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“WEAPONS LABORATORY SECURITY” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Energy was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1185 on June 9, 1999.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
WEAPONS LABORATORY SECURITY
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HON. DOUG BEREUTER
of nebraska
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, June 9, 1999
Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member would ask his colleagues to consider carefully the following editorial from the June 2, 1999, edition of the Omaha World-Herald, entitled ``A Price For Lost Secrets.'' It speaks to the need to establish accountability for the intolerable security which has prevailed at Department of Energy weapons laboratory facilities.
A Price For Lost Secrets
Clinton administration official Bill Richardson said recently it was time to stop ``looking for heads to roll'' in response to the administration's failure to combat Chinese spying at U.S. nuclear facilities. He is wrong. For too long, the administration has been hiding behind the bromide that it's petty, mean-spirited and counterproductive to assess blame for the illegal distribution of FBI files, the reception of illegal foreign campaign donations, and other mess-ups in this administration.
Richardson is secretary of the Energy Department which supervises nuclear research laboratories. Several years ago a career Energy intelligence officer began warning his Clinton-appointed supervisors that tax security, especially at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, was allowing China to steal nuclear secrets. The warning, initially dismissed by the Clintonites as alarmist nonsense, eventually was conveyed up the chain of command to key Cabinet members and the president. Still there was no meaningful response.
The Justice Department rejected the FBI's request for permission to conduct electronic surveillance of a scientist who now stands accused of transferring to China more than 1,000 classified files of nuclear secrets. Attorney General Janet Reno now is pointing fingers at subordinates, saying she was given bad advice.
It's good to see that pressure is building to the point that the attorney general is compelled to do the sort of scapegoating that Richardson wants to squelch. Reno ought to feel severe heat. If deputies did blow it and made Reno look bad, then they, too, ought to be seared in the crucible of public scrutiny.
The campaign for accountability ought to be applied across party lines. The current intelligence director at Energy said recently that Republican Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, never responded to the FBI's 1997 proposal for $12.5 billion worth of changes to fight nuclear spying. Shelby said that the committee already had begun working on counterintelligence measures in 1996 but that Energy ignored the Committee's recommendations.
Let debate continue on that and all other arguments about Chinese nuclear spying on American soil. This administration has bungled the most important duty of government--safeguarding the security of the nation. The people responsible ought to be exposed.
The Clinton administration, through the Democratic National Committee, received millions of illegal campaign dollars from Chinese sources while refusing to act on information that China was raiding the nuclear store. Corporations, that were major donors to the DNC were allowed to share prohibited technology with Chinese businesses as part of lucrative deals. And then there was Reno's thwarting of the FBI's pursuit of the suspected mole at Los Alamos. When will the president offer an explanation to rebut the evidence that something caused his administration to go out of its way to accommodate China?
Bring out the political guillotine.
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