Questions surround FBI probe on anthrax

For nearly seven years, scientist Bruce E. Ivins and a small circle of fellow anthrax specialists at Fort Detrick's Army medical lab lived in a curious limbo: They served as occasional consultants for the FBI in the investigation of the deadly 2001 anthrax attacks, yet they were all potential suspects. Over lunch in the bacteriology division, nervous scientists would share stories about their latest unpleasant encounters with the FBI and ponder whether they should hire criminal defense lawyers, according to one of Ivins's former supervisors. In tactics that the researchers considered heavy-handed and often threatening, they were interviewed and polygraphed as early as 2002, and reinterviewed numerous times. Their labs were searched, and their computers and equipment carted away. The FBI eventually focused on Ivins, whom federal prosecutors were planning to indict when he committed suicide last week. In interviews this past week, knowledgeable officials asserted that Ivins had the skills and access to equipment needed to turn anthrax bacteria into an ultra-fine powder that could be used as a lethal weapon. Court documents and tapes also reveal a therapist's deep concern that Ivins, 62, was homicidal and obsessed with the notion of revenge. Yet, colleagues and friends of the vaccine specialist remained convinced that Ivins was innocent: They contended that he had neither the motive nor the means to create the fine, lethal powder that was sent by mail to news outlets and congressional offices in the late summer and fall of 2001. Mindful of previous FBI mistakes in fingering others in the case, many are deeply skeptical that the bureau has gotten it right this time. "I really don't think he's the guy. I say to the FBI, 'Show me your evidence,'–said Jeffrey J. Adamovicz, former director of the bacteriology division at the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID, on the grounds of the sprawling Army fort in Frederick. "A lot of the tactics they used were designed to isolate him from his support. The FBI just continued to push his buttons." One bioweapons expert familiar with the FBI investigation said Ivins indeed possessed the skills needed to create the dust-fine powder used in the attacks. At the Army lab where he worked, Ivins specialized in making sophisticated preparations of anthrax bacteria spores for use in animal tests, said the expert, who requested anonymity because the investigation remains active. Ivins's daily routine included the use of processes and equipment the anthrax terrorist likely used in making his weapons. He also is known to have had ready access to the specific strain of Bacillus anthracis used in the attack -- a strain found to match samples found in Ivins's lab, he said. "You could make it in a week," the expert said. "And you could leave USAMRIID with nothing more than a couple of vials. Bear in mind, they weren't exactly doing body searches of scientists back then." But others, including former colleagues and scientists with backgrounds in biological weapons defense, disagreed that Ivins could have created the anthrax powder, even if he were motivated to do so. "USAMRIID doesn't deal with powdered anthrax," said Richard O. Spertzel, a former biodefense scientist who worked with Ivins at the Army lab. "I don't think there's anyone there who would have the foggiest idea how to do it. You would need to have the opportunity, the capability and the motivation, and he didn't possess any of those." Another scientist who worked with Ivins acknowledged it would have been technically possible to manufacture powdered anthrax at Fort Detrick, but unlikely that anyone could have done so without being detected. "As well as we knew each other, and the way the labs were run, someone would discover what was going on," said the scientist, "especially since dry spores were not something that we prepared or worked with." Scientists, co-workers and people who for years have researched the anthrax investigation, only to encounter frustration, misinformation and false leads, say law enforcement authorities should lay out their case as soon as possible. They want authorities to explain how Ivins, who led a seemingly normal life as a family man, churchgoer and volunteer, could have been responsible for one of the nation's most notorious unsolved crimes. Authorities cast doubt on reports that Ivins had acted for financial gain based on patents and scientific advances he had made. Experiments by Ivins, working with several other Fort Detrick colleagues, led to two patented inventions considered crucial in the development of a genetically modified anthrax vaccine made by VaxGen, a California company that secured large government contracts after the 2001 anthrax attacks. But sources familiar with details of the Army's patent process said it was unlikely that Ivins or the other scientists would reap a big financial windfall from VaxGen's vaccine production. They say the government restricts income from inventions produced in its laboratories to no more than $150,000 per year, but the amount is often considerably less. Jaye Holly, who lived next door to the Ivinses until she and her husband moved to New York a month ago, said she couldn't believe that her former neighbor, who was obsessed with grass recycling and who happily drove a 20-year-old faded red van, would endanger others for financial gain. "I can't imagine him being involved in a scheme to make money or to make a profit, especially one that would put people at risk or even die," Holly said. "That's not the Bruce we knew. He was sweet, friendly. I mean, he was into grass recycling." Court records obtained shed further light on the concerns of a mental health professional who met Ivins during his final months -- a period when, friends say, he fell into depression under the strain of constant FBI scrutiny. The records also suggest that a Frederick social worker, Jean Duley, passed on her concerns to the FBI after receiving death threats from Ivins. Duley became so worried that she petitioned a local judge for a protective order against Ivins. According to an audio recording of the hearing, she said she had seen Ivins as a therapist for six months, and thought he had tried to kill people in the past. "As far back as the year 2000, [Ivins] has actually attempted to murder several other people, [including] through poisoning," she said "He is a revenge killer, when he feels that he's been slighted... especially towards women. He plots and actually tries to carry out revenge killings," she told a judge. She described a July 9 group therapy session in which Ivins allegedly talked of mass murder. "He was