White House bomb scare over

Bush and Cheney are carrying on with their agenda

An all-clear signal has been given at the White House after part of its West Wing was evacuated in a bomb scare.

The building was reopened after authorities checked a parked car for explosives and found none.

"It's all clear," said US Secret Service spokesman Tony Ball. "It was a false alarm."

US President George W Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were in the West Wing during the alert, but they were not asked to leave. A White House official said they carried on with their normal schedules.

Sniffer dog signal

The security alert emerged when White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told journalists: "As a result of the security situation on the driveway, which involves a dog that smelled a car and started to bark, we need to ask everyone to leave."

Members of the White House press corps and Mr Fleischer's office complex, located in the side of the West Wing facing the northern lawn were evacuated.

Offices facing that lawn in the Eisenhower Executive office building were also cleared.

Medicare event

A Medicare event had been held in the Rose Garden shortly before the scare, and the suspicious car, which was parked in the driveway close to the White House's northwest gate, might have belonged to one of the guests.

A security officer wearing a protective suit examined one of two cars parked in the driveway, one with a Maryland licence plate and the other with a Washington, DC licence plate.

Pennsylvania Avenue, the street where the White House is located, is always closed for traffic, but after the bomb scare it was closed also for pedestrians.