* the first (of many expected) emails from Dr. Bruce Ivins in the crucial 2000-2001 time frame
Posted by DXer on September 16, 2009
click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein … one reader says … “Case Closed reads fast and well. It could have happened just the way the author said. Full of intrigue mixed in with almost current events. The real people are just behind the fictional ones.”
******
DXer … has forwarded several of Dr. Ivins’ emails recently received from USAMRIID. He reports that many more pages are expected and that he appreciates the hard work of the people overseeing the FOI production from USAMRIID.
Dr. Bruce Ivins
******
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CASE CLOSED ... what really happened in the 2001 anthrax attacks? 
DXer said
http://www.iowapolitics.com/index.iml?Article=170440
U.S. Sen. Grassley: Statement on FBI oversight hearing (9/16)
9/17/2009
Chairman Leahy, thank you for calling this hearing today. I appreciate your commitment to holding these semi-annual oversight hearings. I thank Director Mueller for coming up here today to discuss some very important matters and answer questions candidly. First and foremost, I’d be remiss if I didn’t start off this hearing in the same way I’ve had to start FBI Oversight hearings for the last two years—with a discussion of outstanding documents and questions that have gone unanswered. In March of this year, Director Mueller testified before this Committee and I expressed my concerns and frustration at the lack of responsiveness from the FBI in answering questions submitted by all members of the Judiciary Committee. Director Mueller shared in my frustrations noting that the FBI had provided responses to outstanding questions to the Department of Justice for review, but that the Department has not yet provided them to Congress.
As we stand here today we have questions from a previous FBI Oversight hearing dated March 2008 that remain outstanding and unanswered. That hearing was held over a year and a half ago. Not having responses to these questions is beyond unacceptable.
The Committee did receive a batch of responses from the March 2008 hearing in September 2008, but that document indicated that more responses were on the way. Unfortunately, those responses never came. Perhaps more disheartening is that we’ve received all the responses to questions from the September 2008 and March 2009 hearings in the intervening time. So, the question is did the Department simply forget to get back to the Committee or do they have something to hide? I’ll also note, that we just received the questions from the March 2009 FBI hearing last evening at 5:15PM. While I appreciate the fact we actually received a response, it hardly provides adequate time to prepare for today’s hearing.
The delay in responding to our questions in a timely and accurate manner is causing other problems. For example, an article run by the Associated Press this morning details an ongoing dispute between the FBI and the ATF. The article discusses a draft report by the Office of the Inspector General which states that the Department of Justice has failed to fix the problems of cooperation between the two agencies. I have been asking questions about the relationship between the FBI and ATF for over two years, and my last question on this topic was submitted to Director Mueller in September of 2008. Unfortunately, I never received an adequate response. In fact, the response I did receive from the Department of Justice simply stated that the Department had received input from the FBI and wanted an opportunity to respond on behalf of all Department agencies. That response from the Department on behalf of all agencies never came.
***
I find it completely unacceptable that as a member of the Judiciary Committee, I get more information from a newspaper article than directly from the Department of Justice.
***
Whistleblower Protections for FBI Employees
In February of this year, I joined a number of my colleagues in sponsoring S.372, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2009. This vital legislation will update and enhance whistleblower protections for all government employees. The Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee marked-up this legislation on July 29, 2009, and introduced a substitute bill that included a dangerous provision that strikes the current whistleblower protection system for FBI employees. I have serious concerns about this provision given how hard I had to fight to get the current system in place.
After looking into this matter, it now appears that all the sponsors of the bill agree this provision should to be removed. I’m glad to be leading the charge to knock this ill conceived provision out of the legislation. However, I’m concerned with where it came from and who authored it. One media source stated that the provision was included “at the behest of the FBI.” So, Director Mueller, was that troubling provision included at your request, the request of other FBI officials, or someone else? Director Mueller you have repeatedly stated before this Committee that you will not tolerate any retaliation against whistleblowers so I want to find out: (1) how this provision came to be, (1) if the FBI had a hand in it, and (3) if the FBI did have a hand in it, how he reconciles his previous statements with this effort to strike existing protections.
