Issues with Department of Energy’s Security

• Limited manpower and resources to deal with a terrorist attack
• No sniper teams – No breaching team
• The dog and doghandlers are subcontracted and qualifications are limited and questionable.
• We have no night vision devices, no scope-mounted weapons, no armored vehicles, 46 no equipment or suits for biological warfare47 – and very little training in dealing with biological warfare.
  Outer perimeter of facility has virtually non-existent patrols.48
• [Name redacted] is head of the tactical response over Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  Although he has worked at his [sic] facility for a number of years, he has no background in military or law enforcement training.
• We take no oath of allegiance in nuclear security, while law enforcement and military have an oath of allegiance.
  The men and women who protect our nations [sic] nuclear stockpile could be a vital resource by making us federalized officers. [Emphasis in original] (Appendix G)

Overtime For Profit

Throughout POGO’s investigation, we have been informed by numerous sources that Wackenhut security guards are forced to work excessive overtime at Y-12. In some cases, guards worked more than 70 or 80 hours per week, resulting in extreme fatigue. POGO also learned that Wackenhut had refused to hire additional guards. In February 2006, the DOE IG issued a report concluding that the Wackenhut contract included an incentive to increase overtime. In 2005 alone, the overtime worked by the guards resulted in an additional profit of $1.8 million for Wackenhut.49

Two Decades of Cheating

In June 2003, Y-12 conducted a force-on-force exercise, but the results were too good to be true. Computer simulations conducted prior to the exercises indicated that the guard force would lose two of the attacks decisively. However, Wackenhut had received advanced information on the scenarios enabling its guard force to cheat on the test.  In January 2004, the DOE IG investigated the incident, and found that the test was “tainted and unreliable.” The IG also found that Wackenhut and its predecessors had been cheating in force-on-force drills at Y-12 for over two decades.  According to the IG report, the force-on-force tests at Y-12 were estimated to cost $50,000 to $85,000 each – taxpayer dollars that were wasted because the tests reflected what Wackenhut wanted DOE to see rather than the actual state of security.50

Failed Security Tests

In late 2003, Y-12 failed a force-on-force test in a performance that was described by sources as “ugly.”51 In the test, Y-12 could not protect the site or its HEU. The failure was so embarrassing, DOE needed a scapegoat and replaced the federal assistant manager in charge of security at Y-12. However, no action was taken against Wackenhut, the security contractor responsible for security.

In March 2005, DOE Director of Security and Safety Performance Assurance Glenn Podonsky testified before Congress that,

Our three most recent Independent Oversight inspections at NNSA sites (Sandia National Laboratories-New Mexico, Y-12, and Nevada Test Site) identified some common implementation problems, including insufficient frequency of large scale force-on-force performance testing/exercises and inadequate weapons and equipment to fully deal with today’s threat (e.g., armored vehicles, anti-armor weapons, weapons with high rates of fire).... Y-12 exhibited significant deficiencies in most major protection program elements.52

Also in 2005, DOE Headquarters tested security at Y-12 again. Both the government and the security contractor claimed that the force-on-force was a great success. However, POGO later found that the protective force lost at least one attack decisively – a theft scenario during which the “adversaries” successfully entered a building and stole the mock HEU. One DOE official told POGO that they were “disappointed” in the results.

A Near-Miss

In September 2004, during a force-on-force exercise, an alarm went off during the drill, causing Wackenhut to believe a real attack was taking place. In response, Wackenhut released armed guards with loaded machine guns who came within seconds of firing upon the unarmed guards involved in the security test.53 The potential “friendly-fire” incident was averted just seconds before it occurred.54 As described in an anonymous letter slipped under the door of the guard force union, “In closin[g] this was as close to a near fatal situation as Y-12 has ever seen. [In] Wackenhut’s rush to prepare for upcoming audits, it placed its own police officers in harms way, and narrowly escaped what could have been a deadly mistake.” POGO wrote an op-ed in The Oak Ridger describing the efforts by Wackenhut to cover up the incident and to retaliate against the security officers who had disclosed it. (Appendix H)

Refrigerator Shooting

Also in September 2004, a Wackenhut guard fired a weapon accidentally loaded with some live ammunition (instead of the dummy rounds that were supposed to be used) during a training exercise in Y-12's cafeteria. The bullet went through a refrigerator and a wall, and ended up hitting a filing cabinet in the next room. Luckily, nobody was hit by the bullet.55

These security debacles have called into question the capacity of security contractor Wackenhut to protect the site.  Despite an unusually bad track record, it appears that little or nothing has been done to hold Wackenhut accountable for these failures. In fact, Wackenhut got an “outstanding” performance rating from the NNSA and a $3.26 million award fee.56 Currently, the DOE is considering whether to grant this contract to another contractor.

Combat Effectiveness

The security debacles and the force-on-force failures raise concerns because, if guards fail to keep terrorists from entering the facility during a real attack, it would be difficult if not impossible to regain control of the facility. Military doctrine states that when casualties exceed 20%, forces become combat ineffective due to loss of command and communications, and because of basic squad-sized tactical deficiencies. An Army Special Forces Commander wrote:

Under the current security posture, an unacceptable percentage of guards would be killed in the initial surprise attack and fire fight. In fact, Y-12's security plan estimates that at least 50% of the facility’s guard force would be killed during a terrorist attack.57 At that point, according to combat veterans, it is unlikely that any further offensive action to recapture the facility by the protective force would be possible.

