05 AFTER 9/11, THE DEFENSE DEPARTMENT WANTED TO POISONAFGHANISTAN'S FOOD SUPPLY
One of the strangest things the media do is to bury huge revelations deep in the bowels of alarger story. A perfect example occurs in "10 Days in September," an epic eight-day series thatran in the Washington Post. In part six, Bob Woodward and Dan Balz are recounting the Bush Administration's activities on September 17, 2001, six days after the 9/11 attacks. Bush andNational Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice have headed to the Pentagon to be briefed on action against Afghanistan by a two-star general from the Special Operation Command:Rice and Frank Miller, the senior NSC staffer for defense, went with the president to thePentagon. Before the briefing, Miller reviewed the classified slide presentation prepared for Bush and got a big surprise.
One slide about special operations in Afghanistan said: Thinking Outside the Box —Poisoning Food Supply. Miller was shocked and showed it to Rice. The United Statesdoesn't know how to do this, Miller reminded her, and we're not allowed. It would effectively be a chemical or biological attack — clearly banned by treaties that the UnitedStates had signed, including the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention.
Nice took the slide to Rumsfeld. "This slide is not going to be shown to the president of theUnited States," she said.
Rumsfeld agreed. "You're right," he said.
Pentagon officials said later that their own internal review had caught the offending slideand that it never would have been shown to the president or to Rumsfeld.
