From what we know so far, Bruce Ivins, although potentially a brilliant scientist, was not that man. The multiple disciplines and technologies required to make the anthrax in this case do not exist at Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Inhalation studies are conducted at the institute, but they are done using liquid preparations, not powdered products.
The FBI spent between 12 and 18 months trying "to reverse engineer" (make a replica of) the anthrax in the letters sent to Messrs. Daschle and Leahy without success, according to FBI news releases.
The new evidence supports what the initial evidence so strongly suggested, that Ivins had been selected as a vulnerable patsy due to his history of alcoholism to push him back to drink and depression, had been driven to kill himself by systematic FBI abuse to destroy the fabric of his life and any hopes for his future, and has been accompanied by a media barrage that substitutes hot air, nasty rumors, dubious if not outright false accusations by Jean Duley, probably FBI-planted evidence on the flask, and the wonderful red-herring of DNA-match when the principal issue was that the highly specific and technologically advanced weaponization of the anthrax was vastly beyond the skills or machinery Ivins possessed.
Could Ivins have been a part of the plot? Well, no. In addition to the reasons against this already stated, once it is plain that the FBI’s task is to bring this story to a close by protecting the perpetrators, it should be obvious that they would not do so by going after one of the guilty parties lest he spill the beans, or lest his political and personal affiliations point the finger at his comrades capable of perfecting the anthrax. The mainstream media has thus been silent about Bruce Ivins’s political affiliations because they apparently point nowhere; indeed Brad Friedman at Bradblog.com has discovered that Ivins was a registered Democrat since the 1980s, not a likely right-wing terrorist.
The Daily News Washington Bureau has an August 2, 2008 headline, “FBI was told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials” followed by this story:
On October 15, 2001, President Bush said, "There may be some possible link" to Bin Laden, adding, "I wouldn't put it past him." Vice President Cheney also said Bin Laden's henchmen were trained "how to deploy and use these kinds of substances, so you start to piece it all together."
But by then the FBI already knew anthrax spilling out of letters addressed to media outlets and to a U.S. senator was a military strain of the bioweapon. "Very quickly [Fort Detrick, Md., experts] told us this was not something some guy in a cave could come up with," the ex-FBI official said. "They couldn't go from box cutters one week to weapons-grade anthrax the next."
The demands of the White House coupled with the hard evidence of the origin of the anthrax put the FBI in a dilemma. They now had to “solve the case” but could not point the finger of guilt where it belonged, at the actual perpetrators, the same folk that the vast array of other evidence indicts as the domestic authors of 911, not opportunistic Freidmanites who “seize the day” for their own purposes. Hence the FBI was forced into its ridiculous dance with bioweapons researchers Steven Hatfill and its much more successful and perfectly lethal destruction of Bruce E. Ivins in the service of treason that passes for “national security.” The FBI is a political police force and member of the intelligence community, but a low-ranking one that, like the clowns, is often assigned the task of following the parade and cleaning up after the elephants have passed. Bruce E. Ivins has been a victim of one such clean-up job.
Post Script August 8, 2008:
Dr Bruce Ivins has unrestricted access to the suite [where RMR-1029 is stored] and has been the sole custodian of RMR-1029 since it was first grown in 1997.
The affidavit never mentions who first grew RMR-1029. Since the anthrax does not grow weaponized, someone else had to weaponize it unless Ivins was provided a weaponized sample of RMR-1029 that he kept in a flask. But then, of course, the source of the sample RMR-1029 had the same anthrax, as in any case did the 100+ scientists with access to it (that the FBI claims to have ruled out as suspects).
Spertzel, the former Unscom chief upon whom I relied, like the FBI itself at the early stages of its investigation, assumed that the weaponizer had to be amongst the guilty, but if the anthrax arrived an Ft. Detrick weaponized this need not be the case. But then the source, apparently Dugway, would have made a full-blown biological weapon, contrary to U.S. treaty obligations, and delivered it to Ft. Detrick for some other purposes that can only be determined from other sources. One wants to know whether Ivins's work to develop lethal bacteria would use such a weaponized version.
The FBI case against Ivins turns out not to depend so much upon the DNA mutations match reported linked to the flask that Ivins had custody of -- so many others had their samples too -- even though they pretend so, but upon very weird particulars that point one to Ivins. If the anthrax were sent weaponized, the FBI is working very very hard to conceal the U.S. manufacture of a full-blown biological weapon.
The bottom line is that when the dust settles Ivins may have a role, or the only active role, in the anthrax attacks, though if one follows the details, one sees the media as always and primarily a source of confusion and disinformation, virtually never asking the right or relevant questions to the authorities who know the answers; nor can I. The most important question is whether Ivins was provided with fully weaponized cutting-edge anthrax that he could use by merely drying it out as the FBI case requires. If not, then the cover-up explodes in the face of the FBI; if so, then there is an interesting but murky case against him that will never be tried, and that is still perfectly consistent with a full-blown cover-up. I will do my best to see to the bottom of this one, time, information and motivation permitting, but it will take more time and the relevant information may not be accessible.
