Bruce E. Ivins, the scientist who committed suicide as the FBI prepared to charge him with the 2001 anthrax attacks, could not have been the killer, according to a commentary by Richard Spertzel, a top government microbiologist.
Regarding the anthrax mailed to Sens. Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, “The spores could not have been produced at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, where Ivins worked, without many other people being aware of it,” he writes. “Furthermore, the equipment to make such a product does not exist at the institute.”
Daschle this week also expressed doubts about the FBI investigation.
But FBI officials released documents Wednesday that they say conclusively fingers Ivins as the killer. The Army scientist, they said, was the only person to have access to a pure strain of anthrax spores that had “certain genetic mutations identical” to the anthrax used to kill five people. And the envelopes used were also traced back to Ivins’ lab.
Let’s hope the government’s evidence is strong enough to settle this dispute and put the case to rest.
76 Comments
This is one of those cases that must be settled clearly, without dispute. Otherwise it will continue to be debated forever.
Not sure why the guy would commit suicide if he wasn’t guilty.
Perhaps the scientist had other issues?
Who knows, I agree with JWink.
Yet more disturbing questions on the Ivins investigation, from a fellow anthrax expert who knew Ivins personally:
http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2008/08/beyond-reasonable-doubt.html
Haven’t yet had a chance to examine the documents myself.
He was suicided by the same mobsters that live and work in the White House now. Too friggin’ convenient.
The guy killed himself possibly because he didn’t wanted to be locked up forever without access to an attorney and tortured for a confession.
Or maybe he committed suicide like that woman in Iraq who was gang raped, beaten, shot, then dragged to a contractor’s tent.
It’s the Bush regime, it’s not like we can trust anything that goes on where they may have a connection.
I wonder … if Hatfil had committed suicide when they ruined his career would the case have been closed then?
Apparently Ivin’s therapist said he had a lot of mental problems. A guy with mental problems commits suicide and that’s justification to blame him for all these anthrax attacks? It has already come out that the Bush administration created a bunch of fake letters connecting the attacks to Iraq. And it just happens to be convenient that Democratic senators who could have prevented the PATRIOT Act from passing got attacked the day before the vote.
The entire issue appears to be a whitewash. Given the Bush administration’s history of dishonesty the issue won’t be cleared up until there is a truly independent investigation.
And, MP, did he have mental problems BEFORE or AFTER the FBI declared war on him and his family.
“Apparently, the spores were coated with a polyglass which tightly bound hydrophilic silica to each particle”
That sounds a lot like something we used to call “SSB” (solublized silica binder) many years ago in FCC catalyst preparation. Run a slurry with that through a spray drier and you get a microspheroidal powder. With the silica it can pick up a static charge.
The whole investigation stinks.
Now we know (The Big) Dick Cheney had no compunctions to ask the CIA to forge documents that would take us to war in Iraq, the “suicide” of the “only suspect” — not counting the guy that was harassed for five years and finally sued the Bush
inJustice Department was awarded five million dollars — reeks of cover-up.I too see conspiracy. I didn’t trust the government under Bush Sr., Clinton and sure as hell don’t trust it under Cheney. This one stinks to high heaven.
BTH makes a good point. If the FBI truly had dirt on Ivins they wouldn’t need to resort to trying to bribe Ivins son and daughter with millions of dollars to create false charges.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/06/MNKI125JRS.DTL
After months of being stalked I could understand how the guy would develop paranoia. Previously they went after a different guy who had his life ruined trying to prove his innocence. Ivins didn’t want to go through that and being made to be the fall guy for the Bush regime’s incompetence. He took the easy way out and it spared his family more months of torment.
Now people assume he’s guilty because he killed himself. An innocent person, who doesn’t trust the Bush legal system (Gitmo anyone?), has just as much reason to kill themselves.
Thanks, Rage, for the link.
