This seems relevant to our Iraq "smokescreen" discussion.
I agree. According to this story, the Iraqi ship was to sail "under an Iranian flag to disguise Iraq's role...."
As I've mentioned in earlier threads, the wording of the anthrax letters is almost identical to the chants used in demonstrations in Iran, even though all the other evidence suggests that it's Iraq that is responsible for the anthrax. Is this the same story -- Iraq trying to get Iran blamed?
I'll speculate further.
It's possible that the anthrax used may well have been stolen or otherwise obtained by Iraq from the U.S. or the U.K., rather than anthrax prepared by Iraq. Again, Iraq would be covering its tracks.
Moving from anthrax to the 9/11 attack, the easily-traceable evidence led the U.S. government to blame al-Qaeda, but there seems to be a deeper connection with Iraq (meetings between some of the hijackers and Iraqi agents, for instance). [I'm not saying al-Qaeda was uninvolved, just that that's not the whole story.]
Even the Oklahoma City bombing appears to follow the same pattern. If you're willing to wear a bit of a tin foil hat, consider the similarity: once again, responsiblity for the blast was easily traceable (to McVeigh and Nichols) and the 4/19 date linked it to militia groups protesting the Waco assault. But once again, there appear to be nebulous Iraqi connections behind the scenes. [I'm not saying that McVeigh and Nichols were uninvolved, or that Waco wasn't a motivation. But Iraq may well have moved behind the scenes, providing support to people whose actions happened to suit Iraq's purposes.]
Is Iraq engaged in a covert war against the United States, inflicting damage by supporting and coordinating the actions of various other groups, letting the blame fall on those groups instead of on Iraq?