A point that's often overlooked in the anthrax case is that mad scientist Bruce Ivins had at least two counselors over the years who were disturbed enough by what he said during therapy sessions to alert the authorities that he was likely to murder somebody.
His 2008 counselor, who led a group therapy session for substance abusers, had to get a judge to issue a restraining order against Ivins after he threatened to murder her, along with his colleagues at work. This poor woman has had her dirty laundry aired all over the Internet by people trying to discredit her. Of course, Ivins made threats in front of his therapy group, so if you don't believe the group leader, you could just ask the other members of the group. But, I guess, the theory then would be that they are all drunks and pill-poppers too, so you can't believe them either ... or something.
Tellingly, Ivins' therapist in 2000 went to the cops, too, because Ivins had told her he intended to poison a young woman if she lost a soccer match. Fortunately, her team won.
That's like Anton Chigur demanding the that gas station clerk in "No Country for Old Men" flip a coin to see if he lives or dies. It's just not sane.
For me, that evidence that he was homicidally loony many years before the FBI had ever heard of him is, more than anything else, what caused me to change my evaluation of the case against Ivins from Plausible to Highly Probable. When a suspect kills himself, that's usually a sign of guilt. Perhaps, though, the FBI badgered an innocent man into suicidal depression?
But, it now turns out that Ivins had boasted about much of the modus operandi of the 2001 attacks in 2000 -- poisoning people and taking long drives to anonymously mail things without anybody noticing.
Moreover, it appears that the FBI was not in contact with his 2000 counselor until this summer. Evidently, they had settled upon him as the main suspect before talking to his 2000 counselor.
Strangely enough, it was Ivins himself who set in motion the surfacing of his 2000 therapist. Why did he do it? The Washington Post reported on August 7 about his 2000 counselor, who has had the good sense to stay anonymous and not endure the kind of abuse to which his 2008 counselor has been subjected:
The counselor had not heard from Ivins for years until he called out of the blue about two months ago. Politely, "he asked whether I remembered him," she said. And he asked whether she could give him his records for his attorney.
When FBI agents called her late last month [July] -- near the day [July 29, 2008] Ivins swallowed a lethal dose of Tylenol -- she replied, "In all my 25 years of counseling, there is only one client the FBI would call me about."
So, why did Ivins' attorney want Ivins' psychiatric records from 2000?
Ivins would have been crazy not to plead insanity!
Judging from what we've seen of Ivins emails, you could make a decent argument that he was close to legally insane in 2000. My vague impression is that he wasn't quite as crazy in 2001, perhaps due to the medication he'd been prescribed: I haven't heard about as many deranged emails from 2001 as from 2000.
In summary, we should have a national commission to investigate the anthrax terrorism. Put on it non-politicians who could master the genetics and the criminal investigation -- Henry Harpending, Vincent Bugliosi, Richard Posner, people of that caliber. My guess would be that Ivins will turn out to be the killer.
By the way, Science has a helpful article on the genetic side of the FBI's case.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Posts
7 comments:
Well, I personally think the FBI case against Ivins is so totally feeble and thin, that's its coming close to being "laughed out of court."
Even the MSM media isn't falling for the official spin this time like they did with Hatfill. There was a great front-page story in the NYT a few days about about all the other random people "nailed" by the FBI for the anthrax attacks over the years, some of whom drank themselves to death, a little like what happened to Ivins.
Personally, I can't see why Steve cares enough about the case to bet so much of his personal credibility on Ivins' guilt, but each to his own I suppose.
As I mentioned before, it's starting to look like the FBI didn't realize that Ivins' had a very strong alibi for when the letters were mailed in Princeton. But maybe he built a teleportation machine in his spare-time as well.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/10/anthrax/index.html
As long as Posner and Bugliosi don't talk about Bush v. Gore.
How about a national commission to investigate how our security clearances are granted?
"Oh, okay, so the terrorist responsible for the mailing of the anthrax letters---for bringing biological terrorism to the continental United States---was a highly vetted government scientist working at a secure facility with a baker's dozen of the world's most lethal natural and engineered biotoxins. But he was crazy, and so it's not our fault."
Move along folks, nothing to see here, just some crazy man is all.
Did you mean Richard Posner the judge or Gerald Posner, the guy who wrote Case Closed? I know you wrote Richard, but the pairing w/ Bugliosi makes me think you meant Gerald.
Anyway, for what it's worth, I saw Gerald Posner on TV last week. He's very skeptical of the government's case against Ivins.
Tellingly, Ivins' therapist in 2000 went to the cops, too, because Ivins had told her he intended to poison a young woman if she lost a soccer match. Fortunately, her team won.
OK, the scary thing here is, what the hell do you have to do lose a security clearance?
The anthrax case was an all out, no expense spared, red ball of red ball investigations. And yet, we have here two separate red flags the FBI (or whoever it is, if anybody, who keeps an eye on security clearances) should have caught years ago but didn't.
If the Feds aren't screening medical records (hmm, he's seeing a therapist--- does he a have a drug or mental problem, let's look into this), then at the very least they should be cross-referencing police reports with the names of folks with security clearances. The therapist went to the cops and somewhere in that police department is a report with his name on it that the Feds should have seen.
I'll make it easy for them, the FBI can send local PDs crime report templates with a big check box with "is suspect a federal employee or contractor?".
If that box is checked, get the agent in charge of busting college kids downloading music to take an afternoon off to see if there's a security clearance issue.
Senator Grassley asked a good question--Ivins by default had a top secret clearance (we would presume), which requires an FBI background check. They are routinely updated (not sure of the interval). One might think that before he was allowed to handle the evidence anthrax in 2001 they would have re-vetted his clearance, since they gave him a lie detector test (which he passed).
He may be the killer (he seems crazy enough and had access if not much of a motive) but there's still a question as to why the FBI didn't catch his 2000 prevarications when they allowed him to become part of the investigation team.
Ivins isn't the only one whose therapist reported him to police, didn't the Korean who shot up Virginia Tech also get reported as well?
Post a Comment