Results tagged “anthraxletterattacks”

In the wake of the suicide of government biodefense scientist Dr. Bruce Ivins, the only apparent suspect in the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, the FBI and Justice Department says it will share case details once it has spoken to victims' families. The agencies consider the case closed, but Senator Tom Daschle – to whom one of the letters was addressed – said, "What troubles me is that Mr. Ivins wasn't indicted, and if he wasn't indicted, how confidant are they that they had the evidence and the information that they needed?" The Washington Post spoke to a friend of Ivins who said the scientist started to drink a liter of vodka and take "large doses of sleeping pills and anti-anxiety drugs" at night last fall, around the same time the FBI showed his daughter photos of anthrax victims, saying, "Your father did this," and offered his son a $2.5 million reward and a "sports car of his choice" to solve the case.

While the FBI is being pressured to release evidence about why it believed government biodefense scientist Dr. Bruce Ivins was behind the 2001 anthrax letter attacks, salacious tidbits are being divulged. Like how he "maintained a post office box under an assumed name that he used to receive pornographic pictures of blindfolded women" (NY Times) and had a "decades-long obsession with a college sorority" Kappa Kappa Gamma (AP). Pretty much everyone wants answers from the FBI and Department of Justice--the former head of the biological-weapons section of Unscom writes in the Wall Street Journal today that anthrax spores sent to U.S. Senators had a lethality "far exceed[ing] that of any powdered product found in the now extinct U.S. Biological Warfare Program."