It has been 10 long years since envelopes stuffed with anthrax spores terrorized the East Coast — and just one year since the FBI officially closed the case in a not-terribly-convincing way.
Now a group of eminent scientists have found that the FBI’s conclusions may be shockingly wrong.
A new paper in the Journal of Bioterrorism & Biodefense contends that the FBI’s sole suspect, Army scientist Bruce Ivins, might have had an accomplice — or may even have been innocent.
That’s no small matter: The attacks are the worst case of bioterrorism the United States has ever faced, killing five and sickening 17, including three employees of The Post.
But the FBI fumbled for about seven years before fixing on Ivins, who committed suicide as investigators closed in.
The circumstantial evidence was strong: Ivins spent dozens of hours alone at night in his government lab in the days before the anthrax envelopes were mailed; he drove miles away to send packages under assumed names; and he was judged to be a homicidal loon by his own shrink, who sought a protective order against him.
But it was never clear that the FBI had brought the case to a proper conclusion. And the new study shows why.
It turns out the bureau hid from the public its discovery that the anthrax spores were laced with tin and silicon, possibly to make it float more freely — a “chemical fingerprint” and seeming clue to the identity of the attacker.
Adding that tin coating ain’t Chem 101 — it requires special expertise, and Ivins lacked the equipment to create it, which the paper’s three authors say is evidence he acquired the anthrax from another source.
What’s more, the baseline evidence linking Ivins to the anthrax spores was inconclusive, according to a “Red Team” of outside scientists the FBI called in to review its work — but then utterly ignored.
The feds “deviated from traditional lab practice in this particular case,” said Jenifer Smith, former section chief at the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate. “There were some political things going on behind the scenes, and it was embarrassing not to have this solved.”
Truth is, the case has been a mess since Day One. G-men first named and shamed biowarfare specialist Steven Hatfill as a person of interest but later exonerated him — and coughed up a $5.8 million settlement for ruining his life.
And while the FBI says the new paper is wrong, it clearly can’t be trusted to judge cases that reflect badly on its own conduct. Indeed, its ability to pursue sensitive investigations at all is in doubt.
To cite just one example, in the months before Nidal Malik Hasan massacred 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, the FBI intercepted e-mails Hasan had sent to al Qaeda imam Anwar al-Awlaki. But it sat on clear evidence the unhinged Hasan was quickly boiling over — and let the killer-in-waiting go on his fatal shooting spree.
Given the FBI’s troubled anthrax history, it’s good to see that Congress’ oversight body, the Government Accountability Office, is conducting its own review of the FBI’s work and looking into the possibility that Ivins had help in growing the anthrax or acquired it from another lab.
We hope the FBI is right about Ivins, and that Americans can sleep soundly. But hope doesn’t cut it in bioterrorism.