Saturday, August 02, 2008

McCain, Anthrax & the Afghan Blunder

By Robert Parry
August 3, 2008

The scene of John McCain – during the anthrax attacks in October 2001 – opining to David Letterman that Iraq might be responsible underscores McCain’s central role in what may go down as one of the biggest strategic blunders in U.S. military history, the premature pivot from Afghanistan to Iraq.

Not only has it been clear for many years that McCain’s speculation about Iraq’s role in the anthrax attacks was reckless – made even more apparent by the FBI now pinning the crime on dead U.S. bio-defense scientist Bruce Ivins – but McCain also told Letterman in that Oct. 18, 2001, interview that “the second phase is Iraq.”

Read on.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The 'Suicide' of Bruce Ivins Is being handled just like the assassination of a 20 year old American of Mexican descent that took place in California a couple decades ago, circa a 2nd Sunday in July. Based on sketchy eyewitness accounts what seems to have happened was that local cops, supposedly in pursuit of gang-members, barged into a backyard birthday party, said a few words to some of the guests and a few minutes later, 'bang, bang, bang', whereupon, a young man was dead, killed by cops at his mother's birthday party. What connects the murder of a 20 yr. old Mexican-American to the supposed suicide of biowarfare scientist Bruce Ivins? The cover ups, that's what. For example, in each case authorities have had to scramble, the better to come up with some sort of narrative that would feature the victim as the bad guy, and the assassins (the cops, re. the 20 yr old & the powers that be, re. Bruce Ivins) as the good guys. In both instances, too, MSM plays a key role, that of feeding the public the official narrative, the official narrative and nothing but the official narrative, so help them, God. But mostly what connects the one assassination to the other is the fact that in each case, it's up to us, the getting out what really happened and acting on what we find to he the truth. How is this going to come about? One way is for us to elect a president who'll end the Iraq War, negotiate with Iran, support justice for the Palestinian people plus turning things around here at home. And then what sort of world? It'll be up to us.

Anonymous said...

This is an opportunity for Barack Obama to forcefully call for a Congressional investigation, with full subpoena power, so that the truth has a chance of coming out.

That would be real leadership.

But, I won't hold my breath since he's drifted so far right ever since he became the presumptive nominee.

Anonymous said...

John McCain is no pal of mine, but this is what he said back in 2001:

LETTERMAN: How are things going in Afghanistan now?

MCCAIN: I think we’re doing fine …. I think we’ll do fine. The second phase — if I could just make one, very quickly — the second phase is Iraq. There is some indication, and I don’t have the conclusions, but some of this anthrax may — and I emphasize may — have come from Iraq.

While he may have been trotting out talking points from the Cheney/Bush, he left some wiggle room...he didn't claim that he KNEW the anthrax DID come from Iraq.