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Nanos briefs media on recent CREM incident

Laboratory Direct G. Peter Nanos, University of California Vice President for Laboratory Management Bob Foley, UC President Robert Dynes and UC regents chair Gerald L. Parsky briefed news media on Thursday afternoon from the UC, San Francisco Laurel Heights campus on issues and concerns related to the recent Classified Removable Electronic Media incident at Los Alamos.

"What has happened at Los Alamos is intolerable – it is not acceptable," said Dynes. "The country has put its trust in us [UC and the Laboratory] and these breaches of that trust will not be tolerated."

"We are calling on President Dynes, Vice President Foley and [Los Alamos] Director Pete Nanos to correct the situation. From our standpoint, it appears that the issues have both to do with systems that have to be updated and improved, and they have to do with people. There has to be a cultural change at Los Alamos," said Parsky.

Nanos was in San Francisco Thursday to talk to the regents about the latest CREM incident.

Dynes and Parksy said they are planning a trip to the Laboratory within the next 30 days to monitor the progress and efforts by the Lab to correct and improve issues related to CREM.

"It’s an inward looking, inward-focused place [Los Alamos]," commented Foley. "We want to make sure everyone knows the rules, and if you don’t abide by them, you’re not going to work here."

When asked what the process was for tracking down the missing material, Nanos said, "First of all we need to find the disks, the chain of custody and what risks are associated with this incident and where it may have gone. And we are going to go through a period of assessing what may have happened in excruciating detail."

A reporter asked about what classified information might be on the disks. Nanos, continued by saying, "I will not comment on that …We have to protect the security of the nation that is why we cannot go into detail of what might have been on those disks.

"The life’s blood of the country has been halted," said Nanos in reference to the security stand-down at the Lab as a result of this latest CREM incident. " We will not bring back any area where we think things may be compromised."

"Los Alamos exists for national security, and it must respect that and it must hold in paramount its support for our [country’s] national security," said Dynes.

As part of the strategy to address recent CREM incidents at the Lab, Foley announced Thursday that UC has appointed Jack Killeen to the new position of University of California Office of the President special assistant for Los Alamos security, said Chris Harrington, a UC spokesman.

Killeen was general manager of Protection Technology Los Alamos but left in September 2003 to become general manager of the Nonproliferation and National Security Institute and the Department of Energy's Central Training Academy in Albuquerque.

--Ed Vigil

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