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You are here: Home / Politics / War on Terror / War on Terror aka GSAVE® / Glad That’s Finally Answered

Glad That’s Finally Answered

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Anthrax case solved?

The FBI is formally closing its investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks, NPR has learned from sources familiar with the case.

Officials are expected to announce Friday afternoon that former Army scientist Bruce Ivins was responsible for mailing anthrax-laced letters to politicians and journalists in 2001, and that he worked alone. Five people died and 17 were sickened by the attacks.

A grateful FOX News can finally lay to rest scurrilous rumors that these fatal attacks with a bioweapons agent had anything to do with terrorism.

Reader Interactions

81Comments

  1. 1.

    soonergrunt

    What are they claiming was his motive?
    And yeah, I do believe that this is the case. After it was discovered that the anthrax was an Ames strain, that pretty much foreclosed the possibility that it was anyone but a government or contractor bioengineer.

  4. 4.

    drillfork

    There seem to be some pretty big holes in the case against Ivins.

    Can’t wait to read what Glenzilla has to say about this…

  6. 6.

    Redshirt

    Well, at least it wasn’t Terrorism then. As we know, White Males cannot commit Terrorism. Sorry, wait: White Conservative Males cannot commit Terrorism.

  7. 7.

    Cat

    Working alone? Wasn’t one of the letters originated from a mailbox in another state at a time he couldn’t have posted it?

    edit:

    Wiki says he merely can’t be placed in Princeton on the day of the mailings. Of course we’ll never hear his side of his story about that day.

  9. 9.

    Punchy

    This case will forever haunt the US, b/c I believe that it was the first ubiquitous use of the phrase “person of interest”, a precedent that basically now allows Five-O to call anyone a suspect without formally calling them a “suspect”, which might require some sort of evidence.

    Plus, the phrase is non-sensical. If they’re of interest, why not go find them and see what’s so interesting, then leave them alone?

  13. 13.

    serge

    “A grateful FOX News can finally lay to rest scurrilous rumors that these fatal attacks with a bioweapons agent had anything to do with terrorism.”

    I’m sure that Dr Ivins simply had a long standing dispute with the IRS.

  18. 18.

    ajr22

    @Tim F.: Yes this sums up the plot of Die Hard 4 pretty well. Yes i have seen Die Hard 4, and I don’t recommend it. I thought this event had been erased from existence cause you know “Bush kept us safe after 911”.

  19. 19.

    Rock

    Yeah it clearly wasn’t terrorism,as we know Bush kept us safe and we know an Army scientist can’t commit a terrorist act. Unless it’s a Muslim Army scientist. Also, too, if Ivins was upset about taxes then it’s sort of understandable. Just ask Scott Brown.

  21. 21.

    Fergus Wooster

    @Cat:

    Working alone? Wasn’t one of the letters originated from a mailbox in another state at a time he couldn’t have posted it?

    Go back to sleep, America. Your government is in control. Here’s some American Idol for ya.

    (apologies to Mr. Hicks)

  22. 22.

    MikeJ

    @soonergrunt:

    To my recollection, that term was first used with respect to Richard Jewell in relation to the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Park bombing. But I could be wrong.

    If I recall, they called Jewell a suspect and then had to retract it. It’s because of what they did to Jewell that they use the phrase “person of interest.”

  23. 23.

    jrg

    Stack is dead (so is the Antrax mailer). They cannot be denied their right to remain silent. Therefore, there is no reason to label either of them as terrorists.

    “terrorism” as we all know, is an important legal concept whereby the our superiors can deny a person all of their rights, torture them, and toss them in prison forever.

    We cannot just throw the term around as we please, otherwise it might lose any and all f*cking meaning.

  24. 24.

    Punchy

    If I recall, they called Jewell a suspect and then had to retract it. It’s because of what they did to Jewell that they use the phrase “person of interest.”

