It's quite a little Catch-22 they've created for themselves there; a real no-win situation all around. As a wise man once aptly noted, "many dark actors playing games" indeed.
I don't think the FBI created the situation. They were just doing their jobs. The nonsense about additives and coatings wasn't their fault. There were a series of errors made by USAMRIID and AFIP which were leaked to the media, and the conspiracy theorists and the media blew everything out of proportion. When people in the government tried to correct the errors, the conspiracy theorists and the media didn't believe a word of the attempts to correct the situation.
Everything seems to indicate that it was the FBI which pointed out the errors made by the two army labs.
I explain all the details about how the additives nonsense got started in Chapter 15 of my book, which I have on-line as a sample chapter. It can be read by clicking HERE.
I also don't think the situation is uncorrectable. All that is needed is to get the media to stop writing crap. That may seem impossible, but it's not - because NOT EVERYONE in the media printed the crap. It just has to be shown that what certain newspapers were printing crap. Then the ones who didn't print the crap will start writing stories about the errors and correct the crap.
If there is a battle over whether it was really crap or not, so much the better. ALL the details will then come out.
Ed