Much of the press that has carried this story for the past few days has focused on the challenge of matching up specific weapon serial numbers and the corresponding design drawings. Considering the age of much of the stockpile, and the rate at which it was produced in the Cold War, it is not surprising that the drawings are not all collected in a modern format.
If you bother to look up the report and read it, it comes out that the IG also found that LANL was adding to the historical challenge by how it handled drawings.
"We also found that the risk of unauthorized changes to classified nuclear weapons drawings existed because LANL had not limited access to the drawings as required and had circumvented a control over changes to post-release drawings. Department of Energy Order 452.8, Control of Nuclear Weapons Data, prohibits granting need-to-know access to nuclear weapons drawings to entire organizations or functional groups. However, we noted that LANL had given system access to approximately 30 nuclear weapons designers regardless of whether they were assigned to a nuclear weapon project. LANL officials told us that they chose not to limit designer access to nuclear weapons drawings because they believed that their internal processes were more efficient, without raising risk issues."
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f14/IG-0902.pdf
If you bother to look up the report and read it, it comes out that the IG also found that LANL was adding to the historical challenge by how it handled drawings.
"We also found that the risk of unauthorized changes to classified nuclear weapons drawings existed because LANL had not limited access to the drawings as required and had circumvented a control over changes to post-release drawings. Department of Energy Order 452.8, Control of Nuclear Weapons Data, prohibits granting need-to-know access to nuclear weapons drawings to entire organizations or functional groups. However, we noted that LANL had given system access to approximately 30 nuclear weapons designers regardless of whether they were assigned to a nuclear weapon project. LANL officials told us that they chose not to limit designer access to nuclear weapons drawings because they believed that their internal processes were more efficient, without raising risk issues."
http://energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/03/f14/IG-0902.pdf
Comments
Clearly it is time to close down all the NNSA labs. It is the only way to be certain that we are safe. 6.29 PM knows this as well.
April 3, 2014 at 9:42 PM
Yeah, life is about always being certain you are safe. If you think the NNSA labs are the primary threat to your safety, you are very naive and ignorant of the world.
Oh well, another $200 million should do it. Really, this time it WILL get done... they promise.