Nuclear Weapons: Annual Assessment of the Safety, Performance,
and Reliability of the Nation's Stockpile (02-FEB-07,
GAO-07-243R).
In 1992, the United States began a unilateral moratorium on the
underground testing of nuclear weapons. Prior to the moratorium,
underground nuclear testing was a critical component for
evaluating and certifying nuclear warheads. In 1993, the
Department of Energy (DOE), at the direction of the President and
the Congress, established the Stockpile Stewardship Program to
increase understanding of the basic phenomena associated with
nuclear weapons, provide better predictive understanding of the
safety and reliability of weapons, and ensure a strong scientific
and technical basis for future United States nuclear weapons
policy objectives. The National Nuclear Security Administration
(NNSA), a separately organized agency within DOE, is now
responsible for carrying out the Stockpile Stewardship Program.
In 1995, the President established an annual stockpile assessment
and reporting requirement to help ensure that the nation's
nuclear weapons remained safe and reliable without underground
nuclear testing. Subsequently, the Congress enacted into law the
requirement for an annual stockpile assessment (annual
assessment) process in section 3141 of the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003. Specifically, section
3141 requires that the Secretaries of Energy and Defense submit a
package of reports on the results of their annual assessment to
the President by March 1 of each year. The President must forward
the reports to the Congress by March 15. These reports are
prepared individually by the directors of the three DOE weapons
laboratories--Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and Sandia National
Laboratories (SNL)--and by the Commander of the U.S. Strategic
Command (USSTRATCOM), who is responsible for targeting nuclear
weapons within the Department of Defense (DOD). The reports
provide each official's assessment of the safety, reliability,
and performance of each weapon type in the nuclear stockpile. In
addition, the Commander of USSTRATCOM assesses the military
effectiveness of the stockpile. The Secretaries of Energy and
Defense are required to submit these reports unaltered to the
President, along with the conclusions the Secretaries have
reached as to the safety, reliability, performance, and military
effectiveness of the nuclear stockpile. The Nuclear Weapons
Council (NWC), a joint DOD/DOE organization that coordinates
nuclear weapons activities between the two departments, supports
the two Secretaries in fulfilling their responsibility to inform
the President if a return to underground nuclear testing is
required to address any issues identified with the stockpile.
Congress asked us to describe the processes that DOE and DOD have
established for fulfilling the requirements of the annual
assessment. To determine this process, we reviewed the major
reports and briefings generated during the annual assessment
cycles for 2005 and 2006, including the reports generated by the
weapons laboratories and USSTRATCOM. We also interviewed DOE and
DOD officials, including representatives from NNSA, each weapons
laboratory, USSTRATCOM, the NWC, the Air Force, the Navy, and the
U.S. Nuclear Command and Control System Support Staff. In
addition, we interviewed former National Security Council staff
and staff associated with the House and Senate Committees on
Armed Services to obtain the perspective of the end users of the
annual assessment reports.
-------------------------Indexing Terms-------------------------
REPORTNUM: GAO-07-243R
ACCNO: A66452
TITLE: Nuclear Weapons: Annual Assessment of the Safety,
Performance, and Reliability of the Nation's Stockpile
DATE: 02/02/2007
SUBJECT: Classified defense information
Congressional/executive relations
Defense contingency planning
Homeland security
Laboratories
National defense operations
Nuclear weapons
Nuclear weapons testing
Operational testing
Policy evaluation
Reporting requirements
Reports management
Strategic national stockpile
Treaties
Weapons research and development
Assessments
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996
DOE Stockpile Stewardship Program
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GAO-07-243R
* [1]PDF6-Ordering Information.pdf
* [2]Order by Mail or Phone
February 2, 2007
The Honorable Ellen O. Tauscher
Chairman
The Honorable Terry Everett
Ranking Minority Member
Subcommittee on Strategic Forces
Committee on Armed Services
House of Representatives
Subject: Nuclear Weapons: Annual Assessment of the Safety, Performance,
and Reliability of the Nation's Stockpile
In 1992, the United States began a unilateral moratorium on the
underground testing of nuclear weapons. Prior to the moratorium,
underground nuclear testing was a critical component for evaluating and
certifying nuclear warheads.1 In 1993, the Department of Energy (DOE), at
the direction of the President and the Congress, established the Stockpile
Stewardship Program to increase understanding of the basic phenomena
associated with nuclear weapons, provide better predictive understanding
of the safety and reliability of weapons, and ensure a strong scientific
and technical basis for future United States nuclear weapons policy
objectives.2 The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a
separately organized agency within DOE, is now responsible for carrying
out the Stockpile Stewardship Program through a nuclear weapons complex
that comprises three nuclear weapons design laboratories (weapons
laboratories), four production plants, and the Nevada Test Site.
