A timeline puts events in their proper sequence and is essential for the understanding of the anthrax attacks of 2001. The anthrax letter attacks occurred in September and October of 2001, but the alleged culprit wasn't identified by the FBI and the Department of Justice until August of 2008, nearly seven years later. The FBI's investigation of the alleged mailer of the lethal letters was performed out of public view, and, as a result it appeared to some that the FBI only identified Dr. Bruce Edwards Ivins as the culprit after Ivins committed suicide on July 27, 2008. The timeline shows that Ivins was mentioned in FBI reports as an "extremely sensitive suspect" on April 11, 2007. Other events in 2001 and 2002 show that Dr. Ivins was allegedly attempting to mislead the investigation by submitting unusable or false samples from the flask that was later determined to be the "murder weapon." The timeline also shows that the Ames strain used in the attacks was originally thought to be a common strain from Iowa, and it wasn't until months later that it was learned it was a rare strain from Texas - a key fact which became critical to the investigation.
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khan
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Jul 12, 2010 08:22 AM
