Media comment on today's GAO assessment of the FBI's flawed anthrax science

I chose the following short AP report from the WaPo because it gets right to the point:

NATIONWIDE (AP) - The Government Accountability Office says the science the Federal Bureau of Investigations used to investigate the 2001 anthrax attacks was flawed.

The GAO released a report Friday on its findings. The agency didn't take a position on the FBI's conclusion that Army biodefense researcher Bruce Ivins acted alone in making and sending the powdered spores that killed five people and sickened 17 others.

The report adds fuel to the debate among experts, including many of Ivins' co-workers at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, over whether Ivins could have made and mailed the anthrax-filled envelopes.

The GAO said the FBI's research did not provide a full understanding of the methods and conditions that give rise to genetic mutations used to differentiate between samples of anthrax bacteria. The report calls this a "key scientific gap." 

This is the crux of the matter.  Yet FBI has said it stands by its case. 

UPDATE: "A spokesman for the FBI said the agency does not intend to reopen the case." 

Why would FBI say anything else? They have no need to provide any arguments or evidence, having successfully hounded one of their (several) suspect scientists until he committed suicide. Recall that FBI floated many different theories of the case before settling on Ivins as the perpetrator, a full 6-7 years after beginning its investigation.

They tried to close the case then, in August 2008.  But some in Congress were greatly dissatisfied, so at a September 2008 hearing in which he was the only witness, FBI Director Mueller promised a review of the scientific evidence by the National Academy of Science (NAS).  

An excellent team was assembled by the Academy, and they set to work.  But FBI learned the committee was doing too thorough a job, and its findings did not favor the FBI's claims in the case.  So FBI did an end run around the NAS, closing its case and issuing this report in 2010, long before the NAS was ready with its 2011 report.

Once the NAS report came out, FBI sang a different tune. It wasn't the science that was definitive; rather, it was the totality of the forensic evidence.  

Except: what evidence was FBI referring to?  There was no direct evidence linking Ivins to the crime, nor evidence it was even possible to manufacture a sufficient quantity of spores in the Army facility where he worked.

Here's what the FBI still claims about its case, despite everything:

"...New scientific methods were developed that ultimately led to the break in the case—methods that could have a far-reaching impact on future investigations. 

So the new scientific methods broke the case-- except they were in fact inconclusive and have not stood up to scrutiny by either the NAS or the GAO.  In fact, no agency or group besides the FBI has given them any credence. Members of Congress remained unsatisfied, like Senator Grassley.

Today, retiring Congressmember and physicist Rush Holt (who requested the GAO study and will lead the AAAS in February) said the report:

“confirms what I have often said — that the F.B.I.'s definitive conclusions about the accuracy of their scientific findings in the Amerithrax case are not, in fact, definitive. The United States needs a comprehensive, independent review of the Amerithrax investigation to ensure we have learned the lessons from this bio attack.”