during Ivins hospitalization, 07/09/2008 to 07/23/2008. Despite them and the peace order, he was released to home with no restrictions that have been made public.

Certainly the 13 day hospitalization was sufficient -- since the threat of gunfire and bullet proof vests etc were made on 07/09/2008 -- to investigate guns, vests, and consider protective custody, etc. and for the FBI (who encouraged the peace order) to coordinate security for Ms. Duley.

My impression is that Duley was fed a lot of frightening hearsay by her friends at the FBI.

Who and where was/is her supervising clinician?

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Phone privileges on psychiatric units are not automatic and, in my experience are limited and can be revoked. Patients/families/others are often in rancorous relations. Calls are limited to provide a therapeutic environment to, hopefully, provide a safe and calm environment, and remove opportunities for patients - such as Mr. Ivins -- to do harm to himself, as these calls would appear to have done).

Since Ms. Duley was responsible, apparently, for Mr. Ivins hospitalization and he was not happy, it would be guessed that it was known there was "bad feelings" between them. I'm rather surprised he was allowed to call her, in the middle of the night, twice. The 2 calls are described as predawn and occurring one after the other.

supposedly it was DNA evidence that led the FBI to Ivins

The evidence doesn't link Ivins' DNA to the anthrax- apparently, it links the anthrax DNA to Ivins, through a "specific genetic fingerprint" leading to some samples exclusively under his official supervision.

Evidence like that isn't conclusive, to me. Security ID features are seldom 100% secure- particularly against "inside intrusion" from those with clearances, familiar faces who have already been permitted past the initial cordon. In the usual case, an assumption of mutual trust among cleared employees leads to some relaxation of the most restrictive barriers against access.

Admittedly, that's speculation. But as of now, I don't think the evidence trail leads conclusively to Ivins.

It's also possible that Ivins provided a sample to someone else who had the skills and material means to weaponize the toxin. As was pointed out by one of Ivins fellow scientists in one of the first NYT accounts following the suicide, weaponizing anthrax requires expertise in aerosol physics, not microbiology. I doubt that it's something that could be safely and reliably done by someone simply using a glove box in the basement of their house, either.

_ http://tiny.cc/3XcML

the above is the link to the Fredrick News Post. The below is from the article:

*Arthur O. Anderson, a medical doctor and scientist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick, said Duley's description of Ivins doesn't match his impressions of a man with whom he worked for many years.

As a health care professional and bioethicist -- he heads USAMRIID's Office of Human Use and Ethics -- Anderson said he takes issue with what he views as Duley's professional betrayal of Ivins.

"I can tell you very clearly that the minute a conflict of interest occurs in the caregiver-client relationship É she has to withdraw as the caregiver," he said. "She can't ethically continue to gather information or share information -- betray that trust -- without disclosing to her client that she is sharing what he believes is confidential, privileged information."

"The remaining allegations about murderous ideas and plans sound so foreign to me that in the absence of contemporaneously documented evidence I would have to consider them items of Ms. Duley's vivid imagination or information fed to her by the people she communicated with outside the therapeutic environment," Anderson wrote in an e-mail to the News-Post. "It is not at all surprising to me that a patient whose therapist is serving as a double agent 'therapist' and 'accuser' would become very angry with the therapist and might make some rather dramatic expressions of that anger."*

This colleague does think Ivins committed suicide because he was left with no other option under the circumstances. This doctor also notes that the FBI destroyed Ivins' life work by removing all of his lab cultures and that was probably was put Ivins over the top. His colleague thinks that betrayal and abandonment were what drove him to suicide, not guilt.

I just thought of a question not addressed. Presumably the anthrax letters were sent out as a result 9/11. How could someone, like Ivins, "whip up" a batch of weaponized anthrax and mail it out in such a short time frame and blame Assaad, including all the details which pointed to a Fort Detrick employee? All the steps would require a certain expertise in many aspects, unless you did this for a living. Not only having the time and equipment available immediately, but the plan to write the letters, who to send them, and where. It seems like a full time job, starting with grabbing the anthrax off the shelf. How long would it take to culture and process anthrax into a powder that could be mailed?

Why mail from Princeton? Perhaps because it is close to Newark airport. Did the FBI check plane rosters/Customs database/auto rentals of people coming and leaving the airport? Look for in and out activity, it would not take too much time to mail some letters.

Why exactly do Brian Ross' sources need anonymity? Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say they thought they were telling the truth, but were worried about being targeted by Saddam Hussein. I'd say that should no longer be a concern. What if they are worried about their employer (the U.S. Government)? If they released false information and are worried about punishment, they don't deserve anonymity because they released false information. If they released true information (which they didn't), does anyone doubt the Bush administration would have jumped to release that to the public as justification for invading Iraq? These are not whistleblowers here. I guess the general rule for the media today is to grant anonymity for absolutely no reason, in every situation, and this case is no exception.