[NukeNet] TIME: Security Flaws at Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab

Tue May 13 21:12:38 EDT 2008

TIME MAGAZINE, Monday, May. 12, 2008
Security Flaws Exposed at Nuke Lab

By Adam Zagorin/Washington

 If you were a terrorist looking for weapons-grade nuclear material in
America, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory might be a good place
to start. At the core of the nuclear-weapons research facility about an
hour's drive >from San Francisco stands the "Superblock," a collection of
buildings surrounded by multi-story steel-mesh fencing, a no man's land,
electronic security gear, armed guards and cables to prevent a helicopter
landing on the roof. These defenses are in place largely to protect
Building 332, a repository for roughly 2,000 pounds of deadly plutonium and
volatile, weapons-grade uranium - enough fissile material to build at least
300 nuclear weapons. But a recent simulated terror attack tested those
defenses, and sources tell TIME that the results were not reassuring.

 One night several weeks ago, according to TIME's sources, a commando team
posing as terrorists attacked and penetrated the lab, quickly overpowering
its defenses to reach its "objective" - a mock payload of fissile material.
The exercise highlighted a number of serious security shortcomings at
Livermore, sources say, including the failure of a hydraulic system
essential to operating an extremely lethal Gatling gun that protects the
facility. Experts contacted by TIME - including Congressional staff from
both parties informed of the episode, and experts personally familiar with
safeguards at Livermore - all said that the test amounts to an
embarrassment to those responsible for securing the nation's nuclear
facilities, and that it required immediate steps to correct what some
called the most dangerous security weaknesses ever found at the lab.

 Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman was quickly informed of the episode, along
with other senior officials in the U.S. nuclear and national security
apparatus. "People who know about this are very concerned; they are not
happy," said one senior Congressional aide.

 "It is essential to prevent terrorists from accessing nuclear materials at
Livermore," said Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on
Government Oversight, an independent nonprofit that recently issued a study
of the Lab's security. "Suicidal terrorists would not need to steal the
fissile material, they could simply detonate it as part of an improvised
nuclear device right on the spot." Some 7 million people live within a
50-mile radius of the laboratory - a fact that has prompted at least one
panel of experts to recommend moving its nuclear-weapons material
elsewhere.

 According to a former senior officer familiar with the details of security
at Livermore, simulated attacks are staged approximately every 12 months.
The attack team's objective is usually to penetrate the "Superblock," after
which the attackers are timed to determine whether they can hold their
ground long enough to construct a crude "dirty bomb" that could, in theory,
be detonated immediately, or can buy themselves enough time to fabricate a
rudimentary nuclear device, approximating the destructive power of the
low-yield weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. A third option
in the simulation is for the attackers to abscond with the nuclear material
into the heavily-populated San Francisco Bay area.

 The security flaws exposed in the recent test could exacerbate public
opposition to nuclear weapons material being stored at Livermore, which is
located near a major highway interchange, atop a vital agricultural
irrigation canal and within a mile of two elementary schools, a preschool,
a middle school and a senior center. In 2005 the Energy Department approved
the doubling of the amount of plutonium stored at Livermore, less than five
months after a scientific panel recommended, for security reasons, that
nearly all of it be moved to a safer, more remote site.

 "The fissile material simply cannot be made safe and secure," says Marylia
Kelley, executive director of Tri-Valley CARES, a Livermore nuclear weapons
watchdog group. "We in the community, which has 81,000 people, want to get
rid of the plutonium and highly enriched uranium as soon as possible."

 The alleged failure of Livermore's truck-mounted Gatling guns could also
draw heavy criticism. Those weapons have long been controversial because
they can fire 4000 rounds a minute and kill a person more than a mile away,
raising fears among local residents about what might happen if the guns
were ever discharged. The weapons are also supposed to be tested on a
regular basis, and the reason for their reported failure remains unclear.

 Many critics have also argued that the entire process of conducting
"force-on-force" simulations at Livermore is flawed because the exercise
does not adequately approximate conditions that would pertain during a real
attack. The defenders are always given advance notice of the simulations,
which usually occur at night or on weekends, when few of the facility's
thousands of staff are present. As a result, there is no simulation of the
hostage-taking that might occur if the lab were attacked during business
hours. The absence of most regular employees also means that defenders do
not have to worry about directing their fire to avoid innocent victims,
many of whom might be present during an actual attack.

 Finally, nothing in the "force-on-force" exercises simulates the danger
posed by Livermore being situated beneath the flight path to several nearby
airports. "If a plane ever tried to fly into the lab," says Tri- Valley
CARE'S Kelley, "no one has ever explained how it would be stopped."

 As for the Department of Energy, in a press release issued last Friday
referring to the recent force-on-force exercise at Livermore, it claimed
that an inspection team sent to the site after the simulation had noted
both "several very positive areas" and "other areas requiring corrective
action."

 "We do not believe the [nuclear] materials at Livermore are at risk, and
we do believe that security is strong," a DOE spokesperson told TIME. "But
we're also interested in examining any deficiencies, which is the purpose
of these routine exercises."

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Marylia Kelley,
Executive Director

Tri-Valley CAREs
2582 Old First Street
Livermore, CA, USA  94551

Ph: (925) 443-7148
Fx: (925) 443-0177
Web: www.trivalleycares.org
Email: marylia at trivalleycares.org or marylia at earthlink.net