Nuclear Security Fixes Urged

[Snazzy]

Nuclear Security Fixes Urged
29 minutes ago Los Angeles Times

By Ralph Vartabedian Times Staff Writer

Amid growing concern that nuclear weapons labs are vulnerable to a terrorist attack, senior Energy Department officials are seriously considering major steps to improve security — including the removal of plutonium and highly enriched uranium from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and other weapons sites

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The General Accounting Office, an arm of Congress, will report today that the threat posed by terrorists against the nation's weapons labs is estimated by intelligence agencies to be far more lethal than what the Energy Department has accepted in its most recent planning for security.

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During a 2002 Senate hearing, Energy Department weapons experts estimated that a bomb with a yield of 1 kiloton could be built in minutes by terrorists once they gained access to the materials. Such a bomb would destroy the lab, the surrounding city and cause tens of thousands of casualties, the experts warned. A lesser, although still lethal threat, would be a "dirty bomb," in which radioactive materials would be dispersed into the air.

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In the last three years, the Energy Department and its contractors have fired more than half a dozen employees who expressed concerns about security. Several of the employees were reinstated under court orders.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&e=1&u=/latimests/20040427/ts_latimes/nuclearsecurityfixesurged

[maddezmom]

1. Kick

the US gov't really needs to get their shit together on this issue.

[Snazzy]

2. AP Related: Auditors: Nuke Security Upgrades Delayed

Auditors: Nuke Security Upgrades Delayed
2 hours, 37 minutes ago


By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Security upgrades ordered at nuclear weapons sites after the Sept. 11 attacks may not be fully in place for five more years, auditors say.

The delay has led to the possibility that plutonium and weapons-grade uranium might have to be removed from some facilities.

Investigators with the General Accounting Office (news - web sites) said Tuesday the Energy Department's 2006 deadline for meeting its new security requirements at weapons labs and other facilities probably is not realistic, short by possibly as much as three years.

At the same time even that program, based on assumptions developed last year about the kind of terrorist assault that might be expected given the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is being revised, administration and congressional officials acknowledged.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=718&e=8&u=/ap/20040427/ap_on_re_us/nuclear_security