You all remember Richard Jewell. He was the hapless guy who made the mistake of being a security guard in the vicinity of right-wing nutcase Eric Rudolph when the latter set off a bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Rather than do the hard work of tracking down a far-right extremist on the loose, the FBI concluded there wasn't a political motive to the bombing (there was) but instead a personal-aggrandizement agenda at work, so they arrested Jewell -- who actually had spotted the bomb and heroically cleared the area.

Oops.

Now, with all the eagerness to "solve" the case they displayed in 1996, the FBI decided has decided that Bruce Ivins is the anthrax killer -- after six and a half years of letting the case rot on the vine. A number of the reports about the case have indicated the Justice Department is now considering closing it. But today's New York Times and Baltimore Sun stories -- along with Glenn Greenwald's superb reportage -- should raise enough questions about the "official story" to prevent that from happening, at least for the time time being.

Of course, the FBI already has a Richard Jewell in the anthrax case: Steven Hatfill, the wrongfully accused Fort Detrick scientist who successfully sued the crap out of the government for linking him to the killings. Now it appears the FBI is eager to dump the case in the lap of a man who is dead.

On the other hand, some of the circumstantial evidence now emerging about Ivins is fairly powerful, particularly today's Washington Post report indicating that Ivins used a Fort Detrick dryer capable of making the anthrax used in the mailings. However, that still does not answer the question of whether Ivins' dryer was actually the one used; these dryers each leave distinguishing signatures on the anthrax they produce.

The case against Ivins so far is largely circumstantial, but that could change. Certainly the evidence suggests he was involved. It doesn't indicate at all, however, that he acted alone if he was. In any event, none of the evidence presented publicly is close enough to warrant being considered conclusive.

Considering that, as the NYT report noted, as many as 10 scientists at Detrick had access to this anthrax, it remains entirely possible that Ivins only produced the samples that were used by another scientist with more nefarious purposes. As Meryl Nass pointedly observes: "No matter how good the microbial forensics may be, they can only, at best, link the anthrax to a particular strain and lab. They cannot link it to any individual."

We all know the FBI has been under pressure to manipulate the anthrax case from the start. Juan Cole noted yesterday that the Bush White House was pressuring the FBI to blame Al Qaeda for the anthrax. And when that didn't work, Iraq got tagged "it" -- and the supposed link to the anthrax mailings became part of the rationale for invading them. John McCain played a key role in that particular piece of disinformation.

Now they want to simply be done with the case. But considering that it was a scientist on the government payroll who they're blaming, that won't be so easy. Once again, it's time for a full-blown congressional investigation of this matter -- especially if the Justice folks try sweeping it prematurely under the carpet.