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A Key British Official Reminds Us of the Forgotten Anthrax Attack
Britain is currently engulfed by a probing, controversial investigation into how their Government came to support the invasion of Iraq, replete with evidence that much of what was said at the time by both British and American officials was knowingly false, particularly regarding the unequivocal intention of the Bush administration to attack Iraq for months when they were pretending otherwise. Yesterday, the British Ambassador to the U.S. in 2002 and 2003, Sir Christopher Meyer (who favored the war), testified before the investigative tribunal and said this:
Meyer said attitudes towards Iraq were influenced to an extent not appreciated by him at the time by the anthrax scare in the US soon after 9/11. US senators and others were sent anthrax spores in the post, a crime that led to the death of five people, prompting policymakers to claim links to Saddam Hussein. . . .
On 9/11 Condoleezza Rice, then the US national security adviser, told Meyer she was in "no doubt: it was an al-Qaida operation" . . . It seemed that Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld's deputy, argued for retaliation to include Iraq, Meyer said. . . .
But the anthrax scare had "steamed up" policy makers in Bush's administration and helped swing attitudes against Saddam, who the administration believed had been the last person to use anthrax.
I've written many times before about how the anthrax attack played at least as large of a role as the 9/11 attack itself, if not larger, in creating the general climate of fear that prevailed for years in the U.S. and specifically how the anthrax episode was exploited by leading media and political figures to gin up intense hostility towards Iraq (a few others have argued the same). That's why it's so striking how we've collectively flushed this terrorist attack down the memory hole as though it doesn't exist. When Dana Perino boasted this week on Fox News that "we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term," most of the resulting derision focused on the 9/11 attack while ignoring -- as always -- the anthrax attack.
What makes this particularly significant is that the anthrax attack is unresolved and uninvestigated. The FBI claimed last year that it had identified the sole perpetrator, Bruce Ivins, but because Ivins is dead, they never had the opportunity -- or the obligation -- to prove their accusations in any meaningful tribunal. The case against Ivins is so riddled with logical and evidentiary holes that it has generated extreme doubts not merely from typical government skeptics but from the most mainstream, establishment-revering, and ideologically disparate sources. Just consider some of the outlets and individuals who have stated unequivocally that the FBI's case against Ivinis is unpersausive and requires a meaningful investigation: The Washington Post Editorial Page; The New York Times Editorial Page; The Wall St. Journal Editorial Page; the science journal Nature; Senators Pat Leahy, Arlen Specter and Charles Grassley; physicist and Congressman Rush Holt, whose New Jersey district was where the anthrax letters were sent; Dr. Alan Pearson, Director of the Biological and Chemical Weapons Control Program at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation; and a vast array of scientific and legal experts in the field.
Here we have one of the most consequential political events of the last decade at least -- a lethal biological terrorist attack aimed at key U.S. Senators and media figures, which even the FBI claims originated from a U.S. military lab. The then-British Ambassador to the U.S. is now testifying what has long been clear: that this episode played a huge role in enabling the attack on Iraq. Even our leading mainstream, establishment-serving media outlets -- and countless bio-weapons experts -- believe that we do not have real answers about who perpetrated this attack and how. And there is little apparent interest in investigating in order to find out. Evidently, this is just another one of those things that we'll relegate to "the irrelevant past," and therefore deem it unworthy of attention from our future-gazing, always-distracted minds.
57 Comments so far
Show AllFrom the article:
"But the anthrax scare had "steamed up" policy makers in Bush's administration and helped swing attitudes against Saddam,"
Quote attributed to Hermann Goering:
'Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY"
From the Article:
"On 9/11 Condoleezza Rice, then the US national security adviser, told Meyer she was in "NO DOUBT: IT WAS AN AL-QAIDA OPERATION" . . . It seemed that Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld's deputy, argued for retaliation to include Iraq, Meyer said. . . ."
Quote from Hermann Goebbels:
“IF YOU TELL A LIE BIG ENOUGH AND KEEP REPEATING IT, PEOPLE WILL EVENTUALLY COME TO BELIEVE IT. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
I don't think I need to add any comment of my own to this.
Tom
Good points, Tom, and many thanks to Glenn Greenwald for not letting up the pressure on these and other questions. I hope he continues to do the same for the upcoming kangaroo-court trial Khalid Sheik Mohammad.
I have always suspected that the anthrax attacks could have been done by any one of U.S. "intelligence" agencies. Some of them have certainly perpetrated worse in numerous instances around the world.
Who would have access to anthrax and be able to conceal that access?
At the time these attacks were happening, I kept wondering why, IF these were terrorist attacks, were they not aimed at the most hawkish people?
Why would they be aimed at people who appeared more "middle of the road" or "average"? I think the intent was to make us all feel vulnerable and "Terrified" or, if I may Terroristified, so the majority would respond predictably.
Then there was the WAY the U.S. attcked Iraq. The indiscriminate rockets and bombs - The celebrated "Shock and AWE". There was no concern that a stockpile of any weapons of mass destruction would be hit.
Why not?
People in the U.S. show more caution when they put on a local fourth of July celebration.
There will never be an answer unless one of the perpetrators comes forward with proof or someone else stumbles upon evidence. Neither of which is likely.
You may have stumbled onto something: the reason there's no investigation and the thing is being quietly allowed to die is that it was an "inside job", that is, perpetrated by agents of Bush/Cheney/Rice/Rumsfeld, etc., in order to create fear and compliance. Nothing will happen until an insider rats on his pals.
Don't hold your breath.
If an "insider" wanted to "rat out" 9/11 or anthrax conspirators, there would be no way to do it. No broadcast media or mainstream newspaper would report it. Readers of Common Dreams and What Really Happened might find out, but most people would go blissfully on.
This is a very important point, one that is not taken into account by scoffers in re 9/11 being an inside job, at least in part. They say that if there was such a broad conspiracy, someone would talk, but as you say, even if they did, they would simply be ignored. Exactly the way Silverstein could admit to PBS that they "pulled" Building 7, then deny that that was what he meant, and have everyone take him at face value. It's truly incredible.
Exactly...
Between 9/11 and the anthrax attacks the problem isn't a lack of evidence for insider complicity. In fact there is such a mountain of evidence that could serve a real prosecution that a person could present it for a week and still barely scratch the surface.
The problem from day two after the attacks is that no established nationally syndicated news media would even cover it, at least not fairly. The news media took a day or two to get their lines straight, but it didn't take long for them to fall into lock-step party policy.
the total allergic reaction to even discussing the anthrax attack reminds me of the total allergic reaction to discussing the "dancing movers in the white van."
odoco
I'm just in from cutting wood so excuse me for lack of references:
1) the first anthrax suspect was continually hounded by government agencies, harassment, official statements 'alluding to probable guilt,' etc. He was innocent.
2. second suspect allegedly commits suicide; follow-up investigation cites how shabbily the FBI handled this second case
3. Anthrax expert in Britain suddenly commits suicide; later ruled not a suicide; had made prediction he would be found dead.
Excellent point made above about who did and did not get the antrax mailed to them prior to the actual invasion; let's not forget that it came from a government lab -
Not just *a* government lab.
The particular strain of weaponized anthrax used in the 'attack' was specific to the United States Army Research Infectious Diseases (USAMRID) lab in New Jersey.
The Anthrax 'attack' was an *inside job*.
The events of 9/11 were an *inside job*.
And while we sit here, arguing the relative merits of who did what to whom to instigate the horrors of the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions and occupations, the authors of those attacks wander freely, collecting fat speaking fees and thumbing their noses at the civilized world.
Haven't you ever wondered *why* the FBI and other agencies were so fixated on Bruce Ivins? I remember shortly after the FBI floated him as a suspect, he held a news conference demanding then Attorney General John Ashcroft to either charge him so he could appear in court, or leave him alone.
No charges were ever filed, although FBI surveillance of Ivins persisted until his death.
Just like 9/11, there was never meant to be any serious effort made to blame anyone except the carefully pre-selected patsy.
I always thought that the claim that the anthrax attacks were Al Queda to be foolish and stupid on it's face. Think about it.
If you were trying to terrorize a country's politicians, would you send the ones OUT OF POWER an envelope of anthrax? What would be the point? Would you send such a thing to those who would be LESS likely to attack you? Wouldn't you send it to those IN power? After all, they are the ones that have the power to DO something, not those in the minority party.
Who stood to gain from this? Who was it that said they WANTED an attack on this country, YEARS before 9-11 happened? Who stood to put their authoritarian policies into law if they could only make people afraid enough? Who was it who wanted to clamp down on our rights and freedoms so they could control everything and make even more money off of us than they already were? And who is it who COULD stand in the way and make sure that no one would actually investigate such a crime?
Answer all these questions using Occam's razor, and it's the simple answers that point directly to the previous administration. No one else had as much to gain, no one else SAID they wanted such a thing to happen, no one else COULD have stopped the investigation. They IGNORED over 60 warnings so that we WOULD get attacked, and then they pushed even further with some lackeys who stole anthrax from a defense dept lab and sent it to LIBERALS ONLY. They are the ONLY ones who benefited from it, and it's my belief that it was the previous administration who pulled it off. I really don't see any other answer, and the continued releases of material from Britain don't dissuade me in the least.
