Investigators Saturday were probing new cases of anthrax-tainted US government offices, with revelations that traces of the lethal bacteria had been found at postal facilities serving the Supreme Court and the CIA, and at more congressional offices.
In the latest revelations of anthrax poisoning, three offices of the Longworth House building of the US Congress tested positive for traces of the bacteria, Capitol Police spokesman Dan Nichols announced late Friday.
As the number of affected sites increased, authorities said they were no closer to identifying those behind the apparent bioterror attacks, but denied one report citing Iraq as a possible source of the anthrax.
Nichols said the three contaminated congressional offices did not appear to have a large enough concentration to cause an outbreak of the disease. Scientists believe that at least 8,000 spores of anthrax are required to cause inhalation.
"These are trace samples," Nichols pointed out. "Nevertheless, we continue to find elements of bacteria within the Capitol complex."
Last week, officials revealed that a letter containing a potent form of the bacteria had been received at the offices of Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle.
Traces of anthrax were reported Friday at mailrooms serving the Central Intelligence Agency, the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, a US Post Office branch and at an off-site mail handling facility serving the US Supreme Court.
The CIA said in a statement that anthrax was found in a material inspection facility that handles mail for the agency, but Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge called the amount "medically insignificant".
An anthrax spore was also detected in a mail distribution room at a US military medical research facility in the Maryland suburbs north of Washington, and 13 workers there were being tested for exposure, spokesman Ron Goor said.
Security was stepped up at the Pentagon, where vehicles equipped to detect the release of biological agents were deployed as a precaution, while at the State Department, all mail deliveries to foreign diplomatic posts were suspended until further notice.
Fourteen people have now contracted either inhalation anthrax or the less serious manifestation of the disease, skin anthrax. Three people have died.
All told, more than 4,000 postal workers in Washington, Maryland, Virginia, New York, New Jersey and Florida have been tested for anthrax, authorities said.
Meanwhile, officials have surmised that the perpetrators responsible for poisoning the US mail system probably sent more than one anthrax-tainted letter to the federal government.
"There are probably multiple mailings that have gone out," said Centers for Disease Control director Jeffrey Koplan said Friday. "There may be several places in the federal government that are deemed targets."
Another theory, that the respiratory anthrax was caused by cross-contamination, was considered "highly unlikely to virtually impossible," Koplan said.
US investigators also believe the recent wave of anthrax attacks are likely the work of extremists in the United States unconnected to Osama bin Laden, the Washington Post reported Saturday, quoting government officials.
"Everything seems to lean toward a domestic source," one senior official told the Post. "Nothing seems to fit with an overseas terrorist type operation."
The latest escalation in the national bio-terror scare came as President George W. Bush signed into law sweeping anti-terrorism legislation Friday, expanding police and federal surveillance powers, tightening immigration policy and targeting money launderers.
In another development Friday, New York postal worker union president William Smith said his union would sue the US Postal Service to press for the closure and decontamination of the city's main sorting center, where traces of anthrax were found.
Meanwhile, the White House on Friday refuted an ABC News report, which cited three unnamed sources as saying that initial tests on an anthrax-laced letter sent to Daschle found a chemical additive that is a trademark of Iraq's biological weapons program.
"It's not true," spokesman Ari Fleischer told AFP.
The report said that bentonite, which helps keep tiny anthrax particles in mid-air by preventing them from sticking together, could have been used by other countries, but was known as Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's trademark -- Washington, (AFP)
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