Anthrax Attacks Show Government Officials Made of (Flawed!) Human Material
By James L. Payne • Wednesday March 3, 2010 11:17 AM PDT • 7 Comments
“The federal government is supposed to protect us from terrorism.” This may have been a plausible theory at one time, but now, after a decade of goofs and lapses, it sounds more like the opening line of a late-night comedy routine. The latest revelation about government’s anti-terrorism programs makes for rather dark comedy indeed. The Department of Justice has just released a comprehensive, final report on the anthrax attacks that occurred in the United States in the fall of 2001. As the reader may recall, envelopes containing weapons-grade anthrax spores were mailed to media organizations and U. S. senators, resulting in the deaths of five people, and leading to the hospitalization of 17 others, and causing expensive cleanup efforts. Since the poisoned letters contained notes scrawled with “Allah is Great” and “Death to Israel,” these slogans suggested the perpetrator was a radical Muslim.
Well, he wasn’t. After an exhaustive FBI investigation, the Justice department has concluded that the spores came from a U. S. Army medical research facility, and that the person responsible was a scientist, Bruce Ivins, who worked there. So “the worst act of bioterrorism in U. S. history,” (as the Washington Post described it), proved to be the work of a U. S. government employee: a nightmare version of “I’m from government and I’m here to help you.”
The Justice Department concludes that Ivins’s motive was job protection, his way of calling attention to anthrax terrorism in order to save his career. The report explains: “The anthrax vaccine research program that Dr. Ivins had invested essentially his entire career of more than 20 years was in jeopardy of failure. The anthrax vaccine with which he was assisting was failing to meet potency standards and, absent some major breakthrough, may have been eliminated. . . the Next Generation Anthrax Vaccine, on which he was also working, had run its course at USAMRIID, leaving him potentially without anthrax research to do.”
Whatever his motives, it is clear that Ivins was mentally unbalanced. In the years leading up to the crime, Ivins was struggling with “paranoid personality disorder,” seeking professional treatment, and taking anti-psychotic drugs. One therapist working with him reported he had “a history dating to his graduate days of homicidal threats, actions, plans.” His psychiatrist called him “homicidal, [and] sociopathic with clear intentions.” Co-workers knew he was suffering from mental illness, but the government took no action to remove him from his highly sensitive, dangerous position. (Another instance of a government bureaucracy looking the other way with a mentally unbalanced official set the stage for Nidal Hasan’s massacre of 13 soldiers at Fort Hood last November). In July of 2008, as the FBI investigation closed in on him, Ivins committed suicide by taking a drug overdose.
The larger lesson here is that government officials can be very flawed individuals. We often forget this point in devising government programs, because we labor under what I call the “watchful eye illusion.” This is the idea that government is a god-like entity managed by superior people capable of watching over lesser human beings to keep them from harm. When aficionados of government action propose a new XYZ agency, they never add—as they should—“I realize that some of the people, perhaps the majority, staffing XYZ could be foolish, lazy, irresponsible, or corrupt, but I still think it would be a great agency.” In the grip of the watchful eye illusion, they have a childlike faith that every government program will be run by high-caliber individuals who always behave rightly.
Government officials exhibit all the flaws found in the human race. They can be greedy, careless, arrogant, stupid, or intolerant. As the Ivins case reminds us, they can even be homicidal maniacs.
Tags: Criminal Justice, Drugs, Middle East, Military, Science, Terrorism, The State, War, Weapons 
I’ve never trusted government “investigations,” particularly when the government is investigating itself. It’s practically guaranteed to be a whitewash.
In this case, I’m rather torn. Who does one believe: a wacky former government agent, or the evil and corrupt government agents who hired him?