DXer said
Turning back to the issue raised by a comment by Ike, the Washington Post did report that it was the Ames strain that was used in the CIA project aimed at defending against an antibiotic strain. The article says investigators were considering a financial motive and looking at contractors who worked on the CIA project. At the time of the anthrax mailings, what company stood to profit from cleanup efforts? What companies did profit? What contractors worked on the CIA project? The company at which the former Zawahiri associate headed the DARPA project and was the lead co-inventor/principal received $50 million in investment. His very small company was one of the two tested in the clean-up of the Capitol. Given he acknowledges being supplied virulent Ames by Bruce Ivins, what does he say about when his research with virulent Ames under Bruce’s supervision occurred? The first subpoenas out the door were to LSU and University of Michigan — Porton Down had not even been contacted while the FBI followed up more pressing leads. If Senator Grassley today is giving Director Mueller a hard time about the provision protecting FBI whistleblowers and about the FBI’s failure to respond to Congressional inquiries, maybe Senator Grassley’s staff should read more of the “open source” intelligence on these issues.
http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com
Source: Washington Post, December 21, 2001.
FBI Investigates Possible Financial Motive in Anthrax Attacks
By Susan Schmidt and Joby Warrick, Washington Post Staff Writers
The FBI is pursuing the possibility that financial gain was the motive behind the mailing of letters containing deadly anthrax bacteria and has conducted extensive interviews of personnel at two laboratories and possibly more, according to government officials.
Although investigators have not ruled out other possible motives, they have conducted dozens of interviews in at least two labs to determine whether potential profit from the sale of anthrax medications or cleanup efforts may have motivated the bioterrorist believed responsible for the attacks, the officials said.
The current line of inquiry represents a deepening interest in one possible motive for investigators, who have examined a range of scenarios since the anthrax attacks on media and government representatives began this fall. Authorities have probed whether foreign terrorists or homegrown extremists are responsible for the attacks but have come to favor the theory that the bioterrorism is likely the work of an individual operating in this country.
Investigators are still looking at a wide range of possible motives, including revenge and an attempt to implicate Iraq. Although authorities believe the person who mailed the anthrax spores may have some scientific expertise, they are not convinced the person necessarily produced it. The material could have been stolen, officials have said.
The focus on a profit motive may help explain why the FBI has yet to seek samples of anthrax spores from two foreign laboratories known to possess Ames-strain anthrax microbes that genetically match the material sent to Sens. Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) and Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.). Those labs are the Canadian armed forces’ Defence Research Establishment Suffield (DRES) and Britain’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratories at Porton Down.
Spokesmen for the two foreign laboratories said they have not been contacted by the FBI or asked for samples of their germ stocks. Neither lab ever processed the Ames strain of anthrax in the powdered form found in the two letters, which readily becomes airborne and is easily inhaled.
“Porton Down has received no request from the FBI for information on its security arrangements, but if we were contacted, we would cooperate fully,” said Sue Ellison, spokeswoman for the British lab.
***
A possible profit motive for the attacks has been the subject of speculation among scientists. Richard Ebright, a microbiologist with Rutgers University’s Waksman Institute, said the list of possible scenarios and perpetrators would be quite long — ranging from drug manufacturers to companies specializing in decontamination and cleanup.
“There are numerous mid-Atlantic regional links to all of these possibilities,” said Ebright. “Doesn’t narrow the field much, does it?”
DNA tests have confirmed that the spores used in the terrorist attacks are genetically identical to a strain obtained by researchers at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Md., in about 1980. The Army has acknowledged distributing the strain to five other agencies, and some of the strain was in turn shared with other researchers.
The five labs that received the Ames strain from USAMRIID are the Army’s Dugway Proving Ground in central Utah; Battelle Memorial Institute in Columbus, Ohio; the University of New Mexico’s Health Sciences Center in Albuquerque; the Canadian DRES; and Porton Down.
