The F.B.I.’s Anthrax Case

[groovedaddy]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued a report that is supposed to clinch the case that a lone scientist mailed anthrax-laced letters in 2001, terrorizing a country already traumatized by the 9/11 attacks. The agency cites voluminous circumstantial evidence that is largely persuasive, but its report leaves too many loose ends to be taken as a definitive verdict.

The scientist — Dr. Bruce Ivins, an Army biodefense expert — killed himself in 2008 as the investigation moved ever closer to an indictment. That means the evidence and the F.B.I.’s conclusion that he was the culprit and acted alone will never be tested in court.

At least five letters containing powdered anthrax were addressed to two United States senators and to news organizations in New York and Florida. Their deadly spores killed five people, sickened 17 others and forced the temporary closure of Congressional offices, the Supreme Court, postal facilities and private offices.

The F.B.I.’s conclusion rests in large part on pioneering laboratory techniques that matched genetic mutations in the anthrax that was mailed with identical mutations in a batch of anthrax created and maintained by Dr. Ivins. The National Academy of Sciences will complete a review of that lab work in coming months. But the techniques were devised with the aid of some of the country’s most sophisticated scientists, so they are presumably reliable.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28sun2.html?th&emc=th

[Bitwit1234]

1. But no place did they ever come up with who mailed

the letter to the elderly lady in New England. She died of anthrax. And that seems to be ignored. Did the scientist have a thing against OLD PEOPLE and randomly mail her an anthrax letter.

[sharp_stick]

2. I was under the impression

that they believe she was not mailed a letter containing anthrax. I thought a letter containing anthrax spores was sent through the big mail sorting facility in Wallingford CT and this letter contacted a letter sent to the elderly lady and she got anthrax from that contact.

[peace13]

3. Why would a scientist send his signature anthrax?

Isn't that a bit like putting your fingerprints on the gun,licking it, and leaving it at the scene of the crime? There was another scientist who disappeared, leaving his car on a bridge out west. Never heard how he fit into this scenario. So sad that Dr.Irvin's couldn't fill us in before he left us.

[boobooday]

4. I think the NYTimes comes to the proper conclusion

The FBI does not have sufficient credibility to put this controversy to rest without an independent investigation.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. Well, I'm glad we can put that in the closed case file

along with 9/11 and the JFK shooting.

[groovedaddy]

6. Always convenient to pin it on a dead person! n.t