or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
August 04, 2008
Anthrax And The Iraq War
If you haven't already, be sure to read Glenn Greenwald's posts about ABC and the anthrax-by-mail case here, here and here. As Greenwald details, the behavior in this of ABC and the government has been even more horrifying than normal, which is saying a lot.
Greenwald argues the anthrax case had a large impact on the willingness of Americans to invade Iraq. I think he's correct, but there's some important evidence he doesn't cite. In particular, we should remember that Colin Powell used the anthrax case in his UN presentation, carefully giving the impression that Iraq may have been responsible without explicitly saying so:
Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax, a little bit about this amount--this is just about the amount of a teaspoon--less than a teaspoon full of dry anthrax in an envelope shutdown the United States Senate in the fall of 2001. This forced several hundred people to undergo emergency medical treatment and killed two postal workers just from an amount just about this quantity that was inside of an envelope.Iraq declared 8,500 liters of anthrax, but UNSCOM estimates that Saddam Hussein could have produced 25,000 liters. If concentrated into this dry form, this amount would be enough to fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons. And Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoon-full of this deadly material...
The Iraqis have never accounted for all of the biological weapons they admitted they had and we know they had. They have never accounted for all the organic material used to make them...This is true. This is all well-documented.
Dr. Blix told this council that Iraq has provided little evidence to verify anthrax production and no convincing evidence of its destruction. It should come as no shock then, that since Saddam Hussein forced out the last inspectors in 1998, we have amassed much intelligence indicating that Iraq is continuing to make these weapons.
We're not saying it definitely was Saddam! Just that it easily could have been! If, you know, it hadn't been made in the US Army's own labs!
—Jonathan Schwarz
Posted at August 4, 2008 03:09 PMNot to mention the lie about Saddam forcing out the inspectors in 1998, who were withdrawn so Clinton could bomb the place.
Posted by: Emma at August 5, 2008 05:23 AMNobody can do the spin-dance like those Republicans.
Posted by: Mikeb302000 at August 5, 2008 06:51 AMWhich is why Jean Duley is hiding at an undisclosed location now.
Posted by: Bob In Pacifica at August 5, 2008 10:04 AM"Not to mention the lie about Saddam forcing out the inspectors in 1998, who were withdrawn so Clinton could bomb the place."
And that lie kinda pales next to the lie (told three times now) by bush saying that Saddam would not let UN weapons inspectors back in. First time he said that was July 3, 2003.
And our very dumb corporate media didn't even notice! oh well, they are very dumb......
Posted by: Susan at August 5, 2008 10:13 PMAlso, the part about it being made in our own labs was the substance to the link. We knew Saddam had at least some stuff of that make because we gave it to him from the same Ames lab.
Posted by: Michael Pollak at August 6, 2008 01:29 PM
