Flunking the anthrax test

Health officials argued that they had been under the impression that the worst-case scenario was the highly treatable cutaneous anthrax. Evidence of the greater lethality of the anthrax sent to Daschle brought credibility to the news announced last week by Daschle and House Speaker Hastert that the anthrax was "weapons-grade," meaning that it had been significantly, purposefully refined to be more easily inhaled.

But then on Friday, the new director of the Office of Homeland Security, Tom Ridge, said that "the tests have shown that these strains have not been 'weaponized.'"

On Tuesday morning, after meeting at the White House, Gephardt disputed Ridge, saying that "this is weapons-grade material." When asked about the contradiction, the minority leader said that "we've got to stop parsing words and trying to be anything other than accurate about what this is. This is highly sophisticated material. It is small in size, and it aerosolizes."

"The words are not particularly helpful," Gephardt said. "Obviously this stuff gets in the air and stays in the air. ... You can call it anything you want to call it. This is not safe stuff."

And the sender, or senders, of the material has yet to be determined. Officials can't even decide how far along the investigation has proceeded. On Friday, Ridge announced that "the FBI has been able to identify the site where the letters were mailed," but law enforcement officials have since contradicted that.

Asked about this on Monday, Ridge deferred to Chief Postal Inspector Ken Weaver who would only say that "that is all part of the investigation. We are looking at every possible detail on that route, including any possible boxes. But all I can tell you at this point, that is part of the ongoing investigation."

But there seemed to have been few advances in the anthrax investigation, and achievements in the investigation into the Sept. 11 attacks were relatively modest. Appearing at a briefing with Otto Schily, the interior minister of Germany, Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that the German government had issued arrest warrants for three individuals -- Said Bahaji, Ramsi Binalshibh and Zakariya Essabar -- known to have associated in Germany with three of the Sept. 11 terrorists. Ashcroft said, "If we knew where they were, I think we'd go get them."

The anthrax investigation seemed to have reaped an even smaller crop. The main news there came when Ashcroft announced that the Justice Department would be releasing copies of the anthrax letterssent to Daschle, Brokaw and the New York Post, to maybe jar the memory of someone in the general public.

The letter to Brokaw, and the letter to the New York Post, both postmarked Sept. 18 in Trenton, N.J., also both read: "09-11-01 This is next. Take penacilin [sic] now. Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great."

The letter to Daschle, postmarked Oct. 9 in Trenton, read: "09-11-01 You can not stop us. We have this anthrax. You die now. Are you afraid? Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great."

Ashcroft said that investigators know more than they knew a week ago, but their new information didn't seem like much. "We are not able to rule out an association with the terrorist acts of September the 11th," he said, "but neither are we able to draw a conclusive link at this time in that respect." Asked if the former residences of the hijackers had been tested for the presence of anthrax, Ashcroft wouldn't comment.

Members of the House Governmental Reform subcommittee chaired by Shays, meanwhile, questioned Thompson on potential areas of future vulnerability. Thompson said that the U.S. government had "15.4 million dosages of smallpox vaccine right now" and officials were working on possibly increasing that stockpile to provide for 77 million people. Under grilling from Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., Thompson insisted that the $300 million the administration had requested to improve state and local efforts to combat bioterrorism was "adequate."

But what is adequate in this new age? One reporter at today's White House briefing was wondering about Nunn-Lugar funds, a reference to the federal money named after Sens. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and Dick Lugar, R-Ind., and allocated to establish ties with firms in the former Soviet Union so as to buy up and dismantle the former superpower's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. Though the program has been heralded as a success, the Bush budget proposed cuts in Nunn-Lugar funds by approximately 10 percent.

"Which ones?" Fleischer asked.

"Nunn-Lugar funds," said the reporter.

"Oh, Nunn-Lugar funds," Fleischer said. "Right."

"Are you thinking particularly of rethinking that?"

"Let me take that and get back to you on it," Fleischer said.

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