[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 38 (Wednesday, March 4, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H2954]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           THE NEED FOR THE ANTHRAX ATTACKS INVESTIGATION ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, this week, I reintroduced the Anthrax Attacks 
Investigation Act, H.R. 1248. Since the attacks occurred, I have 
pressed for a full investigation into this insidious biowarfare attack 
on our country.
  My bill's purpose is simple: to examine and to report on how the 
attacks occurred and on how we can prevent similar episodes in the 
future. Numerous experts and advisory committees say that biological 
attacks or emerging epidemics are our greatest public risks.
  As you may know, the anthrax attacks in 2001 originated from a postal 
box, evidently, in the Twelfth Congressional District in New Jersey. 
They disrupted the lives of people throughout the region and the 
country. For months, Americans lived in fear of a future attack and of 
the possibility of receiving cross-contaminated mail. Mail service was 
delayed, and people wondered whether there was a murderer at large in 
their midst. Further, my own congressional office and others here in 
Washington were shut down after it was found to be contaminated with 
anthrax. These attacks raised the fear of terrorism to a fevered pitch.
  Since the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation announced in early August of last year that Dr. Bruce 
Ivins was their prime suspect before his suicide a month earlier, I've 
spoken with FBI Director Mueller about the case. He readily has 
admitted that the case against Dr. Ivins is and was circumstantial and 
that the FBI has no direct physical evidence tying him to the attack. 
No anthrax spores were found in his car or his home, and the FBI has no 
evidence that Ivins actually mailed the letters in New Jersey. 
Nevertheless, the FBI and the DOJ are closing the case because they 
believe the available circumstantial evidence against Dr. Ivins is 
overwhelming and because no evidence has surfaced to suggest that he 
had any accomplices.
  A number of important questions about this case remain unanswered: 
How did the perpetrator or perpetrators manage to pull off these 
attacks that were somewhat complicated in the first place? Why did the 
FBI pursue the wrong suspect for so long? Is the science behind the 
case sound? Should the case be closed? Have we learned the right 
lessons, and have we implemented the right changes in our defenses to 
make another such attack less likely? Why are investigators so certain 
that Ivins acted alone?
  Indeed, last month in Baltimore, at the conference of the American 
Society for Microbiology, FBI scientist Jason Bannan told the press 
something I had not previously heard from the FBI officials, something 
that only raises more questions about the FBI investigation.
  Dr. Bannan noted during the investigation that the FBI collected at 
least 60 water samples from communities where government laboratories 
work with anthrax. The purpose of collecting the samples was to see if 
there was any unique chemical signature in one of the water samples 
that would match with the water that was used to grow the anthrax 
spores that were mailed. According to the New York Times, Bannan said, 
``The water research ultimately was inconclusive about where the 
anthrax was grown.''

                              {time}  1600

  Despite this, the FBI remains adamant that the anthrax could only 
have come from that site in Maryland that Dr. Ivins used even though 
the Bureau has never been able to replicate the chemical signature of 
the material in the attacks.
  This is just one question.
  As has so often been the case, each new revelation by the FBI seems 
only to raise more questions about the conduct and conclusions of the 
investigation underscoring why an independent review of the 
investigation is needed badly. In addition, there are important policy 
and public safety questions that our government has yet to answer 
satisfactorily.
  In December 2008, the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass 
Destruction, Proliferation and Terrorism--itself an outgrowth of the 9/
11 Commission and its recommendations--issued a report. It used 
alarming language to prod our government to act. It affirmed something 
that was demonstrated with the deadly anthrax attacks: Terrorists will 
likely use weapons of mass destruction attacks on America which feature 
biological weapons.
  However, examining the 2001 anthrax attacks was not an explicit 
mandate of that Commission. This was in contrast to the 9/11 Commission 
which was specifically charged with looking at how the September 2001 
attacks happened, why the Federal Government failed to prevent the 
attacks and what remedial measures were necessary to prevent a similar 
catastrophe in the future. The question is, have we implemented the 
lessons learned from those attacks in the fall of 2001?
  The Commission that I am proposing here is similar to this 9/11 
Commission that should look at the incident, why it was not prevented, 
and what we can do to prevent such things in the future. Just as the 9/
11 Commission looked not only at the attacks that morning but also 
recommended changes in the structure of government agencies, screening 
methods and government oversight, so should an anthrax commission look 
not only at the specific crime but also at measures for prevention, 
detention, and investigation of future bioterrorism.

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