There isn’t a lot that happens in official Washington that isn’t accompanied by a conspiracy theory. The anti-war protests that descended on the Ellipse and surrounded the White House three weeks ago are no exception.

Soon after the protests, news emerged that the Department of Homeland Security had detected the presence of tularemia, a naturally occurring disease typically transmitted by rodents and dead carcasses, in the air during the protest-heavy weekend (and only informed local officials six days after the initial detection). While DHS officials claimed that the risk to humans was low, reports are now filtering out that some protestors may have contracted illnesses associated with the bacteria. Blogger MoxieGrrrl has posted one protestor’s account, who wrote of feeling ill upon returning from the protests:

I just got back from my doctor on a followup about this (As I rarely ever get sick, I didn’t have a “doctor” before, but I do from now on)…Today the doc tells me that two separate “preliminary” tests done at a local lab confirmed tularemia.

Of course, the tularemia could have been the product of the many rats that have been known to populate the Mall area. But that’s hardly as exciting as slyly noting that the U.S. stockpiled the bacteria during the Cold War, and a current outbreak in Russia has affected some 500 people.

So, dear readers, we ask you this: A simple coincidence, or did Rummy and Co. think a small biological attack upon hapless anti-war protestors would make for some good laughs at the Pentagon?

We report, you decide.