Willman, David

After September 11, American faced its second attack. A handful of anthrax-laced letters sent through the U.S. mail caused additional deaths, seventeen infections, and a seven-year-hunt for the culprit. Bruce Edwards Ivins, a deeply troubled U.S. Army scientist, was the sole perpetrator of the anthrax attacks. But before Ivins was identified, there was a struggle for control within the FBI's anthrax investigation; the missteps of an overzealous press; and the cadre of senior government officials who disregarded scientific evidence while spinning the attacks into a basis for war with Iraq.

The 2001 anthrax mailings,which came right after the 9/11 attacks, triggered one of the biggest and most complicated investigations in American history. Sent anonymously from a mailbox in New Jersey, the anthrax contents killed five pople and infected an additional seventeen victims, disrupted the mail, and had everyone concerned that a second terrorist attack was underway. The answer to the question of who was responsible would take years, target an innocent man, and, in the end embarrass the FBI because of its flawed investigative work.