"We have a Federal judge saying the cases were not being prosecuted aggressively," he said.

"Given the appropriate case, we will aggressively prosecute to the full extent of the law," he said.

In recent days, state and federal officials have stated their intentions to prosecute aggressively those who make anthrax threats.

"The Department of Justice remains committed to protecting our communities from such violence and will continue to aggressively prosecute these acts."

The argument had the obvious virtue of playing to the public's desire to see the war on terrorism prosecuted aggressively and conclusively.

First responders are tasked with aggressively prosecuting a resolution to the crisis.

Anti-competitive pricing activities will be aggressively prosecuted, it said.

The department aggressively prosecutes criminal civil rights violations whenever there is sufficient evidence under the legal standard imposed by law.

It says first of all that the Army has aggressively and successfully prosecuted a case that was in some quarters not a popular one.

But she said she wondered whether there might have been a different ending to the case had it been prosecuted aggressively at the start.