WSJ op-ed: The Anthrax Attacks Remain Unsolved

[Winehole23]

The Anthrax Attacks Remain Unsolved

The FBI disproved its main theory about how the spores were weaponized.


By EDWARD JAY EPSTEIN

The investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks ended as far as the public knew on July 29, 2008, with the death of Bruce Ivins, a senior biodefense researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Ins ute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Md. The cause of death was an overdose of the painkiller Tylenol. No autopsy was performed, and there was no suicide note.



Less than a week after his apparent suicide, the FBI declared Ivins to have been the sole perpetrator of the 2001 Anthrax attacks, and the person who mailed deadly anthrax spores to NBC, the New York Post, and Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. These attacks killed five people, closed down a Senate office building, caused a national panic, and nearly paralyzed the postal system.



The FBI's six-year investigation was the largest inquest in its history, involving 9,000 interviews, 6,000 subpoenas, and the examination of tens of thousands of photocopiers, typewriters, computers and mailboxes. Yet it failed to find a shred of evidence that identified the anthrax killer—or even a witness to the mailings. With the help of a task force of scientists, it found a flask of anthrax that closely matched—through its genetic markers—the anthrax used in the attack.



This flask had been in the custody of Ivins, who had published no fewer than 44 scientific papers over three decades as a microbiologist and who was working on developing vaccines against anthrax. As custodian, he provided samples of it to other scientists at Fort Detrick, the Battelle Memorial Ins ute in Columbus, Ohio, and other facilities involved in anthrax research.



According to the FBI's reckoning, over 100 scientists had been given access to it. Any of these scientists (or their co-workers) could have stolen a minute quan y of this anthrax and, by mixing it into a media of water and nutrients, used it to grow enough spores to launch the anthrax attacks.
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Consequently, Ivins, who was assisting the FBI with its investigation, as well as all the scientists who had access to the anthrax, became suspects in the investigation. They were intensely questioned, given polygraph examinations, and played off against one another in variations of the prisoner's dilemma game. Their labs, computers, phones, homes and personal effects were scrutinized for possible clues.





As the so-called Amerithrax investigation proceeded, the FBI ran into frustrating dead ends, such as its relentless five-year pursuit of Steven Hatfill, which ended with an apology in 2007 and Mr. Hatfill receiving a $5.8 million settlement from the U.S. government as compensation. Another scientist, Perry Mikesell, became so stressed by the FBI's games that he began to drink heavily and died of a heart attack in October 2002.
Eventually, the FBI zeroed in on Ivins. Not only did he have access to the anthrax, but FBI agents suspected he had subtly misled them into their Hatfill fiasco. A search of his email turned up pornography and bizarre emails which, though unrelated to anthrax, suggested that he was a deeply disturbed individual.



The FBI turned the pressure up on him, isolating him at work and forcing him to spend what little money he had on lawyers to defend himself. He became increasingly stressed. His therapist reported that Ivins seemed obsessed with the notion of revenge and even homicide. Then came his suicide (which, as Eric Nadler and Bob Coen show in their do entary "The Anthrax War," was one of four suicides among American and British biowarfare researchers in past years). Since Ivins's odd behavior closely fit the FBI's profile of the mad scientist it had been hunting, his suicide provided an opportunity to close the case. So it held a congressional briefing in which it all but pronounced Ivins the anthrax killer.
But there was still a vexing problem—silicon.



Silicon was used in the 1960s to weaponize anthrax. Through an elaborate process, anthrax spores were coated with the substance to prevent them from clinging together so as to create a lethal aerosol. But since weaponization was banned by international treaties, research anthrax no longer contains silicon, and the flask at Fort Detrick contained none.
***
Yet the anthrax grown from it had silicon, according to the U.S. Armed Forces Ins ute of Pathology. This silicon explained why, when the letters to Sens. Leahy and Daschle were opened, the anthrax vaporized into an aerosol. If so, then somehow silicon was added to the anthrax. But Ivins, no matter how weird he may have been, had neither the set of skills nor the means to attach silicon to anthrax spores.



