After "Fort Knox" break-in, U.S. nuclear stockpile security in focus

[Ghareeb_Da_Baal]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A shocking security breach at what was supposed to be one of the most secure facilities in the United States has put new attention on a proposal to overhaul the way the government oversees its nuclear laboratories and weapons plants.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved a plan to give more flexibility to the contractor-run facilities that make up the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, part of its annual defense policy bill passed in May.
The governance reforms were geared to address a long legacy of cost overruns and overly bureaucratic management highlighted in several bipartisan reports on the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is part of the Energy Department.
But some critics say the proposals need a second look in the wake of a July break-in at the Y-12 facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, a contractor-run facility built after the September 11, 2001 al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, once touted as "the Fort Knox of uranium" because of its security features.
Three aging anti-nuclear activists, including an 82-year-old nun, cut through fences surrounding a facility where highly enriched uranium, a key component of nuclear bombs, is stored. They vandalized its exterior, going unstopped until they walked up to a security guard's car and surrendered.
"It seems to me this is a great case study of the fact that what you want is more government oversight," said Peter Stockton, an investigator with the Project on Government Oversight who has extensively studied nuclear security issues.
The incident and the broader issue of government oversight will be in focus on Capitol Hill this week when top Energy Department and NNSA officials testify at the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday and the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday.
The changes proposed in the defense policy bill would give the NNSA more independence from the Energy Department, cut staff at the NNSA, give more authority to contractors, and change the way the NNSA reviews contractors' work to "performance-based standards" rather than "detailed, transaction-based oversight."
The White House said in May that it "strongly objects" to the changes in the House version of the bill, which it said would weaken oversight of contractors and lower safety standards for the nuclear weapons complex.
The Senate Armed Services Committee did not include similar reforms in its version of the bill. The Senate has not taken up the legislation, which is not expected to move through Congress until after the November 6 presidential election.
LEGACY OF POOR MANAGEMENT
The Energy Department's Inspector General found multiple failures of sophisticated security systems and "troubling displays of ineptitude" in a review of what happened at Y-12.
The government budgeted about $150 million for security at the facility, which is run by Babcock & Wilcox Co with security provided by contractor WSI Oak Ridge, owned by international security firm G4S.
The investigation into the Y-12 incident found that security officers failed to follow protocol, and also noted that a security camera that would have shown the break-in had been broken for about six months, part of a backlog of repairs needed for security systems at the facility.
The NNSA and its contractors removed some staff and supervisors and the government told Babcock & Wilcox last month that its contract could be terminated.
The NNSA, created in 2000 after a national laboratory employee was accused of stealing nuclear secrets for China, has had a long struggle with containing costs.
The Government Accountability Office last year said the Energy Department's "record of inadequate management and oversight of contractors has left the department vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement."
About 40 percent or $11 billion of the department's total budget goes to the NNSA, which oversees a network of eight government-owned laboratories and facilities run by contractors.
A bipartisan task force in 2009 recommended a governance overhaul to fix problems created by an "excessively bureaucratic" culture.
The laboratories have chafed under what they call redundant and "overly prescriptive" government rules that they say waste scarce resources.
In April, the directors of the three weapons labs issued a series of recommendations to overhaul governance, giving the labs more flexibility and cutting back on NNSA oversight.
"Many reports by independent committees have found the micromanagement of the NNSA labs is debilitating and costly, and other reports have called for increased oversight," the directors said in their recommendations.
"While these findings appear to be in opposition, one conclusion is clear - the governance of the NNSA labs is broken and must be changed," they said.
(Editing by Warren Strobel and Eric Walsh)
By Roberta Rampton | Reuters – http://news.yahoo.com/fort-knox-break-u-nuclear-stockpile-security-focus-050116431--finance.html

 

[RazorMC]

Couldn't find sources on this one.

 

[Arsalan]

Couldn't find sources on this one.

Here it is:

U.S. nuclear bomb facility shut after security breach
The U.S. government's only facility for handling, processing and storing weapons-grade uranium has been temporarily shut after anti-nuclear activists, including an 82-year-old nun, breached security fences, government officials said on Thursday.

WSI Oak Ridge, the contractor responsible for protecting the facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is owned by the international security firm G4S, which was at the center of a dispute over security at the London Olympic Games.

