This one's lost. All the speculation in the world is never going to figure out what REALLY happened here. This one's been buried already in piles upon piles of fake evidence.

Accept the fact that there are unseen powers that control what goes on in this country, and you'll find life a lot easier.

Maybe you'll get to find out in the afterlife...

"What is Taplin's game here? His post at TPM seems extremely tendentious and slanted."

I've noticed the same thing on other 'progressive internet sites'.

"The best way to control opposition is to lead it." - Lenin

'They' want this thing put to rest, badly, even at the risk of showing their hand.

I'm a veteran and former republican and not a 'conspiracy theorist' but I can no longer take anything for granted.

“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves” – Edward R. Murrow

sorry guys but this just too much 'Nancy Grace' and nobody gets a first rate actor for second rated TV material- but perhaps we could develop it into a one of these reality shows if some more fruitcakes show up - the ones we got now are not colorful enough and much to knowledgable - the only writer i still would trust to come out with a decent script perhaps for a low budget Art house film would be LWM - but i doubt he is willing to write it -

so keep digging guys you are all doing an unreal job!

One word: hogwash. We, and the mainstream media especially, have every right, not to mention an *obligation*, to assess the credentials and credibility of this "theripist" in comparison with the credentials and credibility of those professional colleagues of Ivins who knew him best. How do we know that she isn't lying or mentally unstable? Where is the reliable corroboration for her charges? The MSM have tried to promote Duley as a respected mental health professional. Is she?

Anthrax, the bacteria Bacillus anthracis, is a soil pathogen that normally infects grazing animals - but it is a spore-forming bacteria, meaning it can resist exposure to sunlight, explosions, etc. - and it is very dangerous in the inhalation form.

Adaptation of anthrax as a biological weapon was done by the Japanese and the British in the 1930s, and the U.S. began copying the British program in 1942. The Soviets got their expertise (and their bacterial factories) from the Japanese biowarfare program.

From 1942-1969, the U.S. ran a massive biological warfare program that included large-scale anthrax production. Tests carried out in the Pacific in the 1960s, at the program's height, showed that fighter jets could infect hundreds of square miles of area with ease, with over 50% infection rates in test animals. Then, after a mysterious death of thousands of sheep near the Dugway Utah biowarfare test center, Nixon publicly closed the U.S. offensive biowarfe program.

However, at the same time the Soviets, convinced that the closure was just a public pose, began their own massive biowarfare program, that would outperform all others: Biopreparat. They weaponized smallpox and anthrax, and also created dry powdered anthrax preparations.

Previously, anthrax was prepared as a wet spore slurry and loaded directly into bombs for immediate use. Dry anthrax meant that production of spores could be separated from use of the bombs - dry anthrax could be stockpiled for a few years, but not the wet spores. Lovely, huh?

The U.S. and Britain were largely unaware of Biopreparat until the defection of two Soviet researchers in 1989 and 1992: Pasechnik and Alibek. Understand this: for at least a decade, at the touch of a button, the USSR could have sent guided missiles and fighter jets along the entire Eastern seaboard, and blanketed the region with highly weaponized dry powdered anthrax and smallpox (resulting in all-out nuclear war, of course).

Now, here is where U.S. secrecy blocks the gentle inquiries of minor punters like myself. We do know that there was an effort to recreate the Soviet anthrax bomblets "in order to know what we are dealing with", carried out by a joint "public-private partnership" - yes, this is definitive, from a reputable source: http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_10/Tucker

First, let's look at the most recent history of the biowarfare treaties:

In August 2001, the administration of President George W. Bush rejected a draft multilateral protocol that had been under negotiation for six years to strengthen the BWC with a system of mandatory declarations and inspections.

His justification was protection of the intellectual property rights of private corporations that work under contract with the federal government. No kidding.

There are two programs of some interest here, both active during the 1990s: Jefferson and Clear Vision.

"Project Jefferson, a plan by the Defense Intelligence Agency to reproduce a genetically modified strain of the anthrax bacterium developed by Russian scientists in the early 1990s, in order to determine whether or not the agent was resistant to the licensed U.S. anthrax vaccine.

Project Clear Vision, a project by Battelle Memorial Institute, under contract to the CIA, to reconstruct and test a Soviet-designed biological bomblet so as to assess its dissemination characteristics.

Okay, someone asked about the Emergent Biosolutions (previously named Bioport) connection. They supply all the anthrax vaccine for the U.S. Army, but their production facility in Lansing Michigan was a leaky nightmare, so all vaccine production is done by their subcontractor, Battelle. Connect any dots yet? How about Vaxgen, Emergent's "rival" - as reported on by David Willman in the Los Angeles Times, (ring some more bells?):

"New anthrax vaccine doomed by lobbying: America's sole supplier faced oblivion if its rival's product was adopted. It was time to call on political connections.

By David Willman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

December 2, 2007"

What the reporter neglects to mention is that Vaxgen also used Battelle as the sole manufacturer and subcontractor for THEIR anthrax vaccine - so regardless of who got the contract, Battelle would get a big chunk of cash as the sole subcontractor. In case you haven't noticed, that is the same Willman who broke the Ivins story in the LA Times.

So...let's get back to the anthrax story. Our projects of interest are called "Jefferson" and "Clear Vision". That must be West Jefferson Ohio, where the DIA and Battelle ran a joint program to develop a vaccine-resistant anthrax strain. Notably, USAMRIID had previously refused to cooperate with DIA over this, citing treaty violation concerns. The 9/18 and 10/9 anthrax was not vaccine-resistant, but was the Ames strain, so we can discount this project, illegal though it probably was.

Project Clear Vision is murkier, but it was apparently carried out in Dugway Utah (the site of the 1968 sheep kill, ironically enough), also under management by Battelle. This is where the investigation should have focused - and for a few weeks in Dec 2001, it apparently was the center of interest - and then the entire lead FBI team was sacked and replaced.

As usual, when lost in the thickets, the money trail is your surest bet back into the sunlight:

In the three years since the September 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent mailings of anthrax bacterial spores, federal spending to protect the U.S. civilian population against biological terrorism has soared more than 18-fold. For the 2005 fiscal year, the Bush administration has requested about $7.6 billion for civilian biodefense, up from $414 million at the time of the 2001 attacks.

Draw your own conclusions.