By Cliff Montgomery – Apr. 23rd, 2014
Classified documents which detail the assembly of nuclear weapons and weapons components have not been correctly maintained by weapons laboratories overseen by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a recent federal report has declared.
“NNSA sites could not always locate ‘as-built’ product definitions or associated drawings for nuclear weapons and components in official records repositories,” stated the Department of Energy Inspector General (IG) study released last month.
The NNSA is a semi-autonomous agency within the Energy Department.
Officials at the Pantex Plant located just outside Amarillo, Texas, “were concerned and surprised at the difficulty in finding ‘as-built’ product definitions for the nuclear weapons” added the IG report.
Pantex “is charged with maintaining the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear weapons stockpile,” according to the NNSA’s description of the facility. Yet the plant could not find the ‘as-built’ product definitions for 39 percent of the nuclear weapons which the IG investigated for its study – of those ‘as-built’ product definitions which were found, Pantex could not locate 59 percent of the associated drawings.
And it appears the situation was just as bad at other nuclear weapons facilities.
At Los Alamos, the data system “allowed changes to classified nuclear weapons drawings without using an approved change notice. This practice could permit unauthorized changes to weapons drawings,” pointed out the IG report.
When questioned about the unsanctioned changes to one weapon drawing, “officials were unable to explain why changes were made, but told us that they ‘assumed’ the changes were needed,” stated the IG study.
In fact, “sites did not always ensure that parts that did not conform to specifications were actually fit for use in a nuclear weapon,” pointed out the Inspector General.
The NNSA’s apparent lackadaisical attitude toward the safekeeping and integrity of its nuclear weapons data drew a sharp condemnation from the Department of Energy Inspector General.
“Over the decades of nuclear weapons development, neither NNSA nor its sites treated the maintenance of original nuclear weapons…information as a priority,” declared the Inspector General.
“Not having complete and accurate [weapon production] information can have significant effects on surveillance and safety, and can lead to time-consuming and expensive recovery efforts,” added the IG report.
U.S. nuclear security experts also have offered a sharp critique of the NNSA’s oversight of weapons designs.
“NNSA is on a trajectory towards crisis,” recently said Norman Augustine, a leading aerospace executive who currently serves as a chairman for the Congressional Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise.
