December 31, 2008 - If there's anyone out there who thinks that no one any longer believes that Dr. Hatfill was the anthrax mailer, check out the posting on December 30th, 2008 at 7:54 pm by "AnthraxSleuth" on The Blogger News Network.  He writes:

I have facts and evidence, Physical evidence that Steven Hatfill is the Anthrax Mailer.
 [...]  I have facts and more physical evidence that the FBI, one agent in particular, have fallen all over themselves to not investigate the real culprits. [...] 
the truth is coming out, I’m making damn sure of it.

December 30, 2008 - This morning, Dr. Meryl Nass's blog contains a correction to her earlier comments about mutants found in the attack anthrax.  The correction also contains errors, but it is a step in the right direction.

Meanwhile, the long discussion on The Blogger News Network shows why I like arguing with conspiracy theorists so much.  They sometimes try to argue science.  And, when pressed, they will describe the science that they feel supports their argument.

One current scientific argument boils down to this:

The FBI stated that they used four key DNA mutations to find the source of the attack anthrax.  The source was determined to be the flask known as RMR-1029, which was controlled by Dr. Bruce Ivins.

The search identified eight samples with the key four mutations from the attack anthrax.  A total of about 1,070 samples from over 15 labs were tested. 

The FBI states that RMR-1029 was one of those eight samples, and RMR-1029 was the "parent" of the attack anthrax and the "parent" of the other seven samples.

It can undoubtedly be proven via documents and paper trails that RMR-1029 was the "parent" of the other seven samples.

However, in the discussion, "BugMaster" argues that it is impossible to prove that one of the other seven samples couldn't be the "parent" of the attack anthrax instead of RMR-1029.  The argument is evidently based upon a belief that Bacillus anthracis does not mutate fast enough to allow anyone to distinguish DNA differences between RMR-1029 and any sample grown from spores in RMR-1029.

In the roundtable discussion on August 18, however, Dr. Paul Keim made statements which seem to suggest that when using the entire DNA, it is now possible to distinquish which batch is the parent and which is the descendant.  I pointed that out to "BugMaster," but she/he claimed that if that is indeed what Dr. Keim said, then he is WRONG.

Ah!  Love it! Love it!  Love it!  A dispute between scientists that can seemingly be easily resolved by getting more information!  I'm attempting to do so.

Meanwhile, the discussion has been taken over by a True Believer who posts endless and irrelevant messages which he wants everyone to read.  And, if they don't, that is proof to him that others don't have all the information about the case that he has, and they don't care about the "truth" as he sees it.  That's why I avoid (whenever possible) arguing with True Believers.  But some things he says are interesting.  Consider the statement he made on December 28th, 2008 at 8:08 p.m.   It begins this way:

I’ve had a long heart-to-heart with the anthrax mailer. He’s convinced me that the US DOJ has problems that are far more difficult to resolve than the embarrassment over ...

December 29, 2008 - On Christmas, I mentioned a discussion on The Blogger News Network  where some people were arguing that comments on Dr. Nass's web site about an unclear statement in a slide presentation by Dr. Jacques Ravel somehow indicated that the FBI was in error and

the morphologic variations in spore colonies were not entirely identical between the NY Post and Leahy letters 

As a bonus, Dr. Ravel confirmed that the four identical mutations were present in each of the anthrax letters and in flask RMR1029.

BTW, if you want to see an extremely lively discussion of the current status of the anthrax investigation, click on that Blogger News Network link above.

December 28, 2008 - Although there are still a few days left in 2008, this seems a good time to summarize certain facts for the past year.  A chart showing activity for this web site explains a lot:

Clearly, August was an unusual month.  It was on August 1 that the news broke about Dr. Ivins allegedly being the anthrax mailer.  As I recall, there were days during that month when I had over 400 unread emails in my inbox.  I'm still trying to absorb all the new information that came out that month.

I wrote about 115,000 words of comments during 2008, far more than in any previous year.   Add in another 14,000 words in the new supplemental sections I wrote, and the total comes to well over the number of words that would be in 2 novels.

Things have quieted down significantly since August, however.  The conspiracy theorists and True Believers rarely send me emails these days, although they still discuss their beliefs on public forums such a Dr. Meryl Nass's blog, FreeRepublic.com and as added comments to articles on The Blogger News Network and elsewhere.

2009 looks like it should be the wrap-up year.  The promised scientific reports detailing facts about the scientific elements of the Amerithrax investigation should be published.  The promised Congressional hearings into the processes and findings of the Amerithrax investigation should take place.  We may even see a book or two from insiders in the case.  And each of those activities should spur heated reactions from people with contrary beliefs and opinions.

Personally, I'm looking forward to 2009 very much. 

December 25, 2008 - How did I spend my Christmas, you ask?  I spent it enjoying myself.  What I enjoy most these days - and for most of the past seven years - is arguing about the anthrax attacks of 2001.  And things get particularly enjoyable when something new is learned or when some complex issue is clarified.

The discussions which greatly clarified for me the issue of the mutants in the attack spores took place HERE, but some of the discussion by "anonymous" was carried over from Dr. Meryl Nass's web blog, where Dr. Nass recently made this comment:

To make a big deal about 4 morphologic findings that were present in the anthrax letters--and then to learn one sample had 3 and the other 5, MEANING THEY WERE NOT IDENTICAL--defies understanding.

IS FBI simply practicing its own version of Hitler's Big Lie? As paraphrased by the OSS: "People will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."

One sample having 5 and the other 3 must mean that the first had all 4 of the morphological varients plus the orginal (for a total of 5), while the second had only 2 plus the original (for a total of 3).

So one had all four, but the other only 2.

....
Hey guys, this is FBI science we're talking about here, not real science. The FBI invented their own laws of science a long time ago

1.  There were "well over a dozen" mutations or "morphological varients" in the attack anthrax.  That was noticed almost immediately.

2.  Using scientific procedures which had never before been applied to microbial forensics, scientists selected four of those mutants as key search criteria when they went through the approximately 1,070 samples of the Ames strain the FBI collected from over 15 different labs around the world.

3.  They found only eight samples from among the 1,070 which had all four mutants.  All eight samples came from just two labs: USAMRIID and one other (presumably Battelle).

4.  None of the other samples contained 3 of the key mutations.  Some contained 1 or 2.

5.  DNA testing showed that seven of the eight matching samples were "daughters" of the "mother" spores in the eighth sample, the RMR-1029 flask controlled by Dr. Ivins.

6.  The attack spores were also "daughters" of the mother spores in the RMR-1029 flask.

The above facts say that the attack anthrax could not possibly have come from any of the other 1,062 sources.  And since "daughter" spores can presumably only produce "granddaughter" spores, the only possible known source is RMR-1029.

The information on Dr. Nass's web page needs clarification, but no valid interpretation will change the fact that the attack anthrax was grown from spores in flask RMR-1029.  The seven samples of daughter spores couldn't produce it, and no other known source had the three mutants found in the media anthrax, much less the five in the senate anthrax.

Mutations are random, although certain types of mutations are more common than others.  If a viable mutation occurs early in the growing process, there should be many of that mutation in the final product.  If a viable mutation occurs late in the growing process, there should be very few of that mutation in the final product.  The four key mutations were probably picked because there were many of them in the attack anthrax (but still far less than 1% of the total), and they were specific mutations which would be easily and reliably identified. 

And since mutations are random, the chances of three mutations exactly matching those in the attack anthrax growing spontanously in new growth is virtually nonexsistant. 

We all need to wait for the scientific papers which will go into the details. Two quotes from the roundtable discussion seem to make that very clear:

It is important to emphasize that the science used in this case is highly validated and well accepted throughout the scientific community. The novelty is in the application of these techniques for forensic microbiology.

One other aspect of this is that we’re trying to preserve the peer reviewed scientific publishing process, so we’ve identified a number of papers that will come out of this also, so again, these are multiple layers of validation. We talked about the various ways that — we had the working groups that advised on the approach, how we develop the process; we had many people work on the actual samples themselves and on the repository. There were so many people involved in this that participated we want allow them another layer of validation, which is the peer review process. So this will be made public. We have more than 10 papers that we have tentatively identified to be published on this. We’re just preserving the ability to do that. If we disclose everything here then we will not be able to publish those papers.

December 24, 2008 - FWIW, I took the chart of Dr. Ivins' overtime hours in lab B3 that was in search warrant applications and re-did it to show year 2000 and 2001 separately, instead of as overlapping graphs.  Here is the result: 

While the chart makes it clear that Ivins spent a LOT of time in lab B3 at the time the culprit would have been preparing the attack anthrax, far far more than at any other time in the two years, the most curious thing the graph shows is that he began working long hours in lab B3 in August of 2001, the month before 9/11.

That seems to indicate that whatever he was doing, it wasn't entirely connected to the events of 9/11.

But, then again, if he was worried about a possible anthrax attack and/or the lack of available anthrax vaccines and/or the future of his work, there's no reason to believe that those worries would have suddenly popped into his head on 9/11.

One could conclude that he was experimenting or practicing in August.  The fact that he had no explanation for what he was doing suggests that whatever it was, it wasn't something he wanted the authorities to know about. 

December 22, 2008 - This morning, on NPR's "Morning Edition," they have a story titled "Survey Reports Scientists 'Suspicious' Of FBI."  I can testify to that.  Many of the scientists with whom I talk are suspicious of the FBI.  But that's mainly because I often talk with conspiracy theorists, and there seem to be a large number of conspiracy theorists among scientists.  Some even have downright hatreds for the FBI and just about every department in every branch of the government. 

Interestingly, the article says:

Only 15 percent of scientists who responded to the survey had ever had any professional contact with law enforcement agents.

[Michael] Stebbins [the director of biology policy at the Federation of American Scientists]  is surprised though, by what he sees as an "unhealthy level of paranoia" among scientists. Researchers worried that the FBI would inhibit their ability to conduct research, or would want to classify their work, read their personal e-mails, or ask them to monitor the work of their colleagues.

Daniel Cloyd, who runs the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, says misconceptions about law enforcement are widespread.

"In movies, we tend to run the gamut," he says. "We're either supermen and women who can do no wrong, or we're bumbling fools who can do nothing right." Neither is accurate, he adds.

the vast majority of scientists seemed open to helping the FBI under certain circumstances. Just over 90 percent reported that requesting technical expertise in a specific area was a "good or excellent" reason to be consulted by the FBI. Eighty percent said helping with an ongoing investigation would be a "good or excellent" reason to help.

December 21, 2008 - I've been so busy arguing for the past week that I didn't have any time to think about what I'd write for today's comment.  I awoke this morning thinking I'd write about how Internet archivers are recording arguments that in the past would have purely oral and lost forever, but today they are in a visual format and are recorded forever.  I was particularly fascinated by the ongoing conversations HERE and HERE which seemed to hit home on one of my main themes: Some people will argue beliefs as if they were facts and dismiss facts as absurd beliefs - no matter how much evidence there is to support the facts. 

Back in 2001 or 2002, when I first heard the suggestion that a six-year-old child might have written the anthrax letters, I just dismissed the idea.  It didn't seem logical that anyone would use a child that way.  It seemed too risky.  But, as arguments about the handwriting continued, with some claiming it was disguised and others claiming it was an Arab who was just learning to write with Roman characters, facts started piling up which truly pointed toward a child having written the letters.  I changed from dismissing the idea to saying it was "possible," to saying it was "likely," to saying it was "very likely," and finally when some key evidence appeared, to saying it was "a near certainty."  When the FBI identified Bruce Ivins as the culprit, and it turned out that Bruce Ivins' wife ran a day care center and he had a lot of contact with children of the right age, it was just icing on the cake.  However, I can't go beyond "a near certainty," since without sworn statements from the writer or the culprit or other solid evidence, there is always the possibility of another explanation, and I need to keep an open mind for that.  But, some will argue that just shows that I have a "closed mind," since anyone with an "open mind" would immediately see that the whole idea is foolish and would dismiss the idea completely without even looking at the evidence. 

But, this morning the argument changed.  Suddenly, the person I was arguing with seemed to accept the possibility that I might be right.  What happened?  The only thing I can see is that I mentioned that what we were arguing about was not my original idea.  It came from someone else.  My web site says I got the idea from someone on a news discussion group.   Later I learned the idea may have originally come from Brother Jonathan.  Did the fact that it wasn't my idea change things?  Did that somehow change it from one person's screwball idea to a possibly valid idea shared by other people? 

This morning, there was an email in my inbox from a law enforcement official in another country who regularly reads this web site, and he was impressed by the discussion, but he felt there was still the unanswered question of how the culprit avoided getting the child's fingerprints all over the envelopes.  I don't know.  I  don't know that fingerprints can't simply be wiped off a letter.  I don't know that a scientist wouldn't have ways to get rid of fingerprints.  I don't know that the culprit didn't simply show the child how to avoid getting the letter "messy" by putting a piece of paper under the hand that was holding the envelope in place.   I remember doing that when I was a kid.  The hand holding the pen wouldn't leave fingerprints if the adult was on hand to make sure it didn't.  And there could be other answers as well. 

And I certainly don't know why the culprit chose to use a child instead of one of the hundred other methods of disguising handwriting that have been suggested over the years.  Maybe he just thought it was a different way that had never been done before and no one would expect it.  Maybe he figured they'd assume one of the other routine methods was used.  Or they'd believe that an actual Muslim terrorist wrote the letters.

Last week I also discussed other things with other people, but as I write these words a new idea has occurred to me.  If Bruce Ivins was the anthrax mailer, how would he have reacted when he saw on my web site I was claiming that a child wrote the letters?  We know he was at least an occasional visitor to this site.  He paid a visit a few days before he committed suicide.  And he used a method that regular visitors use to get to my site: He typed my name into Google.  It requires fewer key strokes than typing in my web site name or almost any other search argument.   With all the records that are kept of what people do on the Internet, I wonder what information is out there about Ivins' searches that hasn't yet been found.  And how much can be solidly connected to Ivins? 

If more people were thinking of ways to find evidence related to Bruce Ivins instead of looking for ways to prove the FBI was wrong about him, I wonder what would turn up.   I've been discussing an idea with the FBI that might produce a "smoking gun" if proper records are kept by the right people for long periods.

For nearly seven years, the debate was over who did it.  Now that the culprit has been identified, I'd like to see some debate over ways to confirm it was Ivins.  Discussing theories about how the FBI is totally wrong and part of some conspiracy seems much more a waste of time today than it did before the facts about Ivins became known. 

December 17, 2008 - It's strange that over seven years after the anthrax attacks of 2001, a question that has never been asked before can still generate a very interesting finding.  In an on-line discussion HERE, I was asked, “Ed: Do you think that it is likely that the mailer waited until the FBI was looking at the mail before they mailed the Senator letters?”

The person asking the question had a theory that the culprit decided to send the Senate anthrax letters after seeing a CNN report on the 8th of October which mentioned that the FBI was on the case.  I couldn't see any reason for that being a factor.  Besides, it took at least a week to prepare the letters.  How could he get a motive on the 8th and mail the letters that same night? 

My previous thinking was that the letters were prompted by reports in the media that Bob Stevens' infection may have come from natural sources.  But, that was also pushing the time needed to prepare the anthrax.  Those stories came out on the 4th and 5th.

So, I took a look at the headlines for around the time when the facts say that Dr. Ivins would have had the minimum time needed to prepare the anthrax - 7 to 10 days prior to the mailing.  Suddenly, boom.  There was a headline on page 16 of The Washington Post on September 29, 2001, that said:

Demand Growing for Anthrax Vaccine 
Fear of Bioterrorism Attack Spurs Requests for Controversial Shot

More than 1,000 people in the past two weeks have tried to get shots directly from the vaccine's maker, BioPort of Lansing, Mich. Callers there are being shunted to a recorded message that reflects what doctors everywhere are saying: 

   "All the stockpile that currently exists is owned by the Department of Defense. At this time there is no opportunity for any commercial sales." 

That reality has infuriated some. 

I believe The Post's issue for the 29th actually comes out on the evening of the 28th.  Plus, for an article like that, Dr. Ivins may even have been called - although his name isn't mentioned in the article.  I began to wonder: What was Dr. Ivins doing on the evening of the 28th?  We have a source that tells us:

Beginning on September 28, Dr. Ivins worked eight consecutive nights which consisted of the following times in building 1425 with time spent in Suite B3:

I suppose some will argue that he was working hard on perfecting a new vaccine.  But, wasn't he working hard on that before?  And how come nothing new came from his sudden hard work on a new vaccine?  And why didn't he tell FBI investigators that is what he was doing?  Instead, the facts seem to indicate he was working hard to generate further interest in putting more effort into vaccine development.  And one way to do that would be to send the anthrax filled letters to Senators Daschle and Leahy. 

December 15, 2008 - According to The Associated Press this morning, the U.S. Supreme Court has rejected Dr. Hatfill's appeal in his lawsuit against the New York Times.  I think that ends the last of Dr. Hatfill's lawsuits.  The court decided that Dr. Hatfill was a celebrity at the time of the articles and would therefore have to prove actual malice, which the court felt he hadn't proved.  More details HERE and HERE. 

December 14, 2008 - While there was absolutely nothing new about the Amerithrax investigation in the main stream media last week, it was a week of many discussions of the subject, including the lengthy ones on-line HERE and HERE.  Even when I'm just arguing with the same people I've been arguing with for seven years, sometimes bits of new and worthwhile information come to the surface.   Or new questions are asked. 

In one conversation, it occurred to me that a critical factor in making the attack anthrax would have been speed.  The culprit would almost certainly have made the powders using the fastest method he could use.  That poses a basic question: Does Bacillus anthracis grow fastest in a fermenter, in shaking flasks, in solid medium on plates, or some other way?  I think I know the answer, but I'm trying to confirm it.  The answer might also say something about the source of the silicon found in the spores.

In another conversation, or maybe it was the same one, a scientist mentioned a bizarre interpretation of what he'd read in the news.  He seemed to be saying that he and some other scientists were sitting around chuckling to themselves while awaiting the FBI's publication of a scientific paper where the FBI would try to argue that the rate of mutant generation in Bacillus anthracis can be used to precisely determine the exact time that a spore was made.   It's a crazy idea, since growth rate and mutation rates are easily slowed down or speeded up by adjusting the environment.  Plus, mutation rates are only averages, like one per billion replications.  Plus, many mutations are not viable, and the mutant does not reproduce.  But then I realized that the scientist mistakenly believed that FBI scientists were trying to use such a ridiculous method, and he and other scientists were just waiting around for the FBI scientists to publish their findings so they could tear them apart.  Wow. 

In another part of the discussions, an interesting question was brought up: Should we all stop discussing Adolph Hitler?  After all, Hitler committed suicide before he could be tried for his crimes.  And isn't everyone innocent until proven guilty in a court of law?

In an email conversation, I learned that it is only in the movies where scientists are absolute masters of precise wording.  I had to use very precise questions to make absolutely certain that a scientist who repeatedly uses "on" when he really means "in" really meant "in."  It would be funny if it wasn't so frustrating.

Clearly, it is also only in the movies where scientists always insist on discussing facts instead of beliefs.  Trying to discuss facts with some scientists last week just resulted in them leaving the conversation.  They would only discuss beliefs. 

Lastly, in the on-line discussions, it was again demonstrated that those who think that Bruce Ivins is innocent may all agree that the FBI is wrong, but each has his own personal theory about who sent the antrhax letters.  And their theories are based entirely on beliefs, not facts.   While there is a clear distinction between the ways True Believers and conspiracy theorists think, if the only way a True Believer can justify his belief that the FBI is wrong about Bruce Ivins is to conjure up a conspiracy by the government to cover up crimes by al Qaeda, then so be it.  Try to prove it isn't  possible.

Fascinating stuff, but when you argue with the same people year after year, they soon learn how to end a conversation when it's clear they aren't making any progress.   Most just disappear.  But one person endlessly reminds me of Matthew Harrison Brady, the True Believer role played by Frederick March in the movie "Inherit The Wind."  When Brady found that arguments based upon his beliefs were in a losing fight, he simply began reciting (or preaching) endlessly from his gospel.  The Internet equivalent is to start cutting and pasting endless irrelevant material, until, as in the movie, everyone just gets up and leaves.  It turns what could be a very good and enlightening discussion into something mind-numblingly tiresome and meaningless. 

December 12, 2008 - While a debate rages HERE about whether or not the Bush administration was framing Dr. Ivins in order to cover up for al Qaeda (!!!!), and another debate rages HERE about whether the FBI has any real evidence against Dr. Ivins or not, someone notified me about a brief radio segment from the National Academy of Engineering where the questions about the silicon found in the anthrax spores are raised once again.  The segment raises more questions than it answers and seems to take things out of context.  I'll try to contact the people who were interviewed to see what they actually said and meant. 

December 11, 2008 - A Blogger News Network post titled "Leading Theories of the Anthrax Mailings Case" generated some comments which have caused me to think a bit about the handwriting on the anthrax letters.

For years I've been stating that the facts seem to make it a near certainty that a child of about 6 did the actual writing on the anthrax letters (except, perhaps, the date on the media letter) and the anthrax envelopes.  The "person of interest" I had in New Jersey didn't have any access to children, as far as I knew.  But, facts are facts.  So, either he had some access I didn't know about, or the handwriting was evidence that the scientist in New Jersey was innocent. 

The situation with Bruce Ivins is very different.  Ivins' wife ran a daycare center in their home.  Daycare centers mainly take care of pre-schoolers younger than 5 or 6, but they also routinely take care of older children for short periods before and after school when their parents have to work and the children are still too young to be at home alone, e.g., kindergarteners and first graders - children who are 5 or 6. 

In addition, there are reports that Ivins sometimes played piano in a "humble little school auditorium" and that his eulogy praised him for "His Devotion to Children."  So, if a child of about 6 did write the letters and address the envelopes, it appears Dr. Ivins would definitely have had access to children of that age. 

None of this conclusively proves anything, of course, but when people say they find it "impossible to believe" that the FBI "could persuasively rule out the other 99 (or perhaps as many as 299) scientists who had access to the virulent strain of anthrax from the flask Ivins kept" or they find it "impossible to believe" that anyone would use a child to write the anthrax letters, they are saying the facts have no meaning to them because the facts are "impossible to believe."  That makes me wonder: 

When someone finds something is "impossible to believe" in spite of what the facts say, does that say something about the facts or about the person?  Or both?

If both, and, if many people find using a child to write terrorism letters "impossible to believe," would presenting such evidence to a jury do more harm than good?  Could any evidence be good enough if many people would always find the evidence "impossible to believe?"  Testimony might work.  But, would a jury believe the testimony of a 13 year old recalling what he says he believes he did when he was 6?  Or might that, too, be "impossible to believe?" 

December 7, 2008 - Because the anthrax murder case has been solved, I've been mulling over creating a new first page for this web site, which would be implemented on January 1, 2009.  The whodunnit mystery is over.  The only real question remaining is: Can anything convince the conspiracy theorists and True Believers that the case is solved?

Here the facts of the case against Dr. Bruce Ivins, as I see them:

1.  He was in charge of the RMR-1029 flask containing the "mother" spores which produced the attack anthrax "daughter" spores.

2.  He had worked with Bacillus anthracis for over 20 years and had all the necessary expertise and equipment to prepare the spores in the anthrax letters.

3.  He accessed the locked room where the RMR-1029 flask of spores was stored at the times the attack anthrax would have been prepared.

4.  He worked alone and unsupervised in his lab for long hours at night and on weekends during the time the attack anthrax would have been prepared.

5.  He had no scientific reason or verifiable explanation for working those hours or at those times.

6.  He had multiple motives for sending the anthrax letters.

7.  He tried various ways to mislead investigators when they started to suspect him.

8.  He had no alibi for either of the times when he could have driven to New Jersey to mail the letters.

9.  He was known to drive long distances and to use various methods to mail letters and packages so they could not be traced back to him.

10.  He had multiple connections to the New Jersey area where the anthrax letters were mailed.

11.  He had serious mental problems, which appear to include murderous impulses.

12.  The pre-stamped envelopes which were used in the attacks had print defects, and one of the post offices which sold the envelopes with those print defects was a post office which Dr. Ivins used.

13.  His wife ran a day care center at the time of the attacks, and the facts indicate that a child of about 6 was used to do the actual writing on the anthrax letters.

14.  Investigations found no evidence that someone other than Dr. Ivins sent the letters.

15.  There is no evidence that Dr. Ivins could not possibly have sent the anthrax letters.

Meanwhile, those who cannot accept the FBI's findings continue to use every tactic they can to cast doubt upon the FBI's findings.  They have no proof of Dr. Ivins' innocence, so all they can do is try to make it appear that, if there is any doubt - reasonable or not - about Dr. Ivins' guilt, then he must be innocent.  After all, if Bruce Ivins is guilty as the evidence clearly indicates, then the conspiracy theorists and True Believers must be wrong in what they are trying to get people to believe.  And they can never accept that.

And, because they cannot accept it, for years to come there may be an ongoing need to disprove the myths and nonsense being spread by the conspiracy theorists and True Believers.

An alternative idea for the future of this web site was to continue with the evaluation of where I was right and where I was wrong in my analysis.  But that seems of limited value.  When a case or project or investigation is complete, there can be great value in looking back at all the missteps and wrong paths that were taken, so that lessons can be learned which might help make future cases, projects or investigations go more smoothly.  But only investigations which are complete in about 48 hours tend to be similar to other investigations.  Investigations which go on for years are usually different from all prior investigations, and that is one key reason they go on for years. 

The facts now say that the FBI had "persons of interest" in November and December of 2001, but their investigations could not find solid proof that any of them were the anthrax mailer.  In fact, that's what they repeatedly old us: They had a list of 12 to 20 "persons of interest," with names being added and removed as facts were collected, but none could be solidly proven to be responsible for the attacks.

Prior to Bruce Ivins' suicide, the facts indicated to me that the FBI knew as early as November or December of 2001 who had sent the anthrax letters, but they just couldn't prove it.  And they were working on the new science of "microbial forensics" in hopes that the would be able to use that science to prove who sent the letters.

I was right about what they hoped to get from "microbial forensics."  But I was wrong in believing that it would prove some already known suspect to be guilty.

The facts now indicate that they had no viable suspects for several years after the attacks, as the science of microbial forensics was being validated.   It was during that time that Dr. Hatfill appeared to be the focus of the FBI's attention as a result of "tips" from scientists and pressures from the media, politicians and the public.  With no true viable suspects, it's quite possible that even some FBI agents felt that Dr. Hatfill might be the anthrax mailer.  After all, respected scientists were pointing at him. 

The first item of microbial  forensic evidence they were hoping to use to narrow down the search for the killer -- the "silicon signature" -- proved to be of little or no value.  My thinking was that it could have come from the glass container used to grow the bacteria.   I thought they might be able to trace the "polymerized glass" back to a manufacturer and then to a specific lab.  But, the silicon evidently turned out to be just silicon that was in the nutrients or water used to grow the bacteria.  The silicon got into the spores the same way iron gets into a human body if you eat raisins, or zinc gets into a human body if you eat peanuts.  It comes from what you eat or drink.

That might have been proof of something if it could have been shown that no one else working with anthrax used nutrients or water or food additives with that form of silicon.  But, no one could show that.  Plus, the crime happened years ago, and criminals do not keep accurate records of every detail of their crimes. 

The same with the Bacillus subtilis bacteria found in the media letters.  They might examine ten thousand samples from a thousand different labs today, but what would those samples prove about what was happening in September and October of 2001?

Then, in late 2003 or early 2004, came the breakthrough.  A scientist at Ft. Detrick noticed that there were viable mutants of the Ames strain bacteria in the attack anthrax.  And those mutants appeared in only a few of the many Ames samples collected from labs around the world.

Eventually, the investigation found that the lengthy production runs which created the spores in the RMR-1029 flask had produced those viable mutant bacteria.  And of the 1,072 samples of the Ames strain that were tested from 16 or more labs, the key mutants found in the attack anthrax only showed up in 8 other samples.  Those 8 samples came from only 2 sources. And one of those 2 sources was Ft. Detrick.  And it could be shown that the bacteria in the 7 of the 8 samples and the anthrax letters were all "daughter" bacteria grown from the source of the 8th sample: the "mother" spores in the RMR-1029 flask controlled by Dr. Bruce Ivins.  That flask was the "smoking gun."

True, there were others who had access to the RMR-1029 flask.  But it is standard police work to check out and eliminate people from a list of "possible suspects."  It's a routine matter of checking out alibis (opportunity), of checking out capabilities (means), and of looking for possible motives.   It took years to check out the hundreds of people who might have had access to RMR-1029.  And when all but one of those "possibles" were eliminated as suspects (along with all the others whose names had come up in the past years), the investigators were left with only one viable suspect: Dr. Bruce Ivins.  And, as seen in the 15 facts listed above, there is an abundance of circumstantial evidence that Dr. Ivins was indeed the one and only anthrax mailer. 

So, instead of looking for facts about who committed the crime, which we now have, it appears the future will be mostly about disproving the junk science that conspiracy theorists will continue to use to argue that the case is not solved.  The True Believers will continue to claim that anyone who disagrees with them is "closed minded," but they've already been doing that for seven years, so nothing is different there.

Hopefully, in 2009 there will be hearings and investigations into the Amerithrax findings which will help clarify everything - as will all the scientific reports that are in the works.  None of it will change the minds of True Believers and determined conspiracy theorists, of course.  But, like what happened with those who insist that the moon landings were some vast government hoax, in time their arguments will almost certainly be viewed as they should be viewed: The arguments from the ever-present Lunatic Fringe.

December 6, 2008 - CNN's web site has a nutty commentary by Peter Bergen titled "Commentary: WMD terrorism fears are overblown."  Bergen writes,

Terrorists have already used weapons of mass destruction in the past decade in attacks around the world, and they have proven to be something of a dud.

In the fall of 2001, the anthrax attacks in the United States that targeted politicians and journalists caused considerable panic but did not lead to many deaths. Five people were killed.

The alleged author of that attack, Bruce E. Ivins, was one of the leading biological weapons researchers in the United States. Even this brilliant scientist could only "weaponize" anthrax to the point that it killed a handful of people. Imagine then how difficult it would be for the average terrorist, or even the above-average terrorist, to replicate such efforts.

The "average terrorist" in the 9/11 attacks didn't even know he was on a suicide mission.  Terrorists attacks aren't generally planned by the "average terrorist." 

And the idea that a "brilliant scientist" like Bruce Ivins could only manage to kill a "handful of people" with his "weaponized" anthrax is stupidity of unbelievable proportions.  The fact that the anthrax mailer took many precautions to avoid killing anyone is evidently lost on Mr. Bergen.  Using the anthrax attacks as an example of ineffective WMD terrorism is pure stupidity.  If the anthrax mailer had wanted to kill as many people as possible -- as an "average terrorist" might be expected to do, -- he could have killed hundreds, maybe even thousands, with the tiny batches of anthrax powders he had created all by himself. 

"WMD terrorism fears" may indeed be "overblown."  But Mr. Bergen needs to find better reasoning than to argue that "a brilliant scientist" who was apparently trying to avoid killing anyone with his use of a WMD accidentally killed only five people. 

December 2, 2008 - The Associated Press just released a new article titled "Security refresher ordered for Army labs."  According to the article,

An Army spokesman said the training was recommended by a task force that was formed as a result of the FBI's conclusions about Ivins, who killed himself last summer before he could be charged in the attacks.

November 30, 2008 - Last week, I neglected to mention that November 22nd was the seventh anniversary of the start of my analysis of the facts about the anthrax attacks of 2001.  I'm now in my eighth year of collecting and analyzing data about those attacks. 

I began this web site because, in October and November of 2001, people were endlessly arguing opinions and beliefs about the attacks without bothering to study the facts.  Because I had worked for many years as a systems analyst, and because I'm analytical by nature, I wanted to see what the facts had to say about who sent the anthrax letters ... and why.  So, I started collecting and analyzing.

One fact has remained abundantly clear thoughout the past seven years: Some people will endlessly argue opinions and beliefs, regardless of what the facts say.  The facts we've recently learned about Dr. Bruce Ivins appear to have changed very few beliefs. 

The facts now say that Dr. Bruce Ivins was almost certainly the anthrax mailer, and he almost certainly acted alone.

Since I analyze facts, I find no difficulty in adjusting to new facts.  The facts I had in 2001 which seemingly pointed toward a scientist who lived and worked in Central New Jersey were nothing compared to the evidence I now see against Dr. Ivins.  Plus, the new facts about the contents of RMR-1029 eliminate the scientist in New Jersey as a potential suspect.  And, everything I had -- all the motivation factors and scientific abilities I knew about the scientist in New Jersey -- apply ten-fold to Bruce Ivins. 

Christopher Columbus believed he'd reached Asia when he set foot on an island in the Bahamas in 1492.  All the facts he was aware of told him he'd landed in Asia.  He went to his grave in 1506 still thinking he'd reached Asia.  But new facts learned 14 years after his death - by the 18 men who survived Ferdinand Magellan's attempt to  circumnavigate the globe - made it very clear that Columbus' just didn't have enough facts.  If Columbus had known the facts Magellan's crew had discovered, there's no way Columbus could have retained his original conclusions.   There could be no new facts which would prove that he'd actually reached Asia and America didn't exist. 

In December of 2001, I had facts about less than a half dozen scientists who could be considered "persons of interest."  One seemed to have a perfect alibi.  Another appeared to have been thoroughly checked out by the FBI.  Others were just names or unidentified people who others suspected for various reasons.   The scientist in New Jersey who became my #1 "person of interest" had no known access to the Bacillus anthracis Ames strain, but he had a known motive, plus he lived and worked within fifty miles of where the letters were mailed, and he had all the necessary knowledge to prepare the powders.  And he seemed to have the right attitude.  And, because of where he lived and worked, he seemed to have plenty of opportunity.  But, for all I really knew for certain, he could have been in California or Japan or Argentina at the actual time of the attacks.  Or he could have been in jail or in a hospital in traction.  I had no facts about exactly where he was at the time of the attacks.  And, I knew that one of the first things the FBI would check out would be where he was at the time of the attacks.  So, I knew the FBI almost certainly had facts I didn't have about my "person of interest, and those facts might easily prove him totally innocent. 

That's the problem when there are thousands of possible suspects and you only know facts about a half dozen or so.  And that's why I never named my "person of interest."

Later, I learned facts about other scientists who some considered to be possible or even likely suspects, such as Dr. Steven Hatfill and Dr. Philip Zack.  But my analysis of the facts told me that both of them were almost certainly totally innocent.  And, from the very beginning the facts clearly indicated that al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein didn't have anything to do with the attacks, either.  So, the scientist in New Jersey remained my #1 "person of interest."

Then, a few months ago, there was a sudden flood of new facts about someone I'd never heard of -- except as a name among the many names in some scientific articles I'd read: Dr. Bruce Ivins. 

The news about the RMR-1029 flask and how it was accessable only to a few hundred scientists was enough to eliminate my "person of interest," because I knew of no way he could be one of those few hundred.  (Yes, there was a possiblity that he was actually a secret, highly-trained super-agent and snuck into USAMRIID to get a sample one night, but I had absolutely no facts to support such a fantasy.)

