General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFBI’s genetic tests didn’t nail anthrax killer, GAO says
WASHINGTON For a second time in three years, an inquiry cast doubt Friday on the FBIs assertion that genetic testing had cinched its conclusion that a now-dead Army bioweapons researcher mailed anthrax-laced letters that killed five people and terrorized the East Coast in 2001.
The long-awaited report from the Government Accountability Office found that the FBIs exhaustive, cutting-edge attempt to trace the killer with matches of genetic mutations of anthrax samples at times lacked precision, consistency and adequate standards.
The 77-page report, perhaps the final official word on the FBIs seven-year investigation known as Amerithrax, lent credence to a National Academy of Sciences panels finding in 2011 that the bureaus scientific evidence did not definitely show that the anthrax came from the Maryland bioweapons laboratory of Bruce Ivins.
The reports findings also mirrored some of the conclusions of a joint investigation by McClatchy, ProPublica and PBS Frontline that was published and aired in the fall of 2011.
Shortly after Ivins took a suicidal drug overdose on July 29, 2008, federal prosecutors said theyd been drafting criminal charges against him, and they declared the scientist at Fort Detrick, Md., the culprit. In 2010, they laid out an extensive circumstantial case against him, presenting as a smoking gun the findings of genetic testing by outside laboratories that matched four distinct mutations in the anthrax spores in the letters with those in a flask full of anthrax in Ivins laboratory.
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/12/19/250715_fbis-genetic-tests-didnt-nail.html?sp=%2F99%2F200%2F&rh=1#storylink=cpy
Inquiry in Anthrax Mailings Had Gaps, Report Says
On Friday, Representative Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat and physicist who requested the study, said the report confirms what I have often said that the F.B.I.s definitive conclusions about the accuracy of their scientific findings in the Amerithrax case are not, in fact, definitive. The United States needs a comprehensive, independent review of the Amerithrax investigation to ensure we have learned the lessons from this bio attack.
Mr. Holt has repeatedly called for a national commission on the anthrax mailings that would serve as a kind of scaled-down version of the panel that studied the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The anthrax letters were sent from a mailbox in Princeton, N.J., which is in his district.
The deadly wisps of anthrax, coming just after the September attacks, set off new waves of panic. Over the years, a growing number of outside experts have asked whether federal investigators got the right man and whether the F.B.I.s long inquiry brushed aside important clues.
To the regret of independent scientists, the report made no mention of an issue beyond genetics: whether the spores displayed signs of advanced manufacturing. They have pointed to distinctive chemicals found in the dried anthrax spores that they say contradict F.B.I. claims that the germs were unsophisticated
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/20/science/inquiry-in-anthrax-mailings-had-gaps-report-says.html?_r=1
Feral Child
(2,086 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)took the anti anthrax medicine.
Washington Post.
''On the night of the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House Medical Office dispensed Cipro to staff accompanying Vice President Dick Cheney as he was secreted off to the safety of Camp David, and told them it was a precaution, according to one person directly involved.''
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20011023/aponline201158_000.htm
GeorgeGist
(25,323 posts)not a vaccine.
SkyDaddy7
(6,045 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)CT now means
Cheney theory
which if its not cheney then shoot me in the face and torture me.
sofa king
(10,857 posts)The doctor who prescribed the Cipro to Cheney also recommended an upstart FBI agent named John O'Neill for a new job on top of the World Trade Center. He was also the doctor who identified the body of O'Neill when it was recovered some weeks later in the rubble of WTC.
But we've all decided that that and a thousand other coincidences were pure accident of circumstance. Thank god W kept us safe.
shraby
(21,946 posts)KoKo
(84,711 posts)At least some White House personnel were given Cipro six weeks ago. White House officials won't discuss who might be receiving the anthrax-treating antibiotic now.
On the night of the Sept. 11 attacks, the White House Medical Office dispensed Cipro to staff accompanying Vice President Dick Cheney as he was secreted off to the safety of Camp David, and told them it was "a precaution," according to one person directly involved.
At that time, nobody could guess the dimensions of the terrorists' plot.
Now, Bush said on Tuesday, "There's no question that the evil-doers are continuing to try to harm America and Americans."
The president spoke in an afternoon Cabinet Room meeting with members of Congress, minutes after his press secretary announced that a "small concentration" of anthrax spores were found on the slitter machine that opens White House mail at a Secret Service-controlled facility on property shared by the Anacostia Naval Station and Bolling Air Force Base.
madokie
(51,076 posts)I'll always believe that dick had something to do with this
jakeXT
(10,575 posts)Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Dashel and Leahy got the most intense highly weaponized anthrax strain out of all the letters.
It also pushed the Saddam WMD propaganda for the Administration
Well shoot me in the face and torture me... I can't imagine who could have been this evil to do this.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)The killer is still at large. The FBI hounded Ivans to suicide.
WovenGems
(776 posts)The feds tried harassment in Atlanta after the bombing of the Olympics. But the bad guy turned out to be a known right wing nut case. Pick a dude and declare him guilty is the new MO for the FBI.
johnnyreb
(915 posts)Ivins' attorney: "I only wish we could have had a trial." (from the mcclatchy link)
Another article:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/12/2-u-s-government-agencies-say-fbis-anthrax-case-full-holes.html
True Blue Door
(2,969 posts)but I can't escape my circumstantial impressions at the time that right after the anthrax attacks - ones targeted mainly, I might add, at Democratic Senators - they became incredibly compliant to Bush regime demands, and seemed physically frightened whenever the subject of Bush and his War on Terra came up.