Dragged back up from the Memory Hole: "the most significant political attack on US democracy in recent history":
Five labs traced the anthrax that was sent to Congress in 2001 to the U.S. government biowarfare lab at Fort Detrick. The Washington Post reported this in December, 2001. The FBI is not investigating, and has destroyed the stock that was crucial evidence in this case. This does not necessarily lead [to] the conclusion that the FBI or the military was behind sending the letters to Senators Daschle and Leahy. It is important to remember that the lab at Fort Detrick is illegal and the work done there illegal, under the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and under the U.S. law that implements it. So, any investigation that led to one or more individuals working on biological weapons for the U.S. government would reveal criminal activity by the government. That's reason enough for the coverup.
- David Swanson, recommending Francis Boyle's new book, "Biowarfare and Terrorism".
Seventeen days after Daschle and Leahy received their anthrax letters, the Patriot Act was passed by the Senate. Daschle also acceded to Bush and Cheney's separately-expressed wishes that there be no independent investigation of the 9/11 atrocities.
Very interesting and revealing post.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting this. It amazes me how short our collective memory is. I remember thinking that the timing of the anthrax mailings was very convenient, and how the only people who died were postal workers and some reporter for the National Inquirer. If a Senator or Congressman had actually become ill, or died, would there have been more of an investigation? Probably not. But clearly the hysteria that the incident helped foster was very useful to the administration.
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