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Posted on 09/23/2001 6:17:30 PM PDT by Jean S

Even before the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York City, the Capitol was not wholly unprepared for a chemical or biological threat.

Protective masks for every House Member and floor staffer were placed in an area readily accessible to lawmakers in the Capitol roughly a year ago to guard against a chemical or germ warfare assault, according to senior House staffers.

"There were plenty of meetings where this was discussed and it was put in place," a knowledgeable House GOP aide said.

Another House staffer added that masks are available in multiple places within the Capitol building.

"It's more than just one or two places," the source said. "There are masks all over the Capitol."

After President Bush addressed a joint session of Congress Thursday night, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the ranking member on the House Administration Committee, acknowledged that the Capitol building has been stocked with protective masks, although he did not specify where they were located.

"We want everyone to be as safe as possible and we're taking all the safeguards necessary to make sure they are," Hoyer said.

House Administration Chairman Bob Ney (R-Ohio), who won the top spot on the panel in January, said in an interview that he was not aware of the presence of anything akin to gas masks being available in the Capitol. But he said that the issue of supplying both Members and staff with masks was raised many times during briefings last week.

"There's been discussion of that," he said. "We live in a different world than we did before September 11th. Now we owe it to everybody to consider every form of terrorist threat imaginable. Everything is on the table for discussion."

Ney added that the committee was looking for guidance from the Capitol Police Board on whether to distribute masks to all House offices and staff. The board is comprised of the House and Senate sergeants-at-arms and the Architect of the Capitol.

"The Capitol Hill Police Board will make that decision," Ney said. "I am not opposed to discussing this issue. Anything that helps the safety and security for the visitors of the Capitol, if it helps their security, it's a priority."

Citing security concerns, Capitol Police spokesman Lt. Dan Nichols declined to discuss the issue of protective masks, saying only that "the [U.S. Capitol Police] has established protocols"to deal with chemical and biological threats.

Another knowledgeable House aide said that talks intensified about different types of threats to the Capitol after the attacks on the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen last October and on the Khobar Towers apartments in Saudi Arabia in 1996. The masks on the House side were put in place in response to those attacks, the aide said.

In the wake of the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, officials and lawmakers are studying the idea of supplying the Capitol and House and Senate office buildings with additional masks and other protective gear.

"We're looking at everything," the source said. "But the Capitol is different than the Longworth and Rayburn buildings. We're trying to decide just how effective masks would be when what you really want to do is get people out of the buildings as quickly as possible."

While it is unclear whether the same precautions have been taken for the Senate chamber, some Senate Capitol offices reported receiving bags of masks early last week.

Without any explanation or instruction of how to use them or who could use them, police distributed a sealed bag of about five masks to the Senate Daily Press Gallery last week.

Robert Petersen, the director of the gallery, said the police officer dropped them off and simply told him that it was "part of procedure."

He added that the gallery has received the masks on and off throughout the years since the Senate was bombed by a leftist radical group in 1983 days after the U.S. invasion of Grenada.

The bombing caused substantial damage to the Senate Republican cloakroom and the surrounding areas, even destroying the door of then-Senate Minority Leader Robert Byrd's office.

Petersen said he last received them during the impeachment trial of then President Bill Clinton, although they were removed shortly thereafter.

Senate Associate Historian Don Ritchie said increased safety measures were first put in place after a radical anti-war group planted a bomb in a women's restroom on the ground floor of the Capitol in the early 1970s.

Back then, screening machines were installed outside the House and Senate galleries. The machines and guards were moved outside the entrances to the Capitol after the bombing in 1983 and further safeguards such as guard shacks and barricades outside the Capitol office buildings were put in place after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995.

Lauren W. Whittington contributed to this report.

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