I don't care much for 'confidential sources', Glenn. I can, in rare exceptions, see the need for some 'whistle-blower' protections (i.e. protections contingent upon the *veracity* of what they're blowing the whistle on).

{As an aside, I can just imagine *you* using 'confidential sources' about some earth-shaking event, Glenn. I suspect the sharp-nosed news hounds here would tear you limb-from-limb! Oh, you'd spill the beans alright...we have our ways!}

Yes, yes, I would agree there "should be" wide-ranging investigations into the anthrax/Ivins affair...the plame affair, the Media-complicity affair, the Iraq affair, etc., etc., etc., cc AG Mukasey.

lingering trust,

bah.

Glenn, love your work, but you made a mistake. The first biological attack on the U.S. was the 1984 Rajneeshee salmonella poisoning by a cult in Oregon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_Rajneeshee_bioterror_attack

The Anthrax attack was the first lethal incident, though.

Nice to see someone is doing some thinking and not just acting as a bullhorn for the anonymous Justice Department leakers who have been orchestrating this incredibly cynical and slimy dog and pony show. Here’s what we all need to do: take a look at all the early breaking reports on this, perhaps starting with David Willman at the LA Times and his editor Timothy Phelps, and demand that they at least coordinate with the other reporters who jumped on this (the Washington Post and New York Times) and see if they are all getting this “story” from the same source.

Furthermore, demand that the FBI make an official statement on this, and demand new Congressional hearings, maybe modeled after the Iran-Contra or Watergate hearings - because this whole story is just too much to take any more. Neither of the targeted individuals had anything to do with the mailings, according to the evidence.

Here's some additional details on forensic evidence recovered from the two attacks: the 9/18 mailings to press outlets (recovered letters: NBC (Brokaw) and New York Post), and the 10/9 mailings to Daschle and Leahy. The main forensic investigation focused on the Daschle letter, which was recovered and delivered to USAMRIID by the FBI’s HMRU for analysis on Oct 15, 2001 (dates from Richard Preston, The Demon in the Freezer).

Note that on Oct 17th, the House of Representatives was shut down due to anthrax spore contamination. Two days later, an agreement is reached by Congressional leaders to pass the previously held-up Patriot Act, on Oct 19 2001.

There was no bentonite, and the high tech nature of the Daschle spores was confirmed independently - here is the press release put out by the Armed Forces Ιnstitute of Pathology, which assisted USAMRIID in the analysis: (Christoper Kelly, AFIP public affairs coordinator, Oct 31 2002, AFIP newsletter:)

“Ft Detrick sought our assistance to determine the specific components of the anthrax found in the Daschle letter,” said Florabel G. Mullick, MD, ScD, SES, AFIP Principal Deputy Director and department chair. AFIP experts utilized an energy dispersive X-ray spectrometer (an instrument used to detect the presence of otherwise-unseen chemicals through characteristic wavelengths of X-ray light) to confirm the previously unidentifiable substance as silica. “This was a key component,” Mullick said. “Silica prevents the anthrax from aggregating, making it easier to aerosolize. Significantly, we noted the absence of aluminum with the silica. This combination [bentonite] had previously been found in anthrax produced by Iraq.”

Note also that the letters were loaded in a clean room by an expert who had to either have stolen dry powdered anthrax, like from Dugway Utah, or made it using top-secret procedures - there is NO way this could have been done without access to a state-of-the-art laboratory, and the culprit almost certainly had taken the anthrax vaccine. No forensic samples (dust, hair, fiber, etc.) were recovered from the letters - that means technical expertise.

Those analysis were carried out in Oct or Nov 2001 - no bentonite, but very sophisticated and dangerous. Whoever was leaking was deliberately lying to the media in order to create the impression that Iraq was the responsible party. In this context, James Woolsey was in London meeting with Chalabi while claiming Iraqi involvement in 9/11 and the anthrax attacks:

Building the case against Iraq

Toby Harnden (Telegraph UK: 26 Oct 2001)

...James Woolsey, a former director of the CIA, ambassador and Pentagon official who now describes himself as a "private citizen", is the man entrusted with investigating Iraqi involvement in the September 11 attacks and anthrax outbreaks. The Iraqi National Congress, the exiled group that opposes Saddam Hussein, said it recently held meetings in London with Mr Woolsey. Administration sources have said his trip was funded and approved by Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence secretary.

Such is the sensitivity of the Iraq issue, Mr Woolsey will make no comment about the exact nature of his brief. He told The Telegraph: "I was in London and that's it." But he made clear that he believed there were "substantial and growing indications" that a state was behind the attacks. The milled, "weaponised" anthrax that virtually shut down Congress and killed two postal workers has increased his suspicions...

Whoever did this probably never thought that USAMRIID and AFIP would identify the spores as the high-tech product of a U.S. biowarfare program, which led to the narrowing of the possible suspect list to just a handful of U.S. government biowarfare labs - the only plausible suspects are Dugway Utah, West Jefferson Ohio, and Fort Detrick MD. In each case, the main suspect is a large private contractor, Battelle Memorial Institute, or someone within that mysterious nuclear/biological warfare contractor.

None of that kept Colin Powell from waving around a vial of anthrax at the UN to justify an invasion, though.

Then, in early 2002, the FBI team leading the anthrax case was sacked and replaced by Richard Lambert, who dropped the investigation of those biowarfare labs and instead started the Hatfill witchhunt. In order to justify this, they claimed that the anthrax was actually a low-tech preparation - those false claims surfaced in 2005, and were dutifully parroted by the VERY SAME reporters who are now making these unsubstantiated character assassination assaults on a man who was hounded to suicide by an aggressive FBI smear campaign - and now, in an act of mind-boggling cynicism, the so-called Justice Department is trying to use this to declare “case closed.” Unreal.

This is all just an attempt to distract attention from the massively fraudulent Project Bioshield program that was inspired by the anthrax attacks, and which has led to rapid uncontrolled growth in U.S. biowarfare research - much of it taking place in the private sector, including a billion for Battelle (they also make the anthrax vaccines - for BOTH Emergent and Vaxgen). "Private Biowarfare for Hire". Out of control.