Then came other new facts.  According to page 12 on one of the search warrants in the Ivins case, 

A review of USAMRIID records, laboratory notebooks, written protocols, and professional publications have shown that Dr. Ivins has worked with Bacillus anthracis at USAMRIID since 1980. He has personally conducted and supervised Ames anthrax spore productions for over two decades. At the time of the anthrax mailings, Dr. Ivins possessed extensive knowledge of various anthrax production protocols. Dr. Ivins was adept at manipulating anthrax production and purification variables to maximize sporulation and improve the quality of anthrax spore preparations. He also understood anthrax aerosolization dosage rates and the importance of purity, consistency, and spore particle size due to his responsibility for providing liquid anthrax spore preparations for animal aerosol challenges.  Dr. Ivins produced large batches of Bacillus anthracis which were required for such challenges - tests in which vaccinated animals inhale pre-defined doses of anthrax spores to assess the efficacy of the anthrax vaccine.

Dr. Ivins's 20 years of working in the laboratories of USAMRlID provided him personal, hands-on laboratory experience in the production of liquid spore preparations of Bacillus anthracis. He has used lyophilizers, biological safety cabinets, incubators, and centrifuges in vaccine research. Such devices are considered essential for the production of the highly purified, powdered anthrax used in the Fall 2001 mailings. Dr. Ivins was also very experienced in conducting laboratory work in a containment area and well versed in decontamination procedures specifically for Bacillus anthracis. Dr. Ivins's employment at USAMRIlD also provided protection against anthrax infection at the time of the mailings due to his extensive and current anthrax vaccination history.

The new facts about Ivins continued to pour in.  Because of his position, my "person of interest" presumably had unsupervised lab access.  But, I didn't know that to be an actual fact.    Bruce Ivins, on the other hand, definitely had unsupervised lab access.  That was an established fact.

According to pages 12 to 14 of one of the search warrants:

USAMRIID containment Suite B3 is a Biological Safety Level-3 (BSL-3) suite of laboratories used by USAMRIID Bacteriolgy personnel for research on dangerous animal and human pathogens. The flask identified as RMR-1029 was stored in Suite B3 at the time of the letter attacks. Suite access is obtained via a Security Access Control (SAC) badge reader at the door to the cold-side change room, which is secured by a magnetic-lock. A researcher must pass through the change room in order to go in or out of the suite. A central security system monitors and records a time stamp for each SAC badge and keypad request.

A review of Dr. Ivins's laboratory access records for Building 1425 was assessed to determine trends in working hours and evening times (after 6 p.m.) spent in Suite B3. His regular working hours on average consisted of a 7:30 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. shift, but he would periodically return in the evenings, presumably to check on the status of various experiments.  Beginning in mid-August 2001, however, there was a noticeable spike in Dr. Ivins's evening access to the B3 Suite.

The investigation examined Dr. Ivins's laboratory activity immediately before and after the window of opportunity for the mailing of the media letters to New York which began at 5:00 p.m. Monday, September 17. 2001 and ended at noon on Tuesday, September 18, 2001.  Beginning on Friday, September 14. Dr. Ivins worked the following three consecutive evenings prior to the mailings with time spent in Suite B3:

After September 16, Dr. Ivins did not enter Suite B3 in the evening again until September 25.

The investigation further examined Dr. Ivins's laboratory activity before and after the window of opportunity for the mailing of the Senate letters to Washington, D.C. which began at 3:00 p.m. Saturday, October 6, 2001, and ended at noon on Tuesday, October 9, 2001.

Beginning on September 28, Dr. Ivins worked eight consecutive nights which consisted of the following times in building 1425 with time spent in Suite B3:

After October 5, Dr. Ivins did not enter Suite B3 in the evening again until October 9, for 15 minutes, and then October 13, for one hour and 26 minutes.

The investigation also analyzed the daily schedules, work areas accessed, and the number of hours worked per week of all other researchers assigned to the Bacteriology Division who had access to Suite B3 during the months of September and October 2001. When these records are compared to Dr. Ivins for the same period, Dr. Ivins's habits are significantly different than those of the other researchers, in that he was frequently in Suite B3, where RMR-1029 was kept, late at night and on weekends when no other researchers were present in Suite B3.  Additionally, while Dr. Ivins was in Suite B3 at night, no other USAMRIID employee was present.

On March 31, 2005, Dr. Ivins was asked by the FBI about his access to Suite B3 and could provide no legitimate reason for the extended hours, other than "home was not good" and he went there "to escape" from his life at home. A review of Dr. Ivins's and co-workers' laboratory notebooks and projects at the times in question was conducted and determined that Dr. Ivins's role in the experiments were minimal, and did not justify the time he spent in B3.  Dr. Ivins has admitted to investigators that the research he was conducting in 2001 did not require, and does not explain, his late night hours in the B-3 laboratory around the time period of the anthrax mailings.

Since producing anthrax spore preparations was one of Dr. Ivins's principal responsibilities at USAMRIID, he had multiple and unfettered opportunities to produce or divert Ames strain spores for illegitimate purposes. His access to Suite B3 and USAMRIID afforded all of the equipment and containment facilities which would have been needed to prepare the anthrax and letters used in the Fall 2001 attacks.

But, what about motive?  My "person of interest" had written things which indicated that he had motive to send anthrax letters to the media and to Senators Daschle and Leahy specifically.  Did Ivins also have motive?  The new facts about Ivins indicated there was an abundance of motives.  He was concerned that his work on vaccines might be shut down.  Plus, he had the same motives as my "person of interest" had: He was concerned that America was insufficiently prepared for a bioweapons attack.  And he was upset that Senators Daschle and Leahy were arguing about civil rights at a time when fast action against terrorists seemed required. 

My "person of interest" lived and worked in Central New Jersey, which gave him the opportunity to mail the letters from that general area.  People argued with me that the culprit wouldn't mail the letters near where he lived, but I didn't see ten or twenty or fifty miles from the mail box to be "near" the mail box.  And driving from anywhere beyond fifty miles seemed too risky, and could create a need to explain to others why he was gone so long and where he was.

Now we know that Bruce Ivins was known to drive long distances to mail things.  He did many things under false names.  And he apparently routinely lied to his wife and others about where he was and what he was doing. 

Plus there are facts which show that Bruce Ivins had done things to throw the FBI off his trail.  He'd tried pointing the finger at others.  He was mentally unstable.  He'd made all sorts of threats against people.  And, when it appeared he was going to be indicted, he committed suicide. 

All the known facts say that Dr. Ivins was truly the anthrax mailer.  There are no facts which say otherwise.  And there are no facts which say he conspired with anyone else. 

Those who still argue beliefs instead of facts, however, claim he didn't have enough time to make the powders.  The FBI scientists say he did.  The facts are clear: The people who don't believe he had the time, do not know how to make such powders.  The people know how to make the powders also know he had the time. 

Yet, nearly everyone with whom I've been arguing for the past many years still argue their beliefs.  They nearly all claim that the facts do not prove that Ivins was the anthrax mailer -- because there are ways that doubt can still be raised.  Whether that doubt is "reasonable" or not is a matter of belief - and they believe it is "reasonable." 

When you look at the number of people who believe that Ivins was innocent - or that he did not act alone - the number can appear impressive.  And many have professional credentials which can make the number seem even more impressive. 

But, just a little probing of their beliefs will quickly show that the number is far less impressive than it appears. 

I've talked with many of them over the years, and I continue to talk with many of them.  They may seem unified in their belief that Dr. Ivins was innocent, but they are definitely NOT unified as to WHY they believe Dr. Ivins was innocent. 

Some still believe al Qaeda was behind the attacks.
Some still believe Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks
Some still believe a vast Jewish conspiracy was behind the attacks.
Some still believe the Bush administration was behind the attacks.
Some still believe the CIA was behind the attacks.
Some still believe pharmaceutical companies were behind the attacks.
Some still believe a writer was behind the attacks in order to sell books.
Some still believe a different scientist was behind the attacks.
Some still believe that a military person was behind the attacks.
Some still believe their next door neighbor was behind the attacks.

Some still believe the attack spores were "weaponized" with silica or silicon and that everyone who says otherwise is either lying or incompetent.  And they still believe there must be some vast criminal conspiracy to cover up the real facts, because they simply do not believe anything the government - and particularly the FBI - says.

As I see it, in time, published scientific reports will provide all the details about the silicon found in the spores.  But, in the meanwhile, the conspiracy theorists will continue to make up nonsense about silicon additives in order to justify their beliefs. 

Some still believe that Dr. Ivins did not have the ability to make the attack anthrax.  According to The Baltimore Examiner:

“Knowing the layout of the BSL-3 suite, the implication that Bruce could have whipped out [anthrax mixture] in a couple of weeks without detection is ridiculous,” says Gerald P. Andrews, director of the bacteriology division and Ivins’ supervisor from 2000 to 2003.

When people in the media report that Senator Daschle is "very skeptical" of the government's investigation "because of the government 'bungling' of Steven Hatfill's case," the media people are falsely reporting that there is some similarity between the "investigation" of Dr. Hatfill and the investigation of Dr. Ivins.  In reality, the two cases could not be more different.  The Hatfill "investigation" was purely political and based upon "tips" from screwball conspiracy theorist scientists who claimed the FBI was "covering up" for Dr. Hatfill when the FBI's investigation found nothing to tie him to the mailings.  The Ivins investigation, on the other hand, was the result of years of detailed scientific analysis followed by an equally detailed criminal investigation. 

Whether I like it or not, people will continue to believe what they want to believe.  And as more new facts are released, they'll find new and inventive ways to ignore those facts in order to continue believing as they want to believe.

But, just as the facts eventually showed that Columbus was wrong in thinking he'd reached Asia, the facts about the Amerithrax investigation  now show and will continue to show for all time that the attack spores were NOT weaponized and Dr. Ivins was the person responsible for making and mailing them. 

When you have the right facts, the facts can no longer be overturned by new facts. 

But, never-the-less, I'll continue to hunt for new facts every day.  I want to see how the new facts will fit with what is already known, and I continue to be interested in how the facts can be ignored by those who still believe their beliefs override all facts. 

November 28, 2008 - Looking once again through the newly released documents related to the "investigation" of Dr. Hatfill and all the news stories, one paragraph from The Los Angeles Times article seems to have additional meaning:

One of the first federal investigators to question Hatfill about the anthrax mailings, now-retired FBI Agent Bradley Garrett, said Tuesday that Hatfill had remained the bureau's "only viable suspect -- until they figured out" Ivins.

It is premature, however, to characterize Mr. Hatfill's status as being a target, subject, or even a suspect.

When you have no other viable suspects and there has been an eight month campaign by conspiracy theorists, politicians and the media to point the finger at Dr. Hatfill, plus endless claims that the FBI was covering up for Dr. Steven Hatfill, you have a very volatile situation.  And that situation wasn't helped by the fact that the innocent man being fingered was an aggressive, intelligent, risk-taking scientist and former "mercenary" who was unlikely to just stand by quietly and let things play themselves out.  Such men tend to fight back when they are falsely accused.  And fighting back can just make things worse when the "enemy" is a nebulous bunch of screwball conspiracy theorists and their followers in the media and in Washington.  And when the FBI has no other viable suspects except a man who the facts say is innocent but who respected scientists, journalists and politicians say is the most likely person to be the culprit, all the rules can - and apparently did - fall by the wayside. 

In one of the telephone conversations I had with Dr. Hatfill back in the late summer of 2002, at the height of all the craziness, I suggested that he keep notes on what was happening, since it would all make a very interesting book someday.  I hope he did so. 

Looking at what the media reported this week, I see no mention anywhere of what was happening to Dr. Hatfill in the seven months prior to the first public search of his apartment.  Instead, the headlines claim "Prescription led to erroneous anthrax case" and "Focus on Hatfill Relied on Informants," which give the impression that the Dr. Hatfill "investigation" began days or hours before that first public search on June 25, 2002, instead of seven months earlier when Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg gave a speech on November 21, 2001, before the Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention in Geneva, where she began telling everyone who would listen "that a renegade person associated with a U.S. biological weapon defense laboratory was responsible for mailing the letters."  That was the beginning.  And it got more intense for seven months. 

One international headline from June 16, 2002, should make very clear exactly what the situation was just days before that first public search of Dr. Hatfill's apartment: "FBI ‘guilty of cover-up’ over anthrax suspect."  The article begins this way:

American investigators know the identity of the killer who paralysed the US by  sending anthrax in the post but will not arrest the culprit, according to leading US scientists.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.  But that may be what many historians record.

November 26, 2008 (C) - The Hatfill search warrants include a section titled "Fiber Evidence" that is perking interest.  The section includes this:

12.  The four envelopes containing the anthrax spores were forwarded to the Trace Evidence Unit of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, DC for hair and fiber analysis.  Several textile fibers were recovered REDACTED XXXX REDACTED   The fibers are believed to be suitable for comparison purposes.

The Hatfill search warrants all seem to be related to searching for "fiber evidence."

However, I find it of particular interest that the first search warrant on the list to be signed by Judge Deborah Robinson was signed at at 10:58 p.m. on July 31, 2002, and four other warrants were signed at 11:00 p.m., 11:03 p.m., 11:05 p.m. and 11:12 p.m.  Getting a judge to read and sign five search warrants at that time of night would seem to indicate some kind of urgency related to losing their tail on Hatfill - NOT a search for fiber evidence based upon suspicions that accumulated over the past many months. 

The warrant signed at 11:05 p.m.  says "Hatfill stayed overnight" at his girlfriend's apartment "last evening, July 30, 2002."  That makes me think that Dr. Hatfill stayed at his girlfriend's apartment after the long drive back from Louisiana.

This statement by the FBI agent in the search warrants might be considered particularly relevant:

I have not included each and every fact known to me concerning this investigation. I have set forth only the facts that I believe are necessary to establish the necessary
foundation for the search warrant.

Still, there are the bloodhounds, one of whom is reported by Newsweek to have "excitedly bounded right up to Hatfill" on August 1, inspiring an FBI observer to exclaim, "Damn!"

So, it would appear that Dr. Hatfill and his girlfriend had breakfast at the Denny's in Louisiana on the morning of July 30, and then drove straight through to Maryland that day, spending that night at her apartment.  When the FBI realized they had lost their tail on Hatfill, they decided to bring in the bloodhounds.  The bloodhounds began their search at Denny's on the 31st, where Hatfill had eaten "the day before."  They did other sniffing around on that day, probably including William Patrick's driveway.  The FBI seems to have located Hatfill some time on the 31st and got their search warrants late that evening.  The next day, on August 1, one legal document says the handlers let the bloodhounds find Dr. Hatfill in an empty apartment in the same building where his apartment was located. 

According to AIM.org, something else happened on that first day of August, 2002:

On August 1, Justice sent an e-mail to Stephen L. Guillot, the director of the [Louisiana State University National Center for Biomedical Research and Training], ordering him to "cease and desist" from using Hatfill on Justice Department-funded projects.

November 26, 2008 (B) - Someone just pointed out something interesting in one of the newly released documents.  In the Motion to Seal the documents related to Dr. Hatfill's girlfriend, this statment is made:

Moreover, the affidavit in support of the search warrants sets forth certain information as to why Steven Hatfill is a person of interest to the Grand Jury's and FBI's investigation of the terrorist anthrax mailings. There are and have been other persons situated similarly to him as persons of investigative interest. It is premature, however, to characterize Mr. Hatfill's status as being a target, subject, or even a suspect. Disclosure of this application, however, would undoubtedly lead to widespread perception to the contrary.

Having found that sealing the search warrant and the supporting affidavit in the abovecaptioned matter will protect an ongoing investigation and protect the safety of an incarcerated confidential witness,
the motion of the Government is HEREBY GRANTED

#2 seems most interesting, since it conjures up an image of the FBI being worried about the safety of Dr. Hatfill's former co-worker during the period when the FBI supposedly lost their tail on Dr. Hatfill.

But, there could be any number of other explanations.  Unfortunately, it seems very unlikely that we'll get any explanation any time soon.

November 26, 2008 (A) - Nuts!  Before shutting down operations yesterday evening, I took a quick look through the newly released documents from the Hatfill investigation and found nothing related to the use of bloodhounds, nor any mention of Dr. Hatfill's trip back from Louisiana which seemingly prompted the second round of searches of his apartment.  And, this morning, The Los Angeles Times appears to have found in the documents a reason to support their belief that the FBI considered Dr. Hatfill to be a serious suspect in the Amerithrax investigation.  The article titled "FBI's early anthrax hunches revealed in documents" contains this first paragraph:

The unsealed papers show how the FBI came to think Steven J. Hatfill was responsible for the deadly 2001 anthrax mailings.

The Washington Post, meanwhile, titles their article on the subject "In Anthrax Probe, Focus on Hatfill Relied on Informants," which is more in line with my observations.   The Post's article opens with these two paragraphs:

Authorities probing the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks fixed on now-cleared scientist Steven J. Hatfill primarily because confidential informants said they had talked with him about his purported involvement in Rhodesian bioweapons initiatives, according to court documents released yesterday.

The documents cover searches of Hatfill's residence, his car, a rental storage facility in Florida and property owned by his then-girlfriend. But they are perhaps most notable for the sparseness of their details and for the lack of a direct connection between the scientist and the notorious crime.

The documents have been sealed by the court since 2002. In the motion to seal, the government noted Hatfill was only one of several persons of interest to the grand jury, but "it is premature to characterize Hatfill's status as being a target, subject or even a suspect (in the investigation.)"

Lastly, The New York Times' article on the subject is titled "New Details on F.B.I.’s False Start in Anthrax Case" and begins this way:

A federal court on Tuesday unsealed documents that shed new light on why F.B.I. anthrax investigators spent years pursuing the wrong man, Steven J. Hatfill, who was exonerated by the government this year and received a $4.6 million settlement.

The Hatfill search warrant material shows how an accumulation of claims from acquaintances can cast an innocent person in a highly suspicious light, said Mark A. Grannis, a lawyer for Dr. Hatfill. As an example of how innocent details can be made to look suspicious, Mr. Grannis said Dr. Hatfill was taking Cipro, a widely prescribed antibiotic, after sinus surgery in 2001.

Search warrants, Mr. Grannis said, often use hearsay and unconfirmed information to convince a judge that a suspect is worthy of further investigation.

“Whether or not it was right for the government to rely on this kind of information to obtain a search warrant in 2002, we know in 2008 that Steven Hatfill had nothing to do with the anthrax attacks,” Mr. Grannis said.

I didn't expect the search warrants to say that they had to find out what Dr. Hatfill did when the FBI lost their tail on him during that return trip, but I had hoped for some mention of the return trip -- even if it was just an explanation for why the bloodhounds' search seemed to begin at a Denny's restaurant, and why the storage locker in Florida was searched.  So, it looks like the debate on that will just continue endlessly - or until some FBI agent writes his memoirs 20 years from now.

November 25, 2008 - The government has just released the search warrants and other documents related to their "investigation of Dr. Hatfill.  They can be found by clicking HERE.  According to The Associated Press, the government used the documents "to falsely accuse scientist Steven J. Hatfill of masterminding the 2001 anthrax attacks.   The AP article also says,

Hatfill attorney Tom Connolly said there is nothing in the documents showing Hatfill had anything to do with the attacks. 
...

"Search warrant affidavits are designed to raise suspicion — that is their express purpose," Connolly said in a statement. "Our repeated experience has been that people make wild accusations in secret, only to retract them under public questioning. Whether or not it was right for the government to rely on this kind of information to obtain a search warrant in 2002, we know in 2008 that Steven Hatfill had nothing to do with the anthrax attacks."

He added: "It will be unfortunate for all involved if the release of these documents misleads anyone into thinking otherwise."

November 23, 2008 - This morning, The Baltimore Examiner has released a very bizarre editorial which clearly states the purpose of their ongoing crusade regarding the anthrax attacks of 2001.  The editorial is titled "Self (inflicted) defense can up risk," and it begins with this "information":

Two clear facts shine from the clouded mystery of anthrax attacks on America and our government’s tenuous claim seven years later of closing the case with the suicide of a suspect.

Fact No. 1: Government warnings about anthrax being a weapon of mass destruction were false. Somebody dispersed the most lethal strain our tax dollars can produce — weapons-grade or near enough — via the U.S. Postal Service, exposing tens of millions of people, yet managed to infect 22. Five died. But from anthrax vaccination, at least 21 died and thousands reported a wide range of illnesses.

Fact No. 2: If FBI accusations against their prime suspect in the 2001 attack are true, it means billions of dollars taxpayers invested on the premise of prevention actually increased the risk.

And, according to the editors of The Baltimore Examiner, the real danger is the anthrax vaccine which they say has killed 21 and injured thousands? 

And if there is any doubt about what the Examiner is saying, they make it clear with this statement:

Think it through, citizens. The very vaccination program intended to thwart anthrax apparently sickened and killed more people than an actual mass attack.

We learned in 2001 the actual danger from anthrax was lower than vaccine.

President Bush must immediately halt programs until we can impose coordinated oversight, then assess security and capacity needs.

We must not let self-defense become self-inflicted catastrophe.

Wow!  Now that is true screwball thinking. 

And, like most arguments about the anthrax attacks, the editors of the Examiner think they are using science to support their beliefs.  They have two basic "scientific" facts: (1) only 22 people were harmed by the attacks, (2) thousands of people have suffered bad reactions to anthrax vaccinations.   As far as I know, both facts are true.  But the conclusion that anthrax is not a weapon of mass destruction is not true.  That bizarre conclusion is beyond idiotic. 

Are anthrax vaccinations dangerous to some people?  Apparently.  Should more be done to reduce the risk?  Yes.  Is there an increased danger to the public from all those labs working with anthrax?  Definitely.  But the lesson we should have learned from the anthrax attacks is NOT that anthrax vaccinations are more dangerous than anthrax itself.  The lesson should be: individuals with screwball interpretations of the facts have the potential to be more dangerous than anthrax and anthrax vaccines combined.

In the aftermath of the attacks of 9/11, many scientists felt it was a near certainty that a second round of attacks would be coming, and it would involve bioweapons.   For many years, experts had been saying that bioweapons are "the poor man's atomic bomb."  They were warning that America was not prepared for such an attack.  And, it appears that a scientist who worked on anthrax vaccines took it upon himself to warn America of the danger by sending phony Muslim threat letters containing real anthrax spores to the media.  When that failed to alarm anyone, he sent letters to two senators. 

There's an old saying: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.  The terrorists who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon thought that they were doing the right thing.  So, apparently, did the anthrax mailer. 

And, the editors of The Baltimore Examiner evidently believe they are doing the right thing in telling people that anthrax vaccines are more dangerous than anthrax.  That doesn't put them in the same league as those others, but it does show how beliefs and fears and political agendas can cause some people to ignore the facts at a time when facts are what they really need most. 

November 21, 2008 - The Baltimore Examiner seems to be on a crusade to stir up doubt about the Amerithrax investigation.  And they seem to be unconcerned about distorting facts in order to get the public to join their crusade.  This morning's examiner contains another article about the case.  This one is titled "Md. lawmakers consider anthrax investigation commission."  In it, the author adds another politician to list of those who say there should be an investigation of the investigation.

U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings’ Washington, D.C., office was shuttered in 2001 after anthrax spores were found, so he’s “very sensitive” to the investigation into the crime, he said.

Now, Cummings said he supports a review of the investigation. U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., proposed legislation in September to create a congressional commission to investigate the attacks and the federal government’s response.

“Whatever we have to do to get to the bottom of this anthrax issue, we need to do it,” Cummings said.

But lawmakers and scientists alike have raised doubts about the FBI’s conclusion.

Cummings said he “didn’t know” if he agreed with FBI’s conclusion.

“I wonder about that. That’s all I can say,” he said.

When scientists with beliefs are far more aggressive and vocal than scientists with facts, I get concerned.  And when media organizations crusade to investigate an investigation that is not yet complete and where many many facts have still not yet been made public, I get the impression that they aren't interested in the facts.  Instead, it appears they want to create doubt.  If you want answers, you ask questions.  If you want doubt, you create doubt.  More facts are needed - not more doubts - if we want to see a satisfactory end to the Amerithrax investigation. 

November 20, 2008 (B) - Today, The Baltimore Examiner has another article about anthrax, this one focusing on the subject of anthrax vaccines, but with some distorted and inflamatory statements about the Amerthrax investigation.  Examples:

The FBI later accused Ivins of salvaging the program by creating “a situation, a scenario, where people all of a sudden realize the need to have this vaccine.” That “situation” was the anthrax letter attacks of 2001, which killed five people and sickened at least 17 others.

MR. TAYLOR: The other question you have, Dr. Ivins is a troubled individual, particularly so at that time. He's very concerned, according to the evidence, that this vaccination program he's been working on may come to an end. He's also very concerned that some have been criticizing and blaming that vaccination program in connection with illnesses suffered by soldiers from, I think, the first Gulf War. So that was going on, according to the evidence, in his mind at that particular time.

With respect to motive, I'll point again to -- with respect to the motive, the troubled nature of Dr. Ivins. And a possible motive is his concern about the end of the vaccination program. And the concerns had been raised, and one theory is that by launching these attacks, he creates a situation, a scenario, where people all of a sudden realize the need to have this vaccine. 

The Examiner also says,

The FBI insists Ivins sent the letter, even though several leading scientists say it would have been impossible for Ivins, who died this past July 28 after overdosing on prescription Tylenol, to have committed the crime.

The Examiner also says,

While doubt about Ivins’ guilt lingers in the science community, there is strong evidence the attacks saved the [vaccine] program.

November 20, 2008 (A) - Sandia Labs just released a video explaining their role in the Amerithrax investigation.  Click HERE to view it.  While it doesn't provide the solid kick in the right place that is needed to get the conspiracy theorists to back off, it does specifically address the subject of silicon in the attack anthrax. 

November 19, 2008 - While we're all patiently waiting for the Dr. Hatfill search warrant information to be released and dissected by the media, a couple Internet forums have provided some interesting comments about the Baltimore Examiner article "Scientific impossibility: Did the FBI get their man in Bruce Ivins?" that are worth reading.  The first comment I spotted two days ago was on FreeRepublic.com, where someone calling himself "Hacklehead" wrote:

The key point of the article seems to be the amount of time it took for spore production. The timeline assumes he began after 9-11. Its possible this was planned well ahead of time and that the 9-11 attack was a “lucky” coincidence that provided a good cover. It’s also not necessary to grow the spores on “hundreds of plates” you actually can use the same plates repeatedly and harvest the spores by scraping them off the surface and re-incubating them. It would be possbile to get grams of spores fairly quickly that way but it would be a dirty prep (clumpy, with lots of cell debris, and mixed with vegetative cells. From what I have read, the spores were highly refined and very pure. That takes considerable time and effort.

And yesterday, on Dr. Meryl Nass's web site, a conspiracy theorist anonymously posted a new theory about why the attack spores do not show any coating of silica or silicon, even though the conspiracy theorist evidently believes it MUST be there to overcome the binding effects of van der Waals forces.  In response to Dr. Nass's mention of the recent Baltimore Examiner article, that "anonymous" person gave his scientific observations.  Here's a key part:

In my opinion, the most likely scenario is that a siloxane agent was deliberately added not as an antifoam agent but to aid dispersability. Likely this was something like "Repelcote". Replecote is the trade name for dichlorodimethylsilane. It would penetrate the exosporium in it's still monomer form (single molecule) and then polymerize in situ. That is, the polysiloxane polymer would form on the spore coat, underneath the exosporium. That's why Sandia thought it wasn't weaponized - they were looking for silica nanoparticles OUTSIDE the exosporium. That was the problem with having metallurgists from Sandia work in secret for 7 years on a biological weapon problem. They didn't understand other forms of weaponization. If they had been allowed to discuss their results with any BW weaponeer with know-how they would have quickly concluded the true facts. One cannot conduct science in secret.

This junk science addresses the fact that no silicon was detected on the OUTSIDE of the spores and the writer shows no concern for any other relevant facts.  That "Anonymous" writer also said:

The presence of the polysiloxane coating on the spore coat would make the spores highly hydrophobic. Water droplets would not form on the surface of spores, and therefore spores would not clump through water-bridging mechanisms.

Presumably, when confronted with this problem, the conspiracy theorist will simply claim that making a spore waterproof will not affect its ability to germinate.  A simple denial means the people with whom he is arguing will have to prove him wrong.  This is basic conspiracy theorist thinking.  Dream up explanations and make the other side do all the proving.  If the other side proves their junk science is stupid, just dream up another theory.  And keep dreaming up junk science theories until the other side gives up and walks away.  Then you can claim victory - because the other side gave up. 

The point this particular "anonymous" scientist is making is that "One cannot conduct science in secret."  The problem is, the Amerithrax investigation was about finding the person who killed five innocent Americans.  It was not about finding every possible explanation for why the element Silicon can appear in spores.  The information is not secret, it's irrelevant.  But, to conspiracy theorists, if you cannot answer every question they can somehow relate to a subject, then all your answers are suspect. 

In that same series of responses to the Baltimore Examiner article, there's more junk science from what seems to be another "anonymous" scientist.  This one wrote:

Was genetically identical B. subtilis isolated from the AMI building in Boca Raton? That would at least help substantiate the assumption that the letter to AMI went out along with the other mailings on September 18. Remember, no letter from AMI was ever recovered, no warning about anthrax or 9-11, etc. I am guessing that the b. subtilis contaminant, although recovered from two of the media letters, was not found at the Floridia crime scene. Of course, this suggests that there were three mailings, and the FBI certainly doesn't want to have to explain how Ivins was able to go to Princeton undetected THREE times.

If there weren't three mailings, how come the index case (letter to Floridia) is an outlier, no warning to take penicillin, no mention of 9/11, caused inhalation anthrax instead of cutaneous (all the other media exposures resulted in cutaneous anthrax)?

And if all their beliefs aren't satisfactorily debunked, then they will argue that everything they believe must be true - even beliefs which were debunked. 

Is it any wonder that competent scientists do not waste time arguing with scientists who rely on junk science and beliefs for their arguments? 

November 18, 2008 - The Associated Press reported yesterday that the Contempt Order filed against Toni Locy in the Hatfill v FBI lawsuit has been vacated. The lawsuit has been settled, so the issue no longer has any legal basis.  Seems right to me.  But the headline doesn't: "Judges throws out contempt order against reporter."   And an editorial in USA Today on the same subject also seems to overstate the situation. 

November 17, 2008 (B) - The Associated Press just released an article titled "Judge orders Hatfill search warrant made public."  Among other things, the article says:

Hatfill and Chegne did not appear to argue that the material should be kept private.

The Justice Department will be allowed to redact information that would identify a confidential informant used in the case, [U.S. District Judge Royce] Lamberth said.

I'm told that the "confidential informant" may be someone who worked with Dr. Hatfill at SAIC.  Will that help the media to continue to ignore the role played by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg in what happened to Dr. Hatfill?

November 17, 2008 (A) - Yesterday's Baltimore Examiner contains a lengthy article which addresses the same topics I commented upon yesterday.  The article, titled "Scientific impossibility: Did FBI get their man in Bruce Ivins?", concludes with this paragraph:

“The only opinions that I would place any confidence in would have to come from individuals who have made the stuff, in the same quantity of the letters,” said infectious disease specialist W. Russell Byrne. “And then I would ask them to go into B3 in building 1425, work there for a couple of weeks and reproduce what they say Bruce did. That’s the only way I could, in good conscience and in the spirit of objective scientific inquiry, believe them.”

And what should the FBI do when newspapers and others in the media keep telling the public that scientists insist that it is impossible for Dr. Ivins to be the culprit.

In a section of the article subtitled "Ivins’ innocence could rest on weird science," the only weird science is the science described by the author:

The FBI says that the silicon in the spores accumulated naturally during the growth process — important to its case against Ivins, who co-workers say did not have knowledge of the specialized techniques used to weaponize anthrax spores by coating them in silicon.

Silicon creates an electrostatic charge between particles that helps the lethal powder disperse more readily.

“The silicon is probably the most important scientific evidence that would lead anybody to question whether Bruce was capable of making these spores,” says Gerald P. Andrews, Ivins’ former boss.

Andrews and George Mason University professor and former Soviet bioweapons researcher Sergei Popov believe the silicon was purposely added, due to unnaturally high levels of the mineral in the spores.

So, we've got countless scientists demanding detailed instructions on how to weaponize anthrax spores, and we've got the media misinterpreting things to make junk science more believable than real science.

And the longer we go without solid information from the FBI, the worse it will get.

November 16, 2008 - A couple conversations via emails last week prompted some deep thinking on my part.

The first conversation related to the fact that this web site was created to analyze the data related to the anthrax attacks when the culprit was not yet known.  Now that the culprit has been presumably correctly identified, what should I be analyzing?

The question came up when someone challenged my "primary finding #9":

9.  The motivation for the attacks was almost certainly to awaken America to the danger of a bioweapons attack by Muslim terrorists - particularly any Muslim terrorists that might be living or staying in Central New Jersey.  Partially wrong.  The rest: CONFIRMED.

I think so.  I had a different person in mind when I wrote that "finding," but the "finding" wasn't based upon the person, it was based upon the evidence: (1) phony letters intended to appear to be from Muslim terrorists were (2) sent first to the media and (3) then to politicians who were fighting the Patriot Act in order to preserve civil rights, and, of course, (4) the letters warned that a bioweapons attack was coming next (after 9/11).  Plus, all the other details which support that finding.

The person disputing my finding argued that Bruce Ivins didn't seem to be the type of person who was acting purely in the public interest - a so-called "bioevangelist." 

But my finding didn't say that.  If the culprit was afraid that he and his family might be killed by a bioweapons attack from Muslim terrorists, he'd still want America to wake up to the danger so that they'd get their representatives in Washington to do something about it.  If he wanted to make money from a patent or wanted to make himself look like a hero by alerting everyone to a serious danger they seemed to be ignoring, he'd still want America to wake up to the danger so that they'd get their representatives in Washington to do something about it.  He sent the letters to awaken America to a very serious situation he saw but had no way to resolve all by himself. 

To get any more specific about Dr. Bruce Ivins' motivation requires a post-mortem psychoanalyis of Dr. Ivins.  I'm not sure I want to go there.  If the evidence says he did it, I see no need to go there. 

The deep thinking on this came as I wondered if I should create a new new front page that would change this site to analyze information about Bruce Ivins instead of various "potential" suspects and screwball conspiracy theories.  I'm still pondering that. 

The second conversation which prompted deep thinking last week resulted in a minor "moment of clarity" where a number of puzzling questions were suddenly  answered.

The discussion was about theories for how the anthrax spores used in the letter attacks of 2001 -- particularly the senate letters -  were dried.  In an email, a scientist flatly stated that the FBI's theory that a lyophilizer had been used to dry the attack spores was ridiculous.  I argued back that the FBI had never said any such thing.  In the transcript of the August 18, 2008, round table discussion, which is the only direct information we have from the FBI about the subject of drying spores, it was made clear that the FBI was not saying that a lyophilizer was used:

DR. MAJIDI:  You know we really -- we really don't have the -- we don't really have any answers for what process was used to grow additional spores or what methodology was used to dry them.  I think that a lot of folks focus on the issue of lyophilizer.  You can ask any of the folks and the panel members, and they will tell you that you can dry biological samples in one of dozens of ways. Lyophilizer is one of them.  You can let the samples heat-dry.  You can let the samples -- the water evaporate.   You can --

It is the people who do not believe that Dr. Ivins made the anthrax powders all by himself who want to know the exact drying method the FBI determined Dr. Ivins must have used, so that they can question and challenge every step.  Their motivation is not to determine the truth but to create doubt about the FBI's findings.