I have been wondering about this too: “The anthrax attacker MUST be able to be placed at the scene of the mailboxes, at the times the letters were mailed. Surely the FBI sought information on these dates and places from everyone with anthrax access in the US and probably abroad, shortly after the letter attacks. Either Ivins had an alibi or he didn’t. Put up or shut up: this is the most critical evidence in this case. If Ivins cannot be placed in New Jersey on those dates, he is not the attacker, or he did not act alone.”
*****
Trenton and Princeton, NJ, where several anthrax letters were mailed, is a seven hours drive from Ivins’s house. Using cell phone records, credit card records, e-mail records, work and witnesses, it would be very hard for a person in his position to disappear for seven hours without a good reason within a narrow window of mailbox pickups.
Either he can be placed at the mailbox within that time frame or he can’t. I’m guessing he can’t or the FBI would have made a big thing out of this.
If the times don’t fit, you must acquit.
Many good points, MagPunk.
The FBI evidence of “mental health problems” doesn’t explain why he had top secret clearance at a top secret weapons lab.
Does the Army routinely let crazy people have access to biological weapons?
The FBI has a long history of not actually doing forensic investigation and relying entirely on snitches. It is a lot easier, isn’t it.
a person in his position to disappear for seven hours without a good reason
It would have been 14 hours. There and back. Could they have been dropped on a Saturday? Family trip? Who knows. It would be hard to connec those dots though.
Sounds like the guy popped under the strain.
Take this all in.
It is just after the attack on Sept. 11.
Prominent Democrats and news people are sent letter containing weaponized Anthrax PROVEN to come from military stocks.
The handful of suspects is restricted to probably fewer than 200 people.
Almost seven years go by. In this time, an innocent man is fingered for the crime.
ONE suspect kills himself.
And THEN the government presents its case against that dead man.
Unh uh. I aint buying it.
There is more here.
“Does the Army routinely let crazy people have access to biological weapons?”
Interesting question. Would the same question apply to organo-phosphorus nerve agents and mustard blister agents?
Ivins Held Patents On Anthrax Vaccine
From the Los Angeles Times:
Anthrax scientist Bruce Ivins stood to benefit from a panic
The suspect in deadly mailings, who killed himself this week as the FBI closed in, could have collected patent royalties on an anthrax vaccine.
By David Willman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 2, 2008
Bruce E. Ivins, the government biodefense scientist linked to the deadly anthrax mailings of 2001, stood to gain financially from massive federal spending in the fear-filled aftermath of those killings, the Los Angeles Times has learned.
Ivins is listed as a co-inventor on two patents for a genetically engineered anthrax vaccine, federal records show. Separately, Ivins also is listed as a co-inventor on an application to patent an additive for various biodefense vaccines.
Ivins, 62, died Tuesday in an apparent suicide in Maryland. Federal authorities had informed his lawyer that criminal charges related to the mailings would be filed.
As a co-inventor of a new anthrax vaccine, Ivins was among those in line to collect patent royalties if the product had come to market, according to an executive familiar with the matter.
The product had languished on laboratory shelves until the Sept. 11 attacks and the anthrax mailings, after which federal officials raced to stockpile vaccines and antidotes against potential biological terrorism.
A San Francisco-area biotechnology company, VaxGen, won a federal contract worth $877.5 million to provide batches of the new vaccine. The contract was the first awarded under legislation promoted by President Bush, called Project BioShield.
One executive who was familiar with the matter said that, as a condition of its purchasing the vaccine from the Army, VaxGen had agreed to share sales-related proceeds with the inventors.
“Some proportion would have been shared with the inventors,” said the executive, who spoke anonymously because of contractual confidentiality. “Ivins would have stood to make tens of thousands of dollars, but not millions.” …
Ivins also was listed as one of two inventors of another biodefense-related product that has won federal sponsorship…
For nearly 30 years, Ivins served far from the limelight, a PhD microbiologist who drew a civil servant’s pay while handling some of the most deadly pathogens on Earth — live spores of anthrax.
The deadly mailings of anthrax-tainted envelopes transported Ivins from the backwater of government scientific research at Ft. Detrick, Md., to the center of the nation’s fledgling war on terrorism. It also spurred multibillion-dollar national security initiatives.
