Bill Richardson Sharpens His Ax

WASHINGTON: Bill Richardson says he's already closed the barn door on the nation's nuclear labs -- now it's time to slaughter some lambs. "There were communications breakdowns. There were incompetent acts, security was not considered important," Richardson said on NBC's "Meet the Press," one stop of several on the Sunday talk-show circuit for the Department of Energy chief who's now in charge of cleaning up after six years of alleged administration foot-dragging on Chinese nuclear espionage. And although Richardson also urged an end to "scapegoating, looking for heads to roll," he's got his eye on a few necks himself -- demotions and dismissals, he said, will begin this week.

For those whose jobs are safe, simple finger-pointing will do. Edward Curran, an ex-FBI man who now directs the Energy Department's counterintelligence office, said on ABC's "This Week" that the feds sent 26 recommendations on improving security to Senate intelligence committee chairman Richard Shelby back in 1997 -- and never heard back. Shelby, appearing later on the same show, shot back that the committee had promptly signed off on them, and it was the DOE that dropped the ball. It was left to New Jersey senator Robert Torricelli, the administration's chief Democratic critic, to referee -- it was not proper, he said, for Curran "to engage in a game of blame between the Congress and the executive branch." Obviously, that's a game Congress prefers to play alone.