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Editorial: No more excuses for Los Alamos security

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Here we go again.

What appear to be computer devices containing classified information have been discovered outside the secure fence near Los Alamos National Laboratory. This time they were in a mobile home, where police also discovered illegal drugs.

Not reassuring.

The FBI and the National Nuclear Security Administration are investigating. Also not reassuring.

Senior New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici, an Albuquerque Republican, said investigators still are trying to figure out what happened but expressed his "profound" disappointment that Los Alamos lab, once again, appears to have suffered a security breach. He asked to be briefed by the FBI and the NNSA. Also not particularly reassuring. Been there. Done that.

There is either something chronically wrong with the security culture at Los Alamos - the world's first nuclear weapons laboratory - or those nuclear-weapons secrets really just aren't worth all that bother.

Let's assume it's not the latter. Let's assume that in a world in which the United States is deeply concerned about a nuclear North Korea, is trying to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, and went to war in Iraq because of the immediate threat of Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program, we should at least expect Los Alamos lab to keep close tabs on U.S. nuclear-weapons secrets.

Let's assume that the billions of federal taxpayer dollars spent on security at Los Alamos over decades - $40 million more in the last two years, according to Domenici, wasn't just for show.

Let's assume that despite the dismal security record at Los Alamos and the equally dismal efforts to fix it, there is somebody in this country who knows how to keep nuclear-weapons secrets under lock and key, and they are rushing now to Los Alamos.

Over the last decade, Los Alamos has had numerous security breaches - the most infamous involving nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee who, government witnesses testified, had enough classified nuclear weapon information outside the lab fence to be considered a global nuclear threat.

In another incident, a team of experts testing the lab's plutonium security measures demonstrated how easy it was to break through those measures and use a little red wagon to make off with the nuclear-weapons materials used to trigger thermonuclear bombs.

In an understatement the size of "Fat Man" - one of the first nuclear bombs developed at Los Alamos - Domenici remarked this week that "there is a serious problem when classified lab material is found off campus."

How collegial. What is this - a Disney movie about an absent-minded professor?

It's time to stop treating Los Alamos with kid gloves and to start plugging the "campus" leaks in its security fence once and for all. No more excuses.