Emptywheel: Hey FBI?!? Who Put the Tin in Your Anthrax?

[deminks]

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/02/26/hey-fbi-who-put-the-tin-in-your-anthrax/

Last we heard from the FBI's not-so-smoking gun in the anthrax case, USAMRIID admitted that they had no idea what kind of flasks of anthrax and other microbes its scientists had hidden around their labs, basically shredding the FBI's claim that the anthrax used in the attacks on Congress and the Press could only have come from Bruce Ivins' flask.

Now, we learn that the supposedly exact match between Ivins' anthrax and that used in the attacks was not so close. (h/t fatster)

(snip)

Well, I suppose we could just wait for the National Academy of Science to recreate the FBI's anthrax work to figure this all out, right? Apparently, though, they can't even get the contract right to start work.

The academy is still in the process of drawing up a contract with the FBI that lays out an agreement to perform the study, says NAS spokeswoman Christine Stencel.

I can't help but wonder whether the contracting process here resembles the one used when the NAS cooked up a paper supporting Cheney's killing of millions of fish in the Klamath basin (as reported by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker in the WaPo).

(end snip)

Ruh roh. There is a lot more at the link.

[wildbilln864]

1. K&R That, goddamn it!

I never for a second believed Ivins was responsible.
Thanks for the heads up. :hi:

[robertpaulsen]

2. K & R!

:kick:

[RC]

3. With someone honest in the White House, maybe they can trace the bread crums...

errr..., Anthrax back to the real source in George Walker Bush's administration.

[Supersedeas]

4. and Muck Muck Mukasey was ready to close the investigation: what was he so rushed about!!??!!