An amendment to the 2010 Intelligence Authorization Act (H.R. 2701 [1]) will require that the government investigate and issue a report on the anthrax attacks of 2001 to determine whether the attacks originated from outside the United States.

The investigation will be conducted by the Inspector General and, according to the act, will include raw intelligence and should attempt to establish whether there is any credible evidence to connect the anthrax attacks to a foreign entity.

After last week's announcement that the FBI has officially closed the investigation into the attacks, Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ) introduced the amendment. 

"This investigation was botched at multiple points, which is why reexamining it is so important,"Holt commented while introducing the amendment, . Given that the samples of the strain of anthrax that was used in the attacks may have been supplied to foreign laboratories, we think it is prudent to...examine whether or not evidence of a potential foreign connection to the attacks was overlooked, ignored, or simply not passed along to the FBI."

H.R. 2701 has been approved by the Rules Committee and now faces a vote in the full House of Representatives.

 ♦ Photo by BlatantNews.com/Flickr [2]

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