Some questions you left unasked:
How did 19 high-jackers get NORAD to stand down while simultaneously clogging air traffic radar systems with multiple NATO/NORAD war games and computer inserted radar blips to 'help' simulate massive numbers of aircraft inbound for the US?
Why were the jet interceptors in the New York area ordered to stay on the ground, while those from Washington,D.C. were ordered into the air too late to do anything, told to fly to New York without afterburners, and then told to fly a holding pattern over the Atlantic ocean until after the first plane hit the WTC?
Why did Rudi Gulianni, then mayor of New York not go to the emergency command center in WTC 7? In fact, why was the brand new multi-million dollar emergency command center unoccupied at the time of the impacts?
Why have none of the investors who sold off their shares of the two airlines involved the day before 9/11 ever been investigated by the SEC or FBI?
Those are all sagacious questions and there are many more I would like to have answered. I am not sure who was behind 911 but we know one thing for sure: the 911 Commission was about the same as the Warren Commission; a whitewash for the sheeple. How about a new Commission with members made up of people like: Cynthia McKinney,Ralph Nader,Cindy Sheehan and Steven Jones for starters.
At the time, Daschle and Leahy *were* in the majority in the Senate, thanks to the Jim Jeffords defection.
this is why election statements and voting, discussions of party affiliation or platform, and expectations of response to public opinion are nonsense...
the game is rigged, and, when the rigging fails, there is always violence and murder, either real or threatened, to enforce complicity...one only has to commit a few, key crimes...the ripples of those, spread among the desired audience, will carry the day in most situations that follow...
representational government is a government grown too large...a government created to be influenced and directed, but not by the governed...
"representational government is a government grown too large...a government created to be influenced and directed, but not by the governed...(dubet)"
Very good point you are making here, dubet. It is my opinion that representational government is better than "one man, one vote" systems. I wish that we (as a people) had been able to explore cumulative voting and other weighted voting schemes with Lani Guinier back in the Clinton administration. There has to be a civilized way to get valid information and more political power into the hands of the people.
The extreme abuse of power seen in the Bush Admin. (and I know some here say is continuing in the Obama Admin) highlights the lack of exercisable power in the "branch" of government referred to as "the people". This abuse allows propaganda and misinformation to manipulate and exploit practically the entire world. Even if you have an inkling you are being hoodwinked, there is not much that can be done individually to counteract it. It is so disheartening.
I hope some of these hearings and investigations coming out of GB concerning the run up to the Iraq invasion and occupation will help shed light on the abuse of US officials.
The US electoral system is NOT a "one man one vote" system. In fact, it is designed in such a way as to deliberately subvert the concept of "one man one vote".
Exactly my point, rfloh. Did you misunderstand my writing?
I think representative gov't, like we have, is good at thwarting the tyranny of the majority, but I agree with dubet that there is a problem with the people's voice getting squashed and our rep's not being responsive. My statement and question is how can we the people, within the constructs of the Constitution, give more power to the people to redress their grievances?
The TIMING of the attack certainly points to WHY it was done.
A way of applying "pressure", to certain people, at a critical time, to quickly force a predetermined result. Not just by chance.
For who, follow the money and see who gains by the change.
Lots of people have made money in the aftermath. Who has made the most?
I've never been a 9/11 conspiracy buff but the anthrax attacks seem very different. They are just plain out of place. They really don't relate to the 9/11 attacks.
That the anthrax attacks came on the heels of 9/11 smells more to me as if they had been planned for some time but not yet scheduled and maybe not yet complete. When 9/11 happened these were quickly rushed out, as they were, in order to make a case for Iraq, the original target, of the Bush administration.
I'm guessing that Afghanistan and 9/11 got in the way of the original intended fake attack with anthrax by the Bush people. The signs look more like a destructive act which could be claimed as an attack on us in the same manner as the supposed attack by Poles on Germany in 1939, a very small action, actually carried out by German troops to create an excuse for invasion.
I don't think the Bush people ever had Afghanistan on their list and we know that the Bush people deliberately avoided anything on the Clinton administration's list, in particular Al Qaeda, 1) just because it came from the Clinton administration and 2) because GW was obsessed with Iraq, Saddam in particular.
Indeed, that, to me, is another reason I don't believe that 9/11 itself was an inside job. Even though 9/11 wasn't high tech and did have flaws, some of it didn't come off at all, in any case it was aimed at the US in general and had AQ-like fingerprints, rather than Iraq-like fingerprints.