    This is what I remember, too. The POI phraseology stuck out to me so much in Sept. 2001 precisely b/c I’d never heard of such a bullshit euphanism that was CLEARLY meant to inflict harrassment and a psuedo-“guilty!” vibe to Hatfield’s name, without actually formally calling him a suspect and all the bullshit paperwork and PR that would require.

  25. 25.

    JoJo

    I’m curious as to why Bruce Ivins would have mailed anthrax to the tabloid photographer who took that embarrasing photo of Bush’s drunken daughter.

  27. 27.

    MikeJ

    @Punchy: If you go to a judge and ask for a search warrant, it ought to be served on, or in connection with, a suspect. If you’re only “interested” the judge should tell you to take a hike. Sadly, I doubt that will ever happen.

  28. 28.

    cervantes

    This is yet one more of those cases where the publicly available evidence will never quite be conclusive and people will never be satisfied with the official explanation. Maybe it really was just one oddball guy was deranged enough to do this for extremely half-assed reasons; and yet that just doesn’t seem to measure up to the immensity of the event.

    That’s the formula for an eternity of conspiracy theories.

  29. 29.

    Danton

    Shaun White? Definitely a person of interest. The guy who sold me a netbook last week at Best Buy? Definitely not a person of interest.

  30. 30.

    Mark S.

    @bago:

    I found Greenwald’s update interesting:

    I want to add one point: the immediate official and media reaction was to avoid, even deny, the term “terrorist” because the perpetrator of the violence wasn’t Muslim. But if Stack’s manifesto begins to attract serious attention, I think it’s likely the term Terrorist will be decisively applied to him in order to discredit what he wrote. His message is a sharply anti-establishment and populist grievance of the type that transcends ideological and partisan divisions — the complaints which Stack passionately voices are found as common threads in the tea party movement and among citizens on both the Left and on the Right — and thus tend to be the type which the establishment (which benefits from high levels of partisan distractions and divisions) finds most threatening and in need of demonization.

    I don’t know; the Unabomber didn’t really fit on the ideological spectrum, but then again, he wasn’t very populist. I am sure that once Fox News determines that Stack wasn’t a fan of Glenn Beck they will start calling him a terrorist and try to paint him as a liberal.

  31. 31.

    geg6

    @inkadu:

    Yes, that would be Bruce Ivins. Convenient, isn’t it?

    I have seen no credible evidence that Mr. Ivins committed this terrorist act. In fact, most evidence I’ve seen would lead to an acquittal for Mr. Ivins in a court of law. But, oh well, he’s dead, so let’s convict him in the press and move on, never looking back, always twirling, twirling…

  32. 32.

    Mark S.

    What’s the difference between a person of interest and a material witness? Isn’t that what they called Eric Rudolph for several years when they couldn’t find him?

  34. 34.

    Chris

    I believe the government had to pay 5 million in compensation to the first lab scientist they tried by media as a person of interest.

    I also remember a pretty comprehensive serious list of concerns about the soundness of the case against Ivans when they first announced the case closed, right after his suicide. I can’t remember the details but I’m sure they’ll turn up online.

  36. 36.

    Pangloss

    The Republicans are using a old, familiar Vietnam strategy– they are going to destroy the country in order to “save” it.

  38. 38.

    freelancer

    @Pangloss:

    There’s no response for that outside of the Onion.

    “Our very way of life is under siege,” said Mortensen, whose understanding of the Constitution derives not from a close reading of the document but from talk-show pundits, books by television personalities, and the limitless expanse of his own colorful imagination. “It’s time for true Americans to stand up and protect the values that make us who we are.”
    According to Mortensen—an otherwise mild-mannered husband, father, and small-business owner—the most serious threat to his fanciful version of the 222-year-old Constitution is the attempt by far-left “traitors” to strip it of its religious foundation.
    “Right there in the preamble, the authors make their priorities clear: ‘one nation under God,'” said Mortensen, attributing to the Constitution a line from the Pledge of Allegiance, which itself did not include any reference to a deity until 1954. “Well, there’s a reason they put that right at the top.”

    Fuck the Angry White Guy.

  39. 39.

