So everyone is calling for ABC News and Brain Ross to reveal the "three unnamed government sources" who allegedly told them in October 2001 that the powder used in the anthrax letters matched anthrax produced in Iraq.
This is a common-sense demand. After all, the motive of the attackers was obviously to make the attacks appear to have originated with radical Muslims, and whomever was feeding information to Ross and ABC obviously shared the motives of the attackers. Fundamental logic would require any rational investigator to question the source of false information that buttressed the obvious aims of the criminals.
Follow the information trail and maybe find the attackers. At the very least find some cynical lying opportunists using the crime as a pretext for war. Or maybe find the culprits. The ABC stories themselves constituted a lead in the case that the FBI would've been negligent in not following (assuming they didn't). And of course ABC has an ethical responsibility to reveal sources that lie to them and thus cause them to lie to their viewers and readers.
But don't hold your breath. We may need to figure this out ourselves.
So then, who were these mysterious ABC sources? For my money they didn't belong to Brain Ross. The blow-dried blowhard Ross may have some actual news sources of his own, but I doubt he spent much time prior to 2001 cultivating relationships in Fort Detrick MD. My guess is Ross spends a lot more time cultivating relationships with his hair stylist and his coffee runner. Producers and other actual journalists do the dirty work of news gathering.
In the case of the October and November 2001 ABC anthrax stories, the actual journalist in question appears to have been Gerry Matsumoto, the author of the controversial 2004 book, "
http://www.vaccine-a.com/index.html#author">Vaccine A: The Covert Government Experiment That's Killing Our Soldiers." In fact, Matsumoto's byline appears by itself on the October 16 ABC headline "State Sponsor?, Anthrax Suggests Government Expertise," and on the November 1 story, "Terror Tests, Additive Search Requires More Study." And Matsumoto shares a byline with Ross, Christopher Isham and Chris Vlasto on the October 26 story headlined, "Troubling Anthrax Additive Found." As Glenn Greenwald and others
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/01/anthrax/">have amply documented, these three stories included some of the most hyperbolic and false claims about the composition of the anthrax used in the attacks and it's potential ties to Iraq. (For a complete list of ABC News stories on anthrax check out
http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/abc.html">this useful link.)
And as it turns out, Matsumoto, and not Ross, had plenty of reason to already have news sources directly at, or related to, Fort Detrick and the anthrax investigation. In fact, it appears Matsumoto may have already been familiar with Dr. Bruce Ivins and his work on anthrax vaccines, thanks to his previous reporting for Vanity Fair on Gulf War Syndrome (which I can't seem to find online, but is referenced
http://www.slate.com/id/2109808/">here,
http://www.thepowerhour.com/news/book_guineapigs.htm">here and
http://www.salon.com/health/feature/1999/05/13/anthrax/print.html">here.)
In one of the
http://www.truthout.org/article/the-anthrax-attacks-sunlight-is-best-disinfectant">best articles on the case in the last week, Bill Simpich at TruthOut summarizes Matsumoto's ceaseless pushing of Iraqi involvement in the anthrax attacks, and also explains his focus on Ivins and Gulf War Syndrome:
The Anthrax Attacks: Sunlight Is the Best Disinfectant
...
The premise of "Vaccine A" is that since the 1991 Gulf War US soldiers have been unwittingly exposed to a "second-generation" experimental anthrax vaccine designed by Ivins and his colleagues, which improperly contained an oil-based substance known as squalene. Matsumoto and others claim squalene is the main cause of the autoimmune disorder known as "Gulf War Syndrome." From 1991 to the present day, many soldiers have refused to submit to military vaccinations for anthrax for fear of contracting Gulf War Syndrome. There are strong arguments on both sides of the squalene dispute, and this is an ongoing controversy.
The work of Bruce Ivins is known to many of these vets - especially those who suffered Gulf War Syndrome, or those who were court-martialed for refusing to use the vaccine in fear it was tainted. It is intriguing that Matsumoto paid special attention to Ivins, claiming that Ivins knew that the experimental oil-boosted vaccine "can provoke toxic, allergic, ulcerative, or lethal reactions."
Matsumoto's 2004 book focuses on Ivins as the man with the motive to be pushing to get approval for the new second-generation vaccine.http://www.truthout.org/article/the-anthrax-attacks-sunlight-is-best-disinfectant">More here.
But Matsumoto's sources apparently weren't pointing to Dr. Ivins as an anthrax attack suspect in 2001. Instead, they were pointing Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
In fact, a year later, on October 28, 2002, Matsumoto was still pimping the Saddam angle when he
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28334-2002Oct27">wrote another article, with Guy Gugliotta, in The Washington Post, offering a fall-back argument for Iraqi involvement based on silica instead of bentonite. Apparently the same "unnamed government sources" were still at work.
All very strange, IMHO.
So if I have this all straight, reporter Gerry Matsumoto blamed Dr. Bruce Ivins for Gulf War Syndrome as long ago as 1999, and in the course of researching that particular story he developed (it appears) sources close to the anthrax vaccine program at Fort Detrick. Then, in all likelihood, some of those same sources fed him the false information about the anthrax attacks in 2001 and 2002, which the MSM, including hair-boy Ross then dutifully regurgitated to the rest of us.
So let's forget about Brain Ross for a second. I want to know who
Gerry Matsumoto's sources were on the anthrax attacks. That seems like it might just be a tad more revealing.
edited to correct "Detrick" :)
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