Fully Investigate the Anthrax Episode

I’ve long wondered about what America after 9/11 would have been like had there not been a second and more sustained terrorist threat in the wake of the September 11 attacks: the anthrax terror. This event lasted for weeks and never actually came to a definitive end, sustaining the sense of siege in the country and prompting a mindset of dread that became poisonous to democracy.

The anthrax attacks also provided the backdrop for so much of the post 9/11 speculation about how Middle Eastern terrorists could be planning multiple and even more apocalyptic attacks at any point. This speculation was seized upon by the most draconian elements of the Bush Administration (especially by Dick Cheney’s inner circle) and used to justify the most brazen measures to curtail American civil liberties in our history. Not least, speculation and leaks about the anthrax attacks sometimes tilted toward Iraq. Even after the Iraq angle was discounted, the anthrax episode helped fuel the irrational emotional hype behind a relentless campaign to invade Iraq, under the false pretense that Saddam Hussein continued to threaten the United States with biological and nuclear weapons.

So, the news that the long, inept, and inconclusive investigation into the anthrax attacks has come to a dead end after the suicide of Army biological weapons specialist Bruce Ivins isn’t particularly comforting to me. I believe that the truth behind the anthrax attacks should be investigated to a point beyond question. The implications of the attacks have never been given a full hearing, because the investigation was ongoing and criminal. Now, it seems that because the investigation can no longer result in a trial of Mr. Ivins, there will never be a complete hearing on it.

Most of the journalists who have seriously considered the anthrax attack story aren’t satisfied with the investigation. The false leaks that both heightened public panic and ruined the life of an earlier target were apparently indicative of the lack of precision and preparedness needed to get to the bottom of the story. Even if the theory which seems to have resulted in Ivins’ suicide turns out to be correct, it would be in the country’s best interest that the facts be laid out for the public to the best of our ability.

Glenn Greenwald has called for a Congressional investigation into the attacks and into the events surrounding them. This would be for the best. This episode in our history, with its connections to the tragedies and profound policy mistakes that followed from it, needs a full and unassailable airing.