The email discussions on the subject of drying spores continued, and questions were asked about alternative theories for how the spores were dried.  Then, someone suggested that I ask a scientist acquaintance of mine what his theory is.  I was unwilling to ask such a question because it is one thing to discuss drying spores in general terms and in theory, and it is another thing altogether to discuss specifics. 

Then the moment of clarity: I suddenly realized that I had never asked nor could ever ask my scientist aquaintance what his theory was, because he knew how to make spore powders.  Therefore, if he answered, he wouldn't be giving me a theory, he would be giving me instructions. 

Boom.  A big piece fell into place.

I recalled how,  some weeks previously, I had discussed the subject of making pure spore concentrations with another scientist acquaintance.  We both knew with certainty that thousands - or maybe even tens of thousands - of scientists knew how to purify spores.  Yet, there were other scientists telling reporters that it was an nefarious art known only to a very few -- perhaps less than a dozen in the entire world.   That's nuts!  But, we wondered, why weren't at least some of the tens of thousands of scientists who routinely purify spores stepping forward to clarify the matter for the public? 

I felt I had always known the answer, but suddenly it was clear as never before: The people who talk about theories for making spore powders are people who do not know how to make spores powders.  The people who know how do not talk theory.  And, if they talk, they will be telling the world that they know how it is done.  And they know what would happen next:  Either they would be considered a potential terrorist, or they would be challenged: Prove that you know how.  Show us how it is done.  Give us the detailed instructions or we won't believe you. 

So, virtually all theoretical discussions about making pure spore powders are left to those who do not know how to do it.  Those who know how to do it, don't discuss it in public forums. 

Clearly, that's why bad information so often dominates public discussions of the subject.

November 13, 2008 - Global Security Newswire has a brief article this morning about The New York Times and Los Angeles Times efforts to access information about the FBI's "investigation" of Dr. Steven Hatfill.  The article repeats a paragraph that was in yesterday's Associated Press article:

"The public has a right to know why he [Dr. Hatfill] was targeted," said Jeanette Melendez Bead, an attorney representing the news organizations.

However, a search warrant was served for the next search on August 1, 2002.   And, as part of that search, the FBI also searched the home of Dr. Hatfill's girlfriend and a storage facility in Florida where Dr. Hatfill had stored some belongings.  And, as part of that same search, the bloodhounds were brought in.  And, witnesses said that the FBI confiscated a Camaro, which may have belonged to Dr. Hatfill's girlfriend.

This appears to be the search that is the current focus of attention for The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. 

A couple months ago, I discussed that particular search with top reporters from both of those newspapers, and I argued that the reason the FBI used bloodhounds appeared to be because the FBI agents who were tailing Dr. Hatfill on a trip to Louisiana State University had evidently lost their tail on him -- presumably at a Denny's restaurant near Baton Rouge.  That restaurant is the place I contend the FBI started using the bloodhounds to try to figure out where Dr. Hatfill had been during the period he was not under constant surveillance - the period of time it took him and his girlfriend to drive from Louisiana back to his apartment in Maryland.  The search ended when the bloodhounds were allowed to "find" Dr. Hatfill at his apartment, thus earning the treats that were the only interest the bloodhounds themselves actually had in finding Dr. Hatfill.  And that's why the bloodhounds barked so happily when they found him. 

The two reporters I talked with argued that the FBI had reasons to believe that Dr. Hatfill was the anthrax mailer.  My contention was that the FBI had no such reasons, they only had "tips" from conspiracy theorists who were relentlessly pointing the finger at Dr. Hatfill and gathering supporters for their screwball conspiracy theory. 

I'm not sure how viewing the search warrants would resolve that question.  I'm not sure what the two newspapers expect or hope to find.  And I'm not sure I would want the media to violate Dr. Hatfill's privacy again just to find out.

But I'd certainly like to know more details about exactly why the bloodhounds were brought in.  It's another part of my analysis that has never been proven or disproven.

November 12, 2008 - According to The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, "a federal court today will consider two newspapers’ request to release documents related to the 2001 'Amerithrax” investigations.'"

The New York Times on September 4 asked U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth for access to warrants and supporting materials related to searches of property owned or used by Dr. Bruce E. Ivins, Dr. Stephen J. Hatfill, and Hatfill’s former girlfriend. The Los Angeles Times joined in the request on September 9.
....

The newspapers argued that the public should see the records in part because “Questions continue to be raised about how the investigation became misdirected in focusing on Dr. Hatfill (at huge expense to the American taxpayer), why it took seven years to complete the investigation, and whether the government’s conclusion that Dr. Ivins was solely responsible for the anthrax mailings is sound.”

It seems doubtful that the contents of search warrants will explain anything about how Dr. Hatfill came under such intense scrutiny by the FBI if the warrants are not viewed in the context of what else was happening at that moment in time.  It seems more likely that the information in the search warrants will just confuse the issue - if viewed out of context.  Search warrants tend to be based upon the thinking of the moment, not on actual facts.  And the facts about how Dr. Steven Hatfill became "a person of interest" are to be found in what happened BEFORE the FBI made that first public search of his apartment on June 25, 2002.  The columns written by Nicholas Kristof for The New York Times, where for months Kristof pointed the finger at Dr. Hatfill, are part of the context of the time.  But, what we need most is a transcript of the meeting between Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, Assistant FBI Director Van Harp and the staffs of Senators Daschle and Leahy a week prior to that first search. 

At that meeting, Dr. Rosenberg undoubtedly discussed what she wrote in her June 13, 2002, paper "The Anthrax Case: What the FBI Knows," since it was the reason the meeting was called. 

If the search warrants show that the FBI was looking for the types of "evidence" that Dr. Rosenberg described in the meeting with senate staffers, it is critical that that be made known.  If we just see what the search warrants contained without any mention of Dr. Rosenberg's paper or the meeting, it will seem as if the FBI came up with the information in the warrants as a result of their own investigation.

If a private citizen gives an investigator a tip, and the investigator's investigation determines that the tip is total nonsense, did the investigator make a mistake in checking out the tip?  If you only look at what the investigator did without knowing why, it might seem so. 

The Associated Press has a story on this, too.  It contains this additional information:

Normally, search warrants would be sealed for a person who has not been charged or indicted, lawyers said. But the public has a right to know why investigators wanted to search Hatfill's home and on what basis the courts agreed to allow those searches, the newspapers argued in U.S. District Court.

Government lawyers argued Wednesday that Hatfill's right to privacy trumps the people's right to know in this case. "At some point, enough is enough," government lawyer Rachel Carlson Lieber said.

The Post's October 27 issue contained an article titled "Trail of Odd Anthrax Cells Led FBI to Army Scientist." In that article was this controversial paragraph:

"When you go to the true experts and ask them how many people can develop [anthrax spores] into something with this purity and this concentration, they shake their heads," said Montooth, the lead Amerithrax investigator. "Some will say there are perhaps six. Others will say maybe a dozen."

It seems a near certainty that the statement by Special Agent Ed Montooth was taken out of context.  Fortunately, we have a way to see the same subject in context.   We can take a look at the transcript of the August 18 Roundtable Discussion conducted by the FBI and DOJ.  At one point, a key question is asked: 

QUESTION:  If -- what I hear you all saying today is it was that way just because that sometimes happens when you dry an organism like anthrax. If that's the case, why did it surprise the experts so much in how buoyant it was?  Wouldn't this have been seen before? 

DR. MAJIDI:  So I'm just going to go out of school here and just tell you about some of the ways that you deal with single-cell organisms and culturing.  If you look at the experts in the country, a lot of them have worked with solutions and agar plate. You'll find very few true experts that they know anything about powders.

That's just a bottom line, that the true experts in this area as we discussed this with them, by no means they’re surprised that this is so dispersible.  In fact, as we discussed these with subject matter experts, the idea of putting these things in a letter and mailing it, because of the porosity of the envelopes; because of the size of the spores, were all questionable actions.  So is the material being so easily dispersible really unusual?  The answer is “no.” 

Is simply letting pure spores dry all that is additionally needed to create what was in the letters?  At another point in that discussion, the Background Official says,

There is a misconception going around this room that very simple spore preparations, simply spores washed in water, when dried, are not dangerous and friable.  That is a misconception.  We have seen many biological preparations that when just washed with water and dried are extremely friable. 

You can ask any of the folks and the panel members, and they will tell you that you can dry biological samples in one of dozens of ways. Lyopholizer is one of them.  You can let the samples heat-dry.  You can let the samples -- the water evaporate. 

Looking though the transcript of the round table discussion for the first time in a couple week, I found something else which debunks what was written last week in The New York Post.  The Post said:

Ivins' colleagues say it would have taken "a minimum of 40 days of continuous work without detection to create the volume of spores used in the attacks."

QUESTION:  Can you tell me in your preparations how long it took you to make a spore like this as of the SI enhancer or whatever -- the drying, et cetera?  How long did that take?

DR. BURANS:  Basically, it would take somewhere between three and seven days.

QUESTION:  That's all?  How many people did it take to do that to that; to --

DR. BURANS:  One person can perform the operation. 

I don't know when the FBI is going to close the Amerithrax investigation, or exactly when all the new scientific articles will be published, but I hope it's soon.  There are only so many ways I can examine and describe the same facts.  Some new facts and new information would definitely be helpful - even if it just confirms what has been said for years.  And new pictures of the attack anthrax could be worth a billion words. 

Let's see.   Where were we?  Oh, yeah.  The nonsense printed in The New York Post:

Ivins' colleagues say it would have taken "a minimum of 40 days of continuous work without detection to create the volume of spores used in the attacks."

The processes for creating concentrations of pure spores - a trillion per gram - are well known.  It's something that is done almost every day in labs around the world.  There are many many manymany scientific papers which describe the basic techniques.  The process can be described in one sentence: "Purification is usually accomplished by a sequence of filtrations and centrifugations."  Filtering allows you to eliminate anything that is larger or smaller than a spore.  Centrifuging allows you to eliminate anything that is heavier or lighter than a spore. 

An anthrax spore taken from flask RMR-1029 could germinate from a dormant spore into a living, replicating bacterium in about 45 minutes, and each bacterium could then reproduce itself about every 20 minutes.  In about 7 hours, you could have a million living bacteria.  When you are ready to cause the living bacteria to form spores (sporulate), it takes about 7 or 8 hours for a living bacteria to create a spore.

There's nothing secret in this.  It's basic microbiology.  But doing it well is like playing chess or golf well.  Knowing the basic procedures is just the start.  The rest involves having the right experience, aptitude and equipment.  If you have the right experience, you'd even know when you can just leave the processes or equipment run - and for how long - while you do other things, like go home and get some sleep.

When Ivin's colleagues say that it would take 40 days to make what was in the anthrax letters, they have to be assuming that every standard protocol is obeyed, that every step is logged and recorded, that every inspection shows that scientific standards are met, and that no modifications to procedures were done in order to speed up the process.  It's a false argument.  It's not based upon reality.  It's junk science.  It's an argument based upon a need to find a reason to not accept or believe the facts. 

John McCain was arguing on election day that there was still a possiblity for him to win the election, an argument that was clearly based upon a need to find a reason to not accept or believe the facts.  On the other hand, a few months ago, a lot of us may have believed that there was still too much racism in America for an African-American to ever be elected President.  Election day showed us what the true facts were.  The choice between the candidates was so clear that even racism became almost irrelevant. 

Oops.  Focus focus focus.  That matter has been resolved.  It's the anthrax case where we still need to have the facts made absolutely clear. 

November 3, 2008 - Here's an example of straight news about the dangers of natural, unweaponized anthrax: 

A drum-maker who inhaled anthrax spores from imported animal skins has died in hospital.

According to several analysts who attended the bureau’s classified briefings on its investigation, the case [against Ivins] is based largely on the kind of circumstantial information that led the FBI to finger Steven J. Hatfill as the likely culprit five years ago, and would have been unlikely to hold up in court.

According to the article, some of Dr. Ivins' co-workers have "approached" a lawyer with the idea of suing "the feds for fingering the wrong man.  And, after interviewing "dozens of Ivins' colleagues" at Ft. Detrick, the New York Post presents a list of five reasons why those colleagures believe Dr. Ivins could not be the culprit:

1.  The lyophilizer, which some suggest must have been used to dry the spores, was located in a hallway surrounded by four labs and didn't have a protective hood.  Without such a hood, according to the scientists at Ft. Detrick, the lyophilizer "would have spewed poisonous aerosols" all around the area, requiring a lengthy cleanup.

2.  Ivins' colleagues say it would have taken "a minimum of 40 days of continuous work without detection to create the volume of spores used in the attacks."  And Dr. Ivins was involved with 19 other research projects at the time the spores were presumably being prepared. 

3.  Ivins' colleagues don't understand how the 200 other scientists who had access to the RMR-1029 flask were ruled out as suspects.

4.  "The FBI has not released any physical evidence linking Ivins to the attacks or defined a motive."

5. "The FBI investigation was filled with inconsistencies and bordered on harassment."

One of Ivins' former colleagues was being aggressively pressured to confess to the crimes just two months before Ivins killed himself on July 29, he told The Post. And he identified at least one other employee who was under the same pressure.

FBI spokeswoman Debbie Weierman said: "The FBI is still handling administrative business and closing the loop on outstanding issues. Therefore, the investigation is still pending. However, the case has been solved; as the FBI and the Department of Justice have stated publicly.

"The FBI is absolutely positive that Dr. Bruce Ivins and only Dr. Bruce Ivins was responsible for the anthrax mailings."

1.  I find the information about the lyophilizer to be interesting.  But I'm not certain that the only way Dr. Ivins could have dried the spores is by freeze-drying them. 

2.  The idea that it would take 40 days to create the spores in the letters is complete and absolute nonsense.

3.  Ruling out other possible suspects is routine police work.  There's no mystery in how it is done.  It's generally done by checking means, motive and opportunity.  And, putting the pressure on people who could easily have done it is also routine.  The fact that others were being pressured doesn't necessarily mean those others were true suspects, it could just mean that they were not easily eliminated as possible suspects.  You need to eliminate them as possible suspects before arresting the actual suspect. 

4.  Physical evidence isn't necessary to prove guilt.  And motives are in a person's mind.  Without a confession, the most likely motive or motives have to be deduced by analyzing the culprit's personality, his habits, his writings, what his acquaintences have to say about him, and the facts of the crime. 

5.  Every investigation can have inconsistencies.  It's the job of the investigators to sort through the inconsistencies to determine the truth.  If there were no "inconsistencies," there would be no need for an investigation.

The fact that the FBI is still working on administrative matters while wrapping up outstanding issues in the case hopefully continues to indicate there will be a time when some kind of comprehensive document will be released in which the entire case against Dr. Ivins will be laid out for the entire world to see.  I can imagine it being purposely delayed until after the election, not because it would affect the election, but because it's important to wait until a time when it can be the focus of everyone's attention.

Right now, it's far far more important for Americans to focus on who they believe would make the  best President for the next four years ... and to VOTE for their choice. 

October 31, 2008 - I don't have much to say about the hoax anthrax letters sent to banks from Amarillo or to news outlets from Sacramento that have been in the news lately, other than to point out that there's no reason to believe they had any connection to the real anthrax attacks of 2001.   There have been about 30,000 incidents of suspicious powders sent through the mails since the attacks of 2001, and there were about two per week in the year BEFORE the attacks.  Hoax anthrax letters were so common at the time of the real attacks that all the recipients of actual anthrax letters sent to the media just tossed the letters away or aside.  So, any attempt to connect hoaxes to the real attacks should require a massive amount of proof - then or now.

Also, for several days there have been news reports of another incident of a drum maker being infected by anthrax spores from animal hides.  This time it's in London.  The victim has inhalation anthrax and is in serious condition, proving once again that weaponization is NOT required for spores to cause inhalation anthrax. 

October 30, 2008 (B) - According to The Associated Press, a Florida Supreme Court ruling today will help Maureen Stevens, the widow of an anthrax victim Bob Stevens, in her lawsuit against the federal government and Battelle Memorial Institute.  Justices ruled 4-1 that the defendants had a duty under Florida law to protect the public against the unauthorized release of lethal materials.

October 30, 2008 (A) - I received an email today from a scientist who had just finished making pure dry spores of Bacillus Cereus for a project, and it took him six days -- working alone -- to make the small quantity he needed (far less than a gram).  He says making larger quantities in that time just requires using more or larger equipment.  Also, he had never done it before, so he can't be sure there aren't ways to do it faster.

Back on September 26 & 28, I theorized that Bruce Ivins may have started working on the senate anthrax when news reports stated that Bob Stevens' anthrax infection appeared to be unrelated to terrorism.  That would be October 4, 2001, and that would have given him four or five days to create the powder and get the letters into the mail box for an October 9 postmark.  Maybe he knew faster ways to do it, or maybe he had already started before he learned about Bob Stevens -- assuming, of course, that Bruce Ivins truly was the anthrax mailer as the facts seem to indicate. 

Discussing this with another scientist, an expert in the subject, he tells me that the whole process could have been speeded up by using different equipment to grow the bacteria -- equipment which Bruce Ivins definitely had available to him.

October 29, 2008 (B) - It may just be a coincidence, but Town Topics, "Princeton's Weekly Community Newspaper Since 1946,"contains an article today that says some of the same things I commented upon yesterday, plus it clarifies something I wondered about:  Has the NAS agreed to investigate the science of the Amerithrax case? 

In a phone conversation yesterday, News and Public Information Executive Director Bill Kearney said that Mr. Majidi’s letter was being used by NAS as the basis of a “statement of task,” and that Mr. Holt’s letter would be “taken into consideration” in writing up an “appropriate charge.” Once the charge receives approval from NAS’s governing board, Mr. Kearney said, they would enter into a formal contract with the FBI, and begin nominating a “provisional committee” that would handle the investigation.

In response to a question about the identity of committee members, he noted that they “won’t be scientists who have been working on this for the FBI,” but would be “experts from a variety of disciplines.”

Meanwhile, The Frederick News-Post says that Bruce Ivins' personnel file has been released, and it showed that "officials certified that they found no information that would preclude Ivins from working with select agents."

October 29, 2008 (A) - I don't know exactly what started it, but yesterday was a good day for email discussions about the Amerithrax investigation.   A number of things were brought to light:

1.  In 2001, USAMRIID did not have a spectrometer to test for unusual elements in spores.  They had to send Tom Geisbert to AFIP to use their EDX spectometer when the FBI asked about additives in the anthrax.  The silicon and oxygen were detected at AFIP.

Doesn't that indicate that the silicon found inside the spore coatings MUST have been added unintentionally?  If it was added deliberately for some "weaponization" reason, no one at USAMRIID had the ability to test to see if it had been added correctly or not.

Furthermore, even AFIP didn't have the proper kind of spectrometer to find the LOCATION of elements INSIDE spores.  So, even if the silicon and oxygen were added deliberately by someone at USAMRIID, they couldn't even use AFIP's equipment to test to see if it was properly done.

And, since USAMRIID had no ability at all to test for elements in spores, there would have been no way for Bruce Ivins to know if it was there as a result of being in the nutrients or in some thickener or anti-foaming agent.  They would be BLIND to the whole subject of elements in spores.  So, it appears that the silicon MUST have been added unintentionally.

2.  Bruce Ivins was an expert on making spores, and routinely created pure WET spores.

The media anthrax, which contained 90 percent debris, could NOT have been an experiment by Bruce Ivins.  He already knew how to create pure WET spores.  That means he would know enough to be able to create pure DRY spores with better than just 10 percent spores.

Therefore, if Bruce Ivins was the culprit, the creation of the "crude powder" MUST have been deliberate -- presumably because the crude powder would require less equipment and less expertise, providing less data for forensic experts to use to trace the spores back to a source.

3.  Silicon is COMMON in living organisms.  Some plants are as much as 20 percent silica.  Silicon is one of the most common elements on earth.  It's EVERYWHERE.  And its most common form is silica.

Very small amounts of silica are normally present in all body tissues but there is no evidence that they play any physiological role.

Silicic acid is a normal constituent of the urine, where it is found as early as a few days after birth. The amount excreted in the urine, which varies considerably according to the diet, is in the order of 10 to 30 mg per day (Thomas, 1965).   Source.

October 28, 2008 - Yesterday's Washington Post article "Trail of Odd Anthrax Cells Led FBI to Army Scientist"continues to puzzle me.  Look at this paragraph:

The questions have prompted an independent review of the FBI's forensic case by a panel of the National Academy of Sciences. In an Oct. 16 letter to the academy, Rep. Rush D. Holt (D-N.J.), a member of the House intelligence committee, asked the panel to investigate whether the bureau's scientific discoveries were "inconsistent with the FBI's conclusions."

Are any of the FBI’s scientific findings inconsistent with the FBI’s conclusions?

Are there any scientific tests that the FBI has not done that might refute their conclusions?

My comment: If there are tests the FBI has not done, how does one determine what the results might be without actually doing the tests?

Did the FBI follow all accepted evidence-gathering, chain of possession, and scientific analytical methods? Is it possible that any failure to do so could have affected the FBI’s conclusions?

My comment: Many things may be technically "possible" which can also be extremely unlikely.

Is it scientifically possible to exclude multiple actors or accessories?

My comment: No, it is not scientifically possible.  But that does not mean it it happened or even that it is likely to have happened.

How likely is it that a single scientist working alone could complete the postulated actions? What would be the required time and equipment needed?

Regarding the FBI’s question #2, is it scientifically possible to determine the stability of the combination of mutations in the RMR-1029 strain? Is it scientifically possible to determine how long this combination was in the flask in Dr. Ivins’ custody? Is it scientifically possible to distinguish a sample taken from Dr. Ivins’ flask from one taken from one of its daughter flasks in another lab? How many passages or how long is this mutation combination likely to remain?

Is it scientifically possible to rule out the possibility that there are other stocks (including daughters of Dr. Ivins’ flask) that share the RMR-1029’s mutation combination for which the FBI has not accounted?

My comment: No, it is not scientifically possible.  There is just no evidence to support such a scenario, and legal cases are based upon evidence, not possibilities.

Regarding the FBI’s question #5, are the FBI’s explanations for the presence of silicon in the spores recovered from the mailed letters?

If the spores for the attacks were grown in Dr. Ivins’ lab as the FBI has postulated, are there scientifically credible reasons for the FBI’s inability to produce spores with the identical signatures of those used in the attacks if they used the same stocks, media, and conditions that were present in Dr. Ivins’ lab?

Given the revelations of the extreme ease of environmental contamination noted by the FBI’s Dr. Douglas Beecher in his August 2006 article in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, how likely is it that no environmental contamination would be found in the vehicle, house, or personal effects of the accused?

My comment: If environmental contamination was found, why wouldn't it be from Dr. Ivins normal work?  Are we to assume that Dr. Ivins knew enough to keep himself from being contaminated every day, but somehow forgot to take normal precautions when he was preparing the anthrax letters? 

In summary, has the FBI taken every opportunity to invalidate components of their hypothesis rather than pursuing reasoning and collection of evidence intended to confirm their hypothesis?

My comment:  What is "every opportunity?"  Who determines how many opportunities have to be explored before you have "every opportunity?" 

If not, what challenges have been made to the FBI investigation’s reasoning?  Could any of those challenges be undertaken still, or has the passage of time or loss of evidence made that impossible?  It would be most useful if any panel you convene were to answer scientific or technical questions that may refute the FBI’s conclusions. 

My comment: There may be  lots of "challenges."  With a circumstantial case there are almost always "other possibilities" for individual items of evidence.  It's what the total body of evidence shows that is important.  That's why we have juries.  They look at all the evidence, including the evidence where there are "other possibilities."  It may be possible that Dr. Ivins was somewhere else when the letters were being mailed, but if he has no solid alibi, then that "possibility" is just a "possibility" and nothing more.  Possibilities mean nothing if the total body of evidence says beyond a reasonable doubt that he must have driven to New Jersey to mail the anthrax letters. 

I also noticed that on Sept. 24, Rep. Holt introduced Bill HR-7049 asking for a National Commission on the Anthrax Attacks "to examine and report upon the facts and causes relating to the anthrax letter attacks of September and October 2001."  If and when such a commission begins its examination, maybe the first question should be: Is it possible that Representative Rush Holt sent the anthrax letters?  It would be very interesting to see if he can prove it is not possible, particularly if it is "possible" that he could have gotten someone else to do whatever was needed when he was required to be somewhere to establish an alibi.  After all, he is a scientist.  From 1980 to 1986 he taught physics, and from 1989 until 1998, he was Assistant Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, the largest research facility of Princeton University, near where the anthrax letters were mailed.  Can that be "just a coincidence?"  :-)

October 27, 2008 - This morning's Washington Post contains a lengthy article titled "Trail of Odd Anthrax Cells Led FBI to Army Scientist."  The article repeatedly talks about how rare it is to have a pure concentration of spores.  The article says,

Exceptionally pure concentrations of anthrax spores were Ivins's trademark and placed him in an exclusive class. 

The art of "spore preparation" is a tedious job often relegated to novices and technicians.

It was intended for garden-variety animal experiments, but the collection of anthrax spores known as RMR-1029 was anything but ordinary. Ivins, its creator, had devoted a year to perfecting it, mixing 34 different batches of bacteria- laden broth and distilling them into a single liter of pure lethality.

The finished product, a muddy, off-white liquid in a glass flask the size of a small coffee pot, was the greatest single concentration of deadly anthrax bacteria in the country, FBI investigators said. 

Initially, agents thought Ivins divided his spores into two flasks and kept one in a different building, which would have increased the number of people with potential access. That belief was based on a lab notebook entry that turned out to be erroneous, agents said.

The Post article then says,

Ivins alone created and controlled the distinctive collection of anthrax cells that provided the seeds for the attacks.  And he was the undisputed master at manipulating the bacteria into dense concentrations of deadly spores. While graduate school microbiologists could have performed most of the tasks, Ivins had the experience and the "good set of hands" required to achieve a spore preparation of such quality, a government scientist said.

"When you go to the true experts and ask them how many people can develop [anthrax spores] into something with this purity and this concentration, they shake their heads," said Montooth, the lead Amerithrax investigator. "Some will say there are perhaps six. Others will say maybe a dozen."

Ivins normally worked with liquid anthrax spore solutions, not dry powders, investigators acknowledge. Ivins's colleagues insist that he had no experience with "dry aerosols" of anthrax spores and would not have known how to make them.

October 26, 2008 - As we all wait for the FBI and the DOJ to close the Amerithrax investigation, which will presumably result in some kind of document laying out the entire case against Dr. Bruce Ivins, the science of the case still fascinates me - and, to a lesser degree, the psychology.  And, there's now time available to do some deep thinking about the science and the psychology, and the past and the future.

In my analysis of the anthrax attacks as described in my book and on this web site, I definitely had the science figured out, and I appear to have had the right psychology for the anthrax mailer.  I just didn't have the right person.  But, from the very beginning, I recognized that possibility, since my analysis said that there appeared to be thousands of scientists with the capability to make the anthrax powders (a subject still in dispute) and perhaps hundreds with the right motivation and psychology.  But, I had information about only a few of them.  With thousands of possible suspects, I simply had no way to evaluate someone who I knew absolutely nothing about.

From the few I knew something about, I picked the one "most likely" to have done it (Who else could I pick?), but I never named the scientist, I only discussed the evidence that I had accumulated.  Perhaps most importantly, my analysis also showed that none of the "suspects" identified by other people were more likely to be the actual culprit.  The facts about Dr. Steven Hatfill were clear from the very beginning.  He was picked by others who went through their own lists of scientists they knew in order to identify the "most likely" person to have done it.  But they seemingly didn't recognize that they could be wrong.  Or, they didn't care if they were wrong because they believed the true culprit was the Bush administration, and it didn't really make much difference to them which Bush administration flunky actually did it.  The situation with Dr. Philip Zack was similar - he was just a representative of what some saw as "the real enemy."  And the psychology of the case didn't fit Saddam Hussein or al Qaeda or any true terrorists. 

The psychology of conspiracy theorists fascinated me for years - and still does, to a degree.  I got to know some of them very well.  I've exchanged thousands of emails with them.  But, once the psychology of conspiracy theorists becomes clear, it loses a lot of its fascination.  It becomes routine.  The same with the psychology of True Believers.  Very quickly, their responses become so standardized and predictable that you might as well be talking with a machine.

From time to time, I wondered how I would revise my book to include information about Dr. Bruce Ivins - if some publisher were to express interest in printing a new edition.  But why would any publisher be interested in a book written by some guy on the Internet who always said it was possible he could be wrong about who sent the anthrax letters?  Unambiguous claims - right or wrong - sell more books.  And that makes me wonder: What kinds of books will others write about the anthrax attacks?  And who will write them?  There will undoubtedly be many books which will dismiss the facts and continue to promote complex conspiracy theories implicating the U.S. government.  Hopefully, however, some people actually involved in the investigation will write books about how they viewed the case.  But, since it appears that no top investigator stayed on the case from start to finish, it seems likely that the bulk of factual books about the case will be histories of the Amerithrax investigation from historians or as seen by people who were involved with the case in some way at some time.

Sometimes I think about writing a novel or fictional screenplay about the case, because, as said before, the psychology of the case fascinates me.  Novels and screenplays are usually all about psychology - how the world is viewed by a person in crisis.    If I were to write a novel or screenplay about the case, I'd write one that views the case from the culprit's point of view.  That's were the really fascinating psychology would be.  Imagine someone thoroughly believing that, after 9/11, America needed to be awakened to the dangers of a bioweapons attack.  And he devises his own plan to awaken America - without harming anyone.  But, things go wrong and innocent people die.  As the main charater watches, others become suspects and their lives are ruined.  But, the deed is done, and there's no turning back.  Incredibly, he's somewhat involved with the investigation, so he can actually watch some things as they happen.  And he can often ask questions and get answers.  At first it appears he got away with it, but then ... 

It's a premise with a lot of possibilities.  But, I don't see having the time to write a novel or screenplay until long after the Amerithrax case is closed and all the upcoming scientific articles are published.  And, even then, I'd be inclined to write non-fiction. 

If and when the legal case against Bruce Ivins gets presented to the public, it should be very interesting to see how it is rationalized and/or dismissed by conspiracy theorists and True Believers.  But I'm really waiting for the scientific evidence.  It's a lot more difficult to rationalize and/or dismiss scientific facts in order to continue with some belief.  Yet, a lot of scientists appear to have done exactly that.  And it's the arguments between scientists which fascinates me the most about this case.  It's the area where both psychology and science are in direct conflict in the Amerithrax case.

I'm still looking to read a copy of "Pulmonary Deposition of Aerosolized Bacillus Atrophaeus in a Swine Model Due to Exposure from a Simulated Anthrax Letter Incident" to see if the authors assumed "weaponization" of the attack spores as part of their study.  If so, the next question would be: Were they aware of the dispute over whether or not the attack spores were "weaponized?"  My guess would be that they were totally unaware of the dispute, because scientists, like almost everyone else, evidently live and work in their own community and only get a tiny fraction of their information from the outside world.  And, one of the biggest lessons I learned from analyzing the facts about the anthrax attacks for seven years is that scientists can easily have false beliefs just like the rest of us.  And, sometimes two or more scientists can have very different views of the same facts.

For example, a couple weeks ago, I happened to watch a program called "How Sticky Is Your Gecko?" on a Science Channel program called "Weird Connections."  It was all about how tiny lizards called geckos cling to surfaces.  The show grabbed my attention because it wasn't long ago that the subject of geckos kept popping up all the time in discussions of the Amerithrax investigation.  It may have been the result of a study titled "Evidence for van der Waals adhesion in gecko setae" produced by Keller Autumn et al in 2002, which seemingly proved that geckos cling to surfaces by manipulating van der Waals force.  And, it was van der Waals force which Gary Matsumoto's infamous article in the November 28, 2003, issue of Science magazine claimed would also cause spores to cling to other spores if there wasn't some form of silica between the spores to prevent it from happening.  That's the foundation for  nearly all of the conspiracy theories.

My fascination with van der Waals forces and scientific disagreements increased when I read a 2005 article from the National Institutes of Health which apparently states that it is capillary force, not van der Waals force which allows geckos to stick to walls.

I'm primarily an analyst.  When I see scientists in disagreement over what the facts say about some interesting subject, my ears perk up.  What would the facts tell me?  Which side is right?  Could they both be right?  Or could both sides be wrong?

Will there be enough free time for me to study the subject in detail and find out?  Or will the FBI suddenly close the Amerithrax case and release a flood of new information that will need to be studied, analyzed and commented upon? 

Stay tuned.

October 22, 2008 - Today, someone pointed out to me that in my book - and on this web site - I once indicated that it appeared that the FBI had found in New Jersey the copy machine used to make the anthrax letters.  In my book I argue that if the copy machine was in New Jersey, it would be very unlikely that Steven Hatfill would have driven all the way to New Jersey to use it.  Today, the same argument would apply, of course, to Dr. Bruce Ivins.

The information about the FBI locating the copy machine comes from CBS where this was stated:

And after searching thousands of copiers in New Jersey where the letters were mailed, agents believe they've found the very one the killer used to make his duplicates by isolating the tiny scratches and smears unique to each machine.

Already investigators have identified the Xerox machine used to photocopy the letters sent to Democratic senators, NBC, and the New York Post last fall, a source close to the investigation said. The machine is "publicly accessible" and is in New Jersey, but in what town or what facility was not disclosed.

Other sources are saying that the information about the Xerox machine is untrue,
that the FBI is denying it. 

Did the FBI actually find the Xerox machine?  Who knows?  Today, I seriously doubt that, if they found it, they found it in New Jersey.  More likely, they found a copier that seemed to be the right one.  Back in May of 2002, I asked these questions:

But can it be demonstrated in court that it is the same machine used to copy the anthrax letters?  Or is it just something that appears certain to FBI agents but cannot be scientifically proven? 

I suppose it is possible that Dr. Ivins could have driven to New Jersey to use a copy machine, then returned back to Maryland to use a biosafety cabinet at Ft. Detrick to put the anthrax into the letters and into the envelopes.  But, it seems more likely that the copy machine that was found back in 2002 just looked like it could be the machine -- if it existed at all, and if the whole thing wasn't just a rumor.

If and when the FBI & DOJ release all the evidence supporting their case against Dr. Ivins, the copy machine will certainly not be mentioned if it couldn't be scientifically proven to be the right machine.  The fact that someone in the FBI may or may not have believed that a copy machine in New Jersey was the right machine is irrelevant.  At one point, an FBI agent in Florida believed and argued that al Qaeda must have been behind the attacks, while other FBI agents evidently believed that Dr. Hatfill was the anthrax mailer.  It's just another example of how beliefs must be separated from facts in order to create a solid legal case to take to court. 

Whether or not I believed that the copier had been found is not critical, since I also knew (and stated) that it could be all be a mistake of some kind.  Believing something without knowing that the belief could be in error is where serious problems occur. 