Battelle, a private contractor that has worked with the Pentagon in developing defenses against biological attacks, is one of several labs visited by FBI agents investigating the anthrax attacks. Katy Delaney, a Battelle spokeswoman, said the company has cooperated fully with the government’s investigation.
FBI agents “have interviewed people on our staff,” Delaney said, but she declined to provide information about the nature of the interviews or how many Battelle employees had been questioned. “I can say that we have continued to provide all of the information and material that has been requested by the government,” Delaney said.
Battelle is a contractor at Dugway, which last week acknowledged making a powdered form of anthrax to use in testing sensors and other equipment used to defend against biological attacks.
In the past several weeks, the FBI has also learned that a CIA defensive biowarfare program has involved the use of Ames-strain anthrax. Investigators have been very interested in the CIA program, government officials said, including work done by private contractors in connection with it.
Investigators learned belatedly that the CIA possessed Ames-strain anthrax spores because the agency was not listed among 91 labs registered with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to handle various strains of anthrax bacteria. Before 1997, labs that possessed anthrax spores but did not transfer them to other labs were not required to register with the CDC. The FBI has been surprised to learn only anecdotally of some programs, such as the CIA’s, which have the material.
The CIA program was designed to develop defenses to a vaccine-resistant strain of anthrax reportedly created by the former Soviet Union. CIA officials have said they are certain the anthrax used in the mailings did not come from their work, that none of it is missing and that the small amount in their possession was not milled into powder form.
BugMaster said
What CIA project?!!
So-called project Jefferson?
Never got past the planning stage.
This so-called vaccine resistant strain was developed by the Soviet Union (details are available, work has been published).
After 9-11, the focus switched away from having to defend against so called “cold war threats”.
As far as I know, the vaccine resistant strain of anthrax, which was genetically modifided to produce an additional toxin (cerolysin, from b. cerous) was never duplicated at Battelle, even though they would have taken on the project if it had in fact gone forward.
DXer said
“Project Clear Vision” was a covert investigation of Soviet-built biological bomblets conducted by the Battelle Memorial Institute under contract with the CIA. The legality of this project under the Biological Weapons Convention is disputed but it was approved at the time by the White House under the relevant treaty obligation and laws.
The secret Project Clear Vision was revealed to the public in a September 2001 article in The New York Times and their book GERMS (which I believe became available on September 10, 2001). Reporters Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad collaborated to write the article. The book, Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, and the article are the key available sources concerning Project Clear Vision and its sister projects, Bacchus and Jefferson. BugMaster attaches the adjective “so-called” to Project Jefferson. Ali Al-Timimi’s suitemates, leading anthrax scientist Ken Alibek and former deputy USAMRIID Commander Charles Bailey, were Battelle consultants (for example, in 1999) at the time of the project. Russian defector Alibek was a key source of information that prompted the research.
All the murmurings about authority under the Patriot Act at the oversight hearing on Wednesday — with Director Mueller saying some issues could not be debated because to discuss them would tip the FBI’s hand — perhaps can be understood in this context. Director Mueller made a special point of saying that the “lone wolf authority” under the Patriot Act had never been invoked suggesting that whatever authority was used did not involve a situation where no connection with a foreign group was suspected.
(Relatedly, FBI Director Mueller says he was unaware of the proposed removal of whistleblower protection for FBI employees. Given his professed concern for the issue, he will want to maintain abreast of such developments in the future.) The queue of whistleblowers lining up seems to be growing with Dr. Ezzell making a point that he was going to talk to me notwithstanding a gag order and wiretap. Others are going to come forward at the end of the year to explain that an Ivins Theory is provably a total crock.
Project Clear Vision
Project Clear Vision was completed from 1997-2000, during the Clinton Administration. The project’s stated goal was to assess agent dissemination characteristics of the bomblets. Despite this “defensive” aspect, Ike would argue that the project’s findings could probably be used in a covert bioweapons program. But that approach demonstrates too little faith in the American values that would not permit use or development of a biological weapon for offensive purposes.
