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Paul Gordon sets forth his mistaken impression that the National Academy of Sciences' review of the FBI's "microbial forensics analysis … should supply the answers" as to the validity of the "FBI's conclusions" in its anthrax letters investigation ("Fact or Fiction to be determined by the National Academy of Sciences," The Gazette, May 21).

Paul Gordon deserves to be excused for his mistaken impression, because the FBI has done its best to pretend that it is the microbial forensics in the investigation ("Americthrax") that largely establishes Dr. Bruce Ivins' guilt.

Once one grasps a few basic facts, it becomes apparent that the FBI's reliance on microbial forensics is not only misleading but fraudulent.

Fact No. 1: The microbial forensics in Amerithrax is all about matching the genetic fingerprint of the anthrax in Dr. Ivins' custody (called "RMR-1029") to the genetic fingerprint of the anthrax in the letters (the "attack anthrax").

Fact No. 2: From 1997, when RMR-1029 was created, to September 2001, when the first anthrax letters were mailed, hundreds of scientists, technicians and others had access to anthrax with the same genetic fingerprint as that of RMR-1029.

Fact No. 3: The anthrax in Dr. Ivins' custody was in the form of a wet slurry, which is suitable for testing vaccine efficacy. The attack anthrax, on the other hand, was in an extremely pure form of "weaponized" dried powder, the form that is suitable to causing death (by inhalational anthrax).

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI deal with fact No. 2 by pretending that agents "thoroughly" investigated "every … person who could have had access" to RMR-1029 and that all but Dr. Ivins were properly ruled out as potential suspects.

Though the DOJ-FBI has been repeatedly questioned about this, it has consistently refused to give any information about how all of the persons with access were identified, who they are, and how each one of them was ruled out as a potential suspect.

The DOJ-FBI deals with fact No. 3 by blatantly contradicting all of the initial reports (including its own descriptions) about the form of the attack anthrax.

In 2001, a couple of days after the two postal workers died from inhalational anthrax, FBI Director Robert Mueller himself acknowledged that the attack anthrax was weaponized. But Dr. Ivins had neither the expertise, nor the equipment, nor the opportunity to produce weaponized anthrax from the wet slurry in his custody.

And so the DOJ-FBI now resorts to pretending that there was no special process that went into the production of the attack anthrax.

The National Academy of Sciences' time-consuming review of the science underlying Amerithrax will keep all of the focus and attention upon fact No. 1, and serves to obscure and distract from facts 2 and 3.

Let us not be distracted. It is established and acknowledged that for several years leading up 2001, anthrax weaponization projects were being conducted by the Army at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah as well as by the CIA in Ohio, all in laboratories contracted to be operated by a privately owned company, Battelle Memorial Institute.

It is also known that Dr. Ivins was under order to send RMR-1029 to both of these locations leading up to the mailing of the anthrax letters.

Let us also not avoid the implications posed by the DOJ-FBI's fraud in persecuting Bruce Ivins. This is a deception procured by powerful forces inside our government. President Eisenhower's warning about our military-industrial-intelligence complex must be heeded.

Barry Kissin, Frederick