So, yesterday the FBI announced it was closing its investigation on the 2001 anthrax attacks, saying it was convinced that it was the work of Dr. Bruce Ivins. The report the FBI released paints a picture of Ivins as a man with mental problems, in effect posthumously convicting a man who will never get a trial. Anytime someone gets convicted of something after they can’t defend themselves my BS detectors go on high alert. Looks like my initial hunch about the case is being proven out.
The anthrax attacks are a curious event in our history. Coming on the heels of the September 11th attacks, conservative hawks like to conveniently forget these attacks whenever they spout the fallacy that America’s response to the 9/11 attacks kept more terrorist attacks from taking place, as if mailing deadly pathogens to United States Senators doesn’t qualify as terrorism. In my mind, the FBI’s report shows all the signs of an investigation not really wanting to know where the facts lead, perhaps because doing so would raise uncomfortable questions best left unasked.
Experts have cast a lot of doubt on the FBI’s case. As for Ivins purported mental problems, I would think anyone would have to be at least a little sick in the head to want to work with some of the deadliest pathogens on our planet. I’m glad they do it but I fully realize that this is not normal stuff here. A bad day at the office takes on a whole new meaning. But even by the bar of a “normal” biohazard researcher, if Ivins was really the “Crazy Bruce” that the FBI makes him out to have been, how was he allowed to work with the deadliest poisons on the planet? Why haven’t any heads rolled?
Though the equipment used isn’t commonplace, the recipe for making anthrax is anything but a secret. Many foreign governments can create it. Some of these governments might have had motive for dispersing it in the American attacks. To say that this is the work of one person acting alone, especially one who can’t defend himself in court, is something I’m just not buying.