October 20, 2008 - Back in August, learned a little lesson about scientific journals.   I was exchanging emails with a scientist, and, in response to a question, he referred me to an article he had co-written.  He mentioned the publisher, the name of the journal and the name of the main author.  He couldn't remember the title of the article.  When I started looking for the article, I soon discovered that he hadn't correctly remembered the name of the journal, either.  He said it was in "Bioforensics International."  There was no such magazine in the list of 85 journals with titles that begin with B published by the publisher he named.  I found the article in "Forensic Science International," one of 72 journals with titles that begin with the letter F published by Elsevier, which publishes 2,340 different scientific journals.

The article I commented about yesterday is published by a different publisher who appears to publish many dozens of journals that begin with the letter I, including "Inhalation Toxicology," which contained the article I mentioned. 

I mention this because it should illustrate why an article in a general science magazine like Science or Nature will get a much bigger audience and have a much greater impact than something printed in a magazine designed for a specific branch of science -- even if the article is total nonsense written by an apparent conspiracy theorist. 

October 19, 2008 - Last week was another slow week in which I received very few emails and found no important news related to the anthrax attacks of 2001.  However, yesterday someone sent me a link to an abstract of a new scientific article titled "Pulmonary Deposition of Aerosolized Bacillus Atrophaeus in a Swine Model Due to Exposure from a Simulated Anthrax Letter Incident."  The abstract begins with this:

Dry anthrax spore powder is readily disseminated as an aerosol and it is possible that passive dispersion when opening a letter containing anthrax spores may result in lethal doses to humans. The specific aim of this study was to quantify the respirable aerosol hazard associated with opening an envelope/letter contaminated with a dry spore powder of the biological pathogen anthrax in a typical office environment.

Thus, there would appear to be a significant health risk to those individuals exposed to anthrax spores when opening a contaminated envelope.

In previous experiments done in Canada, "weaponized" spore powders created by Dugway were sometimes used.  Are we supposed to assume that since there is no mention of the word "weaponized" in the abstract, the spores must have been a simple pure spore powder without any "weaponization" additives? 

It's probably best to avoid making any assumptions.  After all, it wasn't too long ago that another study was done where "weaponized" spores were used because all the scientists involved believed that the anthrax spores used in the 2001 attacks were "weaponized."

I often feel I exist in an area where two "scientific circles" intersect.  On one side are the scientists who have facts about the anthrax attacks of 2001, and on the other side are scientists who have beliefs about the anthrax attacks of 2001. 

But, what I'm learning -- and what continues to amaze and confound me -- is that many many scientists on both sides of me seem totally unaware that there is another side.

The vast majority of the scientists who work with mistaken beliefs about the attack anthrax of 2001 are totally unaware that there is even a question about whether or not the attack spores were weaponized!  When confronted, they are stunned to learn there is a dispute, and they will invariably refer to the October 2002 article in the Washington Post and/or to the November 2003 article in Science, both of which claimed the attack spores must have been weaponized.  They are stunned to learn that the articles are based upon junk science from a tiny group of conspiracy theorists who are endlessly trying to convert everyone to their belief that the attack spores were weaponized with silica as part of some vast U.S. government plot. 

The scientists who work with facts about the attack anthrax of 2001, on the other hand, seem to be generally aware that the conspiracy theorists exist.  But, they don't see that there is "another side."  With solid facts, there cannot be "another side."  There are only those with the facts, and those who are ignorant of the facts.  Ignorance is not a point of view.  Therefore, the "other side" is not "another side."  It's just a group of people who are ignorant of the facts.  And, in science, it is the responsibility of the ignorant to learn the facts.  If they won't, then that's their problem.

Only, in the matter of the anthrax attacks of 2001, the scientists who have been misled by the conspiracy theorists do not know that they have been misled.  They do not know that their years of research MAY be largely based upon incorrect information.

So, when I see an abstract of an article like the newest one from Canada, I have to wonder: is it about "weaponized" spores?  If so, there's probably still some value to the study.  But, it wouldn't be what the world really needs right now.  What the world needs is information about what really happened, not what some people believe happened.

October 15, 2008 - Hmm.  Did you know that the Federal Shield Bill died months ago?  According to the American Journalism Review, 

The bill, which would allow the government to subpoena journalists for information about their confidential sources only as a last resort, died in the Senate July 30 when supporters could not round up the necessary 60 votes to cut off discussion and bring it to a vote. The tally was 51-43 in favor of the measure.

Society of Professional Journalists President David Aeikens, who lobbied for the bill in Washington in July with about 10 fellow SPJ members, says when the campaign to enact the law resumes before the next Congress, "it's likely that we'll be back to square one." 

I don't need to put a Post-it note on my computer to remind me to keep an eye out for news about the closing of the Amerithrax investigation.  I'm keeping an eye out for that anyway.  But maybe I need one to remind me to look for news about the end of the Toni Locy matter.  And what about all the talk of Congressional investigations to look into the Amerithrax case?  Presumably, that talk has been temporarily drowned out by the talk about the financial crisis.   But when does no news become forgotten subjects?

October 12, 2008 (B) - Those who still believe that Iraq was behind the anthrax attacks might be able to make something of the fact that 37 people in Iraq were recently infected with the skin-infection type of anthrax.  An Iranian web site and Reuters both have articles about it this morning.  They are the first cases in Iraq since the 1980's.  But, all it really proves is that anthrax is a disease of cattle, and that it's not unusual to find cases in areas with dry climates.   However, I expect that a lot of phone calls and emails are being made to demand that the strain be checked to see if it is Ames.  And the favorite phrase in every one of them is most likely, "It can't be just a coincidence!"

October 12, 2008 (A) - When things get as slow as they have been during the past week, I tend to want to summarize, psychoanalyze and philosophize.  Having spent the past seven years sorting through every publicly available detail about the anthrax attacks of 2001, plus having answered many thousands of emails during that same period, I keep wanting to make some general observations. 

One observation that seems very clear, but which no one seems to mention, is that the people who do not accept the FBI's conclusion that Dr. Bruce Ivins was working alone when he sent the anthrax letters, do not agree with each other about what happened.

One Internet poll of 158 votes found that 3% believed that Dr. Ivins was responsible for the attacks, and 97% didn't.   Another poll with just 30 voters showed that 13% believed that Dr. Ivins was responsible for the attacks, and 87% didn't.  But no poll of people on the Internet can be seen as representative of the general population. 

And what do such numbers really mean when the people being polled have little or no agreement among themselves -- other than that they disagree with the FBI's findings? 
What would it mean if only 20% of Americans believe that Dr. Ivins was the culprit, 15% believe al Qaeda sent the letters, 10% believe that Dr. Philip Zack sent the letters, 5% believe that Saddam Hussein sent the letters, and the remaining 50% included hundreds of other suspects without any single suspect getting more than 2% of the vote? 

On the other hand, it wouldn't surprise me if the vast majority of Americans accepted the FBI's findings because they cannot accept any alternative theory that is based upon the premise that anyone who joins the FBI automatically accepts being part of some massive criminal conspiracy or automatically becomes totally incompetent. 

It also wouldn't surpise me if the vast majority of Americans have no opinion at all about the FBI findings.  The impression I get from people I meet who do not follow the case is that they just want to forget that it ever happened, and they hope that nothing like it will ever happen again.  They have too many other things to worry about.

October 8-9, 2008 - On Wednesday, when the magazine Nature mentioned an article on their web site that evidently contained an interview with Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, who has been critical of the FBI's Amerithrax investigation over the years, I was curious as to what the article said.  I thought it was odd that Nature would be talking with a politician about the case instead of getting solid facts from knowledgeable scientists.  I wondered if they were  trying to get their readers to support the conspiracy theorists.

This morning (Thursday), I found a copy of the Grassley interview in my email inbox.  The anthrax investigation takes up only a few paragraphs in the lengthy copyrighted interview.   Sen. Grassley seems puzzled about certain things.  For example:

two or three days after the  announcement of [Ivins] being a suspect, they said that the case is closed. Now it  looks like it's going to be 90 days or more before they close the case.

When asked what specific question about the Amerithrax investigation Sen. Grassley would most like to see answered, his response was:

Why did they wait until the last week before he died to get DNA from  him?  They took a mouth swab just a week before he died. [...] This is a case  that is supposedly solved. Well, if they've solved the case, what do they  have to hide? 

The case is not yet closed, even though the FBI and DOJ consider it "solved."  That's not unusual.  A crime is solved when the culprit is conclusively identified.  An investigation is closed when the culprit has been brought to trial and convicted. 

In this case, however, there can be no trial.  But, unlike most other cases, it would not be acceptable for the investigators to just wrap up everything and put it in the "closed case" files.  Closing the Amerithrax investigation requires something instead of a regular trial.

The trial in the Amerithrax case may be "a trial of public opinion."  If so, we need to remember that every trial begins with the prosecution laying out its case against the defendant.  And that hasn't yet happened.  All we've gotten is some information about the kinds of evidence that would have been presented if there had been a real trial.

I still think there's a good possibility that the grand jury is still investigating this case. And, since grand jury proceedings are required by law to be secret, it's understandable that it may seem to Senator Grassley that things are being hidden from him.  But that doesn't mean anything sinister is going on.   It could just mean that the grand jury process is not completed.  When it is, the prosecution's case will be made clear.  And then, Dr. Ivins' defenders, the public and the media can see if they can pick the case apart to find some area where there is reasonable doubt.  Meanwhile, the grand jury is presumably making absolutely sure that there are no answerable unanswered questions that the other side can use to show that the investigation was not thorough and complete. 

October 5, 2008 - Hmm.  Suddenly, everything has gone quiet.  I haven't received any emails in days, and there has been absolutely no news about the Anthrax case since the article in Nature came out on September 29th.  I expected some kind of response to that article.  A response may be in the works, but I'm seeing no clear indication of it.

The scientists I've talked with don't feel that posting responses on Nature's web site would be the right way to counter the nonsense printed in the article.  It's okay for me, but not for them.  I know that some phone calls to the author of the article have been made, but I'm hoping that won't be the end of it.  I'm hoping that, at minimum, some kind of formal letter to the editor is being prepared.

That happened with the total nonsense about fumed silica that was printed in The Washington Post.   A letter to the editor was written, but it had little impact.  The false information from the original article influenced scientists for years afterward. 

The total nonsense printed in Science Magazine went without a formal response, and, as a result, many many scientists believed what was printed, and many of them cited the article as a reference in their scientific papers, even though the article didn't involve any new research and was written by a journalist, not a scientist.

The screwball beliefs of the conspiracy theorists have also found listeners in Congress.   Back on Sept. 16, Rep. Jerrold Nadler demanded information from FBI Director Mueller about the dry weight percentage of silicon in the attack anthrax.  Clearly, someone had convinced Nadler that if the percentage was "too high" it would mean that it definitely had something to do with "weaponization."  Exactly what percentage would "too high?"   Apparently, it would be whatever the percentage of silicon in the attack spores was.  And what is the science behind that percentage being "too high?"  There is none. 

Assistant FBI Director Vahid Majidi has written a letter to the National Academy of Sciences asking them to review the scientific information in the case.  But that could take years. 

First impressions are long lasting impressions.  People remember headlines.  They don't remember retractions or letters to the editor printed at the bottom of page 65.   They remember conspiracy theories, they rarely remember complex scientific explanations. And whether or not there is enough solid evidence to have convicted Dr. Bruce Ivins of the anthrax murders is a relatively insignificant question when compared to the question of whether or not agents of the U.S. government perpetrated some vast criminal conspiracy to kill innocent Americans and then to cover up facts about some secret and illegal bioweapons program that produced the supposed "weaponized" spores the conspiracy theorists believe were in the anthrax letters. 

The science used by the conspiracy theorists is junk science.  It's the same kind of junk science used by the conspiracy theorists who claim that the moon landings were a hoax.  They use mistaken beliefs phrased in scientific terms.  And they attack true experts who dispute their beliefs as being part of the conspiracy.   The silica controversy has been going on for seven years!  The August 18 roundtable discussion of the science of the case helped somewhat.  And the scientific articles that will be printed in scientific journals in coming years will help -- eventually.  But, there are thousands of scientists who have accepted the junk science as valid because it was printed in Science and in Nature and has never been clearly and formally contradicted.  And the conspiracy theorists are still hard at work trying to convert more scientists to their junk science beliefs, while those with solid facts and valid information plod along following established procedures so that their work can be formally printed in obscure scientific journals that few will read.

It would help if, just this once, some of those scientists with solid facts would become as aggressive in getting out the facts as those with junk science beliefs are in promoting their junk science beliefs.  The "lunatic fringe" isn't just on the fringe this time.

October 2, 2008 (B) - Looking through my web site logs for yesterday, I happened to notice a link that came in from a blog web site.  Out of curiosity, I went to that link and found information which correctly showed that I was wrong in the times I posted when I analyzed the times Dr. Ivins could have driven to New Jersey to mail the media letters.  I had used the wrong time for him leaving for the day on the 18th.  Dr. Ivins evidently also had plenty of time to drive to New Jersey during the day on September 18, 2001, to mail the media letters.  He didn't have to drive during the night of September 17-18.  Or, theoretically, he could have driven to New Jersey twice.

It doesn't change anything of significance, except to give Dr. Ivins two windows of opportunity to mail the media letters.  While I appreciate that the error was noticed so I could go back and correct my Sept. 28 comment, I wish someone had emailed me about it.  It was pure luck that caused me to notice that link and to investigate it.  I haven't had the time to analyze my web site logs very often in the past 2 months.  I really need people to point out errors on this web site so that I can keep it as accurate as possible.

October 2, 2008 (A) - The Frederick News-Post has an article this morning titled "FBI outlines scope of anthrax study" which describes (and provides a link to) a letter sent by the FBI to the National Academy of Sciences with 15 suggested questions that should be addressed in an independent study of the scientific aspects of the FBI's Amerithrax investigation.  Several of the questions relate to the evidence found in the flask which Bruce Ivins controlled.  Others relate to other issues:

5) What effects do growth conditions have on distribution of elements (e.g. Si [Silicon]), stable light isotope ratios, and C-14 dating?

9) Which methods could be used to explore the distribution and concentration of elements within a BA [Bacillus Anthracis] spore?  Do they provide adequate spatial resolution?

11) Is there a need for post-treatment of BA to result in powders with a friable character?  Alternatively, can BA samples dried with rudimetary methodology pose an inhalation hazard resulting in pulmonary anthrax?  Were BA spores in 2001 mailings treated post production to make them more friable?  Were BA spores in 2001 mailings weaponized?

October 1, 2008 - The McClatchy newspapers, which evidently include The Anchorage Daily News, the Miami Herald and over a dozen others, printed an article yesterday titled "FBI won't release details on anthrax suspect."  The title is, of course, deliberately misleading.  A more accurate title would be, "FBI has not yet released all details on anthrax suspect."   The article contains this:

David M. Hardy, the section chief of the FBI's records management division, notified McClatchy that his office could not immediately release the records because there were "investigative leads still open" and the FBI needed to withhold the documents in order to protect confidential sources, privacy, law enforcement techniques and a suspect's right to a fair trial.

The investigation, known as Amerithrax, is not officially closed. But when it is, Hardy said, the FBI will release documents on a "rolling basis as soon as practicable." ...

"Although the FBI cannot predict with absolute certainty when the Amerithrax investigation will be formally closed, we can assure you that the FBI has already begun to make initial preparations," he said.

Lucy Dalglish, the executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said she was not surprised by the decision because open records exemptions give the FBI broad latitude to cite the need to protect law enforcement efforts.

"There's virtually no chance of getting FBI records in this case until they decide to close it," she said. "This is a situation where it's probably going to be years before we figure out what they've got."

Meanwhile, I've heard from others who are using the Freedom of Information Act to attempt to get information about the case from the FBI and DOJ.  Mostly, they are also just receiving letter replies which state that the case is not yet closed and that scientific information will be released via peer-reviewed scientific publications. 

But, some information is getting out.  A sample of Bruce Ivins' handwriting has showed up on the Hartford Courant's web site.  The document evidently came from the copyrights office, so it has nothing to do with the investigation, and there would be no reason not to release it. 

Looking at the document, all I notice of interest is that Bruce Ivins didn't use serifs when drawing the number 1.  But it's too small a sample to prove anything, since it shows that he would sometimes draw a line through his 7's and sometimes he wouldn't. 

September 30, 2008 - I don't ordinarily register onto web sites just so I can post comments disputing nonsense said on the web sites, but I made an exception with the Nature article and their web site.  The Nature article is really stupid.  It uses JUNK SCIENCE to argue against valid science.  That requires a response.

September 29, 2008 - Today, the prestigious scientific journal Nature has an extremely interesting article on-line titled "Silicon highlights remaining questions over anthrax investigation."  The article says,

Under an electron microscope, [USAMRIDII scientist Peter} Jahrling and a colleague observed black dots that they speculated might be particles of silicon dioxide, or silica. Materials analysis by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington DC confirmed that the sample contained both silicon and oxygen, and many assumed that the elements were combined as silica.

Spores are sticky, and tend to clump together. One method of weaponizing the spores is to coat them with something that interrupts the weak van der Waals interactions between each particle.

In 2002, as part of the FBI investigation, scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, used electron microscopy to analyse the composition of the spores. The results were finally made public last month. They found silicon and oxygen in the spore coat, but not on the most external layer, the exosporium. The location of the silicon, the FBI says, suggests that it was incorporated naturally into the structures during growth, not added as a final coating to weaponize them.

But other experts disagree with the conclusion. "I don't think the guys at Sandia understand that the exosporium is not some kind of brick wall," says Stuart Jacobsen, a research chemist based in Dallas, Texas, who is an expert on the preparation and properties of fine-grained powders and has followed the case closely. "It's more like a chain-link fence." Decades ago, a study found that the exosporium is porous to various small molecules. 

Why does this matter to the investigation?

If the spores could not be made by a single scientist in a few evenings, that would suggest the spores came from elsewhere – possibly from a state-organized programme.

there is no indication from the FBI that more data are forthcoming anytime soon. Until they are provided, there will continue to be suspicions and speculations about the silicon in the spores.

Meanwhile, however, the conspiracy theorists can and will continue to use junk science to recruit scientists to join in believing that the anthrax attacks of 2001 were the result of a vast criminal conspiracy perpetrated by the U.S. government.

I thought things seemed to be quieting down, but clearly: It ain't over until it's over.

September 28, 2008 - This morning's Washington Post contains an article titled "Two Portraits of a Bioterror Suspect," which includes this paragraph:

Within USAMRIID's high-security laboratories, Ivins was the go-to man for researchers probing anthrax disease.  Ivins specialized in spore preparation, taking wet bacteria samples and culturing them in glass flasks.  Ivins experimented on mice, rats, golden guinea pigs and monkeys, first injecting the animals with test vaccines and then blasting them with anthrax. After a few days, he counted bodies.

He also was using out-of-town mailboxes to anonymously send gifts and cards to someone in another city. He apparently made an 11-hour round-trip one night to leave a package for that person. When the FBI later questioned him, he explained that he liked taking mindless drives.

Below is a summary and (hopefully) more readable version of the two Bruce Ivins access logs located HERE and HERE.  Only key entries are included in this summary.   My comments are in italics and in parentheses.

THE MEDIA MAILING:

(Other sources indicate that Dr. Ivins worked long hours and used area B301 on September 14, 15 and 16.)

Monday, September 17, 2001:
06:58:20 - 1425 REAR DR IN  (Ivins enters the rear door to Bldg. 1425.)
07:23:15 - B301 OUT/M (Ivins exits area B301.  No entry is recorded)
11:14:49 - CORR TO BACTI OUT (leaves the building?)
19:00:12 - 1425 REAR DR IN (reenters the building at 7 p.m.)
19:13:53 - 1425 REAR DR OUT (leaves the building at 7:14 p.m.)

(Evidently, it was not a problem to follow some coworker into B301 after the coworker used their card to open the door.   That is evidently why there is no entry time for when Dr. Ivins entered B301.)

(It was after 7:14 p.m. on this day that Dr. Ivins presumably drove to New Jersey to mail the anthrax letters to NBC, The New York Post, etc.  That round trip drive takes approximately 7 hours (The Washington Post says 6 hours).  He would have returned home around 2:15 a.m.)

(There also appears to be enough time to drive to New Jersey between 11:14 a.m. and 7 p.m., but mailbox pickup times show that that would probably have resulted in a September 17 postmark.  Plus, according the The Washington Post, Dr. Ivins had an appointment "at 4 or 5 p.m.")

TUESDAY, September 18, 2001: (The media letters get postmarked)
07:02:35 - 1425 REAR DR IN (arrives for the day)
08:35:09 - CORR TO BACT OUT (leaves the building?)
20:14:36 - 1425 REAR DR IN (returns to building 1425)
20:25:43 - B301 IN/M (enters B301)
20:26:56 - B301 OUT/M (exits B301)
20:58:19 - 1425 REAR DR OUT (leaves the building)

(There also appears to be enough time for Dr. Ivins to have driven to New Jersey and back during the day on the 18th.   That would still be consistent with the letteres being postmarked on the 18th.)

THE SENATE MAILING:

FRIDAY, October 5, 2001:

(Other records show that Dr. Ivins worked all day that Friday, including time in B301, evidently continuing to work until after midnight.)

(It would be on this day that he would have learned that the first letters sent to the media failed to alarm anyone, and that, since it was just a single case, Bob Stevens' infection was assumed to be NOT related to terrorism.)

(If Dr. Ivins started to prepare the senate anthrax on this day, the first steps presumably would have been to take spores from flask RMR-1029, to get the spores to germinate, and then to add the living bacteria to nutrients for further reproduction.  The bacteria would then - presumably - have been placed in the incubator room accessed by the KEYPAD.) 

SATURDAY, October 6, 2001:
00:43:30 - 1425 REAR DR OUT (leaves at 43 minutes after midnight)

SUNDAY, October 7, 2001:
14:34:19 - 1425 REAR DR IN (arrives for the day at 2:34 p.m.)
14:55:51 - CORR TO BACTI IN (enters the Bacteriology Dept.)
14:56:11 - B301 IN/M (enters area B301)
14:58:57 - B301 KEYPAD (enters incubator room?)
15:19:08 - B301 OUT/M (exits area B301)

(B301 includes an area where one changes into the protective suit required for entry into the incubator room. Changing into the suit evidently took about 2-1/2 minutes.  Removing the suit presumably requires disinfection, etc.  But he would presumably also have moved the living bacteria to the device where sporulation takes place.)

15:20:08 - CORR TO BACTI OUT (leaves Bacteriology 1 minute later)
15:26:30 - 1425 REAR DR OUT (leaves the building via the back door)

MONDAY, OCTOBER 8, 2001 (COLUMBUS DAY):

13:49:40 - 1425 REAR DR IN (enters the building at 1:49 p.m.)
15:00:38 - B301 IN/M (enters area B301)
15:01:43 - B301 OUT/M (leaves area B301 after one minute)
15:48:58 - CORR TO BACTI OUT (leaves building at 3:48 p.m.?)
21:03:16 - 1425 REAR DR IN (reenters building at 9:03 p.m.)
21:05:42 - CORR TO BACTI IN (enters the Bacteriology Dept.)
21:16:47 - CORR TO BACTI OUT (leaves the Bacteriology Dept.)
22:04:44 - 1425 REAR DR OUT (leaves building at 10:04 p.m.)

(Presumably, between 1:49 p.m. and 3:48 p.m., he took the spores, filtered and cetrifuged away the debris, and then put them in a drying device.  Presumably, that drying device is NOT in area B301.  There is no record of him actually leaving the building, only leaving the Bacteriology Dept.)

(Presumably, between 9:05 p.m. and 9:16 p.m., he took the dry spores from the drying device and put them in the envelopes.)

(Where was he and what was he doing for the 43 minutes between leaving the Bacteriology Dept. and leaving the building? Presumably, he had the anthrax letters in his pocket at that time.  But, maybe not.  Was there some place in the building where he didn not need a key card for entry and where he could have used a biosafety cabinet to put the anthrax in the letters without fear of any CCTV watching him?)

(Presumably, he then drove to New Jersey to mail the letters Senators Daschle and Leahy.  He would have arrived back home at about 5 a.m.) 

TUESDAY, October 9, 2001: (The senate letters are postmarked.)

08:20:11 - CORR BACTI IN (Dr. Ivins either enters via the front door or enters through the back door following someone else who used their card.)
20:30:10 - 1425 REAR DR OUT (Leaves the building at 8:30 p.m.)

The natural assumption is that B301 is where all the hazardous work is done.  But, Dr Ivins worked in the Bacteriology Department, so "hazardous work" may have a different meaning for people who routinely work with bacteria.   A self-contained, sealed drying device could have been used anywhere or, possibly, inside a biosafety cabinet.  The end product would have been a clump of powder smaller than an AA battery. 

There are lots of assumptions being made above, but there is also ample opportunity for someone with real knowledge of Building 1425 at Ft. Detrick to state that there was no biosafety cabinet outside of B301 available to Dr. Ivins.  This entire scenario would then fall apart.  The same would be true if there was no drying device available outside of B301.  That wouldn't prove that Dr. Ivins was not the culprit, however.  It would merely prove that the scenario described above is incorrect.  But the new information might provide information for a new and better scenario.  That's why I'm always on the hunt for new and better information instead of working only with beliefs.

September 26, 2008 - The 2 log sheets (HERE and HERE) showing where Bruce Ivins was within Ft. Detrick on September 17-18 and October 6-9 are generating some very interesting discussions.  The discussions are also separating those who have other theories from those who want to seriously analyze the evidence against Dr. Ivins. 

For those with other theories, just looking at the log sheets is a total waste of time, since to them, everything can be dismissed as simply the innocent comings and goings of an innocent man.  And nothing conclusively proves otherwise. 

But, if you look at the log sheets to see if there's anything in them which seems to support the case against Dr. Ivins, you will find that everything seems to support the case against Dr. Ivins. 

The Wall Street Journal showed that Ivins worked unusual hours on the weekend before the first mailing.  The log times we now have for September show he worked until 7:14 p.m. on the 17th, which could be the time the culprit was preparing the media letters.  Dr. Ivins left the building at 7:14 p.m. and returned the next day at 7:02 a.m.  That's plenty time to drive to New Jersey to mail the media letters, and to get back home by 2 a.m. or so.  But, it certainly doesn't prove that is what Dr. Ivins was actually doing.

What the logs show Dr. Ivins was doing in October is far more intriguing.  The first time shown in the logs has him leaving Ft. Detrick at 12:43 in the morning of October 6, 2001.  The Wall Street Journal's report shows he worked long hours on the 5th in the area where dangerous bacteria is handled.  And, perhaps importantly, that was the day that The New York Times printed news about Bob Stevens.  The Times printed this:

A 63-year-old Florida man has contracted pulmonary anthrax and has been hospitalized with the infection, health officials said yesterday.

But, the officials said, there is no evidence that the man's disease was caused by a terrorist attack and there is no public health risk.

''It is an isolated case, and it is not contagious,'' Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, said at a White House briefing yesterday afternoon. ''There is no terrorism.''

If he started his plan for the second mailing on that day, it would seem logical that he might work late into the night.  Ivins worked until after midnight.

But what would the culprit have been doing on that evening?  Supposedly, he'd have been preparing to grow a new supply of anthrax.  The first step would be to get a sample from the RMR-1029 flask to germinate, and then to transfer the living bacteria into flasks, a fermenter, flasks or plates where they can readily grow and reproduce.  Is that what Ivins did on the evening of Friday the 5th? 

Ivins didn't return to his lab again until 2:34 p.m. on Sunday the 7th.  That could mean that the bacteria had been growing for at least 38 hours.  He apparently used a keypad to enter a "hot room" at 2:59 p.m.  Was that to remove the growing bacteria? 

He was only in the lab for about an hour on that Sunday.  Would that have been enough time to take the growing bacteria from the fermenter or flasks and put them into a device for sporulation?  If that is assumed, then he would next have returned at the end of the sporulation period.

Ivins returned to the lab on Monday, Columbus Day, October 8 at 1:49 p.m.  Since he returned at that hour, it seems clear that Columbus Day was a holiday at Ft. Detrick.  So, again he was able to work alone.  The sporulation run would be complete.

He spent approximately 8 hours working that Columbus Day.  Was it enough time to wash the spores and to filter and centrifuge them to remove debris?  If so, was there also enough time to dry the spores and to put them into the envelopes?  I have no reason to believe there wasn't enough time.

That would mean that he had the two senate envelopes with him when he left at 10:04 p.m. on the evening of the 8th.  He could have travelled to New Jersey and returned by 5 a.m.  His next entry into Ft. Detrick is a few hours later, at 8:20 a.m. on the 9th, when he begins another long work day, staying until 8:30 p.m.  Cleaning up, perhaps?

While there's nothing truly incriminating in any of this, it's certainly something that would require an explanation from Ivins.  According to FBI documents, Ivins couldn't provide any good explanation for what he was doing on those days when the culprit was probably preparing the anthrax for the letters to the two senators. 

According to the Wall Street Journal,

As to the spike in the evenings Dr. Ivins spent in the lab, Dr. Andrews, who was division chief at the time, said he didn't find it unusual. "He could have gone into the suite in the evenings because he wanted peace and quiet,"

September 25, 2008 (C) - MSNBC has an article which points to a web site called ERSNews.com, which somehow obtained the entry logs showing Bruce Ivins' accesses to various places at Ft. Detrick on Sept. 17-18 and Oct. 6-9, 2001.   MSNBC says:

The documents do not appear to challenge the FBI's assertion that Ivins had time to leave work, drive to Princeton, N.J., and then mail the deadly anthrax letters in a mailbox there.

The two pages of security-access documents reveal Ivin’s whereabouts at the Fort Detrick Army lab on September 17th and 18th and October 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th, 2001, the website said.

September 25, 2008 (B) - Among yesterday's news stories about Bruce Ivins is a USA Today article titled "FBI did not analyze anthrax from biodefense lab," which includes more 20/20 hindsight from people who were not part of the Amerithrax investigation: 

Before landing on the FBI's radar, Ivins emerged as the central figure in the separate investigation of anthrax contamination at Fort Detrick, where he confessed to cleaning up spilled anthrax in his office without telling superiors. "I had no desire to cry wolf," Ivins told an Army investigator at the time. The Army's investigation found samples of the type of anthrax used in the letter attacks on Ivins' desk and elsewhere in his office, according to a report May 9, 2002.

"Why didn't (the FBI) analyze it? One presumes this was pretty relevant evidence," says biodefense analyst Michael Stebbins of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C., who was not part of the investigation. "It raises questions about systematic errors in the FBI investigation."

Majidi, an FBI scientist involved in the investigation, says the bureau viewed the 2002 contamination investigation as an Army matter. As a result, he says, the FBI never submitted samples from Ivins' office for the detailed genetic analysis that later tied a flask in his laboratory to the anthrax used in the attacks.

"I don't know" why the FBI never analyzed the 2002 anthrax in Ivins' office, says Debbie Weierman of the FBI's Washington Field Office. "Suspicion on him was immense, if you look at this in hindsight."

All that is being said is: Knowing what we known now, if we were able to do things over, we would do them very differently.  But, we didn't know then what we know now!

Meanwhile, in a report from CNN, there's this about the status of the investigation:

The anthrax probe continues, Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said.

"We are working to close the investigation soon," Boyd said, adding that "investigative efforts" and "administrative measures" need to be finished.

The documents do not speculate about his motive, though Dr. Ivins was aware by that time that he was under suspicion and might have believed that his e-mail — he maintained at least eight e-mail addresses — was being monitored.

The hundreds of pages of search-warrant affidavits made public on Wednesday, after a request by The New York Times, offer no major disclosures. Rather, the documents, unsealed by Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the Federal District Court here and posted online by the Justice Department, add to a portrait of Dr. Ivins’s eccentric personality and threatening statements as he faced possible murder charges.

For instance, the documents give a fuller account of a group therapy session on July 9 where Dr. Ivins said that he was a suspect in the anthrax investigation and “that he was angry at the investigators, the government and the system in general.”

“He said he was not going to face the death penalty but instead had a plan to kill co-workers and other individuals who had wronged him,” an affidavit by a federal agent said, citing accounts of those present.

At face value, the new e-mails reinforce the view that Ivins was consumed with the criminal case closing in on him and, in the final months of his life, behaved in a way that suggested madness.

Ivins apparently wrote the e-mail to himself, although the name of the recipient on the e-mail was redacted by the authorities.

I haven't had time to read all the documents for myself, but I think it's safe to assume that they'll just show more of what we already know: Bruce Ivins was a very unstable person and much of what he did would fit a picture of a man with a big ego who was about to be arrested for a crime he had previously thought he had gotten away with.

September 24, 2008 (B) - While poking around the Internet, I found an interesting article about the anthrax case by a former DEA special agent name Gregory D. Lee.  The article is titled "‘New York Times’ Editors Are No Crime-Solvers," and it makes some very valid points in its criticism of a recent New York Times editorial:

The editorial read, “None of the investigators’ major assertions, however, have been tested in cross-examination . . .” Sorry, that test is moot when the suspect kills himself. Dr. Bruce Ivins, a mentally unbalanced scientist at the U.S. Army’s laboratories at Fort Detrick, Maryland, killed himself once he was informed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office that he was the subject of a federal grand jury inquiry.

The Times editorial also stated that “. . . there is no direct evidence of his guilt. No witnesses saw him pouring powdered anthrax into envelopes. No Anthrax spores in his house or cars. No confession to a colleague or in a suicide note. No physical evidence tying him to the site in Princeton, New Jersey from which the letters are believed to have been mailed.” I guess if CNN wasn’t there to film the event, then it didn’t happen.

Why would a criminal allow someone to witness his criminal act? Would you bring dangerous anthrax spores inside your house or car if you had safe access to them at work? How much physical evidence can there be if you wore gloves to drop an envelope into a mail box within a day’s driving distance of your home? I think the paper’s editorial staff has been watching too many episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Watching such TV shows gives you just enough knowledge to be dangerous. “Hey, FBI, where’s his DNA, huh?”

One of the first things you learn as a criminal investigator is to not make a mystery out of something that isn’t. The evidence speaks for itself, and one piece of evidence is rarely enough to convince anyone, especially investigators, that a particular person committed a crime. It’s always the totality of the evidence that will prove guilt. 

September 24, 2008 (A) - The New York Times reports that members of Congress are arguing over what kind of investigation there should be of the Amerithrax investigation.

Meanwhile, there are articles today by the Associated Press and the Frederick News-Post about a lab accident back in March of this year which Dr. Ivins improperly handled, resulting in his being banned from further lab use.  The AP article says,

Ivins reported the March accident to his supervisors at USAMRIID 1 hour and 20 minutes after it occurred. In an internal investigator's report, dated March 18, Ivins wrote, "I was cleaning the biosafety cabinet and a few drops of dilute Sterne spores got on my pants."

The investigator wrote that a centrifuge bottle containing the solution had tipped over, spilling about 5 milliliters on Ivins's trousers. Ivins cleaned the surface of the cabinet and floor, and then walked home, washed his pants with bleach in his washing machine and dried them in the dryer before returning to USAMRIID to report the incident.

An Army report revealing that Ivins had not told his Army superiors in December 2001 about a possible anthrax spill around his workstation that he had privately cleaned up. In sworn statements to an Army investigator in May 2002, Ivins conceded that he should have reported the matter immediately.

