Bruce Ivins was a Scapegoat in the FBI Anthrax Investigation

The Feds have failed from the beginning to find those responsible for the anthrax attacks. One of the main reasons being their penchant for using profiles that were intended for common criminals. The problem is profiling does not work with international terrorism. That anthrax attacks was committed by al Qaeda. That simple. The failure of the FBI in finding the truth behind the anthrax terror is the same reason they failed in preventing 9-11 in the first place. The FBI is not equipped to investigate or prevent international terrorism.

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.

They hounded Ivins to death:

[...]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 U.S. 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."

Congress needs to investigate this matter. Don't let the FBI get away with closing the case without proving they had one:

Once the case is closed, the FBI and Justice Department will face questions -- and possibly public hearings -- from congressional oversight committees, which have been largely shut out of the case the past five years. The investigators have cited the ongoing nature of the case, as well as accusations of leaks to the media, for the information blackout to Capitol Hill.

Ivins did not have the wherewithal to make airborne anthrax:

[...]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."

Then there is the nonsense about Ivins profiting from an anthrax attack:

[...]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.

Ivins erratic bahaviour during his final days can be directly attributed to the strain of having the government hounding him for months for something he hadn't done.

Court records obtained yesterday 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.

Let's have the press interview this woman and have explain her charges. Her description of Ivins sounds very suspicious to me.

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.

And if Ivins was the culprit why didn't the government focus on him first. They instead hounded another scientist, Steven Hatfill. Hatfill sued the government for defamation and won.

He accused investigators of alerting the news media in advance to the search of his home, and later of conducting constant surveillance of him. His home phone was wiretapped, he said, and agents followed him wherever he went.

Five years ago in the Georgetown section of Washington, he approached the car of an F.B.I. agent who had been trailing him, wanting to take the agent’s picture. The agent drove off, and his car ran over Dr. Hatfill’s foot. The police later issued a ticket to Dr. Hatfill for “walking to create a hazard,” and he was fined $5. No ticket was given the agent.

Declaring that his life was being destroyed by harassment, Dr. Hatfill went to court to try to clear his name.

The NY Times understood back in November of 2001 that the FBI was screwing-up the investigation into who was behind the anthrax attacks. Ever since then they've been desperate to find anyone to blame:

WRONG TURNS -- The federal inquiry into the anthrax attacks has stumbled in several key areas and may have missed opportunities to gather valuable evidence as investigators have been unable to fully grasp the scientific complexities of the case.

There are some prominent figures involved in the case who also doubt the FBI's case:

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, whose office was a target of the anthrax attacks in 2001, said Sunday the suicide of the government's main suspect does not mean the case is over.

Daschle said the FBI has not given him any new updates. He also raised questions about the quality of the investigation, noting that the government recently paid out almost $6 million to a former Army scientist, Steven Hatfill, who accused authorities of unfairly targeting him in the anthrax case.

"From the very beginning I've had real concerns about the quality of the investigation," Daschle said in a broadcast interview. "Given the fact that they already paid somebody else $5 million for the mistakes they must have made gives you some indication of the overall caliber and quality of the investigation."

Update:
This comes from Salon/Glenn Greenwald:

The unanswered questions in the anthrax case are literally too numerous to chronicle. It is so vital to emphasize that not a shred of evidence has yet been presented that the now-deceased Bruce Ivins played any role in the anthrax attacks, let alone that he was the sole or even primary culprit. Nonetheless, just as they did with Steven Hatfill, the media (with some notable and important exceptions) are reporting this case as though the matter is resolved.

Given the significance of the anthrax attacks, it would be unconscionable for there to be anything other than a full-scale Congressional or independent investigation -- with a full airing of all the facts -- regarding everything that happened here. Those issues should include exploration of the following questions, many of which might well have perfectly reasonable and benign explanations, and some of which may not, but until there is a full airing, it will necessarily be the case -- and it should be the case -- that this episode will only serve to further erode whatever lingering trust there is in media and government institutions