The Wall Street Journal reported that a few months after being sworn in, President Bush received a briefing on Al Queda and Osama Bin Laden and directed that plans be drawn up to wipe out the threat. Supposedly, the briefing on the plan was to be delivered on 10 Sep 01 but was delayed by the President’s trip to Florida.

As for the Anthrax attacks, they are a real mystery. It is not at all clear that they were made by a deranged individual or by a calculating person attempting to appear to be deranged. If Ivins was, as some have claimed, attempting to provide a basis for a real-world test of the counter-Anthrax drugs he was developing he did it in a very poor fashion. It was done in a fashion that maximized the publicity, and I suppose that if you were worried about the country not being aware of the threat that it was a success in that regard.

The only explanation I can come up with is that Hatfield knew Ivins was nuts and encouraged him to send out the anthrax in a manner that would implicate Hatfield (via the false return addresses), but without evidence and thus enable him to sue the pants off his accusers. But that is rather too complex, I guess.

One thing I recall about the immediate post 9/11/01 situation. I had written a letter to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum asking for some information on a subject I was researching. The letter I got back replied that they had no information on that subject but ended with “God bless the United States.”