private security co.'s fail to protect nuclear facilities

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"But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, Sept. 7, 2003, on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer.

As this statement referred to Saddam Hussein’s supposed possession of WMD’s, it was (of course,) a blatant lie. If it had instead referred to the tremendous gaps in national security, it would have been prescient indeed. Despite nearly four years having passed since 9/11 forced us to acknowledge our vulnerability to terrorist attack, very little has been done to ensure the security of vital aspects of our nation’s infrastructure. The tremendous security failures at American nuclear facilities makes plain both the extent to which we are vulnerable and the horror of the potential consequences.
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To ensure the effectiveness of private security forces, the Department of Energy regularly conducts “force-on-force” tests at nuclear facilities. In these tests, military personnel simulate terrorist infiltrations of, and attacks on, these facilities. Private security forces are expected to successfully repel the “terrorists.”

During one such test at Rocky Flats, the “terrorists” were able to infiltrate the facility, “steal” enough plutonium for at least one nuclear bomb, and leave the area without being caught. In response, the DoE altered the test, forbidding the military team from entering and exiting by the same route. Instead, they were to climb a guard tower and rope the material over the fence. Despite such changes aimed at making the tests easier for private security forces, they still fail more than 50 percent of the time.
http://www.rawstory.com/exclusives/wackenhut_080705.htm

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