Does the FBI have evidence that Ivins was able to mail the envelopes that came from St. Petersburg, FL on Sept. 20, for example? (a date and place that was mentioned by a previous commenter)

Dr. Martin E. Hugh-Jones, an anthrax expert at Louisiana State University, said the F.B.I. needed to publish more about the anthrax in the flask in Dr. Ivins’s lab, including the percentage of bacteria carrying each of the four genetic markers. The flask contained a mixture of dozens of spore production runs made at Fort Detrick and Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.

snip/order of quotes reversed

Eventually, 8 of the 1,000 strains were found to carry the four mutations, and 100 scientists had access to, or were associated with, the strains. All of these scientists were investigated.The “body of evidence,” officials said, pointed to Dr. Ivins.

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I am now wondering if Ivins' explanation of the "wrong sample" event -- now considered as close to a "smoking gun" as they have -- was completely accepted at the time and only BECAME significant in hindsight years later as they were desperately trying to build a case against Ivins ala the same process as built the WMD case against Saddam Hussein.

I was suprised by the chronology of the "wrong sample" event (particularly after a month earlier handing over the allegedly incriminating anthrax) ... but that both events were in February and March of 2002 ... a long time ago, and long before Ivins was a glint in a G-man's eye.

If the Princeton envelopes were leaking anthrax (they were) and a carrier picked up the letters, he would have been exposed. His vehicle and/or pouch (if he had no vehicle) would have been exposed. More likely, since a regularly scheduled five p.m. mail pickup is too late for a letter carrier on his/her rounds to be on the street, so that it was most likely a collections driver on a regular collections run. Which would also explain the anthrax inside the collections box.

As for questions regarding when the mail was picked up on 9/17/01, the Post Office has been putting into place a scanning system so that the time when any specific box is collected is recorded and entered into postal computer records. If the scan exists the exact time of the collection should be known. It's possible that the system may not have been in place in 2001 in Princeton, NJ. Nevertheless, five o'clock pickups are important for businesses to assure the correct postmark. It's possible that the collections driver for this box was not even on the street before five p.m. or was following a schedule to pick up other boxes (4:30 pickup times). If he/she were running ahead of schedule he would not collect the mail prematurely. That's a serious offense for a postal employee.

Anyway, a much clearer picture of the time of the collection could be known with the cooperation of the Postal inspectors involved. That it's not known (and there is no work-related reason to withold this information) points to the weakness of the case and the intentional witholding of information by the investigators.

Regarding what most people know about the OJ case, get hold of the coroner's investigator's report and review the autopsies and autopsy testimony.

The Browns told the coroner investigator that they'd talked with their daughter at 11 p.m. the night of the murder. That was their story the next morning, less than 12 hours later. Remember, this was the coroner investigator asking the parents when was the last time they'd talked to their daughter in order to establish when she was last known to be alive. At 11 Simpson was putting luggage into the the limo. The Browns changed their story later.

The throat wound Mrs. Simpson suffered cut all arteries and bissected the epiglottis but there was no blood in her sinuses or mouth. Not only didn't any blood get into her mouth but her epiglottis did not bleed. And she did not aspirate (inhale blood into her lungs), meaning that she either wasn't breathing or bleeding (or most likely wasn't doing either) when her throat was cut. Goldman was stabbed in the back into the major artery going to his lower torso and yet only a half cup of blood collected in his abdomen.

The autopsies say that both victims are missing blood in places where it should have been. Unless OJ was a vampire, a lot of people know that there was something else going on in Brentwood that night.

Just saying. Back to this case.

That would be a conspiracy. The FBI only wants lone nuts.

And why bother mailing the envelopes inside an envelope. Why not just hand them over to a co-conspirator?

But once you add a co-conspirator you eliminate all the psycho-babble false stories about Ivins being nutzo you are back to figuring out a logical reason for him doing this. The whole profit angle works better for corporations, and we don't want to go there. And no one has put Ivins in the same room with Atta yet. Too many problems, so Ivins better serves the authorities as a lone nut.

There are no conspiracies within the U.S. Just against the U.S. Remember that.

CargoCult said

In fact, if you tracked them all down, it would make an interesting list. They are most used by manufacturers of inhaled drugs. This then gets us into all the people who prepare inhalant drugs using this device, which is a fairly long list:

To the inhaled drug list I would like to add the pesticide industry. The pesticide industry has made a large investment in producing particulate chemicals that float like smoke, for the obvious purpose of efficient application to large areas. The number of pesticide companies who would benefit from an anthrax attack though is rather small. It is probably limited to Bayer Crop Sciences ( www.bayercropscience.com ). Of course, Bayer is also the maker of Cipro which not only received a huge immediate order for their antibiotic, but benefited from the accumulation of stockpiles.

Also, the preparation time for the attack in order to tie it to 9/11 indicates some previous knowledge of the impending attacks. Lets keep in mind, Atta moved up the attack date because he felt the terror group was attracting attention. Even with Atta moving up the date of the WTC attack, the anthrax perpetrators got the letters in the mail a week or so later.

The WTC attack planning was done in Hamburg, so a Bavarian company would have had huge advantage in the planning stage of the attack.

Also, early reports about the attack indicated that Atta was supported by the Carl Duisberg Society in his studies and travels throughout Europe and Africa.

Carl Duisberg was in fact credited with being one of the founders and the spiritual father of Bayer. His lab first synthesized aspirin. On a more infamous note, Duisberg is known as the "man behind Adolf Hitler" and the father of chemical weapons for his financial support of Hitler and I.G. Farben's role in the development of chemical weapons during WWI respectively.

Amazingly, the Carl Duisberg Society remains active today. One might even say, this is all right up their alley. Their does seem to be a lack of maturity involved in the attack. What to the targets Jennifer Lopez and U.S. Senators have in common? The attackers misspelled penicillin.

The FBI did do us a favor though by releasing their investigation notes. It showed agreement on the following:

• The perpetrator was required to have a huge technological capability
• The Senate targets were politically motivated
• The government is not confident that it can protect us from our own military ( Ft. Detrick )