WASHINGTON — A New Jersey congressman said Wednesday it should have taken the FBI days, not years, to determine the anthrax used in 2001 that killed five people was much less sophisticated than believed.

Congress smells a rat. Democratic Rep. Rush Holt asked FBI Director Robert Mueller for a classified briefing about the status of the bureau’s investigation into who was behind the attacks.

Several published reports this week said the FBI had acknowledged the anthrax used in the attacks was commonly available and not weapons-grade.

In his letter to Mueller, Holt said the FBI’s failure to determine what kind of anthrax was used meant that “resources were diverted and countless agents wasted their time investigating a small pool of suspects, instead of the broader search we now know was needed.”

The FBI has conducted 9,100 interviews and issued 6,000 subpoenas.

Holt asked Mueller to have Douglas Beecher, a scientist in the FBI’s Hazardous Materials Response Unit, testify before the House Intelligence Committee.

Beecher recently wrote an article in a scientific journal saying there was “a widely circulated misconception” that the anthrax spores were made using additives and sophisticated engineering akin to military weapons production.

FBI spokesman Bill Carter said he did not know if Mueller had received Holt’s letter.

The anthrax attacks, in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, killed five people across the country and sickened 17. There were five confirmed anthrax infections and two suspected cases in New Jersey but no fatalities.

Source: AP