Whether federal investigators can succeed in their attempts to sneeze off the troublesome anthrax attack case remains to be seen, but interesting facts continue to emerge in this murky incident that so terrified the nation on the coattails of 9/11.

Bay Area Indymedia today files a great story that asks why the FBI allowed Fort Detrick scientists to investigate themselves in the long, winding trail of the probe.

The case seemed to have broken open in August, when a Detrick scientist - Dr. Bruce Ivins - committed suicide amid high-pressure tactics by the FBI to pin the crime on him. But many questions remain - enough that FBI chief Robert Mueller promised during Congressional hearings last month that the bureau’s evidence will be submitted to a scientific panel for review. And there things stand.

As Bill Simpich’s story notes: “The battle will now turn to the independence of this panel, and whether "all evidence" or merely "scientific evidence" will be under review.”

This story has been buried under the avalanche of the Presidential campaign and nationwide financial meltdown, but its importance as one of the key provocations in the Administration’s case for the Iraq War makes it an issue that still resonates.

Simpich’s article has some eyebrow-raising touches:

“In his recent book Taking Heat, former White House secretary Ari Fleischer wrote that Bush was more shook up by the anthrax attacks than by any other event. White House officials repeatedly pressed Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by al-Qaeda or Iraq. After days of provocative statements designed to scare the American people, Cheney himself believed that he had been exposed to anthrax. Although the test results were negative, October 18, 2001, was the moment when Cheney decided to withdraw to an "undisclosed location" and carry biodefense protection during all of his mysterious travels.”

Huh! To me, Cheney’s avuncular, silk-tie-and-cufflinks machismo makes him an amusing candidate for paranoid hypochondria. You just never know...

If nothing else, this account is a good break from all the economic uncertainty and Palin fetishes.