You bleww itttt!

Glenn Greenwald in a column at Salon.com raises some interesting points in the wake of Bruce E. Ivins' suicide, reportedly committed after Ivins learned he was about to be charged for the anthrax mailing attacks following 9/11.

Most notable is the fact that:

If the now-deceased Ivins really was the culprit behind the attacks, then that means that the anthrax came from a U.S. Government lab, sent by a top U.S. Army scientist at Ft. Detrick. Without resort to any speculation or inferences at all, it is hard to overstate the significance of that fact. From the beginning, there was a clear intent on the part of the anthrax attacker to create a link between the anthrax attacks and both Islamic radicals and the 9/11 attacks.

So, an American working with anthrax for the government in a government lab, killed Americans and tried to make it look like Islamic militants did it. Hmm. (But it looks like it might have been worse than that. More further down.)

Of course, even while politicians and pundits (subtly or outwardly) were using the anthrax attacks in their arguments for invading Iraq, the FBI's investigation did center on a guy from the same Maryland lab. It was just the wrong guy. In doing so they also overlooked some pretty strange behavior from Ivins.

This strange behavior, according to Greenwald, included some letters to the editor of his local paper that I'd term as being of the right-wing nutso variety.

I used to get similar letters from one reader at my former job, and while I'm pretty sure he was retired, had I known he created anthrax for the government, transported plutonium for nukes, was developing a weather dominator or some such very dangerous, sensitive job, I'd of been on the phone to the FBI pretty quickly. Though, when you have people like Dubya, Cheney and Rumsfeld with their hands on the chicken switch, it's not hard to believe nutsos with silly, ignorant beliefs can hold down government jobs.

But more on Ivins in a bit, because Greenwald goes into depth about erroneous reports by ABC News at the time about testing on the anthrax used in the attacks. Reports stating government testing of the anthrax used in the attacks showed the presence of bentonite, which might have indicated Iraq's involvement.

ABC News went with these "exclusive" reports despite the fact the White House denied their accuracy. Repeatedly. They eventually reported bentonite wasn't found in tests, but never acknowledged the fact they screwed up the story (I completely agree with Greenwald here).

The fun part is that ABC News credited "well placed" sources close to the testing as feeding them the information, meaning sources (or source - I don't necessarily believe ABC had multiple sources just because they say so) in the Fort Detrick lab where the tests were conducted. And since the story was completely wrong, the sources obviously lied. Sources from the same lab Ivins worked in.

Greenwald is careful to point out Ivins hasn't been charges or convicted of anything yet. And based on their handling of the previous anthrax case, I wouldn't be surprised if he never is. And with his suicide, perhaps we'll never know if he was responsible.

Greenwald stops short of stating what seems a logical implication, assuming Ivins was responsible for the anthrax attacks, that Ivins was a (or the) source for ABC News on their erroneous stories.

The guy who may have made the anthrax attacks lied to ABC News, leading to stories implicating Iraq in the attacks, helping lead to the ongoing war in Iraq. All just a theory, but if true, what a massive story that would be. A massive story, if true, ABC News is sitting on.

Whether or not Ivins was involved, the identity of the sources of the erroneous ABC News reports would still be a huge story. And that story ABC News is definitely sitting on. A massive, massive story they won't report because it would include the mention of their embarrassing mistake? A mistake they're still not owning up to (see Greenwald's correspondences with the ABC News boss).

Greenwald rightly nails them for this:

ABC News knows who concocted the false bentonite story and who passed it on to them with the specific intent of having them broadcast those false claims to the world, in order to link Saddam to the anthrax attacks and -- as importantly -- to conceal the real culprit(s) (apparently within the U.S. government) who were behind the attacks. And yet, unbelievably, they are keeping the story to themselves, refusing to disclose who did all of this. They're allegedly a news organization, in possession of one of the most significant news stories of the last decade, and they are concealing it from the public, even years later.

They're not protecting "sources." The people who fed them the bentonite story aren't "sources." They're fabricators and liars who purposely used ABC News to disseminate to the American public an extremely consequential and damaging falsehood. But by protecting the wrongdoers, ABC News has made itself complicit in this fraud perpetrated on the public, rather than a news organization uncovering such frauds. That is why this is one of the most extreme journalistic scandals that exists, and it deserves a lot more debate and attention than it has received thus far.

I can understand ABC News not wanting to point out their mistake, but I'd think such a massive story would take precedent. It would be an exclusive, afterall. Considering the competitive nature of the news game, I can't believe the rest of the media (aside from Greenwald) isn't raking them over the coals on this one. I'd think that would be good fun.

Greenwald goes on to question ABC News' citing of sources for another story, further emphasizing how this practice has gone beyond the breaking point, in my opinion. Using unnamed sources is necessary, even quite often, but it gets abused left and right these days.

Go read the whole Greenwald piece, and all his connected posts. Great stuff.

Oh, this post's title comes from De Niro in Cop Land, in case you didn't see it. Story via.