Unanswered questions about the Anthrax attacks
August 3rd, 2008Glenn Greenwald posts some serious questions about the Anthrax attacks, and the journalists who are protecting sources that fed them lies to mislead the public about Anthrax links to Iraq.
Serious investigation needed. Note: Do we know of Bloggers who’d protect a LYING source, a source who passed on anonymouse lies to mislead the public? I don’t think so. So why won’t Brian Ross and ABC News reveal their sources? Reminiscent of Judith Miller, who wouldn’t reveal that a key source of false info on Iraq/Niger was Scooter Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff?
Why were White House aides given cipro weeks before the anthrax attacks, and why “on the night of the Sept. 11 attacks, [did] the White House Medical Office dispense[] Cipro to staff accompanying Vice President Dick Cheney as he was secreted off to the safety of Camp David”? [Washington Post, 10/23/2001];
Why, if Cheney was given cipro on the night of the 9/11 attacks, was he allegedly “convinced that he had been subjected to a lethal dose of anthrax” on October 18, and that this fear is what led him to seek refuge in “undisclosed locations” and thereafter support an array of hard-line tactics against suspected terrorists? [Jane Mayer, The Dark Side, 2008];
Which “high government official” told Richard Cohen to take cipro prior to the anthrax attacks (it wasn’t a “source” who did so, since Cohen didn’t write about it and apparently never intended to; it was just someone high up in Government passing along a helpful tip to a media friend) [Richard Cohen, Slate, March 18, 2008];
Did the FBI meaningfully investigate who sent an anonymous letter to the FBI after the anthrax letters were sent, but before they were made public, accusing a former Fort Detrick scientist — the Arab-American Ayaad Assaad — of being a “potential biological terrorist,” after Assaad was forced out of Fort Detrick by a group of USAMRIID bioweapons researchers who had exhibited extreme anti-Arab animus? [Laura Rozen, Salon, 1/26/2002];
Why did the FBI gives its consent in October, 2001 for the remaining samples of the Ames anthrax strain to be destroyed, thereby losing crucial “genetic clues valuable to the criminal inquiry”? [San Francisco Chronicle, 11/9/2001];
If — as was publicly disclosed as early as 2004 — Bruce Ivins’ behavior in 2001 and 2002 in conducting unauthorized tests on anthrax residue was so suspicious, why was he allowed to remain with access to the nation’s most dangerous toxins for many years after, and why wasn’t he a top suspect much earlier? [USA Today, 10/13/2004];
If it’s really the case — as principal Ivins antagonist Jean Duley claims — that Ivins, as far back as 2000, had “actually attempted to murder several other people, [including] through poisoning” and had threatened to kill his co-workers at his Fort Detrick lab, then why did he continue to maintain clearance to work on biological weapons, and why are his co-workers and friends, with virtual unanimity, insisting that he never displayed any behavior suggestive of being the anthrax attacker? [Washington Post, August 3, 2008];
What was John McCain referencing when he went on national television in October, 2001 and claimed “there is some indication, and I don’t have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq”? [Late Show with David Letterman, 10/18/2001];
What was Joe Lieberman’s basis for stating on national television, three days after McCain’s Letterman appearance and in the midst of advocating a U.S. attack on Iraq, that the anthrax was so complex and potent that “there’s either a significant amount of money behind this, or this is state-sponsored, or this is stuff that was stolen from the former Soviet program”? [Meet the Press, 10/21/2001];
What did Pat Leahy mean when he said the following in a September, 2007 interview:
Leahy: What I want to know — I have a theory. But what I want to know is why me, why Tom Daschle, why Tom Brokaw?VDB: Right. That all fits into the profile of a kind of hard-core and obviously insane ideologue on the far Right, somebody who would fixate on especially Tom Daschle, who at that point was the target of daily, vitriolic attacks on Right-wing talk radio.
Leahy: [Slowly, with a little shake of the head] I don’t think it’s somebody insane. I’d accept everything else you said. But I don’t think it’s somebody insane. And I think there are people within our government — certainly from the source of it — who know where it came from. [Taps the table to let that settle in] And these people may not have had anything to do with it, but they certainly know where it came from.
[Vermont Daily Briefing, 9/5/2007];
Who were the “four separate and well-placed sources” who told ABC News, falsely, that tests conducted at Fort Detrick had found the presence of bentonite in the anthrax sent to Tom Daschle, causing ABC News to aggressively link the attacks to Iraq for five straight days in October, 2001? [Salon, 4/9/2007];
Who was responsible for the numerous leaks even before the ABC News bentonite reports linking the anthrax attacks to Iraq? [The Guardian; 10/14/2001; Wall St. Journal Editorial, 10/15/2001 (”Is Iraq unleashing biological weapons on America?”); CNN, 10/15/2001].
Read the whole piece. We need some answers.
while the obligation of source confidentiality is close to absolute, it does not extend to a source who deliberately exploits confidentiality to disseminate lies to the public