pm 

	The motive for the crime is too apparent. Funding for the war of
terror exploded over the smoking hulk of 9/11, Bush began to publicly
masturbate for a Lockheed Murder 'Missile Defense System' - " that would
prevent 9/11 from happening again". General Dynamics, GE, etc - all of big
defense inc - celebrated the windfall.
Deep within the paranoid church of the DOD, it was decided that a terror
attack was needed, a chilling display of "how very unprepared the US is" in
the event of a bio attack. Again the funding exploded, to the heartfelt joy
of many.

7.	

	GottaGetOffTheGrid August 5th, 2008 6:36 pm 

	some interesting stuff in the wall street journal of all places.

	http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121789293570011775.html

	some snipits.

	Bruce Ivins Wasn't the Anthrax Culprit
By RICHARD SPERTZEL
August 5, 2008

	.

	But . this is still far from a shut case. The FBI needs to explain
why it zeroed in on Ivins, how he could have made the anthrax mailed to
lawmakers and the media, and how he (or anyone else) could have pulled off
the attacks, acting alone.

	.the equipment to make such a product does not exist at the
institute.

	.Information released by the FBI over the past seven years indicates
a product of exceptional quality. .

	.According to a FBI news release from November 2001, the particles
were coated by a "product not seen previously to be used in this fashion
before."

8.	

	BrokenTop August 5th, 2008 6:45 pm 

	Folks, We can go back 40+ years to the murder of JFK, MLK and RFK to
see the similarities of all these murders. The lone gunman, the racially
hate motivated gunman, another lone gunman and a bio-chemical killer. One
conveniently shot dead two days later, another who later protested his
conviction, but was not believe. One, without a public trial, silently shut
away for life and a "suicide" before a single question could be asked.
Witnesses vanish, evidence washed away, unskilled doctors perform autopsies,
tapes destroyed, film cut and spliced. 9/11 happens leaving behind hundreds
of unanswered questions and a month later anthrax killings begin.
There has never been a believable explanation as to the failure of our early
defense warning system and the Air Force's failure to within minutes respond
to the hijacking of four planes. The list goes on and the conspiracy
theories never die-nor should they-because conspiracies are what we have.
The convenient "suicide" of a suspect is in itself suspect. I agree with all
those who say we will never know the true identity of the anthrax
killer(s)because it would lead to high levels of the government just as the
other killings I mentioned would. In my opinion, not one of the episodes
mentioned above were ever the work of a lone man but that of conspiracies.

9.	

	Old Jeffersonian August 5th, 2008 7:16 pm 

	Ah yes, 911 and then the "Anthrax Horror." It was hyped and hyped
until it appeared in the papers for about a day that the strain of the virus
came from one of our (by treaty, non-existent) bio-weapons labs. 

	After that, you heard nothing save an occasional squib on page 47.

	We (the government, not the people) sent the letters out, to kill a
couple of Democrats if possible and panic America. It almost worked and the
government has used it as a panacea to combat any sanity.

	The result is that it takes weeks to send mail and have it delivered
to government offices, if it ever arrives. No "terrorist" has ever repeated
the exercise, though Darth probably would if it would forward his agenda.

10.	

	yourstruly August 5th, 2008 7:17 pm 

	Looks like the foxes not only are guarding the hen house, they're
the ones investigating the death of five hens eaten up a couple weeks
post-9/11 by unknown assailants. Nothing much from the Fox's Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) about those murders until last week when it claimed that
a dead hound dog was the culprit. The official FBI story is that shortly
before being run over by a car, said mut was seen barking across the street
from the hen house and, therefore, the FBI is on the verge of declaring
'CASE CLOSED.'" This despite the FBI's not having interviewed any of its
own, even though it's well known that the hen is one of the fox's favorite
meals.

11.	

	fakedemocracy August 5th, 2008 7:54 pm 

	Vice Pres, "This is a stick-up!"

	Pres, "Yeah, a stick up see?!"

	Vice Pres, "Now all you donkey's better listen to me!"

	Pres, "Yeah jackasses, listen up see?!"

	Vice Pres, "We're invading Iraq whether you like it or not."

	Pres, "So you'd better buy Cipro stock!"

	Vice Pres, "Some evil evil doers sent these fairy dust letters."

	Pres, "If you don't approve our war budget, you'll be retiring
sooners then laters!"

12.	

	trang August 5th, 2008 8:35 pm 

	Time to throw all the bums out!!

13.	

	trang August 5th, 2008 8:36 pm 

	If possible (?) Do "we" have the means or the will (?)


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