There was a story on September 26, 2001 about Bin Laden acquiring anthrax and sarin gas, courtesy of unnamed "intelligence officials." Posted the link earlier (posted again below), and I'm sure this would have been on radio and TV too (this can surely be confirmed). So far, none of the media coverage I've seen has mentioned this. There have also been even more disappearing stories from both NYT and WaPo websites, with no explanation that I can see. David Stout did a story for NYT that said FBI had found "hundreds" of similar letters at Ivins house that "had yet to be sent." These were the unrelated letters that stopped in the mid-90s. Also claimed the language in Ivins Sept 26 email was "nearly identical" and "sometimes identical" to the anthrax letters - neither is true. You can't find the story anymore on the NYT website but I think it's still on the IHT site. A WaPo story along similar lines also appeared briefly and then got replaced by a somewhat more accurate piece.

http://www.discussanything.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-731.html

Bin Laden terror group tries to acquire chemical arms

By Bill Gertz

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

September 26, 2001

"Intelligence officials say classified analysis of the types of chemicals and toxins sought by al Qaeda indicate the group probably is trying to produce the nerve agent Sarin, or biological weapons made up of anthrax spores"

What do you expect to find? And, what would it tell you if you found it? Even if I let my imagination run wild with this, I can't dismiss the idea that Ivins was in a hospital when he died, with - presumably - a full array of medical resources available to him.

And, even if I go way out on a limb and imagine someone injecting him with some toxin, is it also not equally reasonable to speculate that such a substance would be chosen for it's rapid metabolization and likely wouldn't show up on a toxicology screen.

Backing up from such a fantasia, even if Haldol, Thorazine, methamphetimines, Ecstasy, PCPs, Versed, and/or whatever psychotropic one could imagine showed up, then what? What do you imagine finding that would make the situation any more clear? What would you look for, and then what inferences would you draw?

-- bystander

Mostly interested in looking at his self-medication history and abuse and then looking for possible drug interactions with any all self prescribed and professionally prescribed substances. I just have a hunch he may have been using crank. Problem is that flushes out of the system pretty quickly but a DNA hair analysis should find that. Long term tweakers and cocaine addicts develop drug induced symptoms indistinguishable from clinical psychosis.

No searching, no sorting, no browsing by headers, no filtering, no threading, no RSS/Atom feeds, no ability for authors to edit or delete posted items. It's nearly impossible to conduct a thoughtful, in-depth and well-organized discussion on any topic on this site. The interface encourages the attention span of a gnat. I strongly encourage Salon to upgrade their forum software. They may want to take a look at Democratic Underground, which uses DCForum+.

Many topics in the Bruce Ivins discussion are petering out and falling to pieces. without any orderly and logical development, because of the primitive software.

I think it's unlikely he would have gotten that report from anybody at USAMRIID in Frederick.

And no, I'm not looking for evidence of being "suicided". Tylenol OD? Gimme a break! They'd "fly" him out a top floor window in a tall building or use the gun. Fantastical brainstorming? maybe they have something that shuts down the liver, like a toxin extracted from toxic death shroud mushroooms, and the Tylenol is just a red herring. See? I can play that game, too.

But no, I'm not looking for evidence of him being "suicided" but I keep an open mind.

No searching, no sorting, no browsing by headers, no filtering, no threading... Many topics in the Bruce Ivins discussion are petering out...because of the primitive software.

This McBride character just might be on to something, here.....

Point of posting the Gertz article was just that when Ivins wrote in the Sept 26 email that he had "heard tonight" about Bin Laden acquiring anthrax and sarin, he was telling the truth and the (still ongoing) attempts to spin that email as suspicious are baseless.

Okay, let's go with crank. What inferences relative, or gemane, to the anthrax investigation do you draw from it if present?

I'm not trying to be a pain in the butt, or harass you on this. I'd really like to follow you logic on how Ivins ingesting crank might shed some light on who developed and carried out the attack.

This McBride character just might be on to something, here.....

-- arrenfrank

:-)

http://forum.prisonplanet.com/

LWG

Left Wing Gatekeeper!

I'm out for awhile.

Play nice and have fun kidz!

Well yes, if this was a forum, but it is not. It is a place where comments are made to the author of a blog post at Salon. In that regard the software is fine. In fact Salon looks at them as "letters to the editor" like in your local paper.

I have often wished that Salon would put in a real forum where we could interact. Perhaps modeled after the forums you see all over the Internet. It is not that they can not, or do not know how; it is that they do not want to do so at this time.

Perhaps a group here could figure out a way to list positive benefits to Salon itself that would convince the powers that be that a real forum would be a useful and attractive addition.

Go for it.

While the FBI publishes the new DNA methods that determined the exact strain of anthrax, and put it in Dr. Ivins' personal flask, all along the simplest way to convict is/was to confirm Dr. Ivins wrote those letters. The first one went out 9/18/08 – ahead of Dr. Ivins purported 9/26/08 email, (some news sources still claim this email was sent prior to 9/11)and incredibly quickly on the heels of the 9/11 attack...funny that. Meanwhile well before any attacks by a purported lone unknown madman with anthrax, high-placed officials were alleged to be taking Cipro – why? Were they psychic?

Here's a graphologist's profile of the person who wrote those letters , and sure, Ivins could fit that bill – but let's see his handwriting. It's not so easy to alter basic characteristics in one's handwriting/printing– pressure, spacing, emphasis, strokes, size, margins - despite attempts at disguise. http://www.richardfrasermd.com/anthraxletters.html

As a sometime amateur/hobbyist graphologist, I still think those letters were written by two different people (no punctuation inconsistent pressure,hesitant with overstrikes in one; solid, fluid, consistent strokes, purposeful punctuation in the other.) Oh, well that's my 2 cents.