Secret reports: With security spotty, many had access to anthrax

[kpete]

Source: McClatchy

Secret reports: With security spotty, many had access to anthrax
By Greg Gordon and Stephen Engelberg | McClatchy Newspapers and ProPublica

WASHINGTON — The Army laboratory identified by prosecutors as the source of the anthrax that killed five people in the fall of 2001 was rife with such security gaps that the deadly spores could have easily been smuggled out of the facility, outside investigators found.

The existing security procedures _ described in two long-secret reports _ were so lax they would have allowed any researcher, aide or temporary worker to walk out of the Army bio-weapons lab at Fort Detrick, Md, with a few drops of anthrax _ starter germs that could grow the trillions of spores used to fill anthrax-laced letters sent to Congress and the media.

The two reports, which have not been made public for more than nine years, describe a haphazard system in which personnel lists included dozens of former employees, where new hires were allowed to work with deadly germs before background checks were done and where stocks of anthrax and other pathogens weren’t adequately controlled.

Fort Detrick since has adopted new bio-security measures. But the security reports by independent government specialists suggest that deadly anthrax stocks may have been more accessible than investigators assumed in declaring Army scientist Bruce Ivins the perpetrator.





Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/10/24/128012/secret-reports-suggest-ivins-and.html#ixzz1biGUY3kI

[Renew Deal]

1. I highly recommend this Frontline special on this topic

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/anthrax-files

[valerief]

2. Even the CIA. nt

[Poll_Blind]

3. Like Lt. Col. Philip Zack?

http://www.ph.ucla.edu/EPI/bioter/anthraxmissingarmylab.html">Anthrax Missing From Army Lab

:shrug:

PB

[Nihil]

14. Precisely.

Mind you, it's funny how that name is consistently missed out
of the distraction PR aimed at Hatfill & Ivins even though he
was one of the prime suspects immediately after the event ...

On the other hand, the simple examination of the target list
highlights the top-level criminal (i.e., the order-giver) so
blatantly that it takes a presidential "look forward" directive
to avoid any charges.

:shrug:

[OnyxCollie]

4. K&R. nt

[Octafish]

5. Whow knows what's the truth? When the Feds are among the suspects...

...they shouldn't be the investigators.

[certainot]

6. the attack helped disrupt dem opposition to patriot act- this is good secondary cover-up story

after they tried to pin it on someone else---- ANYONE could have done it! sure- maybe in the movies......

[BetsysGhost]

7. IF it says

libby libby libby on the label label label you will like it like it like it on your table table table.

[gratuitous]

8. Golly, can't you people quit lookin' backwards to the past?

After all, George W. Bush kept us mostly safe for most of his administration, and there's nothing to be gained by your obsession with these niggling details. Sure, some luckless postal workers died, and a nation was terrorized (and still is) by white powder, but all in all, it was really no big deal, and any legislation that passed while we were busy wetting our collective pants just isn't germane to this at all.

Stop it. Just stop it. You don't see the present administration worrying over this, so why should you?

[nineteen50]

9. Next question who was hurt and why?

[Kevin Cloyd]

10. George W. Bush and the antibiotic Cipro

Remember that George W. Bush and members his cabinet started taking Cipro, the exact antibiotic you'd take if you expected to be exposed to anthrax, on the afternoon of 9/11/2001...Three weeks before there was any public knowledge of the anthrax threat.

[formercia]

11. My take is that it left in a Glove Box during equipment maintenance.

it could just be a smear or dust on the walls of the box. The Anthrax would never have to leave the box until it was ready to be delivered.
Who would question scheduled maintenance.

[AntiFascist]

12. K&R, but this still sidesteps the issue...

that the weaponized anthrax mailed to Sen. Daschle was so sophisticated that it most likely was produced at Dugway Proving Ground, which was also the source of the non-weaponized Ames strain spores being tested by Ivins. There are also reports to be dug up about past corruption at Dugway, including the possible production of massive quantities of anthrax in violation of international agreements. Was this to be sold to the highest bidder?

[madokie]

13. There is no doubt in my mind that that came from the dicks direction

someone working for him is who sent those letters. It all happened so soon after the attacks that it seems as if they/he was ready for the aftermath as they were with the patriot bill. Cheney needs to be at the dock at The Hague answering to these charges that were never or haven't yet anyway been levied.