The 2001 Anthrax Deception The Case for a Domestic Conspiracy

The 2001 anthrax letter attacks in the United States killed five people andwounded dozens. They were widely blamed on extremist Muslims andtheir backers and used to support the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.They were also used to justify and hasten the passage of the USAPATRIOT Act, which was being presented to Congress just as the firstanthrax victim grew ill.In October 2001, one of the hypotheses that gained ground was that ofthe Double Perpetrator, the claim that al-Qaeda was carrying out theattacks with the support of Iraq. Much evidence was put forth to supportthis Double Perpetrator hypothesis but independent scientists soondiscovered that the anthrax spores came from a domestic lab in the USserving the military and intelligence communities, not from al-Qaeda orIraq.The FBI then quickly claimed that an individual was responsible for theattacks and began noisily looking for this 'lone wolf.' In 2008 the Bureaunamed Dr. Bruce Ivins of the US Army Medical Institute of