* The FBI’s continued secrecy regarding the 2001 anthrax attacks is a major impediment to developing an effective bioterrorism policy today

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“CASE CLOSED is a must read for anyone who wondered … what really happened? … Who did it? … why?” … and finally, why didn’t they tell us the truth?”

“Fiction?? Maybe?? But I don’t think so!! More likely an excellent interpretation of what may have really happened.”

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The FBI’s continued secrecy

regarding the 2001 anthrax attacks

is a major impediment

to developing an effective bioterrorism policy today

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Mimi Hall writes in USA TODAY (10/21/09) …

• The Obama administration is working hard to curb nuclear threats but failing to address the more urgent and immediate threat of biological terrorism, a bipartisan commission created by Congress is reporting today.
• The government’s efforts “have not kept pace with the increasing capabilities and agility of those who would do harm to the United States,” the report says.

read the entire article at … http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-10-21-WMD-threat_N.htm

LMW COMMENT …

I didn’t read the entire report, so I can’t say for sure it doesn’t include criticism of the FBI’s investigation of the 2001 anthrax attack, although this was not mentioned in the USA TODAY article.

• But how can we hope to understand what needs to be done to protect us from bioterrorism when the only example of an actual bioterrorist attack remains unsolved and shrouded in a veil of secrecy that extends even to the Congressional and Senate Committees who are supposed to exercise oversight responsibility over the FBI.

It is a national disgrace that the FBI continues to be allowed to defy Congress and leave the anthrax case unresolved more than a year after they stated that Dr. Bruce Ivins was the SOLE PERPETRATOR.

• If the FBI really has conclusive proof that Dr. Ivins was the SOLE PERPETRATOR or EVEN INVOLVED AT ALL, then they should close the case and make that proof available for serious review. Failing to close the case leads to speculation that they don’t have proof, or even worse, that the FBI is in fact shielding some other perpetrator(s).

The FBI’s continued secrecy regarding the 2001 anthrax attacks is a major impediment to developing an effective bioterrorism policy in 2009.

see related posts …

* it is now 442 days since the FBI said it expected to close the anthrax case “tomorrow”

* Is the FBI’s anthrax case ongoing or not? … I’ve been asking for two months … the FBI refuses to answer … here’s the email trail

* the NAS will provide FBI-submitted documents and the NAS/FBI anthrax study contract

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“CASE CLOSED is a must read for anyone who wondered

… what really happened? … Who did it? … why?”

… and finally, why didn’t they tell us the truth?”

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the NAS will provide FBI-submitted documents

and the NAS/FBI anthrax study contract

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DXer reports he has received an email from NAS clearly stating that all materials submitted to NAS by external sources will be included in the Public Access File.

• This presumably includes the FBI-submitted documents which NAS had previously said would be sequestered until the end of their anthrax study.
• In addition, NAS has indicated that the anthrax study contract between NAS and the FBI will also be made available.

NAS is to be commended for its decision.

I second DXer when he says … “Thanks again to the Public Affairs Office for their hard work in juggling many important matters on a wide range of issues.”

Here’s an extract from the email DXer received …

From: Public Access Records Office
Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 9:46 AM

This project is subject to Section 15 of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA); which states that all written materials presented to the committee (at data-gathering meeting, between such meetings, or at any other time in the course of the project) by any organization (whether government or private) or by individuals who are not officials, agents, or employees of the institution are subject to public disclosure and must be listed in the Public Access File.”

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see related post … * It’s well past time for the NAS to be frank and honest about what it has agreed with the FBI regarding the sequestering of FBI-submitted documents in apparent violation of FOIA requirements

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* two postal workers died from anthrax 8 years ago today … and we still don’t know who the murderer was

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“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.”

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two postal workers died from anthrax

8 years ago today …

and we still don’t know

who the murderer was

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Thomas Morris, anthrax victim

By: SCOTT MCCABE, Washington Examiner, 10/21/09

On this day, Oct. 21, in 2001, Washington postal worker Thomas Morris Jr. died after inhaling anthrax that had been delivered through the mail.

Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to several news outlets and two U.S. senators, killing five and infecting 17 others.

Morris, 55, an employee of the Brentwood processing center, said a woman working near him found a letter with powder. A doctor checked out Morris and sent him home.

Morris called 911 just hours before his death, complaining of labored breathing and chest pains. “They never let us know whether this thing was anthrax or not,” Morris told the dispatcher.

Joseph Curseen, anthrax victim

A day after Morris died, 47-year-old co-worker Joseph Curseen also died from exposure to the bacteria.

The Brentwood station since has been named for both men.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/crime/CRIME-HISTORY–D_C_-mail-worker-8412595-65014357.html

* it is now 442 days since the FBI said it expected to close the anthrax case “tomorrow”

CASE CLOSED is a novel which answers the question “Why did the FBI fail to solve the 2001 anthrax case?” … click here to … buy CASE CLOSED by Lew Weinstein

Here’s what readers say about CASE CLOSED  …

“Author Lew Weinstein does a terrific job telling this fictionalized account of an inter agency post-mortem investigation of the (real) failed FBI investigation.”

“This scary scenario is as close to truth as fiction can come.”

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it is now 442 days

since the FBI said it expected

to close the anthrax case

“tomorrow”

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Anonymous Scientist reminds us …

FBI announces - August 8, 2008 - Dr. Bruce Ivins is the SOLE PERPETRATOR of the 2001 anthrax attacks

This old Washington Post article from August 3 2008 is quite interesting.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/02/AR2008080201632.html

• “Investigators are so confident of Ivins’s involvement that they have been debating since Friday whether and how to close the seven-year-old anthrax investigation. That would involve disbanding a grand jury in the District and unsealing scores of documents that form the basis of the government’s case against Ivins.
• Negotiations over the legal issues continue, but a government source said that the probe could be shuttered as early as tomorrow. The move would amount to a strong signal that the FBI and Justice Department think they got their man — and that he is dead, foreclosing the possibility of a prosecution. No charges are likely against others, that source added.
• Once the case is closed, the FBI and Justice Department will face questions — and possibly public hearings — from congressional oversight committees, which have been largely shut out of the case the past five years. The investigators have cited the ongoing nature of the case, as well as accusations of leaks to the media, for the information blackout to Capitol Hill.”

Hmmm – so an anonymous FBI source leaked on August 3 2008 that the case could be closed as early as “tomorrow”. That would have been August 4 2008. 442 days have passed since then – and the case is still not closed. I wonder if the “grand jury in the District” is still active? And, if so, what on earth they are hearing evidence on?

The article also uses an anonymous FBI source to state:

• “One bioweapons expert familiar with the FBI investigation said Ivins indeed possessed the skills needed to create the dust-fine powder used in the attacks. At the Army lab where he worked, Ivins specialized in making sophisticated preparations of anthrax bacteria spores for use in animal tests, said the expert, who requested anonymity because the investigation remains active.
• Ivins’s daily routine included the use of processes and equipment the anthrax terrorist likely used in making his weapons. He also is known to have had ready access to the specific strain of Bacillus anthracis used in the attack — a strain found to match samples found in Ivins’s lab, he said.
• “You could make it in a week,” the expert said. “And you could leave USAMRIID with nothing more than a couple of vials. Bear in mind, they weren’t exactly doing body searches of scientists back then.”

But others, including former colleagues and scientists with backgrounds in biological weapons defense, disagreed that Ivins could have created the anthrax powder, even if he were motivated to do so.”

I’m not surprised this was from a leaker who wanted anonymity. It has already been demonstrated in this CASE CLOSED blog that it would be impossible to make the mailed material in one week …

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see related post … * 55 flasks of anthrax prep … now where can I hide these?

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