At a minimum, such a process would require highly specialized equipment that did not exist in Ivins's lab—or, for that matter, anywhere at the Fort Detrick facility. As Richard Spertzel, a former biodefense scientist who worked with Ivins, explained in a private briefing on Jan. 7, 2009, the lab didn't even deal with anthrax in powdered form, adding, "I don't think there's anyone there who would have the foggiest idea how to do it." So while Ivins's death provided a convenient fall guy, the silicon content still needed to be explained.


The FBI's answer was that the anthrax contained only traces of silicon, and those, it theorized, could have been accidently absorbed by the spores from the water and nutrient in which they were grown. No such nutrients were ever found in Ivins's lab, nor, for that matter, did anyone ever see Ivins attempt to produce any unauthorized anthrax (a process which would have involved him using scores of flasks.) But since no one knew what nutrients had been used to grow the attack anthrax, it was at least possible that they had traces of silicon in them that accidently contaminated the anthrax.


Natural contamination was an elegant theory that ran into problems after Congressman Jerry Nadler pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller in September 2008 to provide the House Judiciary Committee with a missing piece of data: the precise percentage of silicon contained in the anthrax used in the attacks.



The answer came seven months later on April 17, 2009. According to the FBI lab, 1.4% of the powder in the Leahy letter was silicon. "This is a shockingly high proportion," explained Stuart Jacobson, an expert in small particle chemistry. "It is a number one would expect from the deliberate weaponization of anthrax, but not from any conceivable accidental contamination."



Nevertheless, in an attempt to back up its theory, the FBI contracted scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Labs in California to conduct experiments in which anthrax is accidently absorbed from a media heavily laced with silicon. When the results were revealed to the National Academy Of Science in September 2009, they effectively blew the FBI's theory out of the water.



The Livermore scientists had tried 56 times to replicate the high silicon content without any success. Even though they added increasingly high amounts of silicon to the media, they never even came close to the 1.4% in the attack anthrax. Most results were an order of magnitude lower, with some as low as .001%.



What these tests inadvertently demonstrated is that the anthrax spores could not have been accidently contaminated by the nutrients in the media. "If there is that much silicon, it had to have been added," Jeffrey Adamovicz, who supervised Ivins's work at Fort Detrick, wrote to me last month. He added that the silicon in the attack anthrax could have been added via a large fermentor—which Battelle and other labs use" but "we did not use a fermentor to grow anthrax at USAMRIID . . . [and] We did not have the capability to add silicon compounds to anthrax spores."
***
If Ivins had neither the equipment or skills to weaponize anthrax with silicon, then some other party with access to the anthrax must have done it. Even before these startling results, Sen. Leahy had told Director Mueller,



"I do not believe in any way, shape, or manner that [Ivins] is the only person involved in this attack on Congress."



When I asked a FBI spokesman this month about the Livermore findings, he said the FBI was not commenting on any specifics of the case, other than those discussed in the 2008 briefing (which was about a year before Livermore disclosed its results). He stated: "The Justice Department and the FBI continue working to conclude the investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks. We anticipate closing the case in the near future."
So, even though the public may be under the impression that the anthrax case had been closed in 2008, the FBI investigation is still open—and, unless it can refute the Livermore findings on the silicon, it is back to square one.

[DarkReign]

Hmmm, unique weaponization of commonly known disease spore? Strongest suspect inexplicably dead, along with others in his field, and strong evidence suggesting the means the produce this strain were not in his capability, nor did he the equipment.

And yet the FBI holds to its story, even though common reason would suggest otherwise.

There is either some extremely damning cir stantial evidence that suggests Ivins is the their man or the FBI is sniffing the wrong dog's ass.

Thats either an epic up and dereliction of duty or its intentional.

Interesting story.

[spursncowboys]

Maybe the war machine and the black panthers did it together. That would keep bush's people and holton from arresting them.

[Winehole23]

War machine and black panthers? This is a humoristical foray, I hope.

