Officials investigate Pentagon mail said to be laced with deadly ricin

Steven Lee Myers ©2018 The New York Times

The United States BEIJING — and China traded new accusations over naval operations in the South China Sea on Tuesday after warships from each country came perilously close to colliding in the disputed waters.

The Pentagon accused the Chinese navy of using “an unsafe and unprofessional maneuver” when one of its destroyers challenged a U.S. destroyer, the USS Decatur, as it sailed Sunday near one of the disputed islets that China claims in the Spratly archipelago.

The Chinese ship “conducted a series of increasingly aggressive maneuvers,” coming within 45 yards of the bow of the Decatur, a guided-missile cruiser on what the Pentagon described as a routine mission in international waters.

The Chinese navy’s actions forced the Decatur to maneuver to avoid a collision, a spokesman for the Pacific Fleet, Capt. Charlie Brown, said in a statement.

As tensions have increased over trade and other issues, the United States and other nations have intensified naval and aerial patrols in the sea to signal that the territories there remain in international waters. Britain, France and Japan have also conducted operations there in recent months, creating what many in China view as a coordinated campaign.

China’s defense and foreign ministries each released statements Tuesday sharply criticizing the United States, though not disputing details of the U.S. accusations involv- ing the Decatur.

“The United States has repeatedly sent military ships to South China Sea islands and its adjacent waters,

China claims almost all of the South China Sea but faces competing claims over the Spratlys from Vietnam, the Philippines and Malaysia, as well as Taiwan.

The encounter Sunday occurred within 12 nautical miles of Gaven Reef, a pair of outcroppings in the sea that China has expanded and fortified with weaponry since 2014.

— NEW YORK TIMES threatened China’s sovereignty and security, seriously damaged the relations between the two countries and militaries, and endangered regional peace and stability,” Senior Col. Wu Qian, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of National Defense, said in a statement.

In 2016, an arbitration panel under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, ruling in an appeal brought by the Phil- ippines, did not support Chi- na’s claims to Gaven Reef, among other shoals and mar- itime features in the sea. China has ignored the rul- ing, however, and the for- tification of seven artificial islands it has built there has made Chinese control of those waters virtually a fait accompli.

China once brushed aside U.S. accusations of “militarizing” the South China Sea — something the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, vowed publicly not to do during an appearance with President Barack Obama in 2015.

In recent months, though, officials in Beijing have shifted the focus of their arguments. They now cite patrols like the one on Sunday as justifi- cation for the installation of defensive weaponry there. In his statement, Wu called on the United States to end its “unlawful provocations” against China’s sovereignty.

The United States has for years routinely patrolled the seas as part of what it calls “freedom of navigation oper- ations.” The patrols, officials say, are not intended to chal- lenge any claims but rather to assert the right to “innocent passage” within the 12 nautical miles of a coastline that are considered territorial waters under international law.

With an ambitious naval modernization program well underway, China has become increasingly assertive in challenging patrols in the Spratlys and the Paracels, another disputed archipelago to the north.

Federal authorities are investigating mail sent to senior Pentagon officials that is believed to contain the poison ricin, officials said Tuesday.

The Pentagon Force Protection Agency on Monday detected a suspicious substance on two envelopes at a mail facility on Pentagon grounds in northern Virginia, the officials said. Initial tests indicated that the envelopes, addressed to Defense Secre- tary Jim Mattis and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, contained the toxic material.

Col. Robert Manning, a Pentagon spokesman, said the FBI had taken possession of the packages on Tuesday morning and would conduct additional tests.

“All [U.S. Postal Service] mail received at the Pentagon mail screening facil- ity yesterday is currently under quarantine and poses no threat to Pentagon personnel,” Manning said in a statement.

No one was injured in the incident at the mail facility, which is not part of the main Pentagon building.

A FBI spokesman said the envelopes were “currently undergoing further testing.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), ricin is a naturally occurring byproduct of castor oil and can be made in the form of a pellet, powder or mist. It is usually dangerous only when used in an intentional attack, the CDC said on its website.

“We are maintaining our vigilance for all packages coming into not just the Pentagon but facilities worldwide,” a defense official said, speaking on the condition of ano- nymity to describe precau- tions taken by the military.

Ricin, which is part of the waste produced when castor oil is made, has no known antidote and can be lethal.

In 2011, four Georgia men were arrested and later sentenced to prison for plotting to spread the toxin simultaneously in five U.S. cities, targeting federal and state officials. That same year, U.S. counterterrorism officials said they were increasingly tracking the possibility that al-Qaida would use ricin in attacks against the United States.

Two years later, a Mississippi man sent letters containing ricin to President Barack Obama and a Republican senator in an elaborate attempt to frame a rival. The letters were intercepted at mail-sorting facilities for the White House and the Capitol.

In 2014, Shannon Richardson, an actress, was sentenced to 18 years in federal prison for mailing letters laced with ricin in May 2013 to multiple people, including Obama and Michael R. Bloomberg, the mayor of New York at the time.