Anthrax Bruce Ivins wins highest civilian award from Defense Dept. in March, 2003

[kpete]

Anthrax Bruce Ivins wins highest civilian award from Defense Dept. in March, 2003
By: John Amato on Thursday, August 7th, 2008 at 2:50 PM - PDT

I’d love for somebody to explain this one to me. I know he was working on the anthrax vaccine, but who nominated Ivins for this award? This item has not been picked up by the press like it should have. C&L’s Mark Groubert tells me via email:



On March 14th, 2003 Bruce Ivins, the alleged anthrax killer and anthrax vaccine inventor, was awarded the highest civilian honor of the Pentagon by Army Secretary Thomas White. Exceptional Civilian Service Award

The LA Times:

At a Pentagon ceremony on March 14, 2003, Ivins and two colleagues from USAMRIID were bestowed the Decoration of Exceptional Civilian Service, the highest honor given to nonmilitary employees of the Defense Department. “Awards are nice,” Ivins said in accepting the honor. “But the real satisfaction is knowing the vaccine is back on line.

.....................

On April 26th, 2003, almost a month after White gave Ivins the award, the Army Secretary was fired by Donald Rumsfeld supposedly for this:

Last year, White locked horns with Rumsfeld over the Pentagon’s decision to cancel one of the Army’s pet projects, the $11 billion Crusader artillery system.


more at:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/07/anthrax-bruce-ivins-wins-highest-civilian-award-from-defense-dept-in-march-2003/

[aquart]

1. Well, someone should be embarrassed.

But then, when we think about those Medals of Freedom...it could mean he did it and they wanted to thank him.

[bluesmail]

2. They've done what they set out to: confuse an already

complicated situation. The medal could've been a Thank You and also could have been a true tribute...will we ever know which? I'm hoping before I die I find out. Been also waiting for JFK's real murderers.

[spanone]

3. did he receive it for sending the anthrax letters for cheney?

[EFerrari]

5. Ostensibly, for fixing the vaccine for Rumsfeld.

But maybe also for being a good beard for Cheney, too.

The more I think about it, the easier it seems. You, a fixer for Cheney, see an on-the-level academic and all you have to do is get your hands on a sample from his lab. How hard can that be? He hands them out to authorized people; that's part of his job. Rumsfeld puts out an order. It gets picked up by someone holding the right paper which Rumsfeld/Cheney can produce.

Go to the post office and pick up some envelopes. Go back to NJ's biotech row somewhere to a lab with the best biotech guy money can buy you. There's one out there somewhere. Finish the process, load up the envelopes. Walk them to a mailbox.

Who will they look at when the stuff is identified? The out front guy in charge of the lab at Detrick. He's a useful idiot. Piece of cake.

:tinfoilhat:

[Prefer]

6. Or maybe first you try to find an Arab to pin it on to support the war effort

http://archive.salon.com/news/feature/2002/01/26/assaad/index.html

And when that fails, look through the psychological info on everyone you can use and pick the weakest, most vulnerable one to use for the flush...

[EFerrari]

7. Yep. And there it is. n/t

[Marie26]

10. And the on-the-level academic

never mentions it to the FBI because....? Why would they want to draw attention to the stolen/diverted anthrax vial by awarding a medal to the scientist they stole it from? That'd be more likely as a reward &/or bribe to the person for assisting in the neocons' goals. Just like how they gave a Medal of Freedom to George Tenet & Paul Bremer a year later.

[EFerrari]

11. Never mentions what? His public job was to fix the vaccine.

And that's why he received the medal.

Nothing like Tenet or Bremer. There is no evidence that he did anything that was criminal. :shrug:

[Marie26]

13. OK

Nothing wrong with getting a medal, although it is a bit suspect when the Bush Administration is awarding it. But I was referring to your theory, that someone stole/mislead Ivins into providing the anthrax. Why on earth wouldn't he mention that to the FBI? Instead, if the affidavit can be believed, he actively mislead agents about the location of the anthrax vial.

[EFerrari]

14. Oh, I see now. Thanks.

Yes, getting a medal from these felons is a big tip off, I agree.

