SUN EDITORIAL:

Overcoming anthrax doubts

Panel that will review government investigation of attacks must be independent

Saturday, Sept. 20, 2008 | 2:10 a.m.

The FBI, the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., and postal inspectors did not convince everyone last month when they laid out their case against the late Army microbiologist Dr. Bruce Ivins.

Ivins, they said with surety, committed the anthrax attacks that took place in September and October 2001. The attacks killed five people, injured 17 and spread fear that terrorists responsible for 9/11 were branching out into biological warfare.

But not everyone was sold on the federal officials’ presentation, which followed Ivins’ apparent suicide July 29 as federal agents were finalizing their largely circumstantial case against him.

Skeptics include members of Congress, who are still expressing concern that the case, which for years focused on another Army microbiologist, has not been fully solved.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told FBI Director Robert Mueller at a hearing Wednesday that he believes the anthrax attacks involved more than one person.

One of the anthrax letters was addressed to Leahy. That letter, which never reached the senator, was the likely source of an anthrax infection contracted by a government mail worker.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, a former chairman of the Judiciary Committee who today is its ranking Republican, also expressed doubts. He was rebuffed when he demanded that some of the scientists who will do an independent review of the Ivins investigation be selected by the Judiciary Committee.

Mueller had announced Tuesday that, partly owing to pressure from members of Congress, he will ask the National Academy of Sciences to conduct the review.

Responding to Specter, Mueller said he would consider his request, but the academy and the Justice Department would likely have to agree to it.

Specter responded: “What’s there to consider, Director Mueller? We’d like ... to name some people there to be sure of its objectivity. We’re not interlopers. This is an oversight matter.”

Specter is right. To help prevent doubt from lingering forever, the public — and Congress — must be assured the review panel is indeed independent.

Discussion: 3 comments so far…

By bofors

9/20/08 at 5:08 p.m.

Suggest removal

We know that Congress was attacked by the Bush-Cheney regime with the Anthrax to force passage of the unconstitutional "Patriot" Act (a disgusting name for a sick bill). The way the Anthrax was weaponized indicates it was produced for the CIA by the Battle Labs. So, Dr. Bruce Ivins had nothing to do with it. But it is absurd to think that National Academy of Sciences will do anything different than the 9/11 Commission or the Warren Commission, that is rubber stamp an official lie.

9/11 was an Inside Job. We know this for many reasons, the most outstanding of which is of course: World Trade Center Building 7 (Watch this building fall on YouTube). Almost 500 architects & engineers certify that this building, which housed the CIA in New York, was, like the twin towers, brought down in a controlled demolition on 9/11: AE911Truth.org.

Learn the Truth about 9/11. Watch "Loose Change", "Fabled Enemies", "ZERO: An Investigation into 9/11" or "9/11 Press for Truth" on Google Video.
By bofors

9/20/08 at 5:27 p.m.

Comment removed by staff.
By EFerrari

9/21/08 at 7:45 a.m.

Suggest removal

The FBI's own leading expert has already said that the science alone cannot prove Bruce Ivins refined and mailed that anthrax. So, the idea that such a panel can definitively prove the FBI's case is an error and the exercise itself is founded on a false premise -- not a good beginning.

Unless the Bush Justice Department intends to investigate itself, which is likely given their track record, they should have no part in choosing or approving the composition of a review panel.

I hope the press interrogates the credentials and the associations of all members of that panel with far more vigor than they have the unbelievable case the FBI leaked to them during smearing of Dr. Bruce Ivins.

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