Please, please please. Take the time to read this before it gets brushed aside again by the MSM. I got a little bored witht eh links and formatting, so read the original on Salon. I've been saying for years that the anthrax letters were the work of a right-winger American, and I never wanted to say that it was an "inside job", but I think this might have been an inside job, folks.




Friday Aug. 1, 2008 05:36 EDT
Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News

(Updated below - Update II - Update III - Update IV - Update V - Update VI)

The FBI's lead suspect in the September, 2001 anthrax attacks -- Bruce E. Ivins -- died Tuesday night, apparently by suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to charge him with responsibility for the attacks. For the last 18 years, Ivins was a top anthrax researcher at the U.S. Government's biological weapons research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, where he was one of the most elite government anthrax scientists on the research team at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID).

The 2001 anthrax attacks remain one of the great mysteries of the post-9/11 era. After 9/11 itself, the anthrax attacks were probably the most consequential event of the Bush presidency. One could make a persuasive case that they were actually more consequential. The 9/11 attacks were obviously traumatic for the country, but in the absence of the anthrax attacks, 9/11 could easily have been perceived as a single, isolated event. It was really the anthrax letters -- with the first one sent on September 18, just one week after 9/11 -- that severely ratcheted up the fear levels and created the climate that would dominate in this country for the next several years after. It was anthrax -- sent directly into the heart of the country's elite political and media institutions, to then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD), Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt), NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, and other leading media outlets -- that created the impression that social order itself was genuinely threatened by Islamic radicalism.

If the now-deceased Ivins really was the culprit behind the attacks, then that means that the anthrax came from a U.S. Government lab, sent by a top U.S. Army scientist at Ft. Detrick. Without resort to any speculation or inferences at all, it is hard to overstate the significance of that fact. From the beginning, there was a clear intent on the part of the anthrax attacker to create a link between the anthrax attacks and both Islamic radicals and the 9/11 attacks. This was the letter sent to Brokaw:



The letter sent to Leahy contained this message:

We have anthrax.

You die now.

Are you afraid?

Death to America.

Death to Israel.

Allah is great.

By design, those attacks put the American population into a state of intense fear of Islamic terrorism, far more than the 9/11 attacks alone could have accomplished.

Much more important than the general attempt to link the anthrax to Islamic terrorists, there was a specific intent -- indispensably aided by ABC News -- to link the anthrax attacks to Iraq and Saddam Hussein. In my view, and I've written about this several times and in great detail to no avail, the role played by ABC News in this episode is the single greatest, unresolved media scandal of this decade. News of Ivins' suicide, which means (presumably) that the anthrax attacks originated from Ft. Detrick, adds critical new facts and heightens how scandalous ABC News' conduct continues to be in this matter.

During the last week of October, 2001, ABC News, led by Brian Ross, continuously trumpeted the claim as their top news story that government tests conducted on the anthrax -- tests conducted at Ft. Detrick -- revealed that the anthrax sent to Daschele contained the chemical additive known as bentonite. ABC News, including Peter Jennings, repeatedly claimed that the presence of bentonite in the anthrax was compelling evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks, since -- as ABC variously claimed -- bentonite "is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program" and "only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons."

ABC News' claim -- which they said came at first from "three well-placed but separate sources," followed by "four well-placed and separate sources" -- was completely false from the beginning. There never was any bentonite detected in the anthrax (a fact ABC News acknowledged for the first time in 2007 only as a result of my badgering them about this issue). It's critical to note that it isn't the case that preliminary tests really did detect bentonite and then subsequent tests found there was none. No tests ever found or even suggested the presence of bentonite. The claim was just concocted from the start. It just never happened.

That means that ABC News' "four well-placed and separate sources" fed them information that was completely false -- false information that created a very significant link in the public mind between the anthrax attacks and Saddam Hussein. And look where -- according to Brian Ross' report on October 28, 2001 -- these tests were conducted:

And despite continued White House denials, four well-placed and separate sources have told ABC News that initial tests on the anthrax by the US Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland, have detected trace amounts of the chemical additives bentonite and silica.

Two days earlier, Ross went on ABC News' World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and, as the lead story, breathlessly reported:

The discovery of bentonite came in an urgent series of tests conducted at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and elsewhere.

Clearly, Ross' allegedly four separate sources had to have some specific knowledge of the tests conducted and, if they were really "well-placed," one would presume that meant they had some connection to the laboratory where the tests were conducted -- Ft. Detrick. That means that the same Government lab where the anthrax attacks themselves came from was the same place where the false reports originated that blamed those attacks on Iraq.

It's extremely possible -- one could say highly likely -- that the same people responsible for perpetrating the attacks were the ones who fed the false reports to the public, through ABC News, that Saddam was behind them. What we know for certain -- as a result of the letters accompanying the anthrax -- is that whoever perpetrated the attacks wanted the public to believe they were sent by foreign Muslims. Feeding claims to ABC News designed to link Saddam to those attacks would, for obvious reasons, promote the goal of the anthrax attacker(s).

Seven years later, it's difficult for many people to recall, but, as I've amply documented, those ABC News reports linking Saddam and anthrax penetrated very deeply -- by design -- into our public discourse and into the public consciousness. Those reports were absolutely vital in creating the impression during that very volatile time that Islamic terrorists generally, and Iraq and Saddam Hussein specifically, were grave, existential threats to this country. As but one example: after Ross' lead report on the October 26, 2001 edition of World News Tonight with Peter Jennings claiming that the Government had found bentonite, this is what Jennings said into the camera:

This news about bentonite as the additive being a trademark of the Iraqi biological weapons program is very significant. Partly because there's been a lot of pressure on the Bush administration inside and out to go after Saddam Hussein. And some are going to be quick to pick up on this as a smoking gun.

That's exactly what happened. The Weekly Standard published two lengthy articles attacking the FBI for focusing on a domestic culprit and -- relying almost exclusively on the ABC/Ross report -- insisted that Saddam was one of the most likely sources for those attacks. In November, 2001, they published an article (via Lexis) which began:

On the critical issue of who sent the anthrax, it's time to give credit to the ABC website, ABCNews.com, for reporting rings around most other news organizations. Here's a bit from a comprehensive story filed late last week by Gary Matsumoto, lending further credence to the commonsensical theory (resisted by the White House) that al Qaeda or Iraq -- and not some domestic Ted Kaczynski type -- is behind the germ warfare.

