If I Were a Betting Man, I'd Wager that Cheney Was Behind the Anthrax Attacks

By Mark Karlin, BuzzFlash. Posted August 12, 2008.

You'd have to be a terribly cautious and willfully blind person not to think that the Bush Administration was capable of orchestrating the anthrax attacks. You'd almost have to be a fool.

Years after the anthrax attacks were aimed at Democratic senators who were necessary to pass the "spy on Americans," cynically named "Patriot Act," suddenly the latest "prime suspect" commits suicide without leaving a note or anything, but then the FBI makes claims about how they "got their man" after how many seasons of incompetence in their investigation had passed?

Anyone who doesn't believe that an administration that had the CIA (or perhaps Douglas Feith's "manufactured evidence" Defense Department office) forge and backdate a letter to link Saddam to Osama to help justify the war with Iraq is not capable of using army-produced weapons grade anthrax, out of a Defense Department facility in Fort Detrick, Maryland … anyone who doesn't believe that an administration that forged Niger uranium documents to falsely link Saddam to a purchase that could facilitate a nuclear program that had been shuttered … anyone who doesn't believe that an administration that lied about knowing where WMDs were hidden in Iraq (as Rumsfeld and Cheney claimed), when those weapons didn't exist … well anyone who doesn't believe that such people who believe that they are "masters of the universe" and above the Constitution and the law would be concerned about "collateral damage" in a domestic anthrax attack is naive and incapable of understanding the heart of darkness that lurks within Cheney and his puppet in the White House. (George W. Bush ever in need of finding ways to prove his manhood through being indifferent to the deaths of others.)

BuzzFlash was around, as we have said many a time, since May of 2000.

We reported on the suspicious domestic terrorism anthrax attacks when they occurred, and how odd it appeared that the Bush Administration never appeared concerned about domestic terrorism, even after the attacks. In fact, as Ron Suskind's book reports, the Bush Administration pushed ABC News and others to link the anthrax attacks to Saddam Hussein. Suskind reveals much more, including that the WH rejected overtures from Iran to help clamp down on Al Qaeda, who is no friend to them (being a Shiite vs. Sunni match up).

The best analysis on the highly questionable "resolution" of the multi-year Keystone Cops FBI investigation (by design BuzzFlash believes -- how can the Bush Administration investigate itself; it couldn't in the Valerie Plame outing or the Katrina failure, because Bush would have had to find himself guilty) is coming from Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com. Greenwald is taking the Ivins suicide and anthrax attacks on with a sense of detail and passion that is unmatched on the Net or in the corporate press.

But BuzzFlash was online when it happened, and we took note of how ineptly the FBI handled the case of domestic terrorism that not only resulted in the deaths of people, but was aimed at senior Democratic senators (and some "liberal" members of the press). There was something worrisome about an anthrax attack that emanated from a Department of Defense facility -- and there still is.

Just a few days ago, it was the anniversary of Bush receiving a briefing in August of 2001 that bin Laden was determined to hijack planes in the United States. Bush blew it off. He told a CIA briefer at his Crawford ranch who tried to tell him about terrorist threats that the guy had covered his ass and could leave Bush's Hollywood set "regular guy" vacation retreat and leave Bush alone.

9/11 happened on Bush's watch, even though he was warned. We pointed out at the time that the least Bush and Rice could have done was raise a security alert and order airports to take special precautions to prevent hijackings, but they did nothing -- absolutely nothing.

One of the most tragic failings of the corporate press was that when confronted with the August briefing and other warnings of Al Qaeda preparing to launch attacks on U.S. soil prior to 9/11 -- including the pleading of Robert Clarke -- Rice and Bush claimed that if they had been warned of intended efforts to fly planes into buildings that they would have taken precautions. The White House "press corps" stenographers nodded and told us that this excuse made sense.

But we pointed out then, so many years ago, that it made no sense whatsoever. The way to try and prevent airplane hijackings that end up in suicide attacks on buildings is the same way you prevent hijackings in general: you stop them at the airport. You can't construct magic shields around buildings. So Bush and Rice were let off by the mainstream media, even though their incompetence (or worse) resulted in no action being taken to stop the hijackings, even though the title of the August briefing was about planned hijackings, as Rice was forced to concede in Congressional testimony.

So, anyone who doesn't believe that anthrax attacks that originated with U.S. government-created, bio-warfare weapons grade anthrax, could have been part of an effort to move Congress and the American people toward war for oil and empire, as well as toward a tsarist level of "unitary executive" authority, well anyone who doesn't believe that the anthrax attacks might have been part of Dick Cheney's "dark shadow" planning is ready to audition for Pollyanna.

Oh, and did we mention the recent Seymour Hersh revelation that Cheney and some White House staff members recently spent some time brainstorming how to provoke Iran into war, including "false flag" operations? We wrote about that in a recent BuzzFlash editor's blog.

We don't generally get into conspiracy theories, because by their very nature they are theories for which factual evidence doesn't exist. If the corroborating details are there, then it isn't a theory; it's fact.

Saying the WH, particularly Cheney, were likely behind the anthrax attacks may still fall into the category of conspiracy theory. But if I were a betting man, I think that you can probably safely move that conspiracy theory into the column of fact.

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Mark Karlin is the editor and publisher of BuzzFlash.

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