REBUTTAL -- Rep. Christopher Cox

A recent Letter to the Editor made three allegations about the

unanimous, bipartisan report of the Select Committee on U.S. National

Security which I chaired, each of which is in serious error.

First, the writer wrongly criticized the report for charging that

“theft of our nation’s top weapons secrets” was committed by a

“supposedly diabolical man named Wen Ho Lee.” The report made no such

charge.

In fact, neither the classified nor the unclassified version of the

report even mentioned Wen Ho Lee. There was good reason for this: no

member of the Select Committee had ever heardof him.

The Clinton administration’s public identification of Lee (who was

then merely a suspect) in the months following the release of the Select

Committee report was an irresponsible political move, intended to make it

seem as if there were a “quick fix” to the security problems at our

national weapons laboratories.

The administration’s further misfeasance during his investigation and

trial corrupted what should have been a legitimate prosecution for

serious security violations (and any Pilot reader who doubts the severity

of those violations should consult Atty. General Janet Reno’s detailed

testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee this week, available at

o7 www.fbi.gov/pressrm/congress/congress00/wenholee.htmf7 ).

Second, the writer implies that the Select Committee was in error in

reporting that the People’s Republic of China stole classified

information on U.S. nuclear warheads. That conclusion has been repeatedly

affirmed, and (unhappily) stands as true today as at the end of 1998,

when the committee finished its work. It has most recently been validated

by a formal CIA damage assessment.

Third, the writer falsely states that I have been silent on the

government’s abuses in the Lee case (“I don’t recall hearing anything

from Cox,” the letter stated). In fact, when Energy Secretary Bill

Richardson publicly discharged Lee from his job in 1999, I criticized it

as un-American (Lee was then only a suspect, and the government lacked

sufficient evidence to indict him).

I also warned against a looming “Richard Jewell” problem -- that is,

trial and conviction in the press. My comments were widely reported in

the national media (although not in the Pilot or the Los Angeles Times)

and have been reprised as recently as Sept. 17 on 60 Minutes and Sept. 25

in The Orange County Register.

The Select Committee drew much needed attention to security problems

at the national weapons laboratories and made 28 recommendations that

have been enacted into law and implemented in the executive branch. The

most important of these reforms was the creation of the new National

Nuclear Security Administration, which has taken responsibility for

weapons security from the dysfunctional Department of Energy.

As recurring security lapses such as the missing hard drives at Los

Alamos have illustrated, the problems identified by the bipartisan Select

Committee are quite real. One problem that was neither created nor

commented upon by the Select Committee, however, is the Clinton

administration’s mishandling of the Wen Ho Lee case.

* CHRISTOPHER COX represents the 47th Congressional District, which

includes much of Newport Beach, in the U.S. House of Representatives.