Lawmakers decided on Tuesday to reopen one congressional building, saying tests found it free of any anthrax. But they said four other buildings where the potentially deadly bacteria was found last week may remain closed into next month pending a massive cleanup.
They said the Senate Russell Office Building, which had been closed along with the others for six days, was to reopen at 9am yesterday.
Environmental experts needed more time, however, to give a clean bill of health to the other buildings, which normally house thousands of lawmakers and staff, they said.
"The prognosis is not very encouraging," said Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott.
Lott said "it could be weeks" to remove anthrax from four congressional locations that tested posted for the bacteria. These locations are in the Senate Hart and Dirksen buildings and on the House of Representatives side, the Ford Office Building, along with a Capitol police delivery center.
Lott and Daschle announced the reopening of Russell in a joint statement. In it, they also said, "The Hart and Dirksen buildings will reopen as soon as environmental remediation to remove anthrax spores is completed or until those areas that have tested positive are sealed to allow remediation without exposing other areas to contamination."
On the other side of the Capitol, lawmakers decided to keep the House Cannon, Rayburn and Longworth Office Buildings closed for at least another day pending final test results, aides said.
Earlier on Tuesday, displaced lawmakers and their staffs began taking up temporary residence in nearby federal office buildings, most of them at the seven-story General Accounting Office. Con-gressional hearings scheduled in closed buildings were moved or postponed.
* The FBI on Tuesday released photographs of three letters that contained anthrax.
* The letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle 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."
* The identical letters to NBC and "The New York Post" were written in the same hand as the one to Daschle. "09-11-01 / This is next / Take Penacilin Now / Death to America / Death to Israel / Allah is Great."
Source: DPA
"We don't expect to return to normal until the war against terrorism is over," said Senator Ted Stevens.
Experts have searched the Capitol complex since it was discovered last week that an anthrax-laced letter was opened in Daschle's office in the Senate Hart Office Building. That brought a national anthrax scare to the nation's capital, still reeling from the Sept. 11 attacks on the US.
Twenty-eight people on Capitol Hill have tested positive for exposure to anthrax, none since last week. All have been prescribed daily antibiotics expected to check any illness.
The House adjourned last Wednesday and the Senate left the following day as authorities expanded their search for anthrax.
Aides said on Tuesday that decision was expected within days on how to eliminate the anthrax from the Capitol complex. They said options included bleach, gas or a foam.
"A number of cleanup options are being explored," one aide said. "Some of them could result in sections of some of the buildings being closed for weeks."
"We've been told that the buildings have to go through a process in which they are cleaned with gas," another aide said. "It's impossible to work there under those conditions."
Many lawmakers had expected to return to their offices on Tuesday, but more time was needed to evaluate the anthrax tests.
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