In a Feb. 23 memo to the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, officials in the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration said inaccurate inventory records at the lab's plutonium research, development and processing facility raised doubts about the lab's ability to "deter and detect theft and diversion of special nuclear material." The memo was in response to the findings of a special review team's assessment of an "incident of security concern" involving amounts of nuclear material "that exceeded alarm limits with no suspicion of theft or diversion" earlier this month. The memo was leaked to the Project on Government Oversight, an independent watchdog group in Washington. It makes clear that problems at the lab have been apparent at least since last June.
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This come hot on the heels of an
earlier report that an Inspector General with the Energy Dept. found that the US couldn't account for "significant quantities" of nuclear materials -- including "20,580 grams of enriched uranium, 45 grams of plutonium, 5,001 kilograms of normal uranium and 189,139 kilograms of depleted uranium."
As is often the case these days, the lax security can be traced to a security contractor, Los Alamos National Security LLC. Despite their poor performance, LANS was awarded "a performance bonus of $1.4 million last year."
"The performance award was for security during the 2007-2008 period and included criteria related to nuclear material control and accountability, raising questions about the integrity of contract oversight..." the report tells us.
Oversight from the Bush admin.? You're kidding, right?
