Group claims security failed during Y-12 site drill
Washington (Nuclear News Flashes)--15Jan2004
Security guards could not protect high-enriched uranium
(HEU) stockpiles from terrorist attack during a test at DOE's Y-12 facility in
Oak Ridge, Tenn. in Dec. 2003, according to the Project On Government Oversight
(POGO). The watchdog group said "government sources" told it about the
security force's failure and quoted unnamed witnesses as describing the test
results as "pretty ugly." Y-12 makes the HEU components of U.S.
nuclear weapons. POGO said the Y-12 facility is "of particular
concern" because it houses the most materials in the nuclear complex that
could be used to create a device to disperse radioactive material or an actual
nuclear detonation on site. A spokesman at the Oak Ridge site declined to
comment on the POGO report.