extremely agitated, out of control," she said. Ivins told the group he had bought a gun, and proceeded to lay out a "long and detailed homicidal plan," she said. "Because he was about to be indicted on capital murder charges, he was going to go out in a blaze of glory; that he was going to take everybody out with him," she said. But the evidence amassed by FBI investigators against Ivins was largely circumstantial, and a grand jury in Washington was planning to hear several more weeks of testimony before issuing an indictment. While genetic analysis had linked the anthrax letters to a supply of the deadly bacterium in Dr. Ivins's laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md., at least 10 people had access to the flask containing that anthrax, said a source to the New York Times, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly. The FBI also has no evidence proving that Ivins visited New Jersey on the dates in September and October 2001 when investigators believe the letters were sent from a Princeton mailbox, the source said. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the former Democratic leader of the Senate and one target of the deadly letters, said on Aug. 3 that he had long had grave doubts about the investigation. "From the very beginning, I've had real concerns about the quality of the investigation," Daschle said. "I think he's a convenient fall guy. They can say, 'OK, we found him, case closed, we're going home,'" said Dr. Kenneth W. Hedlund, the former chief of bacteriology at Fort Detrick who hired Ivins. "The FBI apparently applied a lot of pressure to all the investigators there [at Detrick], and they found the weakest link." The New York Times reported that investigators intensively questioned his children, Andrew and Amanda, now both 24. One former colleague, Dr. W. Russell Byrne, said the agents pressed Ivins' daughter repeatedly to acknowledge that her father was involved in the attacks. "It was not an interview," Byrne said. "It was a frank attempt at intimidation." Byrne said he believed Ivins was singled out partly because of his personal weaknesses. "If they had real evidence on him, why did they not just arrest him?" FBI was told to blame al-Qaida In the immediate aftermath of the anthrax attacks, the consequences ran wide and deep, far beyond a mere criminal investigation. The Bush administration "as well as much of the news media-- was quick to claim that they bore the signature of al-Qaida and even Saddam Hussein. They repeated this unsubstantiated inference as a justification to hasten approval for the controversial USA PATRIOT Act, a series of new laws designed to tackle terrorism that essentially curbed longstanding provisions of the Bill of Rights, such as the Fourth Amendment. According to the New York Daily News, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove the anthrax attacks were a second-wave assault by al-Qaida, but investigators ruled that out. After the Oct. 5, 2001, death from anthrax exposure of New York Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, Mueller was "beaten up" during Bush's morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide. "They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official told The New York Daily News. On Oct. 15, 2001, President Bush said, "There may be some possible link" to Bin Laden, adding, "I wouldn't put it past him." Vice President Cheney also said Bin Laden's henchmen were trained "how to deploy and use these kinds of substances, so you start to piece it all together." But by then the FBI already knew anthrax spilling out of letters addressed to media outlets and to a US senator was a military strain of the bioweapon. "Very quickly [Fort Detrick, MD, experts] told us this was not something some guy in a cave could come up with," the ex-FBI official said. "They couldn't go from box cutters one week to weapons-grade anthrax the next." Anthrax Scare Played Into Iraq War The anthrax incidents played a part in turning the attention of the United States away from Afghanistan and toward Iraq. The significance of the anthrax attacks in shaping US policy in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has largely been forgotten. Enough time has passed since the frenzied days of October 2001 that unmasking the anthrax killer no longer seems to be of urgent importance. The attacks long ago stopped, and the sense of fear that enveloped the country in those days -- with media personalities gulping the antibiotic Cipro to protect themselves -- receded. But the slowly unfolding attacks -- seven separate letters containing the deadly powder were sent to politicians and news organizations over a period of 21 days -- greatly amplified the fears of average Americans just weeks after the 9/11 attacks. Were it not for the anthrax attacks, most people would have assumed that the United States faced just one enemy -- the global terrorist network al-Qaida -- with a base in Afghanistan and Islamist allies in some other countries. The anthrax attacks suggested something different: That al-Qaida's strike on New York and Washington had emboldened numerous enemies of the United States to launch attacks of their own with various methods, some as stealthy as sending biological weapons through the mail. The Bush administration didn't need much prompting to turn its attention from Afghanistan to Iraq, according to the many insider accounts published since then. When the anthrax attacks occurred, Iraq was immediately fingered by many neoconservative hawks as a possible source; ABC News quoted three unnamed government sources as saying the powder in the letters matched the type produced in Iraq. Even though most serious analysts were highly skeptical that the tainted letters came from Hussein, the mere possibility that Iraq could have maintained a stockpile of anthrax was enough to convince many people that it was a looming threat. It's impossible to know how much, if at all, this speculation influenced the Bush administration's subsequent decision to confront Iraq. Perhaps Iraq was so much on the minds of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that no other trigger was needed. But to many others in Congress, the media, and the general public, the anthrax attacks made the administration's later arguments seem more credible: If an enemy of the United States could start killing people by sending powder through the mail, there might indeed be a justification for more precipitous action. In the end, of course, there was no anthrax found in Iraq -- and no weapons of mass destruction of any sort. If he was, indeed, the anthrax killer, the invasion, not the vaccine, was Ivins's most significant legacy.