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News Round Up 10/31/01 Milosevic
Refuses to Plead to New Charges
10/29/01 Deposed Serbian President Slobodan
Milosevic refused to plead to charges of crimes against humanity and
war crimes for a 1991-1992 campaign against non-Serbs in Croatia. The judges entered a "not guilty" plea on his
behalf. Milosevic has stubbornly refused to
plead to the Kosovo indictment on which he was sent from Serbia to The
Hague in June. Asked to plead to the new Croatia indictment, issued
this month, he struck a similarly uncooperative tone as he has done in
his previous court appearances at the International Court in the
Netherlands. "It's absurd to accuse Serbia
and the Serbs for the armed secession of Croatia," Milosevic
angrily said when the judge asked for his pleas to 10 counts of crimes
against humanity, nine of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and
13 counts of violating the laws or customs of war. Prosecutors have accuse Milosevic
of spearheading a "joint criminal enterprise" to kill or
expel Croats and other non-Serbs from about a third of Croatia between
August 1991 and June 1992 to create a Serb-dominated state. Serbia and Croatia fought a war in
1991 after the break-up of Yugoslavia. A war involving Serbs, Muslims
and Croats raged in Bosnia from 1992 to 1995. Earlier, Milosevic refused to plead to an extra charge of crimes against humanity contained in an amended Kosovo indictment, and during a court break Monday, said that they would submit a third indictment against Milosevic next week for Bosnia including the gravest charge, genocide. New Terrorism
Warning Issued by FBI 10/29/01 Anthrax Found at Supreme Court, State Dept., HSS Building, VoA, FDA and Princeton N.J. Post Office 10/29/01 The threat of anthrax sent the Supreme Court justices to an alternate courtroom in a nearby federal courthouse on Monday and evidence of new contamination turned up at the State Department and at least two more government buildings, and in a diplomatic pouch. With anthrax spores
confirmed at more than 10 locations in the District of Columbia, a
spokesman for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention said
residents should not fear inhalation anthrax when they open their
mail. He said they ''may have a very very small risk of cutaneous type
anthrax.'' 'It's important to remember
we're doing very aggressive surveillance,'' said Dr. Patrick Meehan. Officials said the anthrax
found in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle included
silica. ''We don't know why it would be there,'' said Maj. Gen. John
Parker, who heads the Army's Fort Detrick, Md., laboratory. Silica, or silicon dioxide, is
naturally found as sand, quartz or flint. It is a
colorless, tasteless crystal that is commonly used as a drying agent
in pharmaceuticals and in food production. It helps control caking or
clumping in powered products. Parker said officials had
ruled out the presence of aluminum in the sample. That, according to
Parker, meant there was no bentonite, a lubricant that he said would
make the spores spread through the air more easily. Officials had said that the
anthrax in Daschle's mail had been changed to make it more readily
suspend in air, and it became become more likely to be inhaled into
the lungs. In total, officials have
tallied 14 confirmed cases of anthrax in the last three weeks,
including three deaths from the inhalation form of the disease. There were positive tests for
anthrax at a building that houses the Voice of America and Food and
Drug Administration, a State Department building and the main Supreme
Court building. State Department spokesman
Richard Boucher said the contamination there was in a mail handling
facility across the street from the main State Department building.
Boucher said that six mailbags at the U.S. Embassy in Peru were tested
and one was found to contain traces of anthrax. ''All our mail rooms have been
closed down,'' Boucher said. One official, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said two pieces of mail brought into the State
Department mailroom had tested positive. The mail came directly from
the central Brentwood mail processing facility. The discovery of anthrax last
week in a remote mail site several blocks from the Supreme Court had
already forced the closure of the main Supreme Court building. The justices held court at a
facility several blocks away while tests continued in their permanent
quarters. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, referring to the relocation,
thanked employees ''whose hard work made it possible to hear
arguments.'' A court spokeswoman, Kathy
Arberg, said the latest testing detected anthrax in only one place, in
a small area of the
basement mailroom. Tests elsewhere in the mailroom and elsewhere in
the building showed no evidence of anthrax contamination. ''Based upon the positive
testing in the mailroom, additional testing is being conducted
today,'' said Arberg. The latest positive test
results followed the discovery of anthrax at the Justice Department,
where officials announced Sunday night that several locations in an
offsite facility that handles its mail had tested positive for
anthrax. The Justice Department's
in-house mailrooms had stopped receiving mail from the Landover, Md.,
location several days ago as a precaution. No other Justice facility
has tested positive for anthrax, department spokeswoman Susan Dryden
said. Last week, a State Department
mailroom worker was diagnosed with inhalation anthrax. Three people have died and
five others have been diagnosed with inhaled anthrax. Six people have
the less serious cutaneous form of the disease, which affects the
skin. On Capitol Hill, the Hart
Senate Office Building remained closed Monday, but other Senate
offices were open. On the House side, the Ford and Longworth office
buildings were closed against Monday.
The offices of three congressmen in the Longworth building were
found to have traces of anthrax. The Hart building houses
Daschle's office, where an employee opened a letter containing a
highly potent form of anthrax three weeks ago. Since then, two postal
employees from a Washington facility that processed the letter have
died. Both men were
buried last weekend. Deborah Willhite, a Postal
Service senior vice president, said the agency was working with the
Defense Department on obtaining technology that would allow it to
detect bacteria in the mail. It already has signed a $40 million
contract to buy machines that can sanitize mail.
The machines will not be installed until sometime next year. Tom Skinner, a spokesman for
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, stressed that the New
Jersey case was not a new instance of the disease, but one that had
been listed as suspected anthrax. Lab tests confirmed the diagnosis
Sunday, he said. The
female postal worker is in serious, but stable condition and is
reported to be improving. A second New Jersey worker, classified as a ''suspected case'' of inhalation anthrax based on preliminary tests, was released over the weekend from the hospital after her medical condition improved. Two other postal workers at the Hamilton, N.J., center where anthrax-tainted mail was handled, and a letter carrier in Ewing, N.J., are being treated for confirmed or suspected cases of skin anthrax. The main post office that services Princeton N.J. is closed after traces of anthrax were discovered in a mail bin in that post office, located in West Windsor, N.J. Suspect in USS Cole Bombing Captured by Pakistan
& Turned Over To US News
Round Up 10/26/01 Is the Mail Safe? Maybe, Maybe Not 10/24/01
As part of the search for the perpetrator of the bioterrorist
attack on America, the U.S. got its first look at the three letters that were sent along with deadly anthrax to NBC News, the New York Post and
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
Copies of the three letters were made public soon after George J.
Tenet, the director of Central Intelligence Agency, met with President
Bush and Congressional leaders at the White House and according to
government sources, Tenet told them that he suspected an organized
terrorist group was behind the broader attacks of anthrax against the
country, which have killed three people: a photographer for the
Sun tabloid and two postal workers in the Washington DC area.
