Anthrax suspect dies in apparent suicide

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_10065164?nclick_check=1

By David Willman
Los Angeles Times
Article Launched: 08/01/2008 01:31:11 AM PDT



A top government scientist who helped the FBI analyze samples from the 2001 anthrax attacks has died in Maryland from an apparent suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to file criminal charges against him for the attacks, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

Bruce 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 his impending prosecution, said people familiar with Ivins, his death and with the FBI investigation.

Ivins, whose name had not been disclosed publicly as a suspect in the case, had played a central role in research to improve anthrax vaccines by 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.

Ivins died Tuesday at Frederick Memorial Hospital after having ingested a massive dose of prescription Tylenol mixed with codeine, said a friend and colleague who declined to be identified out of concern, he said, that he would be harassed by the FBI.

The death - without any mention of suicide - was announced to Ivins' colleagues at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in an e-mail.

"People here are pretty shook up about it," said Caree Vander Linden, a spokeswoman

[malaise]

1. Thing that make you scratch your head and go

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, Agrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and then WTF.

Is there a sudden spike in 'odd' suicides?

[aquart]

2. Didn't a whole lot of microbiologists get dead for a while?

People remarked upon the remarkable coincidences, IIRC.

[Delphinus]

3. Yeah,

there have been three this week. The first two I most definitely have some questions about - I need to look into this guy a bit more. I know they were going after one man - but I *don't* think it was this one.

[seemslikeadream]

4. How convenient

He did it but he's dead cam't defemd himself now

[NashVegas]

19. And He Can't Nail Whomever Paid Him

[cascadiance]

20. Somebody made sure and saved Bush from one pardon he had to give...

[liberal N proud]

5. Suicides and plane crashes

[CJCRANE]

6. So the guy who did it

helped investigate the attacks...?!!

Sounds like the typical Bushco inside job MO (fox guarding the henhouse).

[TexasObserver]

7. he wasn't murdered, as far as I know

The Bush crime family is cleaning up loose ends before they leave office again.

[seemslikeadream]

8. Leahy/Mukasey "Know Exactly WHO Sent Anthrax Laden Letter"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3594268


Leahy/Mukasey "Know Exactly WHO Sent Anthrax Laden Letter"
Posted by kpete on Thu Jul-10-08 10:06 AM

Yeah, What ABOUT that Anthrax Terrorist?
By: emptywheel Thursday July 10, 2008 5:47 am 1
diggs
digg it

Call me crazy. But after viewing this very creepy exchange between Patrick Leahy and Michael Mukasey regarding the anthrax killer, I got the feeling that both of them know exactly who sent those anthrax-laden letters almost seven years ago.

Leahy uses the recent settlement between Hatfill and DOJ to raise the issue. As he raises it, he notes that he is privy to classified information about the anthrax killer, and because of that he has refrained from even discussing the case.

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 ...

Then Leahy makes s curious statement: we're paying Hatfill, which means that the guy who committed the crime is going free.

Leahy: We're paying Hatfill millions of dollars, the indication being the guy who committed the crime went free.

I'll let you sort through the logic of that sentence. But know that Mukasey doesn't like it--not at all.

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.

Eventually, it seems that Muaksey concedes that he, too, has very specific knowledge about the case.

Mukasey: That case is under active investigation and I need to be very careful about what I say.

Which Leahy seems to confirm. After all, if they didn't have very specific things to say to each other about the pursuit of the anthrax terrorist, then what good would a "private talk" about this be?

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 throug, 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.

more at:
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/07/10/yeah-what-about-that-anthrax-terrorist/

[seemslikeadream]

9. Brother knew Ivins a suspect 2:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/08/01/am.bpr.anthrax.suspect.cnn

[seemslikeadream]

10. Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/


ABC News already knows the answers to these questions. They know who concocted the false bentonite story and who passed it on to them with the specific intent of having them broadcast those false claims to the world, in order to link Saddam to the anthrax attacks and -- as importantly -- to conceal the real culprit(s) (apparently within the U.S. government) who were behind the attacks. And yet, unbelievably, they are keeping the story to themselves, refusing to disclose who did all of this. They're allegedly a news organization, in possession of one of the most significant news stories of the last decade, and they are concealing it from the public, even years later.