The anthrax attacks are just oddballs. If you consider the anthrax as the conspiracy, or plot, you are looking at a need to create alarm with an obvious fingerprint going to the target you are obsessed with, in order to provide an excuse. And you might have held off, not really sure you were going to do this, until 9/11 came along and threatened to derail all your intentions toward Iraq and so you decide to run this action as soon as you can to recover your original aim.
Had 9/11 been a Bush plot it would look clunkier, more limited in scope, more directed toward "liberals" (enemies-list thinking) and would have carried Iraq-like fingerprints, something anthrax could do much better than a general set of near-simultaneous strikes against un-armed targets with a lot of people to kill. That was already a marker for Al Qaeda and would have meant diverting effort away from the intended target, Iraq.
Very original and interesting thinking. A slight variant might be that 9/11 was kind of an inside job, just not by the Bush administration. CIA/Mossad, or some other similar combination, have the history and means to pull something like this off, and it's often difficult to parse their agendas or whether they are working on behalf of the civilian administration or for their own purposes. CIA history w/ Al Qaeda certainly suggests such a possibility.
The American military/security complex is so vast and complicated. Every once in a while something big escapes its everchanging balances of power -- which usually keep a lid on things -- and we end up w/ unexplained stuff like this.
4 things...
1) To Rightwing extremists, New York WAS the liberal capitol of America in 2001.
2) If it was an Al QAEDA plot, and NOT a Bush plot, it would had looked more clunky. Prior to 9/11 and since 9/11, "Al Qaeda" operations consisted of overloading a rowboat with tnt and ragtag groups of wanna-be's making videotapes and threats -consistently right before elections or congressional doubts about the "war on terror" (Search The Nexus Of Politics and Terror by Keith Olbermann). BTW, the london bombings of 7/7 were likely a setup too, like 9/11. (Search "7/7 drills").
3) Operation Northwoods (1962):
"A series of well coordinated incidents will be planned to take place in and around Guantanamo to give genuine appearance of being done by hostile Cuban forces.
a. Incidents to establish a credible attack (not in chronological order):
Start rumors (many). Use clandestine radio.
Land friendly Cubans in uniform "over-the-fence" to stage attack on base.
Capture Cuban (friendly) saboteurs inside the base.
Start riots near the base main gate (friendly Cubans).
Blow up ammunition inside the base; start fires.
Burn aircraft on air base (sabotage).
Lob mortar shells from outside of base into base. Some damage to installations.
Capture assault teams approaching from the sea or vicinity of Guantanamo City.
Capture militia group which storms the base.
Sabotage ship in harbor; large fires—napthalene.
Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals for mock-victims (may be in lieu of).
b. United States would respond by executing offensive operations to secure water and power supplies, destroying artillery and mortar emplacements which threaten the base.
c. Commence large scale United States military operations.
A "Remember the Maine" incident could be arranged in several forms:
a. We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.
b. We could blow up a drone (unmanned) vessel anywhere in the Cuban waters. We could arrange to cause such incident in the vicinity of Havana or Santiago as a spectacular result of Cuban attack from the air or sea, or both. The presence of Cuban planes or ships merely investigating the intent of the vessel could be fairly compelling evidence that the ship was taken under attack. The nearness to Havana or Santiago would add credibility especially to those people that might have heard the blast or have seen the fire. The US could follow up with an air/sea rescue operation covered by US fighters to "evacuate" remaining members of the non-existent crew.
Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
4) Anthrax attacks: ...Casualty lists in US newspapers caused a helpful wave of Senatorial indignation.
Think of them as an Israeli/MIC plot, rather than a "Bush" or "Al-Qaeda" plot, and both attacks make perfect sense.
The only thing that is controversial about Chilcot is its composition - all pro-war establishment figures who will end up white-washing the establishment. That is what enquiries do.
These facts going down the memory hole is another bad sign from the US mainstream media.
Glenn Greenwald is definitely right about this.
AD
Everyone knows that the anthrax attack was done by Emmanuel Goldstien and the Brotherhood.
Haven't you heard? Emmanuel had his name legally changed to Osama bin Laden, and the Brotherhood is now called al Queda. The 'five minutes of hate' sessions are still duly conducted and they all still remain uncatchable.
And, lest we forget, the (Ft. Detrick weapons-grade) anthrax attacks shut down the halls of Congress, literally, for many weeks, and turned its members into a quivering mass of compliant jello, willing to agree to any war-making Bush sought, while Wall Street was back up and running, what? within a week after 9/11.
Also, if memory serves, the two prime targets were Sens. Patrick Leahy and Tom Daschle, with some journalists thrown in to scare the shit out of that profession.
-30-
I haven't been able to find it, but back in 02, the LATimes did an interview with Rummy where he suggested one option would be us secretly committing terrorist acts against ourselves in order to draw out 'sleeper cells' or some such nonsense.
