WASHINGTON — At a laboratory in northern Arizona, microbiologist Paul Keim toiled over the pedigree of the anthrax spores that killed three people and shook the U.S. capital to its roots.
At Ft. Detrick, Md., Army germ warfare specialists struggled with another question: whether the toxic white powder had been chemically altered to be more deadly.
At the FBI, officials admitted that they lacked vital expertise, despite millions of dollars spent on a new crime lab and special units for hazardous materials and weapons of mass destruction.
"We certainly didn't go out and hire one or several experts in biological weaponry," a senior federal law enforcement official said. "I'm afraid the public has the right to expect that we would have that kind of expertise, and we don't."
Now, as it enters its fourth week, the massive but fragmented anthrax investigation has entered a frustrating phase. Despite an all-out effort, progress has been so slow that it's impossible to tell which will come next: breakthrough or stalemate.
Several thousand FBI agents are wading through a swamp of leads, for example, but most of them prove to be false. Scores of forensic experts are studying scientific clues, but the tests take precious time and may never lead to the perpetrators.
And the effort is hampered by confusing and often contradictory statements from officials.
As sobering as all this is, it may be spawning a larger problem:
The outbreak of anthrax terrorism along the East Coast has exposed significant weaknesses in institutions that Americans long have considered to be the most dependable in the world. U.S. medical science, public health and political leadership all have been found wanting in one aspect or another.
But perhaps no shortcomings have proved more fundamental--and had greater repercussions around the country--than those of law enforcement. That someone has contaminated the mail with anthrax is bad enough. That investigators seem stumped makes it far worse.
"The unknown is the weapon with anthrax, not the anthrax itself," said Jay Segal, a specialist in emotional trauma at Temple University's Center for Public Health in Pennsylvania. "As Americans, we like to have answers, certainty. The unknown is killing us.
"It's not that anthrax is in our mailboxes. It's that it's in our minds."