September 23, 2008 - Although it's been out for several days, someone just brought to my attention a new article in Analytical Chemistry titled "Tracing killer spores - The science behind the anthrax investigation."  Some worthwhile quotes:

Early in the anthrax investigation, some media sources reported that the spores had been weaponized, but others said that the spores did not contain any additives that would make them more infectious. The conflicting media reports created confusion, says James Burans of the National Bioforensic Analysis Center (NBFAC). “I think, in essence, there were a host of declarations made by laboratories who were involved in initial aspects of the analysis that were, perhaps, not necessarily founded upon experience.”
...

The potential weaponization of the spores was another ambiguity. Spores that are weaponized have been made more lethal via antibiotic resistance and/or additives such as silicon dioxide that reduce clumping and increase volatility. Although some people originally stated that the spores were weaponized with silicon dioxide (10–13), the FBI has reiterated that this was not the case. Vahid Majidi of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate says that “no intentional additives [were] combined with the Bacillus anthracis spores to make them any more dispersible.” Burans witnessed the Leahy letter being opened. “It just had the consistency of a fine powder—nothing unique or distinguishing,” he says.

In his 2006 Applied and Environmental Microbiology paper, Douglas Beecher of the FBI Laboratory attempted to clear up what had become a “widely circulated misconception” that the samples were weaponized with additives (14). “Individuals familiar with the compositions of the powders in the letters have indicated that they were comprised simply of spores purified to different extents,” he wrote, and he cited a news article in Science (15). Some researchers questioned why he cited a news story rather than scientific results to back up his assertion (16).

Beecher recently explained why he wrote the statement the way that he did. “While I knew the actual characteristics of the powders, I obviously could not cite any publications, because there were none,” says Beecher. “I also felt that I could not simply cite ‘unpublished data’ since the data were not mine, and the use of ‘personal communication’ was out because of nondisclosure agreements.” He says he was hoping to steer readers to comments made in 2002 by then-director of the FBI Laboratory Dwight Adams about the presence of silicon in the spore coat being a natural occurrence. Although the search warrant affidavit stated that the silicon signature seen in the powders from all four letters had never been observed in B. anthracis, silicon had been detected in other types of Bacillus bacteria (17–19).

September 21, 2008 - I can't help but wonder what the FBI is still investigating in the anthrax case.  They've concluded that Dr. Bruce Ivins was the culprit and that he acted alone.  And Dr. Ivins is dead.  Yet, the case has still not been officially closed.  I wonder: If the case is still open, does that mean the grand jury is still hearing the case? 

I looked into how grand juries work.  Their task is "to review the evidence presented by the prosecutor and determine whether there is probable cause to return an indictment."  The original purpose of a grand jury was to make certain that the people in power were not trying to arrest someone without very good reasons to believe he could be guilty.   I see nothing in that which would prevent a grand jury from indicting a dead man.   But the rules for secrecy would still apply:

Why are grand jury proceedings secret?

      Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provide that the prosecutor, grand jurors, and the grand jury stenographer are prohibited from disclosing what happened before the grand jury, unless ordered to do so in a judicial proceeding. Secrecy was originally designed to protect the grand jurors from improper pressures. The modern justifications are to prevent the escape of people whose indictment may be contemplated, to ensure that the grand jury is free to deliberate without outside pressure, to prevent subornation of perjury or witness tampering prior to a subsequent trial, to encourage people with information about a crime to speak freely, and to protect the innocent accused from disclosure of the fact that he or she was under investigation. 

Ivins had cooperated with investigators and appeared before the grand jury "many times," but had consistently maintained his innocence, the source familiar with the investigation told ABC News.

Back on August 2, 2008, the Baltimore Sun said,

Officials are also bound by grand jury secrecy rules and have begun the process of having documents unsealed for public release, the sources said. They said Justice Department lawyers are combing through material to determine whether to dissolve the grand jury and close the case entirely, which would be a possible indication that Ivins is suspected of having acted alone.

The evidence amassed by F.B.I. investigators against Dr. Bruce E. Ivins, the Army scientist who killed himself last week after learning that he was likely to be charged in the anthrax letter attacks of 2001, was largely circumstantial, and a grand jury in Washington was planning to hear several more weeks of testimony before issuing an indictment, a person who has been briefed on the investigation said on Sunday.

When FBI Director Mueller talks about an independent review of the evidence, he talks about a review of the scientific evidence and how he's seeking for such a review to be done by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).  However, as many in the media and the public have rightly pointed out, the NAS would not be the correct place to review other kinds of evidence against Dr. Ivins - such as how all the other scientists who had access to the RMR-1029 flask were eliminated as suspects.  That's the sort of testimony that a grand jury would probably already have heard.

Since grand jury proceedings are secret, I have no way of knowing whether or not a grand jury is still investigating the Amerithrax case.  But, I've seen no official announcement that the grand jury that was hearing the case has been dismissed.  So, I've got my fingers crossed.  A grand jury is the closest thing to an "independent evaluation" of the evidence that we're ever likely to see; an indictment would be the closest thing to an actual trial of Dr. Bruce Ivins that we are ever likely to see; and a bill of indictment would be the closest thing to a trial transcript that we are even likely to see.

September 19, 2008 (B) - Scientific American's web site has an article today titled "Seven Years Later: Electrons Unlocked Post-9/11 Anthrax Mail Mystery" which gives another science reporter's view on recent events in the anthrax case.

September 19, 2008 (A) - CSPAN now has Director Mueller's testimony from Wednesday on line.  Click HERE and look for

Senate Judiciary Cmte. Hearing wit FBI Dir. Robert Mueller

FBI Director Robert Mueller faces questions about the Anthrax investigation, testifing before the Senate Judiciary Cmte. On Tuesday, Dir. Mueller told the House Judiciary Cmte. that the National Academy of Sciences will review the probe of suspect Bruce Ivins.
Wednesday : Washington, DC : 2 hr. 23 min. 

When Senator Patrick Leahy started talking in detail about the attacks, he mentioned that the letters were used as a "weapon" to attack members of the govenment as well as the American people.  He repeated over and over, "This was a weapon."  He was clearly pointing out that the dispute over whether or not the spores were technically "weaponized" didn't matter because the spores were used as a weapon against him and against America.  And he wanted to know how many labs were capable of producing such a "weapon."

Unfortunately, his anger and his wording made the problem of getting a correct answer very difficult.  Director Mueller appeared to try to explain that every lab which had the Ames strain probably also had the ability to make the powder, but Sen. Leahy would then focus on Dugway and Battelle and some possiblity that the "weapon" came from an illegal military bioweapons facility, which changes the definition of "weapon."

It seems very clear to me that the first thing that has to be cleared up before anything else can be resolved, is the exact nature of the anthrax spores in the senate letters.  It's been stated very clearly by scientists who have examined the attack powders that the powders were NOT weaponized with silica.  The element silicon was present inside the natural spore coat, and that would have NO effect related to "weaponization" in the military sense of the term.  We have seen a few pictures of the attack spores and what "weaponized" spores look like, but more pictures are clearly needed. 

It's been said that a picture is worth a thousand words.  In this case, however, a few pictures may be worth tens of millions of words. 

September 18, 2008 (A) - Today's San Francisco Chronicle mentions some of what was said yesterday about the FBI's "investigation" of Dr. Steven Hatfill:

Grassley pressed Mueller to explain why the FBI continued to scrutinize one of its early suspects in the case, bioweapons expert Steven Hatfill, even after obtaining records showing Ivins had accessed his anthrax-processing lab at unusual times.
...

Mueller defended the FBI's investigation, saying "the steps that were taken in the course of the investigation" were "appropriate ... given the information that we had at that particular time."

And Mueller said the lawsuit and resulting settlement were driven by inappropriate leaks about the researcher made to reporters - rather than the FBI's investigation of Hatfill.

In the audience was Steven J. Hatfill, another former Army biodefense scientist, whom the F.B.I. pursued as a suspect for several years before the Justice Department cleared him this summer and paid $4.6 million to settle a lawsuit he had filed against the government.

Dr. Hatfill did not speak. But Senator Grassley asked Mr. Mueller: “Should not the F.B.I. apologize to Dr. Hatfill? Please explain how chasing an innocent man for four years was not a mistake.”

Mr. Mueller replied that investigators had done nothing “inappropriate.” The settlement, he said, was not for scrutinizing Dr. Hatfill but for leaking information about him to the news media. “I abhor those leaks,” he said.

September 17, 2008 (C) - FBI Director Mueller is evidently being thoroughly grilled about the anthrax case by the Judiciary Committee on Oversight today.   I can't find it on TV, but it's evidently on-line somewhere, and it will probably be on CSPAN's web site tomorrow.  Meanwhile, USA Today reports this about what is being said:

Senate leaders on Wednesday expressed serious doubts about the FBI's assertion that Army scientist Bruce Ivins was the lone attacker in the 2001 anthrax assaults that killed five people and injured 17 others.

A day after FBI Director Robert Mueller said he was confident in its case, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., one of the two senators targeted in the attacks, said he believes that there are "others who could be charged with murder."

"I do not believe in any way, shape or manner that he was the only one involved," Leahy told Mueller at a committee hearing.

[Leahy] added: "I believe there are others involved, either as accessories before or accessories after the fact. I believe that there are others out there, I believe there are others who could be charged with murder. I just want you to know how I feel about it, as one of the people who was aimed at in the attack."

Mueller did not directly contradict Leahy, saying "I understand that concern."

Still, Mueller maintained the Justice Department's view that Ivins was the mastermind and sole attacker.

"In the investigation to date, we have looked at every lead and followed every lead to determine whether anybody else was involved, and we will continue to do so," Mueller told Leahy. "And even if the case does become closed, if we receive additional evidence, indicating the participation of any additional person, we certainly would pursue that."

September 17, 2008 (B) - Yesterday's Los Angeles Times contained an article by David Willman titled "Scientist concedes 'honest mistake' about weaponized anthrax." The article begins this way:

An acclaimed government scientist who assisted the federal investigation of the 2001 anthrax mailings said Tuesday that he erred seven years ago when he told top Bush administration officials that material he examined probably had been altered to make it more deadly.

The scientist, Peter B. Jahrling, had observed anthrax spores with the aid of an electron microscope at the government's biological warfare research facility at Ft. Detrick, Md.

The LA Times article also says,

In 2001, Jahrling briefed a roomful of officials at the White House, including Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, Mueller and Tom Ridge, President Bush's secretary of Homeland Security.

The next day, the Washington Post published a front-page article headlined "Additive Made Spores Deadlier" that reported:

"The presence of the high-grade additive was confirmed for the first time yesterday by a government source familiar with the ongoing studies, which are being conducted by scientists" at Ft. Detrick.

September 17, 2008 (A) - A video of yesterday's exchange between Rep. Jerrold Nadler and FBI Director Mueller is currently available on the CSPAN web site.  To access it, click HERE. 

Look for this section and click on the link there:

House Judiciary Cmte. Oversight Hearing on the FBI
FBI Director Robert Mueller outlined new surveillance proposals to help investigators track security threats as he answered questions before the House Judiciary Cmte. The announcement of the new guidelines, made recently, have been met with criticism by civil liberties groups but are expected to be finalized and fully implemented in the coming weeks.
9/16/2008: WASHINGTON, DC: 1 hr. 54 min.

New items are constantly added at the top of this list of videos, so gradually the entry will move down the list and then off into the archival lists.

September 16, 2008 (B) - The Judiciary Committee grilling of FBI Director Mueller this morning contained very little about the anthrax attacks and absolutely nothing about the Dr. Hatfill investigation.  The one brief discussion I saw resulted from questions by Rep. Jerrold Nadler of Brooklyn, about the dry weight percentage of silicon in the attack spores. 

Rep. Nadler stated that his sources were telling him that if the percentage of silicon was greater than one half of one percent -- or certainly one percent -- then the silicon could not be "naturally occurring" and must have been deliberately added by a "sophisticated operator."  He stated it would mean that the spores were "manipulated to be a very sophisticated killer."  And he implied that only a government bioweapons lab would have "facilities capable of making anything approaching such an anthrax powder."

Director Mueller stated that the percentage was known, but he didn't have it handy and would get back to the committee with the information.  (Director Mueller is scheduled to be asked more questions starting tomorrow at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time.)

In discussions I had with a top anthrax expert this morning, the question of silicon in anti-foaming agents used in growth nutrients was raised.  If such an anti-foaming agent was used by the anthrax killer, and the use of that anti-foaming agent resulted in an unusual amount of silicon showing up in the attack spores, it would have nothing to do with "weaponization" and it wouldn't technically be "naturally occurring."  It may be difficult to prove that such an anti-foaming agent was or was not used, so, instead, we can probably expect to see of arguing over the specific meanings of specific words.

September 16, 2008 (A) - This morning, Fox News has a story where they attempt to make the Assaad letter relevant to the Amerithrax investigation.  Their reason appears to be totally based upon coincidences - particularly timing and misspelled words.  (For my detailed, March 3, 2002, analyis of the timing of the Assaad letter, click HERE.)  But, for the first time we are able to see the actual Assaad letter and exactly what it said.  It's aways good to get new facts, even when they are accompanied by some very bizarre interpretations. This one is particularly bizarre:

The similarities between the typed Quantico letter and handwritten anthrax letters are also striking beyond the obvious connection to Ft. Detrick.

Both warn of biological attacks in fall of 2001. Both express hatred for Israel. Both begin with the word "This," which investigators say is a highly unusual stylistic quality.

This above all else: to thine own self be true

September 15, 2008 (A) - While it's been around a long time, today I spent an hour or so browsing through the web site dedicated to the TIME LINE for the anthrax attacks of 2001 maintained at www.historycommon.org.  It's been updated with a lot of material about Dr. Bruce Ivins and where he fits into the time line.  Like any written history of any event, the historian will occasionally mention some event which might seem to be irrelevant, while leaving out another which might seem to be relatively important.   It will mention a claim, but not the resolution of the claim.   However, it will still be well worth your time to check out.  I've added the link at the top of my references section. 

September 14, 2008 - Today's New York Post has an editorial titled "GET ’THRAX FACTS" calling for a Congressional investigation of the Amerithrax investigation.  And, of course, the Post cannot see any fault by the media anywhere:

Hovering over all this, of course, is the recent FBI history of misidentifying individuals in high-profile cases.

Indeed, another scientist in the same laboratory - Stephen Hatfill - was previously identified by the FBI and remained under a cloud for nearly five years.

As I've written many times before, it is stupid to suggest there is any similarity between what happened to Dr. Hatfill and what happened to Bruce Ivins.   However, since the Dr. Steven Hatfill "investigation" was purely political, I have no idea how it will ever be satisfactorily explained - or if it can be satisfactorily explained.  Politics is about gathering supporters, not about finding the truth.

On the other hand, there are many things about the Amerithrax investigation that can and will be thoroughly explained.  The great thing about science is that it is all about understanding and explaining things.

It seems to me that, along with all the scientific publications that are in the works which will describe the scientific details of the Amerithrax investigation, there could also be many other articles in the works that would come from other sources with scientific knowledge about spores - and anthrax spores specifically.

This "coming wave" of information should thoroughly obliterate the screwball nonsense still being spread by the conspiracy theorists about "weaponized" spores. 

The dumbest argument from the conspiracy theorists is that pure spore concentrations (a trillion per gram) are virtually unheard of - or next to impossible to achieve - with ordinary equipment.  Now that scientists who work with pure spores every day don't have to fear that they'll be accused of mass murder if they speak up, we could get a lot of details from these people who routinely work with spores.  There are many articles which have been published for years which describe working with pure spores.

The ridiculous argument that silicon does not naturally accumulate in spores will undoubtedly be more thoroughly examined, since it's now a scientific issue.  I can envision many papers explaining how, why and where the silicon (and other element) amounts in spores differ from batch to batch.  (I find it very amusing that conspiracy theorists ignore a 1964 scientific report about silicon in spores just because it's "old.")

I don't know if anyone is going to write a scientific paper about spores and how they are affected by van der Waals forces, but I surely hope so.  There's definitely a need for someone to use solid facts to counter all the nonsense spread by the conspiracy theorists.  The conspiracy theory that Gary Matsumoto managed to get printed in Science magazine is largely based upon this questionable argument:

Anthrax spores cling to one another if they get too close; sticky chains of proteins and sugar molecules on their surfaces latch onto each other, drawn by van der Waals forces that operate at a distance of a few tens of angstroms.

We already have pictures of spores "weaponized" at Dugway, but we need some scientific papers to explain WHY those milled spores end up coated with silica.  I explain it on my web site, but I hope my explanation doesn't prevent some scientist from formally publishing a detailed scientific explanation using original research.  (The scientists at the CDC and Dugway couldn't agree on why or how it happens.)

I can also envision publication of scientific papers explaining related questions:

Why doesn't silicon accumulate in a spore's exosporium?
How does the silicon get through the mother germ's outer membrane?
What is the exact form of the silicon found in spores? 
How do van der Waals forces differ in various tiny objects?
Exactly how do van der Waals forces work between different objects?
How does fumed silica help keep spores from absorbing moisture?
Exactly how does moisture cause spores to clump?
Does compression also cause spores to clump?  How?
How much force is required to break up different clumps of different tiny objects?

But before that happens, I hope that we'll see AFIP and USAMRIID come forward to respond in some way to the statements made during the roundtable discussion that they couldn't possibly do what they claimed they did.

I'd certainly like to see a video of how a Transmission Electron Microscope can cause a spore to ooze liquid if the spore was previously killed or tested with liquid chemicals.

I'd certainly like to see the Polaroids that Tom Geisbert took of the "goop" that oozed out of the hydrated spores he examined.

I'd like to see illustrations of what AFIP could actually detect with the equipment they used, versus what can be detected if you use equipment better suited to looking for tiny objects of material stuck onto other objects in the one micron range.

The nice thing about science is that many theories can be conclusively proven or disproven.

And there is absolutely NO chance that the conspiracy theorists are going to see their screwball unscientific beliefs about science proven.

September 13, 2008 (B) - Today's Frederick News-Post contains an article titled "Congress to take up anthrax investigation" which says that FBI Director Mueller was given a list of questions to answer by Monday noon, and when he appears before the Judiciary Committees on Tuesday and Wednesday, he's going to be asked to

explain why the FBI continued to focus its investigation on Steven Hatfill after the discovery of evidence pointing in other directions

explain why the FBI focused its investigation on Steven Hatfill for so long when there wasn't a scintilla of evidence that Dr. Hatfill was involved in the attacks

U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-District 6, declined to be interviewed, but in an e-mailed statement, wrote that he doesn't believe the anthrax used in the attacks could have been produced by scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.

The only results of the FBI's investigation, he wrote, were the government's multi-million dollar settlement with Hatfill, the former USAMRIID scientist who the FBI at one time identified as "a person of interest" in the case, Ivins' suicide and the undermining of the morale and effectiveness of Fort Detrick personnel.

In his statement, Bartlett wrote that the fineness of the anthrax spore powder used in the letter, that it was coated with silica, and that it was electrically charged, causing the spores to repel each other and fly apart, were all characteristics that couldn't have been replicated at USAMRIID.

September 13, 2008 (A) - According to today's New York Times, Dr. Hatfill's lawsuits aren't totally over: 

Dr. Hatfill’s lawyers are seeking to force Toni Locy, a former reporter for USA Today who wrote articles about the anthrax case, to pay Dr. Hatfill’s legal fees.

Bartlett, who holds a doctorate in physiology, says the FBI's theory that the anthrax was crushed to a fine powder by U.S. Postal Service mail-sorting machines is "patently ridiculous."

He says he's convinced the anthrax was deliberately "weaponized," and that Ivins lacked the equipment to make it.

Bartlett says he's looking forward to FBI Director Robert Mueller's testimony before the House and Senate judiciary committees next week.

September 12, 2008 (A) - In the past month or so, I've had some discussions with reporters about the Dr. Hatfill "investigation."  Shortly after he broke the sensational story about Dr. Bruce Ivins being the prime Amerithrax suspect, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist David Willman called me to discuss aspects of the Dr. Hatfill "investigation."  While the discussion was cordial, it became very clear to both of us that there would be no meeting of the minds on how or why Dr. Hatfill became a "person of interest."

Last week, I had a discussion with Marilyn Thompson of the Washington Post. She had said in an MSNBC interview that "The FBI from the beginning had been working under the theory that this [the Amerithrax] crime could not have been accomplished by a single individual because of the weird timing and circumstances of how the letters showed up in different states."  I couldn't figure out what she was talking about, so, I emailed her to ask.  Again, while the discussion was cordial, it soon led to a discussion of hoaxes and the Dr. Hatfill "investigation."  It soon became very clear to both of us that there would be no meeting of the minds on how or why Dr. Hatfill became a "person of interest."

Yesterday, I watched the video of the forum at The University of Maryland, Baltimore, where Scott Shane of The New York Times discussed the Amerithrax case and a lot of details about the "investigation" of Dr. Hatfill.  It seemed pretty clear that, once again, there almost certainly wouldn't be any meeting of the minds if Scott Shane and I discussed the Dr. Hatfill "investigation."  However, while shaving this morning, I wondered about a one specific part of the Dr. Hatfill "investigation" that Scott Shane had described in detail during that forum.

I've always believed that one way to solve a big problem is to break it down into its parts and work on one part at a time. 

The part of the Dr. Hatfill "investigation" mentioned by Scott Shane that seemed most interesting was his discussion of the bloodhounds the FBI supposedly used as part of their "investigation."  Clearly, the facts made absolutely no sense to him.   But, to me, they've made absolutely perfect sense ever since I stepped outside of the box and looked at things from a different angle around August 7, 2002. 

Scott Shane and I had a long telephone conversation this morning on this subject.  And, as expected, once again it was clear that there would be no meeting of the minds.

The source of all of these point-of-view differences seems to be that the reporters are working with interviews of investigators and people directly involved with the case, and I'm simply analyzing the facts to see how they fit together.  If someone's statements do not match the known facts, I may try to contact them to find out why, but often that isn't possible or won't accomplish anything, because we're simply viewing the same facts from a different angle.  That's the situation between me and reporters.

To me, the bloodhound incident illustrates the difference between the way a reporter sees the facts and the way an analyst sees the facts. 

I'm working with facts to see how the facts fit together.  I don't believe any source unless their information is confirmed by the facts.   Reporters verify what one source tells them by checking a different source.   Facts are more reliable than sources.

From the very beginning, it's been necessary for me to try to figure out which experts' statements fit the facts and which experts' statements do not fit the facts.  When I contact someone to discuss the Amerithrax investigation, it is usually to get an expert's explanation of some scientific question.  It's usually a situation where I don't understand the details of some scientific matter, and I need their assistance to figure it out.   I've had the help of some of the top experts in the world as I look to find answers to scientific questions about anthrax, spores and all related matters.

When I talk with people in the FBI, it's the same thing.  I just look for an explanation for some scientific problem.  I don't discuss criminal investigative procedures or why the FBI did this instead of that during the investigation.  That's what reporters do.

In an ongoing investigation, I would assume that whatever I hear from an investigator or prosecutor is just what the person I'm talking with is thinking at the moment.  It's the same with sworn affidavits as explained in the August 18 roundtable discussion:

Affidavit is a snapshot in time of what the investigative picture brings to bear.  And this should really be looked at only as that. As we develop the case throughout, we may find information post-affidavit that may either support or nullify what's in an affidavit.

So, I'll continue to state the facts as I see them when any reporter mentions the Dr. Hatfill "investigation" and uses his interviews as the primary basis for his reporting.  To me, facts override anything said in any interview by anyone.   Needless to say, many reporters will not agree with me on that. 

September 11, 2008 (C) - The University of Maryland, Baltmore, just held a forum to discuss the anthrax case which includes a link to an hour-long video which contains a lot of information from Scott Shane about Dr. Hatfill which seems very confusing.  I'm listening to it as I type this.  He calls for an independent investigation to investigate the FBI's investigation.  Claire Fraser-Liggett, PhD, a  professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine also describes her work on the case.   I was stunned to hear her (at about the 22 minute mark) give a totally mistaken explanation of how Bacillus anthracis operates in Nature.   It doesn't affect her work, but it shows that microbiologists don't necessarily know what veterinarians know about anthax.  It shows that experts should really be careful when talking about things that are outside of their particular area of research and study.  Even top experts can have misconceptions. 

September 11, 2008 (B) - Today, in the British newspaper The Register, there's a very interesting article titled "Press proves immune to FBI's anthrax corrective" which has the subtitle: "Facts bounce off the conspiracy theories."  I love that subtitle.

The article begins this way:

The posting to the net of a transcript of the FBI's briefing to the press on the science behind the anthrax case is remarkable for two things: first, for its explanation of the development of microbial forensics and the team of scientists behind it; and second, for the determination of some members of the press to run off on a conspiracy theory hinging upon whether or not the anthrax was ever weaponized.

As I've reported many times, I get emails from these conspiracy theorists every day -- sometimes dozens of emails per day.  Not only do they refuse to accept the facts,  they insist upon arguing imaginary facts, i.e., "Is it possible that something else could have happened that no scientist has seen or detected that would validate my beliefs?"  They not only refuse to accept the facts, they also refuse to discuss the facts, because they know that their reasoning is not based upon facts.

Eventually, as more and more information about the investigation is released and the public loses interest, the conspiracy theorists and True Believers will hopefully be relegated to the "lunatic fringe" with those who believe in the "hoax moon landings" and the CIA demolishing the World Trade Center with explosives.  But, right now, they are trying every way they can to prevent that from happening. 

September 11, 2008 (A) - An article in today's Frederick News-Post is titled "Science behind the anthrax case" and includes this statement:

A researcher who helped the FBI sequence the genome for the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks that left five dead and 17 injured said more scientific details will be released and submitted for publication within the next two months.

Officials did not explain how they eliminated those other people from their investigation.

The science breakthrough in ’05 leads you to flask RMR1029. At that point, as I said, there is a tremendous amount of additional investigation that needs to take place to identify the universe of individuals who had access to that flask, what they did with it, checking lab books, doing interviews, things of that nature. And only through taking those extensive, time-consuming steps, involving a lot of agents, were they able to exclude individuals and include others; in particular, Dr. Ivins.

September 10, 2008 (C) - A source at Sandia labs has responded to this statement in the opinion paper by Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg which, of course, asks that the FBI prove the negative, that it is not possible for silicon to have been deliberately added:

Some organosilicon compounds may be able to interact with the outer surface of Bacillus spores.  Even a monomolecular or partial layer of such a compound at the spore surface could have an effect on the electrical properties of the spores.  Can the FBI rule out the possibility that a surface layer, or partial layer, of an organosilicon compound or some other chemical was added specifically for that purpose?  Uptake of such a chemical into the spore coat might have been an unanticipated by-product.  A monomolecular layer at the spore surface would probably not have been observable by the methods used at Sandia to study the attack spores. 

[Dr. Rosenberg's] monolayer discussion is very wrong.  We have tools and techniques that are sensitive to monolayers.  We used them and we found absolutely nothing of interest.  We tried to find something on the surface of the spores but we failed and found nothing.

[In our] publications from the 1980s you will see that we were using STEM to detect monolayer segregation of Bi in Cu.  This is an important materials science issue as embrittlement of metals by other metals and semi-metals is a very big concern. In the anthrax case, we are looking for a higher atomic number material in a lower atomic number matrix. This is an easier problem.  So I think the response will be" Well it was not a complete monolayer it was a partial monolayer below the detectablility limits of the microscopies Sandia used'" .  This is the homeopathy approach of infinite dilutions.  Eventually we will be arguing over single atoms and how they got somewhere. 

Meanwhile, someone else sent me an email about this comment from Dr. Rosenberg:

Bruce Ivins' work did not call for the use of B. subtilis or any other anthrax simulant.

September 10, 2008 (B) - Dr. Meryl Nass has just updated her site with her opinion about "weaponization."  She titles her opinion "The Black Art of Weaponization."  It begins with this:

With respect to whether and how the spores were weaponized, I have both feet in the weaponization camp, having reviewed numerous anthrax epidemics and seen nothing like the Senate letters' effect elsewhere, except Sverdlovsk. Yeltsin later admitted the 1979 Sverdlovsk epidemic resulted from a leak of weaponized anthrax.

September 10, 2008 (A) - Overnight, I was sent a link to Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg's "Comments on the anthrax investigation's scientific forensics."  It was being discussed on Dr. Meryl Nass's web blog.  The blog also contains a link to Dr. Henry Niman's beliefs about "Inhalation versus Cutaneous Cases.   And there is also a link to an anonymous comment titled "Bad Science In The FBI’s Anthrax Briefing." 

I also received comments from scientists who have actually worked with the attack anthrax, and they all say Dr. Rosenberg's comments are innaccurate and her reference list includes "unsubstantiated references and references to books that may or may not be completely factual."  It's another situation where scientists with actual facts are being challenged by scientists with beliefs and "junk science" that they feel overrides all facts from government agencies that cannot be trusted.  And if it cannot be proven that it is impossible for them to be right, to them that means they are right.

September 9, 2008 - This afternoon, I received via email a copy of a document dated today and written by Barbara Hatch Rosenberg for www.bwpp.org.  The document is titled "Comments on the anthrax investigation's scientific forensics."  I haven't found a link, yet, but it's generating a LOT of discussion. 

September 8, 2008 - Today's Daily Princetonian contains yet another article that scoffs at the idea that Dr. Ivins mailed the letters from Princeton because he was obsessed with the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority.   I prefer to ignore any argument about a dead man's motives, since there's no possible way to conclusively resolve such arguments.

But the article also says,

The documents released by the Justice Department reveal that at the time of the attacks, Ivins had been the “sole custodian” of a “large flask of highly purified anthrax spores that possess certain genetic mutations identical to the anthrax used in the attacks” since its creation in 1997.

But [Bruce Ivins' Attorney Paul] Kemp said that more than 100 people on the base had access to the material.

“They make this statement that he was the sole custodian like the thing was locked up, which is not true,” Kemp said.“Anyone who wanted it could go in and get it and leave. There were no restrictions, no surveillance, no security guard. It’s sort of an amazing situation for a pathogen lab containing multiple kinds of stuff, all of which is totally toxic and poisonous.”

We have a flask that’s effectively the murder weapon, from which those spores were taken, that was controlled by Dr. Ivins. The anthrax in that flask was created by Dr. Ivins.

MR. TAYLOR: You’ve got to remember how complex, complicated this investigation was. At the onset, we had identified the universe of the persons and labs that might have access to this type of anthrax, once we identified what type of anthrax it was. And then over the years, there were efforts to shrink the size of that pool. One of the key steps was the science that the FBI was able to develop that, over time, allowed them to show that that flask, RMR 1029, was the parent flask for the spores used in those envelopes. That further shrunk the pool, if you will, and created additional interest in Dr. Ivins. But even at that point, the investigation still had a long way to go, because there’s still a universe of people who might have access to that flask, or people with whom Dr. Ivins may have shared some portion of that anthrax.

The initial science breakthrough, if you will, came in early 2005, in terms of having validated science that could be used to show the flask was the parent; science that could be used at trial, that could lead to admissible evidence. Then in 2007, as we conducted additional investigative steps, we were able to narrow the focus even further, exclude individuals, and that left us looking at Dr. Ivins.

MR. TAYLOR: Let me refer back to what I said: It was an extensive investigation. In an investigation of this scope and complexity, the task is to follow the evidence where it leads. The science breakthrough in ’05 leads you to flask RMR1029. At that point, as I said, there is a tremendous amount of additional investigation that needs to take place to identify the universe of individuals who had access to that flask, what they did with it, checking lab books, doing interviews, things of that nature. And only through taking those extensive, time-consuming steps, involving a lot of agents, were they able to exclude individuals and include others; in particular, Dr. Ivins.

MR. PERSICHINI: I've talked already about the extensive investigation that took place from 2005 to 2007. Again, we're talking about a large number of individuals, over 100, who potentially had access to this substance. We had to go through this laborious process to ferret out or exclude those who were not involved. With respect to the other individual you mentioned, we were able to determine that at no time could that individual be put in the presence of that flask from which these spores came.

When a lawyer or someone in the media points out that there were over a hundred others who also had access to the flask, they are ignoring or forgetting the fact that those others were also investigated and cleared.  They're just trying to get people to believe that the FBI couldn't have done a thorough job if they ended up with Dr. Ivins as the only suspect.   They don't believe the results, so there must be something wrong.

There is something wrong, they're ignoring the facts and just going with their beliefs.

September 7, 2008 (C) - Someone sent me a link to an August 2, MSNBC video interview with Marilyn Thompson, where Ms Thompson says this:

The FBI from the beginning had been working under the theory that this crime could not have been accomplished by a single individual because of the weird timing and circumstances of how the letters showed up in different states.

September 7, 2008 (B) - Today's Frederick News-Post contains an article titled "Early anthrax suspect doubts guilt of Ivins."  Who is this "early suspect" whose opinion is so valuable to the News-Post?  It's Dr. Ayaad Assaad, who, as a result of a nasty letter sent to authorities, was once questioned by the FBI for 40 minutes and then let go.  And Dr. Assaad was never questioned again, except by the media trying and failing to make connections where the facts say no actual connections exist. 

September 7, 2008 (A) - Since The New York Times already has an article titled "Lawmakers Seek Anthrax Details" on their web site which will be in Sunday's paper, this is an early edition of my comments, too.   I plan to sleep late "this morning."

The article says that FBI Director Mueller will be grilled by the Senate Judiciary Committee about the anthrax case on September 16th and 17th.   The article also says,

Officials also acknowledged that they did not have a single, definitive piece of evidence indisputably proving that Dr. Ivins mailed the letters — no confession, no trace of his DNA on the letters, no security camera recording the mailings in Princeton, N.J.

But they said the case consisted of a powerfully persuasive accumulation of incriminating details. Dr. Vahid Majidi, head of the F.B.I.’s weapons of mass destruction directorate, said the accumulation of evidence against Dr. Ivins was overwhelming: his oversight of the anthrax supply, his night hours, his mental problems and his habit of driving to far-off locations at night to mail anonymous packages.

“Who had the means, motive and opportunity?” said John Miller, assistant F.B.I. director for public affairs. “Some potential suspects may have had one, some had two, but on the cumulative scale, Dr. Ivins had many more of these elements than any other potential suspect.”

September 6, 2008 - There's a very interesting NPR interview with Marilyn Thompson of the Washington Post on-line HERE.  The hour-long interview was conducted by the University of Illinois and goes into many aspects of the anthrax attacks of 2001, as seen from Marilyn Thompson's point of view.  I found the questions and answers about Dr. Hatfill to be particularly interesting, since, once again, there was no mention of Dr. Barbara Hatch Rosenberg.  But it was also interesting to hear the questions from listeners and how they view the case.  Clearly, the number of theories is endless. 

Near the end of the interview, Ms Thompson stated that she has a new article in the works where she will comment about the visit that Dr. Ivins paid to my web site on July 24, a couple days before he committed suicide.  In the interview, Ms Thompson seemed to imply that Ivins began the process of committing suicide right after viewing my web site.  It will be interesting to see what her article says -- or implies.

Meanwhile, today's Frederick News-Post has an editorial which seems to be a pledge to continue to dig into the Amerithrax case.  The editorial ends this way:

We are not stopping.

