New York May 21, 2002:- Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller were told soon after September 11 of a memorandum warning that extremists could be training at flight schools but neither told the president, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. Citing government officials, the Times said neither official briefed president George W. Bush about the memo from the FBI in Phoenix in July. It warned that Osama bin Laden's followers could be training at American flight schools. The disclosure is expected to magnify criticism of the FBI's performance, including its failure to act on the memorandum before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Times said. Ashcroft and Mueller have not said publicly when they learned of the July 10 memorandum, the Times said. "But the officials (interviewed) said that within days of the attacks, senior law enforcement officials grasped the document's significance as a potentially important missed signal," the report added.
Last week the existence of the memo was acknowledged publicly after lawmakers and congressional staff gained full access to it. The memo's direct reference to bin Laden, identified as the mastermind behind the attacks that killed more than 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, Pentagon and in rural Pennsylvania, had not been revealed before by the U.S. government. A senior Justice Department official interviewed by the Times told the newspaper that the attorney general was not briefed in any detail or with any specificity about the document, known now as the Phoenix memo, until about a month ago. The Times said White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said on Monday that "we have nothing that indicates the president had seen or even heard about this memo prior to a few weeks ago."
Alexandria, VA May 20, 2002:- Walk-in suicide bombers like those who have attacked public places in Israel will hit the United States eventually, FBI Director Robert Mueller said Monday. "I think we will see that in the future, I think it's inevitable," Mueller said in response to a question during a speech to the National Association of District Attorneys meeting in suburban Alexandria, Va. In his opening remarks to the group, Mueller flatly predicted that "there will be another terrorist attack. We will not be able to stop it. It's something we all live with." Mueller said the degree of fanaticism an informant must exhibit to get into the inner circle of a terrorist group makes it difficult for law enforcement agencies to penetrate such organizations and prevent such attacks. "I wish I could be more optimistic," he said.
Mueller's prediction follows Vice President Dick Cheney's warning Sunday that because no specific information is available, the United States is finding it difficult to respond to the latest intelligence hints that al-Qaida may be planning another attack. Mueller said law enforcement has been somewhat successful in combating acts of terrorism in Northern Ireland by developing sources who could provide information about terrorist plans and by using electronic surveillance. But he said the difficulty of getting informants inside terrorist groups targeting the United States makes it much harder to obtain advance information. Cheney said Sunday he sees "a real possibility" that walk-in suicide bombers may hit the United States if those who have attacked Israel succeed in changing the situation in the Middle East. "Terrorism is an evil, pernicious thing, and it is one of the biggest challenges we've ever faced as a nation," Cheney said.
At the prosecutors meeting, Mueller said the FBI now believes that "an al-Qaida bomb maker" constructed the shoe bomb that Richard Reid had when he was apprehended aboard a flight from Paris to the United States in December. Mueller made the comment in describing how the FBI is increasing its recruitment of scientific experts to help in terrorism investigations and is "centralizing analytical capability" to coordinate evidence gathering. Mueller also said the arrest of Abu Zubaydah, a top al-Qaida operative, during raids in Pakistan in March was the result of a joint FBI-CIA operation. He cited the raids as an example of how the traditional wall between the FBI and the CIA is coming down as the two agencies battle terrorism.
Buenos Aires, Argentina December 19, 2001: - Police stormed a city hall in western Argentina on Wednesday where rioting workers trashed their offices, smashing and overturning furniture. The frenzy was the latest as anger over a deep economic crisis boiled over around the country. Earlier, police fired tear gas to quell a looting rampage by some 2,000 people in a commercial district near the capital, Buenos Aires. Wednesday's unrest came after a weekend of supermarket lootings in cities across the South American nation, where Argentines are desperate after four years of recession that has pushed unemployment above 18 percent. The government has partially frozen accounts to halt a run on the banks.
In the western city of Cordoba, hometown of embattled President Fernando de la Rua and his increasingly unpopular economy minister, Domingo Cavallo, angry clerks in City Hall rampaged in their offices Wednesday. Riot police armed with batons and firing rubber bullets seized the building and then fanned out through palm-lined avenues to drive back protesters, who threw stones at police and wielded rifles and what appeared to be tear gas canisters. There were no immediate reports of casualties. In the run-down shopping district of San Miguel on the northwestern rim of greater Buenos Aires, however, police said five officers were injured in looting. Crowds that had been gathering since late the previous night smashed windows and pried open metal shop fronts, carting away slabs of meat and plastic bags full of food and clothing early Wednesday. Looters started trash fires in the streets where women with shopping bags picked up scattered goods. ``We don't have any money, we are hungry and we HAVE to eat!'' one woman shouted.
Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse them. Some 2,000 people took part in the looting of some 40 shops, police spokesman Juan Alberto Saiz told the newspaper La Nacion. In Buenos Aires, police patrolled tense streets in the La Ciudadela district and a crowd of over 100 gathered at a Coto supermarket, one of the country's biggest chains, demanding food. ``We want food, and if the government doesn't give it to us, we'll take it,'' said Liliana Gimenez, 62. Coto workers parked delivery trucks and constructed a barricade out of supermarket carts outside to keep the protesters out. The crowd eventually settled down after Coto officials promised to distribute hundreds of bags of basic foodstuffs - bread, sugar, beef and wine.
Worried by the events, De la Rua met Wednesday with government officials and representatives of the Roman Catholic charity Caritas. The violence began late last week with supermarket lootings in Rosario and Mendoza, two major provincial cities hard-hit by unemployment. De la Rua's beleaguered government has announced eight highly unpopular austerity plans during its two years in power, including a 13 percent cut in state workers' wages and moves to slash pensions and raise taxes. Hoping to blunt the rising hunger and poverty, the government this week began disbursing more than 400,000 pounds of food aid - mostly meat, rice, powdered milk and vegetables. The food packages destined for Argentina's poorest communities came after Labor Minister Jose Dumon acknowledged Tuesday that ``social tensions'' exist in Argentina. Argentina's powerful unions called a 24-hour national strike last Thursday that crippled public transport and most economic activity. Argentine shoemakers protested Tuesday, saying a flood of cheap Brazilian imports was pushing them out of business. They decorated a Christmas tree with Brazilian footwear and then set it on fire. Freight and passenger trains went on strike Monday, crippling commuters.
At the root of the crisis is the recession triggered by years of public overspending and heavy borrowing that has left Argentina on the brink of defaulting on its staggering $132 billion public debt. The 18.3 percent jobless rate has left nearly 15 million of the 36 million population at or below the poverty line as consumer spending has been choked off and industrial activity plummeted 11 percent last month. Cavallo has said he wanted to slash the 2002 budget from $49 billion to $39.6 billion. On Tuesday, the International Monetary Fund called Argentina's economic policy unsustainable. The IMF earlier this month held back $1.3 billion after Argentina failed to meet previously agreed upon budget deficit targets. ``It's clear that the mix of fiscal policy, debt, and the exchange rate regime is not sustainable,'' IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff told reporters in Washington. Finance Secretary Guillermo Mondino said Argentina desperately needed IMF support for an upcoming debt swap. Argentina is asking creditors to exchange existing government debt for longer-term bonds with lower interest rates. ``It's clear that if we don't have an orderly debt restructuring, we're dead meat,'' Mondino said.
Buenos Aires, Argentina December 21, 2001: - The resignation of Argentina's president will likely be followed by widespread bankruptcies, bank closures, the biggest sovereign debt default in history and an uncontrolled devaluation, economists said. And that's just in the next 30 days. Fernando de la Rua left Latin America's third-largest economy adrift on the brink of disaster when he quit the presidency late on Thursday amid deadly riots sparked by a harrowing recession in its fourth year.
Most analysts agreed De la Rua's successor, almost certain to come from the opposition Peronist Party, would quickly default on Argentina's $132 billion public debt, a move expected by financial markets for months now. What comes next, they say, depends on who emerges from the economic chaos that will likely result. ``Argentina's future is being decided in smoke-filled rooms right now. No one has a grip on the situation,'' said Christopher Ecclestone, an analyst for Buenos Aires Trust brokerage. ``Whatever happens is going to be very messy.'' The Peronists are deeply divided in their own ranks, but while the solutions are murky, Argentina's problems are clear. Perhaps the biggest decision will be what to do with Argentina's currency peg, which makes one peso equal to one dollar. The peg ended 5,000 percent hyperinflation a decade ago but has in recent years been widely blamed for making the peso overvalued and the economy uncompetitive. However, letting the peso float would result in an almost certain return to runaway inflation, ruining countless companies and individuals since more than 80 percent of Argentina's private debt is held in dollars. ``Ultimately it is unlikely that a maxi-devaluation can be avoided, potentially putting Argentina at the risk of further hyperinflation in the current context of maximum uncertainty,'' Credit Suisse First Boston said in a research note. Other options -- such as ditching the peso and adopting the U.S. dollar or even issuing a third currency to stir depressed consumer spending -- would do little to address the fact that Argentina's currency is overvalued by somewhere between 35 and 60 percent, economists said.
To make a devaluation viable, some said, banking assets and debt contracts would have to be forcibly converted from pesos into dollars, which could fuel the collapse of some large banks already weakened by a recent run on deposits. ``Argentina can't make its industries competitive unless it abandons the currency peg,'' said Carlos Perez, an economist for Fundacion Capital consultancy. ``Devaluation is unavoidable evil. It's going to happen.''
The protests that toppled De la Rua were seen by many as a demand by the third of Argentina living below the poverty line, as well as a decaying middle class, to stop using cash to pay the debt instead of collapsing social and health programs. Almost no one doubts that the next leader will give into months of pressure and default on Argentina's public debt as tax revenues plummet and entire industries collapse. The only question, it seems, is how ``messy'' the moratorium will be. In the inevitable restructuring, Argentina could eventually try to shave its debt load by anywhere from a third to half, economists said. Maybe even more. ``Debt restructurings have historically had a 'haircut' of around 35 percent,'' said one economist for a Wall Street bank. ''I don't see Argentina getting out of that tradition. But another, who also asked to remain unnamed, disagreed: ''I think we're looking at a massive reduction in value here. Otherwise it just doesn't do them any good.''
A debt default of any kind would ruin many banks' balance sheets and shatter whatever confidence investors have in Argentina, leading companies to postpone investments and likely sending unemployment soaring beyond its current 18 percent. Whatever happens, events will likely move quickly as the vacuum left by De la Rua's departure demands decisive action. ``The greatest power to make changes is always held on the first day,'' said Perez. ``The more time passes, the less ability there will be to make changes.''
Washington December 13, 2001: - An Army biological and chemical warfare facility in Utah has been quietly developing weapons-grade anthrax spores since at least 1992, and has shipped samples of the bacteria to Fort Detrick, Maryland, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. Citing government officials and shipping records, the newspaper said samples were shipped back and forth between the two facilities several times over the past several years.
The Utah spores were grown and processed at the Dugway Proving Ground about 80 miles from Salt Lake City, the newspaper said. According to the report, the Utah spores belong to the Ames strain -- the same strain used in the deadly anthrax-laced letters that killed five people in Florida, Connecticut, New York and Washington. No other nation is known to have made weapons-grade Ames anthrax, the report said. Army officials told the Post all the anthrax they have made has been accounted for and that they are cooperating with the FBI in its investigation of the anthrax attacks in September and October. The FBI would not comment on the Dugway program, the newspaper said. The most recent shipment of the deadly spores to Fort Detrick left Dugway Proving Ground on June 27 and shipped back to Dugway on September 4, less than a month before the spate of U.S. bioterrorism attacks began, the newspaper said, citing shipping records and interviews with officials.
Washington November 20, 2001: - A sample taken from a plastic evidence bag containing a still-unopened letter to Senator Patrick Leahy contains at least 23,000 anthrax spores, enough for more than two lethal doses, a federal law enforcement official said Tuesday. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were three times more anthrax spores in the single sample taken from the plastic bag than in any of the other 600 bags of mail examined by the FBI before it found the Leahy letter. Meanwhile, traces of the bacteria have been found in the office mailrooms of Sens. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said one congressional official speaking on condition of anonymity. Here is yet more...
Geneva November 19, 2001: - The United States accused Iraq, North Korea and four other countries on Monday of building germ-warfare arsenals, and said it worried one of them might be helping Osama bin Laden in his quest for biological weapons. ``We are concerned that he (bin Laden) could have been trying to acquire a rudimentary biological weapons capability, possibly with support from a state,'' said John R. Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control. The existence of Iraq's program is ``beyond dispute,'' he said, while stopping short of making a direct linkage to bin Laden. Nor did he say whether any of the five other countries he cited as being at various stages of germ-warfare development - Libya, Syria, Iran and Sudan as well as North Korea - are suspected of trying to supply bin Laden.
Bolton spoke at the start of a three-week conference to review 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which has been ratified by 144 countries.
Iraq immediately rejected the allegation it was violating the global ban on germ warfare and said the United States was making the claim as a pretext for an attack on Baghdad. On Sunday, Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, left open the possibility that Iraq could become a target in Bush's war on terrorism. ``We do not need the events of September 11 to tell us that (Saddam Hussein) is a very dangerous man who is a threat to his own people, a threat to the region and a threat to us because he is determined to acquire weapons of mass destruction,'' she said. Anthrax-tainted letters that have led to the deaths of four people in the United States have focused attention on the threat of biological warfare. More...
Karachi November 2, 2001:- A Pakistan newspaper editor said on Friday a white powder in an envelope hand-delivered to his paper last week had tested positive for anthrax spores, the first confirmed case of its kind outside the United States. An official close to the investigation and diplomats said there had been two previous cases of anthrax in Pakistan, which has thrown its weight behind U.S. strikes on Afghanistan, but authorities had not wanted to spark panic. ``We received a press release envelope which contained white powder... and it has tested positive for containing anthrax spores,'' Mehmood Sham, editor of the Daily Jang, Pakistan's leading Urdu-language daily, told Reuters. However, government spokesman Major-General Rashid Qureshi told a news conference in Islamabad there had been two incidents of anthrax reported in Pakistan. ``There have been two cases of anthrax from what I have learned so far. One is in a newspaper office and the other is in a computer factory or a computer laboratory,'' Qureshi said. He added it was too early to say if the incidents were related to U.S. cases, where four people have died and others tested positive for exposure to the disease. The official close to the investigation, who requested not to be identified, said it appeared anthrax had been found in three places. Asked if positive tests had been returned on powder sent to Habib AG Zurich Bank in Karachi and a firm that imports U.S. computers, the source told Reuters: ``Yes, this is what we believe.'' Senior diplomats confirmed the earlier cases.
Agha Masood Hasan, postmaster general of Pakistan, said he had no reports of anthrax from his department but was providing gloves to employees handling international mail and pledged that ``cost effective measures'' would be taken. ``I think there is no need to be panicky,'' he said. A senior executive at Habib AG Zurich Bank, the subject of an anthrax scare over a week ago, said employees had not been given written results for tests conducted on suspect white powder received on October 18. ``They are not going to confirm in writing anything,'' he said ``Sometimes they say negative, sometimes they say positive, we just don't know where to go.'' The executive said he had been present when the envelope was opened and together with four or five others had tested negative for anthrax exposure, but had been put on a seven-day course of antibiotics and no one had been sick. ``I was advised for seven days (of antibiotics) but now they are saying 60 days,'' he said, adding that one floor of the bank was still sealed and all 300 employees had been told to take antibiotics. Only about 20 had taken the advice.
Anthrax, often found in farm animals, is spread by spores. Without quick antibiotic treatment, more than 80 percent of people who contract the severe inhalation form of anthrax die. Hospital officials and doctors, when contacted by Reuters, cited patient confidentiality and declined to comment. ``We have given results, we could not hold back results if people have paid for it,'' a senior official at Karachi's Aga Khan University Hospital, which conducted the tests, said when asked why employees at Habib AG Zurich Bank said they had no results. Sham of the Daily Jang said six staff were present when the letter was opened by a reporter on October 23. They were not sent for tests but were immediately put on antibiotics. Following the results of tests on the powder, another 60 to 80 staff would be given medication for 60 days, he said. After confirmation of anthrax spores, about 80 to 90 editorial staff working on the same floor of the building, would be put on an antibiotic course as a precaution, but no employees appeared to be sick, he said. ``The news and reporting section of the newspaper will be closed for decontamination today,'' Sham said. Both the U.S. Embassy and British High Commission in Islamabad had anthrax scares that proved false. The U.S. Embassy said on Friday an envelope containing white powder received on Tuesday had tested negative. A spate of anthrax attacks in the United States after the September 11 hijack air assaults on New York and Washington sparked fears the potentially deadly bacteria was being used as a biological weapon. At least 16 people in the United States have been confirmed with either inhalation anthrax or the less deadly skin version. A larger number of people have tested positive to anthrax exposure but did not contract the disease. Most cases have been identified as being caused by spores sent through the mail. The panic has sparked a string of hoaxes and false alarms in the United States and other countries.
New York October 31, 2001: - A hospital worker with a mysterious case of inhalation anthrax died early Wednesday, the nation's fourth fatality in a month of bioterrorism. Kathy T. Nguyen, 61, died three days after checking herself into Lenox Hill Hospital and being diagnosed as New York City's first case of the inhaled form of the disease. Also Wednesday, a post office spokesman said an employee at a second regional mail facility in New Jersey was suspected to have skin anthrax, and White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said a co-worker of Nguyen has a suspicious lesion that has been tested. There are no results yet, he said at the White House. ``Somebody is trying to kill the American people by sending anthrax through the mail,'' Fleischer said. ``The president believes the actions of the government have saved lives. He regrets that these attacks have resulted in the loss of anybody's life.''
Nguyen's illness, and that of a New Jersey accountant who contracted the less serious skin anthrax, complicated the investigation by raising new worries that tainted letters are contaminating other mail or that the spores are sickening people by means other than the mail. Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health said worries about ``cross-contamination'' - anthrax spores sticking to pieces of mail at postal facilities - have grown with the new cases. ``We really need to do - the public health officials, the forensic group - has to do a real full court press on trying to track this down. This is critical,'' he said on NBC's ``Today'' show.
The inspector in charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service's main forensic laboratory told The Associated Press Wednesday that investigators were confident there have been only three anthrax-tainted letters sent through the mail, despite concerns from medical experts that not all envelopes containing anthrax had been found. ``I still think we're dealing with three letters,'' said Roy W. Geffen, who runs the lab in suburban Virginia. ``That's the best information we have.'' In New York, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said the city is awaiting definitive test results on a telephone bill envelope received by a man in Queens. The envelope, with a brown smear, initially tested positive for anthrax but a subsequent test came back negative. The more definitive results may come back Wednesday night, Giuliani said.
The latest victims raised the number of confirmed anthrax cases to 17 nationwide since the outbreak began in early October. Ten have the inhaled form, including the four who died. The others have less-severe skin infections. Four of those skin-anthrax cases - and two more suspected cases - are linked to city media outlets. Nguyen, an immigrant from Vietnam who lived alone and commuted to the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital by subway from the Bronx, worked in a basement supply room. Until recently, the space had included a mailroom, but there was no evidence of any suspicious letter. Fleischer said preliminary tests at the hospital and at Nguyen's home were negative for anthrax. He cautioned, however, ``these are preliminary negatives. There have been changes in the past'' from other preliminary test results. ``Clearly in the case of Mrs. Nguyen, we do not know how she contracted the anthrax,'' he said. Thomas Rich, a co-worker of Nguyen, said ``almost everyone in the hospital came in contact with her,'' because she delivered supplies to various departments and offices. Up to 2,000 hospital workers, patients and visitors who have been to the hospital since October 11 are being offered antibiotics, officials said Tuesday. The hospital was closed and other hospitals in the city were alerted to take precautions and report any suspicions.
Nguyen had been too sick to help the health and criminal investigators trying to find the source of her infection by reconstructing her social life, commute and routines at the hospital. Word of Nguyen's death came with the nation already on highest alert after warnings of more potential terrorist attacks. Just a few miles away from where Nguyen worked, President Bush threw out the opening pitch in Game 3 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium, where fans encountered especially tight security.
On Wednesday, the outbreak came up at a White House meeting between Bush and congressional leaders of both parties. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said afterward that Congress is committed to improving the nation's ability to respond to bioterrorism attacks. ``There's a lot there that has to be addressed,'' he said, pointing to the need to boost the availability of vaccines, improve health care responses and protect the nation's food supply. The spread of the disease - from mail carriers in New Jersey and Washington to media employees in New York and Florida and now apparently unrelated people - is giving investigators and researchers alike a painful real-world case study. Contamination of postal facilities in Washington, New Jersey and Florida has altered investigators' assumptions about how easily the spores can be spread. Postal Service equipment and procedures, too, are under re-examination. The latest suspected case of skin anthrax in New Jersey came in an employee at the Bellmawr regional mail facility, about 35 miles from the mail-sorting center near Trenton, N.J., that processed at least three anthrax-tainted letters sent to Daschle's office in Washington, NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw and the New York Post. Officials investigating the infection of a New Jersey accountant were searching for a link to earlier cases. The 51-year-old accountant identified with skin anthrax on Monday does not remember opening any suspicious mail. She has been successfully treated and released from the hospital.
