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  Table of Contents
Section A: Section C: Glossary
Foreword
"And we will operate from a few basic principles. First, candor. No one should be wary of coming forward when they see a problem. It's the only way to define a solution. The urgency of our task dictates candor about our challenges and confidence in our ability to solve them."
Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, October 8, 2001 This report presents the results of an eight-month investigation initiated when more than a dozen insiders contacted POGO with unclassified evidence that the U.S. Department of Energy's nuclear bomb complex is vulnerable to terrorist attack. We were in the final stages of editing on September 11th. We immediately took our information to policy-makers, briefing the National Security Council, the Pentagon and Congressional Committees. During that process, our report was made public and began to receive media attention. Because of the extraordinary demand for this report, we are now making it available on POGO's website. Executive Summary The Department of Energy (DOE) analyzes and tests the security of nuclear weapons facilities by conducting simulations and mock force-on-force exercises, often using U.S. military forces as adversaries. The government requires that nuclear facilities be able to defend against theft of nuclear materials or radiological sabotage by a few terrorists using surprise and readily available weapons and explosives, as well as against the theft of nuclear secrets.According to experts who have conducted these tests in the past, the government fails to protect against these attacks more than 50% of the time - although the exact figure is classified. For example, in a test at the Rocky Flats nuclear production facility, Navy SEALs successfully "stole" enough material to make multiple nuclear weapons. In a test at a Los Alamos facility, the "terrorists" had enough time to construct an Improvised Nuclear Device. In addition, the theft of nuclear secrets remains as possible today as it was several years ago before the controversy over the downloading of classified information at Los Alamos. DOE employees and others who have raised security concerns have largely been ignored and subjected to retaliation over many years. This report details several case studies of whistleblowers being fired, being forced to resign, losing contracts or losing security responsibilities because they were unwilling to quietly accept the inadequate security measures at DOE nuclear facilities. In one example, in a desperate attempt to raise public awareness last year about these problems, a DOE employee faxed two unclassified Inspector General reports to USA Today and the Washington Post, which highlighted the Department's failure to take corrective measures. His security clearance was suspended and he is no longer working on security issues. DOE's disregard for proven threats to nuclear security and its institutional bull-headedness has thwarted the efforts of reformers, time and time again. According to a review by Senator Warren Rudman, "scores of critical reports from the General Accounting Office (GAO), the intelligence community, independent commissions, private management consultants, its Inspector General, and its own security experts...the Department's ingrained behavior and values have caused it to continue to falter and fail." Ten major sites have weapons-grade plutonium (PU) and highly-enriched uranium (HEU) in sufficient quantities to make a nuclear device even though most of them have not had a national defense mission since the end of the Cold War. Several of these sites are located near major metropolitan areas including the Bay area of Northern California; Denver, Colorado; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Knoxville, Tennessee (see Metropolitan Areas Within 100 miles of Nuclear Weapons Facilities chart below). In addition, the DOE Transportation Safety Division regularly moves weapons-grade nuclear materials and nuclear weapons between facilities across the country. Because many tons of weapons-grade nuclear materials are at these facilities, a nuclear detonation at one of them would dwarf the impacts of Chernobyl, potentially kill or injure millions of Americans, and destroy the environment of a significant portion of the United States. The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has conducted a series of interviews and consultations with nuclear security and terrorism experts to identify the following major problems with nuclear facility security and their solutions: PROBLEM: Nuclear Materials Are Spread Across the Country. Weapons-quantity special nuclear materials are stored at 10 fixed sites even though most have virtually no national security mission. DOE cannot currently adequately protect this material, and security at each site unnecessarily increases redundancies and costs. Not only do the unnecessary sites cost the taxpayers billions annually, but they also present a significant health and safety risk to nearby communities.
PROBLEM: Bureaucracy Makes Security Tests Easier Rather than Fixing Problems. The DOE bureaucracy portrays facilities as being secure and impervious to terrorists and spies when, in fact, they are not.
PROBLEM: Independence in Nuclear Security is Lacking. The recently Congressionally-created National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) exacerbates the problem by elevating the same people who have managed this debacle over the last three decades.
PROBLEM: Computers Containing Nuclear Secrets Remain Vulnerable. It is virtually as easy today for a trusted "insider" to put weapons design information on a tape or disk and walk out the door as it was during the controversy at Los Alamos. All of our known spies have been insiders with the highest security clearances.
PROBLEM: DOE Security Forces Cut by 40%. According to a high-level DOE official, "Since 1992, the number of Protective Forces at DOE sites nationwide has decreased by almost 40% (from 5,640 to the current number of approximately 3,500) while the inventory of nuclear material has increased by 30%." The increase has resulted from the dismantling of nuclear weapons and the receipt of nuclear materials from the Former Soviet Union. During the same period the threat of terrorism has increased.
