FBI Reveals Anthrax Probe Details

"There Are Still Many Nagging Questions About This," One Scientist Says

(AP)  Months after the deadly 2001 anthrax mailings, FBI scientists had - but destroyed - the unique strain of the bacteria used in the attacks that years later would lead them to Dr. Bruce Ivins, now the government's top suspect.

FBI officials admitted Monday that destroying the initial Ivins sample was a mistake, but said it didn't really hinder the investigation because the technique used to trace the source of the anthrax to Ivins had not been developed yet. Luckily, a copy of that first sample was sent to an outside professor, who years later used it to help further link Ivins to the killer strain.

Ivins, 62, took a fatal dose of acetaminophen last month as prosecutors prepared to indict him for murder.

Top FBI officials and a handful of prominent scientists who aided the investigation presented more - but not all - of the scientific case against Ivins in a two-hour-and-fifteen-minute news conference to try to quell suspicions of outside scientists, some of whom were friends of the suspect.

At times the officials and scientists contradicted themselves, even down to the number of flasks containing the anthrax Ivins had. They eventually agreed it was one one-liter triangular flask capped with cheesecloth that linked Ivins to the attacks.

"There were a lot of lessons learned," FBI Assistant Director Vahid Majidi said. "Were we perfect? Absolutely not. We've had missteps, and those are the lessons learned. ... It was over the last few years that we were able to incorporate all of the lessons learned that we have throughout this investigation."

The complete genome mapping of the unique killer strain - the cornerstone of the forensic case - won't be public for months, maybe more than a year, because it will be published in peer-reviewed scientific journals that take time. The outsiders who had questions about the government's case wanted to see the complete genomic map sooner.

"There are still many nagging questions about this," said Dr. Michael Stebbins, who directs the Federation of American Scientists' biosecurity project and wasn't at the Monday's briefing. "Unfortunately a lot of them are not going to be able to be answered in the immediate future."

Majidi understands that: "I don't think, No. 1, we're ever going to put the suspicions to bed. There's always going to be a spore on the grassy knoll."

FBI officials spent much of their time going into more detail about the specific four mutations in the strain of anthrax that led back to Ivins' Army lab at Fort Detrick, Md. They weren't easy to find, rare like red or green M&Ms in a flask mostly full of blue candies, Majidi said.

FBI officials and scientists had to come up with a technique for looking at the DNA of anthrax to whittle down the list of labs and suspects who could have produced it, creating a new field of forensic microbiology. That scientific technique to connect a lab with a unique strain wasn't available until after the FBI had destroyed its first sample from Ivins.

In February 2002, the FBI sent subpoenas around the world to labs handling the Ames strain of anthrax, which was the strain that killed five people in 2001. They got 1,070 samples and destroyed only one: the first one from Ivins. It was destroyed because Ivins didn't use the proper test tube and growth medium so it may have not been useful as evidence in court, officials said.

Ivins was one of the first to respond to FBI subpoenas, but his sample was deemed useless and he was asked to submit another. He gave investigators a second sample of anthrax from his lab in April 2002 to comply with standards in a subpoena issued in the case. But that sample contained a different strain than what he submitted two months earlier in what prosecutors call an attempt to deceive or confuse investigators

When Ivins sent his initial sample to the FBI, a duplicate went to the lab of Dr. Paul Keim, a geneticist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Ariz.

Keim still had his RMR-1029 sample in 2006 when the FBI realized it could match Ivins to two batches of anthrax-laced letters that were mailed in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Stebbins said the fact that Keim kept his sample was key in building the case, something Keim played down after the news conference.

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.

One of the targets of the letters was former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, who on Monday called the evidence against Ivins convincing - even if he is not completely sure the investigation focused on the right person.

In an interview, Daschle praised the investigation and said his two-hour FBI briefing last week was "complete and persuasive." Still, he said, there are some open questions. He said the evidence should be scientifically reviewed.

Daschle said the most compelling evidence to him is the odd, extended hours that the Army scientist kept shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.

"He had no real explanation for the significant increase," Daschle said. "His only response was that he wanted to hang out there, which was not a very compelling reason."

Daschle and fellow Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont both received anthrax-laced letters in their Senate offices. Both senators have received recent briefings from FBI Director Robert Mueller on the evidence against Ivins.

[talkingham]

Why would they have destroyed the first strain- was that not evidence. This so-called investigation gets stinkier and stinkier every day.

Under the Bush Admin and hand job CIA director Tenet and then the next series of Bush appointees have turned the FBI into a political hack job.

You can only trust them to lie or destroy evidence now. There has never been a president of this country so willing to destroy it as Bush.

[inventagod2]

The FBI has had no credibility since before Hoover.

That they had an ''immediate'' list of the 9/11 ''hijackers, including a passport that somehow survived the airliner explosion was completely laughable.
The FBI is just an official mouthpiece for the Bu$h cartel, nothing more.

[impeach__w]

correction:
Why did this guy have this "unusable sample" for over Four years?
Why did it take another Two years to make the match?
Who mailed the letter from England???

[impeach__w]

Why did this guy have this "unusable sample" for 4 years?
Why did it take another 4 years to make the match?
Who mailed the letter from England???

[impeach__w]

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson

Do you want to know who you are? Don''t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
Thomas Jefferson

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
Thomas Jefferson

[impeach__w]

Can someone tell me how he mailed the letter from England? Do his office hours allow for a UK trip? Did he make one? Answers please, this case is not closed!

[jmurrieta1]

""There were a lot of lessons learned," FBI Assistant Director Vahid Majidi said. "Were we perfect? Absolutely not. We''ve had missteps, and those are the lessons learned. ... It was over the last few years that we were able to incorporate all of the lessons learned that we have throughout this investigation." "



And one of the most important lessons--don''t dig too deep. It might point at some powerful people. And if there''s anything the FBI hates, it''s annoying its sponsors.

