Health officials in Washington, DC, suspect two workers at a mail-handling center died after contracting anthrax as two others were diagnosed with the most dangerous form of the disease: inhalation anthrax. An official said, meanwhile, that Iraq or Osama bin Laden could be involved, according to reports.
It “is very clear their symptoms are suspicious and their deaths are likely due to anthrax,” Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said. “One letter may have contaminated the whole system. But we don't know to an absolute certainty.”
US Surgeon General David Satcher said it was “highly probable” the deaths were related to anthrax.
If confirmed, the deaths would be the first since Robert Stevens, a photo editor for American Media Inc. in Florida, died of anthrax Oct. 5. The new cases raise concern about how easily anthrax-contaminated mail may spread the disease. Two other workers from the Washington mail center are being treated for inhalation anthrax.
Eleven people in the US have now been diagnosed with anthrax infections: two in Washington, two in Florida, three in New Jersey and four in New York. District of Columbia officials said they were investigating nine more cases of suspected anthrax infection, according to Bloomberg.com.
“If you are feeling ill, go to the nearest medical facility,” District of Columbia Chief Health Officer Ivan Walks urged postal workers and others who may have visited the Washington center.
The report added that authorities were investigating whether Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda network played a role in the anthrax attacks after the Sept. 11 assaults that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City and damaged the Pentagon.
Other analysts allege a possible link to Iraq. President Saddam Hussein has stockpiled biological weapons in the past and an Iraqi agent reportedly met one of those involved in the Sept. 11 hijackings. Still, the State Department has said there is no evidence linking Iraq to the attacks.
A former UN weapons inspector, Scott Ritter, wrote in the Guardian earlier this week to say that Iraq is clean of bio-weapons.
Pinning the blame on Iraq for the anthrax attacks in the United States is irresponsible and flying in the face of the facts, Ritter said Friday.
Cited by AFP, he said the accusations "merely fan the flames of fear and panic" but had no supporting evidence whatsoever.
He said that, although Iraq had not fully complied with its UN obligations on disarmament, that did not mean it had a biological weapons capability.
"Far from it," he wrote. "Under the most stringent on-site inspection regime in the history of arms control, Iraq's biological weapons programs were dismantled, destroyed or rendered harmless."
The major bioweapons production facility at Hakum, responsible for producing anthrax, was blown up and its equipment destroyed.
"Other biological facilities met the same fate if it was found that they had, at any time, been used for research and development of biological weapons."
Moreover, Ritter went on, the wider UN inspections of any site capable of being used for bio-weapons research and production, such as breweries or drug manufacturing plants, were rigorously tested.
But US officials are still suspicious.
“We don't put anything past Saddam Hussein, but I don't believe that there's any clear linkage at this point,” State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said. “Our focus, of course, in the campaign against global terrorism right now is on the Al Qaeda terrorist network hiding in Afghanistan.”
Tests confirmed that the same strain of anthrax was found in the Florida offices of tabloid publisher American Media and the letters sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Viacom Inc.'s CBS News, and General Electric Co.'s NBC News in New York - Albawaba.com
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