The Weekly Standard published a much lengthier and more dogmatic article in April, 2002 again pushing the ABC "bentonite" claims and arguing: "There is purely circumstantial though highly suggestive evidence that might seem to link Iraq with last fall's anthrax terrorism." The American Enterprise Institute's Laurie Mylroie (who had an AEI article linking Saddam to 9/11 ready for publication at the AEI on September 13) expressly claimed in November, 2001 that "there is also tremendous evidence that subsequent anthrax attacks are connected to Iraq" and based that accusation almost exclusively on the report from ABC and Ross ("Mylroie: Evidence Shows Saddam Is Behind Anthrax Attacks").

And then, when President Bush named Iraq as a member of the "Axis of Evil" in his January, 2002 State of the Union speech -- just two months after ABC's report, when the anthrax attacks were still very vividly on the minds of Americans -- he specifically touted this claim:

The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade.

Bush's invocation of Iraq was the only reference in the State of the Union address to the unsolved anthrax attacks. And the Iraq-anthrax connection was explicitly made by the President at a time when, as we now know, he was already eagerly planning an attack on Iraq.

There can't be any question that this extremely flamboyant though totally false linkage between Iraq and the anthrax attacks -- accomplished primarily by the false bentonite reports from ABC News and Brian Ross -- played a very significant role in how Americans perceived of the Islamic threat generally and Iraq specifically. As but one very illustrative example, The Washington Post's columnist, Richard Cohen, supported the invasion of Iraq, came to regret that support, and then explained what led him to do so, in a 2004 Post column entitled "Our Forgotten Panic":

I'm not sure if panic is quite the right word, but it is close enough. Anthrax played a role in my decision to support the Bush administration's desire to take out Saddam Hussein. I linked him to anthrax, which I linked to Sept. 11. I was not going to stand by and simply wait for another attack -- more attacks. I was going to go to the source, Hussein, and get him before he could get us. As time went on, I became more and more questioning, but I had a hard time backing down from my initial whoop and holler for war.

Cohen -- in a March 18, 2008 Slate article in which he explains why he wrongfully supported the attack on Iraq -- disclosed this:

Anthrax. Remember anthrax? It seems no one does anymore -- at least it's never mentioned. But right after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, letters laced with anthrax were received at the New York Post and Tom Brokaw's office at NBC. . . . There was ample reason to be afraid.

The attacks were not entirely unexpected. I had been told soon after Sept. 11 to secure Cipro, the antidote to anthrax. The tip had come in a roundabout way from a high government official, and I immediately acted on it. I was carrying Cipro way before most people had ever heard of it.

For this and other reasons, the anthrax letters appeared linked to the awful events of Sept. 11. It all seemed one and the same. Already, my impulse had been to strike back, an overwhelming urge that had, in fact, taken me by surprise on Sept. 11 itself when the first of the Twin Towers had collapsed. . . .

In the following days, as the horror started to be airbrushed -- no more bodies plummeting to the sidewalk -- the anthrax letters started to come, some to people I knew. And I thought, No, I'm not going to sit here passively and wait for it to happen. I wanted to go to "them," whoever "they" were, grab them by the neck, and get them before they could get us. One of "them" was Saddam Hussein. He had messed around with anthrax . . . He was a nasty little fascist, and he needed to be dealt with.

That, more or less, is how I made my decision to support the war in Iraq.

Cohen's mental process that led him to link anthrax to Iraq and then to support an attack on Iraq, warped as it is, was extremely common. Having heard ABC News in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack flamboyantly and repeatedly link Saddam to the anthrax attacks, followed by George Bush's making the same linkage (albeit more subtly) in his January, 2002 State of the Union speech, much of the public had implanted into their minds that Saddam Hussein was not just evil, but a severe threat to the U.S., likely the primary culprit behind the anthrax attacks. All along, though, the anthrax came from a U.S. Government/Army research lab.

Critically, ABC News never retracted its story (they merely noted, as they had done from the start, that the White House denied the reports). And thus, the linkage between Saddam and the anthrax attacks -- every bit as false as the linkage between Saddam and the 9/11 attacks -- persisted.

We now know -- we knew even before news of Ivins' suicide last night, and know especially in light of it -- that the anthrax attacks didn't come from Iraq or any foreign government at all. It came from our own Government's scientist, from the top Army bioweapons research laboratory. More significantly, the false reports linking anthrax to Iraq also came from the U.S. Government -- from people with some type of significant links to the same facility responsible for the attacks themselves.

Surely the question of who generated those false Iraq-anthrax reports is one of the most significant and explosive stories of the last decade. The motive to fabricate reports of bentonite and a link to Saddam is glaring. Those fabrications played some significant role -- I'd argue a very major role -- in propagandizing the American public to perceive of Saddam as a threat, and further, propagandized the public to believe that our country was sufficiently threatened by foreign elements that a whole series of radical policies that the neoconservatives both within and outside of the Bush administration wanted to pursue -- including an attack an Iraq and a whole array of assaults on our basic constitutional framework -- were justified and even necessary in order to survive.

ABC News already knows the answers to these questions. They know who concocted the false bentonite story and who passed it on to them with the specific intent of having them broadcast those false claims to the world, in order to link Saddam to the anthrax attacks and -- as importantly -- to conceal the real culprit(s) (apparently within the U.S. government) who were behind the attacks. And yet, unbelievably, they are keeping the story to themselves, refusing to disclose who did all of this. They're allegedly a news organization, in possession of one of the most significant news stories of the last decade, and they are concealing it from the public, even years later.

They're not protecting "sources." The people who fed them the bentonite story aren't "sources." They're fabricators and liars who purposely used ABC News to disseminate to the American public an extremely consequential and damaging falsehood. But by protecting the wrongdoers, ABC News has made itself complicit in this fraud perpetrated on the public, rather than a news organization uncovering such frauds. That is why this is one of the most extreme journalistic scandals that exists, and it deserves a lot more debate and attention than it has received thus far.

UPDATE: One other fact to note here is how bizarrely inept the effort by the Bush DOJ to find the real attacker has been. Extremely suspicious behavior from Ivins -- including his having found and completely cleaned anthrax traces on a co-worker's desk at the Ft. Detrick lab without telling anyone that he did so and then offering extremely strange explanations for why -- was publicly reported as early as 2004 by The LA Times (Ivins "detected an apparent anthrax leak in December 2001, at the height of the anthrax mailings investigation, but did not report it. Ivins considered the problem solved when he cleaned the affected office with bleach").

