Very interesting. Thank you.

One of the funny things about this whole episode is that if we take the overt narrative--

That an investigator directly involved with finding the culprit, is actually the culprit--

we can conclude the investigator may have used their position as investigator to destroy and/or fabricate evidence to frame another person. In this case Hatfill.

By accepting these facts and conclusions, we are also undermining those same facts and conclusions because we have no idea where the circle begins or ends. It is a snake eating its own tail.

That the FBI uncritically accepts Ivins as the culprit without acknowledging the logical paradox, is in itself a strong indication that the ladder has at least a few more rungs to go.

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And now a completely new subject, kind of on the same topic.

The Vilification of Jean Duley

I don't know if Duley's testimony is true at all. What I do know is that Jean Duley's testimony contrasted against the behavior of the FBI is a very strong indication that someone is lying.

Even if only an issue of tactics, I strongly question the wisdom of attacking Duley right now. Considering the facts we know, Duley seems to have a much more credible position than the FBI does.

The only thing to be gained from attacking Duley right now is to give the FBI credibility, diffuse any behavioral contradictions, and allow her to be used as a media source to initially vilify Ivins and then dismiss her as a crank.

For those assuming the position that the government lies about everything, therefore Ivins is innocent, therefore Duley must be an agent of the FBI--I ask you reflect upon your position and goals and if I can say it kindly: Check to see if your tail is in your mouth.

The idea that Ivins was killed by the government to cover up the true conspirators is in no way mutually exclusive of the idea that Ivins sent the anthrax letters.

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On a final note while I despise Party politics, I do love humor...so watching the self identified republicans here tread water while they wait for talking points that will never come-- is frickin hilarious.

I tried to find contact information for him last year and was unable to do so. If anyone could help with that (and he's quoted in the Post article today), I'd be really appreciative.

The article I linked in that comment comes the closest to saying that with authority, when Shane uses the usual caveat that "some scientists disagree" approach:

While some scientists disagree, many bioterrorism experts argue that the quality of the mailed anthrax is such that it could have been produced only in a weapons program or using information from such a program.

You have to couple that statement with the later discussion in the article that makes it clear only Dugway was weaponizing at the time and that it had managed to match the concentration in the Leahy sample.

The take home from that article and the other reading I've done the last few days (Len Horowitz looks a little flaky but has directed me to some good info: http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/anthrax.html) makes me think that the trillion spores per gram in a non-electrostatic aerosolizing powder is key and they all seem to suggst this beats the best achieved by the Soviets and Iraqis. I would think it could be worth your time to see if Scott Shane is still around and willing to put you in touch with some of his sources.

As for "offensive" anthrax being shipped to Ft. Detrick, the article starts with this:

For nearly a decade, U.S. Army scientists at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah have made small quantities of weapons-grade anthrax that is virtually identical to the powdery spores used in the mail attacks that have killed five people, government sources say.

Until the anthrax attacks led to tighter security measures, anthrax grown at Dugway was regularly sent by Federal Express to the Army's biodefense center at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, where the bacteria were killed using gamma radiation before being returned to Dugway for experiments.

The anthrax was shipped in the form of a coarse paste, not in the far more dangerous finely milled form, according to one government official.

So, it looks like what was shipped from Dugway to Ft. Detrick was "pre-offensive": live cultures that had been concentrated some (but probably not completely) and sent to Ft. Detrick to be killed by irradiation. They then weaponized it when it came back after being killed. The article does say that Dugway did weaponize some live cultures for some experiments, but it's not clear if that material was shipped anywhere.

Also note that live anthrax was FedEx'd regularly from Dugway to Ft. Detrick with no fatalities--it was the weaponizing that made this attack work and work so well that spores were dispersed when passing through postal sorting equipment.

I just thought this was interesting. I have no knowledge of this woman's expertise, but it certainly sounds logical to me (my apology if someone has already posted this).

http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2008/08/looking-closer-at-jean-duleys.html

Most states now have similar exceptions to confidentiality and privilege and reporting requirements modeled after California's as a result of Tarasoff.

Exactly right. Tarasoff has been taught in 1L torts classes ever since, because its holding rapidly spread to be the law in other jurisdictions. (I do not recall all the specifics -- law school was ages ago -- but I think the patient in Tarasoff eventually burned down his father's barn.)

But therapists do not generally make an announcement to their patients along these lines: "If you threaten to harm another and I deem you serious, I owe you no duty of confidentiality as to that issue." It is considered widely known.

Source: Baltimore Sun, December 12, 2001 @

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/anthraxmatchesarmyspores.html

Bioterror: Organisms made at a military laboratory in Utah are genetically identical to those mailed to members of Congress.

By Scott Shane, Sun Staff

For nearly a decade, U.S. Army scientists at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah have made small quantities of weapons-grade anthrax that is virtually identical to the powdery spores used in the mail attacks that have killed five people, government sources say.

Until the anthrax attacks led to tighter security measures, anthrax grown at Dugway was regularly sent by Federal Express to the Army's biodefense center at Fort Detrick, in Frederick, where the bacteria were killed using gamma radiation before being returned to Dugway for experiments.

The anthrax was shipped in the form of a coarse paste, not in the far more dangerous finely milled form, according to one government official.

Most anthrax testing at Dugway, in a barren Utah desert 87 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, is done using the killed spores to reduce the chance of accidental exposure of workers there.

But some experiments require live anthrax, milled to the tiny particle size expected on a battlefield, to test both decontamination techniques and biological agent detection systems, the sources say.

Anthrax is also grown at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, where it is used chiefly to test the effectiveness of vaccines in animals.

But that medical program uses a wet aerosol fog of anthrax rather than the dry powder used in the attacks and at Dugway, according to interviews and medical journal articles based on the research.

The wet anthrax, while still capable of killing people, is safer for laboratory workers to handle, scientists say.

Dugway's production of weapons-grade anthrax, which has never before been publicly revealed, is apparently the first by the U.S. government since President Richard M. Nixon ordered the U.S. offensive biowarfare program closed in 1969.

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