Anthrax Scientist Suicide as FBI

The evidence tying Saddam Hussein and the 9-11 hijackers to the anthrax attacks is overwhelming. For anybody else to be involved, they'd have to have been in on the 9-11 attack itself.

Aw, ****, gunga. Do you really believe that, or are you just trying to make conservatives look stupid?

gunga continues to demonstrate that the threshold of proof that he accepts is remarkeably low.

.

Gunga is a dead snake walking.


The new site has an ignore feature....and a mad snake button....

But if we ignore gunga - Where to look for such jocularity?

Erm...people with a functioning brain?

But, if we ignore him, he might ignore us !!!?

One can only hope.

Tell me please, you don't really honestly believe this crap we're being fed, do you? These little attempts by the Bush admin. to pull together all of the extremely loose strands of the fabrication that has been constructed to make Americans believe we live in a constant state of terrorism? They are so pitifully late and so useless.

Somebody would have to work a whole lot harder than they have to prove this newest piece of bullshit to me. You still have those first anthrax cases turning up ten miles from where the 9-11 jackers were staying and the first case that of a husband of a lady renting a room to one of them.

I mean, you either believe in the laws of probability and mathematics oryou don't.

Re: Anthrax Scientist's Therapist Was "Scared To Death&


It's hard to make up bullshit like that.

gunga, the laws of probability really don't support your conclusions, which could just as easily be chalked up to mere coincidence.
And don't you really think the government would have loved to pin the anthrax attacks on the same people involved in 9/11, if they could? But the government couldn't find or substantiate the connections which you seem to think are so obvious.

Based on the little evidence disclosed thus far, I'm not convinced that Dr. Ivins did it either. There really is lack of a substantial motive on his part. There is also the fact that Dr. Ivins research involved working with Anthrax in liquid form, and his colleagues have said they are not aware that he had the ability to convert it to a powdered substance. If true, that's a very big missing link in this puzzle, and a big missing link in the evidence against him. I want the F.B.I. to release all of the evidence they had against Ivins, so the public can scrutinize it and judge for themselves.

I don't doubt that having the F.B.I. hound him for the past year of his life may have caused Ivins to psychologically crack up--whether or not he was guilty of the anthrax attacks. In the few weeks before his death he clearly was a danger to himself and others. One wonders why they would have been so fast to release him from a psychiatric hospital after he had made clear specific death threats during his outpatient group therapy, but they don't appear to have kept him in the hospital very long at all. Did the F.B.I. have anything to do with that decision? Did they want him out of the hospital in order to be able to better continue their surveillance or investigation?

I'm not sure I entirely believe some of the assertions put forth about Ivins. Things like:



and



If such statements are true, why was Ivins not arrested, charged, and convicted for such actions at the time they occurred? And, why the hell, was the government employing a known homicidal individual--and giving him a high level security clearance? If this information about Ivins was available, why didn't anyone, including the government, take some action against him at the time? It makes no sense.

Some might see Ivins suicide as an admission of guilt on the part of a man who felt cornered and trapped by the F.B.I. Others might see an innocent man who was humiliated, and literally hounded to death, by the F.B.I.

In either case, Ivins death will likely leave many unanswered questions regarding this case. But, if the F.B.I. does not release all of the information they do have against Ivins, that will raise even more questions about how they were handling this investigation, and whether they were simply targeting yet another, possibly innocent, government scientist. For the sake of Ivins reputation, as well as the peace of mind of the public, the F.B.I. should release all the information they have.

firefly, your posts are always so knowledgeable and well-informed. Are there any particular news publications you read on a regular basis (and can recommend?).

You always seem to have a well balanced view of the issues.

Source

Thank you, Walter. The man was never convicted, but, I think we can lay the case to rest now.

I do not agree. This is a rush to judgment. There are still too many unanswered questions in this case. It is based on circumstantial evidence which I do not find overwhelmingly convincing. If I were on a jury, and this was the evidence presented to me, I would not find him guilty. I think much of this "evidence" would be discredited under cross-examination at trial.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------





----------------------------------------------------------------------


The explanation of motive is very weak. Of course the man thought the development of an anthrax vaccine was essential--he had been working on such a vaccine long before 2001, that was his work. As a government employee, he would not have gained substantial financial benefit from developing such a vaccine, and he really had no strong motive to send anthrax laced letters in order to generate interest or financial grants to promote the development of such a vaccine since the government (including Dr Ivins) was already working to develop a safe, effective vaccine.

Dr Ivins was not the only person with access to that particular strain of Anthrax. I think at least 10 other people, in Ivins' lab alone, had access to that particular anthrax. Absolutely no traces of anthrax were ever found in Ivins home or in his car. They had no evidence actually placing him in the locations from which any of the anthrax letters were mailed. There is no explanation for how Ivins would have the knowledge or ability to covert the liquid anthrax he worked with to its powdered form.

The explanation for why the anthrax-laced letters were sent to particular recipients is so weak I think it borders on the far-fetched. It seems a ridiculous stretch and simply designed to find some way to tie the recipients to Ivins.

Ivins obviously had serious psychiatric and alcohol problems in the last year of his life--when the F.B.I. was relentlessly hounding him--but this is neither an indication of guilt, nor an indication that he had serious psychiatric problems in 2001. He may have had his quirks, but no one of his colleagues describes him as being overtly paranoid, psychotic, homicidal, etc. for all those years he worked with them in a government laboratory. I think the government is seizing on an alleged "long history of mental problems" in an attempt to provide some other explanation of his motives.

One must keep in mind that the government also wrongly targeted another scientist before they latched onto Ivins. It is also possible that someone set Ivins up to deflect suspicion onto him.

The government has also offered no strong evidence for their belief that the anthrax attacks were the work of one lone individual. Unfortunately, the government has also done this sort of thing before, in other investigations. How have they eliminated any possibility that anyone else was involved?

There is not one shred of direct evidence that incontrovertably ties Dr Ivins to the anthrax attacks.

The F.B.I. may feel this case is closed, the public should not be so ready to agree with them.


Those who are really interested in this case should read some of the very serious issues being raised by people who are questioning the F.B.I.'s conclusions.

In that regard, Glen Greenwald's comments are particularly thought provoking. Read all of his updates as well.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/index.html#postid-updateF2

and

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/05/anthrax/index.html

Greenwald is now examining the documents the government released today, so his continuing comments should be interesting.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/06/fbi_documents/index.html

And, these comments, by an expert in anthrax and bio-terrorism, are also worth reading.

http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2008/08/beyond-reasonable-doubt.html


----------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------
Thank you for the nice compliment, Stray Cat. I listen to cable news and read the NY Times, and a variety of other news sources on the internet. If I'm interested in a topic, I try to track down as much info as possible. When I mull something over in my mind I try to look at it from all sides before I form an opinion. I do that with pretty much everything. It's my form of mental exercise.