WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- One of the anthrax spores found in a State Department mailroom this weekend was in the same location as a "suspicious white powder" found earlier this month, according to a classified e-mail whose contents were shared with United Press International.
The mailroom, which one State Department official said was where the department handled its congressional correspondence, was inspected by the FBI's counter-terrorism unit when an unknown white powder was found in one of the letters.
The State Department has repeatedly stated publicly that the suspicious powder found earlier this month was benign and inert, containing no anthrax.
Should investigators draw a connection between the earlier scare and the current results from anthrax testing inside the State Department, the timing of the two events would suggest there were two separate sources of anthrax.
"One mailroom where the spores were found was the same mailroom where one of the two suspicious substances were found," said the classified e-mail from the State Department's medical office, addressed to a wide group of employees in the building.
The State Department on Monday announced that hazardous material workers found trace amounts of anthrax in two of its mailrooms, a mail pouch at the U.S. embassy in Lima, Peru, and a batch of mail headed to one of its branch offices in Washington.
As a result, the State Department ordered the clean up of all of its mail facilities -- including those at more than 250 embassies and consulates overseas -- and placed all employees in contact with the mail, including those that distribute the mail within offices at the State Department, on antibiotics to treat the infection.
Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to address State Department employees on the anthrax scare Tuesday afternoon.
"Given these findings of low levels of spores at various locations that got mail from our Sterling, Va., facility or from the Brentwood facility, we have decided to go ahead and clean up all the mailrooms that we operate, both here and overseas," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters Monday.
The State Department will be working in conjunction with the environmental branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the clean up.
Over the weekend, hazardous materials workers found no anthrax spores in the ventilation system for the main State Department building in Foggy Bottom. All told the team sampled 155 locations and there are results from 71 of those tests. Only three have shown trace levels of anthrax inside the State Department at two different places. Boucher would not say, however, what rooms they were other than to confirm they were mailrooms inside the building.
Anthrax was also found in a bundle of mail destined for the State Department's "Rewards for Justice program," an office that disburses money for information leading to the capture of terrorists. But Boucher said investigators did not know if the spores came from a new letter in the State Department's system.
Anthrax was also initially discovered on Oct. 25 in a mail pouch at the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru. Scientists confirmed the mail pouch contained anthrax in a subsequent test Monday. Boucher said the embassy was working in conjunction with the Peruvian authorities in disposing the mail pouch.
All mail handlers for the State Department have been instructed to take the Cipro antibiotic for 60 days.
The State Department on Friday sealed off all of its overseas and domestic mail facilities after a loading dock worker at a northern Virginia mail depot for the department was diagnosed with inhalation anthrax on Thursday. So far, there is only one case of anthrax capable of getting into in the air stream in the Washington area -- a letter sent earlier this month to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D. So far, two mail workers at the Brentwood Postal facility -- which services the majority of mail for the Washington area -- have died however due to anthrax inhalation.
Levels of anthrax have been found in the Supreme Court, Justice Department, Congress and a letter-opening device used by the White House.