In 1995, the President established an annual stockpile assessment and
reporting requirement to help ensure that the nation's nuclear weapons
remained safe and reliable without underground nuclear testing. This
decision was made in the context of negotiating a multilateral
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to ban all nuclear weapons test explosions.
As a condition or safeguard under which the United States would enter into
such a test ban, the President established "Safeguard F"--an understanding
that if the Secretaries of Energy and Defense informed the President that
conducting an underground nuclear test was critical to maintaining
confidence in a weapon's safety or reliability, the President, in
consultation with the Congress, would be prepared to withdraw from the
treaty. While the President submitted Safeguard F along with the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to the Senate for ratification in 1997, the
Senate voted to reject the treaty in 1999. However, the United States
continues to maintain a moratorium on underground nuclear testing as a
matter of national policy.
1Certification is the process through which the weapons laboratories
establish that a particular nuclear warhead or bomb meets its designated
military operational specifications.
2The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994, Pub. L. No.
103-160, S 3135 (1993), directed DOE to establish the Stockpile
Stewardship Program.
Subsequently, the Congress enacted into law the requirement for an annual
stockpile assessment (annual assessment) process in section 3141 of the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003.3 Specifically,
section 3141 requires that the Secretaries of Energy and Defense submit a
package of reports on the results of their annual assessment to the
President by March 1 of each year. The President must forward the reports
to the Congress by March 15. These reports are prepared individually by
the directors of the three DOE weapons laboratories--Los Alamos National
Laboratory (LANL), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), and
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL)--and by the Commander of the U.S.
Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), who is responsible for targeting nuclear
weapons within the Department of Defense (DOD). The reports provide each
official's assessment of the safety, reliability, and performance of each
weapon type in the nuclear stockpile. In addition, the Commander of
USSTRATCOM assesses the military effectiveness of the stockpile. In
particular, the reports include an assessment about whether it is
necessary to conduct an underground nuclear test to resolve any identified
issues. The Secretaries of Energy and Defense are required to submit these
reports unaltered to the President, along with the conclusions the
Secretaries have reached as to the safety, reliability, performance, and
military effectiveness of the nuclear stockpile. The Nuclear Weapons
Council (NWC), a joint DOD/DOE organization that coordinates nuclear
weapons activities between the two departments, supports the two
Secretaries in fulfilling their responsibility to inform the President if
a return to underground nuclear testing is required to address any issues
identified with the stockpile.4 In this context, you asked us to describe
the processes that DOE and DOD have established for fulfilling the
requirements of the annual assessment.
To determine the process that DOE and DOD have established to fulfill the
annual assessment requirements, we reviewed the major reports and
briefings generated during the annual assessment cycles for 2005 and 2006,
including the reports generated by the weapons laboratories and
USSTRATCOM. We also interviewed DOE and DOD officials, including
representatives from NNSA, each weapons laboratory, USSTRATCOM, the NWC,
the Air Force, the Navy, and the U.S. Nuclear Command and Control System
Support Staff. In addition, we interviewed former National Security
Council staff and staff associated with the House and Senate Committees on
Armed Services to obtain the perspective of the end users of the annual
assessment reports. We conducted our review from April 2006 to December
2006 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards.