[Winehole23]

Hmmm, unique weaponization of commonly known disease spore? Strongest suspect inexplicably dead, along with others in his field...

And yet the FBI holds to its story, even though common reason would suggest otherwise.

Why not. Maybe they already killed the real perp. Did the OP mention others who died? I didn't catch that.

[Winehole23]

Besides the one guy who died of a heart attack under the pressure of investigation, I guess. Was that who you meant, DR?

[DarrinS]

Interesting article.

[Winehole23]

By Greg Gordon | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — The FBI has asked the National Academy of Sciences to delay the release of its review of the bureau's highly controversial, seven-year investigation into the deadly 2001 anthrax mail attacks that killed five people and panicked the nation.



A New Jersey congressman has called the request "disturbing" and asked the FBI for an explanation.


In a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller Thursday, Democratic Rep. Rush Holt said that it appears that the FBI "may be seeking to try to steer or otherwise pressure the NAS panel to reach a conclusion desired by the bureau."



Holt, a scientist and the chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, said the academy recently shared with the bureau its draft report on the "Amerithrax" investigation, a narrow scientific review that the FBI requested in 2008 in an effort to quell controversy over its findings that a disgruntled government scientist was behind the attacks.


"This week I was informed by the NAS that the FBI would be releasing an additional 500 pages of previously undisclosed investigative material from the Amerithrax investigation to the NAS," he wrote. Holt said he understands that the "do ent dump . . . is intended to contest and challenge the independent NAS panel's draft findings."


"If these new do ents were relevant to the NAS' review, why were they previously undisclosed and withheld?" Holt wrote. He requested a meeting with the FBI director.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/12/0...#ixzz17gqV0Lmv

[The Reckoning]

so the guy was guilty because he had porn on his computer?


(The Reckoning quickly grabs his computer and )

[RandomGuy]

Well, .

That is a bit concerning.

[boutons_deux]

The FBI convicting a dead man without trial and with secret/cherry-picked evidence is PR to show "They Always Get Their Man", concealing the truth that They FAILED To Get Their Man. This frees up resources to entice and entrap Muslims, and keep warming their chairs until they hit retirement age and can start pocketing comfortable pensions.

This is the same FBI that protected America against 9/11, only wasting 10s of $Bs more budget.

[CosmicCowboy]

The FBI's reputation is a joke. I worked with them about 15 years ago a consultant on a series of financial crimes. The agents I worked with were arrogant ing idiots.

[boutons_deux]

And like Mic e Bachmann, the FBI guys are all lawyers.

[CosmicCowboy]

And like Barack Obama, the FBI guys are all lawyers.

fixed it for you

[Wild Cobra]

so the guy was guilty because he had porn on his computer?


(The Reckoning quickly grabs his computer and )

No, he was guilty because someone needed to say they solved a case to pad their resume.

[boutons_deux]

But Barry doesn't spew insane like Bachmann.

He actually sounds (too much) like (word-slicing) a lawyer,

Bachmann is an ignorant, irrational, tongue-tied idiot.

[CosmicCowboy]

Boutons_deux is an ignorant, irrational, tongue-tied idiot.

Fixed it for you.

[Wild Cobra]

But Barry doesn't spew insane like Bachmann.

He actually sounds (too much) like (word-slicing) a lawyer,

Bachmann is an ignorant, irrational, tongue-tied idiot.

Then what is Obama?

[Winehole23]

Agents thought they had solved the puzzle last year when they pinned the 2001 attacks on a deceased Fort Detrick scientist. But yet another new wrinkle emerged Tuesday, with a panel of prominent scientists casting doubt on key FBI scientific evidence.



A report from the National Research Council questioned the strength of genetic testing that the government said had conclusively linked the anthrax-infested letters that killed five people to a flask of lethal bacteria belonging to Bruce E. Ivins.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

[LnGrrrR]

Greenwald has brought this up regularly as well. It's been shady for quite some time.

[Wild Cobra]

Greenwald has brought this up regularly as well. It's been shady for quite some time.

