August 9, 2008: Former Head of USAMRIID’s Bacteriology Divisions Says It Is ‘Extremely Improbable’ Anthrax Attacks Came from USAMRIID

Gerry Andrews, the chief of the bacteriology division at USAMRIID from 1999 to 2003, publishes an editorial in the New York Times. USAMRIID is the US Army’s top biological laboratory, and one of Andrew’s subordinates there was Bruce Ivins, the FBI’s main suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks (see October 5-November 21, 2001) and also a friend of Andrews. Andrews says that the FBI’s recently revealed case against Ivins is unimpressive and lacks physical evidence. He states that the anthrax contained in a letter to Senator Tom Daschle (D-SD) was “a startlingly refined weapons-grade anthrax spore preparation, the likes of which had never been seen before by personnel at [USAMRIID]. It is extremely improbable that this type of preparation could ever have been produced [there], certainly not of the grade and quality found in that envelope.” Andrews also complains that the FBI has not provided “enough detail about their procedure to enable other scientists to tell whether they could actually single out Dr. Ivins’s spore preparation as the culprit…” [New York Times, 8/9/2008]