Leahy letter found identical to Daschle letter

A scientist extracts the letter sent to Leahy from its envelope.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The anthrax-laden letter sent to Sen. Patrick Leahy is identical to the one sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, the FBI said Thursday.

Both letters include the phrases: "You die now." "Death to America." "Allah is great."

Scientists were able to extract the letter from the envelope following carefully planned procedures to conserve all the anthrax spores and any evidence on the piece of mail that might lead them to the sender.

Tests have begun on the anthrax, but the letter must be decontaminated before investigators can try to lift fingerprints, DNA or fiber samples from the letter or envelope.

Experts from the FBI, U.S. military and others at Fort Detrick, a germ warfare lab in Maryland, began Wednesday to extract the letter.

It took scientists at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases three weeks to develop a detailed protocol to follow in opening the letter.

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Preparations included installing sophisticated new laboratory equipment to extract the anthrax.

Preliminary tests showed the anthrax was of the same high quality as found in the letter addressed to Daschle.

Five people have died from anthrax infections believed to have come from anthrax-laden letters sent to news outlets and government offices.

Van Harp, assistant FBI director in charge of the Washington field office, said in a written statement it would take weeks to complete the analysis, stressing investigators are being "deliberate and methodical."

"Ultimately, the results of what we do have to be admissible in court," Harp said. "These examinations are critically important because we feel they will provide investigative leads to help bring this investigation to a conclusion because we do have five homicides, we believe, and at least 13 other attempted homicides."

Elsewhere Thursday, a mail bin at a Federal Reserve mail processing facility tested positive for anthrax during routine testing of mail, said spokeswoman Michelle Smith.

The Daschle letter. These phrases are the same as ones found in Leahy letter.

More tests will be performed Friday on the bin at the facility, which is outside the main Federal Reserve Board building. If any contaminated mail is found, it will be sent to a military facility for analysis by the FBI.

The letter addressed to Leahy was discovered and quarantined November 16. The letter to Daschle was dated September 11. Both were postmarked October 9 in Trenton, New Jersey.

Experts hope the anthrax in the Leahy letter will be the most pristine of any recovered because fewer people have handled the envelope and its contents.

An FBI-led team of investigators wearing hazardous material suits found the letter among thousands quarantined after the letter sent to Daschle was opened, inadvertently distributing the spores.

The investigators selected the letter to Leahy after noticing similarities to the Daschle letter such as the Trenton postmark and the block-style handwriting.

Tony Esposito, a U.S. postal inspector in New Jersey, said the two letters passed through the same sorting machine in the Trenton processing center within 20 minutes of each other. The machine sorts 33,000 pieces of mail per hour, Esposito said.

Federal officials say tens of thousands of letters may have picked up traces of anthrax from the sorting machine.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering releasing the addresses and ZIP codes on all letters that went through the machine within 60 minutes of the two letters, according to a spokesperson for Rep. Christopher Smith, R-New Jersey.

During a 20-minute phone conversation Thursday afternoon with Dr Jeffrey Koplan, director of the CDC, the congressman urged him to release the information.

On the investigation into who sent the letters and where they came from, Sandra Carrol of the FBI in New Jersey said postal inspectors and the FBI are close to narrowing to about a dozen the possible postal routes where the letters may have been collected.

She said the FBI also is checking security camera videos from post offices that tested positive for anthrax in the Trenton area, looking for anyone or anything suspicious.

-- CNN Susan Candiotti contributed to this report.