Anthrax and the case for the invasion of Iraq

The recent disclosure that an Army biodefense scientist, Dr. Bruce Ivins, who committed suicide last week was a suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks has renewed attention on the government's response to the attacks. Instead of conducting a thorough criminal investigation, government officials used the incident as an opportunity to frighten the American people into supporting an invasion of Iraq. Some examples of these scare tactics include Senator John McCain in an October 18, 2001 television appearance stating that the anthrax may have come from Iraq (see video below) and false reports by ABC news in late October 2001 that a chemical additive known as bentonite was found in the anthrax which was supposed evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attack. President Bush then stated in the 2002 State of the Union address that "the Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas and nuclear weapons for over a decade." None of these claims turned out to be true.

It is, then, no suprise that the investigation was botched and that it is now being reported that the evidence against Dr. Ivins is mostly circumstantial and that the investigation was poorly done:

“What has bothered me is the unscientific, bumbling approach of our investigators,” said Representative Rush D. Holt, a Democrat and physicist whose New Jersey district includes the contaminated Princeton mailbox.

Mr. Holt said in a recent interview that his first doubts came after anthrax was found in his Congressional office in October 2001 but investigators never returned to conduct systematic testing to trace the path of the anthrax spores.

After that, he said, when contamination at a New Jersey postal processing center indicated that the letters had been mailed on one of a limited number of routes, it took investigators seven months to test several hundred mailboxes and identify the source.

“Within two days they could have dispatched 50 people to wipe all those mailboxes,” Mr. Holt said. ("Anthrax Evidence Called Mostly Circumstantial," New York Times, 8/4/2008)

Looking back to the days after September 11, 2001 it is apparent that government was more intent on building public support for an illegal war than finding and bringing to justice the person(s) that committed these crimes.