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Robb Carr/AP
Frederick Police talk with a woman who they identified as Diane Ivins, the widow of
Bruce E. Ivins. (AP)
Frederick Police talk with a woman who they identified as Diane Ivins, the widow of
Bruce E. Ivins. (AP)
Questions Surround FBI’s Anthrax Case Against Ivins
by
Josh Katz
Some of those affected by the anthrax attacks of 2001 have been questioning the FBI's evidence against the alleged perpetrator, Bruce Ivins.
30-Second Summary
Federal authorities are expected to outline the case this week against Ivins to the families of victims of the 2001 anthrax attacks. However, many remain skeptical about the case as the evidence surfacing against Ivins is reputedly largely circumstantial, according to the Baltimore Sun.
Ivins, 62, died of an apparent suicide on July 31. Ivins, a prominent scientist who worked at the U.S. government’s biodefense research laboratories and assisted authorities in the anthrax investigation, had allegedly learned that the FBI was going to file charges against him.
But Dr. Kenneth W. Hedlund, the former chief of bacteriology at Fort Detrick, says, “I think he’s a convenient fall guy. They can say, ‘OK, we found him, case closed, we’re going home.’”
The FBI had reportedly connected the anthrax used in the attacks with anthrax found in Ivins’s lab. The Los Angeles Times, which broke the story about his suicide, also pointed to Ivins’s history of mental illness. The Associated Press also reported on Ivins infatuation with Princeton’s Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, located near the mailbox where four anthrax-laced letters were found.
But, in The Wall Street Journal, Richard Spertzel, head of the biological-weapons section of Unscom from 1994 to 1999, is doubtful that Ivins was the lone culprit, or even involved at all, because the anthrax strains from the attacks were too different from that available in Ivins’s lab.
Whether Ivins was the perpetrator or not, in an L.A. Times op-ed, Gabriel Schoenfeld argues that the anthrax case has been a failure for the FBI.
Ivins, 62, died of an apparent suicide on July 31. Ivins, a prominent scientist who worked at the U.S. government’s biodefense research laboratories and assisted authorities in the anthrax investigation, had allegedly learned that the FBI was going to file charges against him.
But Dr. Kenneth W. Hedlund, the former chief of bacteriology at Fort Detrick, says, “I think he’s a convenient fall guy. They can say, ‘OK, we found him, case closed, we’re going home.’”
The FBI had reportedly connected the anthrax used in the attacks with anthrax found in Ivins’s lab. The Los Angeles Times, which broke the story about his suicide, also pointed to Ivins’s history of mental illness. The Associated Press also reported on Ivins infatuation with Princeton’s Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority, located near the mailbox where four anthrax-laced letters were found.
But, in The Wall Street Journal, Richard Spertzel, head of the biological-weapons section of Unscom from 1994 to 1999, is doubtful that Ivins was the lone culprit, or even involved at all, because the anthrax strains from the attacks were too different from that available in Ivins’s lab.
Whether Ivins was the perpetrator or not, in an L.A. Times op-ed, Gabriel Schoenfeld argues that the anthrax case has been a failure for the FBI.
Headline Links: FBI’s case against Ivins raises doubts
As the evidence against Bruce Ivins remains mostly circumstantial, “Survivors of the 2001 anthrax attacks and relatives of those killed by the deadly powder said yesterday that they want a full accounting from the FBI of its investigation to date, and they are not yet convinced that Bruce Ivins, the government scientist who killed himself last week, was responsible.”
Source: The Baltimore Sun
Authorities have linked the four anthrax-laced letters dropped off at a Princeton mailbox during the scare to Bruce Ivins's fixation with Princeton’s Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority. “Still, authorities acknowledge they cannot place Ivins in Princeton the day the anthrax was mailed,” and the motive for launching the attack may be lacking, according to the Associated Press.
Source: Associated Press
Background: The anthrax scare, Hatfill, and the events leading to Ivins’s death
Timeline
The Associated Press provides a list of key moments in the anthrax episode, beginning in October 2001 when anthrax was “mailed to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and members of the news media in New York and Florida.”
Source: Associated Press
The attacks begin
In an article from Oct. 19, 2001, The Guardian reported that the anthrax attacks terrorizing the United States at the time were most likely “homegrown.” Letters containing anthrax spores had been sent to Sen. Tom Daschle and NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, among others.
Source: The Guardian
Anthrax breach involving Ivins
Maryland’s Frederick News-Post describes an anthrax breach that occurred in April 2002 at the Army’s main biodefense laboratory at Fort Detrick. The laboratory had been investigating letters for possible anthrax contamination when one of the technicians informed Dr. Bruce Ivins that she may have been exposed. “Dr. Ivins … tested the technician’s desk area that December and found growth that had the earmarks of anthrax. He decontaminated her desk, computer, keypad and monitor, but didn’t notify his superiors.”
Source: Frederick News-Post
Hatfill’s defamation suit dismissed
On July 14, 2008, an appeals court upheld the dismissal of a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times by Steven J. Hatfill, who federal agents had called a “person of interest” in the anthrax case. In August 2002, columnist Nicholas Kristof identified Hatfill as the focus of the anthrax investigation. A month earlier, “the Justice Department agreed to pay $4.6 million to settle a lawsuit in which Dr. Hatfill claimed that law enforcement officials had improperly leaked information about him to news outlets in connection with the anthrax investigation.”
Source: The New York Times (free registration may be required)
Ivins apparently commits suicide
“Government scientist Bruce Ivins, who was about to be charged for the 2001 anthrax attacks, was found dead from an apparent suicide,” findingDulcinea wrote on Aug. 1, 2008.
Source: findingDulcinea
Opinion & Analysis: The case against Ivins
Richard Spertzel, head of the biological-weapons section of Unscom from 1994-1999, indicates that it is unlikely that Bruce Ivins was the culprit or the lone culprit in the anthrax case. “The multiple disciplines and technologies required to make the anthrax in this case do not exist at Army's Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Inhalation studies are conducted at the institute, but they are done using liquid preparations, not powdered products."
Source: The Wall Street Journal (free subscription may be required)
In the Los Angeles Times, Gabriel Schoenfeld writes about the FBI’s missteps during the anthrax investigation and the unfortunate events leading up to the investigation within the FBI. “If Bruce E. Ivins, the Ft. Detrick, Md., microbiologist who died in an apparent suicide last week, was indeed the perpetrator, the prime suspect was directly under the FBI's nose for years, practically sporting a scarlet ‘A’ on his forehead. If he was not the perpetrator, as many of his fellow scientists at Ft. Detrick are insisting, we're back at square one.”
Source: Los Angeles Times (free registration may be required)
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