Anthrax
The news yesterday that Bruce Ivins, a top researcher at a government lab, was about to be indicted as the post-9/11 anthrax killer and had forestalled this by committing suicide is very disturbing on several levels. Not that it was a researcher in a government lab. That has been almost a certainty since a few months after the last death from anthrax. But consider: there could not have been in the whole world more than 50 people with access to that particular strain of anthrax with the knowledge to use it. In fact, I would guess that it couldn't be much more than 30. And it took the FBI SEVEN YEARS to build a case? After publicly naming someone else at the same lab as a "person of interest." And having to pay nearly $6 million to the poor guy as a result. Taxpayers' money, as they say (thanks, John Ashcroft).
And are we even sure that they have the right guy? Not by a long sight yet.
And there is the curious case of ABC's reporting of the incident back when it helped build up support for the invasion of Iraq. Supposedly four separate sources told them that government laboratory tests (the same lab Ivins worked at) had proven that the anthrax came from Iraq. The only problem is, it wasn't true. Now only folks at ABC know who those four 'sources' were. ABC though is keeping very quiet about who these four people were.
Despite the fact they broke security in a time of national emergency, lied, and, oh well, helped start a war we didn't need to fight.
And then there is the question: if the reports of Ivins "homicidal threats" going back to grad school, which admittedly aren't backed up at the moment by much at all, prove to be true, how did Ivins receive the top security clearance he would have needed to do the work we know he did? Wouldn't this have been handled by the FBI too?
Glenn Greenwald on Salon.com has the most disturbing take on the story yet. He seems to be hinting at a government conspiracy of the type so often imagined implausibly by Hollywood.
I wish I disbelieved it a little harder than I do.
Labels: anthrax case, law, terrorism
posted by Clemens @ 10:30 AM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Without reading anything else, I myself find the story strange, and I wonder if someone will declare "Mission Accomplished" merely because he killed himself.
This whole tale is strange, strange, strange. I recall that shortly after the attacks there was a lot of talk that Iraq couldn't have done it, because it was a kind of grain that is very difficult to make. I even remember someone saying that it could only be made in the US.
Besides, there doesn't seem to be any connection with this guy, aside from the fact that he worked in that lab. I'm keen to learn more.
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