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Wednesday
October 17, 2001

Vol. CXII, No. 13 Ann:Arbor,=Mich1 r: <:, C2 101 The Michigan Daily

FBI attempts to

link anthrax incidents

WASHINGTON (AP) - A letter mailed
to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle
contained a potent form of anthrax that
appeared to be the work of experts, the sen-
ator and other officials said yesterday while
hundreds of people took precautionary
doses of antibiotics.
The FBI was investigating similarities in
handwriting and threats between the spore-
spiked letter sent to Daschle in Washington
and a letter containing anthrax sent to NBC
in New York.
"Obviously, these are difficult times," said
Daschle, as the Senate - and the nation it
represents - grappled with the unsettling
threat of bioterrorism.
Investigators have found that the strain of
anthrax on the letter mailed to Daschle's
office was "a very potent form of anthrax
that clearly was produced by someone who
knew what he or she was doing," the major-

ity leader said.
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who
attended a closed-door briefing on the sub-
ject, said the strain found in the letter to
Daschle was "very refined, very pure," mak-
ing it more dangerous.
Early testing indicates that the anthrax
from Daschle's letter is a purified form that
could be used as a weapon, a law enforce-
ment official, said last night, speaking on
condition of anonymity. Additional testing
was being done late yesterday.
A thousand miles to the south, Floridian
Ernesto Blanco lay ill in a hospital with the
inhalation form of anthrax, less than two
weeks after a co-worker died of the. sane
illness.
In New York, headquarters for many of
the nation's high-profile news media corpo-
rations, officials said they expected full
recoveries for two people infected with a

less lethal form of the disease. They includ-
ed an NBC news employee and the 7-
month-old son of an ABC producer.
Yet, five weeks after terrorist strikes
killed 5,000, the nation reeled under a con-
tinuing series of disclosures involving let-
ters tainted by anthrax bacteria, spores
discovered in a postal facility in Florida,
countless innocent scares and not a few
malicious hoaxes.
Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge
said the government is boosting its reserves
of anthrax antibiotics and smallpox vaccine.
Officials said later the administration may
eventually consider inoculating children for
smallpox, which some believe might also be
used as a weapon by terrorists.
Since Oct. 1, FBI Director Robert Mueller
said, "the FBI has received more than 2,300
incidents or suspected incidents involving
anthrax or other dangerous agents."

Mueller told reporters there were "certain
similarities" between the letter opened at
NBC and one unsealed in Daschle's office
across the street from the Capitol several
days later. Both were postmarked in Tren-
ton, N.J., and Mueller said there were simi-
larities in handwriting, as well. Two
officials, speaking on condition of anonymi-
ty, said the letters contained similar threat-
ening messages expressing anti-American
and anti-Israeli sentiments and included a
pro-Muslim statement.
The Justice Department released photos
of the two envelopes, address in handwrit-
ten block letters that appear similar. The
NBC envelope was postmarked Sept. 16
with no return address and the Daschle let-
ter was postmarked Oct. 8 with a return
address from "4th Grade, Greendale
School, Franklin Park, NJ 08852." Officials
said there is no such school.

AP PHOTO
An New York City Emergency Service police officer sprays a
mailbox after removing the contents from the box along
Fifth Avenue yesterday.

Red Cross
food silos
hit by U.S.
missiles
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - U.S.
strikes set Red Cross warehouses afire
near Afghanistan's capital yesterday,
sending workers scrambling to salvage
desperately needed relief goods during
a bombardment that could be heard 30
miles away.
To the south, two U.S. special forces
gunships entered the air war for the
first time, raking the Taliban strong-
hold of Kandahar with cannon and
_ heavy machine gun fire in a pre-dawn
raid.
Heavy, round-the-clock attacks and
the first use of the lumbering, low-fly-
ing AC-130 gunships signaled U.S.
confidence that 10 days of attacks by
cruise missiles and high-flying jets
have crippled the air defenses of the
Taliban, the Muslim militia that rules
most of Afghanistan.
U.S.-led forces have used more than
2,000 bombs and missiles since open-
ing the attacks Oct. 7, Lt. Gen. Grego-
ry Newbold, director of operations for
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Penta-
gon news conference. The past two
days' attacks have been especially
intense, putting more than 100 war-
planes and five cruise missiles into the
air, he said.
Yesterday's strikes were mostly
against military installations and air-
ports around Kabul, Kandahar and the
northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, on
which the Afghan opposition claims
its forces are closing in.
Afternoon raids in the Kabul area
were so strong that the detonations
could be heard 30 miles north of the
city, where Taliban forces are battling
Afghan fighters for the opposition
northern alliance.
During the afternoon raids, at least
one bomb exploded in the compound
of the International Committee of the
Red Cross at Khair Khana near Kabul,
See ATTACKS, Page 7

DEA

busts

Ecstasy

lab

Two men arrested for
possessing materials to
manufacture MDMA
By Jacquelyn Nixon
Daily Staff Reporter

LI

AP PHOTO
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, a distinguished scholar at the Business School's William Davidson Institute,
answers a question from the audience yesterday after a speech at Hale Auditorium.
Aibright: We 1mus strik
back against 'pres evil'

