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The gravamen of the FBI's case against Ivins is that in 1997 he mixed
an anthrax batch, RMR-1029, that was a genetic match to the letter
anthrax, and thereafter Ivins was the "sole custodian" of the flask that
contained it. (The FBI does not mention that other scientists at his
facility had unfettered access to the flask, nor emphasize that over 100
individuals at other facilities had access as well, and this does not
include the sources that provided Ivins with the anthrax components to
mix.) The crucial question to determine whether Ivins could be the
"lone biokiller" is thus whether the RMR-1029 in the flask in Ivin's
possession was fully weaponized. The answer is that it was not.
Neither the DOJ oral
presentation, nor anything in any of its documents states or implies
this during a public presentation whose purpose was to convince the
American public that the FBI "got the right man" this time.
They cannot even bring themselves to say that the spores in Ivins's
possession were of the same consistently tiny size of 1.5-3.0 microns that
made them so deadly -- something they would surely say were it so.
In fact, the topic is sedulously avoided even though -- or precisely
because -- it is essential to making the case against Ivins.
Better, Jeffrey Taylor, who seemed to
have a weak grasp of the evidence, in his opening remarks gave away the
fact that the anthrax in the letters did not come directly from the flask
with the sample of spores "RMR-1029" that Ivins monitored
and that were reportedly a genetic match to the anthrax that killed its
victims. Mr. Taylor advised:
As the court documents allege, the parent material of the anthrax
spores used in the attacks was a single flask of spores, known as
"RMR-1029," that was created and solely maintained by Dr. Ivins at
USAMRIID. This means that the spores used in the attacks were taken from
that specific flask, regrown, purified, dried and loaded into the
letters.
So, that's the game and the frame-up right there.
Regrown spores don't weaponize themselves. They do not regrow
super-small and covered with state-of-the-art anti-clumping silica
(silicon dioxide) with a weak electrical charge for dispersion. And
how do we know, aside from voluminous ongoing reports that we will soon
examine, that there was such silica on the spores, and that it was cutting
edge technology? Search Warrant Affidavit 07-534-M-01 (available at
USDOJ:
Amerithrax Court Documents
), dated October 31, 2007, states
in pertinent part, p.4:
Microscopic examination of the evidentiary spore powders
recovered from all four letters identified an elemental signature of
Silicon within the spores. This Silicon signature had not been
previously described for Bacillus anthracis organisms.
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