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Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2004

Genetic testing by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided further confirmation Wednesday that the white powder found in an office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Monday was indeed ricin.

Three Senate office buildings remained closed Wednesday after the powder was found, a little more than two years since Congress grappled with another potentially lethal toxin, anthrax.

There couldn't be business as usual, but there was business nonetheless. Senators walked across the Capitol to join their House counterparts in a joint session to hear an address from visiting Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.

Police were escorting those who needed to briefly re-enter the Dirksen building Wednesday, including the very fourth-floor corridor where the ricin was discovered. Erik Smulson, spokesman for Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., said several staffers would be permitted to visit their office to remove items.

Outside the Capitol, police stood guard on street corners around the office buildings, and Marines unloaded equipment at an adjacent parking lot. "The Marines are helping us with our efforts in clearing and isolating in the cleanup related to ricin," said Capitol Hill Police spokesman Sgt. Contricia Ford.

About 100 soldiers were deployed from the U.S. Marine Corps' Chemical Biological Incident Response Force, said the unit's spokesman, 1st Lt. Paul C. Cabellon. The force conducts reconnaissance and decontamination at sites where chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons might have been used.

Meantime, law enforcement authorities intensified efforts to identify the letter or parcel that brought ricin to the Senate mailroom while also seeking to determine whether that incident is linked to poison found last fall in letters at mail facilities serving the White House and a South Carolina airport.

Hazardous materials teams from the FBI and Capitol Police Department conducted a preliminary search Tuesday night but did not find a letter or parcel that could be connected to the ricin in an office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, FBI spokeswoman Debra Weierman said. The teams were conducting a more methodical search Wednesday.

Bush Wasn't Told of Ricin Letter

President Bush was not told about the ricin letter sent to the White House, and there was no public disclosure of the incident, because "it did not pose a public health risk," spokesman Scott McClellan said. "We share information appropriately, if there is a public health risk."

He defended the handling of the information, despite reports that the Secret Service delayed sharing it with other federal officials. "We expect people to be notified appropriately, and we understand that they were," McClellan said.

Even while some test results were still pending, House Speaker Dennis Hastert said, "It's serious enough that they're picking up everybody's mail."

No illnesses had been reported by late Tuesday, said Dr. John Eisold, the Capitol physician. Tests of air filters showed the chemical had not circulated through the buildings' ventilation systems, said Senate Democrat leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

Health experts expressed optimism that casualties would be averted in the new attack. "As each minute ticks by, we are less and less concerned about the health effects," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

But dozens of Senate workers were being monitored and health officials urged Senate staff to watch for swiftly developing fever, coughs or fluid in the lungs over the next two or three days. When inhaled in sufficient quantities or injected, ricin can be fatal, and there is no known vaccine or cure.

The postal facility that processes Congress' mail also was shut. In 2001, two postal workers in Washington were among five people who died from anthrax exposure.

The ricin-laced letter addressed to the White House in November had been detected at an offsite mail processing facility, the law enforcement official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The investigation into that letter continues, and there have been no arrests, the official said. Authorities determined the letter posed no threat to health because of the ricin's low potency and granular form.

The letter was similar to another letter containing ricin that showed up in October at a postal facility serving Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport, according to a senior law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The author of both letters complained about new regulations requiring certain amounts of rest for truck drivers, the official said.

There was widespread agreement among lawmakers that Congress responded more effectively this week than to the anthrax-laced letters that were sent to two senators in 2001.

But even Frist acknowledged that things were "not perfect." Chief among senators' complaints were that authorities were too slow to alert them.

"We weren't notified promptly enough yesterday," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who said one of his aides worked well into the evening in the Dirksen building. "But that's OK. People make mistakes."

One aide who was quarantined said many co-workers had already gone home. This aide said those quarantined were asked to telephone colleagues who had left and tell them to shower and put their clothes in a bag.

Senate aides said 40 to 50 people were quarantined and decontaminated with showers, although Frist's office said the number was 24, plus an uncertain number of Capitol police officers who took precautionary showers after their shifts.

© 2003 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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