FBI scientists had unique anthrax strain but destroyed it
WASHINGTON — FBI scientists early on had the unique strain of anthrax used in the deadly 2001 attacks that years later would lead them to Dr. Bruce Ivins, but they destroyed it.
FBI Assistant Director Vahid Majidi said Monday the initial anthrax sample that Ivins, the government’s top suspect in the nation’s biggest bioterror case, took from his Army lab in February 2002 and gave investigators did not meet court-ordered conditions for its preparation and collection.
Majidi said the sample kept at the FBI lab was destroyed because the bureau believed it might not have been allowed as evidence at trial. “Looking at hindsight, obviously we would do things differently today,” he said.
Ivins, 62, took a fatal dose of acetaminophen last month as prosecutors prepared to indict him on murder charges.
He gave investigators a second sample of anthrax from his lab in April 2002 to comply with standards in a subpoena issued in the case. But that sample contained a different strain than what he submitted two months earlier in what prosecutors call an attempt to deceive or confuse investigators.
Majidi, who heads the FBI office in charge of investigating weapons of mass destruction, led a panel of government and private-sector scientists who detailed the scientific case against Ivins. They said new ways of looking at the DNA of anthrax enabled them to whittle the list of labs and suspects who could have produced it.
That science, which let investigators look for tiny genetic mutations in the kind of anthrax used in the attacks, was only becoming available around 2004 when the FBI seized more samples from the Army’s biodefense lab at Fort Detrick, Md., Majidi said. Not until then were investigators able to trace strains of genetically unique anthrax back to Ivins, he said.
As part of the February 2002 subpoena, Ivins gave investigators two samples of the unique Ames anthrax strain known as RMR-1029 that he created. One went to the FBI lab, where it was destroyed. The other went to the lab of Dr. Paul Keim, a geneticist at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Ariz.
Keim still had his RMR-1029 sample in 2006 when the FBI realized it could match Ivins to two batches of anthrax-laced letters that were mailed in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The anthrax letters killed five and sickened 17 after turning up on Capitol Hill and in newsrooms and postal facilities.
One of the targets of the letters was former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, who on Monday called the evidence against Ivins convincing — even if he is not completely sure the investigation focused on the right person.
In an interview, Daschle praised the investigation and said his two-hour FBI briefing last week was “complete and persuasive.” Still, he said, there are some open questions. He said the evidence should be scientifically reviewed.
Daschle said the most compelling evidence to him is the odd, extended hours that the Army scientist kept shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
“He had no real explanation for the significant increase,” Daschle said. “His only response was that he wanted to hang out there, which was not a very compelling reason.”
He said investigators ruled out the other people who had access to Ivins’ anthrax based on other information that was available.
