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TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2001

Providing little detail but saying the threat was "credible," the nation's two top law enforcement officials on Monday warned Americans both at home and abroad to be on high alert for possible terrorist attacks.

"The administration has concluded, based on information developed, that there may be additional terrorist attacks within the United States and against United States interest over the next week," said Attorney General John Ashcroft at a press conference early in the evening.

"The administration views this information as credible, but unfortunately it does not contain specific information as to the type of attack or specific targets," he added.

With FBI Director Robert Mueller at his side, Ashcroft said 18,000 law enforcement agencies throughout the country have been notified to report any suspicious activities to the FBI. In the past, local authorities have helped thwart terrorist activities, including a planned attack on the millennium.

Ashcroft also said Americans should "remain alert" within the coming week and also to report any unusual behaviors. But beyond urging citizens to keep to their normal routine, he offered no assurances to the blind threat that something, somewhere and somehow, might happen.

With new cases of anthrax on the East Coast popping up every day and buildings throughout the Washington, D.C. area, testing positive for the deadly bacterium, it may be hard for many in the nation's urban areas to do just that. Beyond the mail service that has been interrupted, thousands of people -- from postal to lawmakers to the Supreme Court Justices -- have been forced to change their lives in response to the latest threats.

Still, Ashcroft and Mueller defended their warning as necessary to ensuring American safety. Also, the Department of Justice was criticized last month, when -- on October 11, one month to the day of the deadliest attack on American soil in history -- the FBI issued a similarly vague statement about pending activities.

That warning, as far as the public knows, did not come true. In the week's following the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, however, authorities have said they have prevented terrorist acts.

What the government can't do though is figure out the source and nature of the anthrax letters that have now cast a much wider and unanticipated net over New York, New Jersey and the Washington, D.C. area. Just before midnight, New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani said a 61-year-old woman who works at a hospital has tested positive for inhalation anthrax -- the more deadlier form of the disease.

"We won't know definitively until sometime tomorrow whether it actually is anthrax. But . . . we have to proceed on the assumption to protect people that it is inhalational anthrax," Giuliani said.

Along with the case of a 51-year-old New Jersey woman who doesn't work for the U.S. Postal Service but tested positive for the skin version of anthrax, the cases indicate once again the possibility that anthrax can spread beyond what was previously expected. When an anthrax-laced letter was sent to Senate Majority Leader Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), only his immediate staff and lawmakers were tested.

The precaution may have worked for Hill workers but not for postal carriers who handled the letter and similar ones. Two postal workers have died, others have tested positive and still more are being observed.

That has led to increased calls to guarantee the safety of a force that frequently encounters dangers on their routes but none as deadly as this. A New York postal union has filed a lawsuit M to close the state's largest mail-sorting facility, workers in Florida have sued Postal Service to demand testing all the while mail rooms and mail centers are being swept for anthrax.

Although nothing new to Indian County, having suffered from smallpox and other diseases, the new bio-terrorism has not been reported on a reservation or tribal lands. The Indian Health Service, an agency of the Department Health and Human Services (HHS) said in a statement that reservations are "unlikely" targets but that clinics are equipped to handle any threat.

Meanwhile, several buildings in Washington, D.C. have shown anthrax contamination. The Supreme Court, the State Department; federal buildings housing HHS, Agriculture Department, Voice of America and Food and Drug Administration offices; and a mailbag at the U.S. Embassy to Peru are among the latest reports.

The Hart Senate Office Building, which houses Daschle's office, continues to be closed and will remain so until a plan to remove any remaining anthrax spores is approved. Lawmakers say the Environnmental Protection Agency will pump chlorine gas into the air system, which would require the building to be closed for at least 16 days following.

The Senate Indian Affairs Committee is located in the Hart building, as are the offices of Chairman Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii.). A hearing the committee scheduled on Alaska Native subsistence has been postponed.

Due to September 11, the committee had previously canceled an energy policy hearing at which Assistant Secretary Neal McCaleb was to testify.

Today's status conference on the Cobell v. Norton trust fund litigation will go on as planned, said Washington, D.C. attorney Dennis Gingold, who represents the more than 300,000 American Indians that are part of the suit. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth had canceled an earlier hearing due to last month's attacks.

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Relevant Links:
Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program, Department of Defense - http://www.anthrax.osd.mil

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