This is horrible.  In all my years in DC I don't remember any administration 
official (let alone a cabinet member) getting trashed this badly except maybe 
Ollie North during Iran Contra.  Tino, lets add this to the list of issues we 
need to jointly think through.  DF




Lorraine Lindberg
06/21/2000 02:24 PM
To: Drew Fossum/ET&S/Enron@ENRON, Kevin Hyatt, Steven Harris/ET&S/Enron@ENRON
cc: tmonaldo@mrg-llc.com 

Subject: Richardson testimony - (this gets ugly)

Richardson says FBI has determined drives did not leave Los Alamos
June 21, 2000 
Web posted at: 3:00 PM EDT (1900 GMT) 


By Ian Christopher McCaleb/CNN

WASHINGTON -- Two highly sensitive computer hard drives that were missing 
from the Los Alamos National Laboratories earlier this year never left the 
premises, and the FBI has uncovered no hints of espionage in the case, Energy 
Secretary Bill Richardson told a Senate committee Wednesday. 

  
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson    
 
The two hard drives, each smaller than a deck of playing cards, held vital 
nuclear weapons secrets and were stored in a secured vault at the storied New 
Mexico nuclear weapons laboratory. 

In a statement opening a lengthy and touchy hearing of Senate Armed Services 
Committee, Richardson said: "Based upon the investigation by the FBI so far, 
there is no evidence of espionage, nor is there evidence the drives have ever 
left Los Alamos." 

Richardson added that the FBI seems to be on the verge of reconstructing what 
happened to the drives, saying, "Latent fingerprints were found on the scene, 
and on the external wrappings of the drives themselves." 

The FBI continues to comb the "crime scene" -- a room housing a copy machine 
-- and a grand jury has been convened, Richardson said, punctuating his 
statement with a declaration that a handful of so-called Los Alamos 
"X-Division" employees have offered conflicting statements to investigators. 

The secretary speculated that the disappearance of the hard drives may have 
been an unintentional mistake by a lab employee, who feared coming forward 
when alarms were raised. 

"I will not take (disciplinary) action until I have all the facts before me," 
he said, vowing, "I will not rest until I know what happened -- when, where, 
why and by whom." 

The FBI has said the drives disappeared "at the tail-end of March of this 
year, March 28," Richardson said. Should the FBI's timeline prove correct, 
reports issued at the beginning of this week that the drives have been 
missing since January could be called into question. 

The two hard drives were discovered missing on May 7, when weapons scientists 
took an inventory of the drives stored within a vault at the laboratory's 
X-Division as a massive wildfire approached the facility. The section is 
perhaps the most sensitive area of the facility, and is where the most 
classified nuclear weapons research, design and development is undertaken. 

The scientists had been tasked with checking to assure that all of the 
division's drives were safely within the vault in the event that the lab 
would have to be evacuated. An evacuation was ordered the next day because of 
the fire threat, but no one reported the drives missing until May 31, 
sparking a massive search of the area -- and deep anger in Washington. 

The drives contain vital information on the makeup of U.S., Russian, Chinese 
and French nuclear weapons. They mysteriously reappeared last Friday in a 
room at the lab that already had been searched several times. 

Richardson taken to task early, and often
Richardson's pledge to bring accountability to bear on those responsible for 
the missing drives was met with cold stares from committee members of both 
parties. Members of the Senate have awaited the secretary's appearance for 
several days, after he last week declined an opportunity to offer Senate 
testimony, saying he wanted to wait until he had more information. 

  
Sen. Strom Thurmond    
 
The safety of weapons secrets has dogged Richardson for much of his tenure as 
Energy Secretary. During his watch, Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee was 
removed from his position amid charges of spying. He has been formally 
charged with mishandling classified information -- not espionage -- and 
awaits trial. 

Members of Congress have also raised red flags over the reported sale of 
computers once used at the Savannah River nuclear weapons facility in 
Augusta, Georgia. Those computers, two senators intimated Wednesday, may have 
once contained classified information that could have been reconstructed by 
their new owners. 

Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-South Carolina) suggested at Wednesday's hearings that 
some of the Savannah River computers may have been sold to the People's 
Republic of China. 

  
Sen. John Warner    
 
In his opening statement, Armed Services Chairman John Warner (R-Virginia) 
lined Richardson himself up for accountability, saying that although 
Richardson has worked to change the security culture at the Energy Department 
and the national laboratories, ultimately, responsibility for ongoing lapses 
rests with him. 

"Mr. Secretary," Warner said directly to Richardson, "On June 23rd of last 
year you told this committee, in this room: 'The secretary of Energy,' and I 
quote you, '...must be accountable and must be responsible" for such security 
failures. 

" ... We are holding you accountable," Warner said. "These incidents happened 
on your watch. Like the captain of a ship, you must bear full 
accountability." 

Appearing at the hearing, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), chairman of the 
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, repeated his earlier calls for 
Richardson's resignation, saying, "I think it's time for you to go." 

Harsher still was the criticism leveled by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-West 
Virginia), a member of Richardson's own party, who said Richardson's pledges 
to get to the bottom of the case would not sway the opinion of the Senate, 
whose trust he had lost permanently. 

  
Sen. Richard Shelby    
 
"The horse is out of the barn," Byrd said. Referring to Richardson's refusal 
to testify last week, Byrd said, "You've waited and shown contempt of 
Congress that borders on supreme arrogance." 

Speaking directly to Richardson, a one-time congressman and former Ambassador 
to the United Nations, Byrd said, "You had a bright and brilliant career, but 
you will never again receive the support of the U.S. Senate for any office 
you seek. You have squandered your treasure." 