Six postal employees are being treated for possible anthrax in
Washington DC area hospitals. All had complained of flu-like
symptoms with respiratory problems. But Tenet added that there was no concrete evidence showing who was behind the anthrax cases and that he did not know whether the authorities would find them, according to the sources. A senior law enforcement official said the FBI had not found any connection between the anthrax incidents and the Sept. 11 hijackings, although he said no possibility had been ruled out. While Tenet made no connection between the anthrax attacks and the hijackings, several officials, including the House Democratic leader, came out of the White House meeting saying they suspected such a link. "I don't think there's a way to prove that," said the Democratic leader, Representative Richard A. Gephardt (D-Missouri)ut I think we all suspect that. I think it's clear that these are people who are up to no good and people who know what they are doing." Gephardt's view was echoed throughout the government even as hard evidence remained scarce. Attorney General Ashcroft said at a news conference that investigators "are not able to rule out an association with the terrorist acts of Sept. 11, but neither are we able to draw a conclusive link at this time." Ashcroft, who has described the anthrax sent to Mr. Daschle as a highly virulent strain because of the fineness of its milling and its ability to remain suspended in the air, has taken an aggressive role in the rapidly expanding investigation, maintaining control of the inquiry in Washington instead of allowing it to remain in field offices in Washington, New Jersey or Florida. Top law enforcement officials said they continued to regard the timing of the anthrax attacks, so soon after the attacks of Sept. 11, as highly suspicious. At the same time, these officials said it was possible that a domestic terror group or even a single person motivated by a grievance could be behind the letters, although that last view conflicted with the assessment Tenet offered today. Agents assigned to the case along with forensic analysts are pursuing evidence drawn from the letters, like the envelope, the ink and paper, the handwriting and the anthrax itself. Investigators said they were unlikely to identify the sender of the letters by the routine procedure of obtaining DNA sample from the glue on the envelopes, because the envelopes, they said, were not moistened but sealed with tape. Anyone who had licked a letter laced with anthrax would almost certainly have been exposed to it. The envelopes were prepaid with an embossed stamp. Other investigators have conducted hundreds of interviews in New Jersey, where the letters to Brokaw, Daschle and The Post were mailed. They have also subpoenaed records from laboratories that hold inventories of anthrax to determine whether any of it is missing and whether those labs have employed any disgruntled workers who might have mailed the anthrax. However, investigators who at first thought the anthrax mailed to Daschle was so finely milled and highly concentrated that it was likely to have been obtained from a state- sponsored weapons program have now revised their assessment. It is now thought possible, they said, that someone working in a sophisticated laboratory at a university or a research organization might have gained access to the necessary equipment. The strain of anthrax in that letter is said to be a naturally occurring variety first identified two decades ago at a laboratory in Ames, Iowa. It has since been transported to labs around the world. Iraq has tried to obtain the Ames strain, officials say, but has never succeeded. The FBI has investigated 2,500 reports of possible anthrax exposure but has found no links yet between them and the Sept. 11 hijackings, bureau Director Robert Mueller said Wednesday. Taxing law enforcement even more are anthrax scares and anthrax
hoaxes. Two college students were arrested for an anthrax hoax that halted postal service in the town of Murray,
Kentucky, after white powder spilled from an envelope. US
Defense Department Says Taliban are "Tough Fighters"
10/24/01 The dispersal of Taliban forces
into urban areas signals a long, hard war in Afghanistan, a senior US
military officer warned Wednesday, pledging that the military will
find ways to get the Taliban fighters without turning Afghan cities
into rubble. Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem,
deputy director of operation for the Joint Staff, said it was open
knowledge that Taliban forces were moving into neighborhoods and using
mosques and universities to hide their vehicles. "It would be an extremely
difficult proposition if the Taliban were to decide to make this into
an urban warrior kind of environment, i.e. in the cities, but we will
make use of every available instrument of power known on this earth,
to find a way to root them out," he said. Stufflebeem's comments were the
latest in a series by senior Pentagon officials aimed at preparing
Americans for a messy, drawn-out conflict quite unlike the quick,
conventionally fought 1991 Gulf War that left Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein still in power in Baghdad. "We don't have the luxury of
not going after the terrorists," he said. "We have to do
this." At a Pentagon news conference,
Stufflebeem warned Afghans to be careful about accepting food from
Taliban-controlled sources, saying the United States had information
that the Taliban might poison food being distributed to refugees and
then blame it on the United States. He
said the Pentagon has obtained information of such a possible plot and
chose ``to release that information now before it becomes a fact.''
Stufflebeem gave no details on the kind of information had been
obtained. The
United States has dropped more than 700,000 packets of food meant for
the hungry and displaced population since it launched its bombing
campaign over Afghanistan Oct. 7. Other relief organizations also are
distributing food in the country and the Taliban militia that controls
most of the country has confiscated some of those food supplies. Asked about reports that two
villages were struck by US bombs, causing civilian casualties, he said
the Pentagon was looking into the reports but had no information to
confirm them. The admiral said he was a "bit
surprised" at how tenaciously the Taliban leaders were hanging
onto power. "They are proving to be tough
warriors," he said. "We're in an environment they obviously
are experts in and it is extremely harsh." "For Mullah Omar not to see
the inevitability of what will happen surprises me," he said.
"But we are prepared to take however long is required to bring
the Taliban down." The admiral, who has promised that
the air campaign will not be directed against residential areas in the
city, expressed hope that civilians will turn on the Taliban in the
cities as the war progresses. He
said US forces will take action in the cities in a way that does not
threaten locals. "It is not our intention to
reduce the city to rubble while they hide in there. We will find
clever ways to go after them," he said. "But it is extremely
difficult. Very few people know of any more difficult kind of warfare,
so it's going to be very methodical. It's going to take time," he
said. He
repeated Bush administration cautions that ``this is going to be a
long, long campaign'' against terrorism. ``We're
patient. We're firm. We have got a strategy that is going to work. And
make no mistake about it, justice will be done,'' the president said. US air strikes, meanwhile, pounded
Taliban positions on the frontlines north Kabul, near Mazar-i-Sharif,
the northern town of Kuduz and the western city of Herat on Tuesday,
Stufflebeem said. Air strikes were reported around Kabul Wednesday
night. A Northern Alliance commander told
AFP that intense US airstrikes near Mazar-i-Sharif had enabled his
forces to move toward the town, capturing four villages. But Stufflebeem said the opposition
forces had not appeared to advance either toward Kabul or the
Mazar-i-Sharif airport. "I still firmly believe that
we're watching this battle move rather slowly on the ground. They're
still exchanging artillery. We are still attacking their forces,"
he said. "We know we're having an effect on their forces, based
on what we see from pilot reports that are coming back." About 90 strike aircraft took part in Tuesday's attacks, including 75 carrier-based fighters, 10 long range bombers and some AC-130 gunships. U.N. Expe United Nations refugee agency said Wednesday it fears
Pakistan could be flooded with up to 300,000 refugees fleeing U.S. air
strikes on neighboring Afghanistan. Officials
from the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said they were
planning for an influx of at least 300,000 refugees, even though
Pakistan says it can accept no more refugees and has closed its
borders to all Afghans except the vulnerable and those with valid
papers. Others are
getting into Pakistan, some taking treacherous mountain routes, then
crossing into Pakistan in unguarded border crossings; others are
bribing guards. ``We
expect some 300,000 refugees in a short time,'' UNHCR spokeswoman
Fatouma Kaba told a news conference in Quetta, capital of the
southwestern province of Baluchistan that borders Afghanistan and
Iran. She
said half this number could come to Baluchistan, where the UNHCR had
opened an emergency camp near a crossing where refugees and border
guards clashed for two days after Pakistan bowed to international
pressure to let in Afghans fleeing the war. The
UNHCR had pitched some 100 tents at Killi Haji Faizo village outside
the border town of Chaman to accommodate up to 1,000 of the most
vulnerable refugees, such as women, children and old men. Another
UNHCR spokesman, Yousef Hasan, said the estimate of 300,000 refugees
was for planning purposes. The worst scenario envisaged up to one
million refugees. Pakistan,
which wants the refugees housed in camps inside Afghanistan, says it
will let in old men, women and children. It says it has already
allowed more than three million Afghans into the country and cannot
take more. UNHCR
officials said they would set up two main camps in Baluchistan, each
with a capacity to hold 50,000 people, with the hope that Islamabad
would relax its immigration policy at some point during the war. Taliban: We Will Fight to the Last Man 10/24/01 U..S. warplanes continued to attack the
Taliban’s frontline north of Kabul on Wednesday, but the Taliban’s
only ambassador said it would not hand over Osama bin Laden even at
the cost of every life in Afghanistan.
However, in Afghanistan, the Taliban rulers
have detained more than 100 people in the southern city of Kandahar
and threatened to execute anyone helping the United States, according
to the South Asian Dispatch Agency. "As
per Mullah (Mohammed) Omar's decree, anyone found working for enemies
will be executed after a summary trial," the Agency quoted Mullah
Abdul Razzak, an official of the Taliban interior ministry, as saying.