Just because the story has subsided nationally in favor of veep nominees and tropical storms that may or may not turn out to be hurricanes, that doesn't mean our work on Ivins is done.

This story has too many questions, too many threads to pull on, and who knows where they lead.

There are already countless conspiracy theories about Ivins and more come each day. Some are far-fetched, but others are worth checking into.

For The Frederick News-Post, unraveling the Ivins mystery will be a marathon, not a sprint. And you'll know just where we obtained every bit of information. 

September 4, 2008 - I just uploaded an annotated version of the Aug. 18, 2008, roundtable discussion.  From now on, whenever I refer to that discussion, I'll probably refer to my annotated copy.  It has links that make it easier to find various subjects within the transcript.

September 3, 2008 - I'm beginning to see signs of hope.  The article titled "Cracking the anthrax case" in Monday's Philadelphia Inquirer didn't try to punch holes in the FBI's case, but, instead, just tried to explain the science.  And my emails indicate that a lot of people seem to be trying to understand the science.  That's a very good sign. 

For example, in one email this morning, I was asked this question:

So if the anthrax in the letters both came from the flask or the same batch, which was said to be mixed spores, so some of each type of spores would have been in both mailings, then explain why Bacillus Subtilus was in the media letters, but not in the Senate letters.

The culprit took a tiny sample of spores from the flask and cultured a batch of anthrax bacteria from the sample, apparently without concern for contamination.  The batch evidently became contaminated with Bacillus subtilis.  He then let the culture sporulate, and he dried it and mailed it to the media.

About three weeks later, he took another tiny sample of spores from the flask, and this time he took a lot of precautions as he created the spores, eliminated the debris, dried the spores, etc.  He then mailed the pure spores to the two senators.

The Bacillus subtilis has nothing to do with what is in the flask.  The first batch the culprit created was contaminated by external bacteria not in the flask, the second batch wasn't. 

Why didn't the culprit just use spores directly from the flask?  Why did he go to the trouble of creating new spores for the letters?

Because the highly purified spores in the flask were the "gold standard" for anthrax testing; they were created at great effort and expense.  To maintain the standard as long as possible, only tiny samples were extracted when needed.  The anthrax letters would have used up all of the spores in the remaining flask - and then some.

Both of the anthrax spore powders recovered from the Post and Brokaw letters contain low levels of a bacterial contaminant identified as a strain of Bacillus subtilis. The Bacillus subtilis contaminant has not been detected in the anthrax spore powders recovered from the envelopes mailed to either Senator Leahy or Senator Daschle. Bacillus subtilis is a nonpathogenic bacterium found ubiquitously in the environment. However, genomic DNA sequencing of the specific isolate of Bacillus subtilis discovered within the Post and Brokaw powders reveals that it is genetically distinct from other known isolates of Bacillus subtilis. Analysis of the Bacillus subtilis from the Post and Brokaw envelopes revealed that these two isolates are identical.

Phenotypic and genotypic analyses demonstrate that the RMR-1029 does not have the Bacillus subtilis contaminant found in the evidentiary spore powders, which suggests that the anthrax used in the letter attacks was grown from the material contained in RMR-1029 and not taken directly from the flask and placed in the envelopes. Since RMR-1029 is the genetic parent to the evidentiary spore powders, and it is not known how the Bacillus subtilis contaminant came to be in the Post and Brokaw spore powders, the contaminant must have been introduced during the production of the Post and Brokaw spores.

I've been working on an annotated version of the transcript of the August 18, 2008, roundtable discussion, where I will highlight key points and insert notations which I hope will clarify things.  That transcript contains an absolute wealth of information.   The discussion on Aug. 18 was intended to answer many or most of the key questions about the attack anthrax, and it did that.  But, answers do no good if no one is listening.  Many of the questions that were asked related to nonsense printed in the media and to bad information that was leaked to the media or believed by key people early in the investigation. Who cares about those mistakes?  They were mistakes.   They should be irrelevant when looking at solid facts.   It's vastly more important to understand the science than to fully understand how key scientists can make silly mistakes in a time of crisis.  And, if the focus is on the mistakes and not on the science, then little will be learned in a hostile environment where mistakes are immediately interpreted by the media and people with political objectives as being indictors of incompetence.  Or where the mistakes support some believed but absolutely ridiculous conspiracy theory.

There is now a wealth of valid information available about the anthrax powders used in the anthrax attacks of 2001.  I think that competent scientists will be looking hard at that information, and gradually the tide will turn toward acceptance.   But, there will probably always be some fringe group which will prefer the inaccurate information and will always accept it over solid facts.  After all, there still are some people who argue that the moon landings were a gigantic hoax.   And they believe they have "scientific" reasons for their arguments.   They may have reasons, but their science is bad science.  It's based upon misunderstandings, errors, false beliefs, and a dogged determination to try to prove their beliefs are correct -- regardless of what the facts say.

September 1, 2008 - Discussions of the Amerithrax case uncovered more proof that the neo-Nazi belief that Dr. Philip Zack was behind the anthrax attacks is pure nonsense.   The information comes from the FBI affidavit located HERE:  It's about the spore concentration in the flask that was used as the source for the anthrax powders:

From page 10:

RMR -1029 was compiled in 1997 by Dr. Ivins, the sole creator and custodian.

A second set of samples, labeled "Dugway Ames spores - 1997" was provided to the FBIR by Dr. Ivins in April of 2002. Dr. Ivins declared that he used the terms "Dugway Ames spores - 1997" and RMR-1029 interchangeably, as they are the same flask of material.

August 31, 2008 (B) - I've added a new supplemental page titled "The Attack Anthrax Pictures" to this web site.  It shows the pictures taken by Sandia and pictures of spores
weaponized with silica at Dugway for comparison, making it clear that the attack spores were not weaponized using the Dugway process or any similar way.   I also show where the silicon was located in the attack anthrax.   And I show all the information I have that makes it clear the silicon in the attack anthrax was "naturally occurring."

August 31, 2008 (A) - I feel totally buried in new facts and information.   I'm not sure how to present it or comment further on it without endlessly repeating things I've been saying for years and years.  Virtually everything I wrote in Chapter 15 of my book was verified in the transcript of the August 18, 2008, roundtable discussion.  The transcript and the pictures of the attack anthrax verified other sections of my book as well as the web page I wrote about silica coatings back in 2003 and 2004.

On the other hand, things are slowing down.  Competent, dedicated scientists are starting to see what the facts are, not just what the media said the facts were.  And it's becoming abundantly clear that nearly all the conspiracy theories were based upon BAD science.  Scientists just can't keep up with everything that is happening everywhere in science.  And, sometimes, just like non-scientists, they believe things that are, in reality, scientifically preposterous.   And, also like non-scientists, top scientists sometimes make very stupid mistakes.

The anthrax case is making a lot of things very clear to a lot of people who are actually interested in the science and not just in promoting crazy conspiracy theories. 

August 30, 2008 - Since the conspiracy theorists have always used the AFIP newsletter as the indisputable holy writ for silica being an additive in the attack spores, it should be pointed out that the transcript of the August 18, 2008, roundtable discussion now shows that AFIP was wrong in their assumptions.  From the tanscript:

QUESTION:  Dr. Peter Jahrling and Dr. Tom Geisbert of USAMRIID said that they both saw silica on the exosporium, and Dr. Frank Johnson and Dr. Florabel Mullick of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology both said that they found silica, not -- you know, in their elemental analysis at AFIP.  I went back to them several times and they both -- all these scientists insisted it was silica on the surface of these spores.  So I was wondering what -- Can you please account for the discrepancy between your findings and those of two U.S. Army laboratories? 

BACKGROUND OFFICIAL: I can answer that for you.  They did not have the technology to make those statements.  They would not have been able to give an elemental analysis using the technology --

QUESTION:  You're telling me energy-dispersive x-ray fluorescence spectrometry is not capable --

BACKGROUND OFFICIAL:  -- I'm not aware that they --

QUESTION:  -- of doing elemental analysis?

BACKGROUND OFFICIAL:  -- performed that.

DR. HASSELL:  It's not capable of locating where it is.  It could -- if there is bulk silica in there, but x-ray fluorescence is not capable of doing location.

BACKGROUND OFFICIAL:  The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology used scanning electron microscopy to do a gross examination of the spore preps to see if there was exogenous material mixed with the spores.  So it's Dr. Michael who did the x-ray analysis on the spores and showed that --

QUESTION:  Wait, wait, wait.  AFIP published a newsletter saying that they did energy-dispersive x-ray fluorescence spectrometry on the spores.

BACKGROUND OFFICIAL:  Right, they did a bulk analysis of it.  They could not tell where the presence of the elemental signature was coming from.  They couldn't tell whether it was coming from the outside of the spores or the inside of the spores.  The type of analysis they did was a bulk elemental analysis.

It was NOT on the outside of the spores.  It was on the INSIDE of the spore coat, UNDER the exposporium.  And AFIP falsely assumed it was an additive.

AFIP's newsletter is now officially WRONG -- as it always was unofficially and as I stated in Chapter 15 of my book more than three years ago.

But, it would certainly be nice to have the scientists from AFIP come forward to admit that they made a mistake.  Unfortunately, the conspiracy theorists would probably just claim that the AFIP scientists were coerced or that the real AFIP scientists were replaced with clones or robots who merely voiced words recorded by the CIA. 

August 29, 2008 (B) - A transcript of the August 18, 2008, press briefing on the anthrax scientific investigation is now available.  Just click HERE.  Here's an example of the type of information that is in the 65-page transcript:

QUESTION:  Okay.  On the elemental and chemical analysis, what extra stuff was there in the spores?  For example, we've heard about silicon.  Was there material from the growth media? And also, were you able to tell something about the water that was used to develop the growth media?  Did it come through into the spores?

DR. MICHAEL:  First of all, we did find we did find that the spores contained silicon and oxygen.  Our quick SEM analysis, that's Scanning Electron Microscopy, we detected silicon and oxygen within the spores.  Later when we had thin sections for high resolution microanalysis in the scanning transmission electron microscope we then could localize that silicon and oxygen to the spore coat, which is a layer on the spore that's within the spore itself.

QUESTION:  I'm having trouble hearing what you're saying. 

DR. MICHAEL:  The spore coat is a layer, as I understand it, that's within the spore and it's not the outermost layer of the spore.  So the spore had sequestered silicon and oxygen in the same location on the spore coat.  We found no additives; no exogenous material on the outside of the spores.  We did have the opportunity to look at weaponized material to compare it to the letter material and they were very different.  And the weaponized material the additives appear on the outside of the spore.   Again, in the letter materials the silicon and oxygen were co-located on the spore coat, within the spore.  In fact, we found some vegetative cells that were going through the sporulation process and the spore within the mother cell had this same signature.

August 29, 2008 (A) - Today's Frederick News-Post contains a column/opinion piece by Katherine Heerbrandt titled "If not Ivins ..."  It describes how Bruce Ivins' friends, neighbors and coworkers cannot believe that Ivins was the anthrax mailer.  That kind of belief is easy to understand, and we've all seen it many times before.  But, then there's also this paragraph:

[Norm Covert, a conservative former Fort Detrick public affairs officer] echoes what is widely reported by reputable scientists. The anthrax in the mailings, he says, was "highly bred, weapons-grade ... with a silica coating and a slight electrical charge so that each particle repelled the other ... each particle no more than five microns." Ivins had neither the expertise nor the equipment to create such a sophisticated form of anthrax.

The road ahead is a long one.  None of the facts and photographs provided so far have changed the minds of people who were previously convinced by false stories in the media that the attack anthrax spores had a sophisticated coating of silica.  There are NO reports anywhere of anyone actually seeing a coating of silica on the spores.  ALL the people who have actually seen the attack spores say there was no coating on the spores.  But, how do you convince people who prefer to believe absolute nonsense?

August 28, 2008 - Today's New York Times includes an opinion piece by columnist Nicholas Kristof titled "Media’s Balancing Act."  It contains Kristof's apology to Dr. Steven Hatfill:

In the spring of 2002, I wrote a series of columns about the anthrax investigation, including some in which I referred to a “Mr. Z” as an example of the flaws in the F.B.I.’s investigation. Some scientists had mentioned him to the F.B.I. early on as a candidate for closer scrutiny, but those trails weren’t initially followed.
.....

So, first, I owe an apology to Dr. Hatfill. In retrospect, I was right to prod the F.B.I. and to urge tighter scrutiny of Fort Detrick, but the job of the news media is supposed to be to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. Instead, I managed to afflict the afflicted.

Dr. Hatfill sued me and The New York Times, along with others in the news media and the Justice Department. His suit against me and The Times was dismissed, yet even if I don’t have a legal obligation, I do feel a moral one to express regret for any added distress from my columns. 

The FBI reportedly did check out Dr. Hatfill, and they found no reason to suspect him.  But the tipsters weren't satisfied. If it isn't done in public, then there's no way to know if it was done at all -- or if it was done according to the tipsters' standards. 

That continues to be a problem.  I keep getting emails from people who believe they have "suspects" who they feel the FBI hasn't thoroughly and properly checked out, and they seem to be very annoyed that the FBI hasn't given them a blow-by-blow report on what was learned about their "suspects."

The next "Dr. Hatfill" case could already be in the making.  All that's needed is to get some reporters to band together with some "experts."  Add a few politicians into the mix and you have the same kind of lynch mob that the FBI had to deal with in the Hatfill case.  Hopefully, all the facts will come out during the congressional hearings expected to start next week. 

America needs to know exactly why the FBI publicly investigated a man against whom there was not one scintilla of evidence.  Kristof's apology helps to show that it was not entirely the FBI's fault.  But many people still place ALL the blame on the FBI.  Without publicly laying out all the details of why Dr. Hatfill was publicly investigated, there won't be any way to prevent it from happening again.

Mr. Kristof also says this about this Amerithrax investigation:

Dr. Ivins is a case in point: Some of his friends and family are convinced of his innocence and believe the F.B.I. hounded him to death. And the evidence against him, while interesting, is circumstantial. Shouldn’t a presumption of innocence continue when a person is dead and can no longer defend himself?

Should we presume that Ivins did not do it?  That seems to be what Kristof is saying.  If Bruce Ivins were alive and could be tried for murder, it's possible that a good lawyer might generate enough "reasonable doubt" to get him acquitted.  But, would that mean he did not do it?  No, it would only mean that a jury wasn't convinced there was enough proof to be certain beyond a reasonable doubt that he did do it.

What's the "right" thing to do in this case?  The main suspect is  dead.  Should we all assume that Bruce Ivins is totally innocent and demand that the FBI continue to spend money looking at others like Dr. Hatfill?  Should we accept Nicholas Kristof's judgment that the evidence is merely "interesting" and "circumstantial?"  Or should we accept the opinions of scientists who say the evidence is "compelling" and that the flask that Ivins controlled is a virtual "smoking gun?"  Why not watch and study the evidence as it comes out in scientific journals and decide for yourself?  I realized that a lot of people can't be bothered and will just go with the opinons and beliefs they like.  I plan to continue studying and evaluating the facts. 

August 25, 2008 - In a new article in USA Today titled "FBI explains the science behind the anthrax investigation" we get yet another reporter's view of the roundtable discussion at FBI headquarters on Monday, August 18.  This reporter reports this about the silicon that was found within the coat on the attack spores:

At the FBI discussion, many questions surrounded the presence of silicon, the chief ingredient in sand, in the attack anthrax spores. In the past, some news stories had taken reports of sand or other additives as a sign of complex weaponization of the anthrax spores. Instead, the silicon appears "natural," said Joseph Michael of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who led an electron microscope analysis of the spores. One of at least two batches of the attack spores apparently collected silica on their inner skins as they grew, which happens to bacteria sometimes.

The USA Today also reports on the source of the "static charge" that was observed in some of the attack spores:

Majidi said that Post Office sorting machines crushed the dried anthrax in mailing envelopes, making them very powdery. Another panel scientist, James Burans of the National BioForensic Analysis Center, added that the curious dispersion of the anthrax spores into the air partly resulted from them picking up an electric charge, static electricity, in their travels through the postal system, which made the dried spores repel one another as soon as their envelopes were opened. 

August 24, 2008 (B) - Another voice has been heard from regarding the scientific evidence in the Amerithrax investigation.  Tomorrow's Chemical & Engineering News has an article titled: "Validation: FBI's Anthrax Analysis."  The article says,

Joseph R. Michael, who works at Sandia National Laboratories and was part of the FBI's scientific briefing, tells C&EN that he analyzed FBI-provided spores from the anthrax-laced letters by SEM, TEM, EDX, and scanning transmission electron microscopy. He says his work uncovered similar characteristics between the anthrax from the laced letters and spores from a library of anthrax spores developed by the FBI.

According to Michael, his most significant finding was that the spores used in the attack had internalized SiOx rather than having been weaponized by coating with silica. This result gave investigators another characteristic signature of the lethal spores.

"The scientific evidence is compelling," says Rita R. Colwell, former director of the National Science Foundation, which funded some of the research behind the investigation. It is impressive how all the different scientific aspects came together, she says.

August 24, 2008 (A) - My mail box is still being filled every day with emails from people who still do not believe that the attack anthrax (particularly the powder sent to the two senators) was not "weaponized" with silica.  The pictures we now have of the anthrax don't seem to have changed many -- if any -- minds.  I haven't seen any news articles where people say that they have changed their minds about "weaponization." 

Some emails I get seem almost irrational in the way they insist that the attack anthrax must have been weaponized and everyone at the FBI and at Sandia must be lying, and anyone who believes anything the FBI (or Sandia) says is just a mindless pawn.  They allow no middle-ground.  You either totally agree with them or you're a total fool.

To me the situation is very simple: People who do not know how make spore powders think it is extremely difficult, far too difficult for just one person to do it, and the people who do know how to make spores powders consider it to be a relatively "easy" task, and no problem for just one person to make what was in the anthrax letters.

A lot more information about the attack anthrax will coming out over time.  There will be spectragraphs showing where the silicon was located in the spores.  They'll show that the silicon was INSIDE the spores, not on the outer surface -- which would be solid proof that the spores were not weaponized.  But, True Believers will still find some way to ignore or twist the facts to make their beliefs seem valid. 

While most people now seem to realize that Dr. Hatfill was not the anthrax mailer (I haven't seen any news articles claiming that he is still a better suspect than Bruce Ivins),  I'm hoping that the upcoming Congressional hearings will make clear exactly how Hatfill became a suspect in the first place when there was never a single "scintilla of evidence" that he was responsible for the anthrax mailings.  If we do not get a public explanation for why Dr. Hatfill was publicly investigated, the wrong explanations will be assumed, and what happened to Dr. Hatfill could happen again. Some of the blame falls on the FBI, but most of the blame falls elsewhere.

And then there's the subject of Bruce Ivins and all the people who now seem to have dedicated their lives to poking holes in the FBI's case against Dr. Ivins.  From what I can tell, these people have two motives: (1) Many people clearly believe the FBI is totally evil and incompetent, and they simply don't trust anything the FBI says - or anyone else in the government for that matter.  (2) Many people still believe that they know who sent the anthrax letters and it was not Ivins.  It was Iraq.  It was al Qaeda.  It was Wiley.  It was Zack.  It was the CIA testing a new sophisticated weapon.  It was some general wanting to start a war so he could get promoted.  It was some author who wanted to sell books.  It was that weird guy who lives down the street.  Etc.

As an analyst who looks at facts and evidence, all I can say is that NONE of these nay sayers have presented any evidence that is more compelling than the evidence against Dr. Ivins.   Finding flaws in some piece of evidence is the same type of arguing that has been going on from the very beginning.  It's a way of rationalizing one's own beliefs.  A legal case can be undermined (and a criminal can be set free) by poking holes in the evidence to raise "reasonable doubt," but that's not the way to determine who  most likely actually committed the crime.  That's done by looking at the evidence that does point to a single individual and weighing that evidence against evidence that might point to some other individual.  I did that with the person who I once considered "most likely" sent the anthrax letters, and the evidence against Ivins is overwhelming by comparison.  That doesn't mean that Ivins did it, that just means I feel Ivins is now the "most likely" person to have done it.   And only solid facts will change that. 

August 23, 2008 - Yesterday, I mentioned a comment I received via email from an anthrax expert who referenced the Sandia Press Release.  I didn't say enough about the expert's statement, so I've moved it to make it part of today's comment.

The statement isn't in any way critical of the forensic work done by Sandia.  The author simply felt that was wrong for so many people to repeat over and over for seven years that "weaponization" means a "state sponsor" and an ordinary powder doesn't.   In general terms, it might suggest such a thing, but it's not any kind of absolute truth.  And to believe it is would be dangerous for the future.  Here's the comment: 

[The press release] propagates faulty logic about the relevance of the presence of additives. It says regarding whether or not additives were present that “This information was crucial in ruling out state-sponsored terrorism.” It goes on to say that “Weaponization of the spores would be an indicator of state sponsored terrorism.”  Which physical law of the universe says that if a state were to sponsor an anthrax attack that the spores would HAVE to have silica or some other additive in it? Conversely, where is it written that a person who is not sponsored by a state must NOT put additives in his anthrax spores? The use of additives as performance enhancers of powders is a very widespread practice. One doesn’t need military training to understand its value, and if one does understand its value one is not compelled to use it.

August 22, 2008 (B) - If you have the capability to view the video located HERE, it is truly worth your time.  It shows Joseph Michael explaining the work he and Sandia did with the anthrax from the anthrax letters.

Also, there's an article in The Albuquerque Journal that requires that you take a "free trial" before you can view it.  Among other things, the article says, 

Within a month of getting their first anthrax samples, Michael and his colleagues were able to answer the question: The sample did not appear to be "weaponized" anthrax -- anthrax converted in a weapons research lab to enhance its lethality.

The finding contradicted earlier reports that it was weaponized, which had been repeated for years and fed the public's worry.

Under Sandia's high-powered microscopes, Michael and Sandia colleague Paul Kotula quickly determined the initial reports were wrong. The earlier identification of a coating had been a mistake, they concluded.

August 22, 2008 (A) - My email inbox this morning was filled with emails about a Press Release from Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM.  Everyone is talking about the information related to the fact that the attack spores were not weaponized:

Sandia’s work demonstrated to the FBI that the form of bacillus anthracis contained in those letters was not a weaponized form, a form of the bacteria prepared to disperse more readily. The possibility of a weaponized form was of great concern to investigators, says Joseph Michael, the principal investigator for the project. This information was crucial in ruling out state-sponsored terrorism.

When bacillus anthracis spores are weaponized, the spores are coated with silica nanoparticles that look almost like lint under the microscope. The “lint” makes the particles “bouncier” and less likely to clump and fall to the ground. That makes the spores more respirable and able to do more damage, says Michael. Weaponization of the spores would be an indicator of state sponsored terrorism.

“Initially, scanning electron microscopy [SEM] conducted at another laboratory, showed high silicon and oxygen signals that led them to conclude that the spores were a weaponized form, says Kotula. “The possible misinterpretation of the SEM results arose because microanalysis in the SEM is not a surface-sensitive tool,” says Kotula. “Because a spore body can be 1.5 to 2 microns wide by 1 micron long, a SEM cannot localize the elemental signal from whole spore bodies.”

The Press Release contains two images which are evidently intended to show how spores look under a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and a Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM).  Here are the images (click on them to enlarge):

The SEM image on the left shows a large clump of spores.  I'm told by the person who took this picture that this is an image of a clump of anthrax spores found in one of the letters mailed in 2001.   And the TEM image on the right, is also an image of spores from one of the attack letters. 

So, these images show two important things:  (1) There is no sign of a silica additive or silicon in either picture.  (2) The anthrax spores in the anthrax letters contained clumps just as one would expect to see in UNweaponized spore powders.

However, the existence of clumps does not prevent the existence of single spores or small, lethal clumps.   And, as Doug Beecher wrote on page 5309 of his article:

Purification of spores may exacerbate their dissemination to some extent by removing adhesive contaminants and maximizing spore concentration.However, even in a crude state, dried microbial agents have been long considered especially hazardous.  Experiments mimicking laboratory accidents have demonstrated that simply breaking vials of lyophilized bacterial cultures creates concentrated and persistent aerosols (4, 8).

While size analysis of freshly prepared powders may bear signatures of the production process and predict some of their performance characteristics, size determinations for material recovered after it has been deployed must be viewed with circumspection.  Particle size distributions are dynamic (13), changing as a powder experiences different conditions upon handling, such as compaction, friction, and humidity among other factors.

Particles aerosolized from purified powdered spores consist either of individual spores or aggregates of individual spores.  The great majority of particles are generally the smallest particles in the population (2), which are single spores in spore powders. 

In essence, even if most of a spore powder is bound in relatively few large particles, some fraction is composed of particles that are precisely in the size range that is most hazardous for transmission of disease by inhalation.

August 21, 2008 (B) - An article in yesterday's CIDRAP (Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy) News is titled "FBI says it easily replicated anthrax used in attacks," and it contains this tidbit of information:

Early in the investigation, the FBI indicated that the mailed anthrax was a weaponized product, treated or processed to make it spread more easily through the air and penetrate deep into the lungs. It was reported that the powder contained silicon and that Army experts had been unable to replicate the material. The implication was that one person working alone would not have been able to produce the powder.

But in a statement presented at this week's news conference, Majidi said, "There were no intentional additives combined with the Bacillus anthracis spores to make them any more dispersible." 

The anthrax spores used in the 2001 attack were electrostatically charged to make them more easily dispersible, and they were covered with polymerized glass and silica to prevent clumping.

If we're ever to get to the "truth" about the anthrax attacks of 2001, science journals and science organizations should start examining every word they write -- because too much of it is just long-held beliefsthat were always total nonsense and are now being proven to be total nonsense.

August 21, 2008 (A) - An article in today's New York Times gives some details about how the FBI used science to track the attack anthrax to the flask kept by Bruce Ivins.  And a new article in Nature magazine gives some insights into a very different way that Ivins was identified as a possible suspect.

August 20, 2008 (C) - NBC4.com has news that congressional hearings on the anthrax investigation may not be far off:

Committees in both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives are planning hearings on the FBI's investigation into the anthrax mailings that killed five people in 2001.

Staff members for the congressional committees will begin pre-interviewing potential witnesses next week.

Now Congress wants to know why it took so long to identify a suspect. There was no word of a suspect until last month when Ivins committed suicide as federal prosecutors prepared to indict and seek the death penalty against the Army microbiologist.

August 20, 2008 (B) - One of the most screwball arguments I've seen in the media about the Ivins case is the suggestion that there is some significance to the fact that they didn't find any spores from the attack anthrax in Ivins' home or car.  For example, The Washington Post wrote:

Defense lawyer Paul F. Kemp yesterday said he wonders "where Ivins could have possibly stored this anthrax without any employees seeing it, or if he took it home, why there was no trace" of the deadly spores, despite repeated FBI searches over the past two years of Ivins's car, his work locker, a safe-deposit box and his house.

Equally troubling, scientists say, is the complete lack of forensic evidence in the FBI dossier. Documents reveal, for instance, that investigators swabbed Ivins' home and cars for anthrax DNA and spores, but they don't say whether the subsequent lab tests linked those samples to the 2001 envelopes. "Until we see the details, who knows?" says Richard Spertzel, a bioweapons expert who worked at USAMRIID with Ivins. "There are too many loose ends."

Years ago, I explained how the spores were most likely put into the envelopes and mailed without leaving a cloud of spores across the countryside.  It's done inside a "glove box."  And when the spores are in the sealed envelopes, the envelopes are put into a sealed container -- such as an ordinary Baggie.  Then the interior of the glove box and the exterior of the Baggie are sterilized. Swab tests for viable spores do not detect dead or sterilized spores.  With the spores in a sterilized Baggie, there's no risk of contaminating a car no matter how far you drive.  And you don't even have to touch the envelopes when you get to the mail box.  You just open the Baggie and dump the envelopes into the mail slot.  Then you toss the Baggie into a trash container or throw it down a sewer, probably some distance away.

The idea that someone who works with spores nearly every day doesn't know how to do it without killing himself and contaminating everything is just plain preposterous. 

August 20, 2008 (A) - This morning's New York Times and Washington Post contain editorials about Monday's roundtable discussion of the scientific evidence in the anthax case.  Both editorials call for an independent examination of the FBI's investigation of Dr. Ivins, which I think is a good idea, but the Post's editorial also includes this:

This examination should review the methods used by the FBI in investigating Dr. Ivins and, before him, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, who was exonerated by the Justice Department this month.

The F.B.I. spent years pointing a finger at a different suspect.

The trickle of circumstantial evidence released in an investigation that had previously fingered the wrong man has lawmakers, scientists and others clamouring for more information.

The Dr. Ivins investigation and the Dr. Hatfill "investigation" are as different from one another as any two FBI investigations can possibly be.

FACT: According to Judge Walton, there was not a "scintilla of evidence" to suggest that Dr. Hatfill had anything to do with the anthrax attacks.  And no one in the media has ever come up with any kind of incriminating evidence against Dr. Hatfill, either.

Why doesn't the media ask the basic question: If there was NO EVIDENCE against Dr. Hatfill, why was he followed and investigated so thoroughly!?

Back on June 30, former FBI agent Brad Garrett complained about the way the managers at the FBI directed the Hatfill "investigation":

The investigative experience of managers in the FBI varies widely. Some bosses may have investigated cases like the anthrax case before, but many may not have.  Managers with less experience may devalue or over-value investigative techniques in their comments about an investigation. This can result in amateurish investigative techniques being suggested to more experienced agents, and can result in confusion at the top of the chain about the facts. The second lesson from the anthrax case is that only managers with considerable investigative experience should be making the big decisions or communicating with higher-ups.

Can the Dr. Hatfill investigation really be compared to the investigation of Bruce Ivins where we are seeing a lot of incriminating evidence and which virtually no one outside of the FBI knew about until after Ivins committed suicide?

It is KNOWN why the FBI investigated Dr. Hatfill.  It is no secret.  But the media mindlessly pretends that all the newspaper columns, stories, lectures and science articles that demanded for eight months that the FBI publicly investigate Dr. Hatfill don't exist. They do exist.  Except for the rumor that Nicholas Kristof might apologize to Dr. Hatfill, the media seems to want the public to forget about everything that happened before Attorney General Ashcroft labeled Dr. Hatfill a "person of interest" in August of 2002.  I can only hope that an independent agency will publicly examine the facts behind the Hatfill "investigation."  But how will those facts be reported if the media doesn't like the facts? 

August 19, 2008 (B) - After going through the 75 emails in my inbox this morning, it's as clear as ever that some scientists will never accept any proof that conflicts with their firm beliefs.  They pick apart every word and every phrase from the FBI scientists and rationalize ways that it could all be part of some vast conspiracy to hide facts about the "weaponized" anthrax spores, and/or how the FBI's statements show that all the FBI scientists and all the consulting scientists must be totally incompetent.  (The scientists doing the arguing, of course, have never actually seen the attack anthrax, and they've apparently never worked with anthrax or dry spore powders of any kind.)

I'm still waiting for a transcript of the roundtable discussion, but I think that what Dr. Vahid Majidi said in his opening statement is definitely worth repeating:

Finally, I am asking you to understand that this is the first step toward broader dissemination of the scientific information surrounding this case. Additional information will be available through peer reviewed publications

There were no intentional additives combined with the bacillus anthracis spores to make them any more dispersible.

[The FBI] also countered a principal scientific criticism of the investigation: that the spores had been weaponized with a special coating and therefore could not have been made by Dr. Ivins because he did not have the necessary equipment. This criticism is based on the presence of silica in the anthrax-laced attack letters. However, the F.B.I. scientists said that the silica had been imported naturally by the anthrax spores from their environment and that there was no evidence of weaponization.

Richard O. Spertzel, a retired microbiologist who led the United Nations’ biological weapons inspections of Iraq, said he remained skeptical of the bureau’s argument despite the new evidence. “It’s a pretty tenuous argument,” Dr. Spertzel said in an interview, adding that he questioned the bureau’s claim that the powder was less than military grade.

The F.B.I. scientists said they had been able to reverse-engineer the production and properties of the attack spores, producing bacteria that flew into the air with ease. One person could have prepared the attack anthrax in three to seven days, with equipment available at Fort Detrick, a bureau expert said.

The F.B.I. had been unable to reproduce one feature of the attack spores — their high level of silica — but attributed that to natural variability.

FBI officials and scientists also played down any significance of the element silicon in the killer anthrax strain, saying it seemed more of a natural occurrence than deliberate weaponizing as once theorized early in the investigation.

The scientists concluded that spores used in the mailings were not weaponized or coated with a special substance to make them more easily inhaled.

Among the most persuasive pieces of evidence was the genetic analysis that the FBI says conclusively linked the letters to spores in Ivins's lab. Ivins possessed a flask of anthrax bacteria unlike any other -- a blend of spores from dozens of batches made in Army labs at Fort Detrick and at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah. Ivins's concoction -- labeled RMR-1029 -- was a mix of normal anthrax cells and four mutated varieties, or genetic oddballs.

The bacteria used in the attacks contained precisely the same mix of normal and mutated cells, the officials said. Of more than 1,000 samples of anthrax bacteria collected by the FBI in the years after the attacks, only eight contained the same four genetic mutants. All eight could be directly traced to the flask in Ivins's lab, the officials said.

While the FBI has acknowledged that more than 100 people could have had either access to Ivins's flask or samples of material from it, investigators say they eliminated all others as suspects.

Despite initial suspicions that the powder was weaponized, the process used to make the powder was relatively simple. FBI scientists easily reproduced it with gear that Ivins regularly used.

Anthrax spores that were simply cleaned and dried made an "extremely friable" powder that could disperse easily, Majidi said. "It would have been easy to do this at USAMRIID," he said.

Government scientists also acknowledged yesterday that they could not figure out how to reproduce silicon that appeared inside the dry spores, making an exact match elusive.

The investigation continues even after Ivins's death. Investigators have yet to disclose what material, if any, they recovered from computers at a Frederick public library he visited hours after returning from a psychiatric facility in late July.

Other scientific work done by materials researcher Joseph Michael at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, convinced the FBI that silicon had not been added to the anthrax in the letters. Although preliminary analysis done at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology had indicated the presence of silicon, transmission electron microscopy by Michael and his colleagues revealed that the silicon was contained inside the spores -- a natural occurrence documented in previous research--rather than a coating intended to make the anthrax more easily dispersible.

Among the new details Monday was that, contrary to statements made over the years by other government officials, the mailed anthrax had not been coated with additives to "weaponize" it, or make it more deadly. Silicon was detected within the spores, said several of the eight scientists who met with reporters, but it occurred naturally, not as a result of weaponizing.

The silicon did not make the anthrax more buoyant when exposed to air, said James Burans, associate laboratory director of the National Bioforensic Analysis Center.

"The silicon would not have contributed to the fluid-like qualities of the anthrax powders," he said. But loading the powder into envelopes, and their handling by the Postal Service, would have made it more electrostatically charged and difficult to contain, he said.

Dr. Vahid Majidi's opening statement for the roundtable also contained this:

Finally, I am asking you to understand that this is the first step toward broader dissemination of the scientific information surrounding this case. Additional information will be available through peer reviewed publications and I ask you to please respect the integrity of this process. In fact, several research projects related to the FBI’s investigation have already resulted in peer reviewed publications and we will provide you with that list. Additional publications will be available for peer review as more information from the investigation is released.

