I am not too big on conspiracy theories unless they can be proven. After all, without a smoking gun, they remain just hunches, rants and wishful thinking. But the bizarre Bush administration handling of the anthrax terrorist letters has forced us to reconsider our caution. Putting aside for the moment the targets of the Anthrax laden letters -- Democrats and the media -- the public handling of the attacks has had the whiff of an investigation that seemed headed full speed in the direction of covering up the perpetrator, rather than unmasking him.

Why would I make this claim ? Read This:

The FBI gave permission to a university lab to destroy samples of the Ames strain of anthrax even after the agency knew that the Ames strain was in the deadly letters. (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/special/terror/front/1125950)

The FBI did not, apparently until last week, interview key persons who had worked in the government's germ warfare program and who claimed that they might have useful information. (http://www.sunspot.net/bal-te.anthrax09dec09.story)

The President kept conveniently dropping hints that the anthrax letters were possibly the work of his two favorite evildoers: Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein. Weeks after the anthrax letters were received, the FBI claimed that it did not have one credible lead as to the perpetrator and asked the public for help since the FBI was essentially dumbfounded and at a dead end.

The military did not reveal until mid-December that it had manufactured Anthrax spores in the recent past. Even then, the Army first claimed it had created just a paste form of Anthrax, only to be forced, within a day, to admit that it did process, in recent years, "weaponized" airborne dry anthrax. (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/13/national/13ANTH.html or http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011216/ts/attack_anthrax_dc_3.html)

Just two days later, it was leaked that the spores in the terrorist anthrax letters matched the recent military stocks. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49502-2001Dec15.html)

The Army and FBI both, apparently, knew about the secret American anthrax stockpile and research shortly after the Daschle letter was opened, but hid the information from the public. The Army, it is important to remember, is "assisting" in the investigation of the anthrax letters. (http://www.iht.com/articles/41998.html)

Weeks and weeks after the attacks (December 17), the White House admitted that the spores came from a "domestic" source, without the saber rattling fanfare that accompanies any statement about Osama bin Laden. (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-0112180242dec18.story may require registration)

Several non-military experts in germ warfare felt from the beginning that the letters were probably an "inside job" of someone who was involved in the germ warfare program. They were basically ignored by the FBI. The CIA also confessed, just in the past few days, that it had its own little anthrax program, which, one report says, the FBI is focusing on. Of course, the CIA is declaring "no, it's not our anthrax." (http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/12/16/cia.anthrax/index.html or http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/NM/20011216/Ts/attack_anthrax_dc_3.html)

So let's look at the evidence here. With near certainty now, it appears that "one of our own patriots" betrayed us in one way or another. This evildoer is homegrown, using anthrax made in the USA.

But you don't hear George "Cover-Up" Bush ragging on and on about how we will catch the evildoer who committed the anthrax attack. That's because, early on, the White House probably knew that it was either a renegade "patriotic" (current or past) member of the military or the CIA. Or it could have been a right wing wacko, the most radical wing of the faction that got Bush elected, a guy like Clayton Lee Waagner. Remember that Clayton "Army of God" Lee sent fake anthrax to family planning clinics around the country and was not denounced by Bush or Ashcroft until he was finally arrested, and then only in passing. In fact, Clayton Lee has praised Ashcroft as a man behind the cause of the anti-abortionists who had to arrest him "for political reasons." (http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011207/us/attacks_fugitive_caught_21.html) Or it could have been, according to one theory, a germ warfare researcher who went off the reservation.

So you can see why Bush and Ashcroft don't want to be going around calling the perpetrator of the anthrax terrorism "an evildoer." It might end up that the guy -- a rogue researcher or government agent-- is a kindred political spirit.

The extreme rhetoric of the right wing, the Republican party and their media megaphones light the priming fuse on the Timothy McVeighs of the world.

This time you have to wonder if it was just a freelance terrorist, or a renegade government-related researcher or agent improvising his own plan to intimidate the Democrats and the media -- or just to heighten the level of terror to give a bigger advantage to the right wing as they lead the charge toward curtailing civil liberties and pickpocketing the average American.

We never would have thought it possible, but the reluctant White House admission that the "weaponized anthrax spores" are made in the USA narrows the suspects -- and the White House may not want us to see who is in the line up. At a minimum, the evidence is mounting that this is a classic case of "blowback."

I do not believe that the anthrax terrorism was an authorized government operation, akin to the plans that American generals drew up during the 60's to blow up American targets and blame the incidents on Castro. I'm not quite into Oliver Stone land yet. (http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/dailynews/jointchiefs_010501.html)

Yet, the fish is starting to smell: the CIA, the military, and a handful of "labs" they distributed the spores to -- not Osama or Saddam -- are at ground zero of this horrific act.

Bush and his cabinet have been making daily promises and taunts that Osama bin Laden "can run, but he can't hide." The man who sits in the White House and evaded service in Vietnam, along with his Vice President who requested and received a deferment from service in Vietnam, promise that bin Laden will be caught dead or alive.

Funny that they don't issue the same assurances about the perpetrator of the anthrax acts of terror and murder in the United States. In fact, the tone and words from the government seem to be setting us up for never finding the apparently homegrown terrorist.

Indeed, the guy who did this may be someone that the Bush administration never wants to see the light of day.

After all, prosecuting a renegade-type present or former intelligence agency member or a bio-geek version of Timothy McVeigh might distract from our war on "evildoers" overseas by focusing on the fringe right wing evildoers amongst us. It's hard to marshal a permanent war on terrorism, when the enemy turns out to be us, so to speak. It might also embarrass an administration that just days ago sunk an international bio-germ warfare treaty. The truth could also show that the U.S. cannot control its own stock of "weaponized anthrax," which would make us a nation inadvertently aiding terrorism.