Portrait Emerges of Anthrax Suspect’s Troubled Life

[underpants]

Source: NY Times


“I read that e-mail, and I thought, He did it,” the fellow scientist, Nancy Haigwood, said in a recent interview.

That examination found that unless new evidence were to surface, the enormous public investment in the case would appear to have yielded nothing more persuasive than a strong hunch, based on a pattern of damning circumstances, that Dr. Ivins was the perpetrator.

The agents also found e-mail messages in which Dr. Ivins confessed to alarming psychiatric problems. During paranoid episodes, he wrote, he felt like “a passenger on a ride.” Even as he worked at his desk, he wrote, “I’m also a few feet away watching me do it.”

A Life Coming Apart
Last March, after drinking the fruit juice and vodka mix that he had come to rely on and adding a big dose of Valium, he passed out and was discovered by his wife, Diane. Despite his denials, she was convinced it was a suicide attempt.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/04/us/04anthrax.html?pagewanted=6&hp

---

This entire article is a MESS. I posted only 4 paragraphs out of a 7 page NYT report. I don't know if Ivins did it but the writing of the article itself is textbook bullshit-they basically damn him, then remind everyone why this was so scary following 9/11, and then claim that their was "enormous public investment" when in fact it was hardly covered.

One last quote
Nor, in his e-mail messages and conversations with confidants, could agents find any hint of a confession. One colleague who knew Dr. Ivins well told them, “If Bruce had done this, he never would have been able to keep quiet about it.”

[EFerrari]

1. Nancy Haigwood's whole operation depends on fed funds.

She's not a good actor or a credible witness.

It is interesting though, that the FBI / Bush InJustice Department is resurrecting her bullshit.

I've yet to find anyone, fyi, that agrees to this kind of testimony who doesn't depend on fed funds for their operations. :hi:

[underpants]

2. After the setup-this is the order of the section parts

Fearing an Attack
Odd and Pressing
Focus on Hatfill
Sudden Interest
Evidence Problems
A Life Coming Apart
One Last Message

[EFerrari]

6. Reading now.n/t

[wordpix]

10. to me, she sounds absolutely credible---why do you say she's not a "good actor?"

[EFerrari]

11. Several reasons. I spent a lot of time running down her claims.

First, you need to know that her operation is funded by Federal funds. Like all the rest of the FBI "witnesses", Nancy gets her check from the government.

Second, she has no proof whatsoever that Ivins was in any way responsible for the graffitti on her property.

Third, she claims he was stalking her when, according to the dates she gives, he wasn't even in the area. He and his family were long gone. And she also claims that as an FBI informant, her continued correspondence with him was "cordial". How many stalkers do you know that get nicer over time?

It's innuendo, all of it. She has nothing and the FBI also has nothing.

ETA: Nancy's operation has had ongoing problems with undercover animal rights activists infiltrating, getting hired and documenting abuse. Iirc, her most recent problems have gone away. :shrug:

[get the red out]

3. Sounds like the poor guy was an alcoholic

but they don't tend to be the best secret-keepers on earth. Standard, find the most mixed up person in the vicinity and push their guilt. Helps if they are dead too.

[underpants]

4. I agree on all four points you made

textbook

[yardwork]

5. Yeah. He was an odd-ball. An eccentric. An easy target.

I don't believe that he was behind the anthrax attacks, and I think that he was probably murdered.

[nebenaube]

7. ah... brown fibers...

now... who had access to the stuff in 1992?

[MannyGoldstein]

8. The First Sentence On The Front Page Says It Was Only A Hunch

"The anthrax investigation yielded nothing more than a strong hunch that Dr. Bruce E. Ivins was the perpetrator, a Times examination found."

[EFerrari]

9. There is not a single new fact here. I'm ashamed of Shane.

He's simply put together all the sh!t that was already dealt with -- as if for the first time.

I wonder why.

[wordpix]

12. I don't agree wtih your comment about the article being "a mess." I think it was informative

and I came away from it thinking Ivins definitely could have done it. He scared women and his wife found him untrustworthy with his gun buying.

The Frederick, MD water chemistry test also convinces me he could have done it, not to mention the late nights at work and the anthrax came out of Ivins' lab.

[pilsner]

13. Ivins was a Democrat

and the antrax showed up in the offices of Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Chairmn of the Judiciary Cmte Pat Leahy's offices.

This was right when the Patriot Act was being considered by Congress and Daschle and Leahy were the only two members of Congress who could block the Patriot Act.

And then, the two senators offices were swarmed by Federal agents digging through their papers.

I'm not even gonna bother to read the NYT story as I'm sure they ignored those little tidbits.

[EFerrari]

17. The media has tried to make him out as some kind of rabid right wing Catholic

future abortion clinic bomber or something. He wasn't. It was his wife that was very active in anti-choice. He had no reason to be mad at Pat or Tom at all. That always gets left out, too.

[underpants]

14. Okay

thanks for you input. I mean that seriously, I get what you are saying. I don't know but this article stinks like old fish to me. :shrug:

[EFerrari]

16. It stinks to you because there is nothing new in it except for a few comments

by Mrs. Ivins and because it rehashes stuff that has already been debunked -- like the claim that he didn't report the spill. He did report the spill to his Ethics Officer. It was buried in a WSJ article.

Shane is one of the best reporters at the NYTs, imo. This article is a mess and very disappointing coming from him of all people. He was the one that deconstructed the "one beaker" bs.

[EFerrari]

15. No. Remember the endless repetition of "one beaker"

"in his custody" that the DNA could be traced to? Well, it turns out there was more than one beaker in more than two buildings and that tens of people had access to it. In other words, the "one beaker" meme was pure bullshit.

Same with the "he scares women" bs. There was so much wrong with Jean Duley's testimony, she was fired from her job. Just about every single thing she said turned out to be cr@p. The Nancy Haigwood material blows up in exactly the same way. I know several women that either worked with Ivins or were his neighbors. None of them found him scary in any way. In fact, most of the people who have come out to debunk the bs have been women.

This story is so full of holes, you could strain pasta with it. :)

/sorry, bad typing