Livermore Lab Fails Mock Terror Test
May 15, 2008 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
Lawrence Livermore Laboratory’s protective force failed to deter a mock terrorist attack during a recent security drill, according to a Time magazine report online Monday.
During the simulated night-time attack several weeks ago, a team posing as terrorists was able to defeat the lab’s defenses and get hold of their target of pretend nuclear material, according to unnamed sources.
Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the lab for the Department of Energy, told the Times that the initial results of the inspection were “disappointing.”
But he noted that the simulated attacking force was given insider information and other advantages that “would be highly improbable in a real world scenario.
“While we have security measures in place that are working, in a number of cases they can be improved upon, and the system pointed that out,” he said.
Four of the areas of the lab’s security that were inspected during a routine, seven-week independent audit conducted by the Department of Energy’s Office of Health, Safety and Security during April and March were rated as “effective performance,” and four needed improvement.
The lab has taken action to fix problems uncovered by the inspection, said lab spokeswoman Susan Houghton.
“We’ve added officers, reassigned personnel, and we have accelerated our training from quarterly to daily,” she said.
No nuclear material or sensitive
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information was ever at risk, Houghton said.
A DOE official familiar with the mock attack said that the Time report was exaggerated.
The attacking force did reach their objective, he said, and the defenders did not do as well as they could have in some areas, but the attack was unrealistic.
For one, the simulation started at the fence line of the plutonium facility known as Superblock, already well inside lab property, he said. The attack team was made up of security officers from other DOE sites and was allowed to haul in equipment, including ATVs and mock explosives.
