Anthrax source likely from U.S.

Cox News Service and Associated Press

WASHINGTON — White House officials said Monday that the anthrax mailed to Capitol Hill in October likely came from within the United States, and the State Department was looking at a letter that contained white powder.

"The evidence is increasingly looking like it was a domestic source," said White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. But he also cautioned that "this remains something that is not final, nor totally conclusive yet."

Speculation that the anthrax originated in a U.S. lab is mounting following a Washington Post report published Sunday that the genetic makeup of the anthrax used in the letters mailed to Sens. Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., matches the anthrax in the Army’s stockpile.

But Army officials discounted the theory that their lab is the original source of the anthrax. They note that the Army obtained the anthrax from the Agriculture Department and shared it with five labs in the United States, Canada and Britain.

At the State Department, the FBI was called to examine a white powder found in an envelope addressed to Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. The envelope moved through the regular U.S. mail system and officials assumed that it had been irradiated, said Lynn Cassel, a department spokeswoman.

Cassel said the letter was addressed in "block letters," but she did not know if the envelope or the writing resembled that found on previous, anthrax-tainted letters.

Meanwhile, officials reported that the Hart Senate Office Building will need a third round of fumigation to kill lingering anthrax spores after technical difficulties thwarted decontamination efforts this weekend.