    Cat Lady

    I am sure that once Fox News determines that Stack wasn’t a fan of Glenn Beck they will start calling him a terrorist and try to paint him as a liberal.

    The left/right spectrum is a handy tool for the establishment pimps in the media, but Stack’s ideology, such as it can be gleaned, is that the real divide in American politics isn’t Left vs. Right — it’s Up vs. Down. That’s an awareness that establishment media fight like hell to suppress. No one on Fox believes most of what they spew to the rubes, because they know the left/right thing keeps everyone fighting over the crumbs.

  42. 42.

    JohnR

    Helps to have a dead guy to blame it on. Who knows, maybe he even did it! In any event, it’s good to know that our long national nightmare is over (by which I mean that Tiger Woods has finally apologized to each of us personally for letting us all down).

  43. 43.

    WereBear

    It’s possible they framed a person with a known instability… or that an unstable person would come up with such a scheme.

    The problem is that they did a CYA kind of investigation, and revealing anything, pro or con, is now under the cloak of secrecy, and we have to wait fifty years or something.

    By which time the asses being covered are long gone.

  45. 45.

    Breezeblock

    Totally OT, and I apologize if someone posted this.

    Bob of Bob’s Red Mill gave his company to his employees.

    Link

  50. 50.

    licensed to kill time

    @freelancer:

    White Guy Fucking Angry at Fucking Angry White Guy may or may not = Angry White Guy, but you better watch it, dude. You’re inching close to the edge ;-)

    Could start an Angry White Guy Infinite Loop.

  52. 52.

    jacy

    @jeffreyw:

    The puppy pictured looks more to me like an Australian Shepherd mix. ACDs are almost always either red or blue merle, while Aussie shepherds can be a wider range of coat colors. And the floppy ears indicate shepherd. Also, many people confuse the Australian shepherd with the border collie. My mom has a tri-color Australian shepherd who was tagged at the shelter as “border collie.”

    The ACD/Heeler confusion I think comes in because for a time it was popular with some people, I think mostly in America, to dock the tails of ACDs and then call them “heelers.” But it was just the same breed with an artificially bobbed tail. In Australia, the terms were interchangeable, with the name Australian Cattle Dog being the official designation for registration purposes.

    (sorry, bit of an ACD fanatic)

  53. 53.

    WereBear

    @jeffreyw: Oh, I was just curious, and figured people who are familiar might bring it up.

    While I’ve rescued both cats & dogs who looked purebred, they would grow up and turn out not to be, revealing upon maturity some other breed that added spice to the mix.

    And there’s nothing wrong with that.

  54. 54.

    JenJen

    @jeffreyw: As someone who has spent a lifetime around Aussie Cattle Dogs (aka Blue Heelers), I think it’s a real stretch to call him a Cattle Dog X, unless you know for a fact who his moms is. If anything, he looks like an adorable little Jack Russell X, but just not stocky enough to be a Cattle Dog, and the coloring is way off when it tends to be dominant (Bentley Mark) even in a mix.

    Then again, here’s my own Aussie Cattle Dog X. And I knew his moms, because she was a purebred working dog who apparently met up with a hound when we weren’t looking.

    At any rate, what a gorgeous little mutt. WANT!

  55. 55.

    Trevor B

    I am not convinced and neither is Science, the article they ran a year or so ago, makes it seem very unlikely that Ivins did this all alone or at all.

  56. 56.

    Sentient Puddle

    @Pangloss: Yeah, this is fucking absurd. In a vacuum, I’d dismiss this as some morons on Facebook doing moronic things (as they are wont to do), but I’m seeing way too many comments on way too many news articles sympathizing with this fucker. I really hope this is a case of me getting a skewed sample, because I wouldn’t know how to deal with shit like this.

    Yes, I’m still very testy about the plane crash.

  58. 58.

    JenJen

    @jeffreyw: Straying way off-topic here, still, but here’s a picture of little Strider, my ACD mix, when he was just a pup. Had the Bentley Mark (that little white star on the head) as a baby, but lost it, and a lot of his white, as he left puppyhood and his face got all houndy. :-)

    @jacy:

    sorry, bit of an ACD fanatic.

