Wing of Senate office building shut down, hundreds tested

Associated Press WriterWASHINGTON (AP) -- Authorities closed an entire wing of an eight-story Senate office building Tuesday and prepared to test and treat hundreds of people for possible exposure to anthrax after overnight tests confirmed the bacterium in mail opened in the office of Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

"There will be several hundred people that will be screened today," said Dr. John Eisold, the attending physician at the Capitol. All of them will receive enough antibiotics to protect them until test results are known.

At a news conference outside the Capitol, police spokesman Dan Nichols repeated numerous times that the only "positive" identification of anthrax spores had come on the mail itself.

But Eisold said that as a precaution, staff, police, cleaning crews, visitors and anyone else who had been in the corner of the building that houses Daschle's office were being urged to undergo nasal-swab testing.

He said officials decided "to draw up the net as widely as possible and err on the conservative side and test and treat."

Nichols said the closure in the Hart building involved the offices of 11 senators, Daschle's among them. The majority leader maintains a separate office in the Capitol that was not affected.

The police spokesman said that all mail delivery had been suspended in the Capitol complex while authorities put new security procedures in place. He announced on Monday that all public tours of the Capitol had been suspended indefinitely, although he said that was unrelated to the delivery of anthrax-tainted mail.

Daschle said earlier in the day that so far, test results have been negative for the 50 or so people who were checked on Monday, when an employee opened a piece of mail that contained a white powdery substance.

The letter, postmarked in New Jersey, tested positive for anthrax in two quick field tests. It was then sent to Fort Detrick, Md., for more sophisticated tests, and Nichols told reporters that results late Monday confirmed the results.

In an interview on NBC's "Today," Daschle said the letter was taped in a fashion designed to keep electronic detectors from picking up the anthrax.

As U.S. warplanes hit Afghanistan with the heaviest daytime strikes yet on Monday, President Bush said there may be some possible link between the recent spate of anthrax incidents and Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York City and Washington. But the president said there was no hard evidence.

Daschle said he's "not sure that all of this is related directly to Osama bin Laden."

"I wouldn't be surprised if others aren't getting into the act as well," he said on ABC's "Good Morning America."

Even though the letter incident, now under investigation by the FBI, provoked jittery nerves at the Capitol, the Senate went into session as scheduled Monday afternoon and Daschle vowed that its work would go on.

"We're not functioning on all eight cylinders at this point," Daschle said Tuesday. "But we are functioning and we will continue to do so. It's ... important for us to assure that Congress goes on, that the Congress functions as best as it can."

But it was hardly business as usual.

With congressional officials having cautioned lawmakers' offices last week to be on alert, Capitol Police officials said they were responding all day to repeated reports of suspicious mail. Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, said his aides reported a suspicious letter Monday afternoon and were told by police that their report was the 12th of the day.

Apparently, all but the one to Daschle's office proved false.

The incident came on a day when a second employee of a tabloid based in Florida and the 7-month-old son of an ABC News producer in New York City became the latest people found to have anthrax. Both were being treated and were expected to recover, officials said.

So far, more than a dozen people in Florida, New York, New Jersey and Nevada have been found to either have the disease or have been exposed to the spores that can cause it. One has died.

In Trenton, N.J., Postal Inspector Tony Esposito and FBI officials said the letter to Daschle was postmarked in Trenton on Sept. 18, the same date and postmark on a letter that infected an NBC employee in New York City last week.

Daschle was in his Capitol office and was not exposed to the letter, which was opened Monday morning in Daschle's other office across the street in the Hart Senate Office Building. Capitol Police Lt. Dan Nichols said the person who opened the item was a woman, but he did not identify her.

All of the potentially exposed Daschle aides were sent home after being assured that the early detection meant "there is no immediate danger for them," Daschle said.

In Pawtucket, R.I., eight employees in Rep. Patrick Kennedy's district office were examined for possible anthrax exposure and one worker was tested after she developed a skin rash. Test results weren't expected until Wednesday or Thursday.

Congressional security officials asked all offices to stop opening all mail so it could be rechecked. Nichols said mail delivery to lawmakers would be halted indefinitely.

------On the Net:

Postal Service site: http://www.usps.gov