Guards at Plant Tipped to Mock Attacks (nuclear weapons)

[stevedeshazer]

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50518-2004Jan26.html

<snip>

Security guards who repelled four simulated terrorist attacks at a Tennessee nuclear weapons plant were tipped off in advance, the Energy Department's watchdog office said yesterday. The surprising successes last summer by guards at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tenn., spurred an internal investigation. It determined that at least two guards had been allowed to look at computer simulations one day before the attacks.

Energy's inspector general, Gregory H. Friedman, declared the exercises "tainted and unreliable." He said the mock attacks cost as much as $85,000 each to stage.

A spokesman for Wackenhut Corp., which employs guards at Oak Ridge, did not return calls from the Associated Press yesterday.

A broader investigation uncovered more evidence of cheating during mock attacks against U.S. nuclear plants over the past two decades. Results from such simulations are commonly classified for national security reasons.

The inspector general said guards in another mock attack in late 2000 or early 2001 were improperly told which building would be attacked, the 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. Investigators said those claims were based on interviews with current and former guards, which they described as "credible and compelling." But they noted they had no documentary evidence to support the claims. Michael C. Kane, associate administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, said in a letter disclosed yesterday that if the attack simulations "were in any way compromised so as it skew the quality of information we have about our ability to protect, the results could have extremely significant effects in a way that is entirely unacceptable."
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Paging Tom Ridge! Tom Ridge, please report to the front desk immediately!

[Nile]

1. The guards probably would have figured it out themselves...

when they were issued blanks for their guns beforehand.

[Turley]

2. That's the problem with Simexes

It's impossible to achieve a realistic exercise without getting people hurt.

OTOH the gurads shouldn't have had access to actual details.