Confirmation that two Washington postal workers died from inhaled anthrax and word of another suspected case of the deadliest form of the disease in New Jersey prompted U.S. authorities to scramble on Tuesday to protect against further attacks. 
Health authorities in Washington were investigating at least 16 other suspicious cases in the wave of bioterrorism the White House said on Tuesday it suspected may be linked to the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Preliminary tests at a remote White House mail facility also turned up evidence of anthrax but none was found at the executive mansion. 
A postal worker at a New Jersey facility that processed anthrax-laden letters sent to Congress and NBC News became the latest suspected case of anthrax inhalation. 
The middle-aged woman, who became ill last week, was the first person in New Jersey to show signs of contracting the more deadly inhalation form of anthrax, a possible germ warfare agent. 
Tests confirmed on Tuesday that the two postal workers from Washington's Brentwood facility died from anthrax inhalation. The center, which also tested positive for anthrax, processes mail for the U.S. Capitol and other Washington areas. A supermarket tabloid photo editor, Bob Stevens, died in Florida earlier this month from anthrax inhalation. 
All employees at the military facility where mail for the White House is screened, several miles from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., were also being tested for exposure to anthrax after spores were discovered. 
But officials were confident anthrax had not made it through to the White House and all tests at the complex surrounding the executive mansion had come up negative. 
Confronting the troubling developments, health and postal officials responded to suggestions they were too slow to test postal workers when it became known an anthrax-laced letter they had sorted at Brentwood turned up in the office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. 
Capitol Hill staff were tested immediately last week for the deadly bacteria and 28 were found to have been exposed. It took five days before mass testing began on postal workers. 
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson promised to act faster to protect people, moving to test and treat anyone who may have been exposed to even a hint of anthrax. 
Thompson said officials would also be watching for smallpox, tularemia or rabbit fever, plague, botulinum toxin and viruses that cause a range of hemorrhagic fevers. 
"We are going to err on the side of caution in making sure people are protected," Thompson told lawmakers at a hearing held at his own HHS headquarters because congressional offices remained closed to sweep for anthrax contamination. 
Thompson said his department was also meeting with postal officials to come up with ways to make mailrooms safer. 
Experts said they could not have predicted that inhaled anthrax was a risk for the postal workers, thinking they were more likely to contract the less deadly anthrax skin infection, which is easy to treat with antibiotics. 
A total of 12 people have been confirmed infected with anthrax in the United States, including the three who died from inhaled anthrax in Washington and Florida, and six cases of skin anthrax in New York and New Jersey. 
Washington Department of Health chief Dr. Ivan Walks said aside from two confirmed inhalation patients in the capital, there were four more cases that were listed as suspicious for anthrax and 12 other "low suspicion" cases. 
But finding inhalation anthrax a week after the letter arrived on Capitol Hill was forcing health officials to rethink how they respond to reports of bacteria-tainted letters. 
Mike Osterholm, a bioterror expert at the University of Minnesota, said officials may have to act more quickly to close off areas and give out antibiotics when anthrax is found. 
Inhalation anthrax kills 90 percent of victims and by the time they are seriously ill, it is too late to treat them. But quick use of antibiotics can combat the disease. 
New Jersey health officials expanded from seven to 10 days the preventive course of antibiotic treatment prescribed for about 1,000 permanent employees at two affected facilities. They also said treatment would now include workers who only visit the main distribution center. 
The New Jersey processing and distribution postal facility in Hamilton Township handled the anthrax-contaminated letters sent on Sept. 18 to NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw, whose assistant tested positive for skin anthrax, and the Sept. 17 letter to Daschle. 
Walks said Washington officials also had dramatically expanded the number of people to get antibiotics to include all people at Brentwood and at 36 related post offices. 
Everyone who visited Brentwood, including the mayor and others at a news conference there last week, would be given the antibiotic Cipro, the treatment of choice for anthrax. 
Mayor Anthony Williams said the authorities were doing the best they could. 
"If we knew then what we know now we would have acted earlier," said Williams, when asked why it had taken such a long time to test and treat postal workers. 
Deborah Willhite, a U.S. Postal Service senior vice president, said the problem would be handled differently from now on. 
Postal workers were asking for and receiving gloves and masks, and lawmakers returned to work in the U.S. Capitol while their offices remained closed pending final results of tests for anthrax contamination. 
Aides reported that the buildings that tested positive for anthrax were likely to stay shut for weeks and would be flooded with gas to clean up the deadly bacteria. 
A spokeswoman for the Postal Service in Chicago said authorities nationally were reevaluating programs often used by children -- from pen pals to letters to Santa Claus. 
"We are going over procedures to make (them) more safe and secure," the spokeswoman said. 
FBI investigators also were fanned out across the country searching for those responsible. 
Attorney General John Ashcroft said he planned to release copies of the letters sent to Brokaw and Daschle and the envelope of another letter sent to the New York Post newspaper to help alert citizens about what to look for. 
Ashcroft said he was unable to say whether the anthrax incidents were linked to the Sept. 11 hijackings of four planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, killing more than 5,000 people. 
But House of Representatives Democratic leader Richard Gephardt said after a meeting with President Bush that "we all suspect" a link between the plane attacks and the wave of anthrax cases. 
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, "There is a suspicion that this is connected to international terrorists. Our nation is under attack as a result of these mailings."