On
Wednesday, Taliban soldiers armed with rocket launchers and
Kalashnikov rifles drove pickup trucks through the deserted and
bomb-battered streets of Kandahar, the headquarters of the Taliban’s
religious movement. The soldiers stopped vehicles for spot checks and
questioned passengers, the news agency said, via Reuters. "We
have detained more than 100 suspects," Razzak told the agency.
"They are being interrogated to ascertain that they are not
involved in activities that could affect the Taliban during
wartime." More than
half of the 500,000 residents of Kandahar reportedly have fled to
escape the U.S.-led bombing that began Oct. 7. Taliban
soldiers are roaming through residential neighborhoods, ordering
people to report to armories to pick up weapons to fight the
Americans, the agency said. The Taliban disarmed the Afghan population
soon after seizing power in 1996 in attempt to restore peace in the
war-ravaged country. At the press conference in Islamabad, Muttaqi said eighteen days of U.S. air raids had inflicted some damage, but the Taliban maintained its defiant posture.
But the sole foreign envoy of the Taliban vowed
the movement would not hand over bin Laden, even at the cost of every
life in Afghanistan. The U.S. has disputed a Taliban report that U.S.
bombing had killed more than 100 people in a Herat hospital.
A U.S. bombing in Kabul reportedly killed 22
Pakistani militants linked to Osama bin Laden. It was the highest
reported death toll suffered by bin Laden's allies since the air
assault began Oct. 7. The
militants, members of the banned group Harakat ul-Mujahedeen, died
when a U.S. bomb hit a house in Kabul where they were meeting Tuesday,
said Muzamal Shah, a Harakat leader in Pakistan.
White House
Off-Site Mail Facility Tests Positive for Anthrax 10/23/01 Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer said that the anthrax was discovered in a slitter machine (a machine that opens mail) at a military facility where White House mail is opened. The U.S. Secret Service said that a "trace amount" of anthrax was found at the facility. Since the September 11th terrorist attacks, according to Fleischer, the White House has been environmentally tested and shows no trace of anthrax. Fleischer said all all employees at the facility had been tested for anthrax. Fleischer did not disclose the results of the test at the press conference, but said anyone who worked at the facility could receive antibiotics of they want them. In separate cases, medical authorities in
Washington DC separately confirmed as the cause of death for two postal workers in the nation's capital, the latest bioterrorism
victims, and in New Jersey, a mail handler in New Jersey has tested
positive for anthrax. Two more postal workers in Washington were believed to be suffering from the disease. Cropduster Sprays Unknown Substance on Tow Boat and Pleasure Craft on the Mississippi 10/21/01
Crew members who were aboard a Mississippi River towboat when a crop
duster sprayed it with an unknown substance have reported no health
problems but were given an antibiotic as a precaution, MIssissippi
health officials said.
The towboat's skipper reported that the low-flying cropduster sprayed the towboat and barges Friday near Rosedale, Miss., then circled around and sprayed a pleasure craft. Officials were still searching for the pleasure boat. "This was a deliberate act by a crop duster this was no accident," said Kent Buckley of the Bolivar County (MS) Emergency Management Agency. Buckley said officials suspect the sprayed substance was sodium chlorate, used to defoliate cotton crops. Buckley said that sodium chlorate is similar to salt water and is not dangerous. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has asked the Mississippi Department of Health to test the unknown substance, said NancyKay Wessman, spokeswoman for the state health department, according to the Associated Press. Officials do not know who owns the plane and are looking for witnesses who may have seen an identifying number on the plane, Buckley said. It was unclear how many crew members were on the towboat or if any were on deck when the plane passed over and sprayed the material. Owners of the towboat at Metropolis, Ill.-based Mid South Towing could not be reached for comment Sunday. Lt. Dale R. Dean of the U.S. Coast Guard said no crew members reported any symptoms. As a precaution, the crew was given the drug Cipro, the an antibiotic used to treat anthrax, Buckley said. The FBI is investigating the incident. Mississippi FBI spokesman Jeffery Artis declined to comment. The Environmental Protection Agency, the Coast Guard and the CDC were also involved in the investigation. The towboat and its 17 barges have been quarantined near Rosedale. Their contents were unknown. Two Sikhs Assaulted in Seattle; One Suspect Charged 10/21/01 Two Sikhs were attacked in the suburbs around Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, apparently in the mistaken belief that they are Muslims,
law enforcement authorities said. Anthrax
Cases Confirmed in New Jersey, District of Columbia and New York
City 10/21/01 Two Washington-area postal workers have been
diagnosed with inhalation anthrax and two more employees at the same
facility have died of symptoms consistent with the disease, DC
officials said at a press conference Monday. Dr. Ivan Walks, the city's chief health official,
also said health and law enforcement authorities are investigating as
many as nine more cases that have caused concern. He said he did not
know how many of the nine were postal workers or how many were
hospitalized. The disclosures came as postal workers by the
dozens lined up for testing, and city authorities urged anyone
connected with the affected Brentwood central mail facility to come
forward immediately for screening.
