Return-Path: <sentto-279987-3459-1004068148-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Thu, 25 Oct 2001 20:50:07 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 1630 invoked by uid 510); 26 Oct 2001 03:48:42 -0000 Received: from n25.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.75) by 204.181.12.215 with SMTP; 26 Oct 2001 03:48:42 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-3459-1004068148-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.1.220] by n25.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 26 Oct 2001 03:49:08 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 26 Oct 2001 03:49:07 -0000 Received: (qmail 31557 invoked from network); 26 Oct 2001 03:49:05 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by 10.1.1.220 with QMQP; 26 Oct 2001 03:49:05 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (65.0.156.78) by mta2 with SMTP; 26 Oct 2001 03:49:05 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id f9Q3n9J28693 for iwar@onelist.com; Thu, 25 Oct 2001 20:49:09 -0700 Message-Id: <200110260349.f9Q3n9J28693@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2001 20:49:09 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Subject: [iwar] [fc:Anthrax.Spreads.to.State.Department.-.Mail.Worker.at.Remote.Facility.Sick] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Anthrax Spreads to State Department - Mail Worker at Remote Facility Sick By Jill Serjeant Reuters WASHINGTON (Oct. 25) - Anthrax spread its potentially fatal reach to the U.S. State Department Thursday, in what the Bush administration called an onslaught by ''shadow soldiers'' out to murder innocent people. U.S. authorities were on nationwide alert for letters containing anthrax bacteria spores but investigators appeared no nearer to pinpointing the source of the bacteria that has killed three people, made at least 11 others sick and forced thousands of people to be tested or treated. A 59-year-old man who works at a State Department mail processing facility in the Washington suburb of Sterling, Virginia, contracted inhalation anthrax, the most deadly form of the disease, authorities said. The man was being treated intravenously with antibiotics at Winchester Medical Center in Winchester, Virginia, and was listed in ''guarded condition,'' said hospital spokesman Wes Williams. ''We had our first anthrax case in the State Department today,'' Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the man was based at a facility that receives mail from the Brentwood central mail processing plant in Washington. Two employees from the Brentwood facility died earlier this week and others have contracted inhalational anthrax. Boucher said he did not know how or where the man was exposed but that all mail-handling employees were being treated with antibiotics as a precaution. Boucher also said the department had shut down all its mail deliveries and stopped mail to U.S. embassies worldwide aside from classified diplomatic dispatches. He told reporters the Sterling facility had been shut down entirely and the others were not receiving mail. A PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS STRAIN The Bush administration warned that the anthrax that surfaced in a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle 10 days ago was a particularly dangerous form that could be easily absorbed into the lungs. ''It is highly concentrated. It is pure, and the spores are smaller. Therefore, they're more dangerous because they can be more easily absorbed in a person's respiratory system,'' Homeland Security director Tom Ridge told reporters. ''Clearly we are up against a shadow enemy, shadow soldiers, people who have no regard for human life. They are determined to murder innocent people. ''It is clear that the terrorists responsible for these attacks intended to use this anthrax as a weapon,'' Ridge said. Two more anthrax-contaminated spots were found Thursday in the same southeast wing of the Hart Senate office building where an anthrax-laced letter was opened in Daschle's office on Oct. 15. That wing has been closed for nine days and the whole Hart building has been closed for a week. Daschle said the finding was not considered serious. In another sign of the spreading reach of the anthrax attacks, a second NBC News employee was confirmed as having skin anthrax after handling a letter mailed to news anchor Tom Brokaw last month, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said. The new cases brought to 14 the total number of people who have been confirmed with an anthrax infection, including the three people who have died. Ridge said the postal service had begun environmental testing at 200 postal facilities along the East Coast and that random tests would be carried out at post offices nationwide as a precaution. The Centers for Disease Control said it had no evidence that regular home mail was contaminated but advised people who were worried to wash their hand after opening their letters. SOURCE OF ANTHRAX UNKNOWN The White House said it was too early to narrow the source of the anthrax, and lawmakers who have received classified briefings said they still do not know where it came from. ''I know that there has been a great deal of speculation about Iraqi involvement,'' said Sen. Bob Graham, a Florida Democrat and chair of the Senate Intelligence committee. ''As of this point, there has not been a clear identification of an Iraqi role either in the Sept. 11 attacks or in the anthrax issue,'' he said. A report Thursday in The Washington Post said only Russia, Iraq and the United States are known to be capable of making a sophisticated form of anthrax that stays suspended in air. The German daily paper Bild said hijack suspect Mohammed Atta, believed to have flown one of the two jets that slammed into the World Trade Center, may have carried anthrax spores allegedly obtained from Iraqi agents to New York. The paper, citing an unnamed Israeli intelligence source, said investigators are checking whether Atta received anthrax spores during two visits to the Czech Republic. Iraq has denied any link to the anthrax outbreak. A U.S. intelligence source has told Reuters that Atta met with an Iraqi agent in Prague in June 2000 and in April. Authorities reopened the Cannon and Rayburn office buildings used by the House of Representatives and announced that nearly 300 employees and others at a remote White House mail facility, located several miles from the executive mansion, were all negative. Traces of anthrax had been found at the White House mail facility Monday. Anthrax-laced letters have been mailed to media outlets in Florida and New York, spreading the disease to victims along the East Coast since the aerial attacks on New York and Washington that killed some 5,000. ------------------------ Yahoo! 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