Why Didn’t FBI Investigate AFIP’s Role in Starting the Iraq-Anthrax Rumors? - EmptyWheel

[WillyT]

Why Didn’t FBI Investigate AFIP’s Role in Starting the Iraq-Anthrax Rumors?
By: emptywheel
Monday May 23, 2011 1:20 pm

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I’ve been reading the National Academy of Sciences Anthrax Report and noted something odd in follow-up to the McClatchy report of the other day describing unexplained tin and silicon in one of the anthrax samples. (Here’s Jim White’s post on the report.) As McClatchy reported, there’s some weird data about silicon and tin in some of the samples.

The lab data, contained in more than 9,000 pages of files that emerged a year after the Justice Department closed its inquiry and condemned the late Army microbiologist Bruce Ivins as the perpetrator, shows unusual levels of silicon and tin in anthrax powder from two of the five letters.

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To arrive at that position, however, the FBI had to discount its own bulk testing results showing that silicon composed an extraordinary 10.8 percent of a sample from a mailing to the New York Post and as much as 1.8 percent of the anthrax from a letter sent to Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, far more than the occasional trace contamination. Tin — not usually seen in anthrax powder at all — was measured at 0.65 percent and 0.2 percent, respectively, in those letters.

But it turns out that the weirdest data–showing the 10.8 silicon in the NY Post sample–didn’t come from FBI. As NAS explained, that data came from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

Early in the investigation, AFIP performed <scanning electron microscopy-energy-dispersive X-ray> SEM-EDX analysis of a New York Post letter sample and found regions in the sample having high silicon content but no oxygen, suggesting the presence of silicon-rich material that was not related to nanoparticulate silica. While this observation could have led to an explanation for the difference between the bulk and individual spore measurements, follow-up experiments apparently were not performed.

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Much More: http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2011/05/23/why-didnt-fbi-investigate-afips-role-in-starting-the-iraq-anthrax-rumors/

:kick:

[WillyT]

1. Wow... Two Unrecs So Far...

Would love to know why...

:shrug:

[leveymg]

2. What the evidence seems to point to here is that the anthrax was made to look like it was Iraqi,

and those findings came from Dept. of Defense labs. Furthermore, the FBI never did adequately trace that back to determine exactly by whom and why that apparent fakery was carried out. The implication I read here is that the anthrax attacks were carried out as part of the falsified intelligence that got us into the Iraq War. As we all know, much the Iraq deception operation was organized by the Office of Vice President Cheney and the Office of Special Plans (OSP) under Donald Rumsfeld, Steve Cambone, Doug Feith, Luti, et al., and that this same group was also involved in engineering the faked aluminum tubes findings.

This was the analysis that a USAMRID scientist used to declare that the anthrax was weaponized–which said scientist retracted after later Sandia analysis was done (from the NAS report).

An initial finding by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) found, upon gross examination, that the spores exhibited a silicon signal and sometimes exhibited an oxygen signal. Subsequent studies conducted by Sandia National Laboratories (as described in Chapter 4 of this report) determined that the silicon was localized to the spore coat within the exosporium—that is, it was incorporated into the cell as a natural part of the cell formation process. The USAMRIID scientist who first reviewed the AFIP results and made statements regarding the presence of silicon and possible weaponization retracted those earlier statements.

So some of this was known before–that AFIP served a key role in early rumors that the anthrax was weaponized in a way that pointed to Iraq. But the NAS report seems to confirm that the Iraq rumors originated at least in part from AFIP.

That’s all very interesting for several reasons. First, because FBI claims to have gotten data on AFIP’s SEM-EDX tests just last year.

The committee notes that this information was not made available to it or to the FBI until spring 2010.

That would mean FBI didn’t get (or ask for?) the information until after it had closed the investigation (they closed the investigation in February 2010)!

It would also suggest–rather incredibly–that FBI didn’t hunt down this information when they were stonewalling Jerry Nadler about it (as McClatchy reminds).

New York Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler asked FBI Director Robert Mueller how much silicon was in the Post and Leahy letters at a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in September 2008. The Justice Department responded seven months later that silicon made up 1.4 percent of the Leahy powder (without disclosing the 1.8 percent reading) and that “a reliable quantitative measurement was not possible” for the Post letter.

More interesting still, NAS can’t explain what relationship existed between FBI and AFIP.

The committee also reviewed reports of work carried out in parallel at the AFIP although it is not clear how closely AFIP and the FBI investigative and scientific teams worked together or coordinated their efforts.

[Gregorian]

3. For all the walking the VP did to the FBI, you'd think he'd be in top notch physical shape.

This is really sick. It's an indication of the well being a nation.

Thank you Emptywheel for all of your efforts.