ninme

The Times - If Los Alamos is secure, I’m an A-bomb
LA Notebook: amazing stories are emerging about the security and safety of an atom bomb factory, by Chris Ayres

[A]fter 20 years and $350 million, scientists at the vast 40 sq mile atom bomb factory in the New Mexico [Los Alamos] desert finally plugged in and switched on a brain-meltingly complex new X-ray machine known as the dual-axis radiographic hydrotest facility (DARHT, for short). Instead of doing what it was supposed to - scanthe vast stockpile of nuclear warheads at Los Alamos to see if any of them need repairing - the contraption somehow X-rayed itself, causing part of it to blow up.

I mention this because Los Alamos, operated by a consortium that includes the University of California, has been much on my mind lately, largely because of the suicide of the bioweapons specialist Bruce Ivins, accused of masterminding the terrifying anthrax attacks of 2001. Before the attacks, Ivins had been treated with antipsychotic medication and had confessed to a colleague in an e-mail: “I get incredible paranoid, delusional thoughts at times, and there’s nothing I can do until they go away.” Yes, that’s right: one of the chief scientists in a programme designed to kill millions using a weaponised disease was as mad as a box of frogs. Yet no one - including his shrink, or the colleague in which he confided - seemed to think that was much of a biggie.

Yes! YES!!!