The U.S. Defense Department neither mandates nor recommends that its agencies weigh the costs and relative benefits of various options for securing nuclear weapons, the Government Accountability Office said in a report released Friday (see GSN, July 16).
"The Navy plans to spend about $1.1 billion on security improvements to protect ballistic missile submarines while in transit, but selected one alternative without considering the full life cycle costs of the available alternatives," the report states, noting that the Energy Department has adopted a more formal procedure for assessing costs and benefits of nuclear-security options.
The Pentagon has also failed to adequately adapt its general nuclear weapons security guidances to specific regions, according to the analysis.
Congressional auditors "identified instances where the local threat assessment generally reflected all threats contained in the national assessment, with only minimal adjustments to reflect the local environment. Further, the individuals developing the local assessments had limited guidance, were not trained as intelligence analysts and often used different methodologies," says the report.
"Without clear guidance and necessary threat assessment capabilities, the military services may not be fully leveraging local, regional, and national threat information in preparing local assessments," the report warns.
The Defense and Energy departments believe they need $11 billion in nuclear-security funding from fiscal 2006 to fiscal 2013, according to the report. It identified "shortfalls in the Air Force's ability to centrally manage and track funding."
The service "lacked a consistent method to identify requirements specifically related to nuclear weapons security because of the decentralized method through which it manages this funding," says the report. "Without a method to track these costs, the visibility of these requirements is limited, and the Air Force may not be able to effectively manage its nuclear weapons security funding."
The Pentagon should develop a better system for assessing and choosing nuclear-security options, make commanders better able to identify dangers, and improve management of Air Force funding for nuclear-weapon security, according to the report. The Defense Department "partially" agreed with the findings (U.S. Government Accountability office release, Sept. 18).