“It Was Ivins, With a Flask, 200 Miles from the Site of the Crime”By: emptywheel Wednesday August 6, 2008 1:28 pm
.......our crack DOJ wants us to believe that, by providing a lot of circumstantial evidence that places Bruce Ivins in the same room as a flask full of anthrax used in the attack, they've proven not only that Ivins was involved in the crime, but that he was the only one involved in the crime.
In other words,
they haven't solved this crime, but they want us to all go away and pretend they have......................
And, as I've said twice already, if they take their
"motive" seriously:
a desire to make sure anthrax vaccines were continued, a desire to pass the PATRIOT Act, and a reason to dislike Daschle and Leahy, Scooter Libby (who also lived in an area where he could have gotten those envelopes) and Dick Cheney had much stronger motives for sending the anthrax.more at:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/08/06/it-was-ivins-with-a-flask-200-miles-from-the-site-of-the-crime/Anthrax and credibility
Posted on: August 4, 2008 7:49 AM, by revere
The unfolding anthrax story may not unfold much because the government seems to be in a hurry to keep it folded. They claim -- not officially but through the news media -- to have found the nutjob who did it. He had opportunity, means and motive (he was a nutjob).
Now he's dead and can't defend himself. Case closed. Maybe. But neither the news media nor the government who feeds them crapola have track records for credibility, so I'm not yet willing to lay this vicious homicide automatically on his grave. Yes, we are getting all sorts of leaked info but then we got a lot of leaked info when the attacks occurred and then later when authorities were under pressure to find the culprit. They wound up pilloring a government scientist, Stephen Hatfill. Hatfill sounds like a jerk and the current suspect, Bruce Ivins, may not have been a prize either. But
if being a jerk or having some people say bad things about you is grounds for a murder indictment then a lot of other people should be on the list, too. Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com, to his great credit, has been beating the drums about government and news media culpability in this cock up investigation for some time and we refer you to his recent posts (here, here), which also have links to his earlier warnings, warnings which had little response -- until now. His account is long, detailed and documented, so we'll give you the gist to encourage you to follow-up on your own.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/index.htmlhttp://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/index.htmlThe
salient features of his reporting are these. By the government's own admission, they believe
the culprit in the anthrax attacks just after 9/11 came from within the US bioweapons establishment. But that judgement become clear to the public only some time after the event. In the wake of the attacks both the government and the news media used the attacks to create a climate of fear and to advance an explicit claim the perpetrators were Islamic extremists connected with Saddam Hussein. Greenwald singles out Brian Ross of ABC News as being a willing tool of unnamed government sources in spreading a false story the anthrax had the hallmarks of the Iraqi weapons program (false information it contained bentonite, claimed to be uniquely associated with the Iraq version of weaponized anthrax; there never was any bentonite in the anthrax involved in the attack, nor is it clear that even if there were it would have any relevance to Iraq).
It was sheer fabrication on someone's part, one ABC News has never retracted or apologized for. And not an inconsequential error. Greenwald adduces substantial evidence the Iraq connection was a signifiant factor in getting the public and more especially the media establishment onboard. We note with some interest that it was also Brian Ross at ABC News that was saying recently his sources were telling him Iran was close to nuclear capability. Once burned, twice shy.
...................
It's taken the FBI seven years to get this far and along the way they've either found no one or found the wrong person (costing the US taxpayer, $.5.3 million dollars to settle Hatfill's lawsuit).
Now we are supposed to believe they've got the right guy in the waning months of the Bush administration, before a new administration and Congress might arrive and take a good hard look at this. The suspect is dead (nothing was leaked about this until his body was already cold) and the FBI is reportedly interested in closing the case. Nothing to see here. Move along.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/11/abc_response/more at:
http://scienceblogs.com/effectmeasure/2008/08/anthrax_and_credibility.php
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