LOL...

I wonder when us Global Warming deniers will be vindicated?

[Winehole23]

he Justice Department has called into question a key pillar of the FBI's case against Bruce Ivins, the Army scientist accused of mailing the anthrax-laced letters that killed five people and terrorized Congress a decade ago.

Shortly after Ivins committed suicide in 2008, federal investigators announced that they'd identified him as the mass murderer who sent the letters to members of Congress and the news media. The case was cir stantial, with federal officials arguing that the scientist had the means, motive and opportunity to make the deadly powder at the U.S. Army Medical Research Ins ute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md.


Now, however, Justice Department lawyers have acknowledged in court papers that the sealed area in Ivins' lab — the so-called hot suite — didn't contain the equipment needed to turn liquid anthrax into the refined powder that floated through congressional buildings and post offices in the fall of 2001.



The government said it continued to believe that Ivins was "more likely than not" the killer. But the filing in a Florida court didn't explain where or how Ivins could have made the powder, saying only that his secure lab "did not have the specialized equipment . . . that would be required to prepare the dried spore preparations that were used in the letters."

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/07/1...#ixzz1SWh00IZN

[lefty]

mmm...


We need the Batman

[ChumpDumper]

Holton?

[boutons_deux]

wow!

Justice Department Retracts Court Filings That Undercut FBI’s Anthrax Case

Rushing into court to undo a major blunder, Justice Department lawyers defending a civil suit Tuesday retracted statements that question the FBI's finding that a former Army microbiologist mailed the anthrax-filled letters that killed five people in 2001.

But the unusual seven-page correction, filed in federal court in Florida, does not erase testimony from government scientists who challenged the FBI's finding that the late Bruce Ivins was the perpetrator.

The department's legal dance stems from its two seemingly conflicting roles: backing up the FBI's finding that Ivins, who committed suicide in July 2008, was the killer; and defending an Army bio-weapons lab at Fort Detrick, Md., against allegations of negligence.

The department's Civil Division is attempting to limit federal liability over the death of the first anthrax victim, a Boca Raton, Fla., man whose family is seeking $50 million in damages for alleged negligence by the lab at the U.S. Army Medical Research Ins ute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), where Ivins worked on anthrax vaccines.

In trying to minimize USAMRIID's liability, government lawyers have had to walk a fine line, because the FBI says Ivins produced the anthrax powder at the facility while the civil lawyers seemed to suggest it could have been prepared elsewhere.

Tuesday's retraction came a day after a collaborative report by McClatchy, the Public Broadcasting System's Frontline news magazine and ProPublica, disclosing what appeared to be an explosive Justice Department revelation.

In a legal filing last week, department lawyers in the civil case said that the lab lacked the "specialized equipment in a containment suite" needed for Ivins to have dried the deadly powder.

That and other statements raised hackles at the FBI and among prosecutors in the criminal case, leading to hurried huddles at the Justice Department.

In a statement Tuesday, department spokesman Dean Boyd said that Civil Division lawyers had submitted "inaccurate information" and that "the Justice Department and FBI stand behind their findings that Dr. Ivins had the necessary equipment in the containment suite" to produce the spores.

They noted that Ivins had ordered his own machine, known as a lyophilizer, that could be used for drying anthrax spores. The machine was labeled "property of Bruce Ivins" and was located in a nearby biocontainment suite.

Although it amended the filing, the Justice Department could not take back what government scientists had said in sworn depositions.

Stephen Little, a technician at the Army lab, was asked whether the equipment could have been used to make the dried spore preparation used in the letters.

"Not any equipment I have seen," Little replied.

Little said that there was "no way" Ivins could have moved the lyophilizer to the into the biocontainment suite, where Ivins' lab space was located.

"The thing is as big as a refrigerator," Little said.

http://www.propublica.org/article/ju...s-anthrax-case

========

The comments section has some interesting takes. Sure sounds like dubya's DoJ/FBI wanted ram through Patriot Act and needed another Iraq-ish pretext.