It is important to understand that performance (force-on-force) tests do not reflect the three major advantages held by terrorists: surprise, speed, and violence of action. Furthermore, in force-on-force tests using Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) weapons laser-simulation equipment, protective force guards exhibit unrealistic bravery. In one test, 14 protective force members were “killed” at the entrance of a building, yet the others continued to enter despite the danger. This phenomenon is known as “MILES bravery.”  With live ammunition flying, combat veterans have told POGO, this is totally unrealistic. POGO is not questioning the bravery of the protective force guards, but believes that the false sense of security should be taken into account when evaluating security test performances.

Y-12's Strategy And Armaments

Strategy

During POGO’s visit to Y-12, its investigators were briefed about the facility’s strategy to deny terrorists access to the targets containing HEU. The investigators were told that this strategy was to deploy Special Response Teams (SRTs) on the targets containing HEU, such as vaults and cages, in order to delay the terrorists from gaining access to those targets, and to utilize Security Police Officers-II (SPO 2s) to move quickly in a hunt-and-destroy mission. Because SPO 2s are not trained or armed to the degree as the SRTs, who are equipped and trained with SWAT capabilities, Y-12's delay strategy is clearly backwards. The SPO 2s should be deployed on the stationery targets to delay the attackers, and the better-armed and better-trained SRTs should be able to move from target to target in the mission to kill the terrorists. (Appendix J)

POGO hopes that the current strategy has been changed.

Armaments

The intelligence community has concluded that, if terrorists attack nuclear facilities, they would do so using the most advanced and lethal weapons available. Yet, Y-12 guards are not equipped with the essential weapons they need to counter the tactics and weapons of the postulated adversaries. Y-12 displayed the weapons deployed at the plant during a visit by POGO in September 2005. These weapons were mostly semiautomatic – rather than automatic – rifles, and did not include sniper rifles or 50-caliber machine guns. In addition, the protective force had no explosive breaching capability. In a suicidal attack, it is expected that terrorists might attempt to barricade themselves inside a critical facility with nuclear materials. In order to root them out, the protective force would need to be able to blow off the doors of the facility or breach the side of the building, something they are currently not equipped to do.

Another defensive system is the remotely operated weapons system (ROWS). Officials at Y-12 claim to have deployed two ROWS inside a target building at Y-12, which we believe to be the wooden building storing the majority of the site’s highly enriched uranium. However, Army Special Operations personnel advised POGO that ROWS are of limited value. If they are deployed outside, they can be destroyed with a 50-caliber sniper rifle. If they are deployed inside, “they are just another target.” Y-12 admits that, when deployed inside, the ROWS can be neutralized with grenades or even flash-bangs58 – which can blind the weapons’ sensors – meaning that when the visuals come back up, operators would not be able to distinguish between the protective force and the attackers.  Special Response Teams (SRT) at Y-12 are particularly concerned about this potential friendly-fire problem. Furthermore, the reliability of ROWS is also of concern. When Y-12 demonstrated the ROWS for POGO at their training center, it malfunctioned twice: once it would not fire, the second time the monitors went dead.

The Problematic Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility

In order to bolster its security, Y-12 has begun a long-overdue plan to build a storage facility, known as the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF). The facility will be used to consolidate the majority of nuclear materials from the Material Access Areas (MAAs), the five59 buildings storing weapons-quantities of highly enriched uranium. Below is a list of the six original target buildings, the HEUMF, a proposed new Uranium Processing Facility (UPF), and DOE’s schedule to consolidate the Y-12 material into the HEUMF and UPF. (See Figure 4.)

Until five years ago, when Lockheed Martin still managed Y-12, the plan had called for a partially underground or “bermed” storage facility. Virtually all modern nuclear weapons and nuclear material storage facilities are underground, including the Device Assembly Facility at the Nevada Test Site and the KUMSC nuclear storage facility at Kirtland Air Force Base. U.S. Special Operations Command personnel have told POGO that an underground design is the only credible one because an above-ground facility is substantially more vulnerable to many more and simpler attack scenarios. An underground facility would be much harder to penetrate and would serve as a greater deterrent to terrorists. Yet in 2001, BWXT – the current contractor – changed the plan for an underground or bermed facility to that of an above-ground facility. In the spring of 2005, BWXT’s then-president, Dennis Ruddy, told POGO that the above-ground design is far more secure than any proposed underground or bermed facility. He claimed that the specifics were classified, so could not defend his position.60

The DOE IG criticized the design and cost of the new plan for the building, concluding that it would be more expensive and less secure than the original plan. Originally, the bermed facility was estimated to cost $97 million.61 The cost of the new, less secure design increased to $144 million, then to $313 million,62 with the contractor now estimating that the cost of the HEUMF is up to $500 million.63 In his report, DOE Inspector General Gregory H. Friedman wrote that the new design will have: