Joseph Farah of Worldnet Daily kicks off the official "Anthrax Silliness" Season with an opinion piece that is nicely larded with misinformation.
No disrespect intended, sir, but it might be a good idea to use up-to-date information that has at least some degree of accuracy and reliability !
The ABC reports you relied on were from 2001,and were based more on what people thought (which was all they had available at the time) than what the actual investigations showed.
For example: There was no Bentonite used in the anthrax letters.
Bentonite was used-once upon a time-by Soviet bio-weaponeers ; and was adopted by Iraq-for a while-because they followed Russian doctrine in such matters.By 1995 , it had been replaced by what the late Hussein Kamal called "fiberglass" - (nanoglass) : a Swiss/German material, with a wide range of applications. Kamal's debriefing transcript may be viewed here.
Nanoglass, as the name implies,has exceptionally tiny dimensions: an anthrax spore - itself rather small - was seen to be covered with hundreds of nanoglass spheres , when examined under an electron microscope , when the anthrax from the deadly letters was examined.
The anthrax spores, and their powdery "matrix" try to clump together-thanks to something called Van der Waals forces. (Static cling,if you will.) The nanoglass balls act as electrical insulators, and prevent clumping; but the constant electrical attraction-and interaction with these "nano-insulators" - makes the powder seethe restlessly.(Bio-weaponeers refer to this as "fly".)
The material from at least one of the anthrax letters had so much "fly", it rose into the air like smoke when the envelope was teased open,and the scientist conducting the examination had the Devil's own job getting a sample under the microscope !
The United States and Russia switched to nanoglass in the early 90's.By 1995,Iraq was using the material. I noticed, when Kamal was being debriefed the Russian interrogator seemed rather surprised that Iraq had "joined the club". (It's worth mentioning a lot of Russian Bio-weaponeers found employment in places like Iraq,Syria,Egypt,Yemen,and Libya when the old Soviet Union imploded ,and "lifetime careers" melted away. It's not surprising they brought state-of-the-art methods and materials with them.)
Joseph Farah , in his opinion piece, was trying to tie the 2001 anthrax attacks to Iraq ; but in truth, the material used in those attacks was not really "lab grade" : it was fairly crude -by any country's standards !
The best available materials and technology were used by someone who had only a technician's knowledge (or a detailed instruction sheet) to work with. It was a bit like handing a beginning violinist a Stradivarius-and expecting them to jump from "Twinkle-Twinkle" to a Brahms concerto in an instant.
That someone was most likely right here in the USA - and it is entirely possible that person's (or group's) motives had nothing to do with 9/11 - other than a strong desire to harm and terrorize Americans.