In October 2004, USA Today reported that Ivins was involved in another similar incident, in April of 2002, when Ivins performed unauthorized tests to detect the origins of more anthrax residue found at Ft. Detrick. Yet rather than having that repeated, strange behavior lead the FBI to discover that he was involved in the attacks, there was a very public effort -- as Atrios notes here -- to blame the attacks on Iraq and then, ultimately, to blame Stephen Hatfill. Amazingly, as Atrios notes here, very few people other than "a few crazy bloggers are even interested" in finding out what happened here and why -- at least to demand that ABC News report the vital information that it already has that will shed very significant light on much of this.

UPDATE II: Ivins' local paper, Frederick News in Maryland, has printed several Letters to the Editor written by Ivins over the years. Though the underlying ideology is a bit difficult to discern, he seems clearly driven by a belief in the need for Christian doctrine to govern our laws and political institutions, with a particular interest in Catholic dogma. He wrote things like this:

Today we frequently admonish people who oppose abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide or capital punishment to keep their religious, moral, and philosophical beliefs to themselves.

Before dispensing such admonishments in the future, perhaps we should gratefully consider some of our country's most courageous, historical figures who refused to do so.

And then there's this rather cryptic message, published in 2006:

Rabbi Morris Kosman is entirely correct in summarily rejecting the demands of the Frederick Imam for a "dialogue."

By blood and faith, Jews are God's chosen, and have no need for "dialogue" with any gentile. End of "dialogue."

It should be noted that the lawyer who had been representing Ivins in connection with the anthrax investigation categorically maintains Ivins' innocence and attributes his suicide to "the relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo."

On a note related to the main topic of the post, macgupta in comments notes the numerous prominent people in addition to those mentioned here -- including The Wall St. Jorunal Editors and former CIA Director James Woosely -- who insisted rather emphatically from the beginning of the anthrax attacks that Saddam was likely to blame. Indeed, the WSJ Editorial Page -- along with others on the Right such as Michael Barone of U.S. News & World Report and Fox News -- continued even into 2007 to insist that the FBI was erring by focusing on domestic suspects rather than Middle Easterners.

The Nation's Michael Massing noted at the time (in November, 2001) that as a direct result of the anthrax attacks, and the numerous claims insinuating that Iraq was behind them, "the political and journalistic establishment suddenly seems united in wanting to attack Iraq." There has long been an intense desire on the neoconservative Right to falsely link anthrax to Saddam specifically and Muslims generally. ABC News was, and (as a result of its inexcusable silence) continues to be, their best friend.

UPDATE III: See this important point from Atrios about Richard Cohen's admission that he was told before the anthrax attacks happened by a "high government official" to take cipro. Atrios writes: "now that we know that the US gov't believes that anthrax came from the inside, shouldn't Cohen be a wee bit curious about what this warning was based on?"

That applies to much of the Beltway class, including many well-connected journalists, who were quietly popping cipro back then because, like Cohen, they heard from Government sources that they should. Leave aside the ethical questions about the fact that these journalists kept those warnings to themselves. Wouldn't the most basic journalistic instincts lead them now -- in light of the claims by our Government that the attacks came from a Government scientist -- to wonder why and how their Government sources were warning about an anthrax attack? Then again, the most basic journalistic instincts would have lead ABC News to reveal who concocted and fed them the false "Saddam/anthrax" reports in the first place, and yet we still are forced to guess at those questions because ABC News continues to cover up the identity of the perpetrators.

UPDATE IV: John McCain, on the David Letterman Show, October 18, 2001 (days before ABC News first broadcast their bentonite report):

LETTERMAN: How are things going in Afghanistan now?

MCCAIN: I think we're doing fine . . . I think we'll do fine. The second phase -- if I could just make one, very quickly -- the second phase is Iraq. There is some indication, and I don't have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may -- and I emphasize may -- have come from Iraq.

LETTERMAN: Oh is that right?

MCCAIN: If that should be the case, that's when some tough decisions are gonna have to be made.

ThinkProgress has the video. Someone ought to ask McCain what "indication" he was referencing that the anthrax "may have come from Iraq."

After all, three days later, McCain and Joe Lieberman went on Meet the Press (on October 21, 2001) and both strongly suggested that we would have to attack Iraq. Lieberman said that the anthrax was so complex and potent that "there's either a significant amount of money behind this, or this is state-sponsored, or this is stuff that was stolen from the former Soviet program."

As I said, it is not possible to overstate the importance of anthrax in putting the country into the state of fear that led to the attack on Iraq and so many of the other abuses of the Bush era. There are few news stories more significant, if there are any, than unveiling who the culprits were behind this deliberate propaganda. The fact that the current GOP presidential nominee claimed back then on national television to have some "indication" linking Saddam to the anthrax attacks makes it a bigger story still.

UPDATE V: I tried to be careful here to avoid accepting as True the matter of Ivins' guilt. Very early on in the article, I framed the analysis this way: "If the now-deceased Ivins really was the culprit behind the attacks, then that means that the anthrax came from a U.S. Government lab," and I then noted in Update II that Ivins' lawyer vehemently maintains his innocence. My whole point here is that the U.S. Government now claims the anthrax attacks came from a Government scientist at a U.S. Army lab, and my conclusions follow from that premise, accepted as true only for purposes of this analysis.

It's worth underscoring that it is far from clear that Ivins had anything to do with the anthrax attacks, and someone in comments claiming (anonymously though credibly) that he knew Ivins personally asserts that Ivins was innocent and makes the case as to why the Government's accusations are suspect. As I see it, the more doubt there is about who was responsible for the anthrax attacks, the greater is the need for ABC News to reveal who fabricated their reports linking the attacks to Iraq.

UPDATE VI: I'll be on Rachel Maddow's radio show tonight at 8:30 p.m. EST to discuss this story. Local listings and live audio feed are here.

