U.S.: Nuclear Plant Cheated During Drill

["Gerry Blackwood" <gpblackwood@justice.com>]

Its does not surprise me if true, though 90% of all

drills are known in advance and are more a PR stunt or

performed just to meet the code. Gerry





Today: January 27, 2004 at 6:50:12 PST 



U.S.: Nuclear Plant Cheated During Drill

By DUNCAN MANSFIELD

ASSOCIATED PRESS 



KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - 



Security guards at the nuclear weapons plant in Oak

Ridge stunned inspectors in June by successfully

repelling four simulated terrorist attacks - a feat

computer programs predicted wouldn't be done. 



That apparent success was tarnished, according to the

Energy Department: Employees of an outside security

contractor were tipped off about the impending

simulations, making the tests a costly waste of time. 



A broader investigation uncovered more evidence of

cheating during mock attacks at the plant over the past

two decades, including barricades being set up before

the test to alter the outcome and guards deviating from

the established response plan to improve their

performance. 



"There's no point in doing them if you have people who

are going to cheat," said Richard Clarke, a former

senior White House counterterrorism official. "That's

ridiculous. It kind of defeats the whole point of

having these tests." 



The department's inspector general, Gregory H.

Friedman, issued a report concluding the June drills at

the Y-12 nuclear facility were "tainted and unreliable"

because two guard supervisors from Wackenhut Corp. were

allowed to see computer simulations one day before the

attacks. 



Friedman's investigators also said they received

"compelling testimony" from more than 30 former and

current security officers at Oak Ridge that this was

part of "a pattern of actions ... going back to the

mid-1980s that may have negatively affected the

reliability of site performance testing." Each mock

attack cost as much as $85,000 to stage, Friedman said. 



The plant paid Wackenhut award fees of $2.2 million and

rated its work "outstanding" for the period through

July 2003. The cheating reported by the inspector

general had taken place just weeks earlier. 



A senior vice president for Wackenhut Services Inc.,

Jean Burleson, described details in the inspector

general's report as "old news," which he said "may or

may not have occurred." Burleson added: "There is no

impropriety right now going on. Security is better

today than it has ever been." 



Burleson acknowledged that two guard supervisors saw

the exercise plans the day before the drills. But he

said they were filling in for two absentee supervisors

who had reviewed the same material with other

supervisors two weeks before. The reason for the

advance review, the company argues, is that that

particular drill was not intended to be a surprise

drill but rather an exercise designed to improve

computer simulations of security measures. 



The National Nuclear Security Administration, an agency

within the Energy Department which protects nuclear

plants, said in a letter disclosed Monday that it

already has taken unspecified action. 



The inspector general said guards in another mock

attack in late 2000 or early 2001 were improperly told

which building would be attacked, the exact number of

attackers and where a diversion was being staged.

Investigators also said managers substituted their best

security guards for others scheduled to work the day of

attacks, and standby guards would sometimes be armed

and used to bolster existing security guards on duty. 



In other cases, security guards disabled laser sensors

they wore to determine whether they received a

simulated gunshot. Guards removed batteries,

deliberately installed batteries backward and covered

sensors with tape, mud or Vaseline so they wouldn't

operate properly. 



Such cheating is "not uncommon at all," said Ronald

Timm, president of RETA Security Inc. of Lemont, Ill.,

a consulting company that has worked with the Energy

Department to analyze vulnerabilities at its plants.

"Most security forces don't like to lose; they go

through great lengths to cheat to win. A loss is

considered a negative mark against them." 



Investigators said the claims they heard were based on

interviews with current and former guards, which they

described as "credible and compelling." But they

acknowledged they could find no documentary evidence to

support the claims of previous cheating. 



The inspector general said having security supervisors

know about a pending mock attack would have revealed

important details that would tip off the guards about

what methods to help neutralize the assault. 



"It's blatant cheating," said Peter Stockton of the

Project on Government Oversight, a Washington-based

watchdog group. "It doesn't say much for the integrity

of the guard forces and some managers who knew this

kind of thing was going on." 



Computer models had predicted guards at the plant would

decisively lose at least two of the four simulated

attacks, all on June 26. Two other guards identified as

improperly looking at the plans in advance denied doing

so, the report said. A suspicious site manager began

investigating after the tests. 



"I understand the perception, but the fact is there was

nothing wrong with what occurred," said Burleson, the

Wackenhut executive. "If we had lost the exercise, it

wouldn't have been an issue because they expected us to

lose the exercise." 



Citing the federal Privacy Act, the inspector general's

report did not identify any of the Oak Ridge guards.

Security at the plant is handled by Wackenhut, the

largest supplier of guards for U.S. nuclear facilities,

including the Nevada Test Site, the Savannah River Site

in South Carolina, Colorado's Rocky Flats Environmental

Technology Site and the Nonproliferation and Nuclear

Security Institute in Albuquerque, N.M. 



The Y-12 plant, about 20 miles west of Knoxville, makes

parts for every warhead in the U.S. nuclear arsenal and

is a major storehouse for bomb-grade uranium. 



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