amerithrax

The attempt by the FBI to close the Amerithrax case represents some of the worst propaganda and corruption we have to endure as a society. To be sure, there are ongoing horrors such as the daily disproportionate arrest, sentencing, and prison chaining of African-Americans--and the anthrax scare is largely behind us now, although it's still possible to scare the wits out of some people by spilling some flour. But, really, the anthrax propaganda takes the cake.

We're supposed to believe now that a certain Mister Ivins was solely reponsible for processing American Ames-strain anthrax into a static-polarized bundle, something done only at the most advanced US production facilities. Amazingly, he did this with no other help. We are to disregard the fact that his own colleagues find the accusation fantastic, that he developed an anti-anthrax vaccine after the attacks, and that despite all of this activity the FBI could not find one spore of Ames anthrax on his clothing, automobiles, house, or office.

He appears to have had some nasty ultra-conservative views about civil liberties and Arabs. If that were an indicator for terrorist activity, it would implicate a grat many people in the US government and armed forces.

We are, then, supposed to forget about the former head at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where the spores were produced. I haven't forgotten; his name is (or was) Lt. Col. Philip Zack. When Zack was in charge, 27 ultra-deadly pathogens, supposedly all killed by formaldehyde, went missing from the lab. But that's just a starter. Zack, after all, was gone from the lab in the early Nineties. Except that he was not gone.

Here's a blast from the past, six years ago in the Hartford Courant:


Source: The Hartford Courant, January 20, 2002.

Anthrax Missing From Army Lab

By JACK DOLAN And DAVE ALTIMARI, Courant Staff Writers

Lab specimens of anthrax spores, Ebola virus and other pathogens disappeared from the Army's biological warfare research facility in the early 1990s, during a turbulent period of labor complaints and recriminations among rival scientists there, documents from an internal Army inquiry show.

The 1992 inquiry also found evidence that someone was secretly entering a lab late at night to conduct unauthorized research, apparently involving anthrax. A numerical counter on a piece of lab equipment had been rolled back to hide work done by the mystery researcher, who left the misspelled label "antrax" in the machine's electronic memory, according to the documents obtained by The Courant.

Experts disagree on whether the lost specimens pose a danger. An Army spokesperson said they do not because they would have been effectively killed by chemicals in preparation for microscopic study. A prominent molecular biologist said, however, that resilient anthrax spores could possibly be retrieved from a treated specimen.

In addition, a scientist who once worked at the Army facility said that because of poor inventory controls, it is possible some of the specimens disappeared while still viable, before being treated.

--snip--...........
Some samples, particularly viruses, are also irradiated with gamma rays before they are handled by the pathology lab.

Whether all of the lost samples went through this treatment process is unclear. Vander-Linden said the samples had to have been rendered inert if they were being worked on in the pathology lab.

But Dr. Ayaad Assaad, a former Fort Detrick scientist who had extensive dealings with the lab, said that because some samples were received at the lab while still alive - with the expectation they would be treated before being worked on - it is possible some became missing before treatment. A phony "log slip" could then have been entered into the lab computer, making it appear they had been processed and logged.

In fact, Army investigators appear to have wondered if some of the anthrax specimens reported missing had ever really been logged in. When an investigator produced a log slip and asked Langford if "these exist or [are they] just made up on a data entry form," Langford replied that he didn't know.

--snip--

...[American Federation of Scientist researcher Barbara Hatch] Rosenberg's analysis of the anthrax attacks, which has been widely reported, concludes that the culprit is probably a government insider, possibly someone from Fort Detrick. The Army facility manufactured anthrax before biological weapons were banned in 1969, and it has experimented with the Ames strain for defensive research since the early 1980s.

--snip--

Late-Night Research

More troubling to Langford than the missing specimens was what investigators called "surreptitious" work being done in the pathology lab late at night and on weekends.

Dr. Mary Beth Downs told investigators that she had come to work several times in January and February of 1992 to find that someone had been in the lab at odd hours, clumsily using the sophisticated electron microscope to conduct some kind of off-the-books research.

After one weekend in February, Downs discovered that someone had been in the lab using the microscope to take photos of slides, and apparently had forgotten to reset a feature on the microscope that imprints each photo with a label. After taking a few pictures of her own slides that morning, Downs was surprised to see "Antrax 005" emblazoned on her negatives.

Downs also noted that an automatic counter on the camera, like an odometer on a car, had been rolled back to hide the fact that pictures had been taken over the weekend. She wrote of her findings in a memo to Langford, noting that whoever was using the microscope was "either in a big hurry or didn't know what they were doing."

It is unclear if the Army ever got to the bottom of the incident, and some lab insiders believed concerns about it were overblown. Brown said many Army officers did not understand the scientific process, which he said doesn't always follow a 9-to-5 schedule.

"People all over the base knew that they could come in at anytime and get on the microscope," Brown said. "If you had security clearance, the guard isn't going to ask you if you are qualified to use the equipment. I'm sure people used it often without our knowledge."

Documents from the inquiry show that one unauthorized person who was observed entering the lab building at night was Langford's predecessor, Lt. Col. Philip Zack, who at the time no longer worked at Fort Detrick. A surveillance camera recorded Zack being let in at 8:40 p.m. on Jan. 23, 1992, apparently by Dr. Marian Rippy, a lab pathologist and close friend of Zack's, according to a report filed by a security guard.

Zack could not be reached for comment. In an interview this week, Rippy said that she doesn't remember letting Zack in, but that he occasionally stopped by after he was transferred off the base.

"After he left, he had no [authorized] access to the building. Other people let him in," she said. "He knew a lot of people there and he was still part of the military. I can tell you, there was no suspicious stuff going on there with specimens."

Zack left Fort Detrick in December 1991, after a controversy over allegations of unprofessional behavior by Zack, Rippy, Brown and others who worked in the pathology division. They had formed a clique that was accused of harassing the Egyptian-born Assaad, who later sued the Army, claiming discrimination.

Assaad said he had believed the harassment was behind him until last October, until after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

He said that is when the FBI contacted him, saying someone had mailed an anonymous letter - a few days before the existence of anthrax-laced mail became known - naming Assaad as a potential bioterrorist. FBI agents decided the note was a hoax after interviewing Assaad.

But Assaad said he believes the note's timing makes the author a suspect in the anthrax attacks, and he is convinced that details of his work contained in the letter mean the author must be a former Fort Detrick colleague.

Brown said that he doesn't know who sent the letter, but that Assaad's nationality and expertise in biological agents made him an obvious subject of concern after Sept. 11.

[end]


SO--let's review that last paragraph or so. Scientist Assaad received a letter, during the anthrax attacks, that must have brought up in his mind all that harrassment activity in the 90s--they don't mention it here but it included a toy camel with sex toys stuck to it--obviously from a person or person who were in that Zack clique. The intention of the letter was to direct official attention and blame to Assaad--Asaad, the eternal scapegoat for the Zack bunch. No one is claiming that Ivins wrote the letter, but we are supposed to forget all about Zack and Rippy and the gang. If there were a real investigation of the anthrax attacks, rather than a Geronimo Pratt-style political propaganda effort going down, FBI agents would be all over Zack and Rippy and the gang, rather than offering Ivin's son thousands of dollars and a fancy car if he would agree to denounce his own dad.


Meanwhile, the propaganda is getting even thicker, and New York Times editors are getting in on the action.

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from Oped news, 8-1-08, by Scott Creighton:

.... I was reading the New York Times article which had some interesting facts that the other MSM sources didn't.

Guess what? That 2 page story, as I was reading it, when I went from page one to page two, refreshed page 1… because that is all that was there. THEY REPOSTED THE STORY WITHOUT THE ODDITIES THAT THE OTHER MSM DIDN'T HAVE!!!

They shortened the story to one page by taking out some KEY information that they had originally posted with the story. I knew I should have copy and pasted it! (If anyone still has the original, please let me know!)

What they took out was very interesting. They quoted a doctor, who worked with the guy who is now being accused of the anthrax attacks, as saying he didn't think the guy did it. They took that part out! They also took out the part where this guy received the highest Pentagon award a civilian can get for his research into an anthrax vaccine to be given to our troops in 2003. They took that out!And they also took out the part where this guy was cited for testing areas outside the restricted area for anthrax spores. And he found them, in someones secretary's desk and keyboard! Remember how this stuff was found on the mail from the drop box? It bleeds through the envelope. So, when he found it in someones secretary's desk and then on her keyboard, that might be a good place to start looking for the culprit. But they took that part out!

But they did add one thing. The reason I was reading the story again was because I was/am working on a story about the one thing they missed: motive. The guy had no motive and the original story lacked any mention of a motive….

Nowhere in the first story and many other MSM versions of this do they mention a possible motive. Nowhere. Well, it seems whomever is checking up on the "official" stories out there caught that little tidbit as well, and they have now added one. On line now in the story that was NOT in the original;

"Authorities were investigating whether Ivins released the anthrax as a way to test his vaccine, officials said." NYT.

There we have it! The "official story" complete with motive from the ghostly, unnamed, who the heck were they… "officials". Because that is what "they" said.

The problem with that? It makes no sense!
....[more at opednews.com]
http://willyloman.wordpress.com/

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And Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon, says this in part, in his third update to an article on Amerithrax:

"Long-time anthrax expert Dr. Meryl Nass (Curriculum Vitae here) uses crystal clear rationality to point out just some of the glaring flaws in what the FBI presented today. The fact that the FBI is plainly unable to place him near Princeton, New Jersey on either of the two dates on which the letters were sent -- and, worse, the fact that the FBI included several facts which cut against such a finding -- is, as Dr. Nass points out, by itself an enormous omission:

Put up or shut up: this is the most critical evidence in this case. If Ivins cannot be placed in New Jersey on those dates, he is not the attacker, or he did not act alone."

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I have to ask: what is the purpose of all this false closure in the 9/11 scares? Recently there was a ridiculous piece circulating in the msm that attempted to repeat the mantra that 20-minute fires and external damage from falling debris was able to magically vaporize the steel in WTC 7, that third building that went down without explanation. Like the other buildings' debris, the steel from WTC 7 was taken away and guarded, rather than made available for normal forensic examination. No one died in WTC 7, so I guess the official excuse that the crime scene debris was sacred to the grieving survivors doesn't apply, but I haven't heard anyone actually say that.


I will say, though, that it is obvious to anyone who really wants to look, that the US government is engaging in a massive mind-control propaganda campaign over 9/11 issues like the anthrax investigation. The closure of the Amerithrax investigation is just another lie like the 'weapons of mass destruction' ruse for invading Iraq. Right now we're getting increasing propaganda against Iran, in the very same vein, and it's obvious that the Cheney/Bush administration wants to commit some horrible act of terror against those people. First our minds have to be softened up a bit more, so that we'll fear imaginary Iranian threats. As I go about my daily duties, carting Americans to and from their jobs, I hear just how effective all this propaganda is. KBOO is a great tool against this sort of zombification but it's really up to you to find an opinion leader in your workplace, and stop the automatic assent with imperial war and internal fascism. You're the one that has to risk it.