I Love the 2000s...Part 4

As I move forward through my countdown of the 2000s, I come to number 8: The Anthrax Attacks.

In 2001, there was a lot going on and definitely launched the decade into a tailspin of activity. The George W. Bush administration was still in its early stages and America had experienced its worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor with 9/11. If things weren’t already chaotic that spring, a dangerous substance known as anthrax leaked its way throughout the United States. Beginning only days after September 11th, letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to news media offices as well offices of two U.S. Senators. Five people were killed and seventeen were infected. It would take almost seven years before a primary culprit would arise. The man who brought in by the FBI was Bruce Ivins, a scientist who worked at the government’s biodefense labs at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland. Sensing his run was up, Ivins killed himself on July 27, 2008 and on the 6th of August, federal prosecutors declared Ivins the sole culprit of the crimes.

The attacks would come at two separate times. The first group was dated September 18, 2001 and they were postmarked from Trenton, New Jersey. The five letters were sent to ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, the New York Post, and the National Enquirer. The first four were located in New York City and the last one was in Boca Raton, Florida. The National Enquirer is at American Media, Inc; the same place where the Sun is published and where the first person died. That individual was Robert Stevens, someone who worked for the Sun. Only two of the five letters were found, but the affects of anthrax was seen at the five locations. On October 9th, two more letters were sent out with similar postmarks as the first ones. These two were addressed to Democratic Senators Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Patrick Leahy of Vermont. They both were highly influential members of Congress as the former was the Senate Majority Leader and the latter was the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. An aide of Daschle discovered and opened the letter within that week while the one sent to Leahy was never opened and discovered about a month later. The Leahy letter accidentally went to the State Department, where David Horse, a postal worker, contracted inhalational anthrax. The second wave had stronger material and was believed to possibly be “weaponized”. Of the 22 who were infected by anthrax, five would die: Stevens; two employees of the Brentwood mail facility in Washington, D.C. (Thomas Morris Jr. and Joseph Curseen); and two who were infected by an unknown source of exposure (Kathy Nguyen, an immigrant in the Bronx, and Ottilie Lundgren, a widow in Oxford, Connecticut.

In the wake of these letters, an investigation began to see where they might have been mailed from. Princeton, New Jersey was targeted as the source of the mailings and a mailbox on Nassau Street was the only one of roughly 600 mailboxes that tested positive. The anthrax powder came in two forms: the course brown form that went to the news offices and the fine powder that was sent to the U.S. Senators. The brown powder only caused skin infections while the variety sent to the Florida office and the U.S. Senators was a more dangerous form known as inhalational anthrax. In the early stages of the investigation, there was a link between the samples to Saddam Hussein in the first months. The substance on the letters was similar to the material used in constructing biochemical weapons in Iraq. In addition, some were led to believe that Al Qaeda was behind the attacks since it was so close to the 9/11 attacks. There was a sense that the blame should be placed on the Middle East as the fervor was high with hatred toward that area. Working against those beliefs was the fact that the FBI knew that the anthrax powder had to have been made in a laboratory and not a cave in the Middle East. However, the President, Vice President, and others used the 9/11 attacks as reasoning to believe that the anthrax attacks were just a continuation.

Along the way, the investigation went along and names were sought in connection to the anthrax attacks. One such name was Dr. Steven Hatfill, who was named a “person of interest”. Hatfill denied anything to do with the letters and charges were dropped along with Hatfill getting a grievance payment for his hassle. The next name to come as a suspect was Dr. Philip Zack. Zack worked at Ft. Detrick and had some hostile tendencies and then was seen at the lab in the weeks following his firing. Zack was never proven to have anything to do the anthrax attacks. Then Dr. Bruce Ivins would become the last “person of interest”. On August 1, 2008, Ivins committed suicide. Ivins had spent much of the previous 20 years working at the biodefense labs at Ft. Detrick. Shortly before his death, Ivins was widely targeted by the FBI as someone who was believed to be the person behind the anthrax attacks. Five days after Ivins death, it was declared that he was the sole culprit of the crime.

There is still some dispute to this day is Bruce Ivins was the true culprit and if he was if he acted alone. The mailbox in Trenton didn't match Ivins's DNA not did his home has traces of anthrax. But that is definitely not enough to completely dismiss him as the main culprit. All that matters is 22 people were affected and 5 were left dead and that doesn't even take into consideration the level of fear it raised. September 11th, 2001 shook many people's sense of security and safety and these letters with potentially deadly powder in them only worsened those fears. Luckily, these letters were quick and after those initial weeks in September through November; the FBI prevented any more and looked to keep as many safe as possible. It is over 8 years later and the anthrax attacks still hit home to many and for that they are undoubtedly one of the biggest news events of the decade.

As I continue, the next story that shaped the decade was Hurricane Katrina, which effects can still be seen today.