If this is the link you were referring to, it looks like there was an extensive lie detector screen. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008087457_anthrax020.html

"The FBI would be remiss not to look at us, especially those of us who worked with anthrax," said John Ezzell, an anthrax researcher who hired Ivins at the institute and knew him well. "We were all subjected to lie-detector tests. We were all interviewed."

When the anthrax was mailed to Leahy, the neocons firmly controlled the white house and congress. With Congress in control of the Democrats and Obama leading in most polls, the Justice Department is becoming nervous about this open case were the primary victims are their potential future bosses. Thus there is a sudden need to declare the case closed with exceptional expediency. How convenient that Ivins obliged their need with his "apparent suicide".

Achille's Heel.

You may find the following paper interesting.

Real-Time PCR Assay for a Unique Chromosomal Sequence of Bacillus anthracis

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=535252

From the acknowledgments...

We thank Gerry Howe, Brian Walker, David Kulesh, and Bruce Ivins for technical assistance...

On August 3, 2008 Bonestorm got to the bottom of this story: The second part is the ONLY true we know thus far. All the rest is "a lot of noise to confuse everybody," which is called "disinformation.

He apparently took the pills at home with his family present ... at least they appear to have been the ones to call the EMS at around 0130 ... seems most likely to me the suicide is as it appears ... with no "foul play" -- beyond the harrassment, etc.

Why he had access to "enough" pills to kill himself, I cannot answer.

The degree to which he had "control" over the cultures he was "responsible" and the whole "he only dealt with liquid anthrax" will require further scrutiny barring an as-yet-ureleased confession.

If they had him "dead to rights" ... again, why the delays in taking this "mass murderer" into custody?

Two points regarding the FBI's inept handling of this case...

Firstly, FBI head Robert Mueller personally turned this case into a media circus early on. This is from (http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/itsonlyfair/latimes0362.html) an old LA Times story:

On Oct. 15., 2001, Mueller assigned the anthrax investigation to Van Harp, a veteran FBI official. A photo editor in Florida had already died mysteriously from anthrax about a week earlier. But the onslaught of biological terrorism was not recognized until an aide to the U.S. Senate majority leader opened an envelope Oct. 15 on Capitol Hill, unleashing a plume of powdery material and a wave of national fear.

Harp learned that this investigation would not follow FBI procedures for strict confidentiality. For starters, Mueller instructed him to brief U.S. Sens. Thomas Daschle (D-S.D.), then the majority leader, and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Each had been intended recipients of anthrax letters.

FBI officials wanted to assure the senators that the bureau was "very aggressively investigating the case," Harp testified. Nevertheless, sharing confidential investigative information was, he said, "an unusual step."

The same link details how media helicopters were ahead of the FBI on several occasions, indicating some serious leakage and/or a concerted attempt to smear Hatfield. (Note the role played by New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof here).

At one point, Roth and other FBI officials tried to trace who was accessing the central computer file in which all investigative interviews and other developments were stored. Roth said the file was "an open book," used by "a huge group of people."

... [FBI Director Robert] Mueller resisted when an official recommended a criminal probe of the leaks, with mandatory lie-detector tests for the anthrax investigators, Roth testified. The FBI director raised a hand and said, " 'I don't want to do that. . . . It's bad for morale to go after these people,' " Roth said.

Mueller testified that he did not recall the episode.

Here's one little incident that perfectly illustrates how the FBI went after Hatfield:

An FBI employee drove over Hatfill's foot, prompting Washington, D.C., police to ticket him for "walking to create a hazard."

Can you believe it? They drove over his foot and then charged him with walking the wrong way!

Secondly, it would be very interesting to know whether the DoJ hindered the progress of this investigation. I've seen reports of Feds being ready to press charges but DoJ holding things up. One can only wonder if that has anything to do with the politicization of the DoJ under Bush.

Since the number of people with access to labs at Dietrick were limited, one would think that early on in the investigation, these people would have been asked to provide a handwriting sample and had it compared to the antrhax notes and envelopes. If so, and if there was a match, why the long wait.

Re: the handwriting question, I found this from a Lexis link quoting Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: Kelli, do we know if his handwriting matched those letters that were sent out to Tom Brokaw, to Senator Daschle, Senator Leahy, among others? Have we got any indication that there was a match in the handwriting?

ARENA: Wolf, no, the FBI and Justice Department have not released any details about what they had on Ivins. We still wait for that. A lot of the information remains under seal.

BLITZER: Because, if there is no match, the question then becomes, did he have an accomplice? Did he have someone else working with him on this? And those questions remain outstanding, I'm sure.

(CROSSTALK)

ARENA: That's right.

Forget about any committee investigations. By the time congress comes back from vacation, I imagine this story will have been replaced in the cycle by whatever thing Republicans are accusing Obama of by then.

This does bring up some interesting issues about the media that I don;t think will be solved in any near future. The media derives its unique position by its special mention in the first ammendment--which is such an open ended phrase, and could just have well been a stylistic flourish (although the press' primary role in pre-revolution organizing must have been prominent on the founders' mind). Where does the media get this awesome power to be the interlocutor to the government institutions, that in theory, are the 'people's? Certainly, no one elects the 'media', there is no process to regulate its behavior besides obscenity and libel laws. The media do get vast amounts of access to the government and society, but are not obligated to even share that with the public. The media, in short, are a completely unregulated branch of government, with no structural accountability. That, of course, would be bad enough, but the only thing necessary to start your own supremely powerful media company is to be fantastically rich. Ironically, political players transition to and from media to government with a frightening ease

I think in this context, seeking to revise confidentiality policies--which, if I'm not mistaken, are largely defined only by individual judicial interpretation in a case by case basis-- that, for the last decade or so of media consolidation have more often than not, served to protect government manipulators or rivals in governmental power struggles, would be an uphill battle indeed. I do think that the anthrax-Ivins case is a brilliant way of bringing these issues to public attention--if anything, continuing to dialogue and press for action on this issue. I don't think the mainstream public spends much time wondering if the media is being used by government actors to disseminate info.