Science panel doubts Ivins link to attack anthrax (meaning: FBI lies when it says case closed)

[JackRiddler]

So sick of the lies! This was one of the founding events of the present American order.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/15/AR2011021502251_pf.html

Anthrax report casts doubt on scientific evidence in FBI case against Bruce Ivins

By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 15, 2011; 11:31 AM


A panel of prominent scientists is casting new doubt on scientific evidence that was a key part of the FBI's case against Bruce E. Ivins, the deceased Army scientist accused of carrying out the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks. The National Research Council, in a report issued Tuesday (read the 39-page summary), questioned the link between a flask of anthrax bacteria in Ivins's lab at Fort Detrick, Md., and the anthrax-infested letters that killed five people and sickened 17 others.

The Justice Department has said genetic testing conclusively linked the letters to spores in the flask - labeled RMR-1029 - found at the laboratory, where Ivins was a longtime researcher before committing suicide in 2008. The government closed the case last year after concluding that Ivins had single-handedly prepared and mailed the deadly anthrax spores, an incident that terrorized a nation still reeling from the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. "The scientific link between the letter material and flask number RMR-1029 is not as conclusive as stated in the DOJ Investigative Summary,'' said the $1.1 million report by the council, which was commissioned by the FBI. The document added, however, that the "genetic evidence is consistent with and supports an association between the RMR-1029 flask.''

The report, while praising the FBI's energetic pursuit of emerging science in the investigation, offered another possible explanation for the apparent link between the letters and the Ivins flask and said it "was not rigorously explored.'' The 190-page document by the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences also said the FBI's scientific methods in collecting samples of the strain of anthrax used in the attacks were "not optimal,'' and it said the authors could not verify the government's contention that only Ivins and a select group of scientists possessed the required expertise to prepare the spore-laden letters.

"This shows what we've been saying all along: that it was all supposition based on conjecture based on guesswork, without any proof whatsoever,'' said Paul Kemp, a lawyer who represented Ivins in negotiations with federal prosecutors who were preparing to charge him before his death. Kemp called for congressional hearings into the investigation.

SNIP - LINK
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/15/AR2011021502251_pf.html

[EFerrari]

1. FBI changes their story AGAIN.

"The FBI has long maintained that while science played a significant role, it was the totality of the investigative process that determined the outcome of the anthrax case,'' the FBI and Justice Department said in a joint statement. "Although there have been great strides in forensic science over the years, rarely does science alone solve an investigation.''

Oh, really?!

Here is Mueller on 9/17/2008 pitching the idea that the SCIENCE would make his case, @ 28:00

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/InvestigationOv

Unfortunately, his lead expert had already said on 9/10/2008 that science alone couldn't do that:

"I never felt that the science alone would ever solve this investigation," Fraser-Liggett concluded.

http://bit.ly/hhyzur

And since Mueller's testimony to the Senate, both the National Academy of Science and the National Research Council's studies have not validated his claims.

So, now the FBI says, it's the totality of evidence that makes their case, in other words, they have a whole lotta nothin'.

No one who worked with Ivins believes he had the tech to do that, no means. No one can find a motive. And the FBI can't place him or anyone connected with him at the scene, so no opportunity either.

The FBI has no case against Bruce Ivins. There is no credible resolution of the anthrax attacks. But, it looks like, that's not a problem for anyone in our government.

What the fuck is that.

[suffragette]

9. Yep, and here's a picture of their case so far

Actually, it has more holes than that swiss cheese, but I couldn't find a pic that would show that and still be identifiable as cheese.

[hootinholler]

14. Meanwhile a bright scientist was hounded into suicide

There should be charges filed against the investigators.

-Hoot

[Mnemosyne]

2. K&R for more visibility. n/t

[Botany]

3. Bruce Ivins was the fall guy for a black ops operation

We do know that the bush administration knew within 2 weeks of the Anthrax
attacks in 2001 that the strain of Anthrax came from Ft. Dettrick, MD and they
used the fear of more anthrax attacks to stifle the press, get the patriot act
through congress, and had Colin Powell sell the UN the mobile biological weapons
labs story.

[EFerrari]

4. We know it came from Ft. Deterick but we don't know

what its route was to the attacks because the lab *shared* the strain over the years with other researchers at other locations.

Which is one reason the case against Ivins is total bullshit. That and the fact that maybe two hundred people had access to that vial -- which turned out to be more than one vial.

It's bullshit, all of it.

[Botany]

5. I remember reading that Ivans did not have the knowledge or access

to the equipment that would turn the anthrax into a weapons grade product
which would make the anthrax volatile so it would be inhaled by the victims.

Ivans' suicide was strange too why on earth would a PhD in biology take
something (tylenol and something else) that would take such a long and
painful way to kill himself?

This is kind of like Dr. Kelly's death in England because things just
don't add up in this case.

The one thing we can be sure of is that the anthrax sure didn't come from Iraq.

