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Sabato 2 agosto 2008
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AP | È stato di quasi sette anni, ma la gente a Oxford, connett., ancora si ricorda degli operai nei vestiti del hazmat, raschianti i pews della chiesa Lutheran del Immanuel per le spore unseen dell'antrace.

Si ricordano di allineare per essere esaminato a tossina ed essere impauriti aprire la loro posta. Si ricordano di 94 anni Ottilie Lundgren - una vedova chiesa-andante, una segretaria legale lungo-pensionata e una vittima la più improbabile dei bioterrorist.

“Qualcosa di simile che mai realmente otteneste sopra,„ Thomas Condon, un amico di Lundgren, ad esempio venerdì. “Rimane sempre nella vostra memoria.„

Per il resto di noi, gli anni in mezzo allora ed ora lo hanno reso facile dimenticare il terrore ed il terrore che hanno grippato la nazione durante gli attacchi della antrace-da-posta e perdere la pista della ricerca frustrata quel lungo venuto a mancare a li risolve.

Il venerdì, tutte quelle memorie hanno ritornato flooding.

Dopo gli anni del futility, i ricercatori hanno detto che stavano preparando per caricare uno scienziato di governo, Bruce E. Ivins, con la covata del diagramma, prima che commetta il suicide questa settimana. Le risposte finali possono scaturire sono morto con lui.

Quando gli attacchi dell'antrace hanno cominciato, il fumo ancora stava aumentando dal pozzo carbonizzato del centro di commercio mondiale. Gli Stati Uniti i combattenti di getto hanno entrato nella posizione, aspettano per liberare le loro bombe sul regime ribelle dell'Afghanistan.

Tutto il momento ora, gli Americani si sono detto che, i terroristi potrebbero scaturire ancora atto. Nessuno potrebbe dire dove o quando o, il più ominously, come.

Eppure, quando un photographer della Florida, Bob Stevens, morto dell'antrace inalato ottobre. 5, 2001, ha bloccato relativamente poco avviso ed ha mescolato più dispiacere che il timore. Allora uno colleghe dello Stevens' è stato diagnosticato. Ed un altro.

Giorni più successivamente, un assistente agli uffici de New York delle notizie di NBC è stato diagnosticato. I ricercatori lo hanno seguito alla polvere contenuta in una lettera mysterious. È stato bollato settembre. 18 e, in che cosa si trasformerebbero in in un particolare esperto, spedito da una cassetta postale nella città ordinata di Princeton, la New Jersey.

Presto dopo, una lettera simile, anche pre-timbrata e senza qualsiasi indirizzo di ritorno, arrivato agli uffici di Capitol Hill del capo Tom Daschle di maggioranza del senato. All'interno di, un operaio ha trovato la stessa polvere e un messaggio di gelatura.

“State andando morire,„ esso avete letto.

Even before the first report of anthrax, post-9/11 worries had sent a book on germ warfare up to the No. 2 spot on Amazon.com’s list of best-sellers. Now the hypothetical bioterror threat was becoming real.

“I could probably drop a package of Sweet n’ Low and evacuate this building,” a Florida county official, Ken Pineau, said at the time.

At some Army-Navy stores, clerks imposed limits on how many gas masks a single customer could buy. At pharmacies, sales of ciprofloxacin — the antibiotic used to combat anthrax — multiplied by 10.

“In Cipro we trust,” a solemn Tom Brokaw told his “NBC Nightly News” audience.

By November 2001, five people were dead — Ottilie Lundgren the last among them — and 17 others were sickened. Workers in bubble suits decontaminated federal office buildings in Washington after anthrax letters were discovered there. The attacks shut some postal substations for years.

Who would do this?

The letter to Daschle hailed Allah, and speculation focused on Arab terrorists. The first victim, it was noted, lived in Lantana, Fla. near an airfield where 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta rented planes. Perhaps that was the key.

But there was no evidence to back that up, and hoaxes did not clarify the situation. Letters containing white powder were sent to scores of Planned Parenthood clinics, fueling conjecture that the plot was the work of far-right zealots.

But investigators who analyzed the anthrax dismissed both ideas. The toxin was a sophisticated form, carefully manufactured by someone who was highly skilled.

By the early months of 2002, investigators were zeroing in on 20 to 30 scientists they said had both the knowledge and opportunity to send the anthrax letters.

The only name that surfaced: Steven J. Hatfill, a biowarfare expert who had worked at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Md. Federal officials repeatedly identified him as a “person of interest.”

By August of that year, it was clear Hatfill was the prime suspect. FBI agents wearing protective gloves searched his apartment and a storage locker. They found no trace of anthrax.

“I want to look my fellow Americans directly in the eye and declare to them, ‘I am not the anthrax killer,” Hatfill said. “I know nothing about the anthrax attacks. I had absolutely nothing to do with this horrible crime.”

But the investigation continued to focus on him.

In June 2003, investigators drained 1.45 million gallons of water from a pond eight miles from Fort Detrick. The drastic step came after divers found a plastic box with two holes cut into it that some investigators theorized could have been used to safely fill envelopes with deadly anthrax spores.

The pond produced a gun, a bicycle and fishing lures — but no further evidence.

Later that summer, Hatfill sued the Attorney General John Ashcroft and other federal officials, accusing them of turning him into a scapegoat.

The investigation ebbed and flowed, with little outward sign of progress. In 2006, the FBI changed the leadership of the team investigating the attacks.

It’s not clear when their attention turned to Ivins.

The microbiologist had briefly been the subject of some controversy in late 2001, when Army internal reports showed he decontaminated an area of Fort Detrick lab’s for anthrax without reporting it to his superiors.

Ivins apologized and was not disciplined. In fact, he was praised.

In 2003, he shared the Decoration for Exceptional Civilian Service, the highest honor given to civilians Defense Department employees, for his work on a vaccine for anthrax.

Years later, investigators turned their attention from Hatfill to him. They interviewed the latter man’s family and colleagues, developing a picture of a man both brilliant and emotionally unstable.

Maryland court documents show he recently received psychiatric treatment and was ordered to stay away from a woman he was accused of stalking and threatening to kill.

Friends said he knew the FBI was on his tail and that he felt hounded. Investigators raided his home twice. Agents in cars with tinted windows conducted regular surveillance.

In late June, the Justice Department settled its suit with Hatfill, agreeing to pay him $5.8 million — and, at least in the public perception, exoneration.

About two weeks later, police were called to Fort Detrick to speak with Ivins. He was taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation because of concern he was a danger to himself or others. He was eventually released.

This past Tuesday, he committed suicide at Frederick Memorial Hospital in Maryland. His lawyer blamed the death on the government’s “relentless pressure of accusation and innuendo.”

The scientist’s death brought back memories of the terror visited by the anthrax attacks, but leaves many questions unanswered.

“I think the FBI owes us a complete accounting of their investigation and ought to be able to tell us at some point, how we’re going to bring this to closure,” Daschle told The Associated Press.

“It’s been seven years, there’s a lot of unanswered questions,” he said, “and I think the American people deserve to know more than they do today.”

___

Associated Press Writer John Christoffersen in New Haven, Conn., contributed to this story.

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