    I always knew I liked you.

    My Aussie Sheps:
    http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y143/TavernWenchBlog/RoccoAtPlay.jpg
    http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y143/TavernWenchBlog/Stu.jpg

  65. 65.

    Face

    Preaching to the choir and all that, but….

    there’s no way he did all of this alone. Growing it, getting it out of the lab without anyone seeing him or noticing the shit missing in inventory, mailing it out….at the very least, others had to know something was up.

  68. 68.

    jacy

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I spend half my time extolling the virtues of the ACD as the greatest dog in the world, and then the other half explaining that they’re not for everyone…..

    Neurotic, need constant attention, tend to obsess about one person — my S/O has a terrible time walking my dog if I’m busy, he slips the lead on and she immediately hits the floor and refuses to move.

    Oh, they tend to want to herd you if you try and leave the room without them. I have a constant black and blue mark on the back of my calf where Delphi nips if I try to walk the other dogs without her….

    OCD? Yes, I am pathetic and have devolved the thread into “Cattle Dog Talk”

  69. 69.

    Brick Oven Bill

    If I were aligned with the Democratic Party, I would not have wanted to discuss Tiger’s reading to us either.

  71. 71.

    AnotherBruce

    This anthrax thing, it couldn’t be important anyway because our media forgot all about it.

  72. 72.

    Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan

    I guess the FBI is declaring victory and going home.

    I thought the forsenic results mentioned in the WSJ report moe99 licked pretty much blew their theory that it was a Fort Detrick scientist out of the water.

    They’ll have to have some serious stuff up their sleeves to be convincing it was Ivins.

  73. 73.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Jacy

    Far be it from me to criticize. They are beautiful/cute higly intelligent-looking dogs. I don’t blame you one bit.

  75. 75.

    Chyron HR

    @Brick Oven Bill:

    A billionaire took time out from golfing to give a press conference where he refused to answer questions? Sounds like a page out of the Republican party playbook (S. Palin, 2008) to me.

  77. 77.

    Anne Laurie

    @jeffreyw: Eli is a cutie! But technically he can’t be called a Blue Heeler because he is not “blue” (i.e., grey) — he’s a tricolor, and the herding people would probably call him a “light tri” (since he’s mostly white). Presumably whoever dropped the litter off at the shelter identified their momma as a ACD? From your great photos, he looks the right shape for a cattle dog, but of course at 8 weeks most puppies are square & stumpy. If he’s really part ACD, his ears should ‘come up’ (stand up straight like a German Shepherd’s) within the next few weeks. But if I was backed to the wall by a purist, I’d go with “terrier mix” as a best guess… the purebred ACDs I have known have had the same, shall we say, high-energy zest for life as the classic terrier-ists, so Eli’s eventual adopters will have fair warning. If he’s inherited the ACD herding instincts, he’ll be a heel-nipper and toy-hoarder instead of a gleeful toy-destroyer, but the energy levels and unwillingness to take orders from people they don’t respect are similar.

  79. 79.

    Donald G

    @freelancer:

    I think this news may have broken Fox’s head.

    I’m surprised Fox hasn’t found a way to blame the anthrax mailings on the late Molly Ivins… unless they’re waiting for Glen Beck and his markers and whiteboard.

  80. 80.

    drag0n

    I kind of find it hard to believe there is some grand consipiracy to frame Ivins. There is plenty of evidence that he was a certified nut-case.

    I think it’s much more likely that there is a grand conspiracy to cover up the fact that there may have been work being done of a military nature at Fort Derrick that was not supposed to be happening.

  81. 81.

    jeffreyw

    @Anne Laurie: I have no idea where the ID came from, other than the vet at the center made it. Mrs J says the vet had a champion show dog (a Great Dane) and assumes she has some basis. I don’t have a clue, myself. The vet may have had some info from the person who brought the litter to the shelter but that is surmise on my part.

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