Ivins was thrust into the federal investigation of the mailings as well. He helped the FBI analyze anthrax recovered from a letter addressed to then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).
He also played a lead role in helping a private company, BioPort, win regulatory approval to continue making the vaccine required for U.S. service personnel deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and other regions…
At a Pentagon ceremony on March 14, 2003, Ivins and two colleagues from USAMRIID were bestowed the Decoration of Exceptional Civilian Service, the highest honor given to nonmilitary employees of the Defense Department…
On Friday, Ivins’ lawyer, Paul F. Kemp, defended his client and said that Ivins had cooperated fully with the FBI.
“We assert his innocence in these killings, and would have established that at trial,” Kemp said, implicitly confirming that Ivins had been about to be formally charged. “The relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo takes its toll in different ways on different people. . . . In Dr. Ivins’ case, it led to his untimely death.” …
How thorough was the FBI’s investigation of these anthrax mailings if they didn’t first investigate those who would most obviously benefit from such a panic?
No, it was more important to make it seem like the work of “crazy rightwingers.”
Lastly, why does a “crazy person” single out a tabloid photographer responsible for embarrasing pictures of a drunken Bush daughter, Patrick Leahy (a staunch liberal), and Tom Daschle (Dem Majority Leader at the time)?
None to George Bush or any CONservative. To paraphrase Hamlet, there’s too much method in this madness . . .
Also, there’s no evidence, zero, that Ivins benefitted from the anthrax attacks. However, the war-mongers who wanted to invade Iraq got exactly what they wanted, thanks in part to claims of “weapons of mass destruction” that resonated after the anthrax attacks.
I’m guessing the guy must have paid for cash for everything. 14 hours on the road and he never once paid for food or gas with a credit card. I’m supposing his family didn’t notice him missing for long periods either. He must have never used a cell phone during that time because the records could have been traced back to the cell towers.
And really? The guy had an obsession with a particular sorority 7 hours away while completely indifferent to the same sorority organization nearby his own place of residence. But if the FBI labels him a perv/stalker then people just assume he’s guilty.
It’s less of an investigation and more of a smear job like the FBI is running some political campaign. I’d like to see some hard evidence of his guilt rather than ad hominem attacks by the FBI and corporate media.
“stood to gain financially from massive federal spending in the fear-filled aftermath of those killings, the Los Angeles Times has learned.
Ivins is listed as a co-inventor on two patents for a genetically engineered anthrax vaccine, federal records show. Separately, Ivins also is listed as a co-inventor on an application to patent an additive for various biodefense vaccines.”
Merely an assumption and not really evidence. Anyone who has stock in a company that provides defense equipment or invests in a pharmaceutical company stood to financially benefit as well. That makes millions of potential terrorists using that argument.
Interesting article, Regular.
But, again, it tends to contradict the FBI’s case.
He did it because he was crazy. No, he did it because he was greedy.
How much money did he actually see because of his vaccine patents?
The article only speculates. Wouldn’t his tax forms have the specifics, and wouldn’t the FBI know this?
Until I see hard facts, which are remarkably few and far between in the only bioterror case in American history, I’m reading the news reports like they come from Pravda.
Qui Bono?
Some people will follow these scoundrels straight to hell.
Sol–
No, I think it was seven hours round trip. But he supposedly made the trip at least twice.
I don’t know where the Florida letters came from.
He could have spirited himself away for 14 hours, but if so, some record somewhere has got to show it.
It’s called police work. The FBI should try it sometime.
This whole thing reminds me of the reports of short-selling of airline stock right before 9-11, so much so that intelligence computers, programmed to loook for exactly that kind of weird trading, were lighting up like pin-ball machines.
Then, nothing.
Years later, we “learn” that there was no short-selling of airline stock.
Riggghhht.
From MP’s link – seems to contradict the MSM LA Times that Regular posted. Wasn’t the MSM that was all over the claim that “Saddam (or Hatfil) did it”?
7. He was under pressure to help Bioport with its substandard anthrax vaccine. So he wanted to help Bioport by creating an attack? That doesn’t make sense. He had proven Bioport’s vaccine had limited efficacy. He knew about the safety data implicating the vaccine in chronic illnesses, particularly autoimmune illnesses. His colleague at Detrick, Phil Pittman, MD, took the possibility the adjuvant was causing illness seriously, and had published on this. Bruce told me he thought he might have a blood illness due to the anthrax vaccinations he had received.
But most critically, Bruce had created new anthrax vaccines designed to replace Bioport’s (now Emergent Biosolutions’) vaccine. Why would he want to do Bioport a favor?
And the vaccine that was used after the attack was Bioport’s (licensed in 1970, when Ivins was still in school) not Ivins’, since Ivins’ vaccines were not licensed or fully tested.
Looks like the admin. is just covering someone’s butt(s).
4. Irvins, B. E., P. F. Fellows, M. L. M. Pitt, J. E. Estep, S.
L. Welkos, P. L.Worsham & A. M. Friedlander, “Efficacy of a
Standard Human Anthrax Vaccine Against Bacillus Anthracis Aerosol
Spore Challenge in Rhesus Monkeys,” Salisbury Medical Bulletin
87(Suppl.):125-126, 1996.
5. Irvins, B. E., P. F. Fellows, J. W. Farchaus, B. E. Benner,
D. M. Waag, S. F. Little, G. W. Anderson, P. H. Gibbs, and A. M.
Friedlander, “Comparative Efficacy of Experimental Anthrax Vaccine
Candidates Against Inhalation Anthrax in Rhesus Macaques,” Vaccine,
16(11-12):1141-1148, 1998.
Michigan Department Anthrax Vaccine The license for Typhoid
of Public Health, Adsorbed, Vaccine was revoked on June
License No. 99 Diphtheria and 25, 1985, at the request of
Tetanus Toxoids the manufacturer. FDA
and Pertussis inadvertently omitted this
Vaccine Adsorbed, information in the December
Pertussis Vaccine 1985 proposal. On November
Adsorbed, Typhoid 11, 1998, a name change to
Vaccine BioPort Corp. (BioPort) with
an accompanying license
number change to 1260 was
granted. The license for
Diphtheria and Tetanus
Toxoids and Pertussis Vaccine
Adsorbed was revoked at the
request of the manufacturer
(BioPort) on November 20,
2000. The license for
Pertussis Vaccine Adsorbed
was revoked at the request of
the manufacturer (BioPort) on
April 22, 2003.
V. Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed
A. The Panel Recommendation that Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed be Placed in
Category I (Safe, Effective, and Not Misbranded)
In its report, the Panel found that Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed (AVA),
manufactured by Michigan Department of Public Health (MDPH now BioPort)
was safe and effective for its intended use and recommended that the
vaccine be placed in Category I. In the December 1985 proposal, FDA
agreed with the Panel’s recommendation. During the comment period for
the December 1985 proposal, FDA received no comments opposing the
placement of AVA into Category I\2\.
\3\ In October 2000, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) convened
the Committee to Assess the Safety and Efficacy of the Anthrax
Vaccine. In March 2002, the Committee issued its report: The Anthrax
Vaccine: Is It Safe? Does It Work? (Ref. 2). The report concluded
that the vaccine is acceptably safe and effective in protecting
humans against anthrax.
http://www.epa.gov/EPA-IMPACT/2004/January/Day-05/i32255.htm
to help Bioport
No $hit. I used to work at Bioport. They are Emergent Biosolutions now. They took a soaking when they bought a multi-million dollar SAP system. Gutted the place, then they were absorbed by an umbrella corp.
If they can’t prove he was at the locations, looks like at the very least they could prove he wasn’t where he would regularly be. Even then it would be circumstantial.
He’s supposed to be a sociopath, but his son wouldn’t sell him out for 2.5 mil. and a sports car of his choice?
Bushco will go down.
FBI also did the old trick of leaning on the daughter hard, while she was in the hospital.
Bushco will go down.
Doubtful. They need to be investigated, but doubt anything will come of it.
How many posters would’ve convicted, if on the jury, and presented the case as we know it?
Based on what I have seen so far? NO.
I especially liked the idea that because he worked nights in the lab that made him suspect. A lot of scientists I know work strange hours.
he worked nights in the lab that made him suspect
Maybe he had a day job as a strip-o-gram dancer? I think the FBI pushed too hard, wrecked his life, and he popped. The ‘bad guy(s)’ are still out there.
Not that I’d ever be on the jury, but based upon what has been made public to date, there exists substantial reasonable doubt in my mind as to “guilt” of the putative defendant in this matter.
Fear was rampant and ramped up by the admin. following 9-11 it’d been overkill for that to have been his motive.
I wouldn’t convict based on what I’ve read so far.
Let’s play with a possible circumstantial case. Suppose we had an attack with an organo-phosphine nerve agent. The agent was mailed from a mailbox near a girl’s dorm at University of Georgia. We have a suspect in Wichita who (a) worked with such agents and (b) once dated a girl in that dorm at UGa. Guilty?
Of course at trial, the prosecutors would’ve most likely passed around photo’s of the victims.
Was he the only one with access to the weapon? I understand that weapons like these have a very distinctive DNA pattern. Like explosives leave signature elements behind. If he did procure the weapon, was he working alone or did he have an accomplice that did the mailing.
If you can’t tie him directly to the weapon, I think his innocence is already proven.
Doubtful. They need to be investigated, but doubt anything will come of it.
This is exactly the forced apathy that is really killing the country. I’m ready for the Second American Revolution. I’m ready to try, convict and hang each and everyone of these Washington people. I want my country back. Now. It only took 3% of the colonists to beat the crown. It’s time again, to do what Jefferson asked of us.
Of course, I suppose one could with a fake IP address (and changing their MAC ID via card switching), use the online postal service to print out a package label for the location they wished and drop it in a nearby mail box drop making it appear the package was mailed at the location stated.
Local postal scanners most likely wouldn’t kick the package out for inspection if the postal zone was close zone-wise.
Sol, from what I’ve read, heard, and understand, while the particular strain of anthrax was in his lab, he was not the only one who had access to the same.
I was surprised to see they even used that obscure? same language Death to America Deat to Israel in a e-mail. Weak, very weak.
drop making it appear the package was mailed at the location stated.
The stamp would be marked by the recieving postal unit. wouldn’t work.
VT,
In my view, the FBI has nothing then.
Read this.
Maybe Google Philip Zack as well.
Ever notice that anyone the CIA wants to smear is rumored to be mentally ill? Seems to be their favorite tactic.
Now it seems their arch-rival, the FBI is taking lessons from the Big Boys. Relentlessly hound their chosen suspect, his family, neighbors and co-workers until the guy commits suicide and use that as proof that the crazy guy was guilty. Case solved by our heroes, the FBI!
“Ever notice that anyone the CIA wants to smear is rumored to be mentally ill? Seems to be their favorite tactic.”
As I recall both the CIA and FBI did research with LSD. Doesn’t take much os a dose …
And most of the shooter’s in those mass killings are “off of their seratonin re-uptake inhibitor’s”?
Sol, from what I’ve read, heard, and understand, while the particular strain of anthrax was in his lab, he was not the only one who had access to the same.
Thats’s what colleague Dr. Meryl Nass said, in point 4 of her critique:
4. Ivins was the “sole custodian” of the strain. But the strain was grown in 1997, and many people had access to it over that four year period. Having received a sample, or obtained it surreptitiously, they would be “custodians” of it too.
http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2008/08/beyond-reasonable-doubt.html (same link as above)
And it’s interesting how the press conference diverged from the affadavit:
2. Earlier, we heard the envelopes came from the specific post office he frequented. Today the affidavit states it is “reasonable to conclude” they were purchased in Maryland or Virginia.
