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US Congressional Leader Links Anthrax Outbreak With September 11 Attacks
US House of Representative Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt said on Tuesday it is suspected that there is a link between the current anthrax outbreak and the September 11 attacks.
"I don't think there's a way to prove that but I think we all suspect that," Gephardt said after a meeting between Bush and House and Senate leaders.
Gephardt also thought the anthrax bacteria in a letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle was "weapons grade."
"This is highly sophisticated material. It is small in size and it aerosolizes," he said. "It's small in diameter, which means its been milled."
He said that an outbreak of anthrax infections among Washington postal workers that handled the letter came as a surprise as it was unexpected that the pressure of postage handling machines could force the anthrax out of small holes in an envelope.
Gephardt's comments came as two postal workers in Washington died of suspected inhalation anthrax Monday. Health officials began to test mail workers from 36 post office in the nation's capital Tuesday and put nearly 10,000 mail workers on antibiotics as a precaution.
Two Washington postal workers with inhaled anthrax remained hospitalized, while nine people with suspicious symptoms were being monitored, health officials said.
Dr. Ivan Walks, the city's chief health official, said not all nine are mail workers. He said that the contaminated letter received in Daschle's office was possibly not the only one that passed through the postal system here.
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