On Monday August 18th, at 2 PM ET, the FBI will host an informal, on-the-record roundtable discussion with Dr. Vahid Majidi, Assistant Director of the FBI Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate; Dr. D. Christian Hassell, FBI Laboratory Director; and several independent scientific experts about the analytical techniques employed in support of the FBI's anthrax investigation.  This will be a highly technical briefing.  That said, we strongly urge your news organization to send a correspondent who has a science background or covers science-related issues.

No video or audio broadcasts can be made from the briefing.  Only written articles.

But, in a day or two there's a very good chance that we'll see transcripts of the entire session.  CNN seems to produce such transcripts routinely.  Others do, too.  And, since tape recorders are allowed at the presentation for "note taking," every reporter there will probably be recording it all.

It probably won't be until tomorrow that I'll be able to digest and comment on what will be on tonight's news broadcasts and in tomorrow morning's newspaper editions.

August 17, 2008 - Today's New York Times contains an opinion piece by Clark Hoyt where Nicholas Kristof is reported to be planning to write a column looking back on the anthrax case and apologizing to Hatfill for any “extra scrutiny and upheaval the columns brought to him, and wrestling with the journalistic issues involved.”

In his opinion piece, Clark Hoyt also says:

I think Kristof marshaled the evidence and raised so many questions about Hatfill that he contributed to a cloud of suspicion over the wrong man at a time when, in hindsight, the F.B.I. should have been pursuing other leads.

Kristof said he had been concerned about the potential impact of what he was writing. He said he tried to humanize Hatfill by writing that Mr. Z’s friends “are heartsick at suspicions directed against a man they regard as a patriot.” After Hatfill was identified, Kristof wrote that there “must be a genuine assumption that he is an innocent man caught in a nightmare.”

I asked Kristof if he regretted focusing so much on Hatfill when the point was to spur the F.B.I. to a more vigorous investigation. He said, “I think I should have tried harder to find a range of other examples to underscore the incompetence of the F.B.I. anthrax investigation.”

That explains a lot.

August 16, 2008 - Today's New York Times contains an article I'm happy to see.  It's titled "F.B.I. Will Present Scientific Evidence in Anthrax Case to Counter Doubts."  The article says,

In the face of the questions, Federal Bureau of Investigation officials have decided to make their first detailed public presentation next week on the forensic science used to trace the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks to a flask kept in a refrigerator in Dr. Ivins’s laboratory at Fort Detrick, in Maryland.

Dwight Adams, a former director of the F.B.I. laboratory who was deeply involved in managing the anthrax genetic research until he left the bureau in 2006, said he was confident that the groundbreaking forensic effort would be validated by the broad scientific community.

A lengthy article in yesterday's CIDRAP  News says,

expert observers have said it's not possible to evaluate the FBI claims about the DNA evidence implicating Ivins because the agency has not published the details.

By e-mail, Rosenberg told CIDRAP News that the FBI in recent years has tried to downplay the idea that the mailed anthrax was a very sophisticated product. This effort included an article published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology in August 2006 in which the FBI called the idea "a widely circulated misconception." Rosenberg said the FBI's effort seems to have worked, "since no one is questioning the assumption that the spores were merely purified and dried."

The FBI's "detailed public presentation" next week will something I'll watch and record on every recording device I have.  (It was very annoying how CNN and FOX both cut away from the news conference on August 6 before it was over.  Only MSNBC stayed with it.  And none of the networks bothered with it at all.) 

Meanwhile, today's Frederick News-Post contains an article titled "Senate could grill FBI on anthrax investigation in September," and "could" seems to be the operative word.  The Senate Judiciary Committee meeting scheduled for September 17 is a regularly scheduled meeting.  It wasn't specifically called to discuss the Amerithrax investigation.  Susan Sullam, a spokeswoman for Sen. Benjamin Cardin, who sits on the committee, said "there is a strong possibility that the anthrax case will be one of the issues the committee asks Mueller about."  I should hope so.  I don't think the FBI will explain why they paid so much attention to Dr. Hatfill unless they are grilled about it by powerful politicians who want full and complete answers. 

The article also says this:

The DOJ is moving to close its investigation into the anthrax mailings "soon," but could give no specific timeline beyond that, said Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the department.

He said the department had not determined what additional information from the case it might ask the courts to unseal after the case is closed.

August 15, 2008 - An article in today's Los Angeles Times titled "Anthrax scientist Bruce Ivins slipped under the radar because of FBI obsession" is another example of  the media's refusal to look at how Dr. Hatfill became a suspect.  And the LA Times headline goes one step further by claiming that Ivins wasn't caught earlier because of the FBI's "obsession" with Dr. Hatfill.  Is it really that difficult to understand that the FBI has the ability to pursue more than one suspect at a time?  Is it really that difficult to understand that hindsight is always 20/20?  Is it really that difficult to understand that legal cases depend upon solid, verifiable facts and not just beliefs? 

While sensational stories about government "failures" may sell a lot more newspapers and TV ads than straight facts ever will, facts can sometimes be found anyway -- if you look for them.  On a web site called "GoozNews.com" there's an interview with Prof. Richard Ebright of Rutgers University.   It was Prof. Ebright who first advised me in no uncertain terms that a trillion spores per gram was routine.  I quoted him back in October 28, 2002, but maybe I should have translated his mathematical notations to make it more easily understood.  When a scientist writes "10^12" instead of writing "a trillion" it sometimes causes people to just skip over it.  Taking that into account, here my translation of some of what Prof. Ebright wrote back then:

It is simply incomprehensible that the claim that a spore count of a trillion spores per gram is unprecedented continues to be repeated.

A Bacillus spore has a dry mass of a trillionth of a gram.

Therefore, ANY pure preparation of Bacillus spores MUST contain a trillion
 spores per gram.  And ANY impure preparation of Bacillus spores weighing one gram MUST contain less than a trillion spores per gram due to the impurities.

No matter how it was made.  No matter where it was made.

GoozNews: Could Bruce Ivins have done this alone?

Ebright: It was done on the kiloton scale in the U.S. weapons program in the 1960s through 1990s. To do it on the gram scale in a location that was part of a previous offensive weapons program by a person who had access to the information about how they are prepared . . . would not be difficult. This is routine technology used to prepare products daily in the pesticide and pharmaceutical industry with approaches that are far more sophisticated and easier to procure than what was available in the 1960s through 1990s.

GoozNews: Yet some accounts insist that this anthrax preparation was so fine that it must have required access to the more sophisticated technology than what was available in Ivins’ lab.

Ebright: There’s been just one semi-official comment on that. Douglas J. Beecher, who works in the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, published a paper in 2006 where he called that a “misconception.”

    [Here’s the full quote:

Individuals familiar with the compositions of the powders in the letters have indicated that they were comprised simply of spores purified to different extents. However, a widely circulated misconception is that the spores were produced using additives and sophisticated engineering supposedly akin to military weapon production. The persistence credence given to this impression fosters erroneous preconceptions that may misguide research in preparedness efforts and generally detract from the magnitude of hazards presented by simple spore presentations.]

It remains entirely open if this person operated alone or in concert with others. But the idea that he didn’t have the means to do it is absurd.

August 14, 2008 (C) - I just noticed that Amazon.com no longer sells my book for $18.95.  They now charge full price ($19.95) and they only have 1 copy left in stock.  BarnesAndNoble.com still has a member price, but they're probably out of stock (they only stocked 2 copies).  If so, if you want a copy, it should be back ordered.  Since I don't have a fax machine, B&N will mail the orders to me via snail mail, and I send the books to them via UPS.  I have nearly 900 copies in my garage, and each was individually wrapped in plastic by the printer. There's no need to buy used copies.  I see that Amazon sells used copies for $39.51.  And someone just wrote me to tell me this:

I've checked with Borders and they can only find used copies for $117.00 each.

The subtitle "The First Three Years" just means it took me three years to analyze the facts to the point that I felt I could publish them.  Until two weeks ago, there were very few new significant facts released since the publication of my book.  And most of those "new" facts simply confirmed what I wrote.  Click HERE for details.

August 14, 2008 (B) - Time Magazine has chimed in with their opinion in an article titled "Nagging Questions in the Anthrax Case."  And it provides further evidence of the total blindness the media has regarding how Dr. Hatfill became a suspect!

Scientists also say that the FBI's recent bungling of certain high-profile investigations throws doubt on federal investigators' ability to understand scientific evidence. The most obvious and recent example is the agency's unwarranted fingering of Steven Hatfill in 2001 as a "person of interest" in the same attacks for which Ivins is now believed responsible. Hatfill's reputation was irreparably damaged by the accusation, which was never supported by concrete evidence — the government officially absolved Hatfill this month and awarded him $5.8 million in damages.

August 14, 2008 (A) - Today's Washington Post contains an article headlined "Hair Samples in Anthrax Case Don't Match."  What would be the odds that hairs found in a mailbox used by thousands of people would belong to Ivins?  It seems like the FBI took a chance on even bothering to examine the hairs.  If the hairs had belonged to Ivins, it would have definitely been key evidence, but the odds were so much against it, that it hardly seems worth the "risk" to do the testing, since a vastly more likely negative result would just give people reason to believe that Ivins was not the culprit.

The Post article also contains more leaked information:

Investigators now believe that Ivins waited until evening to make the drive to Princeton on Sept. 17, 2001. He showed up at work that day and stayed briefly, then took several hours of administrative leave from the lab, according to partial work logs. Based on information from receipts and interviews, authorities say Ivins filled up his car's gas tank, attended a meeting outside of the office in the late afternoon, and returned to the lab for a few minutes that evening before moving off the radar screen and presumably driving overnight to Princeton. The letters were postmarked Sept. 18.

August 13, 2008 (B) - A new article by the Associated Press titled "A lone anthrax mailer? Skeptics question FBI case" contains some snippets -- 4 short paragraphs --  of an interview I did with the AP's Matt Apuzzo.  The first paragraph is:

"I think it's going to be one of the great conspiracy theories, like whether we landed on the moon or whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone" to assassinate President Kennedy, said Edward Lake, a retired Wisconsin computer specialist whose Web site has for years been one of the most comprehensive repositories for analysis on the anthrax case.

"I've seen the theories that he was a pawn like Lee Harvey Oswald. That's going to be hard to disprove," he said. "How do you disprove that a dead man was not a puppet being manipulated by the CIA? You're talking about proving a negative. You can't prove aliens didn't mail the letters."

August 13, 2008 (A) - According to USA Today, former Senator Daschle was briefed by the FBI  yesterday, and 

Former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle says the evidence against the government scientist accused of carrying out the 2001 anthrax attacks was "complete and persuasive."

Daschle says investigators came up with three possible reasons that Ivins targeted his office and that of Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who also received one of the anthrax-laden letters.

Those motives include Ivins' concerns about abortion, the USA Patriot Act and waning support for an anthrax vaccine.

August 12, 2008 (B) - An opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal has the title "What If the FBI Is Right About Bruce Ivins?"  It asks some very important questions about the implications of a single scientist being able to produce a bioweapon that a great many scientists still seem to be claiming cannot be done by a single scientist. 

This issue also relates to the almost forgotten lawsuit filed by the widow of the first person to die as a result of the anthrax attacks of 2001.  Today's Palm Beach Post has an editorial titled "Settle with the widow in Boca anthrax killing."  Her lawsuit claimed that the government "failed to protect the public," and, as a result, Bob Steven was killed.  The fact that he was killed by a government employee should help her case.

August 12, 2008 (A) - After some extensive investigating, I learned that Ivins' visit to my site on July 24 was at 7:13 p.m., not at 6:13 p.m. as I originally stated on Aug. 8 (A).  For some reason, although Ivins was in the Eastern Time Zone and the computer where my logs are recorded is in the Eastern Time Zone, the time stamps on the log entries were made using Central time.   The corrected 7:13 p.m. time now corresponds with the reports from the FBI that Ivins was at the library from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

August 11, 2008 (B) - If you're interested, I did a radio interview with KMOX in St. Louis a few days ago.  It's in two parts on the web site located HERE.

August 11, 2008 (A) - Today's Miami Herald contains an editorial titled "FBI sows doubt" which compares Bruce Ivins to Dr. Hatfill and concludes with this sentence:

America needs an FBI that is more sure-footed and less prone to stumbling.

Put it all together and Mr. Ivins looks guilty. But Justice and the FBI were just as certain of their evidence when they charged another Fort Detrick scientist, Steven Hatfill, only to drop those charges and pay $5.8 million in settlement.

And if the FBI cannot prove beyond everyone's doubt that Dr. Bruce Ivins was the anthrax mailer, that doesn't make Dr. Ivins innocent.  That just means they cannot prove beyond everyone's doubt that Dr. Bruce Ivins was the anthrax mailer.

I'm very much looking forward to congressional hearings that will almost certainly be held to examine the Amerithrax investigation.   Maybe then the FBI will stand up and explain exactly why they looked so hard at Dr. Hatfill.  The facts already show why.  The depositions show why.  But most people don't seem to care about the facts or about depositions.  They only care about what is said in court, what is said by public officials and what is reported in the media.  A public airing of the facts will help a lot.

August 10, 2008 (B) - While trying to clean up my email inbox, I found an email where someone mentioned an Aug. 8 article in The Herald-Mail, which evidently serves parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania and West Virginia.   The Q&A at the end of the article contains a lot of information about how Ivins was escorted out of Ft. Detrick on July 10 and banned from re-entry, plus a lot of other details supplied by Ft. Detrick.

August 10, 2008 (A) - Rather than just identify the "primary findings" at the top of this page where I was shown to be wrong, I decided it might be a good idea to also identify the findings were I was shown to be right.  So, I went through the list and added "CONFIRMED" after each entry which has now been confirmed by the FBI.

"Confirmed" seems less likely to generate arguments than "Proven," which many people will dispute because, to  them, nothing is "proven" if they can find reason to disbelieve it.  I did, however, put "PROVEN" after the finding related to the J-Lo letter.  As far as I'm concerned, the facts prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the J-Lo letter did not contain anthrax and had nothing to do with the anthrax mailings.

August 9, 2008 (D) - It occurs to me that DNA fingerprinting should be able to easily tell if the spores found in the AMI building in Florida came from the same batch as the spores found in the New York Post letter.  That would put to rest all arguments over the so-called J-Lo letter and whether or not the Florida anthrax came from a third batch as some people keep insisting.

I'm not certain, however, if DNA fingerprinting will be able to tell us if Kathy Nguyen was infected by the media mailing or the senate mailing.  The facts clearly say she was infected by the media mailing, but there are a lot of scientists who feel that she could only have been infected by the senate mailing, since none of other people infected in New York City got inhalation anthrax.  I think DNA fingerprinting can do it, but I'll try to talk to an expert to find out for sure.

Those are two more mysteries I'd really like to see solved.  If they can be solved by DNA fingerprinting, it should be very educational to a lot of people.

August 9, 2008 (C) - Digging through news articles from the past few days that I didn't have time to put on this site, I found a Washington Post article titled "Documents List Essential Clues" which contains a lot of interesting details about the evidence against Bruce Ivins that weren't as well explained in the news conference. 

I also found an Associated Press article from today that is titled "Analysis: What if a jury heard the anthrax case."  It lays out the evidence against Ivins and then shows how a lawyer would try to create reasonable doubt -- without any actual evidence that would disprove the government's evidence.  The government has to prove its case, the defense only needs to create doubt.   That's the problem when dealing with conspiracy theorists, too.  One side has proof, the other side works to create doubt about the proof.

August 9, 2008 (B) - One of the emails in my inbox that I hadn't previously studied pointed me to an article on a site called TVNewser where Brian Ross of ABC is put on the spot to explain why he reported that there was bentonite in the attack anthrax.  The article says,

"In the end, you're only as good as your sources," [Ross] said. "My sources were good, we just got information that became outdated before they could update.
...

The particulars of the story go back to October 26, 2001, when Ross reported, "three well-placed but separate sources" said the chemical in the anthrax was bentonite, linking it to Iraq. That same day, the White House denied it was bentonite.  ABC's Terry Moran reported the White House denial that night. Several days later, on November 1, Ross reported:

The White House said that despite initial test results which we reported suggesting the presence of a chemical called bentonite, a trademark of the Iraqi weapons program, a further chemical analysis has ruled that out. The White House says there are chemical additives in that anthrax including one called silica.

The three vital questions raised related to: 1. was ABC News lied to, 2. who were the sources and 3. what will ABC News do to correct it?

Taking the second question first, Ross tells us, "Our sources were current and former government scientists who were all involved in analyzing the substance in the letter."

He also makes clear that Ivins was not one of those scientists. "No he was not. If it was Ivins, I would report that in a second," Ross said.

Ross described why it was first reported as bentonite, and explains why ABC News was not lied to. "Their initial conclusion, based on microscopic examination was a brown substance that initially was reported as bentonite. We went back immediately after the White House told us it was not the case. We were told after further chemical analysis it was determined it was a silica, but not bentonite — something they had never seen before but had a brownish color."

Ross says he was told it was not bentonite not just by the White House, but by the same sources from the original report. But by not telling viewers, some have questioned whether Ross' sources were simply lying to ABC News to begin building a case against Iraq.

"It wasn't meant to read that way," said Ross. "From my point of view it gave national credibility to have on the record attribution and not some anonymous scientists."

But we've already gotten lots of information about the problem of scientists making assumptions about things they've never seen before and telling the media, which then turns the assumptions into presumed facts because they came from scientists. 

August 9, 2008 (A) - This morning, I'm going to try to catch up on collecting articles for this site.  The first two that I've added are from today, The New York Times' article titled "Scientist Officially Exonerated in Anthrax Attacks" and The Washington Post's article titled "Prosecutors Clear Hatfill in Anthrax Case."  The Times says this:

Jeffrey A. Taylor, the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, said in the letter to Dr. Hatfill’s lawyer that “we have concluded, based on laboratory access records, witness accounts and other information, that Dr. Hatfill did not have access to the particular anthrax used in the attacks, and that he was not involved in the anthrax mailings.”

Meanwhile, I think it's time for me to say "I told you so."

Even more interesting to me, The Washington Post article also contains this:

Meanwhile, two days after the release of documents in the case, investigators sought to put to rest a nearly seven-year-old controversy over whether the anthrax mailer used special additives to make the concoction even more lethal.

Since the fall of 2001, federal officials have made contradictory statements about whether the powdered anthrax contained a form of the mineral silicon. The presence of silicon dioxide -- also known as silica -- would be highly significant, suggesting that the bioterrorist took additional steps to ensure that the powder would not clump and would penetrate deeply into victims' lungs. Silica was part of the recipe for a particularly deadly anthrax weapon made by Soviet military scientists.

On Nov. 7, 2001, then-Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said at a news conference that the anthrax powder contained silica, a statement that implied that the bioterrorist had access to secret government formulas for making biological weapons.

But in the documents released this Wednesday, the FBI clarified Ridge's statement. The powder contained not silica but silicon, which was present "within the spores," the documents said. There was no silica coating on the spores, as would be expected if someone had deliberately added the material to keep the spores from clumping.

Two government scientists with knowledge of the FBI's investigation said the presence of silicon, while not fully explained, does not appear to be significant. The scientists, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the silicon was probably an inadvertent contaminant and might have been introduced when the bacteria was being grown in the lab.

But, I think this is another area where I can say, "I told you so."

August 8, 2008 (B) - Today has been another day where I've been overwhelmed with emails by people who do not believe all or part of the FBI's conclusions about Bruce Ivins.  But reporters, scientists and conspiracy theorists aren't the only ones who disbelieve.  Senator Grassley has issued a Press Release where he "seeks answers to the FBI's Amerithrax investigation."   He lists 18 questions he wants answered.  The questions below are examples:

   2.  When (month and year) did the FBI determine that Dr. Hatfill never had access to the anthrax used in the killings?

   3. How did the FBI determine that Dr. Hatfill did not have access to the anthrax used in the killings?  Was that because the FBI determined that Dr. Hatfill no longer worked at USAMRIID when the powder was made?

   4. Was Dr. Hatfill or his counsel informed that Dr. Hatfill had been cleared of any involvement in the anthrax killings before the Department of Justice offered a settlement to him?  Was he informed before signing the settlement agreement with him?  If not, please explain why not.

August 8, 2008 (A) - People on an email forum have been discussing what was found in an Associated Press article yesterday.  The article says this: 

Separately on Thursday, the FBI said in an affidavit that computers recently seized from a Frederick, Md., library may hold clues about Ivins and the mailings.

Ivins used the computers for about 90 minutes on July 24 to read e-mail and review a Web site dedicated to the anthrax investigation, Special Agent Marlo Arredondo wrote in the seven-page document. Ivins went to the library on the day he was released from a two-week psychiatric hospital stay that followed his counselor's petition for a protective order — and just a few days before he took his own life.

I’m confident that it [the anthrax case] will be resolved.

I tell you, we’ve made great progress in the investigation.  It’s in no way dormant.

The visit from the Fredrick County Public Libraries on July 24 was the result of a Google search for "Ed Lake."  That might seem creepy or ominous, but, in reality, it's the way a lot of people access my site  - if they don't use a bookmarks/favorite list.  It allows them to type in a minimal number of characters to get to my site.

I don't know who to contact at the FBI to tell them this, but, since there doesn't seem to be anything "confidential" about it,  putting it on my web site seems as good a way as any.  The FBI can call me if they need more details.

August 7, 2008 (B) - I'm falling hopelessly behind on posting articles because I'm getting flooded with emails.  I've got over 200 in my inbox.  A lot of the emails are about these two sentences from the FBI document located HERE:

Microscopic examination of the evidentiary spore powders recovered from all four letters identified an elemental signature of Silicon within the spores. The Silicon signature had not been previously described for Bacillus anthracis organisms.

It appears that the adage that "you are what you eat" is literally true for bacteria – they are constructed of the molecules and elements that make up their growth medium.  It turns out that one of the elements that Bacillus incorporates into spores is silicon. Although this was observed as early as 1964, it still comes as a surprise to a lot of people. One reason is that silicon is not considered an essential element. The reasoning for this is that if it were, it would have showed up in the early metabolism work. Basically, no one looked for silicon in spores because no one was interested. Apparently, they remained uninterested even after it was found in spores.  The author of the article, M.A. Rouf noted that silicon (among other elements) was incorporated into spores at much higher levels than in vegetative cells (the 1964 article). Note that Rouf found silicon in spores, but didn't add silicon to the culture media. Rouf addressed the issue directly and looked for it in his media after the fact. He found it in the water he used, which is not surprising since silicon is the 2nd most abundant element on earth.

While not yet "official," it's very likely that this will be made known via published scientific reports in the not too distant future. 

It doesn't end the debate over coatings, of course, since the conspiracy theorists won't accept anything that disproves their beliefs if there is some way they can rationalize another explanation -- like this being more misinformation from the FBI. 

August 7, 2008 (A) - I watched the news conference twice last night, and many parts more than twice as sections were rerun on various news broadcasts.  The pattern I seemed to see was that the people who were reading the FBI documents felt that the FBI had a case that would definitely get an indictment, but the people who just watched the news conference weren't convinced in any way that the FBI had a case.

I recorded the CNN and FOX versions of the news conference, and the tail end of the MSNBC version.  I recorded NBC Nightly News and ABC News Tonight.  I recorded the News Hour on PBS.  And I recorded "Countdown with Keith Obermann."  And I watched them all. 

On "Countdown with Keith Obermann,"  Obermann talked with Gerald Posner, an "investigative journalist" who talked about how there was no way that a single person could create the "extremely sophisticated" spores in the anthrax letters, with their tiny size, their electrical charge, and with "polyglass on top of the coatings" to make certain the spores got deep into the lungs.  And he talked about all the scientists who agreed with him.  So, the absolute nonsense printed in Science Magazine continues to be believed by many who continue to voice their beliefs to anyone who will listen.   (Posner also talked about how Bruce Ivins' mental health could have made him susceptible to manipulation by others -- who used him as a pawn in some vast criminal conspiracy.)

As one might expect, a lot of the discussion in my email inbox this morning is about this sentence found in one of the released documents: 

Microscopic examination of the evidentiary spore powders recovered from all four letters identified an elemental signature of Silicon within the spores. This Silicon signature had not been previously described for Bacillus anthracis organisms.

For me, the news conference just generated more arguments.  It didn't really resolve any.  The FBI certainly has a better case against Ivins than I've seen against anyone else.  And there are MANY compelling elements in the DOJ's case, specifically Ivins' attempts to mislead the FBI and to point them at other people. 

But I was very disappointed to have the FBI and DOJ say that they couldn't get any scientific conclusions from the handwriting, although some people had opinions.

Where do we go from here? 

It was said in the news conference that some of the scientific details would be coming out in published scientific journals.  But no one has any idea how long that will take. 

My feeling is that the time when there won't be anything for me to comment about may not be far off.  The arguments will solidify if there is no new information to churn things up.   I think the arguments about silica coatings will be resolved.  And there will almost certainly be new scientific reports explaining how the new science misnamed "DNA fingerprinting" pointed to Ivins.    But, what can we expect after that? 

August 6, 2008 (D) - Lots of stuff to analyze and think about.  I think I need a good night's sleep so I can really dig into things tomorrow.  Nighty night.

August 6, 2008 (C) - I've been told that MSNBC is saying the news conference where the case will be discussed by the FBI and/or the DOJ will be at 3 p.m. EDT. 

The documents are already on line HERE.

August 6, 2008 ((B) - According to an article in today's Wall Street Journal, the combination of "strains" (which appear to be variations of the Ames strain) found on the flask used by Bruce Ivins both implicate Ivins and exonerate Dr. Hatfill: 

Records show when those strains were grown, when they shipped and where they went. The two strains intersected at one place: the bacteriology division of the lab at Fort Detrick, where Dr. Ivins worked. Agents discovered that the strains arrived months after the 1999 departure of Steven Hatfill, the scientist who had been the prime focus of the bureau's efforts.

The evidence may not yet be "official," but it soon should be.  Today's Los Angeles Times contains an article titled "FBI to reveal evidence in anthrax case."  And The New York Times has "Justice Dept. Set to Share Details in Anthrax Case" which includes this:

“What we have seen over the past few days has been a mix of improper disclosures of partial information mixed with inaccurate information and then drawn into unfounded conclusions,” said Brian Roehrkasse, a spokesman for the Justice Department. “None of that serves the victims, their families or the public. Likewise, we will not discuss reports or details on the timing of briefings to the public or victims and their families. We will provide such details to the press at the appropriate time, and not before.”

Authorities had learned that they were dealing with one of 89 strains of anthrax bacteria. They identified their culprit as the Ames strain, cultivated in Ames, Iowa, from a sample taken from a dead cow in Texas. They had learned this by performing autopsies on the victims, which was, in itself, controversial.

August 5, 2008 (B) - It's looking more and more like official information may start to be released tomorrow.   The Associated Press says,

Authorities investigating the 2001 anthrax attacks will begin meeting with victims' families Wednesday to discuss the case, family members said, an indication that some lingering questions in the investigation may soon be answered.

The government is expected to declare the case solved but will keep it open for now, according to two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation. Several legal and investigatory matters need to be wrapped up before the case can officially be closed, they said.

August 5, 2008 (A) - The leaks continue.  Today's Washington Post contains an article titled "Anthrax Dryer a Key To Probe"  The article contains interesting information about a freeze drying device and Ivins' use of it: 

Ivins's possession of the drying device, known as a lyopholizer, could help investigators explain how he might have been able to send letters containing deadly anthrax spores to U.S. senators and news organizations.

The device was not commonly used by researchers at the Army's sprawling biodefense complex at Fort Detrick, Md., where Ivins worked as a scientist, employees at the base said. Instead, sources said, Ivins had to go through a formal process to check out the lyopholizer, creating a record on which authorities are now relying.
...

The lyopholizer Ivins used in the fall of 2001 is commonly employed by pharmaceutical companies and laboratories, as well as food processors, to freeze a liquid broth of bacteria and quickly transform it into a dry solid without a thawing stage.

Scientists and biodefense experts familiar with USAMRIID's procedures say that Ivins's department rarely used such freeze-dryers, because the researchers there worked with anthrax bacteria in a liquid form.

"Dry anthrax is much harder to work with," said one scientist familiar with Ivins's lab. A lyopholizer would fit inside the ventilated "biosafety cabinet" at the lab and could have been used without drawing notice, the scientist said. The machine could have processed a few small batches of anthrax liquid in less than a day, he said.

Other biodefense experts noted that the drying step could have been carried out with equipment no more complicated than a kitchen oven.

Significant mysteries remain, including whether the attacks that involved letters mailed from Florida and Princeton, N.J., could have been carried out by one person.

An article in yesterday's New York Times was titled "Anthrax Evidence Called Mostly Circumstantial."  That kind of headline tends to set my teeth on edge because many people seem to believe that circumstantial evidence isn't "real" evidence.  It is.  In fact, it's the kind of evidence used in the vast majority of criminal cases that go to trial.

I've mentioned this many times, but maybe a rephrasing will help.

Prima facie evidence (a.k.a. "smoking gun" evidence) is evidence that doesn't require any further evidence.  Example: a video of the "suspect" hacking the victim to death with an axe while screaming "I hate you, I hate you."  There's no real need to look at fingerprints, blood spatter patterns, DNA, an alibi or even the motive. 

Circumstantial evidence is evidence which requires that a jury examine in total before making a decision.  After looking at all the evidence, the jury must decide if it is certain beyond any reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the crime. 

As we are seeing, one thing most people definitely do not like doing is waiting until all the evidence has been presented before making decisions.   And we're seeing a good example of that as the news about Ivins comes out, and with it all sorts of opinions about each piece of evidence.  Almost no one is waiting to see it all.

One example of that is an opinion piece by Richard Spertzel in today's Wall Street Journal titled, "Bruce Ivins Wasn't the Anthrax Culprit."  Spertzel writes:

According to a FBI news release from November 2001, the particles were coated by a "product not seen previously to be used in this fashion before." Apparently, the spores were coated with a polyglass which tightly bound hydrophilic silica to each particle. That's what was briefed (according to one of my former weapons inspectors at the United Nations Special Commission) by the FBI to the German Foreign Ministry at the time.

Another FBI leak indicated that each particle was given a weak electric charge, thereby causing the particles to repel each other at the molecular level. This made it easier for the spores to float in the air, and increased their retention in the lungs.

There's a Fox News story from yesterday which reminds everyone that Fox first broke the news that USAMRIID was the center of attention in the anthrax investigation.  The "news-breaking" article is from March 28, 2008, and was titled "FBI Focusing on 'About Four' Suspects in 2001 Anthrax Attacks."  No one else in the media picked up on it, and I dismissed it as a rehash of old news.  Here's what I wrote back then:

My first take on this is that it is an unconfirmed report based upon information from a single unidentified source, and not worth much at all.  I'll need a LOT of proof before I accept any of this as having anything to do with the actual investigation.  It looks more like Fox News has decided to report on someone's theory -- a theory based upon rumors, beliefs and unconnected tidbits of information that come down over the years.

Conspiracy theorists have latched onto it as if it were holy writ.

An article in today's New York Times titled "Pressure Grows for F.B.I.’s Anthrax Evidence" contains a lot of good information, including this:

To make sure the case for the distinctive features of the attack anthrax could hold up in court, agents collected thousands of samples of Ames strain anthrax from labs around the world, said scientists familiar with the F.B.I.’s thinking. “This is the step that took so long,” one scientist said.

But even more than that, the one thing I really want to see is what the FBI has about the handwriting on the letters.  People keep writing me to ask if I noticed what was in the Associated Press about Ivins wife running a day care center.  Yes, I noticed.

August 4, 2008 - Information about evidence continues to pour in.  While none of it has yet been verified by the FBI, and all the sources are still anonymous, there really isn't much reason to doubt that at least some of it is valid information.   The reasons why the information cannot yet be officially released are given in an NPR article:

The FBI is expected to provide a briefing on the evidence as early as midweek. The timing depends on a number of factors. 

The case has to be formally closed before the FBI is no longer bound by grand jury secrecy requirements.

The bureau also has a blanket rule about not discussing pending cases. Normally, a case is closed by presenting evidence to the appropriate U.S. attorney and getting him or her to sign off on the case. Because the anthrax case is so high profile, officials said it is likely that Attorney General Michael Mukasey will have to sign off on closing it.

That evidence includes tracing the prestamped envelopes used in the attacks to stock sold in three Maryland post offices, including one in Frederick, frequented by Dr. Ivins, who had long rented a post office box there under an assumed name, the source said. The evidence also includes records of the scientist’s extensive after-hours use of his lab at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases around the time the letters were mailed, the source said.

Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation also have no evidence proving that Dr. Ivins visited New Jersey on the dates in September and October 2001 when investigators believe the letters were sent from a Princeton mailbox, the source said.

John Miller, an F.B.I. assistant director, declined on Sunday to address criticism of the investigation, one of the largest and most costly in bureau history.

“As soon as the legal constraints barring disclosure are removed, we will make public as much information as possible,” Mr. Miller said in a statement. “We will do that at one time, in one place. We will do that after those who were injured and the families of those who died are briefed, which is only appropriate.”

He added, “I don’t believe it will be helpful to respond piecemeal to any judgments made by anyone before they know a fuller set of facts.”

The unsealed evidence would likely include affidavits for search warrants laying out the bureau’s reasons for focusing on Dr. Ivins, including summaries of scientific evidence that investigators consider central to their case.

Meanwhile, a couple firestorms seem to be brewing.  One firestorm is among those who have different theories about who sent the anthrax letters.  Very few of them seem to be accepting the idea that Bruce Ivins is the culprit or that he acted alone.  I even received an email from one person who says he is preparing a lawsuit against the FBI and DOJ for not thoroughly investigating his suspect.   Some who thought Hatfill was guilty see ample reason to believe Hatfill and Ivins were "in it" together.  I don't see anyone who believed that al Qaeda sent the anthrax letters changing their minds.

One person even argued that I should stick to my beliefs and argue that Ivins wasn't the culprit.  I couldn't do that, even if I wanted to, because I'm an analyst.  An analyst must always try to avoid "beliefs" and "opinions" and stick to what the facts say.  Before Friday, I simply didn't have any important facts about Ivins.  Now I do.  And that changes everything about who was "most likely" the anthrax mailer. 

The other firestorm that is brewing relates to the idea that a "homicidal" scientist could work in a top security place like USAMRIID, where he could make two different batches of powder from his own anthrax supply, put the powders into envelopes, and take them out of the "secure" government facility without anyone knowing about it. 

Probably 60 percent of the arguing I've been doing for the past five or six years has been about whether or not the attack spores were coated with silica.  The evidence still clearly says the spores were NOT coated with silica, but the conspiracy theorists have new ammunition now that USAMRIID is being viewed as the source of the powders. 

What I need to do now is figure out how to change things on this site (at least on the first page) that will probably be shown to be wrong.  I'll probably just do a striketrough on the bad information and provide a link to the correct information. 

Also, I was working on a new web page titled "Analyzing The J-Lo Letter" when the news broke about Ivins.  I was close to being finished with it, and it still seems like it contains valuable information, so, I'm adding it to this site right now even though it's not completed.  The facts are laid out very clearly.  I just haven't included summary information and material about the debates over the letter. 

