Iraq retrospective: Downing Street memo, 9/11, Saddam Hussein, and anthrax

by Plutonium Page

The Downing Street memo has served to remind us that the war in Iraq was based on a lie;  more specifically, it was based on WMD "intelligence" that was "fixed" to fit Bush's agenda:

 

Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy...

... Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

(Emphasis mine)

George W. Bush et al. repeatedly told the American public, and the world, that Iraq was an imminent threat, that Saddam Hussein had WMDs (biological, and chemical weapons, and potential nuclear capability).  His administration also managed to plant the seed of suspicion in many Americans' minds, that Saddam Hussein had a definite association with al Qaeda.  A frightening number of people are still convinced that this is true;  a Harris poll from February 2005 had the following results:

 

• 64 percent believe that Saddam Hussein had strong links to Al Qaeda (up slightly from 62% in November).

• 47 percent believe that Saddam Hussein helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001 (up six percentage points from November).

• 44 percent actually believe that several of the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11 were Iraqis (up significantly from 37% in November).

• 36 percent believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded (down slightly from 38% in November).

Anyone who saw Richard Clarke's interview on "60 Minutes" in March 2004 will recall that Clarke recalled a conversation he had with Rumsfeld on September 12, 2001, in which Rumsfeld insisted that the U.S. needed to bomb Iraq, even though al Qaeda was in Afghanistan.

That's not the only indication that the Bush administration was hell-bent on attacking Iraq, using 9/11 as an excuse.  I came across something else.  It's pretty startling.

Look below the fold.

I was reading up on the October 2001 anthrax attacks, when I came across this article from the December 22, 2001 New York times:

 

Shortly after the first anthrax victim died in October, the Bush administration began an intense effort to explore any possible link between Iraq and the attacks and continued to do so even after scientists determined that the lethal germ was an American strain, scientists and government officials said.

But they said that largely secret work had found no evidence to back up the initial suspicions, which is one reason administration officials have said recently that the source of the anthrax was most likely domestic.

For months, intelligence agencies searched for Iraqi fingerprints and scientists investigated whether Baghdad had somehow obtained the so-called Ames strain of anthrax. Scientists also repeatedly analyzed the powder from the anthrax-laced envelopes for signs of chemical additives that would point to Iraq.

"We looked for any shred of evidence that would bear on this, or any foreign source," a senior intelligence official said of an Iraq connection. "It's just not there."

The focus on Iraq was based on its record of developing a germ arsenal and also on what some officials said was a desire on the part of the administration to find a reason to attack Iraq in the war on terrorism.

The article goes on to mention what we all know now:  that the strain of anthrax was the Ames strain, named for its U.S. laboratory of origin.  The Ames strain had been sent to some overseas labs, but not to Iraq.

Regardless of all the scientific evidence, some couldn't let the "Iraqi anthrax" theory go:

 

Richard O. Spertzel, a retired microbiologist who led the United Nations' biological weapons inspections of Iraq, told investigators that Iraq had explored using bentonite in its germ weapons programs. But Maj. Gen. John Parker of the Army's biological research center at Fort Detrick, Md., said in late October that tests had turned up no signs of aluminum — a main building block of bentonite.

"If I can't find aluminum," General Parker told reporters, "I can't say it's bentonite."

Despite the scientific findings, the sophistication of the anthrax found in the letter mailed to Senator Tom Daschle, the majority leader, has kept Dr. Spertzel and others convinced that Iraq or another foreign power could be behind the attacks.

But much of the American public probably didn't really care what some scientist said in the New York Times.  Hell, if it's in Time magazine, it must be true:

 

It is the suspicion that dare not speak its name. We know that Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq, has reason to harbor a burning hatred for the U.S. and anyone whose second name is Bush. We know that Iraq has the will and the technical capacity to "weaponize" anthrax.

[snip]

Some seasoned observers, like R. James Woolsey, former head of the CIA, have been convinced from the start that the case for Iraqi involvement had to be taken seriously. Imagine that incontrovertible evidence connected the anthrax attacks, or Sept. 11, to the murderous panoply of Saddam's state.

That bit of propaganda article is from October 29, 2001.  Obviously, plenty of Americans believed it, most likely the same Americans who handed George W. Bush the presidency in November 2004, regardless of how many of their own had died in the war in Iraq.  Saddam was responsible for 9/11 and the anthrax attacks, after all, right?

All sarcasm aside, my point is this:  the Bush administration started building the case for the 2003 invasion of Iraq long before then, as evidenced by the contents of the Downing Street memo, as well as Clarke's conversation(s) with Rumsfeld.

The anthrax attacks didn't hurt their cause;  indeed, it might have just been one more thing that made it that much easier for them to say that the attack on Iraq was (quoting the Downing Street memo) "justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD."

Comments

[DemFromCT]

No question that the still unsolved anthrax attacks raised the unease level in Americans to the point that an aggressive foreign policy was embraced. See Pew Poll results.

link

[Meteor Blades]

I try to be a level-headed person, to keep away from the deep end when it comes to speculation about conspiracy. Whether the subject is Jack Ruby, John Singlaub, CIA drug-running or cattle mutilations, both as a journalist and a citizen I avoid going one inch further than can be proved with multiple sources. Otherwise, there's too much potential for being burned - or diverted down some path toward Crazytown.

Moreover, I haven't followed the anthrax story all that closely. But, I gotta say, if I were a conspiracy-minded fellow, this thing would strike me as having all the earmarks of a Company job.

[David]

Even if you don't like the tin-foil hat set, this is pretty obvious. After all, doesn't everyone have some Ames strain anthrax in the fridge? And of course everyone would want to share it with Daschle. Wasn't Rush comparing him to Satan, or something?

The Iraq PR campaign started well before the congressional vote. Before the midterms, and was on the table before Sep 11, 2001. Clarke and O'Neill have given us that much info.

[censored]

Minutes, not memo.

Time to get with the "reality base" The documents printed in the UK Sunday Times May 1, 2005 are MINUTES, not a memo.

The WH press corps, Scott McClellan, Ron Hutcheson and Sen. McCain have minimized the importance of this story by using the minimal term "memo" It's a way to make it go away in the media and in the public awareness.

For more on the story of "Minutes, not Memo" see

A Matter of Minutes -- DOWNING STREET DOSSIER, and

OF MINUTES & MINISTERS -- Legal Considerations of Downing Street Minutes, and

NYT Editor Gets It -- Minutes not Memo -- Down With Bushspeak!!

A group of us are forming a news outlet to counteract the WH spin, and to try to clear up some of the confusion generated around these documents.

For now, I would refer them to AfterDowningStreet.org where they can get more resources for evidence and activism.

[smintheus]

This is a very important story, great finds. I'm still trying to get the word out about it; the anthrax episode will form an important part of the case that BushCo were building a case for war years in advance. Fairly or unfairly, the public can be expected to notice the failure of the administration to follow the investigation through, once it became clear that the issue was of relatively little value against Iraq.

[smintheus]

This is a very important story, great finds. I'm still trying to get the word out about it; the anthrax episode will form an important part of the case that BushCo were building a case for war years in advance. Fairly or unfairly, the public can be expected to notice the failure of the administration to follow the investigation through, once it became clear that the issue was of relatively little value against Iraq.

[Melissa]

Another sidelight in the anthrax attack was the photographer killed by anthrax was the one that photographed Bush's daugher drunk, rolling on the floor.