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Timeline worthy of note:

September 18 and October 6 - 2001 anthrax attacks kill 5 and infect 17 with anthrax spores.

Patriot Act: "Introduced into the House of Representatives as House Resolution (HR) 3162 by Congressman James F. Sensenbrenner (R, WI) on October 23, the Act swept through Congress remarkably quickly and with little dissent. Assistant Attorney General Viet D. Dinh and future Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff were the primary drafters of the Act. The bill passed in the House the next day and in the Senate (Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) cast the lone dissenting vote, and Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) was the sole non-voting member) on October 25. President Bush signed the bill into law on October 26."

-- Wikipedia

BuzzFlash spent a long, long time covering the anthrax attacks after 9/11.

We haven't covered them much lately, because the Bush Administration has either been unable find the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks, or has intentionally let the case die because of involvement by person(s) associated with the military and/or the government itself.

The evidence at the time was overwhelming that the "weapons grade" anthrax used in the domestic terrorist attack came from a military facilty at Fort Detrick, Md or a lab under contract to the military.

The anthrax attacks came at a time that the Bush Administration was trying to muscle extraordinary UnConstitutional surveillance through Congress in the guise of the cynically named "Patriot Act."

A prime suspect became a flamboyant, mysterious anthrax researcher Dr. Steven Hatfill. But the FBI never brought him to trial. In fact, Hatfill is currently suing the U.S. government for defaming him in its open pursuit of him as a suspect.

After several years, like all unsolved crimes, there are many theories about the anthrax attacks. But the clearest lesson from this unresolved domestic bioterrorism is that the Bush Administration was unable to find the perpertrators, who were clearly not members of Al-Qaeda, but were homegrown and related, in some way, to a U.S. government anthrax research program.

Yes, no one has been prosecuted for the anthrax attacks that preceded the passage of the consolidation of surveillance powers in the executive branch, but, let's just say, "you do the math."

"The Killer Strain: Anthrax and a Government Exposed" is by Washington Post reporter Marilyn Thompson, based on her research covering the story for the newspaper. It's an important reminder of the type of terrorist activity that the Bush Administration chooses to let retreat in history without further mention.

That's because, perhaps, the criminals don't want to keep reminding the public of the crime that they committed, one of monstrous proportions.

People died, a nation's legislative body was the target of a bioterrorist attack, the first step toward a tyrranical executive branch was achieved.

Mission accomplished, nothing to see Americans, just move on.

Originally released in 2003, this book is an important historical document that resurrects an act of terrorism that came from within our own nation, and almost certainly with anthrax from our own bioterrorism weapons program.

It is worth recalling not only a sequence of events that is indicting of the Bush Administration in and of itself, but of how poorly they informed the public and handled the investigation.

Thompson doesn't accuse the Bush Administration of possibly being behind the anthrax attack, as we do, but her book is an important archival contribution to the "forgotten" act of terrorism against U.S. citizens and the Congress (and some media).

But, of course, there are reasons for why the White House "fumbled" the anthrax investigations. It was like Bush putting himself in charge of the Valerie Plame leak investigation. And didn't he also put himself in charge of the investigation into the Katrina debacle?

You don't put the defendant in charge of his own trial.

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