The Brentwood facility is located in the District of Columbia.
The people affected worked in the area that processes Priority
and Express mail. ''This is a different day,'' the city health
official said at a mid-day news conference. He said the unidentified man diagnosed with the
disease was hospitalized in Fairfax, Virginia, at the same facility
where another postal worker was diagnosed with anthrax over the
weekend. He said authorities were conducting tests on
clinical samples from the two postal workers who died.
In one case, he said, preliminary blood testing had further
aroused suspicion that anthrax may have caused the man’s death.
In the case of the second person, he said, ''We do not have
even the positive blood cultures ... but his clinical course is highly
suspicious.'' The disclosures marked a disturbing turn in the
nation's bioterrorism scare. ''Anyone who was working in that back postal area
during the last 11 days, you must today immediately come here ... to
receive prophylactic medication and to be evaluated.'' Deborah Willhite, a Postal Service senior vice
president, said there are roughly 2,000 employees at that Brentwood
postal facility in Washington. City officials made their startling disclosures
as the Capitol reopened but congressional offices remained shuttered
for environmental testing. And nearly three weeks since anthrax first
surfaced in Florida, the government declared the headquarters of a
Boca Raton-based tabloid company where one man died of the disease, to
be a Superfund site. The designation means federal funds can be used
to pay for cleanup. Willhite issued an unusual plea to reporters to
extend prayers to the families of the dead postal workers who have
died, rather than barrage them with questions. ''Give them time to
grieve and to take care of their own business,'' she said.
She said the affected facility would remain closed as long as
it takes to make sure it's safe again. Officials over the weekend had said that a
57-year-old postal worker, Leroy Richmond, had been hospitalized with
inhalation anthrax in serious and stable condition.
Officials did not provide the names of any of the other
affected workers at today’s press conference.
Health and law enforcement authorities are also inspecting the
postal facilities near Baltimore-Washington International Airport. On Capitol Hill, congressional sources said it
was unlikely that all the House and Senate office buildings would
reopen on Tuesday, as officials had hoped. These sources, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said testing was continuing but it was not
clear whether all the results would be in hand by the beginning of the
work day on Tuesday. Officials discovered anthrax over the weekend in
the Ford Office Building,
where mail for House offices is processed. These officials said there
had been no test results yet indicating anthrax in any of the other
House office buildings, leaving authorities to wonder whether an
as-yet undiscovered piece of mail was the source of spores found on a
mail room machine. The anthrax outbreak first surfaced more than two
weeks ago in Boca Raton, Fla., when one employee of American Media
Inc. died of the disease, and a second was hospitalized. Fred Stroud, an EPA spokesman, announced the Superfund site designation, and said he had no estimate of the cost involved in decontaminating the building. Postmaster General John Potter said the U.S.
