I read something recently about a youngish, up-and-coming novelist whose agent asked him to look at a screenplay and consider turning it into a novel. The screenplay had been written by a wannabe politico who at the time (1996) was a high-ranking public health official.

 

Anyway, the story itself was pretty ordinary, about an outbreak in the US which becomes an epidemic, and the hero detective whose dogged determination pays off and he not only helps to "save the country" but uncovers the truth about the epidemic: it was smallpox unleashed by Saddam Hussein in a plot to destabilise the US of A. OMG...

 

So, as the hero is being congratulated by the Commander in Chief, he tells the President that Baghdad must be bombed. The President says "OK" and the US nukes a city full of millions of people. What a great imagination this guy has. What a great story huh?

 

Needless to say the novelist declined the offer. But the screenplay's author is now a biosecurity expert working for the DOH, or DHSS, or whatever it's called now. He was also an ardent supporter of the Iraq war, and a staunch believer in the existence of Saddam's stockpile of WMD.

This sounds vaguely familiar. Are you thinking of Steven Hatfill, by any chance?

Probably. This is a "photographic" memory of the article in NS.