Tens of millions of dollars and repeated security reviews have not stopped embarrassing security breakdowns in the US government's nuclear weapons program -- and now the man in charge has been sent packing.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman on Thursday ousted the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is in charge of maintaining the country's nuclear weapons stockpile and oversees the federal weapons research laboratories.
"I have decided it is time for new leadership at the NNSA," Bodman said in announcing that the agency's chief and a former ambassador and arms control expert, Linton Brooks, would resign within the month.
Brooks, in a message to NNSA employees, said he accepted the decision, one he said he understood was "based on the principle of accountability that should govern all public service."
"This is not a decision that I would have preferred," he wrote.
Brooks was reprimanded in June for failing to report to Bodman a security breach of computers at an agency facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, that resulted in the theft of files containing Social Security numbers and other personal data for 1,500 workers.
Then, last October hundreds of pages of classified documents from the Los Alamos lab weapons program were found during a drug raid in the home of a woman who had worked at the lab.
That security breakdown was especially troubling, a department inspector general's report said, because it came after tens of millions of dollars had been spent to upgrade cyber-security at Los Alamos. A new management group also had been put in charge only a few months earlier -- also a fallout over the repeated security problems at the facility.
The laboratory in New Mexico is one of three major research labs that are part of the nuclear weapons complex under NNSA. The agency was created after the security flap involving Los Alamos scientist Lee Wen-ho (
In announcing Brooks' resignation, Bodman said the NNSA had "done its best" to address the problems, but that progress had not been adequate.
"Therefore, and after careful consideration, I have decided that it is time for new leadership at the NNSA," Bodman said.
Some members of Congress questioned whether Brooks' departure is enough to make the changes needed to assure against future security lapses.
"It will take more than a new boss to fix the problems, which are far more systemic and pervasive in nature," said Representative Edward Markey, a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is considering hearings on the issue.
Representative Ellen Tauscher said she also plans a hearing by her Armed Services subcommittee on "the important policy and structural changes" planned at NNSA to improve the agency.
Her aides said she believes the issue is one that goes beyond Brooks.
Senator Pete Domenici, the ranking Republican on both the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Appropriations subcommittee on NNSA spending, said Bodman "has sent a clear message" that improvements are needed to assure better security and safety at the NNSA facilities including the weapons labs.
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