Following two dissatisfying Congressional hearings on the anthrax letters, and in the 110th Congress' final week, Congressman Rush Holt filed HR 7049 as a shot across the bow: he is serious about getting to the bottom of the anthrax letter attacks. The 111th Congress will have to pick up this ball and run with it, following a change in Administration.
HR 7049: To establish the National Commission on the Anthrax Attacks Upon the United States, to examine and report on the facts and causes relating to the anthrax letter attacks of September and October 2001, and investigate and report to the President and Congress on its findings, conclusions, and recommendations for corrective measures that can be taken to prevent and respond to acts of bioterrorism.
Kevin Ryan was the laboratory director at a subsidiary of Underwriters Laboratories Inc., the consumer-product safety testing giant, when he was fired for casting doubt on the federal investigation into what caused the World Trade Center's twin towers to collapse on Sept. 11, 2001.
ReplyDeleteThere follows an excerpt from Mr. Ryans comments on the recently released NIST report on the collapse of WTC-7. The conclusion of this excerpt applies directly to the "government scientists" supporting the FBI's Amerithrax investigation. We should take from this an awareness that the FBI's case against Ivins is a deliberate fraud, unworthy of time-consuming debate. We must get on with exposure of what is being covered up.
The excerpt: "The Bush Administration asked its scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) for an explanation as to what happened at the World Trade Center (WTC) on 9/11. In response to this request, NIST drew up a series of fanciful stories over a period of years, each story differing from the previous one. Finally, after seven long years, NIST published its last story for WTC 7 by simply saying, in effect: 'The explanation is in our computer.'(2)
As expected, however, this explanation in a box leaves much to be desired for those of us who prefer to live in reality, instead of in a fictional world. On the other hand, we are learning something from NIST with this new report, and that is that when government scientists begin working for a political agenda above all else, there is no limit to the extent of deception that they will engage in."
Rush Holt and HR 7049
ReplyDeleteI have a real problem with the following section regarding "Gifts":
20 (g) GIFTS.—The Commission may accept, use, and dispose of gifts, bequests, devises of services or property,
both real and personal, or donations of services or property, for the purpose of aiding or facilitating the work of the Commission.
However, the following is a very good move on the part of the Bill:
13 (e) PROHIBITING CONFLICTS OF INTEREST.—No individual who participated in the criminal investigation into
the anthrax letter attacks may be detailed to, or may provide any paid or unpaid services to, the Commission.
Another Question for FBI
ReplyDeleteI had a thought about the proposed timeline the FBI presented with Dr. Ivins and the anthrax mailings.
If I recall the printed warning messages inside the Anthrax letters were all found to have been Xeroxed at a public access copying machine somewhere along Nassau St in Princeton . I recall reading a news story about FBI agents posing as copy repair people, examining various Xerox machines in the Princeton area and finding the exact machine??
.
So if this was the case, this would have required Dr. Ivins to make a separate trip to Princeton just copy the letters?
Then return to Princeton later after inserting the copies into the anthrax laden envelopes and then seal and tape prior to mailing?
If this process wasn't done under a fume hood, or something similar, there would have been anthrax spores everywhere while he packed the envelopes?
Or...Did he use the Shop Vac at the local Princeton $1.00 car wash and do it all in the back seat of the Saturn?
An additional trip to Princeton and or spores everywhere with no evidence presented of either existing...?
And so it goes.
I never heard that about the copy machine. Off to Google....
ReplyDeleteNot to mention three separate media reports of the FBI expressing at least considerable interest in a copy machine located at the Waksman Institute in New Burnswick.
ReplyDeleteOf course there is now no mention of any copy machines, because that would mean explaining something that doesn't fit in with their conclusion, Ivins being the mailer and lone perpetrator.
BTW: A copy of a letter will not be affected by acetone, whereas a ink original will. There has been some speculation that the mailer got the dried spores into the letters by suspending them into an acetone solution, injecting the solution into the "pharmaceutical folded" letters, then letting them dry before placing them in the envelopes.
Incidentally, the use of acetone to suspend spores would more likely occur to someone with a protein chemistry background, as opposed to a strict microbiologist. Acetone is used in quite a number of protein isolation protocols.
I noticed this statement on the Rush Holt site:
ReplyDelete{Myriad questions remain about the anthrax attacks and the government’s bungled response to the attacks,” Holt said. “One of the most effective oversight mechanisms we can employ to get answers to those questions is a 9/11 style Commission.”}
A 9/11 style commission ? Well then that sums up what this will be about. Just like the Warren Commission on the Kennedy case, and also like those propaganda "Blue Ribbon Panels".
So I wouldn't be waiting with baited breath on the Commission from HR 7049.
Someone has to "cover" for the FBI/DOJ.
Go back to snooze everyone.
Savage Henry brought up a thought. Modern day copy machines can record the time a copy was made can't they ? Many newer machines even store copies of your copies in their memory. Should be an easy one to determine if the timeframe for the copies of the letters fit in with Ivins schedule.
ReplyDeleteSavage Henry raises an important point.
ReplyDeleteMessage in the Anthrax reports that the Sep 18 letter to Brokaw contained
the reference 09-11-01 which means if Ivins wrote it, it was after 9/11.
See here
http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/Bioter/messageanthrax.html
Times on 9-17-01 and 9-18-01
http://www.ersnews.com/images/anthrax/doc1.jpg
Ivins in and out times on 9-17-01 include one at 11:14 AM. His last time is 7:13:53 PM. His first is
6:58 AM That makes mail day a much harder day to reconcile for Ivins. He is said to have had a meeting
around 4 or 5 PM or so. On 9 18 08
he got in at 7:02 AM.
This almost rules him out as the mailer.
The prior days he was in the lab, although the FBI has not released his time sheet.
If the Xerox machine in NJ is still operative, then Ivins had to drive to NJ after 9/11/01 since the note refers to it and before he mailed it.
If he did it on the final drive then he had to handle the anthrax letters outside of Suite B3. Did he wear protective gear while he did that?
Was the Xerox machine available late Monday night? The earliest Ivins could could get to Princeton is after 10 PM given the record? So it had to be a 24 hours Kinko he used or something equivalent? Where was the xerox machine?
Did Ivins drive on Saturday or Sundary early in the morning, if that is possible to Princeton to copy his note? That would seem to require him to know the FBI would identify the copy machine and that he somehow thought it in his interest that they do so. That doesn't make much sense.
Even dropping the xerox machine, the time chart is beginning to make it appear that Ivins is ever more unlikely. The FBI doesn't seem to have a sense of relating what Ivins was doing to the information it had on him at specific times.