Audit finds backlog in reliability testing of nuclear warheads

0 Comments | AFP, November, 2006

WASHINGTON (AFP) — An audit has found a "significant backlog" in surveillance testing of nuclear warheads, resulting in a lack of vital information about the reliability of the US stockpile, the Energy Department said. The Energy Department conducts tests of randomly selected weapons and components as part of an effort to ensure that weapons in the stockpile are safe and reliable.

Gregory Friedman, the department's inspector general, conducted the audit to see whether the department had eliminated backlogs in testing that were first detected in 2001. "The audit disclosed that significant backlogs existed in each of the three types of tests conducted in the surveillance program -- laboratory tests, flight tests and component tests," he said in a report dated October 30....