Learn more :: Article Archives :: NNSA must share blame

NNSA must share blame for Los Alamos Mistakes
Oakland Tribune Op/Ed, August 16, 2004

As it turns out, the University of California isn't the only entity that should be hanging its head in shame -- or be pilloried by the press, politicians and public -- over security bumbles at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

An agency created four years ago to tighten, oversee and grade security -- the National Nuclear Security Administration -- deserves to share the blame and take the rap for not alerting the Energy Department to problems at the New Mexico complex.

That's what it was supposedly designed for in the wake of the Wen Ho Lee debacle in 1999 and the disappearance of laptop hard drives containing nuclear weapons designs in 2000.

Yet, for the past four years, the NNSA has rated security and protection of classified materials at Los Alamos as "satisfactory," the highest of three ratings available. Only in 1999, when Wen Ho Lee was being interrogated about the possible passing of nuclear secrets to China, did the agency headed by former arms-control negotiator Linton Brooks drop its Los Alamos ranking to "marginal."

NNSA has been so ineffective that Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington compares it to humorist Garrison Keillor's mythical Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon , "where the women are strong, the men are good-looking and all the children are above average."

Rep. Jim Greenwood, R-Penn., says "the NNSA experiment has not been a great success." And, Danielle Brian, head of the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, calls the agency's handling of security "totally outrageous," noting, it "is supposed to be the first line of defense and they're repeatedly falling down on the job." Nobody in its chain of command "noticed a problem at Los Alamos."

Part of the reason harks back to when the agency was formed and skeptics wondered whether it might be too close to the organization it was supposedly overseeing. The fact that UC has hired NNSA executives to run parts of its weapons program seems to support claims that the lab and its overseers were too cozy. Brian calls it "one culture ... a revolving door."

Thus, computer disks, hard drives and classified materials keep disappearing. The lab is being investigated by the FBI and work on its major tasks has been suspended as a result of the latest faux pas.

All of these blunders have irreparably damaged the reputation and standing of the University of California in the nuclear research community and public eye, prompting the Energy Department to open the next series of management contracts to competitive bidding. UC has been the only entity to manage three of the labs in our nuclear weapons program's 61-year history.

But it isn't the only organization culpable in this series of mishaps. NNSA deserves part of the blame -- and must pay part of the cost.

NNSA failed miserably in its policing responsibilities. It should be reorganized or axed, and Brooks and other top officials should be replaced with more independent, less-compromised leadership.

Henceforth, NNSA should be kept independent of management at lab sites and and report directly to Energy officials separate from Los Alamos itself. UC management may have been lax, but NNSA was even worse. It was negligent and irresponsible.

NNSA has been so ineffective that Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists in Washington compares it to humorist Garrison Keillor's mythical Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon, "where the women are strong, the men are good-looking and all the children are above average."

Originally published in the Oakland Tribune.

Learn more :: Article Archives :: NNSA must share blame