For example, at the start of this period, when Dr. Ezzell provided aerosolized Ames at the request of DARPA, it would have been for defensive research, not offensive research — and that conclusion is true regardless of how offfensive one finds such defensive research. (Dr. Ezzell was the anthrax scientist for the FBI’s hazardous materials response unit led by Dr. Budowie).
Legality
As part of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), the United States committed not to develop bioweapons. Moreover, the United States had not reported the secret projects in its annual confidence-building measure (CBM) declarations. The United States maintained that the program was “fully consistent with” the BWC and that the projects were defensive in nature. It was approved at the White House, as I recall GERMS, by someone named James Baker (a common name it would seem).
References
1. Enemark, Christian. Disease and Security: Natural Plagues and Biological Weapons in East Asia, (Google Books), Routledge, 2007, pp. 173-75, (ISBN 0415422345).
2. Miller, Judith, Engelberg, Stephen and Broad, William J. “U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits”, The New York Times, September 4, 2001, accessed January 6, 2009.
3. Tucker, Jonathan B. “Biological Threat Assessment: Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease?”, Arms Control Today, October 2004, accessed January 6, 2009.
4. Wikipedia entry for “Clear Vision” from which this post is adapted.
5. Webcast of September 16, 2009 Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing of the FBI.
Further reading
* Miller, Judith, Engelberg, Stephen and Broad, William J. Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, (Google Books), Simon and Schuster, 2002, (ISBN 0684871599).
Anonymous said
Project Bacchus
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Project Bacchus was a covert investigation by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency US Defense Department to determine whether it is possible to construct a bioweapons production facility with off-the-shelf equipment.
The secret Project Bacchus was revealed to the public in a September 2001 article in The New York Times.[1] Reporters Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad collaborated to write the article.[1] It is presumed that the reporters had knowledge of the program for at least several months; shortly after the article appeared they published a book that detailed the story further.[1] The book, Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, and the article are the only publicly available sources concerning Project Bacchus and its sister projects, Clear Vision and Jefferson.[1]
Bacchus ran from 1999-2000 and investigated whether “would-be” terrorists could build an anthrax production facility and remain undetected.[1] In the two-year simulation, the facility was constructed, and production of anthrax-like bacterium was successfully completed.[2] The participating scientists were able to produce about one kilogram of highly-refined bacterial particles.[2]
[edit]References
^ Enemark, Christian. Disease and Security: Natural Plagues and Biological Weapons in East Asia, (Google Books), Routledge, 2007, pp. 173-75, (ISBN 0415422345).
^ MacKenzie, Debora. Anthrax in Florida and New York “the same strain””, New Scientist, October 18, 2001, accessed January 6, 2009.
Further reading
Tucker, Jonathan B. “Biological Threat Assessment: Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease?”, Arms Control Today, October 2004, accessed January 6, 2009.
Miller, Judith, Engelberg, Stephen and Broad, William J. Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, (Google Books), Simon and Schuster, 2002, (ISBN 0684871599).
— “U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits”, The New York Times, September 4, 2001, accessed January 6, 2009.
DXer said
Project Bacchus
Project Bacchus was a covert investigation by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, US Defense Department to determine whether it is possible to construct a bioweapons production facility with off-the-shelf equipment. The number #1 DTRA biothreat assessment at DTRA was Ali Al-Timimi’s suitemate Charles Bailey. (Dr. Bailey was also at the contractor SRA in 1999 with Ali Al-Timimi, who had a high security clearance for work for the Navy). Dr. Bailey was the former Deputy USAMRIID Commander, and co-inventor with Ken Alibek of the process to concentrate anthrax using silica in the culture medium. And so when the forensics, according to the FBI WMD Chief, points to use of silica in the culture medium, and the ongoing briefing relating to Ali Al-Timimi is highly classified (and not even available to defense counsel or the judge’s clerk), that’s something for any outside analyst to heed. FBI Director Mueller at Wednesday’s hearing says it is the role of the National Security Council that needs to make decisions on such matters, and it was the NSC who refused the District Court judge’s request that his clerk be allowed to help him review the government’s briefing.
When anthrax is concentrated and the particles are smaller by reason of silica in the culture medium, it is more “floatable” even without silica being used to overcome vanderwaals forces. And the international application on its face reveals the patent to also have application to aerosols in the context of inhaled vaccines. So, although Joe Michael need not take any offense, the finding that silicon was inside the coat is the beginning of the inquiry, not the end as he imagines in stating conclusions about the origin and purpose that go beyond his data. (Note, importantly, Dr. Driks’ explanation in his recent article of how upon being dried the spore coat folds over).
The secret Project Bacchus was revealed to the public in a September 2001 article in The New York Times. Reporters Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad collaborated to write the article. The book, Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, and the article are the most citable publicly available sources concerning Project Bacchus and its sister projects, Clear Vision and Jefferson.
Project
Bacchus ran from 1999-2000 and investigated whether “would-be” terrorists could build an anthrax production facility and remain undetected. In the two-year simulation, the facility was constructed, and production of anthrax-like bacterium was successfully completed. The participating scientists were able to produce about one kilogram of highly-refined bacterial particles.
References
Enemark, Christian. Disease and Security: Natural Plagues and Biological Weapons in East Asia, (Google Books), Routledge, 2007, pp. 173-75, (ISBN 0415422345).
MacKenzie, Debora. Anthrax in Florida and New York “the same strain””, New Scientist, October 18, 2001, accessed January 6, 2009.
Wikipedia entry on “Project Bacchus,” from which this post is adapted.
Further reading
Tucker, Jonathan B. “Biological Threat Assessment: Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease?”, Arms Control Today, October 2004, accessed January 6, 2009.
Miller, Judith, Engelberg, Stephen and Broad, William J. Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, (Google Books), Simon and Schuster, 2002, (ISBN 0684871599).
— “U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits”, The New York Times, September 4, 2001, accessed January 6, 2009.
DXer said
Project Jefferson
Project Jefferson was a covert U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency program designed to determine if the current anthrax vaccine was effective against genetically-modified bacteria. The program’s legal status under the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention is disputed.
The secret Project Jefferson was revealed to the public in a September 4, 2001 article in The New York Times cited above. and was addressed in the book Germs.
Project Jefferson took place in early 2001. Jefferson was designed to reproduce a strain of genetically-modified anthrax isolated by Russian scientists during the 1990s. The goal of the secret project was to determine whether or not the strain was resistant to the commercially available U.S. anthrax vaccine.
Legality
Project Jefferson was operated by the Defense Intelligence Agency and reviewed by lawyers at the Pentagon. Those lawyers determined that Project Jefferson was in line with the international treaty banning the production of bio-weapons, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Despite assertions from the Clinton and Bush administrations that the project, and its sisters, were legal, several international legal scholars disagreed.
Troubling was the fact that the clandestine program was omitted from BWC confidence-building measure (CBM) declarations. These measures were introduced to the BWC in 1986 and 1991 to strengthen the treaty, the U.S. had long been a proponent of their value and these tests damaged American credibility. U.S. desire to keep such programs secret was, according to Bush administration officials, a “significant reason” that the the U.S. President rejected a draft agreement signed by 143 nations to strengthen the BWC.
]References
Enemark, Christian. Disease and Security: Natural Plagues and Biological Weapons in East Asia, (Google Books), Routledge, 2007, pp. 173-75, (ISBN 0415422345).
Miller, Judith, Engelberg, Stephen and Broad, William J. “U.S. Germ Warfare Research Pushes Treaty Limits”, The New York Times, September 4, 2001, accessed January 6, 2009.
Tucker, Jonathan B. “Biological Threat Assessment: Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease?”, Arms Control Today, October 2004, accessed January 6, 2009.
Wikipedia entry for “Project Jefferson,” reproduced here in full without the footnote calls to the associated references.
]Further reading
Miller, Judith, Engelberg, Stephen and Broad, William J. Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War, (Google Books), Simon and Schuster, 2002, (ISBN 0684871599).
