Is Iraq being framed?
Someone is sending anthrax to news agencies, politicians and
other officials, creating a massive scare campaign. So far only
one person has died, but dozens have tested positive for
exposure to the dangerous bacteria.
No evidence has been produced linking this to anyone in the
Middle East. Yet the climate of war fever is so great, as the
U.S. continues to bomb Afghanistan, that the anthrax scare can
easily be used to justify further expansion of this war of
domination, along with increased repression here at home, all
in the name of fighting terrorism.
At the same time that anthrax began appearing in New York, a
fierce debate was going on in Washington over whether to widen
the war to Iraq. Those who favor an attack on a country already
weakened by years of sanctions are using the anthrax scare as
an excuse. Iraq has "weapons of mass destruction," they say,
which includes biological weapons.
This is false, according to Scott Ritter, a former UN
weapons inspector in Iraq. Ritter wrote in the Los Angeles
Times of Oct. 12, in a piece entitled "The Bioterror Road
Doesn't Lead to Iraq," that "With its military poorly trained
and equipped, its economy in tatters and once-vaunted weapons
of mass destruction largely dismantled by UN weapons
inspectors, Iraq today represents a threat to no one."
Why Iraq could possibly want to risk unleashing anthrax on
the U.S. at the very moment the Pentagon is mobilized for a big
war in the Middle East is not explained by those who want to
widen the conflict.
--D. Griswold
Reprinted from the Oct. 25, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
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