New Anthrax Scare at US State Dept

Home>>World

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, December 18, 2001

New Anthrax Scare at US State Dept

A letter containing suspicious white powder was delivered to the US State Department on Monday, sparking new fears of an anthrax attack though the envelope is believed to have been decontaminated, the department said.

The letter, addressed to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, was opened by an aide in his office suite on the seventh floor and the powder spilled out of it, department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

Mr Boucher said: 'It arrived through the US postal system and because it came through the postal system we assume that it was irradiated and therefore poses no immediate health threat.'

Most United States mail and all of it coming to federal office buildings are now irradiated due to the delivery of several anthrax-tainted letters to Congress in October which then infected postal workers and mail handlers in other locations.

Mr Boucher said the powder in the letter addressed to Mr Armitage has not been identified but that the deputy secretary's office suite -- down the hall from Secretary of State Colin Powell's office -- has not been evacuated.

A senior State Department official said the envelope contained nothing but the powder, and bore a return address in Texas.

The anthrax-tainted envelopes sent to senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy both contained threatening notes and had the same New Jersey return address.

Anthrax Found at Off-Site White House Mail Site

Anthrax Spores Apparently Produced in the U.S.