Numerous people have advised me in comments and via email that ABC News is deleting any mention of my piece today in the comment section to their article on the Ivins suicide (though many such comments now seem to be posted there). Last year, ABC was in full denial mode when responding to the stories I wrote about this issue. The key here, I think, will be to try to devise the right strategy to induce the right Congressional Committee to hold hearings on the false ABC News stories and the anthrax issue generally. I hope to have more details on that effort shortly.

there's no mention in the article that Stephen Hatfill, the lead suspect till now, was just awarded several million dollars for being wrongfully accused of the anthrax "attacks". and then one month later, some guy winds up killing himself, is accused of being the guy all along and we are told by the government that the case was already being made to seek the death penalty against him....this is also highly suspect, yes?

But the article above made me remember the fear frenzy created by the anthrax "attacks" so soon after 9/11. I remember people at the radio station i worked at in nyc wearing gloves to open the mail, a directive from corporate higher ups; ironically, the station i worked for was owned by ABC

Great thread, PD. Thank you.

Ivins is definitely the classic patsy.
It's convenient that he just happened to off himself before the FBI "closed-in" on him. I don't doubt that Ivins was somehow involved. You could see him being an easily malleable mind when considering his past.

I saw an article titled "Will suicide close the case on anthrax?"
How extremely ridiculous is that question?

I have a feeling that the real perpetrators have just destroyed the last remaining trail that leads to them.

What I had forgotten was how direct the link was between the anthrax attacks and the case for war against Iraq. I just remember it as a time when irrational fear was growing, which obviously led to the Iraq War, but I had forgotten that reports had said that the particular type of anthrax had links to Iraq (which five years later those reports were retracted). ABC News got played like a cheap violin.

People were calling Homeland Security on their own relatives and crowded airport lobbies were patrolled by soldiers with M16s. Good times.



I would be a liar if I said I wasn't a sucker for cheap violin music.

Regarding confidential sources...


I've had ambiguous feelings for the past couple of years about what I had once considered to be a hallmark of journalistic integrity: The need to be able to maintain the confidence and anonymity of sources. However, the most recent examples in teh news left me cold and wondering at times what the value of this protection is. This anthrax story, and the conduct of ABC News in obfuscating teh truth by printing stories based off of confidential sources has made the line much clearer for me.

The idea of journalists protecting their sources is rooted in protecting those sources FROM government retaliatory action. The private citizen whistleblower, or even the low-level government worker who blows the whistle on his superiors, needs protection. But Karl Rove and similar high-level government agents, particularly politicos, do not need this type of protection, and should specifically be thrown under the bus for misusing journalists like this.

The Judith Millers of the world have been arguing that they cannot give up their sources because it would make the politicians lose their trust in the journalists and would cut them off as sources for their stories. Cry me a fucking river. The Washington journalist class is far too much in bed with politicians as it is, and they would do their jobs better if they COULDN'T rely on professional liars to feed them stories that they just reprint in their papers. Maybe then they'd actually do some, you know, investigating and reporting like they're supposed to. I'd rather see a political class that doesn't talk to teh press and a press that tries to find out everything it can about the political class than this overly cozy lapdog relationship that exists now.

In short, journalists should not be protecting THE GOVERNMENT, they should protecting sources FROM the government.


Glenn Greenwald's follow up, just as good as the first piece: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/ ... ournalism/

Here is a little bit more on it...

http://www.truthout.org/article/the-anthrax-attacks-sunlight-is-best-disinfectant

**Check the source. There is alot of documentation in it and a video.**


If we've learned anything in the United States during the Bush era, it's that we have to resist rushing to judgment in the face of catastrophic events. The exercise of careful, independent judgment is the best tool available - we should use it. US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who often wrote on the benefits of both privacy and transparency, offered the reminder "sunlight is the best disinfectant."

The impact of the anthrax attacks was at least as damaging to the US as 9/11. The weeks after 9/11 brought the Homeland Security Act and the war in Afghanistan, ostensibly to stop "the bad guys." As shown below, the result of the anthrax attacks was a greatly-toughened Patriot Act and a war in Iraq that destroyed the fabric of life in America as we know it. If 9/11 resulted in Americans suffering from psychic dislocation, the aftermath of the anthrax attacks was the deeply-felt sensation that there was literally no place left to hide anywhere in the United States.

As we work to end these wars and roll back this repressive legislation, we have to end these fundamental mysteries about what happened to America during the latter part of 2001. If we can't resolve the anthrax attacks, we sure as hell aren't going to resolve anything else. The best way to have closure is to have the truth. No investigation can be totally open - but with the prime suspect now dead, it must be as open as possible.

It's bad logic to assume that the accused microbiologist, the now-deceased Bruce E. Ivins, is either guilty or innocent. Nor should we assume that either Ivins or someone else was "a loner" or that he or she "worked with others." No matter how deep our biases or how strong our beliefs, we should pull together and fight as hard as we can for a truly independent investigation - which ultimately means out of the hands of the investigators at FBI and USAMRIID (the US Army Medical Research Institute on Infectious Diseases, the biodefense center in Fort Detrick, Maryland). The Los Angeles Times reports Ivins was one of those very investigators helping the FBI analyze the powder recovered from the envelopes sent to Capitol Hill in the days after 9/11. This investigation is now deeply tainted.

This is not a time to rely on Newsweek's "earth-shattering breakthroughs" cited by "unnamed sources." It must be remembered, during the panic of the opening days of the anthrax attacks, the FBI permitted Iowa State to destroy on October 11, 2001, the original "Ames strain" evidence during the opening phase of the investigation, simply because they weren't certain of its origins. If that puzzle could have been cracked, the germ's distribution could have been tracked over time, which might have quickly led to the identity of the perpetrators.

With Bruce Ivins dead, the ongoing grand jury investigation of him should be made public, with the possible exception of evidence that would unfairly damage the reputation of others. The use of an open grand jury has been used in controversial police shootings, and should be replicated in this case. This process has been used at least twice in Santa Clara County, California, most recently in 2004. The latter case resulted in the indictment of a state narcotics agent, who fatally shot a fleeing Latino man in the back. "It's essentially an effort to reassure the public that law enforcement is held responsible,'' said Joseph McNamara, a former San Jose police chief and a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

There are three key reasons intense public scrutiny is critical. One is the intriguing story of Bruce Ivins's background in vaccine research with the Ames strain. Another is the well-documented use of the anthrax attacks to advance the Bush agenda of war with Iraq. The third reason is the less-explored relationship between the timing of the anthrax attacks and the passage of the Patriot Act.

