ABC 'news' knowingly whored the "Saddam Anthrax!" story based on abject lies....

File this one under "media majors complicit in innuendo, false assertions, and outright LIES-to-War: Glen Grenwald, in a long, thoroughly referenced article, documents the LIES that ABC told its viewers in October and December of 2001 that SADDAM HUSSEIN was behind the ANTHRAX TERROR ATTACKS - deadly letters placed in the US mail, just shortly after the terror of the 9-11 hijack/airliner bombings in New York and Washington. And what this excellent Greenwald article fails to mention is that the major media players HAD A RESPONSIBILITY to notice the TARGETS of those anthrax attacks - a National Enquirer subsidiary photo-editor killed in Florida, and the Senate offices of Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy in their DC government offices - and employ a minimum amount of skeptisism that they were indeed the targets of "Arab extremist" terrorists. For the simple fact is that no self-respecting Al Qaida terrorist would target TOM DASCHLE and PATRICK LEAHY for deadly anthrax letters, when they could sow confusion and despair in other, more prominent targets, such as the White House and Pentagon. Even more preposterous, that someone with the skill and patience to put such deadly letters together (without killing themselves or their neighbors) would use clumsy, almost childish WARNINGS to broadcast the threat to the intended targets, allowing those potential victims time to take Cipro immunization shots.
But, clearly, ABC 'news' and the major media fell for the "Anthrax attacks from Saddam's Iraq!" notion hook, line, and sinker. In reality, Senator Tom Daschle was most famous as the Democratic OPPOSITION leader to the Bush White House; and Patrick Leahy was the Chairman of the Senator Judiciary Committee, WHICH WAS PUTTING THE BRAKES on the "P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act" that the White House and Republican Congress were hurriedly pushing by the Democratic controlled Senate - trying to avoid ANY oversight or notice of some of the draconian provisions of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. act altogether. The American press/media HAD A RESPONSIBILITY to juse some objective, professional skepticism in this tragic chain of events, but utterly FAILED to do so. Greenwald says it better than we have:

<< The attempt to link Saddam to the anthrax attacks was just as fraudulent -- and just as significant -- as the attempt to link Saddam to 9/11, Al Qaeda and nuclear weapons. Brian Ross and ABC played a key role in that part of the fraud, yet have never accounted for their conduct. >>


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The unresolved story of ABC News' FALSE Saddam-anthrax reports

by Glen Greenwald, Salon.com
Monday April 9, 2007
(updated below - updated again)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/09/abc_anthrax/index.html


At the end of the post I wrote last week about ABC News and Brian Ross' new report that Iran could have nuclear weapons by 2009, I noted that ABC and Ross -- back in October and November 2001 -- were the driving force, really the exclusive force, behind news reports strongly suggesting that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were responsible for the anthrax attacks on the U.S. There are several very important issues arising from those events which I strongly believe merit real attention. This post is somewhat lengthy because it is vital to set forth the facts clearly.

Last week, I excerpted several of the Saddam-anthrax reports from ABC and Ross -- here and here -- but there are others. ABC aggressively promoted as its top story for days on end during that highly provocative period of time that -- and these are all quotes:

(a) "the anthrax in the tainted letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was laced with bentonite";

(b) bentonite is "a troubling chemical additive that authorities consider their first significant clue yet";

(c) "only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons";

(d) bentonite "is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program"; and,

(e) "the anthrax found in a letter to Senator Daschle is nearly identical to samples they recovered in Iraq in 1994" and "the anthrax spores found in the letter to Senator Daschle are almost identical in appearance to those they recovered in Iraq in 1994 when viewed under an electron microscope."

At different times, Ross attributed these claims to "three well-placed but separate sources" and, alternatively, to "at least four well-placed sources."

All of those factual claims -- each and every one of them, separately -- were completely false, demonstrably and unquestionably so. There is now no question about that. Yet neither ABC nor Ross have ever retracted, corrected, clarified, or explained these fraudulent reports -- reports which, as documented below, had an extremely serious impact on the views formed by Americans in those early, critical days about the relationship between the 9/11 attacks, the anthrax attacks and Iraq. There are two vital questions that ABC News should answer:

(1) How can ABC News just let these Saddam-anthrax reports -- as false as they were consequential -- remain uncorrected and unexplained, even through today?

(2) More importantly, Ross claimed at the time, and there is no reason to doubt it, that these false reports -- clearly designed to blame Iraq for the anthrax attacks in the eyes of Americans -- were fed to him by "at least four well-placed sources." Who were the well-placed, multiple sources feeding ABC News completely fictitious claims linking Saddam Hussein to the anthrax attacks, including false claims about the results of government tests? What possible justification is there for concealing the identity of those who manipulated ABC to disseminate these fictitious claims?