BugMaster said
“Project Jefferson took place in early 2001. Jefferson was designed to reproduce a strain of genetically-modified anthrax isolated by Russian scientists during the 1990s. The goal of the secret project was to determine whether or not the strain was resistant to the commercially available U.S. anthrax vaccine.”
Not true, at least according to statements made by Battelle in late 2001.
Do you have any references that support this information?
DXer said
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/cp/meetingview.aspx?MeetingID=3821&MeetingNo=2
Project Title: Review of the Scientific Approaches used During the FBI’s Investigation of the 2001 Bacillus Anthracis Mailings
PIN: BLSX-K-08-10-A
Major Unit:
Division on Earth and Life Studies
Policy and Global Affairs Division
Sub Unit:
Board on Life Sciences
Committee on Science, Technology, and Law
RSO:
Sharples, Fran
Subject/Focus Area:
Review of the Scientific Approaches used During the FBI’s Investigation of the 2001 Bacillus Anthracis Mailings
September 24, 2009 – September 25, 2009
Keck Center
500 5th Street, NW
Washington D.C. 20001
If you would like to attend the sessions of this meeting that are open
to the public or need more information please contact:
Contact Name: Amanda Cline
Email: acline@nas.edu
Phone: 202-334-3653
Fax: 202-334-1289
Agenda:
If you would like to attend the open sessions of this meeting, you must register at http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/178053/second-meeting-of-the-committee-on-the-review-of-the-scientific-approaches-used-during-the-fbi-s-investigation-of-the-2001-bacillus-anthracis-mailings
September 24, 2009
Open Session Agenda
2:00 Use of Preliminary Validated Assays in Exigent Circumstances
Steven Schutzer, University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey
2:30 Overview of the Scientific Investigation
Rita Colwell, University of Maryland College Park and Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Health
3:00 Identification of Bacillus anthracis Ames Strain
Paul Keim, Northern Arizona University
3:30 Break
3:45 Identification of Morphological Variants
Patricia Worsham, USAMRIID
4:15 Genetic Analysis of Bacillus anthracis Ames Strain
David Rasko, Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine
4:45 Discusssion
6:00 Public Session Adjourns
September 25, 2009
Open Session Agenda
9:00 Microscopy/Weaponization of Bacillus anthracis
Joseph Michael, Sandia National Laboratory
9:40 Nano-scale secondary ion mass spectroscopy
Peter Weber, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
10:30 Public Session Adjourns
Note: The data-gathering session of this meeting to be held on September 24, 2009 from 10:00 AM–1:00 PM will not be open to the public under Subsection 15(b)(3) of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, 5 U.S.C. App., as amended by the Federal Advisory Committee Act Amendments of 1997, PL 105-153, December 17, 1997, 111 STAT. 2689. The Academy has determined that to open this session to the public would disclose information described in 5 U.S.C. 552(b).
DXer said
John Ezzell, the FBI’s anthrax specialist who first examined the finely powderized anthrax sent to the United Senators Leahy and Daschle, returned my call in July 2009 and confirmed that he made dry powdered anthrax at USAMRIID’s Ft. Detrick in 1996 for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (“DARPA”). He said that he was under a gag order and that the FBI likely was wiretapping his telephone.
What drying method did he use? Was silica used? Would an EDX detected silicon and oxygen? Was the know-how relating to the process of rendering it an aerosol shared? With who?
Beginning in 1996, he also worked for the FBI’s Hazardous Materials Response Unit. After coming under suspicion, Dr. Bruce Ivins wrote an email to his colleague and friend Patricia Fellows saying that he had heard that the anthrax made by Dr. Ezzell for DARPA was the closest match to the anthrax mailed in Fall 2001 that Dr. Ezzell had examined. Did Dr. Ezzell receive Ames from flask 1029? Did he ever make aerosolized Ames again for DARPA at a later date? If so, when?
Dr. Ivins emailed a superior on December 18, 2006 about what he heard about the FBI at a party and expressed concern that something might have been taken or altered from his B3 stocks. What had he heard? How did he think Ames might have come to be missing or altered from his stocks?
