Suspect In 2001 Anthrax Attacks Kills Himself. Options

[André]

The Justice Department was preparing to file criminal charges against Bruce E. Ivins in the anthrax mailing assaults of 2001 that killed five.
By David Willman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
9:42 PM PDT, July 31, 2008
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.

Ivins' name had not been disclosed publicly as a suspect in the case that disrupted mail service and Senate business three weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Maryland scientist had for years played a pivotal role in research to improve anthrax vaccines, preparing anthrax formulations used in experiments on animals.

Regarded as a skilled microbiologist, Ivins also had helped the FBI analyze the powdery material recovered from one of the anthrax-tainted envelopes sent to a U.S. senator's office in Washington, D.C.

more... http://www.latimes.com/news

This post has been edited by painter: Aug 1 2008, 02:13 AM

Reason for edit: Fixed link

[Devilsadvocate]

Simple question:

Who gained anything from that whole incident...?

Gerald Ford passed a directive which forbade the CIA to carry out assassinations, interfere with the political processess of other nations, or topple governments...blablabla.

And if I remember correctly, then George Bush's reaction to the attacks back then- at a time when the American parliament was effectively paralysed- was to lift precisely that directive:
Supposedly to help prevent terrorist attacks with weapons like that on US-soil.
I doubt somehow if he would have been able to do that under any other circumstances.
Correct me if I'm wrong...

[Sanders]

Gerald Ford passed a directive which forbade the CIA to carry out assassinations, interfere with the political processess of other nations, or topple governments...blablabla.

Yeah, that was funny. Like Nixon's forbidding the US from experimenting with chemical or biological weapons. They went right on doing it, just renamed the Army's bio-weapons program the "National Cancer Institute". (Not kidding btw)

Actually though, things have changed - I counted once, and from the 1947 passage of the National Security Act up until the Ford administration the US (mainly the CIA) was involved in about one coup d'etat (or intervention of some kind) a year - give or take, on the average. Now we are not so covert about it - we just go in and bomb.

And maybe no one puts much faith in the CIA anymore, not since the failed Venesuella coup of 2002. I hear Dick Cheney hates them. Besides, the CIA accounts for only 15% of the basket of US intelligence agencies. (NSA is far bigger). And who needs the CIA when you can farm that work out to a private company, maybe even one you and your friends have stock in?

The NYT neglected to mention that CIFA [Counterintelligence Field Activity (DoD)] is the government's most heavily outsourced intelligence agency. Over 30 corporations provide 90% of CIFA's staff--that's a blue green ratio of 1:9. CIFA's prime contractors are the usual suspects such as SAIC.

http://www.thespywhobilledme.com/

Anyway, somebody is still sneaking around out there - in places like Georgia.