In the days ahead, the FBI will hopefully make public a lot of previously classified information about evidence in the case.  But the months ahead may be more about analyzing the "evidence" that other people will be using to try to prove that the FBI was wrong in pointing at Ivins.  So, this seems to be a good time to show that the facts clearly prove that the J-Lo letter did not contain anthrax.

August 3, 2008 - Last night on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, I believe they said that the FBI was able to prove that the envelopes used in the anthrax mailings were purchased at a post office near where Bruce Ivins lived.  I didn't record the broadcast, and a quick search didn't find anything about it on the Net this morning.

The previous evening, August 1, I believe Brian Williams said something about the FBI matching the attack anthrax to a flask or container of some kind used by Ivins.  I was in the other room at the time and didn't hear the details.  But yesterday's Washington Post contains an article subtitled "Lethal Powder Was Traced to Office Where He Worked" that contains this:

Scientists working for the government matched the properties of anthrax powder in the letters to those of bacteria in a flask Ivins used in his laboratory, according to the government official and another source.

After sleeping on this information overnight, I now feel that I have to shift from being very skeptical about the Ivins stories in the news to being far less skeptical.  I think there's a definite possibility that the FBI may have had a good case against Ivins. 

I'd still like to see all the evidence, of course.  But I'm definitely beginning to feel that the end of this 7-year examination of facts versus beliefs is getting close.

Looking at the 12 "primary findings" listed at the top of this web site, it's beginning to look like #10 and #11 were totally wrong, and #7, #8 and #9 were partially wrong.

I've always said that I didn't know who sent the anthrax letters.  I could only analyze the information I could find.  And I recognized that it was totally possible that the FBI could have a ton of information proving the guilt of someone I never heard of.  That's beginning to look like a correct analysis.  Back on January 1, 2006, I wrote this:

I don't know exactly what I don't know.  So, tomorrow I could stumble across something or someone could point out something to me that I never noticed before, and that could start another four years of intense debate.  Or, something actually new might be made public by experts actually involved in the Amerithrax investigation.  I think that is possible, but plenty might argue that it isn't.

August 2, 2008 - There's an old saying: If you can keep your head while all those around you are losing theirs -- maybe you just don't understand the situation.

Yes.  Maybe I don't understand the Dr. Ivins situation. 

There are certainly a lot of people who seem to believe that they understand it.  A mentally ill Ft. Detrick scientist is the anthrax mailer?  Of course.  People have been claiming for years that the anthrax must have been made at Ft. Detrick as part of some illegal U.S. Government bioweapons program.  So, now they've got a dead guy who a lot of people are saying was the anthrax mailer, and he worked with the Ames strain at Ft. Detrick.  What more could anyone want?

What some people want is answers.  What evidence is there against Dr. Ivins?  How did a family man manage to make two trips to the Princeton area without being missed?  Why did he choose Princeton for his mailings?  Did he really make the Xerox copies in New Jersey as reported?  Why?  Does his handwriting match the handwriting on the letters?  How did he manage to make powdered anthrax at Ft. Detrick without anyone noticing?  If they did notice, why aren't they being indicted as co-conspirators?  Or are they? What is the status of the grand jury investigation?

In today's New York Times, some germ warfare experts worry that "there is no evidence that Dr. Ivins ... had the skills to turn [anthrax] into an inhalable powder."

In spite of what some psychologists say, at least one of his fellow workers says he was "a popular guy."  According to his lawyer, he was "a world-renowned and highly decorated scientist who served his country for over 33 years  with the Department of the Army."  According to today's Hartford Courant, another co-worker said, "Bruce wasn't the type of person to me who would do something so cold and calculating.'' 

The Courant also includes this:

Meryl Nass, a Maine doctor who has worked with veterans suffering from the side effects of the anthrax vaccine and knew Ivins for years, said it "doesn't make sense" that Ivins would be the anthrax mailer.

"He certainly wasn't near the top of my list of scientists from Fort Detrick who could have done this,'' [anthrax expert Martin Hugh-]Jones said. "If it's truly solved, then it's solved, but it's certainly not a clean case. If all they had was circumstantial evidence against him, how would you ever prove that you didn't do it and clear your name?"

Today's Los Angeles Times includes a new article by David Willman titled, "Anthrax scientist Bruce Ivins stood to benefit from a panic."  The article says,

 "Ivins would have stood to make tens of thousands of dollars, but not millions."

This really reminds me of the Dr. Kenneth Berry case from almost exactly 4 years ago.  Dr. Berry filed a patent shortly after 9/11, and people saw a possible profit motive there, too.  The media went into a feeding frenzy and tore a man's life apart because it looked like he might be the anthrax mailer -- or associated with the anthrax mailer.  For me back then, Dr. Berry was just a name that came "out of the blue."  The pieces just didn't fit there, either. 

Let's hope more of the "pieces" will be forthcoming soon.

August 1, 2008 (C) - I think everyone should read this response to an article about Bruce Ivins on Salon.com.  Click HERE.  There's something wrong about this media feeding frenzy.  Things just don't add up.

The web site TheSmokingGun.com has a copy of a restraining order served on Ivins' as a result of threats he made against a Maryland therapist who called him "homicidal, sociopathic with clear intentions."  That makes it easy to understand why the FBI might have him under surveillance, but it's still not any kind of evidence in the anthrax case.

The Wikipedia entry for Bruce Ivins has also been updated.

Meanwhile, the Department of Justice has published a statement that says virtually nothing, but which everyone will interpret as they see fit.  The statement is HERE.   Here's most of what the brief statement says:

The Justice Department, the FBI, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) today announced that there have been significant developments in the investigation into the 2001 anthrax mailings, which killed five individuals and injured 17 others. In particular, we are able to confirm that substantial progress has been made in the investigation by bringing to bear new and sophisticated scientific tools.

We are unable to provide additional information at this time. The Department, the FBI, and the USPIS have significant obligations to the victims of these attacks and their families that must be fulfilled before any additional information on the investigation can be made public. In addition, investigative documents remain under court seal.

We anticipate being able to provide additional details in the near future.

August 1, 2008 (B) - In an article titled "Anthrax suspect dies in apparent suicide" David Willman of The Los Angeles Times apparently broke the Bruce Ivins story that filled my inbox with emails this morning.  Willman wrote: 

One of the nation’s top biodefense researchers has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was to file criminal charges against him in the anthrax mailing assaults of 2001 that killed five, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the past 18 years worked at the government’s elite biodefense research laboratories at Fort Detrick, Md., had been informed of the impending prosecution, people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and with the FBI investigation said.

Soon after the government’s settlement with Hatfill was announced June 27, Ivins began showing signs of serious strain. One of his longtime colleagues told the Times that Ivins, who was being treated for depression, indicated to a therapist that he was considering suicide. Soon thereafter, family members and local police officers escorted Ivins away from USAMRIID, where his access to sensitive areas was curtailed, the colleague said.
...

The scientist faced forced retirement, planned for September, said his longtime colleague, who described Ivins as emotionally fractured by the federal scrutiny.

“He didn’t have any more money to spend on legal fees. He was much more emotionally labile, in terms of sensitivity to things, than most scientists. ... He was very thin skinned.”

A federal grand jury was preparing to indict a Maryland bioweapons expert for his role in the 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people and terrorized the country, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.

Prosecutors were considering whether to seek the death penalty against Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who worked at an elite U.S. Army bioweapons laboratory in Fort Detrick. Ivins died Tuesday in an apparent suicide.

Paul F. Kemp, a criminal defense lawyer in Bethesda who has represented Ivins for the past year, declined to comment today but issued a statement that confirmed the federal investigation. He also asserted Ivins' innocence. 

Kemp said Ivins had cooperated with investigators for the last six years and was a "world-renowned and highly decorated scientist who served his country for over 33 years with the Department of the Army."

In the last few weeks, Kemp, an experienced death penalty attorney, had been appointed to represent Ivins at public expense because Ivins was in danger of losing his job upon indictment, one source said.

For the past several months, the grand jury had been hearing testimony from scientists who worked alongside Ivins at Fort Detrick, performing research on inhaled anthrax spores, according to the Times report. While the Times report said Ivins worked in the elite biodefense lab since 1990, the News-Post obituary said he had been a scientist at Fort Detrick for 36 years.

In 2003, Ivins and two of his colleagues at the USAMRIID -- the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick -- received the highest honor given to Defense Department civilian employees for helping solve technical problems in the manufacture of anthrax vaccine.

There are news stories which say that the FBI has been keeping Ivins' home under surveillance for a year. 

An article in The Associated Press has this bizarre comment:

The Justice Department has not yet decided whether to close the investigation, officials said, meaning it's still not certain whether Ivins acted alone or had help. One official close to the case said that decision was expected within days. If the case is closed soon, one official said, that will indicate that Ivins was the lone suspect.

The article says this about the grand jury:

Henry S. Heine, a scientist who had worked with Ivins on inhalation anthrax research at Fort Detrick, said he and others on their team have testified before a federal grand jury in Washington that has been investigating the anthrax mailings for more than a year. He declined to comment on Ivins' death.

Since I work with facts, there's nothing here (so far) that changes anything.  There are no facts which would alter my analysis.  And there seems to be a lot of area for misinterpetations by reporters.   There is a lot of information in the articles about things that Ivins may have done after the anthrax attacks which could have violated laws.  But none would make him a candidate for the death penalty.

I think everyone needs to take a deep breath and wait for some official information. 

It definitely appears that something official is about to happen.  And, even if Ivins is dead, that probably wouldn't stop a grand jury from issuing an indictment.

August 1, 2008 (A) - While watching the news during breakfast this morning, CNN reported that a "suspect" in the anthrax murders of 2001 had committed suicide just before he was to be arrested.  The man's name is "Bruce Ivins."   Links: HERE, HERE, HERE.  David Willman of The Los Angeles Times seems to have broken the story.  The Washington Post has a lot of information about Ivins' legal troubles.  And article by The Associated Press has this troubling information:

The Justice Department has not yet decided whether to close the investigation, officials said, meaning it's still not certain whether Ivins acted alone or had help. One official close to the case said that decision was expected within days. If the case is closed soon, one official said, that will indicate that Ivins was the lone suspect.

Bruce Ivins is a name I don't recall ever hearing before (but I'm told his name appears in several articles on this site).  Since the FBI isn't commenting, I think I'd better study this situation before I comment any further.

July 27, 2008 - There were endless discussions and arguments last week, but nothing significant or new came from them.  I had hoped to put together a new supplemental page titled "Lessons from the J-Lo letter," but I wasn't able to find time to work on it.  Although I've been saying for many years that it is clear from the facts that the so-called "J-Lo letter" did not contain any anthrax, I was a bit surprised to learn that a large number of people still believe the "J-Lo letter" did contain anthrax.  Laying out all the facts in one on-line forum made absolutely NO impression.  Doing the same thing with someone else in an email forum had the same effect.  I tried contacting an official source about it, but the weekend arrived before anything worthwhile was said.

In addition to a lot of discussion about Kelli Arena's interview with FBI Director Mueller (and all the "vibes" that were associated with that interview), there was also some discussion last week about an article in the June 2007 issue of Applied and Environmental Microbiology titled "Stable Isotope Ratios and Forensic Analysis of Microorganisms."  The article seems to say that the forensic science which determines information from stable isotopes is ready for court and may be used in the prosecution of the anthrax mailer, although the article says nothing about what has been learned about the attack anthrax by measuring stable isotopes.  Presumably, at minimum, it confirms the NBC report from October 5, 2006, which said "the water used to make them came from a northeastern U.S., not a foreign, source."

July 25, 2008 - The CNN article which contains the video clip of FBI Director Mueller discussing the anthrax attacks of 2001 can be found HERE. 

July 24, 2008 - Someone sent me a link to a video clip where CNN's Kelli Arena questions FBI Director Mueller about the anthrax attacks of 2001.  Here's my attempt at a transcription of the interesting (and seemingly up-beat) exchange:

Kelli Arena: Are you still confident?

FBI Director Mueller: I am still confident, and people who are not familiar with the investigation -- ah -- could criticize.  I'm confident in the course of the investigation.  I'm confident in the steps that have been taken in the course of the investigation.  And I’m confident that it will be resolved.

Arena: Is there any –

Mueller: I tell you, we’ve made great progress in the investigation.  It’s in no way dormant. It’s active.

Arena: Would you say describe it as there have been breakthroughs?

Mueller: In some sense there have been breakthroughs, yes.

Arena: Is there something that by the time that you’re finished, by the time that your tenure is done, do you predict that you’ll have the anthrax killer?

Mueller:  I’m not going to comment on that.  I’m not going to give you a time frame on that.  We have a number of cases.  Some take longer, some take shorter.  You take a case like the – you mentioned the Unabomber – Kaczynski – it was a case we worked on for a good long time.  We got a break in the case and it folded up pretty quickly.  You don’t know when you get to that particular point.  So, I don’t want to give a particular time frame.

July 21, 2008 - I learned something while skimming through an article in today's Maryland Daily Record titled "No malice found in Hatfill case."  I may have been totally wrong when I assumed that the Appeals Court ruling ended the lawsuit between Dr. Hatfill and The New York Times.  The Daily Record article says:

Steven J. Hatfill’s attorneys have vowed to pursue his libel claim against the New York Times despite a federal appeals court’s refusal to reinstate the bioterrorism expert’s claim that the newspaper defamed him.

Hatfill attorney Mark A. Grannis said the 4th Circuit interpreted “public figure” too broadly. Hatfill’s expertise on bioterrorism should not enable the New York Times and Kristof to accuse him of having initiated the deadly anthrax attacks, added Grannis, a partner at Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP’s Washington, D.C. office.

“If Steven Hatfill was a public figure when Kristof wrote about him, then so are we all,” Grannis said in a prepared statement. “We believe the court has misapplied the law of defamation, but if we are wrong about that, then the law of defamation is badly in need of revision. Either way, we intend to press on with the case.”

July 20, 2008 - I'm not sure what to make of the comment by FBI Director Robert Mueller in the ABC News article from yesterday titled "At the FBI, Cold Cases Are Not a Thing of the Past."  ABC could just have put sentences together that don't really belong together when they wrote this:

But beyond Bin Laden, FBI Director Robert Mueller says there are many mysteries the FBI wants solved — such as the anthrax attacks. Five people were killed, 17 sickened and nearly seven years later no arrest appears imminent.

"I never give time frames, because you never know where you'll have sufficient evidence to go public with a prosecution," Mueller said. 

I would never use the term DNA fingerprinting because I don't think it's a good moniker for what we do, but the concept there is that if you do enough and the right kind of genetic markers you can essentially identify an individual to the exclusion of all others—unless they have an identical twin. 

Bruce Budowle says you can use "DNA fingerprinting" to identify someone to the exclusion of all others "unless they have an identical twin."  The problem is: there are no more totally identical twins than clones, which is essentially what an anthrax bacterium creates -- clones of itself.

Maybe it's just my imagination, but I get the feeling that scientists who work with anthrax DNA feel that they know just about all they need to know to make positive identifications.  But the FBI is saying that's not enough to arrest and successfully prosecute the anthrax mailer.  Does the FBI have everything else they need?  I dunno.  The "vibes" were very strong during the past few weeks, but now everything is quiet. 

July 18, 2008 - In an interview with ABC National Radio in Australia dated yesterday, Bruce Budowle of the FBI makes this statement when asked about the anthrax used in the attacks of 2001:

Bruce Budowle: Well there's a couple of things in it, the first person exposed to it there was no letters ever found, that was Robert Stevens in the AMI Building in Florida, he was discovered as having the disease by an astute physician who did a very good differential diagnosis and determined he had anthrax. 

I'm sure that Mr. Budowle knows that the first person exposed to the attack anthrax in 2001 was not Bob Stevens at AMI.  Stevens was the first person to be diagnosed as having anthrax from that attacks.  We don't know who the first person to be exposed was, but it was probably a mail handler (if it wasn't the mailer).  We know that Stevens was the 8th person to show symptoms of anthrax.  The first person to show symptoms was Joanna Huden at The New York Post.  And since she started showing symptoms of cutaneous anthrax on September 22, 2001, just four days after the media letters were postmarked, there's a very good chance that she was among the first to be exposed.

When asked about the anthrax attacks, Mr. Budowle simply says,

Well it's an ongoing investigation so I can't comment any further on it at this point. 

July 17, 2007 - Yesterday's Washington Post contains a transcript titled "Obama Remarks On Confronting Terrorist Threats."  It includes this paragraph:

Just as we must guard against the spread of nuclear terrorism, it's time for a comprehensive effort to tackle bioterror. We have still failed to solve the anthrax attacks that killed Americans on our soil in 2001. We know that Al Qaida was attempting to develop biological weapons in Afghanistan. And we know that the successful deployment of a biological weapon -- whether it is sprayed into our cities or spread through our food supply -- could kill tens of thousands of Americans and deal a crushing blow to our economy.

On the other hand, when talking about terrorism, it's difficult to mention the anthrax attacks without pointing the blame somewhere -- no matter how vaguely.  Al Qaeda seems as good an entity to blame as any, and politically better than most.  It's very likely that the "average American" believes that al Qaeda was behind the attacks.  Any attempt to point the finger -- as the FBI has done -- at some domestic "lone wolf" would accomplish nothing but generate arguments and attacks by those who feel the FBI is totally wrong in that analysis.  And if the vast majority of Americans believe it wasn't a domestic "lone wolf," why provoke them?  Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain knows who did it, and there's no point in generating arguments during the election season, particularly when you don't have solid facts.  Besides, hinting that the FBI is probably wrong could be worth a few extra votes in today's political climate.

July 14, 2008 - According today's New York Sun, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va., has ruled that Steven Hatfill was a public figure before Nicholas Kristof and others made him a public figure.  As a "public figure," you cannot sue for libel without proving malice.  And Nicholas Kristof simply believed the wrong people, he wasn't deliberately malicious when he pointed the finger at Dr. Hatfill.  That means that the dismissal of the libel case Dr. Hatfill filed against the Times is upheld.   It appears to bring to an end the last of Dr. Hatfill's lawsuits, and it also brings to a close that fascinating side issue in the anthrax attacks of 2001. 

July 13, 2008 - For years I've avoided mentioning the name Dr. Philip M. Zack on this web site.  He's the "person of interest" identified by numerous neo-Nazi web web sites as being definitely, most likely or possibly responsible for the anthrax attacks of 2001.  I didn't want to do anything to help the neo-Nazis in their efforts to blame The Great Jewish Conspiracy for the anthrax attacks.  And it was always very clear that the main reason they chose to point the finger at Dr. Zack was because his name seems Jewish. 

However, the time now seems right to point out the facts about Dr. Zack, particularly one key fact that came to light recently: Dr. Philip M. Zack is actually a Catholic.

Because I've avoided mentioning Dr. Zack, this may all be new to some readers of this web site.  That means I need more than just this brief comment to explain it all.

As of this morning, I've created a new web page called "Clash Of The True Believers" or "Dr. Philip Zack is a Catholic."  You can read the new page about Dr. Philip Zack by clicking on the entry in the Table of Contents - or go directly to it by clicking HERE.

July 12, 2008 - A new scientific paper titled "Microbial Forensics: DNA Fingerprinting of Bacillus anthracis (Anthrax)" probably provides some new insights into what kind of DNA evidence can be used against the anthrax mailer.  But, I'll need time to study it. 

What I get from a quick read of the article is that the new science of Microbial Forensics is ready for court -- as far as the authors of this article are concerned. 

July 10, 2008 (B) - According to The Hill, yesterday, Attorney General Michael Mukasey was before the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Senator Patrick Leahy brought up the subject of the anthrax attacks.  The Hill says very little, however, a blogger sent me a lot more information, which I confirmed by checking http://www.c-span.org/ and looking for "Senate Judiciary Cmte. on DoJ Oversight (July 9, 2008)."  According to the blogger and what is on CSPAN (2 hours and 34 minutes into the 2 hour and 38 minutes session), the exchange went like this: 

Leahy: I almost hate to get into the case of Steven Hatfill. I've refrained from discussing this, I've refused to discuss it with the press. I've told them some aspects of it I was aware of were classified so of course I could not discuss it but also, considering the fact that my life was threatened by an anthrax letter, two people died who touched a letter addressed to me I was supposed to open, I'm somewhat concerned.

What happened?

Mukasey: That case ...

Leahy: We're paying Hatfill millions of dollars, the indication being the guy who committed the crime went free.

Mukasey: Well, um, I don't understand, quote, the guy who committed the crime, unquote, to have gone free. What I do understand is...

Leahy: Nobody's been convicted.

Mukasey: Not yet.

Leahy: And five people are dead.

Mukasey: Yes, um...

Leahy: And hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent.

Mukasey: That case is under active investigation and I need to be very careful about what I say.

Leahy: We won't go any further. As I say, I feel somewhat reluctant because I was one of the targets. But I gotta say, what families of the people who died went through, what families of the people who were crippled went through, even what my family went through. A lot of people are concerned and I won't say more because we are in open session but I think you and I probably should have a private talk about this sometime.

Mukasey: That's fine.

July 10, 2008 (A) - Judge Walton has cancelled the Order he issued compelling James Stewart (formerly of CBS) to name his sources, "since the identities of his sources are no longer needed by the plaintiff to prove the plaintiff’s Privacy Act claims."

July 9, 2008 (C) - Every time I read about some new forensic capability, I have to wonder if it could help identify and convict the person behind the anthrax mailings.

Someone just sent me an article titled "Boulder DA: New DNA clears Ramsey family" which describes a new technique called "DNA 'touch' analysis."  The article describes how skin cells were found via this technique in a different area of the child's clothing, and the cells match the DNA found elsewhere via other techniques. 

That makes me wonder if this new "touch analysis" technique can also find evidence in the anthrax mailings.  Unfortunately, there are ways of writing letters, sealing them and mailing them without ever touching them with your bare hands -- if you have a biosafety cabinet and some Glad Bags handy.   And the letters were Xerox copies, which can be easily made without actually touching them with your hands. 

But, if a child addressed the envelopes, as the evidence very clearly indicates, would the child have been asked to wear rubber gloves -- perhaps to avoid getting the envelopes dirty?  Or would the culprit have felt that if the envelopes were wiped of fingerprints after they were addressed, nothing incriminating would be detectable after the letters went through the mail system?

There's certainly nothing about the handwriting on the envelopes (or the letters) to indicate that the writer wore awkward gloves while writing.

Could the DNA of an innocent child be used to help convict the anthrax mailer?

Lots to think about today. 

July 9, 2008 (B) - Today's CNN article "Senate Defeats Bid To Cut Telco Immunity From Wiretapping Bill" may seem totally unrelated to the Amerithrax investigation, but, if viewed from the right angle, it may directly relate. 

In my book, and probably in several places on this web site, I discuss a hypothetical situation: The "anthrax mailer" may have called the "anthrax supplier" from Central New Jersey on the evening of September 17, 2001, the day before the media letters were postmarked.   The "mailer" may have called the "supplier" (who lives in a distant state) to tell him about the letters he just dropped in a mailbox and to warn him that the DNA of the anthrax might somehow be traced back to the "supplier." 

If  this happened (and that's a BIG if ), there should be phone records of the call.

However, although the "supplier" might have RECEIVED the phone call at his home in a distant state, phone companies don't generally keep records of INCOMING calls (unless they are collect calls), only outgoing calls.  So, a dump of the "supplier's" phone records would find nothing.

And it seems extremely unlikely that the "anthrax mailer" would have called the "supplier" from his home or office in Central New Jersey.  So a dump of those phone records would find also nothing. 

However, it also seems very unlikely that the "anthrax mailer" would have travelled any great distance from his home or from the site of the mailbox to make the call. 

So, let's assume (for the sake of discussion) he made the call from a public phone booth near some randomly chosen gas station somewhere in Central New Jersey.

And let's assume that "supplier" hastily created a perfect alibi for himself for the 18th of September, absolutely proving he was nowhere near Central New Jersey.

If so, then if a line on a map were drawn from the "mailer's" home (or lab) to the site of the mailbox, and if the phone records for EVERY phone within 10 miles of that line were provided to the FBI (or to the NSA which has better computers to do searching) they could look for any call that was made in that area to the home of the "supplier" on the day the letters were most likely mailed -- the day before they were postmarked.  To be safe, they could also check two or three days before and the 18th of September. 

If a phone call had been made from that area to the "supplier's" home, it wouldn't be conclusive proof that the "supplier" was involved, but it would be very STRONG circumstantial evidence that the "anthrax mailer" called him.  It would clearly establish a link between a possible "supplier" and someone in Central New Jersey.  Any claim that it was just a wrong number wouldn't likely be believed by a jury.

The only problem is: How legal is it to search EVERYONE's phone records in a large area to find out who called the "supplier?"  The Patriot Act might have made it totally legal for the FBI and NSA to do it, but whichever phone company was used might be sued for giving out the "private" phone information for hundreds of thousands of people.  Some ACLU lawyer might strongly object to having his phone records examined to see if a call to a "possible terrorist" was made from his home without any legal cause to believe he made such a call.   Hence, the "Senate Wiretap Bill."  It looks like the bill will be passed, and it looks like it will make it retroactively legal for the phone company to have done what they did (if they did it).

July 9, 2008 (A) - This morning, a letter to the editors of The Washington Post makes a good point that I failed to make:  The title is: Guilty Until Proven Innocent?  The letter tells how The Post editorial of July 3 "excoriated" the FBI and DOJ for smearing Dr. Hatfill, but then the Post editorial added this: 

"The settlement itself is also not proof of innocence."

Since when, under our system of justice, does innocence have to be proved? [...] The Post, it seems to me, has picked up the smear where the government left off.

July 6, 2008 - Hmm.  The media tirades about the Hatfill settlement seem to have died down a bit.  The only news organizations still making editorial comments are probably the ones who write and think verrrrrrryyyy slowwwwwwwly.

Personally, I see the Hatfill settlement as a very good sign.  As I've stated several times before, the settlement clears the way for some real news about the Amerithrax investigation.  I don't know if that means there's going to be an arrest any time soon, but there was just no way that the Department of Justice was going to authorize an arrest of the real culprit as long as the Hatfill lawsuit remained unresolved. 

Can you imagine having the Hatfill lawsuit go to trial at the same time the real anthrax mailer is going through the processes of an arrest, hearings and a trial?

Hatfill's lawyers would be reading to the jury every day from the Bill of Indictment for the real culprit, while at the same time explaining how the FBI had been harrassing Dr. Hatfill and destroying his career while they were collecting evidence that someone else did it.  And they'd be repeating over and over what Judge Walton said: "There’s not a scintilla of evidence to suggest Dr. Hatfill had anything to do with [the anthrax attacks].” The $5.8 million settlement would be a drop in the bucket compared to what a jury would award if that had happened.

And what about the case against the real culprit?  His (or her, or their) lawyers would be endlessly talking to the media before the trial, and to the jury during  the trial, about the ongoing Hatfill lawsuit and how the government clearly doesn't know who did it, because they haven't admitted that they made a mistake in going after Dr. Hatfill.  The real suspect's lawyers would talk about how the FBI went after Dr. Hatfill without a "scintilla of evidence," and they'd be asking "So, why should anyone trust the evidence against our client?"  They'd ask: "How do we know that the FBI didn't just make up new evidence against our totally innocent client because the old evidence against Dr. Hatfill didn't fool anyone."  It wouldn't take much to make it look like the DOJ was prosecuting (or persecuting) two totally different suspects at the same time because they didn't have a real case against either one!

I've been saying for nearly six years that the Hatfill investigation was all politics and had nothing to do with the Amerithrax investigation.   I've been saying for over six years that the real anthrax mailer most likely lives and works in Central New Jersey.  I've been saying that, as a result of a campaign by conspiracy theorists, the FBI was politically forced to investigate Dr. Hatfill, and that is one reason an arrest of the real culprit wasn't made long long ago.  The Hatfill situation greatly complicated a legal case against the real culprit that might otherwise have been fairly easy to prosecute.  I've been saying for over four years that successful prosecution of the real culprit had become largely dependent upon the formalization and legal acceptance of the new science of microbial forensics. 

Is there any chance that we might learn if my analysis was right in those areas?  No one in the media seems to think so.  But I do. 

Can the FBI and the DOJ just continue to be silent about evidence in the Amerithrax investigation while the media and politicians endlessly attack them?  Maybe.  But it does no one any good.  The people in the FBI and most in the DOJ don't just get up and leave when a new President takes office.  So, there's not much purpose in waiting for that.   (Back in September of 2006, a top FBI scientist attempted to release, via a scientific report, some key information about the exact nature of the attack anthrax, but mostly it just generated controversy.  The Hartford Courant falsely labeled it a "new theory."   No one could dispute what was reported, and The Washington Post even said the information was verified by "other scientists familiar with the forensic investigation," but people endlessly attacked the author and the FBI because the information challenged the beliefs established by countless false media reports. People even complained that the author hadn't followed established scientific procedures in releasing such information, evidently because he related it to commonly known information about anthrax spores and didn't provide any details about the actual spores used in the attack.  They looked for any excuse they could find to discount the report -- though no one could challenge the information provided in the report.  That exercise undoubtedly gave the FBI a good understanding for what they could expect if they released any more information about the anthrax murders.) 

We don't absolutely need an arrest to understand what has been happening.  All we need is some good, solid information.  And there must be some way to release new information without compromising the Amerithrax legal case.  They may not have been able to do it before the Hatfill lawsuit was settled, for fear that the media will attempt to connect the evidence to Dr. Hatfill, but I see no reason the FBI can't do it now.

Unfortunately, there's one thing that's been made very clear to me over the past six years or so: Nothing ever happens as quickly in this case as I hope or expect it will.

July 5, 2008 - Today, The Palm Beach Post adds to the fuss over the Hatfill settlement with an editorial that complains:

Why were there no other "persons of interest"?

But this comment is definitely the funniest comment I've seen in the past seven years:

Caught up in the mess were reporters who covered the investigation and relied on government sources during the emotionally charged aftermath of 9/11. Mr. Hatfill was by far the biggest casualty, but news agencies can claim some measure of federal victimization, too.

The government has tried in court to make Ms. Stevens' lawsuit go away. In fact, her lawsuit offers the only chance for her and the nation to learn who was behind this terrorist attack. [Mrs. Stevens is the widow of the first victim, Bob Stevens.]

July 4, 2008 - An interesting article in Reason Magazine generated some visits to this web site. The article is titled "What Price Justice?"  It's about the Hatfill settlement, of course.  But it makes assumptions about the Amerithrax investigation, such as this:

Authorities still do not know exactly how the deadly compound was formed, where, or by whom.

The investigative missteps in the anthrax case were huge and there is no sign that procedures have changed in such a way as to avoid repeat.

There are now several distinct possibilities in the anthrax mystery, all with backers on the Internet and elsewhere. One is that the feds have no clue who might have been responsible. This is possible, beyond depressing to consider. Disputes over whether the anthrax spores themselves were "weaponzied" took up an inordinate amount of investigative energy, perhaps allowing the killer to cover all tracks leading back to him or her.

Five years after the anthrax attacks that killed five people, the FBI is now convinced that the lethal powder sent to the Senate was far less sophisticated than originally believed, widening the pool of possible suspects in a frustratingly slow investigation.

The second link to my site from the Reason Magazine article is indirect.  It requires that the reader first go to the article about me in Time Magazine which contains this sentence and link:

To help organize his thoughts--and assist fellow investigators--Lake has assembled what may be the most comprehensive website on the anthrax case outside the FBI, anthraxinvestigation.com

Then there is the case-making theory. This is the notion that the government has a suspect or suspects, but has yet to come up with enough evidence to merit an arrest. A close cousin of this view is the "Central New Jersey" theory; the idea that the anthrax used in the attacks was cooked up in the Garden State among a narrow range of possible circumstances. 

July 3, 2008 - The angry articles and editorials detailing the FBI's "incompetence" on the "botched" Amerithrax "fisaco" continue.  There are just too many to list them all.  Besides, they are all very similar.  Today's editorial in The Washington Post is subtitled "A bungled investigation ends with a $5.8 million bill for taxpayers."  This sentence is interesting:

Top brass at the FBI and Justice Department became obsessed with Mr. Hatfill and ordered him incessantly trailed, despite protests from agents on the front lines that there was not enough evidence to justify focusing the investigation on this one man and that resources should be redirected to other targets.

We may never know the truth about the anthrax murders. For that, the Justice Department and the FBI are to blame.

July 2, 2008 - While I've complained that the U.S. media seems to ignore Barbara Hatch Rosenberg's role in the Hatfill fiasco, I've failed to mention that The Register in England mentions her from time to time.

July 1, 2008 - After all the hot news yesterday, the only new thing I see this morning is a notice that Judge Walton is willing to vacate the Contempt order against Toni Locy, since Dr. Hatfill no longer needs her testimony.  Evidently, Ms Locy just needs to ask.

June 30, 2008 (C) - Hmm.  ABC News has just released an "analysis" article from Brad Garrett, a former FBI agent who was involved with the investigation of Dr. Hatfill and who is now a consultant for ABC News.  It's titled "EXCLUSIVE: How the FBI Botched the Anthrax Case." 

Reading it over, the first thing I notice is that former agent Garrett twice says that there were seven people who died from the anthrax attacks.  I know of only five.

Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice agreed to pay $5,825,000 to Hatfill, whom former Attorney General John Ashcroft once described as "a person of interest" in the investigation into the anthrax murders of seven people in 2001.

U.S. Postal employees who handled mail died from anthrax contamination, along with five other people.

The rest of the article just says that he was on the Dr. Hatfill investigation and, evidently, didn't like what he was required to do.  He writes:

The investigative experience of managers in the FBI varies widely. Some bosses may have investigated cases like the anthrax case before, but many may not have. Managers with less experience may devalue or over-value investigative techniques in their comments about an investigation. This can result in amateurish investigative techniques being suggested to more experienced agents, and can result in confusion at the top of the chain about the facts. The second lesson from the anthrax case is that only managers with considerable investigative experience should be making the big decisions or communicating with higher-ups.

June 30, 2008 (B) - Today's Wall Street Journal has an opinion piece which I assume is the opinion of The Wall Street Journal editors, since it's about as dumb an opinion as I've ever seen published in a newspaper.  Here's the key sentence:

Throughout one of the largest investigations in law-enforcement history, agents were fixated on a "lone wolf" theory that Director Robert Mueller's FBI, for all intents and purposes, now admits was wrong.

The opinion piece is evidently just an excuse for the WSJ to promote it's right wing theory that foreigners did it.   Here's more from the opinion piece:

.. the possibility of a foreign source should never have been downplayed. Saddam Hussein had deployed chemical attacks in the Iran-Iraq war and against the Kurds. In 1995, Iraq admitted to U.N. weapons inspectors that it had added thousands of liters of anthrax and other toxins to its biological arsenal. 

June 30, 2008 (A) - I awoke this morning realizing I had failed to point out some very important facts yesterday.  So, I went back and expanded upon the part of my comment where I wrote only the sentence below before going directly into a quote from the LA Times: 

According to Willman, the role FBI Inspector Richard Lambert played in the Hatfill fiasco is very different from what I saw:

I'd like to know Barbara Hatch Rosenberg's thoughts.  But, as I recall, an article back in late 2001 described her as being "70 something," which could make her around 80 now.  So, maybe she can be given a pass.  She'd just deny any