The Army scientist suspected in the 2001 anthrax letter attacks exhibited disturbing mental-health issues that military officials should have noticed and acted upon, according to a report obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
A panel of behavioral scientists found that the anthrax mailings, which killed five people in the days after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, “could have been anticipated — and prevented,” the Times reported.
Bruce Ivins, a researcher at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, committed suicide in 2008 as prosecutors were preparing to indict him in the attacks.
The panel said Ivins’ psychiatric history showed he “was psychologically disposed to undertake the mailings; his behavioral history demonstrated his potential for carrying them out; and he had the motivation and means,” according to the Times. The panel’s report also faulted the Army for not investigating Ivins’ signs of instability. If the military had done so, the panel said, Ivins would have been denied the security clearance needed to handle anthrax.
A National Academy of Sciences report released last month found that Ivins couldn’t definitively be linked the anthrax letters.
