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Corruption Scandal Rocks Los Alamos Lab
An anonymous reader writes "In the wake of recent science fraud stories involving
Bell Labs and Berkeley National Labs, a new scandal is now brewing
at Los Alamos National Lab. Today (Jan 3, 2003),
the New York Times is reporting
that both the Director and Principal Deputy
Director of Los Alamos have submitted their resignations under duress.
A more detailed and earlier CBS News report here . POGO has an archive of related documents
here.
I recommend you visit POGO.org (Project
On Government Oversight), a wonderful non-profit organization dedicated
to fighting fraud and waste in the US government."
Here is the google news link to the article .
Or read all the coverage on google news here
I hope these directors don't become so disgruntled that they take our nuke secrets elsewhere. Next thing you know, the capital of my state (Cheyenne, Wyoming) will be wiped off the map -- F.E. Warren Air Force Base is located there, and it's the first base in the world to house ICBM's.
Where did this come from? Mini-nukes? Mini-nukes don't seem to be the issue. My impression attitude of the lab to the bunker-buster program was that it was quite positive because it was such a large project that fits into the mission of the lab. The lab wanted the project.
The article in the NY Times indicates that it was the response of the laboratory leadership to the investigations into the problems with the property, credit card and purchase order accounting that caused Brown and the deputy director to resign. The article read in such a way as to indicate that there was a pretty feeble attempt at a coverup, which was exposed.
There are significant problems with property accounting at Los Alamos. During my time at Los Alamos as a postdoctoral research associate, we had 1 person responsible for accounting for the property in our division. He couldn't keep up with everything going on and there was a lot of hostility to him doing his job. I suspect other divisions were similar.
The credit card system gets so much abuse because it is used so damn much. You can't get anything in a reasonable amount of time by going through the official channels of purchase orders through the appropriate group. If you need something in a timely manner, you find a secretary with a credit card. I suspect that a lot of the problems stem from the fact that they are buying so much stuff that they lose track of what's going on. Slipping in a bogus purchase gets easy when there's so much activity. If you can get away with it once, go back for seconds.
Don't even get me started on the theft of equipment. Our group lost tools by the ton as well as larger ticket items, like air compressors. The air compressor was even chained down. This kind of theft goes on so often it is sickening.
It is unlikely that the resignations are going to alter things significantly, but the odds of improving the situation are better than if things had been left as they were. Personally, I'm hopeful that the lab can straighten some of this out.
No argument there; from the Physicians for Social Responsibility Activist Update:
See, the problem is, mini-nukes are illegal. The Regents of the University of California tend to appoint people to their labs who are accountable to the law. Since Spencer Abraham couldn't get Browne and Salgado to look the other way and go ahead on the project under wraps, he called them to the carpet on $141,000 worth of barbeque grills. That 's nothing! "As of March 31, 2002, approximately 8,000 Air Force cardholders had over $5 million in delinquent debt" on the travel cards, the GAO said.