From Pleefer’s link, circa February 2002:
Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, director of the Federation of American Scientists’ chemical and biological weapons program, says the US government has “a strong hunch” about who is behind the anthrax letters, but is “dragging its feet” in the investigation because the chief suspect is a former government scientist with knowledge of “secret activities that the government would not like to see disclosed.” Rosenberg has written a very interesting analysis of the anthrax attacks that leads to one and only one ineluctable conclusion: that the chief culprit was not some Arab terrorist, associated with Al Qaeda or similar groups, but an American, a former US government employee – one who, furthermore, is a middle-aged “insider” in the biodefense field, with a doctoral degree, who probably worked in the USAMRID laboratory, at Fort Detrick, Maryland, still has access – and had some dispute with a government agency.
“and had some dispute with a government agency.”
Or, perhaps someone who hated “liberals” and the “liberal media”
Okay. So it looks like numerous holes in the prosecution’s case, and at the very least persistent rumors of another suspect.
Case closed? Right.
They should start by looking at e-mails to coulter, and rush. Bound to be more than a few suspects there!
Wonder what his political persuasion was?
Couple of interesting exerpts:
Ivins’ attorneys learned of the government’s intent to move forward with the prosecution of their client after he died on Tuesday, but had suspected the case was headed in that direction based on investigators’ focus on the scientist, the source said.
And
The source described the investigation as a “circumstantial case,” with no direct evidence against Ivins, who was one of at least 30 people who had access to the anthrax at various times.
So even if they could exactly pin point the source, at least 30 people had access.
http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5494971&page=1
“The statement also made mention of the fact that in 2003, Ivins received the highest possible civilian honor from the Defense Department, the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service. “We will miss him very much,” it ended.
Doesn’t sound like a loose cannon.
Is the FACT that the White House was on Cipro two months prior to the attacks not news?
Where’s Ari Fleischer now?
Is the FACT that the White House was on Cipro two months prior to the attacks not news?
I’d like to see the documentation on that, please.
A persistent thing that bothers me has less to do with the factual investigations than the political reality. As Greenwald pointed out, as horrific as 9-11 was, it was an isolated incident.
The anthrax attacks–complete with ABC’s convenient complicity–gave the real sense of an ongoing “war” with the bad guys, which just happened to include Saddam Hussein.
I googled it, came up with Judicial watch article requesting documents relating to it. Article said, quoting the press, that some in the wh were immediately put on cipro as precautionary measure following the plane attacks.
Now that’s some planning!
Wonder if they were also issued gas masks?
Also, if some in the Wh were put on cipro, why wasn’t the house and senate members?
Maybe they knew only Democrats would get the letters …
The Judicial watch document request was back in 02, wonder how that came out.
Ari Fleischer said it during a press conference. It’s out in Youtube land.
Be interesting to know if that was SOP, or something done off the cuff.
Here you go, it’s a start.
Here’s the Judicial watch mentioned above:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/1967.shtml
I talked to the guy from the black helicopter that landed in my yard last night and offloaded 20 people in black paramilitay outfits, with UN patches on each shoulder. He said Pat Robertson told Bush he had to poison the Democrats to do God’s will, so Bush had Cheney contact Vince Foster, oh wait, sorry, ayway, Cheney found some janitor that was willing to steal the stuff from Ivins lab, and give it directly to Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh gave it to Michael Savage, who has contacts in the aryan nation, who sent the letters to the Democratic Congressman. Later, the Aryan Nation iced Secretary Ron Brown, oh, sorry again, iced Ivins.
Watch it, you’r making a stronger case than the Fed’s have!
<i.Watch it, you’r making a stronger case than the Fed’s have!
Heh, indeed, Phantom. I hear that new technologies were involved in identifying the flask. I’ll give that it’s due when I read the documents this weekend.
But it’s self-evident that it requires far more of a black-helicopter mentality to uncritically accept the government’s case than to question it.
bth
Posted August 7, 2008 at 1:13 pm | Permalink
“and had some dispute with a government agency.”
Or, perhaps someone who hated “liberals” and the “liberal media”
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
How convenient. Hey stupid, do you think that if someone was going to make this look like the work of the far right, they would have mailed those letters to the National Review or Senator Zell Miller?