Postal Service was increasing security at its facilities and beginning
to introduce technology that can sanitize mail. But he said postal
workers were not being ordered to wear gloves and face masks,
according to the Associated Press. Over the last 2 1/2 weeks four men, including one
who died, have been diagnosed with inhalation anthrax, a disease not
seen in this country since 1978. Six others, including two postal
workers in New Jersey, have been infected with a highly treatable form
of anthrax that is contracted through the skin. Health and postal authorities said they do not
know how Richmond, one of the Washington postal workers, came into
contact with enough anthrax to allow the bacteria to travel into his
respiratory system and lodge deep in his lungs. Surgeon General David Satcher said inhalation
anthrax has been fatal about 80 percent of the time. ''But that's in
the past. We have different technology today,'' he said on CNN's
''Late Edition'' Sunday. ''It is not yet hopeless.'' Health investigators moved quickly to determine
whether anthrax was present in either of two postal facilities where
Richmond worked and whether other employees might have been exposed to
anthrax. More than 2,100 workers at Washington's main
mail-processing center and 150 at an air mail-handling center near
Baltimore-Washington International Airport were asked to report for
nasal swab testing, which will help determine where in the buildings
exposure may have occurred. Employees will each be given a 10-day
supply of antibiotics to ward off infection in case they were exposed. Some 1,000 workers were tested Sunday.
More workers will be tested today and in subsequent days. Officials also planned extensive environmental testing at both facilities. They will use the results, along with nasal swab testing, to determine which workers need a full course of preventive antibiotics. At the Capitol, 28 workers tested positive for anthrax: 20 people who work for Senator Daschle, three who work for Senator Russ Feingold, whose mail room adjoins the mail room for Sen. Daschle, and five Capitol Police Officers who responded to the initial call. They are taking Cipro as a precaution. In New Jersey, State
and federal health officials were awaiting further test results from
the Trenton regional post office in Hamilton Township after early
tests found anthrax contamination in 13 separate work areas. Tom
Slater, a spokesman for the New Jersey health department, said
conclusive test results may not be available until Tuesday. Postal
Inspector Tony Esposito did not give details of where the samples were
taken, saying only that they were "along the path letters travel
through the mechanized equipment." Postal
worker Brendan Sheehan said samples were taken from machines and work
surfaces in several areas. None
of the samples taken from the building's public areas were
contaminated, officials have said, according to the Trenton Times. The
facility processed at least three anthrax-laced letters addressed to
NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and the
New York Post. An
assistant to the editor of the New York Post contracted cutaneous
anthrax, as well as an assistant to Tom Brokaw.
An assistant to CBS anchor Dan Rather has cutaneous anthrax, as
well as a seven-month-old baby of an ABC producer, but the source of
their anthrax has not been discovered. Employees
at the Hamilton mail facility were called in by the hundreds Sunday
for anthrax testing and to fill out questionnaires on their
whereabouts and work assignments on the days that anthrax-tainted
letters may have been processed. "They
told me to come down to get tested, to find out where I work in the
building," said Sheehan, who repairs mail-processing machinery.
"They are trying to determine a pattern as to where that letter
was." Two of
the Hamilton postal facility workers have confirmed cases of cutaneous
anthrax, and Esposito has said he is almost certain tests on a
maintenance worker will come back positive. Anthrax skin infections
are less dangerous than the inhaled form of the disease. Many
postal workers also went to a Hamilton hospital on Sunday to pick up
free prescriptions of Cipro, an antibiotic effective in eradicating
anthrax bacteria to prevent rashes or sickness. The
Hamilton post office has been closed since Thursday, when it was
announced that a New Jersey mail carrier had skin anthrax. Health
officials also said they would bring in a contractor to clean the
building, a process which could take a month. All mail
will be removed from the building, sterilized and delivered. On
Sunday, preliminary results on 19 samples taken from the West Trenton
post office in Ewing where one postal worker with anthrax works came
back negative for anthrax. The facility is a small office that feeds
mail into the regional facility. The
West Trenton office has been closed to the public since Friday. Other
anthrax-laden letters, which have originated in the United States,
have been received by people in Kenya, Argentina, and most recently in
the Bahamas. Those
letters, too, are being investigated by federal law enforcement and
health authorities. Four bin Laden Operatives Get Life Without Parole 1998
U.S. Embassy Bombings in Kenya and Tanzania 10/18/01 |
