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Saturday, Nov 7, 2009
Glenn,
This is an excellent post, and I fully agree with the main thrust of your argument. However, I think that the issue of Brian Ross' sources might be a little more complicated than you present. I think it is possible, and perhaps even likely, that the sources themselves had been lied to. In other words, the sources themselves may not have fabricated the story but were (knowingly or not) passing along a falsehood. In this case, the source of the falsehood should be identified, but that source might not be known to Ross. This, of course, does not excuse their failure to issue a correction and apology.
One other thing, just for the sake of accuracy. You dismiss the claim of the diagnostic value of the presence of bentonite in the anthrax spores by noting the widespread availability of bentonite. However, my reading of the reporting is that bentonite is supposedly diagnostic not because it is rare or available only in Iraq, but because its use in weaponizing antrhrax was unusual (and perhaps unique to Iraq).
That bentonite is used for other purposes does not mean that it is useful as an additive to anthrax. In fact, one could imagine that bentonite would cause antrax spores to clump and therefore make them less rather than more dangerous. It seems to me that in order to refute the claim that the presence of bentonite was diagnostic you need to demonstrate either that other countries commonly added this to anthrax, or that Iraq was not known to use bentonite. Apparently, bentonite wasn't actually present in the spores. However, the question here is whether it was diagnostic if (as Ross presumably honestly believed) it was, in fact, present.
Again, these are minor points and don't challenge the basic thrust of your argument (which I agree with), but I think they are worth considering.
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