Researcher Kept Security Clearance as FBI Closed In (WaPo)

[struggle4progress]

By Carrie Johnson, Marilyn W. Thompson and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, August 4, 2008; Page A03

As an FBI investigation increasingly focused on him as a suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks, Fort Detrick scientist Bruce E. Ivins enjoyed a security clearance that allowed him to work in the facility's most dangerous laboratories, to handle deadly biological agents, and to take part in broad discussions about the Pentagon's defenses against germ warfare.

On July 10, the day he was taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation, for example, Ivins spent part of the afternoon at a sensitive briefing on a new bubonic plague vaccine under development at the Army's elite biological weapons testing center, according to a former colleague who talked with him there.

Records that have surfaced since Ivins committed suicide last week show that Fort Detrick officials abruptly barred him from the base July 10, based on what a counselor called his deteriorating emotional condition. Until then, his security clearance gave him access to some of the most secure areas at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID. Months earlier, Ivins had become one of a handful of scientists regarded by federal investigators as the lead suspects in the unsolved killing of five people by mailed letters containing anthrax ...

His freedom to move about Fort Detrick, even as the FBI closed in on him and threatened an indictment, adds another layer of mystery to the massive case, which law enforcement authorities now hope to close as early as today. As a world-renowned specialist in the study of anthrax bacteria, Ivins worked closely with the FBI in its "Amerithrax" probe while gradually becoming the principal suspect in the case. His scientific expertise was so recognized that he took part in broader discussions about a major government buildup of biological protections to guard against future attacks ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/03/AR2008080301819.html?hpid=topnews

[Muttocracy]

1. yep, one more ill-fitting puzzle piece. nt