Lone killer or a complex cover-up: the story of the 2001 anthrax mailings

War on Terror

14 Aug 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com

Lone killer or a complex cover-up: the story of the 2001 anthrax mailings

By Sujatha Byravan   The U.S. administration got what it wanted — a war in Iraq, a thwarted biological weapons convention, an increase in biological weapons spending and an accused who conveniently killed himself.   Reading like an interesting thriller, though not always fast-paced, the story of the 2001 mailings of anthrax-laden letters began just a few days after the attacks in the U.S. termed "9/11." The deadly mailer targeted some media organisations and a couple of Democratic U.S. senators and ended up killing five people and injuring many more. The story that has unfolded over the years contains many juicy ingredients: defence scientists unable to reverse engineer the killer bacterial spores using basic laboratory methods, scientists' statements that often contradicted the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) line, government intrigue, finger-pointing by politicians at Al-Qaeda terrorists which contributed to the national frenzy for a war with Iraq and provided the rationale for a burgeoning of national spending on biological weapons research, an FBI witch-hunt that led to a multimillion dollar payout by the department for harassment of the wrong man, some clues, plenty of circumstantial evidence, and last, but not least, the mental instability and suicide of the person who was finally accused with no unequivocal proof tying the accused to the anthrax letters. The FBI accuses Bruce Edwards Ivins, a scientist at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland (USAMRIID), of acting alone in the mailings, a story that many do not believe. Sadly, Ivins committed suicide a day before he was to be arrested. Bioweapons research   The anthrax spores that started to appear in the mail from 18 September 2001 were used to justify a massive increase in U.S. national biodefence spending which rose (between 2001 and 2007) to $36 billion. It also led to funds for the construction of at least 20 new high containment research facilities across the country, capable of working with the most dangerous agents. The spending spree led to mounting concerns among biologists and a letter signed by over 750 U.S. microbiologists was sent to the Director, National Institutes of Health and complained that while budgets for working on weapons agents that were dubious threats to humans were booming, boring everyday bacteria that cause a number of diseases were being ignored to the peril of public health and safety. Other scientists such as Richard Ebright of Rutgers have long contended that the increase in the number of biological weapons labs, with a concurrent rise in the number of people trained to work with such agents, eventually makes us less, rather than more, safe. It would increase the number of laboratory accidents and in a climate of poor oversight and a history of cover-ups the public had more to fear from lab accidents than from terrorists.   Sixteen biodefence experts and scientists published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2002 stating that the anthrax used in the mailings, with its high spore concentration, uniform particle size and electrostatic charge that reduced clumping and made it a ready aerosol, was "weapon's grade." Other experiments also confirmed that this anthrax was not easy to produce and required an additive such as silica. It was certainly something that had to come from a very sophisticated weapons lab. Scapegoat or deadly killer   Early in the FBI's investigation, Steven J. Hatfill, from USAMRIID was the prime suspect. But later, the case against him was dropped and the government agreed to pay him $4.6 million for damages. The FBI's winding and tortuous investigation focussed at times on various people who appeared to have all succumbed to the pressures. A couple of Pakistani nationals who were suspects for a while had to leave the country, one doctor had his marriage fall apart and his practice suffered, a microbioloist began drinking heavily and eventually died. Few appeared to be able to survive the intense scrutiny of the FBI investigation and the public defamation that went with it. Thus it is possible that Ivins too crumbled under the pressure, which especially makes sense if he was mentally unstable.   Colleagues, friends and other scientists who have been following the details of this seven-year mystery are suspicious because using Ivins communications and strange behaviour to show that he was pathologically unstable is not sufficient evidence against him even while the investigation is filled with holes. The FBI claims that the anthrax used in the mailings can be tied genetically to a flask in Ivins' lab. Without complete and detailed information on the methods used to link Ivins to the anthrax mailings, there can be no proof. Besides, we don't know how the DNA fingerprint from anthrax in other labs — outside that of Dr. Ivins — compares with the mailed anthrax spores. What is even more disquieting is that Ivins was working with the FBI before he became a suspect. He had analysed the deadly envelopes and found the anthrax to be highly refined, a kind never seen in the premier weapon's lab in Fort Detrick. It is therefore possible that the mailed anthrax could have contaminated some of his own samples thus leading to the identified genetic link between some of the anthrax in his lab and that found in the envelopes. Scientists routinely share samples of bacteria with colleagues. Others could therefore have received a sample or obtained it surreptitiously, particularly because Fort Detrick was known for missing lab specimens. Samples of anthrax spores, Ebola virus and other pathogens disappeared from this army biological warfare research facility in the early 1990s, and by one estimate over a hundred people are likely to have had access to the anthrax used in the mailings. More unanswered questions   An intriguing, perhaps unrelated, context of 2001 is that earlier that year the U.S. Administration derailed efforts to create an international protocol, as part of the Biological Weapons Convention, for enforcement and verification of biological weapons. Following that The New York Times published a report on secret and highly provocative U.S. biological weapons related activities, including the construction of an anthrax production plant in Nevada, the genetic engineering of anthrax for with no protection from existing vaccines, and the manufacture of biological bomblet prototypes.   Politicians including John McCain, the presumptive nominee of the Republican party for the November elections, have claimed in the past that Iraq may have been responsible for the anthrax mailings. Any discussion of the additive that weaponised the original anthrax, which pointed to a sophisticated operation from a weapon's lab, instead of a one-man operation, has now disappeared. In the end, the U.S. administration got what it wanted — a war in Iraq, a thwarted biological weapons convention, an increase in biological weapons spending and an accused who was unstable and then conveniently killed himself. We will never know if all we were told was true or if this mystery was simply a massive cover-up by a fox guarding the chicken coop.   (Sujatha Byravan is based in Chennai and is former president of the Council for Responsible Genetics, Cambridge, MA. http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/13/stories/2008081351571100.htm