He cites a Times story from Oct 28th in which William Patrick mentions Ross’s brown substance, saying that a Fort Detrick scientist told him. Patrick also featured in the New York Times story mentioned above.

Lake attributes the brown substance to contamination from tests performed by the original HazMat unit, at Daschle’s office.

On April 9th 2007, Greenwald endorsed and highly recommended Lake’s website and book. So, he’s familiar with the story of the initial misleading tests, unsanctioned leaks and sensationalist reporting, featured prominently within.

Then, Greenwald took quotes out of context from ABC’s reports to emphasize their blaming of Iraq as the anthrax source. Yet, ABC fully qualified their statements at the time. Specifically, that both the White House and the scientists had denied the presence of bentonite, that the presence of bentonite did not prove that Iraq was either the manufacturer or the sender, and that Iraq was not known to have produced an anthrax weapon in powdered form. Any claims that ‘the anthrax looked like samples recovered from Iraq in 1994′ are actually claims that the anthrax had been manufactured by professionals, rather than by amateurs.

Then, Greenwald claimed that ABC’s bentonite story was hugely influential in convincing America that Iraq perpetrated the anthrax attacks. Yet, the article cited to support this makes it clear that the anti-Iraqi sentiment was entirely based on Iraq’s history with anthrax. He claimed that ABC never retracted the story, and that it continues to influence the press to this day. However, he has greatly exaggerated this by citing articles by authors pursuing their own anti-Iraqi agendas, of which he can cite only a handful. His citations from the mainstream press don’t mention the story at all. Finally, he claimed that the 2002 State of the Union address subtly blamed Iraq for the anthrax attacks. Yet, the address made no such claim.

On April 11th 2007, Greenwald reported that ABC had reminded him of their Nov 1st retraction, to which he responded that he already knew about it, and of their continuous repeating of the White House’s denials. He then attempted to argue that the retraction was not a retraction by applying spurious grammatical semantics to a single sentence. In fact, ABC devoted a significant part of their report to an explicit denial by the scientists themselves.

Forget the Nov 1st report. ABC performed a de facto retraction by the very act of dropping such a sensational story, after only five days. Testifying to the effectiveness of this retraction, the story disappeared, not only from the mainstream media (assuming it ever appeared), but also from channels pursuing their own agenda against the Iraqis.

Finally, Greenwald claimed that the White House hawks invented the bentonite story, lying to ABC, to falsely blame the anthrax attacks on Iraq, to bolster the case for war. Which directly contradicts Lake’s story of misleading early tests, unsanctioned leaks, and sensationalist reporting.

Greenwald’s rant of August 1st 2008 is a rehash of the same material. He has yet to make any meaningful comment on ABC’s reply of August 6th.

NB: This anti-Iraqi article, cited by Greenwald, mentions a story in the Wall Street Journal, run independently of ABC, which claims that the anthrax contained bentonite. Greenwald makes no mention of the story itself.
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51917

According to the website and Preston’s “Demon in the Freezer”, there were mistakes and false assumptions made during the early testing of the anthrax in October 2001, leading to the belief that the anthrax contained additives. Testing had barely started when the scientists were summoned to report to the White House (24th). These misleading reports were combined with assumptions and speculation by experts (scientists and UN weapons inspectors) as they were leaked, without sanction, to the press (New York Times, Washington Post (25th & 26th)). The investigators held a press conference to emphasize that it was early days (25th), but by then, the press had their own speculating experts, and wanted a sensational story. The investigators attempted to quash the rumours with a formal report (31st). Throughout the week, the White House spokesman repeatedly denied that the anthrax contained bentonite.

ABC began running its bentonite story on 26th, while also running the White House denials. The White House spokesman said that ABC felt he was covering for Iraq. ABC formally retracted the bentonite story on Nov 1st. Typically, the retraction was low-key. (Press accusations are on the front page, while the apologies are buried inside.) Note that these dates match those above.

ABC has said that silica additive was mistaken for bentonite. The scientists didn’t report bentonite on the 24th (the supposed additive was unknown), but believed they found silica on the 25th.

The leaks didn’t fuel anti-Iraqi sentiment. In fact, the Washington Post story ruled out Iraq as the anthrax source. Anti-Iraqi sentiment was already present because of Iraq’s history with anthrax. However, the leaks started the conspiracy theory of an illegal American bioweapons program.

White House hawks pushed an investigation to tie Iraq to the anthrax, but the evidence wasn’t there. The anthrax was Ames strain, and could have been manufactured in any reasonably equipped small laboratory.

To answer John’s question, an ‘opinionated analysis’ is a speculation or guess.

Except the scientists didn’t want to tell the world; they’d barely started testing the anthrax when they were summoned to the White House to report. Then, the White House rumour mill took over, further distorting the already misleading early findings and leaking it to the newspapers. Meanwhile, the press wanted the most sensational story. No agenda, as such.

ABC formally retracted the story on Nov 1st.

This story has already been published in a couple of books. Guess the facts spoilt the propaganda. I’ll post the details.