Did Bush manipulate the anthrax scare?

Just five weeks shy of the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the Trade Towers and the Pentagon, a mystery linked to those attacks has burst once again into active life, prompting a hail of speculation about just how far Bush and Cheney were prepared to go in inflaming public fears, as part of their master plan to justify the attack on Iraq in the spring of 2003.

The mystery concerns the envelopes of white powder containing anthrax spores that were mailed out to prominent Americans, starting on September 18, 2001. They went to US Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle, to US Senator Pat Leahy, to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw. Directly inhaled into the lungs, the spores can be deadly. In the post-September 11 mailings five died.

Back in the autumn of 2001 the anthrax envelopes convinced millions of Americans

reeling from the collapse of the Trade Towers that Yes, this was war and Islam was the enemy. The crudely written notes accompanying the spores said "Death to America, Death to Israel, Allah is Great."

Within hours the Bush administration was leaking stories to the effect that analysis of the anthrax in the envelopes disclosed the presence of bentonite and this chemical footprint - so the anonymous sources insisted to their favoured outlet, Brian Ross of ABC News - was characteristic of products from the bio-terror labs of Saddam Hussein.

Oddly enough, the mention of bentonite had a soothing effect on me. If this was the spoor of al-Qaida, then California's wine industry had been taken over by Osama bin Laden. Bentonite is a derivative of lava and has many homely applications, from sealing leaky ponds to purging wine of unsightly protein haze. I use it myself to clarify my home-made cider.

But ABC's stories about bentonite-laced anthrax spores carried the day and were hugely effective in helping prepare public sentiment for the attack on