There is a new panel report (pdf) that looks at the psychological makeup of the anthrax suspect.
A panel of psychiatrists who studied the medical records of Bruce E. Ivins found that the F.B.I.’s case that he mailed the anthrax letters in 2001 was persuasive, and that Dr. Ivins’s decades-long history of mental problems should have disqualified the Army microbiologist from getting a security clearance or working with dangerous pathogens.
Since there will be no trial for Dr. Ivins, who killed himself in 2008 as prosecutors prepared to charge him, the independent panel’s review of all the F.B.I.’s investigative documents may be the closest the case will come to being decided.
Next they will bring in a panel of psychics. Why do they even bother trying to legitimize their findings? No one cares. I don’t think they solved the case. They might have identified the right guy. But I don’t think they’re really sure. All I know is that my mail-sorting center was knocked out of service for over a year and I was told to wave my mail around outside to disperse any potential spores before I brought it inside my house. When someone sends a biological weapon through your mail system, you tend to take it personally. Whoever did it didn’t care whether they killed me or not. I remember stuff like that.
But I feel like I’m the last person in America who still gives a damn about solving the anthrax crime. I bet they could come out tomorrow with an entirely different story, with a different suspect, and the response would be a collective yawn.
Yes, indeed. This reminds me of the FBI fingering that Taiwanese-born scientist as the Chinese mole who stole the nuclear bomb designs. After sending him and his family through Hell, they finally found that he couldn’t have done it (forgot the details). Hey, what the Hell? Chinese, Taiwanese, they all look alike, right?
IIRC, he won a huge lawsuit for the defamation and violation or rights/privacy.
BTW, as a postal worker who still has a lot of work barriers set up as anthrax protection, I care also. If it was the guy from Aberdeen, I hope he rots in Hell.
Maybe the FBI can now dust off another case:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980DE4DE113EF933A15753C1A9679C8B63
Who even remembers that military grade explosive was found in a Greyhound locker in Phila?
Unfortunately with the Anthrax case, the FBI acted treated Hatfill with so such malice and subjectivity that it’s difficult to give them the benefit of the doubt about anything Anthrax related.
Also care about solving it – and personally have no ideas. Didn’t a woman in CT die from an anthrax letter?
I will always remember how the case panicked the country for weeks, and then, when there was no obvious progress in the investigation, all the politicians and pundits simply moved on as though it had never happened.
And it was never solved. Pinning it on someone posthumously, on largely circumstantial evidence, years after the fact, is not the same as solving it.
Booman, they could have solved it years ago. The purpose of all this nonsense is to mystify it, so that people will become accustomed to it never being solved.
Sort of obvious why, really: It would be more than embarrassing.
If you want to know who the perpetrators were, take a good look at the targets. That is not enough information to name names, but it is enough to understand the underlying politics.
Then ask who could suppress the investigation. That gets you closer still, perhaps as close as we will ever get.
You can be sure that Ivins was not the man, since if true that would create a trail back that would implicate others–who, obviously, do not want to be implicated.
False flag, inside job? You bet: Nothing else is possible.
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See Bob in Pacifica’s comments.
Also Hatfill, Ft. Detrick, SAIC and Anthrax Research South Africa
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."