IntroductionThe chances that chemical, biological or nuclear terrorism will occur on U.S. soil over the next ten years "is 100%," according to Richard Clark, U.S. National Security Council National Coordinator for Infrastructure Protection and Counterterrorism for the Clinton and Bush White Houses. Over a dozen whistleblowers have contacted the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) with unclassified evidence that the U.S. nuclear bomb complex, containing tons of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, is vulnerable to a terrorist attack. The particular vulnerabilities discussed in this report have been addressed by the Department of Energy (DOE), thereby making them no longer classified. However, new as well as recurring vulnerabilities continue to plague DOE's nuclear security program. This evidence confirms the findings of multiple Presidential and DOE Commissions. Such an attack would endanger the health and safety of the communities near each site to levels in excess of the accidental release at Chernobyl. The DOE tests the security of these sites by conducting simulated and mock force-on-force exercises often using military forces as the adversary. The government requires that these sites be able to defend against theft of nuclear materials or radiological sabotage by a few terrorists using surprise and readily available weapons and explosives, as well as against the theft of nuclear secrets. According to experts who have conducted these tests in the past, the government fails to protect against these attacks more than 50% of the time - although the exact figure is classified. In addition, the theft of nuclear secrets remains as possible today as it was two years ago when controversy surrounded Los Alamos National Laboratory over the possible leaking of classified information. As a result of that controversy, in June of 1999, the Chair of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, former Senator Warren Rudman (R-NH) was asked to review security at the DOE nuclear weapons laboratories. Their report, "Science at its Best, Security at its Worst" was startlingly blunt in their criticism: ". . . the brilliant scientific breakthroughs at the nuclear weapons laboratories came with a very troubling record of security administration. . . . This report finds that DOE's performance, throughout its history, should have been regarded as intolerable." (Emphasis added) 1 More importantly, the Rudman report points out the longevity of these problems and the institutional hubris that continues to perpetuate them: "Second only to [DOE's] world-class intellectual feats has been its ability to fend off systemic change." Former Energy Secretary Richardson did much to promote institutional reform in the area of nuclear security, including bringing people in from outside the DOE bureaucracy to oversee nuclear security - specifically General Eugene Habiger and General John Gordon. However, Rudman points out that "the Department's bureaucracy is quite capable of undoing Secretary Richardson's reforms, and may well be inclined to do so." DOE's disregard for proven threats to nuclear security and its institutional bull-headedness has thwarted the efforts of reformers, time and time again. Regardless of "scores of critical reports from the General Accounting Office (GAO), the intelligence community, independent commissions, private management consultants, its Inspector General, and its own security experts . . .the Department's ingrained behavior and values have caused it to continue to falter and fail." The report goes on to emphasize this point:
Finally, the Rudman report states, "The panel has found that DOE and the weapons laboratories have a deeply rooted culture of low regard for and at times, hostility to security issues . . . The Department of Energy is a dysfunctional bureaucracy that has proven it is incapable of reforming itself. . ."2 Examples of Recent VulnerabilitiesIn October 2000, during a force-on-force drill at Los Alamos, New Mexico, the mock terrorists gained control of sensitive nuclear materials which, if detonated, would have endangered significant parts of New Mexico, Colorado and downwind areas. (Appendix A 4) In an earlier test at the same location, a U.S. Army Special Forces team was able to "steal" enough weapons-grade uranium for numerous nuclear weapons and was able to carry the extremely heavy material with the use of a Home Depot garden cart - throwing the protective forces into disarray. The DOE argued that this test attack was unfair. (Appendix A) In another exercise, Navy SEALs were able to make a hole in a chainlink fence surrounding Rocky Flats near Denver, Colorado, undetected and easily "stole" enough plutonium for several nuclear bombs. They were only discovered as they were successfully leaving the facility. The Department of Energy Transportation Security Division moves nuclear weapons, as well as weapons-grade uranium and plutonium, from site to site across the nation on public highways. Over the last several years, there have been exercises testing the security of this Division where the DOE security force failed to protect nuclear cargo because they had inadequate weapons and insufficient numbers, as well as poorly conceived tactics. Due to these insufficiencies, the protective forces were defeated in six out of seven exercises in December 1998. (Appendix B) In 1998, the Fall of 1999, and again in the Spring of 2000, two force-on-force exercises were run to test the Rocky Flats protective force. A "criticality alarm" - warning that a nuclear chain reaction is potentially imminent - was set off creating confusion, allowing the "terrorist" access to special nuclear materials. Such an alarm requires everyone to immediately leave the building. Hoping to "kill" the "adversaries" the protective force "indiscriminately shot" employees, controllers and each other as they were exiting the building in response to the alarm 5. The protective force count these tests as successes because they kill all the adversaries - although they also killed all the employees and several of the protective forces as well. (Appendix C) In addition to physical security, there also remain cyber security weaknesses. The major threat to the compromise of critical nuclear weapons information is the "trusted insider" - personnel with the highest security clearances. Voluminous amounts of information can be accessed quickly and easily. For example, a device the size of a Gameboy can download the equivalent of 1100 floppy discs off a computer in 3 minutes and 14 seconds. Another device called a memory stick, smaller than a stick of gum, can download the equivalent of 44 floppy disks in a couple of minutes. Incredibly, DOE has done virtually nothing effective to protect against the "insider" working on classified computers despite the many Congressional hearings and increased media scrutiny generated by the Los Alamos controversy 6. (Appendix D)
Background on DOE Duclear Weapons ComplexThe U.S. nuclear weapons complex managed by DOE is spread across the country. Ten major sites have weapons-grade plutonium (PU) and highly-enriched uranium (HEU) in sufficient quantities for a nuclear device. Several of these sites are located near major metropolitan areas with large populations. (See chart below.) In addition, the DOE's Transportation Safety Division (TSD) moves weapons-grade Special Nuclear Materials (SNM) across the country on interstate highways. Although the total inventory of PU and HEU is classified, according to "DOE Facts" sheets, there are 994 metric tons of HEU 7 and 33.5 metric tons of PU (Appendix F), excluding the PU inventories at Pantex which remain classified. According to the Nuclear Control Institute, it takes less than 50 pounds of HEU or PU to craft a crude nuclear device 8. In addition, there are significant quantities of completed nuclear weapons, and huge quantities of weapons in various stages of assembly and dismantlement - including those that have been stored for decades as a "war reserve" - that would be attractive to terrorists. The DOE (Appendix F) map shows the location of weapons-grade plutonium inventories. The eight sites identified with plutonium on the map, as well as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico, also hold highly enriched uranium inventories. Metropolitan Areas Within 100 miles of Nuclear Weapons Facilities 9
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U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex:
Summary