For example, how did the unstable and outspoken Ivins manage to keep his security clearance all those years? Is the federal government in the habit of letting people who make death threats and exhibit strange behavior have unfettered access to Weapons of Mass Destruction?

One hopes security is a little better at the plutonium labs.

And the feds have yet to explain the targets of the attacks allegedly made by Ivins--did somebody from, say, Dik Cheney''s office point him at the two liberal senators. We know just how much Dik hates liberals, but what did Ivins have against them.

Much is unanswered.

[chimpyout]

That was a distinguished investigation by the most excellent J. Edgar Hoover FBI agents who live in the architecturally prized J. Edgar Hoover Building (named for the most renowned American investigator).

[notfooled]

20 minutes BEFORE building #7 at the world trade center fell, the BBC announced that bldg #7 had fallen down.

10 minutes BEFORE bldg #7 fell down, a New York Fire Captain warns his men, "Move away from #7, they%u2019re gonna blow the bldg."

http://911blogger.com/node/10025 for both of the above facts RECORDED LIVE.
Until you do %u2013 you don%u2019t know the truth.

Folks, we been snookered and led into war on false pretense. Witness 962 publicly repeated lies (wmd, wmd, wmd) ie the sky is falling.

All the argument for strong national security is tainted and manipulated by the military industrial machine, which must from time to time gear-up and produce weapons of war to stay profitable - thus the Vietnam war - thus the current wars - all for oil and military industrial profits, and of course to scare us into believing there is a hidden enemy they must protect us from as they take our freedoms.

And "We the People" are simply pawns in these ongoing scams and hoaxes.

If you don''t believe it, check out the website and hear it for yourself.

[downtowner97]

The sinking of the Maine, the Tonkin Crisis, the attack on the USS Liberty, the THREE Kennedy assasinations (including JFK Junior), The Oklahoma City Bombing, 9/11 and the anthrax attacks. There are dozens more, but time has proven over and over that covert attacks are used to make us fear a foreign or hidden enemy so we''ll give more power to our government. Inform yourself, then arm yourself.

[downtowner97]

I''d encourage anyone, from either political party, to watch news footage from the day the Murrah building was destroyed. Clinton and Reno were in control, and Clinton needed a good excuse to take some of our rights away. The Murrah Building bombing was the perfect excuse.

On that day, there was talk of 4 bombs. The seismograph readings in the area noted TWO bomb blasts. That completely busts the official story. The media gently morphed the story to make it one explosion, in a rented truck, on the street.

The dozens of security camera tapes have never been released.

[hermitdave]

HEY downtowner, don''t forget the mastermind of Okla. City was so stupid he drove off and forgot to put the rear license plate on his car. LOL

[hermitdave]

The FBI boobs need not worry, it is a slam dunk to convict a dead guy.

[downtowner97]

Ok. So let''s pretend, like the FBI wants us to, that he killed himself with regular Tylenol, and not the harder-to-obtain Tylenol with Codeine. The LD50 (amount of a drug required to kill 50/100 people in a test group) for acetaminophen is 800mg per kg of body weight. Ivins looked like he weighed about 80 kg. That means he would have to take 64000mg of acetaminophen. Extra Strength Tylenol contains 500mg per tablet. Therefore, the LD50 of Tylenol is 6400/500 pills, or 128 pills. I was an ambulance EMT for 10 years, and never saw anyone manage to take that many pills in one dose. Even at 128 pills, he would have only a 50% chance of dying.

The original story stated that he was in a hospital at the time of his death being treated for depression. How would he get into that many pills? How would he have managed to die a slow death from acetaminophen without anyone noticing he was sick? Why has Codeine been dropped from the official story?

[downtowner97]

The story is morphing by the day. Now it was death by acetaminophen and not Tylenol with Codeine.

The day the Murrah Building was blown up in Oklahoma City, everyone including the officials was saying that there were multiple bombs. Now the story is that there was just one in a truck. When a story like this changes, it''s proof that someone has their hand in things, and the media plays right along.

[rudy654-2009]

Come on CBS, your standards of journalism are being weakened and lowered daily. Why are you simply trumpeting, unchallenged, the mutterings of incompetent FBI bureaucrats
*********

Exactly right! Notice how they admit that there are a lot wholes in their story to leave a "spore on a grassy noll"?

This is a cover up and his suicide is just convenient enough for a long string of coincidences that have occurred ever since the spores targeted liberals in government and the media.

[pinewalker-2009]

There was a case, in the past 8 years, which I am unable to locate. It pertains to a scientist in the United Kingdom, found in a field near his home, deceased. There were mysterious circumstances surrounding his death also. Sound familiar to anyone???

[andor3]

the reporting is getting a little better, more questions.

When the authorities have all this time and no suspect to defend himself, and they STILL cannot get their stories straight...

[notfooled]

This is simply the Bush administration tying up loose ends before they leave office by conducting another bogus investigation, like the 911 commission joke of an investigation, into what really transpired.

This attack, like the twin-towers on 911, was carried out by black-ops teams working for the real terrorists, namely the Bush/Cheney/Saudia crime syndicate.

Don''t believe a word of it.

[pinewalker-2009]

The crime, of poisoning and effecting the deaths of five people, is indisputable. The alledged suspect recently caused his own death. If he was innocent, why die...perhaps to keep the truth to himself??? What has he to gain but to keep his family from the shame of prosecution, potential conviction, and resulting punishment. Again, what did he decide to hide by self termination??? The world will never know the full truth, despite all science can muster, sadly.