Scientists say they need many more details to decide the merits of the case against Ivins. But despite the bureau's widely ridiculed mistakes--including an early focus on Ivins's former colleague Steven Hatfill--"the scientific evidence is probably really strong," says Steven Salzberg, a former TIGR researcher now at the University of Maryland (UMD), College Park. "They've got some very good people," Salzberg says. "The impression that they're not good may just come from their style. They never tell you anything."They never tell you anything? Right. Except when they set out to destroy someone. Then they tell you all kinds of things. Like the person of interest has a messy desk. The person of interest looks at pornography. The person of interest had a thing about sororities. A similar technique is used in Republican campaigns for President.
Circumstantial evidence questions as well as science questions:
Of course, style and secrecy doesn't prove they aren't capable. I would think well documented investigations with cases based on evidence (rather than personalities) would help prove whether they are capable or not. But the impression that the FBI cannot be trusted is the result of a "style" of apparent single-minded fixation on a victim, using their power to wear down or destroy the person they have chosen to accuse, and apparently forcing the evidence to suit themselves while ignoring or obscuring evidence that doesn't fit their chosen story line.Armed with the four tests, the FBI examined more than 1000 anthrax isolates, collected from 16 labs that had the Ames strain in the United States and several more in Canada, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In only eight of those samples, they found all four mutations seen in the envelope samples; and each of these eight, the affidavit says, was "directly related" to a "large flask" of spores, identified as RMR-1029, which Ivins had created in 1997 and of which he was the "sole custodian."
That still leaves many questions open, researchers say. ...