Ivins was told by email from the superior to not talk about it — that the FBI situation was under control. But it turned out not to be under control. Dr. Ivins’ colleagues were ordered not to talk to him beginning November 2007. He was removed from the base by armed escort in late July, Bruce Ivins took his life on July 29, 2008. Who was the superior who told him not to talk about it? Who was the superior who ordered his colleagues not to talk to him? Who whited out the location flask 1029 was kept and changed it from 1412 to 1425? Dr. Ivins? When was it done?
It has now been over 13 months since the FBI said that the crazy, dead guy was the sole suspect in the anthrax mailings. It has now been over 13 months since the US Department of Justice announced that the case was solved and the case would be closed shortly. The trail of evidence that should have led Amerithrax investigators to the infiltration of DARPA and US biodefense and withdrawal from Dr. Ivins’ stock, however, dated back to the time of the mailings and was discernable from “open source” intelligence.
The aerosolized Ames was given to John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory where the former Zawahiri associate supplied virulent Ames by Bruce Ivins did research. The research at APL would have been with avirulent anthrax with work on virulent anthrax done at USAMRIID and LSU. Presumably, John Hopkins expert Rita Colwell had no involvement in any event.
Dr. Keim, speaking this month before the panel this month, has said that any large collection of virulent Ames likely would have the same morphs but the hypothesis had not been tested. His recommendation was not accepted. Why not?
Ali Al-Timimi’s current defense counsel, MSNBC commentator and First Amendment scholar Jonathan Turley, says the FBI considered his client an “anthrax weapons suspect,” and confirms that Al-Timimi once worked with White House chief of staff Andrew Card. In 2001, Ali worked alongside researchers at the DARPA-funded Center for Biodefense who invented a process to concentrate using silica in the culture medium which then was removed from the surface of the spore by repeated centrifugation. Did Dr Joe Michael test the silicon signature resulting from use of the Microdroplet Cell Culture method by the DARPA folks at the GMU Center for Biodefense? If he was given blind samples, who prepared them? The former bacteriology division collections scientist from GMU/ATCC?
Professor Turley wrote: “Al-Timimi is the spiritual adviser to many Muslims across the country. He has worked with the government, including White House chief of staff Andrew Card, …” Remember that showdown between FBI Director Mueller and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card concerning warrantless wiretapping of Ali Al-Timimi and a broader Salafist network? Well, there was a lot adding to the tension of the moment. Amerithrax is a prime example of the perils of both warrantless wiretapping and politicization of justice at the US Department of Justice. Andrew Card was the one who shut down compliance with FOIA. NAS is following the example set by Mr. Card in a 2002 memo, not President Obama and US Attorney General Eric Holder.
Ike Solem said
The only real reason to screen for maximum virulence in the manner that Ivins describes is in order to develop a biowarfare arsenal. Why Fort Detrick would want to keep a collection of such virulent anthrax strains is beyond me – but it does point to a reinvigorated biowarfare program in the United States prior to 9/11 (as reported in the NYT on 9/4/2001).
Selection for maximum virulence was standard within the Soviet biowarfare program – for example,
“Intelligence briefings are awash with speculation about other nations or terrorists developing genetically engineered pathogens “worse than any disease known to man.” But a growing number of microbiologists, nonproliferation experts, and former government officials say there may be a dark side to the biodefense push: With poor oversight, government-funded scientists could actually be paving the way for the next generation of killer germs—and given the explosion of research, there is no way to keep track of what is being done. “We are playing games with fire,” says Ken Alibek, a top scientist in the Soviet Union’s bioweapons program until defecting to the United States. “It is kind of a Pandora’s box. As soon as you open it, there is no way of putting it back in.”
“In a little-noticed report released in October, the National Academy of Sciences warned that the government has no mechanism to prevent the “misuse of the tools, technology, or knowledge base of this research enterprise for offensive military or terrorist purposes.”
All the evidence points to the 9/18 and 10/9 letters being an example of such misuse, and the fact is that the programs which gave rise to those letters were greatly expanded as a result of said letters, while the FBI spent years attempting to draw attention away from those programs – by not investigating Dugway or Battelle or their CIA & DIA contract-granters, and instead focusing on Hatfill while actively misrepresenting the nature of the spores used.