It's back there somewhere...
Yes, I remember that, too, Frank, but I take that above all to have been a forewarning of many of the devastating "insurgent" attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere, which often seem like false-flag events that only benefit the occupying forces and Israel (such as those attacks that have led to the current sectarian strife in Iraq, separating the country along ethnic lines in exactly the same way Israeli government analysts proposed as far back as the 1980s).
Clovis 3:39 ----- Especially suspicous is the swat team like demolition Of the Golden Mosque of Sammarra, which many say were USA operatves.
This attack, to a great extent, ignited the sectarian bloodbath.
Now in Afghanistan the USA is laying the ground work for a Tajik, read "training of Afghan Army", and Pashtun civil war.
I fully expect Cheney to stage another attack on the USA in follow-up to his ominous warnings, in order to discredit Obama.
Why else would he keep crawling out of his hole?
Don't forget...the first anthrax death was a photo editor for a supermarket tabloid whose decision it was to publish unflattering photos of one of the Bush girls drunk.
yes...important details like this can become buried under ensuing intellectualizations...a simple crime can be theorized into something much larger, and much more vague, than straightforward murder...
As far as incomplete investigations of the events of late 2001, several of the commissioners and staff of the 9/11 commission have been critical of that "investigation," with one calling it an "exposition" rather than an investigation. Highly credible witnesses, both invited by the staff, or ignored by the staff, have said their testimony was not accepted when it deviated from the narrative of the questioners. The National Institutes of Standards and Technology state in a letter requesting of them clarifications in their investigation of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, "...we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse." To date, the data, parameters, and much of the evidence collected by investigators has been kept out of the hands of independent investigators, even when such release of data has been called for by a former NIST director of fire safety.
Think what you like about "9/11 conspiracies." The facts are independent investigations are thwarted at every turn by an officialdom not interested in the public being made aware of a clearer explanation of events. When Joe Biden was asked by a young man concerning the likelihood that there is more to the military investigation called Able Danger, in which military personnel have claimed some of the alleged hijackers were known to investigators well before 9/11, Biden answered that there was cause for more investigation. Able Danger was quickly, and conclusively shut down. The same is true for the "highly credible" allegations of Sibel Edmonds.
Greenwald is correct to point out that the anthrax attack was "one of the most consequential political events of the last decade." Both events, the 9/11 attack itself, as well as the anthrax attack fit this description and neither have been sufficiently investigated. The inconsistencies are glaring, the consequences so historical and far-reaching, the likelihood is high that the shock and awe both produced may have been orchestrated for that effect, and covered up by feints and dodges that keep the facts concealed.
Where's Columbo when we need him? Can't you just see himm apologizing to Cheney for asking yet another embarassing question about Cheney et al statements prior to and after the anthrax attacks? Can't you just see Cheney doing a slow burn while Columbo just keeps at it?
Columbo has been dissappeared. He is now a non-person.
I thought the anthrax attacks were designed to limit debate and expedite passage of the Patriot Act and that any influence on the subsequent occupation of Iraq was just a happy coincidence.
nobody has robbed my wife since she was killed in a robbery 8 years ago.
my house house hasn't caught fire since it was destroyed by fire 8 years ago.
i haven't had an auto accident since i stopped driving after a horrible accident 8 years ago.
my kid hasn't had any significant diseases since we buried him after cancer 8 years ago.
DO ANY OF THESE STATEMENTS SOUND RIDICULOUS?
HOW ABOUT THIS ONE...
When Dana Perino boasted this week on Fox News that "we did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush's term,"
hmmm... 7 yrs without a terrorist attack on the continental U.S.... veeeeeeeerrrry impressive...
but... ms cappuccino perino...
can you tell us how many terrorist attacks we had on the continental U.S. in the 225 YEARS PRIOR TO President Bush's term??
geo w bush...
slimed into the POTUS by Supreme Court fiat...
cut taxes for the "haves & have mores"...
gutted public education w/ "No Child Left Behind"...
went on vacation...
Continental U.S. attacked for first time EVER...
he did say he got the "trifecta"...
It is a disgrace to have a call for an investigation of the anthrax episode and have nothing to say about the attack on the world trade center which is pretty much not mentioned any more even though the actual visual evidence of the demolition of the 3 buildings that day are proof of more than just an attack by foreign terrorists since the 2 towers were set for demolition by explosion( unique in the world of demolition) and by the regular 'implosion' of the wtc 7 and except for a growing number of engineers and architects no one wants any kind of investigations because they are scared shitless that they will find out how much of 9/11 was a false flag, inside job.
