An Inclusive Litany

10/19/01

Another conspiracy theory, this one advanced by Alexander Cockburn in the New York Press, October 10, 2001:
Ken McCarthy, our CounterPunch man in Tallahassee, writes the following thought-provoking note:

"FACTS: 1. The man who died of Anthrax last week was a photo editor at The Sun, a tabloid. 2. A fellow employee there has been recently diagnosed with Anthrax as well. 3. Inhaled Anthrax, the type these men have contracted, is exceedingly rare (only 18 cases in the US in the last 100 years) 4. Anthrax spores have been found in their workplace. The building which houses The Sun, The Globe and The National Enquirer has been closed as a result. 5. American Media Inc., the owner of The Sun etc., has connections to the US Central Intelligence Agency. 5. Boca Raton, the home of The Sun, is also the location of a plant owned by Product Ingredient Technologies, a company with links to the Bush Sr. White House that manufactured chemical warfare agents that were exported to Iraq with US government approval in the late 1980s."

Ken cites as his source Bringing the War Home by William Thomas. Under that same program, 19 containers of anthrax bacteria were supplied to Iraq in 1988 by the American Type Culture Collection company, located near Fort Detrick, MD, the site of the U.S. Army's high-security germ warfare division.

Bioterror has been the media feeding frenzy of the week, as noted above, a scenario pushed by Attorney General John Ashcroft in an attempt to scare up support for his Anti-Terrorism Act....