reSee.it Podcast Summary
Solved but not closed, that's the word from officials looking into the 2001 Anthrax attacks. Eight days after the FBI's top suspect committed suicide, on September 11, 2001, the United States endured the deadliest terrorist attack in its history, leaving every citizen in a state of disbelief and despair.
Anthrax is odorless, colorless, and tasteless, an invisible organism capable of sending a strong message. If a weaponized biological agent were to be released en masse, the aftermath would rival that of a nuclear fallout. There's naturally occurring Anthrax, and then there's cultivations made by scientists who have molded it into either medicine or a biological weapon. It's believed Anthrax originated in Mesopotamia and Egypt alongside some of humanity's earliest civilizations, beginning with dormant spores that live among the soil. In some cases, spores get ingested by a person or domesticated animal. Luckily, naturally occurring Anthrax inhalation is incredibly rare and when caught is easily treatable.
The Amerithrax Task Force devoted 600,000 hours to investigative work, 10,000 witness interviews spanning six continents, 80 executed search warrants, 6,000 items of potential evidence, 5,750 grand jury subpoenas, and 5,730 environmental samples taken from 60 different locations. The task force filtered the evidence down to 48 post offices and 625 individual street mailboxes around Trenton, New Jersey, from which the Anthrax letters were believed to have been mailed. Bruce Ivins was born in Lebanon, Ohio, in 1946. By 2007, the clues were lining up to Bruce. Ivins died July 27, 2008. Looking back, it's easy to identify the FBI lied or conveniently didn't disclose the full scope of their investigation. When it comes to the truth, we may never know. We can only decide who to trust.