Knock Me Down with a Fucking Feather, Part Ninety-seven: Anthrax

Oh, goody. You probably heard over the weekend that Dr. Bruce Ivins, the prime suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks, has committed suicide, giving the FBI the opportunity to say well, that's that, then, and slam the door shut on the investigation. You may or may not have heard that we now know that the government's original assertion, repeated breathlessly by Brian Ross over and over and over on ABC, that the anthrax was definitively tied to Iraq, was utter bullshit. Utter and deliberate bullshit. Glenn Greenwald blows it open.

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.”

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 of bentonite. The claim was just concocted from the start. It just never happened.

That means that ABC News’ “four well-placed and separate sources” fed them information that was completely false — false information that created a very significant link in the public mind between the anthrax attacks and Saddam Hussein.

Outstanding. You know, when lying about WMD just isn't enough, well, use a very convenient unrelated terrorist attack as the basis for a whole 'nother set of lies. Works like a charm, every time. I am not willing at this point to entertain borderline tinfoil notions of Bruce Ivins as the point man for a deeper conspiracy. There's enough to be pissed at without that. Things like... this, for example.

It's a bad movie script that's taken on a life of its own and keeps promulgating increasingly bad, unbelievable, downright awful plot twists. But it's real, and if today's depressing Rasmussen daily tracking poll is any indication, it may not stop any time soon. Work this bit of news into your daily conversations with anyone who still thinks the Bush administration and John McCain aren't so bad, yes?