__2 UDTT related NEWSstories evaluating today !!!!!!!!__:
first:
White powder sent to Edwards office
Campaign headquarters evacuated
The national headquarters of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards was evacuated Wednesday afternoon after a worker there opened an envelope containing white powder.
The discovery prompted an investigation by local police, firefighters, the FBI, the Hazardous Materials Regional Response team from Raleigh, and the Orange County Health Department.
Investigators had not identified the contents of the letter by late Wednesday.
"We're treating it like it's a possible biological or chemical agent," said Capt. Bob Overton of the Chapel Hill Police Department.
It was unclear where Edwards, who recently moved to Chapel Hill, was when the letter was opened, although he was scheduled to deliver a speech Wednesday at Howard University in Washington. He is scheduled to be in New Hampshire today.
A woman working in Edwards' campaign office in Southern Village found the powder at 4 p.m. as she opened mail for the former senator. She immediately threw the white legal-size envelope into a nearby mail bin and rushed to wash her hands, said Jane Cousins, a spokeswoman for the Chapel Hill police.
Police would not identify the worker Wednesday.
"She has no ill effects so far," Overton said.
The police were called to the office at 410 Market St. in the mix of offices, shops and homes in the southern Chapel Hill community. Federal, county and regional investigators were called to assist.
By late Wednesday, the envelope had been taken to the parking lot of the Chapel Hill Police Department several miles away on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
"The health and safety of our staff and volunteers is obviously our paramount concern, so we contacted authorities," deputy campaign manager Jonathan Prince said in a prepared statement. "The authorities have asked us to evacuate while they run tests on the substance, and we have done so."
The campaign staff was working from home after the scare, Prince said. "The campaign continues to operate at full speed."
Outside the Chapel Hill police station late Wednesday, hazardous materials investigators donned protective gear and checked the contents for radiological and chemical materials.
"They have a meter that tests for radio isotopes and chemicals," Overton said. "A whole gamut."
White powder in letters has been associated with anthrax since an attack in 2001 killed five people and sickened 17. The substance was mailed to lawmakers on Capitol Hill and members of the news media in New York and Florida just weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
After the preliminary tests, the regional hazardous materials team planned to take the envelope and its contents to the state health department for further testing. Preliminary results should be available this morning, law enforcement officials said.
The Edwards campaign worker did not know whom the envelope was addressed to or where it was from, investigators said. Chapel Hill police said they didn't know whether there was any written message in the envelope.
Police lauded the woman's swift response to the suspicious mail.
"Everything's been contained," Overton said several hours after the call came in. "They did exactly what they should; it was textbook. You divest yourself of the package, wash your hands and call the authorities."
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second:
Top al-Qaida suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has admitted to organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, according to the transcript of a hearing released Wednesday.
The transcript of a military hearing held last Saturday at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was released Wednesday by the Pentagon. In it, Mohammad acknowledges planning the World Trade Center and Pentagon strikes, in addition to other major attacks.
In a statement read at the hearing, Mohammed acknowledges swearing allegiance to Osama bin Laden, and to being "the Operational Director… for the organizing, planning, follow-up, and execution of the 9/11 Operation under the Military Commander, Sheikh Abu Hafs Al-Masri Subhi Abu Sittah."
Mohammed's statement then identifies him as the "Military Operational Commander for all foreign operations" undertaken by bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
The statement goes on to say that after Sittah's death, Mohammed became "directly in charge" of "the Cell for the Production of Biological Weapons, such as anthrax and others, and following up on Dirty Bomb Operations on American soil."
In all, Mohammed claimed responsibility for more than 30 plots and activities dating back 15 years.
Beginning with the botched 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the list includes the "shoe-bomber" plot, which put a U.S. airline flight at risk, and the deadly bombing of a Bali resort, which killed more than 200 people in 2002.
The range of the schemes listed is very wide, from "the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul the second while he was visiting the Philippines" to "the attempt to destroy an American oil company owned by the Jewish former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, on the Island of Sumatra, Indonesia."
Early in the transcript, Mohammed's representative speaks for him, in exchanges that mainly serve to quibble with the case laid out against him.
In one case, for instance, Mohammed's representative insists that he "never stated to the Al Jazeera reporter that I was the head of the al Qaida military committee." Then he abruptly clarifies another point.
"Also, sub-paragraph 3-s is false. I did not receive any funds from Kuwait."
Mohammed's representative then clarifies the spelling of his name: "Lastly, my name is misspelled in the Summary of Evidence. It should be S-h-a-i-k-h or S-h-e-i-k-h, but not S-h-a-y-k-h, as it is in the subject line."
AI
