Much is being made in the media about the investigation into former Clinton National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger's breach of security protocol. It is evident that the story is the result of a calculated leak, but while it is consuming political oxygen, it seems worthwhile to consider some of the other security lapses that might be more deserving of all this attention.
It goes without saying that who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to Bob Novak might be more worthy of scrutiny, but it that case there is a significant campaign of misdirection that, if not fully successful in changing the subject has at least got a lot of people asking the wrong questions.
Then, of course, there is the question of who might have told Ahmed Chalabi that the US had broken secret codes used by Iran. Or what else, for that matter, they might have told him.
What has received considerably less attention, however, is the fact that Los Alamos National Laboratory has apparently lost two portable disk drives containing classified information about US nuclear weapons. All classified work has been suspended at the lab, and twenty scientists have had their security clearances suspended.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham issued this statement Tuesday. The Washington Post describes the statement as "harshly worded," but it reads like so much bureaucratese to me. I guess it is unfair of me to expect the Energy Secretary's language to reflect an appropriate level of alarm that OUR NUCLEAR SECRETS ARE MISSING!
Meanwhile, stay tuned for more speculation about whether Berger put documents in his pockets, or stuffed them in his socks.
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