Bruce E. Ivins's intriguing role as Fort Detrick's leading vaccine researcher and his work with the Ames strain deserves careful and complete public scrutiny

Back in 1999, his colleague Dr. Meryl Nass, M.D., testified in Congress that Bruce Ivins was "the lead vaccine researcher" at Fort Detrick. Ivins was a key developer of the second-generation anthrax vaccine to combat the dreaded "Ames strain" that was used to poison Americans during those fateful days in 2001. The vaccine Ivins was working on has caused numerous American soldiers from the 1990s to the present day to refuse to accept military vaccinations for anthrax in fear of the dreaded "Gulf War syndrome." More research and foot leather will be needed to see whether Ivins's work on the new vaccine was good science or seriously in error. For that reason, people will see in Bruce Ivins what they want to see.

His story is simply remarkable. Look at this unprecedented situation - Justice Department prosecutors have made the case that the anthrax attacks came from a US Army lab biodefense expert - a scientist who played a key role assisting the FBI in "Operation Noble Eagle" (the hunt for the anthrax attackers and the 9/11 attackers). If Ivins's guilt turns out to be true, it means Ivins was literally investigating himself, and may have had access to all the key evidence and innermost thoughts of the investigators! It's well-documented that Ivins disinfected some anthrax off an officemate's desk in December 2001, and did not report it to his supervisors because he didn't want to "cry wolf."

Ivins's colleague in the field, Meryl Nass, MD, relied on Ivins's work in her report to Congress about anthrax vaccines in 1999. She is outspoken about her belief in Ivins's innocence, saying "Bruce was a gentle guy, the opposite of Hatfill." She has two main bases for this belief.

Nass believes Ivins did not have a financial motive, as he was Fort Detrick's top vaccine researcher and was not fishing for a better job in the private sector. David Willman, of The Los Angeles Times, claims such a motive existed, based on patents that Ivins held for his genetically engineered anthrax vaccine. Nass states her respect for Willman's reputation as a Pulitzer winner, while pointing out "historically, government employees do not receive these royalties: the government does."

Nass's other basis is Ivins had no ready access to the half ounce of "dry, powdered anthrax" that was used. Her point about access to dry anthrax was raised back in December 2, 2001, when The New York Times reported that Col. Arthur M. Friedlander, the senior research scientist at Fort Detrick, stated, "no one in his organization even knew how to make dry anthrax…scientists there made wet anthrax, which is far easier to make. It is used in developing vaccines and testing their effectiveness." Friedlander admitted, however, that Fort Detrick "personnel who had access" were under investigation.

Ivins's work is the focus of a 2004 book by Gary Matsumuto, "Vaccine A: The Covert Government Experiment That's Killing Our Soldiers." Matsumoto is not shy about making controversial statements, which only adds to the aura of intrigue around both Ivins and himself.

The premise of "Vaccine A" is that since the 1991 Gulf War US soldiers have been unwittingly exposed to a "second-generation" experimental anthrax vaccine designed by Ivins and his colleagues, which improperly contained an oil-based substance known as squalene. Matsumuto and others claim squalene is the main cause of the autoimmune disorder known as "Gulf War Syndrome." From 1991 to the present day, many soldiers have refused to submit to military vaccinations for anthrax for fear of contracting Gulf War Syndrome. There are strong arguments on both sides of the squalene dispute, and this is an ongoing controversy.

The work of Bruce Ivins is known to many of these vets - especially those who suffered Gulf War Syndrome, or those who were court-martialed for refusing to use the vaccine in fear it was tainted. It is intriguing that Matsumoto paid special attention to Ivins, claiming that Ivins knew that the experimental oil-boosted vaccine "can provoke toxic, allergic, ulcerative, or lethal reactions."

Matsumoto's 2004 book focuses on Ivins as the man with the motive to be pushing to get approval for the new second-generation vaccine.

"Only one paper at the workshop reported near perfect results - 100 percent protection from the Ames strain with just one or two shots … As an old Marine Corps expression goes, this particular paper shined 'like a diamond inside a goat's ass.' USAMRIID's Bruce Ivins had reported at this very same workshop that his "one-shot wonder" - protective antigen or mere fragments of it combined with oil additives - protected every animal challenged with Ames with a single injection." Matsumoto, Vaccine A page 87.

The BioThrax vaccine was approved by Homeland Security in 2006. It is currently the only anthrax vaccine approved for use. Made by the BioPort corporation, the new vaccine is derived from Ivins's experimental second-generation vaccine - however, BioPort maintains that no squalene is involved in its manufacture. The controversy continues - and Matsumoto's role in controversy will return later on.

A little background on the origins of the anthrax vaccine dispute is helpful here. On December 15, 1997, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen announced that all US military personnel would be vaccinated in order to guard against the biological warfare agent anthrax, which was allegedly proliferating as a bioweapon in other nations. Rep. Christopher Shays, at the beginning of a 1999 hearing on oversight of the anthrax vaccine inoculation program, asked:

"Why would active duty, Reserve and National Guard personnel jeopardize their military careers, and even their liberty, rather than take the vaccine? … The missing element of the mandatory anthrax vaccine program is trust. Radiation testing, Agent Orange, the reckless use of experimental drugs and mysterious Gulf War illness have made military men and women understandably distrustful of the Pentagon on medical matters."

The controversy over the anthrax vaccine among US military troops has been constant from the first Gulf War to the present. In a 2003 decision, US District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled in favor of six anonymous military litigants, holding that the military's mandatory administration of the vaccine was illegal because the Food and Drug Administration had not approved its use for inhalation anthrax, only for anthrax contracted through the skin.

Judge Sullivan's ruling forced the Pentagon to suspend its involuntary program almost continually between December 2003 and February 2007, until the FDA ruled the vaccine was safe and efficient for all forms of anthrax and permitted the Pentagon to reorder. Based on this decision, another federal judge admonished the Air Force Board in April 2008, for refusing to compensate military personnel for refusing the vaccine between 1999 and 2004.

Setting aside the fundamental question of Ivins's possible motives as the maker of the anthrax vaccine, there are a million other questions waiting in the wings. Here are just a few.

The anthrax attack letters were mailed from Princeton, New Jersey, 200 miles away from Ivins's home in Frederick, Maryland. His father was a Princeton professor. His father's personal history, standing alone, is not evidence - it could be used either to support one's belief in his guilt or that he was set up.

The same is true about Ivins's devout Catholicism and his alleged suicide. Most Catholics don't commit suicide, as it violates their faith. What was the nature of his faith? Was this really a suicide?

While Ivins's brother Thomas says the suspect acted like he was "omnipotent," other friends and colleagues say it is impossible Ivins could be guilty. The former head of USAMRIID, David Franz, says "Bruce was an enthusiastic guy. He was always upbeat, with a big smile. It was "Colonel Franz, let me tell you what I'm doing." I think of him as a geek, his pants too short and his pocket protector showing. He had kind of a 1960s look."

His counselor Julie Duley sought a restraining order against Ivins on July 24. She wrote the court that Ivins's psychiatrist David Irwin described him as "homicidal, sociopathic," accused him in court of a history of "homicidal threats since graduate school" and that "he will be accused for five capital murders" as the authorities tightened their focus on him, and adde that he had plotted revenge killings "especially against women" - comments that must be taken very seriously.

It should also be known that the local paper in Frederick reports that she is a "BSW, CSC-AD", which stands for "Bachelor of Social Work, Certified Supervised Counselor - Alcohol and Drug." Under Maryland law, this is attained after two years of college, and means that she can only work under supervision and cannot practice independently. Did she accurately report the serious evaluations she presented to the court?

It's also important to keep in mind that witnesses claimed to see another anthrax vaccine researcher named Kenneth Barry physically abuse his wife and daughter when he was under investigation by the FBI's as the anthrax attacker in 2004. Such intense pressure will make many people homicidal, if not suicidal.

It's also important to know that Ivins was in a psychiatric unit for several days, and apparently left the facility just a few days before his death. Dr. W. Russell Byrne, who worked at the bacteriology division of Fort Detrick, said, "Ivins was "hounded" by aggressive FBI agents who raided his home twice." Byrne and local police said that Ivins was removed from Fort Detrick because of fears that Ivins had become a danger to himself or others. The investigation led to Ivins being hospitalized for depression earlier this month, according to Byrne, who emphasized he does not believe Ivins was behind the anthrax attacks.

As recently as four months ago, The New York Post ran a story entitled "Closing in on Anthrax Fiend":

"Federal investigators have focused their attention on 'about four suspects' at an Army research facility in the terrifying 2001 anthrax letter attacks that showed up in the offices of two senators and several newsrooms - including The Post.

"The suspects include three scientists - a former deputy commander, a leading anthrax specialist and a microbiologist (emphasis added) - at the bioweapons research facility at Fort Detrick in Maryland, sources told Fox News."

It seems fair to assume "the microbiologist" was Ivins. But who are the others? Journalist Gerald Posner said in a Keith Olbermann interview on August 1 that his Justice Department sources told him "they are rushing to wrap this thing up. They want it over with … We're never going to know … because they're not going to pursue this investigation. There's no outcry for it. That's unfortunate." That's the grave danger here.

There are compelling reasons to believe that the "anthrax attacks" case is a classic case of provocation to lead the United States into war with Iraq.

Even Posner, known to many investigators as a professional skeptic, admitted to Olbermann at the end of the interview:

"I am now more convinced than ever that there were individuals inside the Bush Administration and in the government that wanted the war in Iraq so badly that they decided if there was something they could use to push it forward they would - anthrax fell into their lap. Even if he is the deranged solo killer, they used him in order to scare this country and say Iraq is something we have to go after, and we did."

Olbermann: "In that case, there would be no reason to go after the deranged solo killer."

Posner: "They could rely on the blunders of the FBI."

Posner's theory is reminiscent of how the United States got fatally embroiled in the war in Vietnam. See the recently declassified NSA report (at page 49) about the Gulf of Tonkin incidents of August 1964, which contain the startling admission that the facts were "deliberately skewed to support the notion that there was a (North Vietnamese) attack."

Constitutional scholar Glenn Greenwald, a columnist for Salon magazine, states that during the last week of October, 2001, ABC News, led by Brian Ross, "continuously trumpeted the claim" that government tests conducted on the anthrax at Fort Detrick showed the anthrax sent to Sen. Majority Leader Tom Daschle contained bentonite (a clay substance used as a fluidized agent in the preparation of powders). Ross was assisted by Gary Matsumoto in their October 26 story.

ABC News repeatedly claimed that the finding of bentonite in the anthrax was compelling evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks since bentonite "is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program" and "only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons." However, no tests ever found any bentonite in the material used in the 2001 anthrax attacks - which was finally admitted by ABC News in 2007 after Greenwald repeatedly dogged them on the subject.

Greenwald states, "ABC News' claim - which they said came at first from 'three well-placed but separate sources,' followed by 'four well-placed and separate sources' - was completely false from the beginning. He relies on Brian Ross reporting on October 28, 2001, that these sources stated that "initial tests on the anthrax by the US Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland, have detected trace amounts of the chemical additives bentonite and silica."

Greenwald's two articles, which should be read in their entirety, provide a number of administration sources as additional bases for his claim that the Bush Administration "cooked" this evidence in order to justify an attack on Iraq.

Greenwald noted the role of Gary Matsumoto, who offers a good case study of how the Iraq-blamers never let go. On November 1, 2001, Matsumoto wrote a second article for ABC that backs off the bentonite story just a bit as "unproven," but continues to hammer the "possible Iraq connection." A year later, on October 28, 2002, with a possible war with Iraq in the offing, Matsumoto wrote an article in The Washington Post offering a fallback argument for Iraqi involvement based on silica instead of bentonite: See http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy ... -2002Oct27:

"… early in the case, US authorities dismissed the possibility that Iraq could have sponsored the attacks because investigators determined that the spores had been coated with silica to make them disperse quickly, rather than the mineral bentonite, regarded by the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command as Iraq's additive of choice.

"However, Iraq's alleged preference for bentonite appears to be based on a single sample of a common pesticide collected by U.N. authorities from Iraq's Al Hakam biological weapons facility in the mid-1990s. By contrast, the US Defense Intelligence Agency warned in declassified documents as early as 1989 that Iraq was acquiring silica to use as a chemical weapons additive.

