News media reports and scientists' views on the likely source of the mailed anthrax that killed five people last year remain strikingly divided. Last week, ABC News reported that the bloodhounds were the FBI's "secret weapon" in firmly linking [Steven J. Hatfill] to the anthrax letters. Yesterday, The Washington Post published a report suggesting that the anthrax in the letters might actually have been produced by a bioweapons program in Iraq or some other country, not by a renegade U.S. scientist as the FBI appears to believe.

The critics have not dissuaded Stockham and the FBI from using the three handlers and their hounds - Bill Kift, a police officer in Long Beach, Calif., and his dog, Lucy; Dennis Slavin, an urban planner and reserve officer with the South Pasadena Police Department, and TinkerBelle; and Ted Hamm, a civilian who runs his own bloodhound business and is used by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and [Lucy, Knight].

Photo(s); Long Beach, Calif., police officer Bill Kift leads his bloodhound, Lucy, as investigators search for clues in the fatal sniper shooting Oct. 11 at a Fredericksburg, Va., gas station. Kift and two other California bloodhound handlers who assisted with the Washington-area sniper investigation were brought in by the FBI late last summer to help with the anthrax investigation.; Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS