Will Los Alamos lapse hinder Richardson's vice presidential aspirations?
June 14, 2000
Web posted at: 6:04 PM EDT (2204 GMT)
By John King/CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Energy Secretary Bill Richardson's noted absence from Senate hearings on the disappearance of nuclear information from the Los Alamos National Laboratory didn't spare him from a harsh litany of Republican criticism on Wednesday.
Republicans are laying the blame for the latest security lapse at the country's nuclear labs squarely on Richardson's shoulders. Two computer hard drives containing classified nuclear information were removed from a secured storage vault at Los Alamos last month when the lab was threatened by nearby wildfires. The files have not been seen since at least May 7.
"The secretary must bear the responsibility," said Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. "It isn't a case, this time, of something that happened on somebody else's watch. This happened on Secretary Richardson's watch."
Security lapses were uncovered at Los Alamos last year during the alleged espionage controversy involving former Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee. Lee was eventually charged only with mishandling classified nuclear information.
Although he emerged largely unscathed from the Wen Ho Lee case, Richardson is expected to be a prime target this time around. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said Wednesday that Richardson was more attuned to presidential politics than his security responsibilities.
"I personally believe that if he had been doing his job as secretary of
Energy in all aspects and not out running for vice president of the United States ... we might not be here today," Shelby said.
Richardson said Wednesday that he's putting "every ounce of my activities" into the latest Los Alamos mishap, and promised to testify before Congress next week.
"I want to get to the bottom of this and I'm outraged at what's happened," Richardson said. "But we have dramatically improved security ... we need some more time to investigate what happened."
Richardson's Democratic allies called the accusations raised at Wednesday's
hearing overly-partisan, and suggested that Republicans were out to damage Richardson's chances of being tapped as Vice President All Gore's running mate.
Richardson met last month with former Secretary of State Warren Christopher, the man in charge of Gore's vice presidential selection committee.
Richardson, a former congressman from New Mexico appeared frequently at Gore's side during the Democratic primary season, has done little to hide his vice presidential aspirations.
The White House acknowledged Wednesday there were legitimate questions to be answered about the missing Los Alamos hard drives, but said that Republicans were overzealous in their attacks on Richardson.
"Those who want to point the finger of blame should take a deep breath,"
White House press secretary Joe Lockhart told reporters.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
| 
![[CNN Money]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/main/fn.logo.newsnet.gif){kind=logo}
![[SI.com]](http://i.cnn.net/cnn/images/main/si.logo.gif){kind=logo}
(