Fine article, but while the statement Glenn Greenwald makes is certainly good and right, people really, seriously interested in this topic of the anthrax attacks on US Senators and US media people only weeks following 9-11 really need to read the following article and view the video, which was produced for CBC, Radio Canada, and ARTE, and was aired on CBC Newsweek. For the video, I suggest viewing it asap, for it might possibly get pulled if there's a copyright infringement with the posting of this at Youtube. The link I had from a 7-part set of clips for the video posted last March has disappeared, but another 7-part set of clips was posted Sept. 6th by a different Youtube user (unless it's the same one and the person has multiple usernames at YT).
Both are, I believe, justly consderable as powerful, very impressive information, investigative kind. There hasn't been a real official, government investigation, but other people have performed some very serious investigative work of their own on the fall 2001 anthrax attacks.
"Cover-Up: The Truth About The Anthrax Attacks",
By Barry Kissin, Nov. 15, 2009
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23969.htm
"Anthrax War", part 1 of 7, (9:58)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N44tCevFvLs
I won't bother posting the links for parts 2-7 since they're easily accessible at the end of every clip anyway. But I'll quote the text for the video.
QUOTE:
An investigation into the deadly world of germ weapons, Anthrax War begins in New York in the days following 9/11. Anthrax-laced letters, mailed to media and U.S. senators, killed five people and spread fear and panic throughout the nation.
For filmmaker Bob Coen, who was raised in Zimbabwe where the former white regime has been accused of unleashing anthrax against the black population, biological weapons have a deep personal meaning. He embarks on a journey that raises troubling questions about the FBI's investigation of the 21st century's first act of biological terrorism.
Coen's investigation takes him from the U.S. to the U.K. and from the edge of Siberia to the tip of Africa. In a rare interview, Coen confronts "Doctor Death" Wouter Basson, who headed Project Coast, the South African apartheid-era bio-warfare program. Project Coast used germ warfare against select targets within the country's black population.
Anthrax War also investigates the mysterious deaths of some of the world's leading anthrax scientists, including Dr. David Kelly, the UK's top military microbiologist, the Soviet defector Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, and Dr. Bruce Ivins. The FBI claims - despite the doubts of highly ranked U.S. officials - that Ivins was the only person behind the U.S. anthrax murders.
In tracing the 2001 bio-terror attacks in the U.S. to the heart of the U.S. bio-defense program, this film raises an alarm. These attacks that helped prepare a country for war have also spawned a multi-billion dollar bio-defense boom. The line between bio-offense and bio-defense is becoming extremely thin. Biological weapons research is now being conducted by corporations and private labs without effective government oversight. The international treaty prohibiting the development of offensive bio-weapons may no longer be sufficient to keep the world from drifting towards the unthinkable biological warfare.
Anthrax War was written by Harold Crooks and Bob Coen, directed by Bob Coen, shot by Dylan Verrechia, edited by Rosella Tursi and produced by Christine LeGoff and Natalie Dubois. Executive producers are Arnie Gelbart, Yves Jeanneau and Eric Nadler. Anthrax War is a Canada-France coproduction produced by Galafilm and TelFrance/Transformer Films for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Société Radio-Canada and ARTE.
END QUOTE
OH, ALSO, I was just about to forget this additional piece, which is regarding Dr David Kelly and that he was writing a related expose when he was ... suicided, the UK government claims; the suicide part of the story or his ending (not what he was writing about, for the government's been silent on this part of the story).
"UK weapons inspector who was found dead was writing expose: paper",
by John Byrne, Rawstory.com, Jul 6, 2009
http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=55748
I tried to find the original copy of that article at rawstory.com tonight and it seems to no longer be available there; however, it's definitely still available at Uruknet.info and www.globalresearch.ca, and possibly other websites. Maybe it can be found, somehow, at rawstory.com, but I went through the archives there, these aren't easy to go through, there's no website search engine that I could find, and I didn't see this article among the July 6th's list of links. I had originally bookmarked that copy after getting the link in the copy at Uruknet, but the original link didn't work, so I checked the archives, which was fruitless for me. That's when I did a general web search and first saw the link to the Uruknet copy again.
Why would rawstory remove this article from its archives?(!) Whatever the reason, you'll see that the above copy has a video and it's the "Anthrax War" video produced for CBC, etcetera. That documentary film, unrelated to Rawstory.com, provides relevant information regarding Dr Kelly's related anthrax expertise; and, I believe, his related expose writing, too. I'm just beginning to view the part 2 clip now and there's been a little mention of Dr Kelly, his very doubtful suicide that evidently is a nearly certain falsehood, a fabricated story of the UK government's making, and his related expertise on anthrax bio-weapons, but I haven't heard mention of his expose work, yet. But since the video was included in the Rawstory article about this expose, I assume it's mentioned in the documentary.
All of the above should be considered must reads and view, especially the first article, by Barry Kissin, and the documentary film.
The anthrax was of a strain that could only have come from a U.S. military lab. At the time it was sent, Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic Minority Leader in the Senate (or was he the Majority Leader) and Patrick Lehey, Chair of the Senate Judiciary committee, were calling for a full investigation of the events of 9/11. They were resisting Bush administration efforts to limit the investigation.
Then they became targets of the anthrax which came from a Defense department lab. Congress was shut down because their office buildings were contaminated with anthrax and both Daschle and Lehey folded and the Congressional Special Committee to investigate 9/11 was not formed.
I didn't recall the names of the two Senators who were then "calling for a full investigation of the events of 9/11" or who were at least questioning those events, why they happened and without meaning that they were questioning why foreigners could be angry enough at the U.S. to want to attack it, but, instead, questioning with respect to the types of things that were suspect; but I do recall having read enough articles about this several years ago, in 2002 or 2003, and a little thereafter. Or maybe they were questioning in both regards, but from the best that I recall, while I'd have to reread some of those articles to be certain, the two senators were questioning because there was cause to find the events suspect on the part of the White House administration (and, perhaps, U.S. military, like no interceptors, f.e.; maybe).
The sources I provided links for in my post just before yours don't mention this part of the story, not in the same way anyway. However, they do mention the two senators and do adequately say that the anthrax attacks were being used by the Bush-Cheney administration to blame Saddam Hussein in additional relation to the 9-11 attacks. That is, the White House admin. was then blaming him for responsibility in both attacks with, of course, the false association between him and Al Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden, or both. So, there's this reference to the 9-11 attacks, but, and to the best that I recall, these important sources don't mention that the two Senators were also "calling for a full investigation of the events of 9/11", which these sources certainly could've and, imo, should've done.
The sources I linked to, however, really are very specifically about the anthrax attacks and provide plenty or a lot of important investigative research findings; just that these sources don't refer to the part of the story that you posted about. I don't see why they would leave that part of the story out, but what these sources provide nevertheless is very important about the findings on the anthrax attacks themselves, how they were being bogusly, deceptively, ... used by the Bush-Cheney admin. to try to instill more fear in the public and greater support from the public to extend the war to Iraq, and plenty or a lot of important information on bio., germ warfare R&D, and use, by the U.S., U.K., even Canada, and other countries. So there's a lot of important content in these sources, including the fact that the world, including the U.S., had officially banned bio., germ warfare R&D, the stockpiling of these weapons, and of course the use of them; while this, for the U.S. and surely other countries, was just a stage act, a lie, for the U.S., and surely other countries, secretly continued to work on advancing these projects. These sources well tell us the U.S. had the labs for making the highly specialised anthrax that was used against Senators Daschle and Leahy and several U.S. media people in 2001, while the article at ICH by Barry Kissin is perhaps considerably more detailed in this regard than the Anthrax War documentary is.
They remain important and educational sources, but are lacking the part of the story that you posted about. They don't get into this plausible reason for the attacks on the two Senators; at least plausible. But people shouldn't let this omission prevent them from reading and viewing these sources of important information; while keeping in mind the lack of this important part of the story of the two Senators.
Were any other Senators, or members of Congress, also calling for an investigation into the 9-11 events? If yes, then were they also sent mail containing anthrax? ... I don't recall if I ever read that only Senators Daschle and Leahy were the sole members of the U.S. Senate and Congress to have been attacked with this anthrax, or that they were the only two calling for 9-11 investigations.
Please rent the movie "Koyyanisquatsi".
Hopefully you will get the movie's spiritual message, but if you don't please at least look at the multiple scenes of explosive building demolition jobs. They look nothing like the manner in which the WTC collapsed - where the collapse clearly started at the impact points.
Therefore, any conspiracy theory has to start with the fact that the buildings collapse was a consequence of the airliner impact damage and fire. This means that any theory needs to explain how they got someone sufficiently fanatical to crash an airliner into a building for the neoconservative cause.
However, I do agree that the congressional anthrax attacks certainly smell of conspiracy, and an inside conspiracy at least seems credible in this case.
Staying on topic would be useful and what the heck is the Koyyanisquatsi movie about? I did a Web search to see if any video clips of this are available for viewing online and didn't find any for this movie, but did see references to rock & roll, music.
The anthrax attacks "smell of conspiracy", particularly once we're informed from sources like those I provided links for in a post a little further above this one. In that case, the smell or odour is very potent, or pungent.