Richardson, who at times looked stunned by the tone taken by many committee 
members, sought to defend himself -- arguing that he wanted to have "all the 
facts" in hand before making a congressional appearance. He added that he had 
made vast changes in the security culture at the department and in the 
nation's weapons laboratories, and had put off a good many longtime employees 
as a consequence. 

"I've been excoriated, but if you go into the scientific and academic 
community, I am driving scientists away." He also said he has been accused of 
racism in the Wen Ho Lee case, and has had to battle members of own party who 
saw regular polygraph tests for employees as a violation of civil rights. 

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) suggested that the "captain of the ship" 
wasn't Richardson, but President Bill Clinton, who Inhofe said was 
responsible for a variety of security policy changes and leaks to the media 
that have led to a relaxed, careless attitude among those charged with 
overseeing the nation's weapons secrets. 

'Serious loss of control over classified information'
Also appearing before the panel was Dr. John Browne, director of the Los 
Alamos facility. 

  
Dr. John Browne    
 
Browne, while attempting to illustrate for panel members -- with charts -- 
just how difficult it is to gain access to the X-Division, admitted that his 
security operatives have lost control over how classified information is 
handled -- mainly because there is no set procedure to determine who handled 
much of the material and when. 

"This is not an environment one can easily get into," he said. 

Still, Browne said, "there is a serious loss of control over classified 
information at my laboratory," adding, perhaps for the benefit of committee 
members, that he had "no knowledge that the information has been compromised 
or tampered with. 

"From a national security perspective, these are positive indications." 

Richardson was congratulated by Sen. Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico) for ceding 
all weapons security issues to a newly confirmed director of a 
semi-autonomous agency formed to assess and reformulate all security 
procedures. 

  
Sen. Pete Domenici    
 
Air Force Gen. John Gordon, confirmed by the Senate to helm the agency but 
not as yet sworn into the post, will report to Richardson, but will not be 
directed by anyone else at the Energy Department. 

The Senate had held up Gordon's confirmation for months for unspecified 
reasons, but he was unanimously confirmed last week after news of the hard 
drives' disappearance was released. 

"The best thing you could do to leave a legacy for America in terms of 
nuclear weapons is to [get this agency operational]," Domenici said, scolding 
Richardson not to engage in any "dual-hatting," and let Gordon make the 
changes he needs to make. 

Warner was less congratulatory, warning Richardson outright that he must 
honor the 1999 law creating the agency and allow it to go about its business 
unfettered. 

The panel closed its session to the public and members of the media just 
after noon on Wednesday so specifics of the case could be discussed. Domenici 
predicted earlier in the day that a closed session would yield much more in 
the way of disturbing information. 

"We could go into a closed session, and you wouldn't believe the things you'd 
hear in there," he said. "These things have to be corrected too." 

When proceedings ended at mid-afternoon, Richardson told reporters he just 
wanted "to do his job" and conclude the investigation. He said the fallout 
from the security breach was "too political," adding, "I did not utter one 
partisan word in that committee." 

'Conflicting statements'
Initially, Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, the Energy Department's top 
security officer, and Los Alamos Lab Director John Browne said in 
congressional testimony that a scientist had reported seeing the two devices 
in the vault on April 7, a month before they were found missing and seven 
weeks before senior lab officials were notified. 

  
Gen. Eugene Habiger    
 
But sources familiar with the investigation told CNN on Tuesday that this 
account has come under suspicion because of "conflicting statements" made 
during interviews and polygraph tests. 

Another individual has told investigators he went into the vault on April 27 
and would have noticed if they had been missing then, but does not recall 
actually seeing them. 

What's clear, said Goss, is that there was inadequate tracking on paper of 
the use of the two drives, which belonged to an emergency nuclear response 
team. Members of the team, known as NEST, have been the focus of the FBI 
criminal investigation. The team is trained to be ready to find and disarm a 
nuclear device on short notice. 

The disks, or drives, are designed for use in a laptop computer and are part 
of an emergency response "kit" available to team members . 

All 26 individuals who had unescorted access to the vault have been given 
polygraph tests, according to Richardson. 

Browne, the lab's director, has testified that security rules for the 
tracking of items classified as secret were eased government-wide in 1992 to 
reduce the cost of handling the large amount of documents carrying this 
designation. 

In early 1993 it was extended by then-President Bush to government 
contractors such as the University of California, which runs the Los Alamos 
lab. The policy was continued by the Clinton administration. 

The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board a year ago cited 
inadequate tracking of secret nuclear materials in a stinging rebuke of 
security at the Energy Department and its weapons labs. 

While the current Los Alamos security break likely did not involve espionage, 
"in some ways it's worse," former Sen. Warren Rudman, chairman of the 
advisory board, said in an interview. "Espionage is very hard to guard 
against. You win some and lose some. Here you've got a situation where there 
is just sloppy accountability and record keeping." 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
   RELATED STORIES 
Timeline on missing Los Alamos hard drives in question(6-20-00)

Bush on Los Alamos: 'I will bring this sorry chapter to a close' (6-18-00)

Los Alamos lab director: Hard drives may have reappeared to cover 
crime(6-17-00)

Missing nuclear secrets found behind Los Alamos copy machine (6-16-00)

Senate hearing examines loss of nuclear secrets at Los Alamos lab (6-14-00)

Secret nuclear information missing from Los Alamos lab (06-12-00)

Conflicting opinions on Los Alamos fire heard on Capitol Hill(06-07-00)

EPA: Data indicates no fire-unleashed radiation at Los Alamos 

Fire moves onto Los Alamos nuclear lab property; 14,000 area residents 
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FBI told Taiwan-born physicist he failed polygraph exam that he passed 

 


RELATED SITES 
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Department of Energy

House Committee on Commerce: 106th Congress

University of California, Berkeley

Federal Bureau of Investigation

Atomic Energy Act and Related Legislation

Scientific Freedom and National Security
 


 

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