That photo editor worked for the supermarket tabloid publishing company owned by an "ex" CIA person. It is the same town where the flight school that trained hijackers" is located,also owned by an "ex" CIA person.

For years they have used the tabloids to spread lies, memes, disinformations and distractions. Everyone who goes through a checkout line gets the headlines at eye level - far more effective than billboards.

So why did THAT photo editor have to be killed?

Where does that path lead? Probably down yet another rabbit hole.

If this story gains "legs", and I hope to hell it does, then my guess is any investigation will follow all of the links you've mentioned when the public gets hard data and begins to understand what may have happened here. If this doesn't get people pissed, then I'm wondering what will.

Interesting and compelling response, and no, I wouldn't for a minute assume that Ivins is The Guy just on the say-so of gov't officials with a huge history of lies and mistakes on this and other terror-related issues. But I have to respond to this:

Doesn't anyone find it just as questionable why there was anthrax all over a coworker's desk? Shouldn't the presence of anthrax on the coworker's desk shift suspicion off Ivins as opposed to the clean-up of it being seen as implicating him?

Um, yes, it's exceedingly, strikingly and appallingly bizarre that there was anthrax all over anyone's desk in such a place, which only raises more pointedly the question of why he acted like it was unsightly dandruff specks and wiped it up without REPORTING it f'r cripesake. I mean a gentle note to the effect that, "Oh, by the by, people seem to be carrying anthrax around and dumping it on other peoples' desks; don't we have a policy about that?" would seem to be, yes, pretty strongly called for in the circumstances no matter WHO came across it. The fact that he didn't report it screams for some kind of explanation.

"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,"

"State-sponsored," indeed! After reading Seymour Hersh's description of White House discussions of how to trigger a war with Iran, the question is: Is there anything these lunatics wouldn't do or say to get their way? Methinks the anwer to that question would be ... NO!

I think the problem with conspiracy theories is--where do you stop? They are generally such a mix of genuine data, speculation, wild speculation, misconstrued data, and overzealous amateur analysis, that they can virtually lead you to the imagination's horizon. Limited as we are by our need to have hard data backing our ideologies and realities, I tend to stay away from anything that can't be shown to have some hard data behind it--even if the reason is that the US government stonewalls or keeps the info from the public. Its just such a slippery slope, i think we are better off not going there. Besides, there are so many things to investigate that do have answers, we have a lot to keep us busy.

I'd get a vague memory of this every time some new story about the anthrax attacks came up:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0DE2D7103FF937A25753C1A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1

It reads like a novel. Most likely because it was. You have to get to the very end to realize it was a hoax. But how many Times readers at that time would have gotten that far, given how disturbing the subject was? I myself misremembered the story as that she did receive a tainted letter. I wonder if the FBI investigated this "hoax." As the aspens bend...

By the time the Iraq theory was being boosted, most reasonable people had already concluded that the anthrax attacks were the work of some loose cannon in the US with access to the bacteria, either in a government lab or some kind of hobby setup. The messages and targets were just a much closer match for what a domestic nutjob would do to make it look like a foreign attack. The fact that democratic senators and media figures were targets just made any foreign terrorism theories look farcical.

Eh, what'd I say about "most reasonable people"? By the same token, most reasonable people in Fall 2002 had read the many news articles proving that the Bush administration was hellbent on war with Iraq and was "stovepiping" a lot of data to Cheney's phony intelligence office while bypassing all competent analyses of the Iraq threat. So for all I know, maybe some "serious" decisionmakers really had missed the obvious signs about the anthrax attacks. Are you saying I have to lower my opinion of beltway wisdom even further?

"No adult supervision" I believe is how the IG report describes the goings-on over at the DOJ!

(No doubt, it's hard to make time for investigations when the young Ms. Goodling is worried about vetting applicants on 'how much you want to serve president Bush' , 'why are you a Rupublican', etc., etc.)

Personally, I've stopped asking such questions about this Gov. ("I'd like to know the answer...") when they out-ed CIA agents/Diplomatic missions (while blaming 'false intelligence' for the Iraq war) and nothing happened (except a pardon for Scooter) etc., etc. Imo, there has been ample evidence to indict, if not impeach, the whole Bush cabal for years now.

bah.

I will endeavor to only agree with the majority opinion and champion it strenuously from here on in.

James T. Kirk

Good for you. I knew you'd come around. Mazel Tov! on your new, more reasonable disposition. On you it looks good.

The AP story on Ivins now has this little nugget:

He had a long history of homicidal threats, according to papers recently filed in local court by a social worker.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/6zhg3u

So, let's see if I can get this straight. The government knew as early as October 25, 2001 that the strain of anthrax used was the Ames strain, known to be cultured in US government facilities. Employed at the most important of those is a person with "a long history of homicidal threats" and our illustrious FBI needed six years to connect those dots?

Anyone have a link for the filing by the social worker?