Doubts Persist About FBI's Anthrax Investigation 10 Years Later Amid New Bio-Terror Concerns

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Fox News:

Ten years after a mail-borne anthrax attack killed five in the worst bio-terror attack on U.S. soil, there are new questions about the strength of the FBI’s case against the only suspect, as a leading expert on bio-terror attacks warned that budget deficits are likely to hinder the nation’s ability to respond in the future.

“Unfortunately, it seems we have hit the snooze button because of recent cutbacks on the federal, state and local level,” Jeffrey Levi of Trust for America’s Health, a nonpartisan group for public health issues, told the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday. “We could face the sad irony that if another attack were to occur we may be better prepared than we were 10 years ago, but possibly not as better as we were three years ago.”


Sen. Susan Collins, the committee's ranking Republican, said the new head of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, had the right background to wage a biological attack in the coming years.

Al-Zawahiri “has a medical background that raises concerns that he may have an even greater interest in pursuing chemical and biological terrorism,” Collins told the witnesses.

The sobering assessment was part of the committee’s series of investigations into the aftermath of 9/11 and the anthrax attacks. In fall 2001, less than a month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, as many as seven anthrax-laced letters were sent, killing five Americans, paralyzing the postal system and prompting thousands to take the antibiotic cipro.

In 2008, Army scientist Bruce Ivins was identified by the FBI as the lead and only suspect in their investigation. That same summer, Ivins died from an apparent suicide. A Tylenol overdose was publicly blamed. More recently, court filings have cast more doubt on the strength of the FBI’s case against Ivins, when it was shown his lab did not have the equipment needed to make the anthrax powder. Nor was Ivins the only army scientist with access to the source of anthrax believed to be a flask at Fort Detrick in Maryland.