U.S. Buys Back
Supercomputer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy
Department's Sandia National Laboratory last week bought
back a supercomputer it had sold as surplus to Korber
Jiang, a Chinese citizen who is the principle of EHI Group
USA and exports American goods to his home country.
Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., called Friday for Energy
Secretary Bill Richardson's resignation, saying that the
computer could have been used ``to design nuclear
weapons.''
``He's going around the country saying
there are no problems in the Department of Energy, that
everything is under control,'' Weldon said in a telephone
interview. ``If there are no problems, then how can this
happen?''
Neal Singer, a spokeswoman for Sandia
National Laboratories, said that the New Mexico facility
sold the Intel Paragon XPS to Korber's one-man company for
$30,000 in October. After discovering Korber's
nationality, Singer said, the department bought back the
computer for $88,000 last week and stored it under guard
at Sandia. The spokesman said the difference in cost
may have been due to shipping costs incurred by Korber.
``Secretary Richardson has instituted a
moratorium on any sales of surplus material that
incorporates export control technology until there has
been a thorough review of what happened,'' said Energy
Department spokeswoman Brooke Anderson. The
transaction was first reported by Insight Magazine.
