Covering the Tracks of the Anthrax Attacks - What, where, why – who?

Four years ago today, letters containing anthrax were postmarked from Trenton, N.J., to five major American media outlets, including ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, the New York Post, and AMI Media, a publisher of supermarket tabloids. Thus began a series of attacks over several weeks that terrorized the nation, infected 22 people, killed five – and played a key role in amplifying the post-9/11 hysteria and paranoia that took the nation on a course set for war.

Three weeks after the first mailings, two letters containing highly weaponized anthrax – far more deadly than the relatively crude concoction contained in the first letters – showed up in the offices of two Democratic senators, Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy. The Capitol emptied, most members of Congress fled Washington, and the country – already jumpy as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks – was practically prostrate with fear.

Remember how the War Party used these attacks to stoke up sentiment for attacking Iraq?