Reckless and irresponsible – like overgrown children playing with matches, they seem have no conception of the dangers involved or the possible outcomes of their activities.
DXer said
The reason to use a challenge strain with greatest virulence is to test the vaccine’s success, for example, against a strain with high virulence used by a country with such an offensive weapons program. For example, that is why “Ames” was the “gold standard” — because it had a higher lethality than Vollum (even though it was susceptible to antibiotics). It would be publicly unacceptable to use anthrax as a weapon and thus political activists who imagine that the US would plan such a thing are unrealistic. There is no evidence that supports the suggestion.
DXer said
The background of the email exchange is
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=87475
J Clin Microbiol. 2000 October; 38(10): 3780–3784.
Bacillus anthracis Diversity in Kruger National Park
K. L. Smith, V. DeVos, H. Bryden, L. B. Price, M. E. Hugh-Jones, and P. Keim
Received May 19, 2000; Revisions requested August 5, 2000; Accepted August 15, 2000.
Dr. Hugh-Jones told the Hartford Courant that trading anthrax samples was like trading baseball cards. (Hartford Courant, Dec. 6, 2001)
DXer said
In this study, the same researchers involved in the Kruger study analyzed 426 B. anthracis isolates from around the world. These samples include previously described samples (8, ) plus more than 300 additional clinical and environmental isolates. The authors thanked many researchers around the world for providing strains. At USAMRIID, they thanked Art Friedlander and John Ezzell. What strain did the authors receive from USAMRIID? Someone should request the EA 101s under FOIA.
Journal of Bacteriology, May 2000, p. 2928-2936, Vol. 182, No. 10
0021-9193/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Multiple-Locus Variable-Number Tandem Repeat Analysis Reveals Genetic Relationships within Bacillus anthracis
P. Keim,1,* L. B. Price,1 A. M. Klevytska,1 K. L. Smith,1,2 J. M. Schupp,1 R. Okinaka,3 P. J. Jackson,3 and M. E. Hugh-Jones2
Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona 86011-56401; Department of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Veterinary Medicine, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803-84042; and Environmental Molecular Biology Group, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 875453
Received 6 December 1999/Accepted 24 February 2000
DXer said
The LSU researchers got 32 isolates from the United States (USA) from 16 genotypes. Did they get Ames from USAMRIID? Did they get Ames that had as its original source flask 1029? Is Hugh-Jones’ recollection that they had Ames at LSU only from Porton Down mistaken?
When did the former Zawahiri associate do the research there? Wasn’t it after the transfer reflected by the article?
And so while Bruce Ivins was thanked for supplying virulent Ames to the researcher and the work was done at USAMRIID under Bruce’s direct supervision, might there also have been the genetically identical strain available at the time of the research at LSU? One of the LSU researchers, Kimothy, then took copies of his entire collection to Dr. Keim’s lab where he moved.
He and Dr. Keim were then the FBI’s chief genetics experts in 2001/2002. And so you had the FBI anthrax expert who created an Ames aerosol (Dr. Ezzell) sending Ames (apparently) to the scientist who then was one of the two leading genetics experts working for the FBI (Smith).
The key evidence claimed against Ivins was that he submitted a false sample.
And then the science was guided by the collections scientist from ATCC which sponsored the program of the Salafist who worked in the suite of the DARPA-funded researchers (the leading anthrax scientist and former USAMRIID deputy commander) who came up with the method of concentrating anthrax using silica in the culture medium.
If I were the FBI, I wouldn’t want to comply with FOIA either. As the former head of counterterrorism described Amerithrax to me in writing, it’s a mess. But he says he still favors keeping the matter from becoming public. Why? (That is, other than to avoid embarrassment which President Obama has said is not a reason to withhold under FOIA).
There’s a statute called the Freedom of Information Act that is controlling. It’s a sad day indeed if the United States Department of Justice does not stand for the rule of law.