Officials said the facility was shut down on Wednesday at least until next week after three activists cut through perimeter fences to reach the outer wall of a building where highly enriched uranium, a key nuclear bomb component, is stored.

The activists painted slogans and threw what they said was human blood on the wall of the facility, one of numerous buildings in the facility known by the code name Y-12 that it was given during World War Two, officials said.

While moving between the perimeter fences, the activists triggered sensors that alerted security personnel. But officials conceded the intruders were still able to reach the building's walls before security personnel got to them.

Ellen Barfield, a spokeswoman for the activists who called themselves "Transform Now Plowshares," said three were arrested and charged with vandalism and criminal trespass.

She said the three, identified as Megan Rice, 82, Michael Walli, 63 and Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, were being held in custody and appeared for a hearing before a U.S. magistrate judge in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Thursday.

A detention hearing is set for Friday afternoon, when prosecutors must show the defendants are a flight risk and a danger to the community in order to keep them in custody, according to court officials. The trial date is October 9.

Barfield forwarded a statement from the group in which it said the activists had passed through four fences and walked for "over two hours" before reaching the uranium storage building, on which they hung banners and strung crime-scene tape.

Ralph Hutchinson, coordinator for the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, said the group's intention was not to demonstrate the lack of security at the plant, but to take a stance against the making of nuclear weapons.

"It wasn't so they could show how easy it was to bust into this bomb plant, it was because the production of nuclear weapons violates everything that is moral and good," Hutchinson said. "It is a war crime."

NUCLEAR MATERIALS 'NOT COMPROMISED'

Officials said that the storage building itself, which was built after the September 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, was designed with modern security features and that its contents were not compromised.

WSI Oak Ridge, the private firm employed by the U.S. Department of Energy to provide security at Y-12, is a subsidiary of the giant international security firm G4S.

G4S drew criticism for failing to provide the number of security personnel it promised to protect the London Olympic Games, forcing the British government to deploy extra army troops.

A spokeswoman for G4S declined to comment and referred inquiries to government spokespeople.

The security failure was an embarrassment both for the security firm and for the National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, the Energy Department branch that operates U.S. nuclear weapons plants. "It was obviously a pretty serious incident," NNSA spokesman Joshua McConaha told Reuters.

"We're taking this very, very seriously," added Steve Wyatt, a spokesman for the NNSA office in Oak Ridge, which supervises the activities of Y-12 contractors.

The NNSA officials said the activists cut through two chain-link fences surrounding the sprawling facility and a third fence surrounding the ultra-secure enriched uranium stockpile building, known as the "Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility."

Wyatt said the building served as the U.S. government's only "warehouse" for storing highly enriched uranium used in nuclear weapons.

Highly enriched uranium is a radioactive material used in the core of bombs to produce a nuclear detonation. The Oak Ridge plant is one of the most important government installations involved in the maintenance and production of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

INCIDENT REVEALED NUCLEAR RISKS

Although the security breach occurred overnight last Friday, officials confirmed that the shutdown - which applies to "all nuclear operations" at the Y-12 site - did not begin until Wednesday. Officials said it was expected to continue into next week.

In the meantime, personnel at the facility would be given additional security training.

Peter Stockton, a former congressional investigator and security consultant to the Energy Department, expressed skepticism at government assertions the nuclear material was not at risk.

"It is unbelievable this could happen," Stockton said. "The significance is outrageous. If they were terrorists, they could have blown open the door and got inside."

Stockton said the security breach was the "worst we've ever seen." He said it was more serious than the case of Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwan-born scientist who was suspected of espionage at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. He pleaded guilty in 2000 to a less severe charge when the case against him collapsed.

U.S. nuclear bomb facility shut after security breach | Reuters

 

[user1]

There is more from the past:

The Cold War's Missing Atom Bombs

By Benjamin Maack

In a 1968 plane crash, the US military lost an atom bomb in Greenland's Arctic ice. But this was no isolated case. Up to 50 nuclear warheads are believed to have gone missing during the Cold War, and not all of them are in unpopulated areas.

A Nuclear Needle in a Haystack: The Cold War's Missing Atom Bombs - SPIEGEL ONLINE

Then, there was this incident:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_nuclear_weapons_incident

And they are concerned about the safety of Pakistani nukes. They need to bring their house in order first.