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Insight on the News - Daily Insight
Issue: 03/25/02
Sneak Preview II
By Martin Edwin Andersen and Paul M. Rodriguez
U.S. Nuclear Security May Be Compromised
In a redux of the arrest of Wen Ho Lee two years ago, Insight has learned FBI agents
secretly swooped into the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in late
February concerning a Pakistani scientist working on a supersecret nuclear-research
project. "The ramifications of this are quite significant," says one of two sources who
have confirmed the story. This has set off alarm bells at the highest levels in the
intelligence community and at the White House. Department of Energy officials had
no comment.
The compromised system is known as the Nuclear Weapons Information Program
(NWIP). It was mentioned publicly in a 1995 LLNL Website press release that
described it as a series of upgrades to the lab's computer systems to make it easier
for scientists to coordinate and share information.
Insight is told that this was like revealing that there's a stealth fighter but
concealing
how it is built and what secrets are aboard.
"This is one of the most classified projects on Earth given what its mission is," says
a
well-placed source. In essence, say Insight sources, it is the single repository of all
U.S. knowledge concerning every aspect of U.S. nuclear arsenals, capabilities,
weaknesses, developments, strategy and new technologies. This includes even the
living memories of scientists involved in the U.S. nuclear-weapons program — a sort
of detailed oral history of everything anyone knows or remembers about the program.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is said to be stunned by the possibilities raised
by the allegations and furious that sloppy security may have compromised the
nation's most sensitive project. That is, the assembly of virtually every single U.S.
nuclear secret into one computer system.
The suspect, who may even have become a U.S. citizen, only recently popped up as
a security threat following discovery of potentially compromising family ties. "The
Paki had been under surveillance for an unspecified period of time," a source tells
Insight. "The FBI counterintelligence didn't want to make the same kind of mistake it
had made with [Felix Bloch] who was caught in the mid-1990s spying at the State
Department." Bloch was nabbed before the FBI could confirm the identity of his
suspected handlers and contacts. Nor did it want to risk the sort of investigative
gaffes committed at the Los Alamos nuclear facility when it targeted Chinese-
American scientist Wen Ho Lee.
Investigators in the Livermore case conducting routine security sweeps are said to
have discovered that their Pakistani suspect had engaged in suspicious activities that
were registered by classified computer logs. This portion of the investigation was
confirmed by a civilian source familiar both with the U.S. nuclear-weapons program
and the incident.
"It is being treated as a high-level security investigation," one of the sources says,
asking like some others not to be publicly named. Of apparent concern is that the
Pakistani scientist had not revealed — or not revealed sufficiently — family ties in
Pakistan, where some family members allegedly work for that country's intelligence
agency, the ISI.
"When we found out about this it set off alarm bells everywhere" because of U.S.
intelligence suspicions that elements within the ISI actively supported and protected
the Taliban in Afghanistan and helped to train al-Qaeda terrorists and other
supporters of Osama bin Laden. Indeed, rogue ISI factions are suspected of helping
terrorist groups after the Sept. 11 carnage.
The ISI also is reported to be in close communications with Chinese counterparts. In
recent years Pakistan has been a major ally of the People's Republic of China which,
according to U.S. intelligence and security chieftains, has helped Pakistan develop
modern nuclear weapons. Hence the alarm about alleged linkage between the
Livermore scientist and family ties to ISI.
Though word about the arrest is being closely guarded both in Washington and
California, there remains significant concern about other security problems in the
eastern Bay area where Lawrence Livermore is located — not to mention generally
within the family of U.S. nuclear laboratories. One reason for increased concern
involving Livermore is the fact that it is located amid one of the largest Arab
populations in the world outside of the Middle East. U.S. officials are taking care to
keep it from becoming the target of a terrorist act.
In fact, according to federal law-enforcement sources, the FBI confirmed last
summer to security and civilian chiefs at LLNL that the nuclear laboratory there was a
prime target of bin Laden's terrorist network even before the tragic events of Sept.
11.
The warning from the FBI followed a bizarre discovery last summer by security staff
at Camp Parks, a mothballed military base patrolled by federal police and within 10
miles of Lawrence Livermore. Two sources tell Insight that during a routine patrol
federal officers discovered what appeared to be a terrorist "drop site" or storage area
in one of the hills near the base.
This discovery included two double-wide filing cabinets of three or four
compartments each that contained top-secret documents taken from the labs, maps,
photos, Iranian passports and literature from the Islamic Jihad, an officially cited
terrorist group. Also in the cache were photos of two labs, which suggested to
investigators that the research facilities "were being cased."
Anthony Kimery also contributed to this report.
email Martin Edwin Andersen
email Paul M. Rodriguez
End<{{{~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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