They're not protecting "sources." The people who fed them the bentonite story aren't "sources." They're fabricators and liars who purposely used ABC News to disseminate to the American public an extremely consequential and damaging falsehood. But by protecting the wrongdoers, ABC News has made itself complicit in this fraud perpetrated on the public, rather than a news organization uncovering such frauds. That is why this is one of the most extreme journalistic scandals that exists, and it deserves a lot more debate and attention than it has received thus far.

UPDATE: One other fact to note here is how bizarrely inept the effort by the Bush DOJ to find the real attacker has been. Extremely suspicious behavior from Ivins -- including his having found and completely cleaned anthrax traces on a co-worker's desk at the Ft. Detrick lab without telling anyone that he did so and then offering extremely strange explanations for why -- was publicly reported as early as 2004 by The LA Times (Ivins "detected an apparent anthrax leak in December 2001, at the height of the anthrax mailings investigation, but did not report it. Ivins considered the problem solved when he cleaned the affected office with bleach").

In October 2004, USA Today reported that Ivins was involved in another similar incident, in April of 2002, when Ivins performed unauthorized tests to detect the origins of more anthrax residue found at Ft. Detrick. Yet rather than having that repeated, strange behavior lead the FBI to discover that he was involved in the attacks, there was a very public effort -- as Atrios notes here -- to blame the attacks on Iraq and then, ultimately, to blame Stephen Hatfill. Amazingly, as Atrios notes here, very few people other than "a few crazy bloggers are even interested" in finding out what happened here and why -- at least to demand that ABC News report the vital information that it already has that will shed very significant light on much of this.

[Blackhatjack]

11. How convenient ... now no one can question him, and the Govt closes all the case files.

We will never know who he worked with, if in fact he was responsible.

This death should be investigated.

[seabeyond]

12. shook up? cause they had a murdering sob in their mist for all these years?

cause someone took the shit out of their lab to murder people for a political statement?

cause an sob committed suicide before answers were given?

[Virginia Dare]

13. Yep..I'm pretty shook up about the fact that..

somebody apparently tried to murder two Democratic Senators, and a major network journalist with U.S. government anthrax. And then somebody apparently tried to cover it up.

[AngryAmish]

14. "shook up? cause they had a murdering sob in their mist for all these years?"

I'm gonna have to keep that one.

[helderheid]

15. Rec 1 and here's more

Anthrax Scientist Kills Himself as FBI Closes In


Biodefense Researcher Apparently Commits Suicide Amid Probe of 2001 Anthrax Attack
By PIERRE THOMAS and JASON RYAN
Aug. 1, 2008

One of the nation's top biodefense researchers has apparently taken his own life, just as the FBI zeroed in on him as a suspect in the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks.

Sources familiar with the investigation tell ABC News that 62-year-old Bruce Ivins, who worked at the military lab at Fort Detrick, Md., died of a prescription drug overdose this week. The story was first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

His death came as FBI agents had been aggressively interviewing friends, family and associates about the possibility he was responsible for a series of anthrax mailings that left five dead, sickened 17 and terrorized a nation still reeling from the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

FBI officials had long targeted Fort Detrick as the possible source of the anthrax attacks because of the facility's intensive research on anthrax as a biological weapon.

VIDEO: http://www.abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5494971&page=1

[TexasObserver]

16. From past history, we know that Lee Harvey Oswald and Timothy McVeigh always work alone.

Sure is convenient, isn't it? Before going public with "this is the guy," the guy offs himself.

[kma3346]

17. I think that this cabal is in overdrive right now

Lots of loose ends to clean up before November.

[helderheid]

21. yep

[Zywiec]

18. How convenient

Now he doesn't have to spend the rest of his life in jail...

[Iggo]

22. Mm-hmm. (n/t)

[ljm2002]

23. How convenient...

...now he cannot be questioned and possibly reveal who else may have been involved -- or who put him up to it.

What I remember from back then, was how the anthrax supplies at the lab in, IIRC, Ames Iowa, was destroyed right after they were identified as the originating strain. At the time it was presented as standard operating procedure, which they had neglected to modify in light of the attacks ... just a l'il ol' "oopsie" doncha know...

Again, how conveenient...

We are living in dark times, the depths of which are not even suspected by most Americans. Just us tin-foilers, or as Darth Cheney might put it, dead-enders...

Personally I hope I live long enough to see the truth come out. When it does it will be ugly. We are dealing with dark players indeed -- RIP, David Kelly. May the light of truth and justice prevail, and reveal them for who and what they are.