Anthrax Closure, At Least Officially
The FBI has officially closed the case on the Anthrax letter case. As you may recall, letters with anthrax were sent to news agencies and the offices of ranking Democratic senators beginning one week after 9/11, killing five people and exposing 17 more. The FBI eventually concluded that it was solely attributable to one scientist working at a military lab.
While I do not doubt that the lab was the source of the anthrax, I do have my doubts about whether it was the work of this individual. As you may recall, the day after the 9/11 attack, the Bush administration was focused on pinning the attacks on Iraq, despite knowing that al Qaeda was the responsible party and that they were neither working from Iraq, nor even on good terms with that country.
The chances are, it was the work of an individual, possibly but not certainly the accused researcher, who wanted to carry out the attacks for whatever reasons an individual can imagine. However, it is difficult to ignore the fact that the anthrax attacks played right into the hands of politicians, making the 9/11 attacks seem like part of a larger plot, and providing the grounds upon which to base an invasion of Iraq, something that the Bush administration wanted from day one. Now, the 9/11 attacks themselves did this as well, but that does not mean the Bush administration was behind them. But the timing, nature, and especially the source of the anthrax attacks makes it more difficult to completely count out the possibility that, soon after 9/11, someone high up concluded that it would help their cause to have something like this happen. It could be just coincidence that the timing was right, that the nature of the attack–biological weapons–was something Iraq was highly suspected of, and that a government facility was the source of the material. But when coincidences start piling up, so do suspicions.
Of course, the conspiracy-theory elements of this assure the fact that no one in power or in any position of influence in the media would even dream of forwarding this theory. But knowing what we do about what the government will do (torture at a black site at Guantanamo) and how convoluted such secret operations are (profits from illegal sales of weapons to Iran used to fund counterinsurgencies in Central America), to completely rule out this scenario would be stupid. Such things do happen.
Did they happen here? I would be stunned if we ever knew for sure. All we do know is that the answer that the FBI is “satisfied” with is far from air-tight.
Nah, it was a single disgruntled scientist type. It might not have been Ivins (the guy the FBI has fingered), although I think it probably was. It might have been the other guy, Hatfil. It might be a third person we don’t know about.
But I doubt it was a conspiracy. I’m a believer that most conspiracies are pretty tough to keep quiet; as soon as they start involving multiple numbers of people, someone’s going to talk sooner or later.
There’s some fairly damning evidence against Ivins, including his suicide when the FBI was closing in. Hatfil’s response strikes me as far more logical for an innocent man; he got angry and fought back. Ivins was caught in numerous lies, and when the FBI is crawling up your butt with a flashlight, it’s time to start telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth (assuming you’re innocent).
Why does it need to multiply? One “true believer” placed correctly, contacted by one person who took an order from a high official, accesses the materials and pulls off the mailings, setting it up so that if an investigation starts it can be placed upon a convenient patsy. No more than four people need to know, all acting in their own interests, all knowing they would be hurt if anything would be released, all hiding behind the convenient screen of everybody reflexively rejecting the conspiracy theory angle. How is that not possible?
And that has always perplexed me: why do people reject conspiracy theories if they are workable and fir so well with known motivations? Especially when we see so many conspiracies that are shown to be real, like the ones I used as examples in the posts? Imagine if no one found out about Iran-Contra, and I came to you with the theory that Reagan secretly sold arms to the Iranians and then funneled the money to extremist insurgents in Central America? As for finding out, why do you believe that all such conspiracies are found out? That is inconsistent–if that were true, no one would attempt such things, knowing that they would be found out. I seriously doubt that we’re aware of half the crap that goes on, even operations with dozens or even hundreds of participants–as I am equally certain that many remain obscure because people would treat it as a conspiracy theory and won’t give it credence.
@Luis
Well, I reject this conspiracy theory because there’s considerable evidence pointing to Ivins being the bad guy.
And I think that there’s more than a little amount of danger in deciding that because you disagree with someone, they must be evil scumbags who are willing to stop at nothing to get their way.
That type of demonization is something that the right-wing noise machine has been doing for years, and it’s just as crappy if the left wing does it.
Besides, if it were a conspiracy, they would have set someone up far more effectively than this.
Did I heard “ranking Democratic Senators?”
Makes me wonder why not ranking Republican Senators?
Old Roman rule – look for the guilty among those who gain from the crime