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Atrios writes:
anthrax was what made things like "mobile chemical weapons labs" sound so scary. Not everyone agrees, but I think more than 9/11 the anthrax freaked the country out. 9/11 was horrible, but the anthrax made it seem like we'd reached a new era where some horrible creepy shit was going to happen every day.It's interestng that the Anthrax attacks have been so fully forgotten, as they do appear to have played a significant role in the administration's lurch towards total terror. This is from Jacob Weisberg's new book on Bush, which suggests, a la Atrios, that more than 9/11, the anthrax attacks are what freaked out the President:
The anthrax attacks in New York and Washington created a sense of vulnerability that was in many respects greater than the mass murder at the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Inside the administration, the October bioterror attacks had a larger impact than is generally appreciated—one in many ways bigger than 9/11. Without the anthrax attacks, Bush probably would not have invaded Iraq.[...]Then on October 4 the worst fears inside the White House were realized. Bush choked up as he thanked government workers in a morning speech at the State Department. Ari Fleischer reports that he had "never before and never since seen the president look as tired and as troubled as he did that morning." When they returned to the White House, Bush called Fleischer into his office and explained the reason: he had just learned that a Florida man had been stricken with anthrax. Bush feared it was the dreaded second wave.Another anthrax letter, never recovered (or at least never disclosed), was apparently sent to the White House. On October 22, anthrax was found on an automated slitter used to open letters at a Secret Service facility in an undisclosed location some miles away. This meant the White House was a target of biological terrorism. "I think the seminal event of the Bush administration was the anthrax attacks," someone close to the president told me. "It was the thing that changed everything. It was the hard stare into the abyss."We look back on that period with a sort of retroactive rationality, but it really was a moment of intense hysteria, fear, and anxiety. Flags were waving in the corner of newscasts, right below alerts shpwing the level of terrorist threat (which was always high or elevated). Anthrax attacks were coming from parts unknown. And there was no real reason to doubt that another attack, yet more spectacular and deadly than 9/11, was being planned. I don't know why this convinced the Bush administration to invade Iraq, but you do have to understand that decision, and the support many gave to it, in the context of the crazed moment in which it was made.
