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There is no "Ames batch" of anthrax. The Ames strain is widely held in a number of different laboratories. It is not known whether Iraq holds the Ames strain. We know they have a different strain, the Vollum strain, and that they made attempts to acquire the Ames strain as long ago as the eighties, probably because the US Army vaccine seems to be less effective against Ames. If you have followed this story closely, you will have noted that there was a phase in the spin campaign during which it was implied -- in a vague, deniable way, needless to say -- that the anthrax had been sub-typed to a specific lab. But, whenever you read the stories closely, you found that this idea was merely a suggestion, intended to stay with the average, casual reader, not a firm assertion. Indeed, it has transpired that no such sub-typing has been achieved. We are left with the entirely non-dispositive datum that the anthrax is of the Ames strain, something that has been in the public domain for several months now -- definitely "old news."

On the truly dispositive issue of the weaponization signature, the government spin machine has been strangely silent. The only people who have been willing to stick their necks out publicly were the five independent experts who told ABCNews that the distinctive weaponization process favored by the Iraqis was used to prepare the anthrax. This assertion was the subject of a curiously-worded, non-denial denial by the White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

The phony "sub-typing" spin followed earlier, discredited spin that the anthrax was possibly or probably from (a) a natural source, e.g. a mountain stream, (b) a criminal but not necessarily terrostic source, e.g. a celebrity pissed off at the National Enquirer, (c) a rightwing militiaman's homebrew, (d) a disgruntled, lawnmower-weilding Batelle scientist, etc., etc. This is how public perception management works. And yet, we know that Vice President Cheney and his staff were put on Cipro on 9/11. The origin of the anthrax is the most important national security question facing the United States, since whoever holds it may very well be positioned to kill millions of American citizens. If you read one-on-one interviews with the likes of Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Newt Gingrich, you will appreciate that this is not lost on the national command authority. Naturally, when Bush speaks, he is more circumspect: the POTUS cannot tell the people of the United States that we face a credible threat of massive retaliation by Saddam should we point the finger at him for 9/11 and, for the time being, there is not a damn thing we can do about it. That is a "bad truth," in some ways a humiliating, unacceptable truth. Nevertheless, if you watch what Bush does -- e.g. the massive biodefense budget increase, or his naming of Iraq in the "Axis of Evil," you will see that he is acting completely consistently with the scenario that I have outlined.

Rosenberg is a typical left wing hack, á la Richard Garwin. We can safely ignore her commentary on this matter, which is purely designed to further the standard socialist anti-US, anti-military, pro-globalist, pro-UN agenda.