But, I've met and worked with so many people like Bruce Ivins. He just wasn't at a level where he could do something like that, imho. He was just at a level that other people could exploit.

I don't know if that makes any sense. But, if you look at his life before the FBI camped out all over it, he was just a guy doing a job that he was good at and enjoyed.

He had no reason to mention anything to the FBI because as far as he knew, nothing had happened. Not to mention, the FBI had been stalking the whole group at the lab -- not like crime fighters trying to find out what was wrong but like stalkers trying to trip someone up.

Ivins had no criminal record or any history of hurting anyone or of being a rule breaker. You don't just wake up at 62 and become an anti-social personality. :shrug:

[Marie26]

15. Could be

The medal thing is such a tip-off because the anthrax vaccine was something that Rummy really, really wanted for some reason. How do you know that Ivins wasn't on a level where he could do something like this? Based on his expertise in anthrax, work on the vaccine, handling of anthrax vials, he seems like one of the few people who WERE at the level to do something like this. At the point where the FBI started investigating Ft. Detrick, Ivins knew that something had happened. He could've thought back to who had received anthrax from him, mentioned it to the FBI. Instead, he apparantly mislead agents about the anthrax vial traced to the attacks. Just speculating, but it seems like Ivins was involved in SOME way, maybe just mixing the anthrax that was eventually used in the attacks.

He doesn't seem like a "sociopath" to me either, but he did seem to have some mental illness issues. Based on the descriptions of his behavior, it seems like he began decompensating rapidly under the pressure. And that very decompensation points to a pre-existing psychiatric illness of some kind, right? It almost seems more like paranoid schizophrenia more than anything else. But that doesn't mean he's innocent, or guilty, just that he began to crack from the stress. :shrug: We'll probably never know the whole truth, though.

[EFerrari]

17. One of his emails indicates that he'd had trouble

with anxiety and depression in grad school but that those symptoms had been gone for many years. It does sound as though he started having some type of relapse.

suffragette pointed out yesterday that some of the new symptoms he was reporting to his friend in an email were consistent with side effects of Ambien. (I believe it's somewhat unusual to come down with a personality disorder at that age but I'm not a doctor.) I don't know what other meds his doctor was trying him on but anti-depressants and anti-psychotics as well as Ambien can also produce paranoia.

The FBI says he was not co-operative in that he misled him. I don't know if that's true. He denied it. It sounds as if there was a mix up about what kind of sample they wanted. Some of the scientists that don't believe the FBI have said he could not have produced the anthrax in the form used in the attacks and I tend to believe them over the FBI because they don't work for Bushco.

It feels kind of crummy to have a government that cannot be trusted.

/oops

[Lilith Velkor]

4. !!!

[Marie26]

8. 6 days before the Iraq War began. nt

[Supersedeas]

9. at this point, don't they allegedly know that he provided the wrong sample?

[EFerrari]

12. Yeah, just like they know he hated women and was a revenge killer.

:shrug:

[Supersedeas]

16. with the same evidence (minus Duley the-group-AA counselor's affidavit) he is both

a Medal Winner AND a domestic terrorist -- and at the time Hatfill was their guy.

Now, the Medal Winner is a dead terrorist suspect and Hatfill is $5million dollars richer.

Oh, the difference a year or two can make when the evidence remains the same.

[EFerrari]

18. The FBI (or someone) is trying so hard to suppress this story

you know we will have a Return of the Repressed.

Hatfill has been quiet. His lawyer was on some show last week, though, and he excoriated the FBI. I don't think this is over.

[screembloodymurder]

21. Maybe this has something to do with it?

http://www.newsgarden.org/columns/anthrax/anthraxtargets.shtml

[EFerrari]

22. That article lays out the argument very well.

It's so over the top and given what we know now about BushCo, probably true.

[TexasObserver]

19. That's when he was helping them pursue Hatfill.

He was a resource, not a suspect, then.

[screembloodymurder]

20. Yep,

Goes to show just how selective the FBI can be when they have all the evidence, no one else can examine it, and they can use or reject any evidence as they choose w/o fear of rebuttal.