Officers from the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration arrested
a University student and another men
for possessing materials necessary to
produce Ecstasy in a Church Street
apartment yesterday morning. -
LSA senior Arthur Reigle, 26, of
Kalamazoo and William Biddix, 27, of
Onsted were charged with possession
of equipment to manufacture con-
trolled substances.
Susan Feld, a spokeswoman from
the DEA's Detroit office, said the
charge is a four-year felony, but the
men will be facing additional
charges because marijuana and
small packaging materials were also
found in the apartment at 1016
Church St.
"They had purchased and received
equipment to manufacture Ecstasy,"
she said. "They hadn't started making
it because they were waiting on the
last chemical to be delivered.
"Several of the chemicals were haz-
ardous and could have done damage to
the neighborhood.... Those have been
removed. They'll probably face

mAMpus
charges for some of the chemicals, and
the marijuana charges."
Feld said she could not comment on
how DEA officials learned that the
men had materials to produce Ecstasy,
which is also known as MDMA.
Biddix and Reigle were arraigned in
U.S. District Court in Detroit and were
released on bond pending further
charges.
Judy Paron, property manager for
Oppenheimer Properties, which owns
the apartment building, said she never
had a problem-with Reigle before yes-
terday's incident.
"This was his second year with us,"
she said. "Ninety-nine percent of all
the University students are good (ten-
ants)."
Paron said Reigle lived by himself
in an efficiency apartment. If the DEA
instructs, Oppenheimer must terminate
Reigle's lease. Paron said Biddix is not
listed on the lease as a tenant of the
apartment.
LSA junior Daniel Aghion, who
lives across from Reigle's apartment,
said he woke up around 8:15 a.m. and
saw DEA officials setting up a light
fixture shining into Reigle's apartment.
"They had DEA bulletproof vests
on and police jackets," he said. "Some
of them had guns strapped to their
upper thighs. At one point there were
two or four wearing gas masks."
See ECSTASY, Page 7

By Karen Schwartz
Daily Staff Reporter

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told a crowd
of more than 1,000 on campus yesterday that the Sept. 11
attacks were "crimes of the purest evil, wholly unjustified by
any reason of politics, culture or faith" and demanded a firm
and united response from the United States.
"I fully support President Bush's decision to order a mod-
erate and carefully targeted military strike on Afghanistan,"
she said.
Albright, who is a distinguished scholar in the Business
School's William Davidson Institute, said she chose to forgo
telling stories of her experiences as a female secretary of
state to focus on the test facing the nation: striking back in

the fight against terrorism.
She added that the United States is doing everything pos-
sible to minimize civilian deaths, combining military
response with humanitarian help in an attack against those
who commit and facilitate terrorists acts, not the people of
Afghanistan or individuals of the Islamic faith.
"There was not a trace of religious commitment or social
conscience reflected in the planning and execution of these
crimes, she said. "The perpetrators could not have been fol-
lowers of Islam, for by their acts they have betrayed the most
cherished tenets of that benevolent faith."
She also commented on the fact that as lives on every
continent have been changed by terrorism, it makes sense
that people from many nations are ready to respond.
See ALBRIGHT, Page 7

U' hopes to avoid

Some choose to live
in alternative houses

changing
By Elizabeth Kassab
Daily Staff Reporter

By Stephanie Schonholz
Daily Staff Reporter
Beginning as a studio for one man's
urban planning business, Arbor Vitae
grew into an atypical residence for
University students. With five resi-
dents living in a loft with no "real ceil-
ings" or individual bedrooms, trust is a
vital part of Arbor Vitae.
For some students at the University,
"alternative" living arrangements like
Arbor Vitae offer better and more
interesting housing on campus than a
typical apartment or residence hall.
Students who choose to live in alterna-
tive housing can pick from a host of
settings in which to spend either sever-
al months or a whole year, like the loft
setup of Arbor Vitae.
"The first thing that attracts attention
is the 23-foot ceiling and the spacious-
ness. The second thing is people like the
people living here," said Rich Ahern,

dards because as soon as there's a legal
agreement, that says 'I don't trust you.'
I just don't want warm bodies to fill'
the rooms;" Ahern said.
For Washtenaw Community College
sophomore and Arbor Vitae resident
Canaan Albright, "the feature that fan-
cied me most was the idea that I could
get away from the commercial aspects
of college life. Living here you're not
over-saturated with people, it's like a
streaming consciousness of ideas; a lot
of rules seem to disappear because of
the constant interaction with people."

In the past decade, a number of pub-
lic universities have been ordered to
change their admissions policies to be
completely race-blind, often resulting
in drastic declines in minority enroll-
ment.
"The classroom became a whole lot
whiter," said
Douglas Lay-
cock, a law
professor at /ON RiA
the Universi-
ty of Texas,
which was
forced to ' inside: The Philosophy
abandon Club hosts a debate on
affirmative affrmative action.
action admis-P
sions policies
after losing a lawsuit in 1997.
"The minorities tended to blame us
... even though we had fought this
about as hard as we could," Laycock
said. "Part of our problem has been to
assure minority students who can

policies
pares to defend its use of race as one
factor in admissions before the 6th
Circuit Court of Appeals next Tuesday,
schools in other states are beginning to
see the results of their alternative
efforts to attract minorities.
Many schools are reporting increas-
es in the number of minorities who
enroll, but most are still below the lev-
els they achieved under affirmative
action.
"The policy we have now is the one
that best promotes the University's
interests in excellence and diversity,"
said Jeffrey Lehman, dean of the Uni-
versity of Michigan Law School,
which along with the College of Liter-
ature, Science and the Arts is a defen-
dant in the cases. "I fully expect that
we are going to prevail."
None of the alternative policies have
proven as effective as affirmative
action in achieving those goals, he
added. "If they were, we would have
adopted them a long ;time ago
The University has been verycare-
ful ftofollow the guidelines~estabii*hed
by the 1978 Regents of the University



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