"They had to develop new technologies to crack this case."

-- franticflintstone

No they did not - that work had already been done by Paul Keim and his team at Northern Arizona University, along with Craig Venter's TIGR genome sequencing institute.

The FBI contracted the work they did - a very incomplete analysis, as detailed in my previous post - out to Ibis Biosciences - a private corporation that is a federal government startup, supported by everyone from the FBI to the NIAID to the NIH to DARPA - Defense Advanced Research.

Here is an excerpt from David Willman's Aug 4 article at LA Times:

Ibis Biosciences, a company in Carlsbad, performed some of the most recent anthrax analysis. The company tells its clients, including the FBI, that its high-resolution anthrax genotyping kit provides analyses more advanced than any other technology worldwide.

The forensic analysis of the anthrax sent in the mailings had long posed a challenge to the FBI, whose in-house scientists were not equipped to decipher the potential origin of the material. Some of the 1st analysis was performed by Ivins and other scientists at USAMRIID; such efforts also were attempted at Battelle, but technicians there rendered some of the material forensically useless by first sterilizing it with steam, scientists told The Times. A spokesman for Battelle, T.R. Massey declined earlier this year [2008]to discuss Battelle's role.

First, what Ibis is saying is not true - the best way to verify that the flask and the letters had the strain was whole-genome sequencing, which they refused to do. Ibis is quite similar to Battelle - a private biotech firm that relies heavily on government support to stay alive. The work was not done by the FBI lab, oddly enough, or by an independent academic like Paul Keim, but by a private firm closely tied to Homeland Security Inc.

Second, that's further independent verification of the anthrax investigation account presented in longtime medical microbiology reporter Richard Preston's Demon in the Freezer (and more proof that Ed Lake is completely wrong, as well).

Regarding who benefits from closing this case, I urge people to take a look at Homeland Security lobbying, available here:

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/issuesum.php?lname=Homeland+Security

Top of the list? Emergent Biosolutions, lobbying hard to get the DHHS anthrax vaccine contract. A little lower? Battelle Memorial Institute. This is all about protecting billions in dollars of federal contracts for corrupt biotech firms, in other words. Homeland Security contracts - the new sacred cows.

Do we need millions of doses of anthrax vaccine? Not really. It wouldn't even be effective in the case of a terror attack- it's a six month process to get vaccinated.

Ike Solem

ike_solm@hotmail.com

What sorority evidence?

There is no KKG sorority house at Princeton. What was near the mailbox was a storage facility where the sorority stored their rush materials.

Did Ivins know that there was no sorority house at Princeton but knew where they stored their stuff for silly season?

Before you conclude that this is the clincher, how about one piece of evidence that he was in New Jersey on the dates that would match the anthrax mailings. Or that he EVER used that mailbox.

I attempted to chase down any media lead that refers to sarin and anthrax and bin Laden, unsuccessfully. But, there was much activity on Capital Hill concerning a biological attack, (not sure if there were any official references), such that many staff began taking Cipro immediately after 9/11 and prior to 9/26 due to "intelligence chatter" of a second wave attack. Is it possible Ivins "heard" of the chatter since anthrax was his specialty and people outside of the core were being warned to consider taking Cipro? The next question is if Ivins was the sole culprit, how did he figure in the "intelligence chatter"? This leads us back to who leaked what to whom concerning Cipro.

I can understand people wanting to wring the last ounce of information out of Ivins' corpse, to make him un-dead just a little bit longer, but what do people expect to find? It's his motive for ingesting whatever might have killed him that would be important to know, and no autopsy on his physical remains will tell us that.

I still want a full spectrum of tox screens. DNA analysis of hair, etc. to see what drugs he was taking as far back as one can go. If Aych was around I'd tell him about the new Pot Friendly drug tests they are using here in CA. It's a cheek swab, like a DNA swab - but not. You only have to be clean about 3 days instead of the full month with the P test they used to use. Progress!

if you dont have an answer to the sorority question do you know who 'the sources' of ABC? were?

if you dont have an answer to the sorority question do you know who 'the sources' of ABC? were?

Pressure should be maintained on ABC to give a full accounting and name their sources.

But between Dowd's column and the NYT story mentioned by Macgupta on page 2 of the comments, it sounds like whatever "high government sources" urged Richard Cohen to take Cipro prior to the attacks (per Glenn's Sunday Aug 3 post) deserve to retain their anonymity after all.

Before you conclude that this is the clincher, how about one piece of evidence that he was in New Jersey on the dates that would match the anthrax mailings. Or that he EVER used that mailbox.

-- Bob In Pacifica

Which one of you wants to do a little Google maps and find the distances from his home or lab and the likely fastest routes. I sort of glanced at it. Traffic must be pretty bad back there but on the days involved after 9/11, traffic might have been light late at night. It would have been a drive up and back, what are the times involved at various possible speeds. Is it possible?

There was an earlier linked posted in this thread for the Washington Times. It was unnamed "intelligence sources" who said that bin Laden was making anthrax and sarin gas. Perfect timing too. If this false story were circulated by "intelligence sources" wouldn't what the FBI finds suspicious in Ivins' email make those intelligence sources suspicious? You know, if they were actually investigating this.