There’s a gaping hole in the FBI’s argument that U.S. Government scientist Bruce Ivins was the Anthrax Mailer.
In addition to the hundreds of scientists with access to virulent anthrax from Ivins’s flask whom the FBI claims to have ruled out, one unauthorized individual had a special kind of access–the kind you get when you steal something. Hovering in proximity to an unlocked refrigerator with the anthrax at George Mason University was Islamic ideologue Ali al-Timimi, who in early 2001 was studying for a Ph.D in computational biology. Al-Timimi has since been arrested and sentenced for inciting Muslims in Virginia to travel to Pakistan to fight against U.S. forces.
Al-Timimi’s office was right around the corner from the offices of Charles Bailey and Ken Alibek, co-principal investigators on a DARPA-funded anthrax project. Bailey was a former deputy commander of USAMRIID at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where he had been a boss of Bruce Ivins. Alibek was the former deputy director of the Soviet biowarfare program. Bailey and Alibek had partnered on a patent application for a method of preparing anthrax that bore some resemblance to the sophisticated preparation in the letters mailed to Senators Daschle and Leahy.
Attorney Ross Getman found several other labs where al Qaeda may have gained access to the anthrax, but the presence of al-Timimi and the patent application make GMU by far the most likely location. Al-Timimi does not show up in FBI’s report on the case, which dismisses the possibility that any foreign entity was involved in the anthrax mailings.
And he is not the only key player who does not appear.
Handing Off the Anthrax
Assuming that al-Timimi indeed stole the anthrax, here is what then seems to have happened.
Al-Timimi provided the anthrax to Mohamed Atta. Atta and his group of intending hijackers in Florida unsuccessfully sought to obtain a cropduster, and they evidently handled the anthrax themselves, infecting themselves in the process.
As September 11 neared, Atta contacted Abderraouf Jdey in Montreal. Jdey, a Canadian citizen of Tunisian origin who had trained in Afghanistan, had been designated first as an alternate hijacker, then as a part of the second wave of attacks. He returned to Canada in the summer of 2001 and was detained by FBI and INS together with intending pilot Zacarias Moussaoui. Jdey was carrying biology textbooks. FBI evidently released Jdey.
Atta appears to have handed over the vials of anthrax to Jdey in Portland, Maine on September 10, which powerfully explains Atta’s otherwise anomalous trip to Portland on the day before the September 11 terrorist attacks. Jdey wrote and mailed the anthrax letters in September and October. In November he left his apartment in Montreal, drove to New York, boarded American Airlines Flight #587 on November 12, and brought it down with a shoebomb. His role as shoebomber was subsequently related to interrogators by al Qaeda detainee Mohammed Mansour Jabarah and leaked in a 2004 Canadian news report. American editors suppressed the story.
The Cover-up
The FBI seems to have learned of Jdey’s likely role as the Anthrax Mailer in 2004, when this writer contacted the Bureau about Jdey. Investigating further, FBI appears to have found confirmatory evidence. But then–because Jdey was an embarrassment and/or because of White House pressure–it suppressed the information it had developed, removed the note in his online biography that he had studied biology, listed him as one of the terrorists it was still hunting for, and searched for a new anthrax mailings suspect.
Eventually, the FBI focused on capable, dedicated, patriotic, and psychologically vulnerable Bruce Ivins. Ivins was a pianist at his church, taught children juggling, was married and the father of two adopted children, was involved in many research projects, was entrusted with the anthrax, and had developed a promising vaccine for anthrax. This is the profile of an active contributor to his community, hardly of a ruthless Anthrax Mailer. The FBI, however, exaggerated his various quirks and obsessions to make Ivins out to be an intrinsically evil person.
Under the pressure of FBI questioning and surveillance, Ivins committed suicide. Then the FBI accused him of having perpetrated the anthrax mailings, produced a collection of circumstantial evidence, and closed the case on February 19, 2010.
FBI Director Robert Mueller told a 2008 Senate committee that he thought Ivins was guilty “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Beyond a reasonable doubt? Given the weak evidence and the widespread skepticism among experts and the public, this is an extreme statement that lacks any credibility. Mueller was lying and indeed was the enforcer of the suppression of the al Qaeda story and the targeting of Bruce Ivins.
In fact, the Mailer was in all likelihood Abderraouf Jdey.
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For a much fuller explanation, see Was Abderraouf Jdey the Anthrax Mailer?
Kenneth J. Dillon is an historian and former State Department intelligence analyst who writes on science, medicine, and history. See the biosketch at About Us.