[EFerrari]

8. No one at the lab believes he knew how to do that.

In fact, there are witnesses who remember his amazed reaction when he got the sample he was supposed to evaluate for the FBI -- because the anthrax was so motile and he'd never seen anything like it.

I tend to believe his suicide was a suicide. He had psych issues and the FBI had hounded him and his family long enough to push him over the edge. Maybe, to push him exactly over the edge.

[Ignis]

6. K&R.

What a ridiculous "investigation" this has been.

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JackRiddler]

10. Bush-era plumbers.

[JackRiddler]

12. next-day kick

[JackRiddler]

17. Is the murder of David Kelly not an acceptable subject to discuss here?

[JohnyCanuck]

11. While who exactly might have originated this anthrax attack might be open to question..

It seems pretty clear it was a classic false flag attack designed by the perpetrators to pin the blame for the attack on Muslim terrorists as the messages included with the letters included statements such as "Down with Israel", "Allah is great" etc.

So the moral of the story, I guess, is be aware that false flag attacks do occur, and it's always wise to bear in mind the sentiments expressed in my sig line.

[Solly Mack]

13. K&R

[wildbilln864]

15. kick! nt

[JackRiddler]

21. k, man!

[Poboy]

16. How unfortunate that it is too late to recommend.

[JackRiddler]

22. It's never too late for a daily kick, though!

[Kingofalldems]

18. Special Prosecutor needed--Big Time

[Ganja Ninja]

19. Three American's murdered but none of them were rich so ...

no harm no foul.

[JackRiddler]

20. Greenwald weighs in, thoroughly and passionately as always...

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/16/ivans/index.html

SNIP

From the start, it was obvious that the FBI's case against Ivins was barely more persuasive than its case against Hatfill had been. The allegations were entirely circumstantial; there was no direct evidence tying Ivins to the mailings; and there were huge, glaring holes in both the FBI's evidentiary and scientific claims. So dubious was the FBI's case that even the nation's most establishment media organs, which instinctively trust federal law enforcement agencies, expressed serious doubts and called for an independent investigation (that included, among many others, the editorial pages of The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal). Mainstream scientific sources were equally skeptical; Nature called for an independent investigation and declared in its editorial headline: "Case Not Closed," while Dr. Alan Pearson, Director of the Biological and Chemical Weapons Control Program at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation -- representative of numerous experts in the field -- expressed many scientific doubts and also demanded a full independent investigation. I devoted much time to documenting just some of the serious flaws in the FBI's evidentiary claims, as well as the use of anonymous FBI leaks to unquestioning reporters to convince the public of their validity (see here, here, here, and here).

Doubts about the FBI's case were fully bipartisan. In August, 2008, The New York Times documented "vocal skepticism from key members of Congress." One of the two intended Senate recipients of the anthrax letters, Sen. Patrick Leahy, flatly stated at a Senate hearing in September, 2008, that he does not believe the FBI's case against Ivins, and emphatically does not believe that Ivins acted alone. Then-GOP Sen. Arlen Specter, at the same hearing, told the FBI they could never have obtained a conviction against Ivins in court based on their case -- riddled, as it is, with so much doubt -- and he also demanded an independent evaluation of the FBI's evidence. And in separate interviews with me, GOP Sen. Charles Grassley and Democratic Rep. Rush Holt (a physicist who represents the New Jersey district from which the anthrax letters were mailed) expressed substantial doubts about the case against Ivins and called for independent investigations.

Despite all of this, the FBI managed to evade calls for an independent investigation by announcing that it had asked the National Academy of Sciences to convene a panel to review only the FBI's scientific and genetic findings (but not to review its circumstantial case against Ivins or explore the possibility of other culprits). The FBI believed that its genetic analysis was the strongest aspect of their case against Ivins -- that it definitively linked Ivins' research flask to the spores in the mailed anthrax -- and that once the panel publicly endorsed the FBI's scientific claims, it would vindicate the FBI's case and end calls for a full-scale investigation into the accusations against Ivins.

But yesterday, the National Academy panel released its findings, and it produced a very unpleasant surprise for the FBI (though it was entirely unsurprising for those following this case). As The New York Times put it in an article headlined "Expert Panel Is Critical of F.B.I. Work in Investigating Anthrax Letters": "A review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s scientific work . . . concludes that the bureau overstated the strength of genetic analysis linking the mailed anthrax to a supply kept by Bruce E. Ivins"; while the panel noted that the genetic findings are "consistent" with the claim that Ivins mailed the letters and can "support" an association, the evidence is far from "definitive," as the FBI had long suggested. The report, commissioned by the FBI, specifically concluded that "the scientific link between the letter material and flask number RMR-1029 is not as conclusive as stated in the DOJ Investigative Summary." This morning's Washington Post article -- headlined: "Anthrax report casts doubt on scientific evidence in FBI case against Bruce Ivins" -- noted that "the report reignited a debate that has simmered among some scientists and others who have questioned the strength of the FBI's evidence against Ivins."

In addition to reigniting doubts, the report has also reignited calls for an independent investigation into the entire FBI case.....

SNIP