Scientists Slam FBI Anthrax Probe
November 03, 2008
New York Post

It was an open-and-shut case, the FBI said.

But three months after agents pinned the post-9/11 anthrax mailings on Army scientist Bruce Ivins - who committed suicide as the FBI closed in on him - his former colleagues have approached a lawyer to sue the feds for fingering the wrong man, The Post has learned.

They argue that the FBI abused its power and violated its own policies as they probed an innocent man for six months.

One of Ivins' former colleagues was being aggressively pressured to confess to the crimes just two months before Ivins killed himself on July 29, he told The Post. And he identified at least one other employee who was under the same pressure.

Seven Years Later: Electrons Unlocked Post-9/11 Anthrax Mail Mystery
A key part of the FBI's early investigation was finding whether the germ that killed five people in late 2001 was weaponized. Although they found the answer, scientists had to keep mum until the agency completed its inquiry

By Larry Greenemeier

When materials scientist Joseph Michael and his team at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., trained their high-powered electron microscope on anthrax spore samples the FBI had sent them in February 2002, they made two crucial discoveries: The first confirmed previous findings that the Bacillus anthracis spores mailed to U.S. Senate offices and various media outlets (shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks) contained silicon, a substance used to turn anthrax-causing spores into a biological weapon.

I posted a link to my article on Glenn Greenwald's blog on Salon last night, and Greenwald has replied with this comment:

"None of what you wrote or accuse me of has anything to do with what I think. I never said I know who perpetrated the anthrax attacks because . . . I don't know, because . . . I haven't seen the evidence. What I have seen is unconvincing, but I find people like you who just invent theories without facts and then think you've discovered Truth to be exactly the same as those who blindly believe whatever the Government says."

All I want from him is an explanation, as I said here:

Greenwald backpedals

On August 3, 2008, Glen Greenwald wrote in Salon:

"It is so vital to emphasize that not a shred of evidence has yet been presented that the now-deceased Bruce Ivins played any role in the anthrax attacks, let alone that he was the sole or even primary culprit."

Now, in his retraction, er, update from yesterday, he writes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/opinion/20wed2.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

August 20, 2008
Editorial
Too Little Information

An F.B.I. briefing on Monday was supposed to bolster the agency’s conclusion that a lone, disturbed bioterrorism scientist was responsible for the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people, sickened 17 others and terrified the country. It fell short of its goal.

The F.B.I. spent years pointing a finger at a different suspect. It is not enough for the agency to brush off continuing skepticism. “There’s always going to be a spore on a grassy knoll,” Vahid Majidi, the chief of the agency’s weapons of mass destruction division told reporters.

A group of independent experts needs to look hard at the F.B.I.’s technical analysis and detective work that combined to convince investigators that the mailed anthrax must have come from Dr. Bruce Ivins, a scientist at the Army’s bioterrorism lab in Fort Detrick in Maryland.

Excellent.

http://antiwar.com/print/?articleid=13270

The Anthrax Follies and the Bizarro Effect
The case against Bruce Ivins is pathetic

by Justin Raimondo
August 8, 2008

The release of the FBI's "evidence" against Bruce Ivins, the now-deceased Ft. Detrick scientist targeted by the FBI as the alleged culprit in the 2001 anthrax letters case, demonstrates either (1) the FBI is covering for the real culprits, or (2) what we are witnessing is a dramatic drop in the intelligence of the average FBI official – maybe it's something in the water.

In making the case for the latter, I offer as exhibit number-one the FBI's contention [.pdf file] that the origin of the return address on some of the anthrax-laden envelopes – "Greendale School" – was explained by Ivins' membership in the American Family Association, a group of Christian fundamentalists who often lobby and litigate on behalf of conservative causes: