The FBI director Robert S. Mueller III announced that a review of the Anthrax Case will be conducted by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), due to pressure from several members of the Congress.

Numerous Congressmen showed great dissatisfaction with the brief investigation led by the Bureau, which used scientific methods in order to pinpoint Bruce Ivins as the sole culprit in the aforementioned case. The NAS will examine these deemed as cutting-edge, state-of-the-art methods that the FBI put to use for the first time in a matter of such importance, thus raising many questions about their conclusions.

Bruce E. Ivins, a scientist working at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (more commonly known as Fort Detrick) who committed suicide on July 29 this year, was accused by the feds to have sent anthrax letters to news organizations and Capitol Hill offices in September 2001.

The ”Quantico letter”, which is an anonymous letter that was mailed the same week the anthrax was sent to The New York Post and NBC, spread rumours about the involvement of a certain Dr.Ayaad Assaad in terrorist activity, also accusing him of being a religious fanatic.
Asaad was questioned by the FBI at the time and consequently cleared of any suspicions in the Anthrax Case. "It was deceptive in one way and the other way it would fit to accuse an Arab-American after the 9/11 attack of committing this crime," Assaad said.

Presently, FBI officials believe there is no connection between the Anthrax Case and the „Quantico letter,” even though back in 2003, they were not of the same opinion.

Assaad, who has worked with Ivins for over 18 years, now claims that his late colleague is highly unlikely to have sent the letter.
"Bruce Ivins is an honorable man. We're good friends. That is not the writing of Bruce Ivins," Assaad stated.

Ivins was not the first suspect in the attacks, as the Department of Justice publicly stated in 2002 that former Fort Detrick researcher Steven Hatfill was a ”person of interest” in the case. In August this year, Hatfill was formally exonerated and was also paid $ 5.8million by the government, which was bluntly called a buy off by Senator Charles E. Grassley, one of the FBI’s approach to the case most fervent critics.