FBI Agent James Jarboe acknowledged Tuesday that the agency had not yet tested quarantined mail on Capitol Hill for possible cross-contamination with anthrax from the Daschle letter. Lawmakers from both parties criticized the bureau after hearing Jarboe's testimony. But Daschle praised health care and law enforcement officials for their response to the discovery of anthrax in a letter sent to his office. ``We all recognize that given what we've seen in the last several days that left unattended this situation in the Senate could have been a lot worse,'' Daschle said Wednesday. Experts at the Postal Inspection Service lab who specialize in handwriting and fingerprint analysis have been helping the FBI trace the letters. Postal inspectors have arrested 16 people across the country in anthrax-hoax cases, and they're investigating about a dozen others, Geffen said. Health officials have offered assurances that relatively large numbers of spores are needed for an inhalation infection, citing one report that estimated 8,000 to 10,000 must be inhaled. Another study estimated as few as 2,500. ``We're learning as each day goes by something about this, but unfortunately we just don't have an experience that can offer a clear-cut line,'' said Dr. Bradley Perkins, a CDC anthrax expert.
Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said he was told by investigators that the letter sent to Daschle's office carried about 2 grams of anthrax, or just less than a teaspoon. If the 2 grams were pure anthrax, it would contain enough spores to sicken about 2 million people, said Dr. David Sullivan, an anthrax expert at Johns Hopkins University. The Food and Drug Administration issued a notice Wednesday to clarify that the antibiotics doxycycline and penicillin are approved along with Cipro for use in treating all forms of anthrax infections. The notice in the Federal Register also includes explicit dosing information to treat inhalational anthrax in adults and children. In Washington, the postmaster general said several billion dollars are needed to safeguard the nation's mail. Anthrax has killed two postal workers there, and officials closed two more post offices while planning a two-week decontamination of a Senate office building where the bacteria were found.
Washington October 15, 2001: - A letter opened Monday in the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle tested positive for anthrax, prompting a criminal investigation into a bioterrorism scare that has now spread to Capitol Hill. Capitol Police Lt. Dan Nichols said the letter, which was opened by Daschle aides, contained a powdery substance. He said two preliminary field tests on the letter were positive for anthrax. The letter was then sent to an Army medical research facility at Fort Detrick, Md., for further tests. ``There was an exposure when the letter was opened,'' Nichols said. People who were exposed were being treated with Cipro, an antibiotic, said a Capitol physician. There was no immediate indication whether any of those exposed had anthrax spores in their bodies.
The letter to Daschle was postmarked September 18 from Trenton, N.J., said postal inspector Tony Esposito. A letter containing anthrax mailed to NBC anchor Tom Brokaw also was postmarked Trenton. Daschle said his office in the Hart building a block from the Capitol had been quarantined and closed. Emergency medical vehicles were parked outside the building. He said there were 40 people in his office at the time, but that he doesn't know how many of them may have come in contact with the letter. He said he also was gratified that the response was so quick. ``We have to be alert, we have to recognize that the risk is higher than it was a couple of weeks ago but we have to live our lives,'' he said.
Speaking to reporters at the White House, Bush said ``there may be some possible link'' between Osama bin Laden and a recent flurry of anthrax-related developments. ``I wouldn't put it past him but we don't have any hard evidence,'' he said of the man suspected as the leader behind September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington that killed thousands. Within a few hours of the delivery of the letter to Daschle's office, officials in the House and Senate issued orders to all congressional offices to refrain from opening mail. A memo from the House sergeant-at-arms said the mail would be ``picked up ... for additional screening and returned to you as soon as possible.'' Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said precautions were being taken at the White House with regard to mail, but added she was not aware of any tainted letters being delivered there. She would not provide details on the security measures. ``Like everybody else, we are being very cautious about what we open,'' Rice said.
The suspicious package was received at the majority leader's office in a Senate office building across the street from the Capitol. Separately, one source said that when it was opened, a powdery white substance fell out. Capitol Police were summoned, the office sealed, and the workers immediately given a test for anthrax exposure. There was no immediate word on the results of those tests. But Bush, in responding to a reporter's question, said he had just talked with Daschle. ``His office received a letter and it had anthrax in it. The letter was field-tested. And the staffers that have been exposed are being treated.'' The president made his comments after a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the latest in a steady stream of foreign leaders to visit Washington in the wake of the terrorist attacks. The president said additional tests are being conducted on the letter. It ``had been wrapped a lot,'' he said, and there was ``powder within the confines of the envelope.'' He said the powder itself had been sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for additional testing. The disclosure came after days of unsettling reports of anthrax scares in three states, including the death of one man in Florida last week. ``The key thing for the American people is to be cautious,'' said Bush.
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