Bush Says U.S. Secrets Would Be Safe Under Him

Bush Says U.S. Secrets Would Be Safe Under Him

Vowing to end a "sorry chapter" of security lapses at U.S. nuclear laboratories, Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush said on Saturday U.S. secrets would be safe in his administration.

"America's national security should not be a matter of lost and found," the Texas governor told a veterans' conference in the central Florida city of Kissimmee.

Bush criticized the administration of President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, his Democratic rival in the Nov. 7 White House election, for "confusion and chaos" at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico that has resulted in mishaps involving top-secret nuclear information.

On Friday, two computer hard drives, containing nuclear secrets that disappeared at Los Alamos last month, resurfaced under questionable circumstances in a secure area within the facility.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said the site -- the so-called X Division -- was being treated by the FBI as a crime scene. The location where the hard drives were found previously had been searched by investigators.

The drives contained highly sensitive technical information on nuclear weapons design, including details on U.S., Russian, Chinese and French systems. Officials have not ruled out the possibility of espionage.

In a speech to a 700-strong audience at the Florida State Convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Bush pledged to re-secure U.S. labs, but did not say how he planned to do it.

"I'll bring this sorry chapter to a close,'' he said. "In my administration, our national labs will be secure again, our vital information will be sealed again, our nuclear secrets will be secret again."

U.S. government officials said the computer hard drives suddenly turned up under questionable circumstances and Richardson told reporters there were "inconsistencies'' that were being probed concerning the missing hard drives.