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Wednesday, September 17, 2008 12:00 AM

Key senators dispute FBI's anthrax case against Bruce Ivins

The FBI director faces emphatic doubts about his claims that the anthrax attacker has been identified.

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  • Wednesday, September 17, 2008 08:34 AM

    What a coverup.

    The FBI and Justice are standing around with their pants down, trying to convince everyone that they really are doing their job.

    Of course they aren't, and haven't been since day one. For example, recall that the Princeton mailbox was swabbed within weeks of the attacks, but that those swabs weren't tested until summer 2002. Hardly a rapid response.

    There has also been a deliberate effort by the FBI to hide the facts of the case, which are that the spores were physically weaponized, but the anthrax strain in question, Ames, was not genetically engineered.

    That's where the press has been sloppy or misleading. There are two kinds of biological "weaponization", and the physical weaponization means that the biological material is easily suspended in air and is the right size to be inhaled into the lungs. The Daschle and Leahy letters contained such material, which is how they managed to contaminate mail sorting rooms as well as the entire Hart Senate Office building.

    Genetic weaponization means that things like antibiotic-resistance genes have been introduced into the strain itself, meaking it much more dangerous once inhaled. Such modifications have been done by both the U.S. and Soviet biowarfare programs, but were not present in any of the recovered samples.

    Finally, the Ames strain is the one used as the "challenge strain" by anthrax vaccine manufacturers, i.e. Emergent Biosolutions and Battelle Memorial Institute in West Jefferson Ohio.

    This leads us right to the U.S. anthrax vaccine program, which left-wing and right-wing commentators have roundly ignored - but the details are quite fascinating:

    The Pentagon's anthrax vaccine is manufactured by a single contractor, Emergent BioSolutions. It has been plagued with complaints from soldiers and soldiers' advocates, who assert that the vaccine causes myriad debilitating ailments.
    The Defense Department was forced to halt mandatory injections in 2004 after a judge ruled that the FDA had not approved the vaccine for its intended use. In 2006, the military resumed mandatory vaccinations after FDA approval, citing letters laced with anthrax in late 2001 as a reason. (at link)

    Despite all this, the mandatory anthrax vaccination program is going full speed ahead:

    "ROCKVILLE, Md. - Emergent BioSolutions Inc. said today it has a "reasonable chance" to win a bid to sell 25 million doses of a potential new anthrax vaccine to the federal government."

    And remember this one? - Associated Press reports that members of Vice President Cheney’s staff took Cipro a week before the first anthrax attack?

    Not exactly unusual behavior for Backseat, aka Shooter, is it?

    http://www.truthout.org/article/hersh-cheney-plan-creating-false-flag-attack

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