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Remember anthrax?

By dcmediagirl on August 1, 2008 at 9:03 AM in 9/11, Current Affairs

Now comes the news that the FBI’s top suspect in the anthrax mailings of 2001 has died of an apparent suicide. There are so many remarkable elements to this story that it’s hard to know where to begin, but here goes.

It turns out that the FBI had evidence to believe that the perpetrator of these attacks was Bruce E. Ivins, a biodefense researcher employed by the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

If you lived in Washington, D.C. at the time of these attacks, which closely followed the 9/11 attack, the city was paralyzed by fear and paranoia, and with good reason: among the recipients of these dangerous mailings were Senators Pat Leahy and Tom Daschle. At the time I worked for a news organization whose headquarters was located about 5 minutes away from a still-smoldering Pentagon. We were evacuated each time some hapless reporter with a sweet tooth brought in a powdered donut and was careless enough to trail sugar on the floor, or whenever a dieter would spill some Splenda in the corridor. As we would go out the “moonmen” would come in.

Remember everyone stocking up on Cipro? Sure you do. What you may not remember, however, is ABC News’s role in stirring the pot on this story, spreading the news that tests conducted on the anthrax revealed that it contained the chemical additive bentonite, providing a possible link to – you guessed it – Saddam Hussein. And where were these tests conducted?

Fort Detrick.

Remember how the postal service was crippled and the Hart Senate Office Building was shut down during a cleanup that went on for weeks.

Remember too the notes that were sent along with this dangerous powder with their references to “Death to America”, “Death to Israel” and “Allah is Great”, further leading to speculation that these missives must have been sent by a radical Muslim individual or group with an ax to grind. The fact that the evidence points to a scientist at Fort Detrick is nothing short of shocking. Consider the implications of an Army researcher mailing anthrax with these notes. Why did he do it? You don’t have to be a member of the tin foil hat crowd to sit up and take notice.

Fort Detrick has a public relations nightmare on its hands and will have to conduct a thorough, transparent investigation to avoid the appearance of coverups and to put a stop to the conspiracy theories that are bound to circulate as a result of this story. And how about ABC News’s complicity in this national nighmare? It turns out no traces of bentonite were found in the anthrax. So why was ABC told that bentonite had been found?

I’ll be discussing this remarkable story on Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT on Hour of Power, where we’ll also talk about how the left wing blogosphere has jumped the shark.