"In 1998, Iraq reported to the United Nations that it had conducted an artillery test of a live biological agent that used silica as a dispersant. And U.N. and US intelligence documents reviewed by The Post show that Iraq had bought all the essential equipment and ingredients needed to weaponize anthrax bacteria with silica to a grade consistent with the Daschle and Leahy letters…

"Bush administration officials have acknowledged that the anthrax attacks were an important motivator in the US decision to confront Iraq …

In late 2003, Matsumoto reiterated his argument that Saddam Hussein must be investigated as a suspect, publishing an article in the prominent journal Science. This piece amplified his claim that anthrax powders contained silica and added a crucial new argument - that the grains had a "coating" that indicated that the anthrax was industrially processed.

Matsumoto protested too much about the silica, as no one disputed its presence in the Senate anthrax. Matsumoto's controversial claim was about the alleged "coating" - his evidence was based on a graph created by a spectrograph. Ed Lake, a meticulous author who has been chronicling the anthrax case on a daily basis, lost his patience with Matsumoto. He spelled out a ten-point refutation of Matsumoto's argument for an industrially-created coating, with these high points:

"Professor Matthew Meselson of Harvard and former bioweaponeer Ken Alibek have both seen large, clear electron micrographs of the Daschle anthrax. They have reported that they saw NO coating on the spores.

"There is virtually no way an experienced scientist can make a mistake and not notice coatings of fumed silica or a silica coating or glass particles or anything like that on a micrograph - particularly if they were specifically looking for such things - which Meselson and Alibek almost certainly were …

(Matsumoto) did not ask the key scientific question: How can a spectrograph detect silicon if there is no silicon-based material visible in the micrograph images? There are many possible explanations … (Lake cites a few.)

"The Matsumoto article simply ignores or discounts the alternative explanations and says that the spores were coated - without any true proof that they were coated …

"Why is this important? Because, if the spores were coated, that would indicate a large state-sponsored manufacturing facility probably made them. If the spores were not coated, then they could have been made in almost any microbiology lab."

Lake points out that it took three more years, until July, 2006, when Dr. Douglas Beecher, a scientist at the FBI labs, released a scientific report, which resulted in headlines. On page six, it stated it was a "misconception" that the anthrax spore powders contained additives and/or that "sophisticated engineering" was required to make the powders. Beecher specifically referred to Matsumoto's 2002 Washington Post article in his rebuke.

From then on, it was not necessary to show the 2001 anthrax was created in the course of military weapons production - a big step in narrowing the focus of the investigation.

Beecher's evidence does point to a facility such as Fort Detrick where Ivins worked, due to the purity of the anthrax material, but it eliminates the need to look for a suspect who had access to engineered anthrax with special additives as a "coating."

We need to take a long look at how the anthrax attacks influenced the debate on the Patriot Act.

The Patriot Act was taken "off the shelf" and introduced into Congress eight days after the 9/11 attacks, on September 19. Bush demanded the act be signed in the next forty-eight hours. He was opposed by Senator Russ Feingold and the Democratic party leadership, led by Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy.

Meanwhile, the first wave of anthrax letters were sent on September 18 from Trenton, NJ, near Princeton University, in a child-like handwriting to media outlets - specifically, ABC, NBC, CBS, The New York Post and The National Enquirer. "Anthrax Pervades Florida Site, and Experts See Likeness to That Sent to Senators." The New York Times. The Patriot Act recieves a chilly reception on Capitol Hill, as Bush is requesting passage of its draconian provisions within 48 hours. Naturally, however, the media was in a complete panic as the full impact of this first wave of anthrax letters slowly sunk in.

On October 3, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D) said that he doubted the Senate will take up the newly reintroduced bill in the time demanded by the administration - now extended to "one week." Daschle has great power over whether the bill will pass and in what form. Attorney General John Ashcroft attacks the Senate Democrats for unnecessary delay. (The Washington Post, 10/3/2001.)

On October 4, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D) accused the Bush administration of reneging on an agreement on the antiterrorist bill. Like Daschle, Leahy has the power to kill or modify the bill. Some warn, "lawmakers are overlooking constitutional flaws in their rush to meet the administration's timetable." Two days later, Ashcroft complains about "the rather slow pace … over his request for law enforcement powers … Hard feelings remain." (The Washington Post, 10/4/01.)

On October 9, in the story "Cracks in Bipartisanship Start to Show," the Washington Post reports, "Congress has lost some of the shock-induced unity with which it first responded to the 9/11 attacks." (Washington Post, 10/9/01)

On October 9, the second wave of anthrax letters were sent with a much higher grade of purity - this time, the letters focused on Democratic leaders Daschle and Leahy are postmarked. Were these two key Democratic leaders targeted in order to ensure quick passage for the Patriot Act with as few revisions as possible?

Both letters again bore the postmark of "Trenton, NJ," with lethal doses to Senators Daschle and Leahy. Inside both letters are the words: "Death to America, Death to Israel, Allah is Great." An excellent chronology has been created by The South Florida Sun-Sentinel. When Daschle's letter arrived on October 15, the reaction on Capitol Hill was an evacuation not seen since the British invasion during the War of 1812. Twenty-eight staffers were exposed to anthrax, including staffers of Daschle and Feingold. (Due to quarantining of the mail, Leahy's letter was not found until a month later, and provided a veritable cache of evidence.) The bill passed both houses of Congress and was signed by President Bush on October 26, with few amendments.

Although Leahy's letter never got to his office, it exposed people who handled it prior to the quarantine. When interviewed on the subject in 2007, Leahy stated, "I wish they had turned this investigation over to some good sheriff or police chief somewhere. I think it's been very badly handled." Later in the conversation, he added, "But I don't think it's somebody insane. And I think there are people within our government - certainly from the source of it - who know where it came from. And these people may not have had anything to do with it, but they certainly know where it came from."

On Daschle's part, he complained in March 2008, that the FBI told him seven years ago they were 100 percent confident they would capture those responsible. "We have not yet pressed those in enforcement to provide with far better understanding than what we have today about what they know … the transparency level in health care looks good compared to the transparency level with anthrax."

This is a time to open the shades and let in the light. We can't rely just on scientists and law enforcement. Any farmer can tell you sunlight kills anthrax. That's what we need - and lots of it. While theories are presented here, the request to everyone reading this is to focus on the evidence rather than one's own preconceptions about 9/11 and other hot-button issues. Opening the grand jury proceedings should be just the first step. The second step may be to follow Glenn Greenwald's lead as to which Congressional body has the expertise and the backbone to examine the role of ABC and other media entities in the rush to war with Iraq.