Steve Hogan | Mar 3, 2010 | Reply
He wasn’t taking anti-psychotic drugs, was he? All his prescriptions listed are for depression. And wouldn’t you be depressed after your life and career had been ruined—and your superior ordered all your friends to have no contact? The therapist you mention, an addictions counselor, was under home detention until 7/24/2001 for her DWI conviction. There is no evidence in the 2700 pages pointing to his guilt. The government has mischaracterized the key evidence (e.g., the October 4, 2001 and October 5, 2001 emails), and withheld, for example, the Lab Notebook 4010 pages that contain his contemporaneous notes on observations of the health of animals—showing what he was doing in the lab on those 5 nights. The emails produced just today demonstrate that rather than relying on the characterizations of lawyers, you should examine the underlying documents—and where they withhold the documents they purport to characterize, you should request them.
Anonymous | Mar 3, 2010 | Reply
I’ve read he was taking anti-depression/anti-anxiety meds, not anti-psych drugs. Plus in 2008, there were several of reports about how hard the FBI was ‘leaning’ on this man.
Too many unanswered questions in this story to make such cut-and-dry conclusions...especially when your sources are the Department of Justice and the FBI. Even Ivins colleagues didn’t think he had the capacity to make this type of anthrax.
“The other puzzle involved the skills necessary to produce the high-quality aerosol powder contained in the letters...
Scientists familiar with germ warfare said there was no evidence that Dr. Ivins, though a vaccine expert with easy access to the most dangerous forms of anthrax, had the skills to turn the pathogen into an inhalable powder.
“I don’t think a vaccine specialist could do it,” said Dr. Alan P. Zelicoff, a physician who aided the F.B.I. investigation when he worked at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque.
“This is aerosol physics, not biology,” Dr. Zelicoff added. “There are very few people who have their feet in both camps.”
Mr. Ezzell said Dr. Ivins had worked on many projects involving anthrax spores and the toxin they produce, including experiments in which animals were exposed to anthrax to test vaccines. But he said the experiments, to his knowledge, involved anthrax spores in liquid and not in the dry powder form used in the letter attacks.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/washington/02anthrax.html?pagewanted=2
I’m not suggesting that Ivins didn’t have psychological issues, but I don’t believe that the government’s version is the say-all-end-all in this story.
Tippy Canoe | Mar 4, 2010 | Reply
The report failed to highlight the fact that Dr. Ivins was required to receive some form of the human anthrax vaccine for every year he worked at USAMRIID. This is NOT a vaccine – but a refined exo-toxin extract derived from fermented anthrax cultures. It is a drug treated as a vaccine to avoid FDA approval testing requirements. The US government spends $100 million every year to dispose of expired doses because of environmental hazard: Yet – the Secretary of Defense continues to require this harmful drug for all active military – and the result is increased military reports of severe depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, crippling arthritis, ALS, lymphoma, cancers, and birth defects when a mother’s auto-immune response to the “vaccine” attacks her unborn children. Failing to link Dr. Ivins chronic mental illness to his use of an unproven drug masquerading as a vaccine has led to the mirage that the human anthrax vaccine is safe. See Scott Miller’s documentary “A Call to Arms”. Responsible government requires passage of H.R. Bill 1478 “Sgt. Carmelo Rodriguez Memorial Bill” so that military personnel can sue for compensation when they are injured under direct medical orders of the US government.
Gotcha Lookin | Mar 4, 2010 | Reply
If the reader digests the case against a “mad scientist”, it will make you distrust law enforcement. My particular favorite is the eye witness testimony of an estranged brother vs. co-workers. A person 10 years removed from contact with the individual has no value. And then there is the lie detector test he passed. Write that off as unacceptable result due to the suspect being medicated. And then there is other hearsay, rumor, innuendo, conjecture, and cross dressing! Also the disregard for scientists and their science.
I don’t know about anyone else, but it looks to me like Lady Justice is winking at all of us. Scary!
Mark | Mar 7, 2010 | Reply
Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. And died before he could testify to the contrary.
FBI “closing in,” indeed!
N. Joseph Potts | Mar 8, 2010 | Reply
2/16/2011
Serious doubt cast on FBI’s anthrax case against Bruce Ivins
By Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/16/ivans/index.html
J. Buzz | Feb 16, 2011 | Reply