Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Anthrax may have came from the same government lab that falsely blamed Iraq

By

So it appears that the anthrax from the 2001 attacks may have originated from the same US government facility that claimed the substance originated in Iraq. Awesome.

From Salon’s Glenn Greenwald [emphasis Greenwald’s]:

The FBI’s lead suspect in the September, 2001 anthrax attacks — Bruce E. Ivins — died Tuesday night, apparently by suicide, just as the Justice Department was about to charge him with responsibility for the attacks. For the last 18 years, Ivins was a top anthrax researcher at the U.S. Government’s biological weapons research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, where he was one of the most elite government anthrax scientists on the research team at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID)…

During the last week of October, 2001, ABC News, led by Brian Ross, continuously trumpeted the claim as their top news story that government tests conducted on the anthrax — tests conducted at Ft. Detrick — revealed that the anthrax sent to Daschele contained the chemical additive known as bentonite. ABC News, including Peter Jennings, repeatedly claimed that the presence of bentonite in the anthrax was compelling evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks, since — as ABC variously claimed — bentonite “is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons program” and “only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons.”…

Clearly, Ross’ allegedly four separate sources had to have some specific knowledge of the tests conducted and, if they were really “well-placed,” one would presume that meant they had some connection to the laboratory where the tests were conducted — Ft. Detrick. That means that the same Government lab where the anthrax attacks themselves came from was the same place where the false reports originated that blamed those attacks on Iraq.

Awk-ward. Talk about a conflict of interest! It might be a good idea to get all the facts out so conspiracy theories can be put to rest – or validated.  

Please share widely!
fb-share-icon
Tweet
0

Comments

  1. bentonite is as common as dirt…because it is dirt!  or rather, it is a very common clay mineral.  tons upon tons of the stuff are mined in the USA and around the world.  while it might be possible for a forensic scientists to narrow down the region of the world a particular sample of bentonite was mined from (there are many chemical forms of the mineral, all dubbed “bentonite”), it seems highly possible that anyone, anywhere in the world could spike an anthrax sample with bentonite.  i’m sure bentonite from iraq (if it is mined there) is as simple to get a sample of as getting dirt in your shoe.  so to tie the anthrax scare to iraq via bentonite seems especially ludicrous to me unless there is also evidence that the bentonite was chemically or physically altered via a special method only the iraqis knew.  but i doubt it, because if that were the case they would have said so to beef up the PATHETIC claim.

    • ABC News’ claim — which they said came at first from “three well-placed but separate sources,” followed by “four well-placed and separate sources” — was completely false from the beginning. There never was any bentonite detected in the anthrax (a fact ABC News acknowledged for the first time in 2007 only as a result of my badgering them about this issue). It’s critical to note that it isn’t the case that preliminary tests really did detect bentonite and then subsequent tests found there was none. No tests ever found or even suggested the presence bentonite. The claim was just concocted from the start. It just never happened

      • Who did you quote there.

        <

        p>Glenn Greenwald had a post up reminding people of the irresponsible way in which ABC peddled the Iraq connection.

        <

        p>

        Saddam Hussein was not just evil, but a severe threat to the U.S., likely the primary culprit behind the anthrax attacks. All along, though, the anthrax came from a U.S. Government/Army research lab.

        Critically, ABC News never retracted its story (they merely noted, as they had done from the start, that the White House denied the reports). And thus, the linkage between Saddam and the anthrax attacks — every bit as false as the linkage between Saddam and the 9/11 attacks — persisted.

        <

        p>As he points out in the post, this meme being bandied about was for many a factor in supporting the Iraq invasion.  Even McCain peddled the theory.

        <

        p>Note also that the ABC article said they had four inside sources.  If the story was false, doesn’t it follow that there is a public interest in finding out the names of these people who pushed this false information into the media echo chamber?

        <

        p>The whole thing is worth a read.

  2. …with tales of anthrax originating in Iraq.  See this video:

    <

    p>http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30…

    <

    p>You’ll see John McCain telling that lie on 10/18/2001, just 5 weeks after 9/11.  McCain voters – can you really vote for this man, after watching him lie about the threat posed by Iraq?  Those lies have cost over 4,000 American soldiers their lives, over 30,000 are wounded, and uncounted Iraqis are dead or displaced…

Archives