Perhaps I misunderstood Greenwald. He stated:

The crucial point, at least from my perspective, isn't that the FBI's accusations against Bruce Ivins are demonstrably false, and it's not that Bruce Ivins had no role in the anthrax attacks -- there is ample grounds for believing both propositions to be true

I read that and saw a double negative, ie,"not that Bruce Ivins had no role in the anthrax attacks," which means Bruce Ivins DID have a role in the anthrax attacks.

Same thing holds with previous assertion, a double negative equalling a positive.

So which proposition do you believe to be true, Glenn? That he did or did not have a role in the attacks? It looks to me now that I misunderstood you -- that what you are saying is only that these are not the crucial points. Please clarify.

If I misinterpreted it, my apologies. I saw an Operation Mockingbird-controlled editor where there was none.

All of the confrontations between Congress and the Executive involve requests for information by the Congress and denial of all or part of the requests by the Executive. What these debacles are crying for is a legally or Constitutionally based determination of the relative powers of both parties. Perhaps with the steady shifting of court appointments to Republican Presidents, Congress is hesitant to do so. But with all the risks, it must be done or the separation of powers is going to be a farce.

All of the confrontations between Congress and the Executive involve requests for information by the Congress and denial of all or part of the requests by the Executive. What these debacles are crying for is a legally or Constitutionally based determination of the relative powers of both parties. Perhaps with the steady shifting of court appointments to Republican Presidents, Congress is hesitant to do so. But with all the risks, it must be done or the separation of powers is going to be a farce.

There are a number of problems with the FBI's explanation of the presence of silicon in the anthrax attack spores. I'll outline a few:

Problem: The "findings" of the FBI scientists are inconsistent with their own statements that they did not know the chemistry of how the silicon was bound in the anthrax.

"DR. MICHAEL: They have no indication of exactly where that silica or that silicon-oxygen signal -- I hesitate to call it silica, because we don't know how it's bound together, and EDS does not tell us how it's bound together."

"DR. MICHAEL: ...So the spore had sequestered silicon and oxygen in the same location on the spore coat." - Comment; "sequestration" requires a chemical interaction. But by their own admission, the FBI scientists had no chemical interaction information and could not have validly reached this conclusion.

"BACKGROUND OFFICIAL: ...So we now have documented proof that with bacillus, the genus bacillus, that mineralization -- including mineralization of silicant -- below the exosporian, because the strain that they used, the bacillus series T strain, did have an exosporian similar to anthrax." Comment; Same problem here; the FBI admittedly didn't know whether the silicon was bound to other atoms or molecules; so the science only resolves the issue of where the silicon was, not how it got there and not its chemical state. The mineralization" conclusion was unsupported.

Problem: The FBI finding of "no additives" failed to consider the known fact that chemicals can be absorbed by bacillus through the exosporium -- See the following study, http://jb.asm.org/cgi/reprint/82/5/750, reporting that bacillus "spores were permeable to all types of small molecules. The extent of uptake varied and seemed to reflect more the chemical nature of the molecule than active selectivity of the cell."

Comment: The silicon signal the FBI scientists identified below the anthrax surface could easily have indicated the presence of a silicon-containing "additive" at that location. The FBI scientists never bothered to check it out. They provided no data, no tests and no explanation ruling out this possibility. An additive such as a antistatic agent located close to, but not exterior to, the surface of the spores, could have changed the electrical surface properties of anthrax spores, and would have changed the clumping and "fluid" characteristics of the spores.

Problem; The FBI scientists work on silicon, which was done at Scandia, only examined spores that had been modified in an unknown and undisclosed manner prior to receipt by Scandia -- see http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2008/anthrax.html which states: "The samples analyzed at Sandia were confirmed to be non-viable prior to arriving at the labs. They received samples from the letter delivered to the New York Post, to former Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), and to Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). The samples looked different, in part because of how the samples were prepared, which made examination initially difficult."

Comment: The lack of detail regarding the samples that Scandia examined rules out the possibility that Scandia's results can be accurately evaluated as a matter of science.

Problem: The preparation and and mounting of thin slices of anthrax spores can radically modify the spore surface properties, and the distribution of inorganic elements in the spores. The 1980 paper discussed by the FBI scientists, found here, http://jb.asm.org/cgi/reprint/143/1/481 made this quite clear. That paper discussed how and why sample preparation and mounting could interfere with analysis of the presence of, and location of, inorganic components in spores. It therefore included a detailed process and data presentation, and discussion of, sample preparation and mounting.

Comment: The FBI scientists provided absolutely no data, details or discussion as to how their STEM samples were prepared and mounted. As is apparent from even a cursory review of the paper they discussed, details of preparation and mounting are critical to evaluate the results they reported. Without this data, the FBI "findings" are simply not adequately supported in science.