We can keep in mind that the WTC towers didn't collapse due to the airplanes that struck them and the jet fuel burning, and everything this points to with careful and open-minded analysis; definitely. But we don't have to give this a lot of thought while reading and viewing the sources I provided links for. When doing that, the latter, all we need with respect to the 9-11 attacks is to keep in mind the fact that both sets of attacks were bogusly used by the Bush-Cheney administration to tie Saddam Hussein to both events, that is, to pump up public fear about the U.S. supposedly being targeted not only by a foreign terrorist group like Al Qaeda, but also by the leader of the government of Iraq; and to thereby drive (as much as they could achieve) public support for eventual war on Iraq, which was in the target sites of the Bush-Cheney administration long (enough) before 9-11; even before the 2000 change in White House administration (and not only members of the Bush-Cheney administration wanted this war on Iraq, not only Repub. Party "leaders" did!).
In the Anthrax War documentary, we get, besides all of the other critically important information provided in this film, a re-viewing of war-dog Colin Powell strongly and bogusly pretending that Saddam Hussein had to be guilty for the anthrax attacks weeks following the 9-11 attacks, which Saddam Hussein was also being falsely accused for being partly responsible for, by the White House administration. The goal was "regime change" in Iraq and for securing U.S. access, i.e., control, over the country's rich or voluminous oil reserves, and this war was pre-determined to happen "no matter what", nothing stopping it; the Bush-Cheney administration clearly had in mind. The only thing that might, if not would, have prevented the U.S. launching war on Iraq is if Saddam Hussein had accepted to resign and to be exiled someplace else, which is something we could be fore-certain that he would never accept to agree to. So the war was pre-determined; it was definitely going to happen and every lie the Bush-Cheney administration could whip up to stir up support for war on Iraq would be used against the public and Iraq.
We don't have to give a lot of thought about the 9-11 attacks themselves, we don't need to consider all of the suspect aspects of those attacks, and related White House administration conduct that's highly suspect, when reading and viewing the sources I provided links for. One aspect that should've been mentioned in these sources and which was omitted, though, is about Senators Daschle and Leahy then having been calling for investigations into the 9-11 events; as the other reader here posted just before your post.
And, again, what the heck is the Koyyanisquatsi movie? I've read a lot on real and serious research into the 9-11 attacks, the related White House administration conduct, etcetera, having read a LOT about all of this, and have viewed good related documentaries people should view, but have never seen any references to this movie, Koyyanisquatsi. So I doubt it's of serious value when considering the 9-11 events.
Koyaanisqatsi is a compilation of extremely high-quality videos made by gifted directors, with the haunting music provided by Phillip Glass. The title of the film is supposedly Hopi for "World out of balance", and each vignette is an interpretation of this translation. There is no dialog. Only visual images that ebb and flow, pulsing with Glass' rhythm. It is a stunning work of cinematic art, eloquent in what it is missing: Story.
Yes, but plenty of people cannot afford to buy DVD's and there are online clips for plenty of important DVD's, but I found none for the Koyaanisqatsi movie, which, by your added description, sounds interesting and worth viewing.
Pleas re-read my post. Koyyanisquatsi has nothing to do with your conspiracy theories (WTF's summary is good) it is the only film I can think of with good footage of various tall buildings being brought down with explosives. You will see that manner in which the buildings are taken down looks NOTHING like the way the WTC towers came down. I was simply trying one more of dozens of other other earlier arguments to debunk this nonsense that the WTC towers were brought down by explosives. I could also tell you that I do civil engineering for a living, but in Amerika, claiming to have expertise in a subject seems to only make people believe you less.
The WTC towers were not brought down by the planes hitting them and the jet fuel from these planes burning. Those fires were out long enough before the towers came down, but this isn't the sole reason that illustrates that the towers weren't brought down because of these fires. AE911Truth.org has many engineers and architects as members, and some people who are also engineers and architects have disagreed with the explanation about the towers not having collapsed due to the jet fuel fires and/or the planes striking the buildings. A very good picture of a very tall building that was fully engulfed in far more serious fires, throughout the whole building, as the Madrid one and its structure did not collapse.
Popular Mechanics also disagreed, as you do, but Popular Mechanics is not a reliable source of information for this topic and one of multiple arguments for this is what the main sources of revenue are for the mag. and, therefore, all of its employees. 9-11 did not happen the way the "official story" and its authors have always wanted people to believe and it's not difficult to prove this; it's been proven more than enough for many enough years already.
And there's a lot more that can be said about all of this, but it has nothing to do with the article and your suggested movie has nothing to do with the anthrax attacks of any instance at all; it's clearly not about biological, germ warfare at all.