Sources:

David Willman, Apparent Suicide in Anthrax Case, The Los Angeles Times, August 1, 2008.

David Willman, Anthrax Scientist Bruce Ivins Stood to Benefit from a Panic, August 2, 2008,

Michael Isikoff & Suzanne Smalley, A Case's Last Bizarre Turn, Newsweek, August 2, 2008,

Sara Tennessen, Iowa State Daily, February 1, 2002, Ames Anthrax Famous, But Strain From Other State

William J. Broad, et al., Anthrax Probe Hampered by FBI BlundersNew York Times,

David Dishneau, Ivins Had Mild Persona But Some Saw Dark Side, AP, August 1, 2008,

Keith Olbermann, Countdown: Anthrax, The Long Road, August 1, 2008,

Cryptologic Quarterly, Robert J. Hanyok, (U) Skunks, Bogies, Silent Hounds, and Flying Fish: The Gulf of Tonkin Mystery, 2-4 August 1964, Winter 2005, p. 49.

Sara Tennessen, Iowa State Daily, February 1, 2002, Ames Anthrax Famous, But Strain From Other State

Alan Gathright, Probe of Fatal Police Shooting to be Open, San Francisco Chronicle, July 17, 2004,

William Broad and Judith Miller, Anthrax Inquiry Looks at US Labs , The New York Times, 12/2/01,

Global Security Newswire, Army Anthrax Practices Raise Concerns Over Proposed Biodefense Labs in Urban Centers, Nuclear Threat Initiative, October 14, 2004,

Ed Lake, Were the anthrax spores coated with silica or not? The logic of the coating arguments. December 7-8, 2003)

Douglas J. Beecher, Forensic Application of Microbiological Culture Analysis, et al., FBI Laboratory, May 22, 2006,

Glenn Greenwald, The Unresolved Story of ABC News' False Saddam-Anthrax Reports, Salon, April 9, 2007,

Glenn Greenwald, Vital Unresolved Anthrax Questions And ABC News, Salon, August 1, 2008.

Meryl Nass, M.D., Improbably Ending.l

Statement of Meryl Nass, M.D., Before the Subcommittee of National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations, House of Representatives, April 29, 1999

Gary Matsumuto, Vaccine A: The Covert Government Experiment That's Killing Our Soldiers, Basic Books, 2004;

Brian Ross, Christopher Isham, Chris Vlasto and Gary Matsumoto, Troubling Anthrax Additive Found, ABCNEWS.com, October 26, 2001,

Gary Matsumoto, Additive Search Requires More Study, ABCNEWS.com, November 1, 2001,

Guy Gugliotta and Gary Matsumoto, FBI's Theory on Anthrax is Doubted, Washington Post, October 28, 2002, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy ... -2002Oct27

Gary Matsumoto, Anthrax Powder - State of the Art? Science, November 28, 2003,

Emergent BioSolutions Inc. press release, US Department of Homeland Security Certifies BioThrax® (Anthrax Vaccine Adsorbed) As An Approved Product for Homeland Security, August 30, 2006.

Lukas I. Alpert, Closing In on Anthrax Fiend, The New York Post, 3/29/08,

Michael D'Annunzio, The Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program: History, Controversy, and Legal Issues, Harvard Law Review, 2000,

Julie Weisberg, Soldier Faces Threats from Military After Refusing Anthrax Vaccine, Raw Story, September 17, 2007

Sarah Abruzzese and Eric Lipton, Anthrax Suspect Made Threats, Witnesses Say, International Herald Tribune, August 2, 2008, http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/02/ ... /ivins.php

Ashley Andyshak, The Legal Killers, Frederick News-Post, June 29, 2008,

Addiction Technology Transfer Center, terms for Maryland Certification of counselors.

Lou Michel, et al., Amid Anthrax Probe, Doctor Snaps, Buffalo News, August 8, 2004

William H. McMichael, Men Who Refused Vaccine May Get Clear Records, Air Force Times, May 11, 2008,

Russell Feingold, Statement of Sen. Russell Feingold on the US Anti-Terrorism Bill on the Senate Floor, October 25, 2006

Lois R. Ember, Anthrax Sleuthing, Chemical & Engineering News, December 4, 2006,

BBC News, US Attacks Used 'Common Anthrax, September 25, 2006

Andrew C. Revkin and Dana Canedy, Anthrax Pervades Florida Site, and Experts See Likeness to That Sent to Senators, New York Times, December 5, 2001, "Anthrax Pervades Florida Site, and Experts See Likeness to That Sent to Senators."

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Chronology of Anthrax Events,

Philip Baruth, Tales from the Rusty Scuffer: A Little Light Lunch with Senator Patrick LeahyVermont Daily Briefing, September 5, 2007,

Shumonik1, Tom Daschle on the Anthrax Attacks - 3/26/08 - Los Angeles, CA, YouTube.

Author unstated, Fears of Anthrax and Smallpox, The New York Times, August 7, 2001

Yes!

great post, homer.

should I change my signature to:

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to be dead.

According to a Yahoo news article, some are claiming that the letters were sent from New Jersey, about 200 miles away because of this gentleman's supposed fixation with a sorority. The mailbox used is 200 yards away from the storage used by the sorority. I guess they'll go for any explanation, no matter how unlikely to 'fill in' the gaps.

I think I read that his father also lived in Princeton, so it may have nothing to do with a sorority.

Also, Op-Ed in the WSJ today from a colleague who explains why Ivins couldn't have done it. Of course, if this was an inside job, this writer could have been just as complicit as Ivins.

Lots of questions and nobody seems very serious about getting answers.

Just a couple of points from your archives to keep in mind whilst continuing the search for the truth.

Maybe it would be in the interests of the Democrats to look for some votes amongst the right wing gun nuts to inspire action against those who are repealing your "unalienable rights".

Constitution:

Section. 4. The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Declaration of Independance:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.— That to
secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form
of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its
foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to
them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

When did the Civil War end? 1860's... 70's?

You're about due aren't you?

god knows you have all made sure that the "militia" is armed. Shouldn't all of the "patriotic" Americans be seriously thinking of this?

Not to sound condescending but if the US truly is the greatest country in the world, shouldn't their democratic ideology be led by example?