3Pub. L. No. 107-314, S 3141 (2002).
4The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1987, Pub. L. No.
99-661, S 3137 (1986), established the Nuclear Weapons Council. See 10
U.S.C. S 179.
Summary
To satisfy the requirements of section 3141 of the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003, DOD and DOE have established an
annual assessment process that reaches conclusions and makes judgments
about the U.S. nuclear stockpile and, in particular, whether it is
necessary to conduct an underground nuclear test to resolve any questions
about a particular weapon type. The annual assessment process takes about
14 months to complete--during which time the nuclear weapons community
collaborates on technical issues affecting the safety, reliability,
performance, and military effectiveness of the stockpile--and produces
seven different types of reports. The annual assessment process culminates
in the "Report on Stockpile Assessments" prepared by the NWC, which
includes an executive summary, a joint letter signed by the Secretaries of
Energy and Defense, and unaltered copies of the weapons laboratory
director reports and the Commander of USSTRATCOM report.
The directors of the nuclear weapons laboratories base their reports on
the technical work of their laboratories, which is derived from ongoing
work associated with NNSA's Stockpile Stewardship Program, as well as
feedback they receive from independent teams of experts from all three of
the weapons laboratories. The Commander of USSTRATCOM bases his report on
the advice of a technical advisory group, which holds an annual conference
bringing together all of the organizations involved in the annual
assessment, and additional operational information provided by USSTRATCOM
and the military services. The NWC, supported by warhead-specific
technical groups, pulls together the information from DOE and DOD. The NWC
then produces an executive summary of all of the reports and prepares a
joint letter from the Secretaries of Energy and Defense to the President
of the United States, which is forwarded to the Congress. While the
principal purpose of annual assessment is to provide analysis of and
judgments about the safety, reliability, performance, and military
effectiveness of the nuclear stockpile, the process would not be used as a
vehicle for notifying decision makers about an immediate need to conduct a
nuclear test. According to agency and congressional officials, if an issue
with a weapon were to arise that required a nuclear test to resolve, the
Secretaries of Energy and Defense, the President, and the Congress would
be notified immediately and outside of the context of the annual
assessment process.
We provided a draft of this report to NNSA and DOD for their review and
comment. Overall, NNSA stated that it generally agreed with the findings
of the draft report. NNSA also provided technical comments, which we
incorporated into the report as appropriate. DOD provided oral comments of
a technical nature, which we incorporated into the report as appropriate.
Background
The U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile consists of nine weapon types. (See
table 1.) These weapons include gravity bombs deliverable by dual-capable
fighter aircraft and long-range bombers; cruise missiles deliverable by
aircraft and submarines; submarine-launched ballistic missiles; and
intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Table 1: Current U.S. Nuclear Weapon Types
Warhead or Description Delivery system Laboratory Military
bomb type service
B61-3/4/10 Tactical bomb F-15, F-16, Tornado LANL / SNL Air Force
B61-7/11 Strategic bomb B-52, B-2 LANL / SNL Air Force
W62 ICBM warheada Minuteman III ICBM LLNL / SNL Air Force
W76 SLBM warheadb Trident D5 missile, LANL / SNL Navy
ballistic-missile submarine
W78 ICBM warhead Minuteman III ICBM LANL / SNL Air Force
W80-0 TLAM/Nc Attack submarine LLNL / SNL Navy
W80-1 ALCM, ACMd B-52 LLNL / SNL Air Force
B83-1 Strategic bomb B-52, B2 LLNL / SNL Air Force
W87 ICBM warhead Minuteman III ICBM LLNL / SNL Air Force
W88 SLBM warhead Trident D5 missile, LANL / SNL Navy
ballistic-missile submarine
Source: NWC.
Note: As of 2005, responsibility for the W80-0/1 was transferred from LANL
to LLNL. The W87 is in the process of transitioning from the Peacekeeper
missile to the Minuteman III missile.
a ICBM = Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. b SLBM = Submarine-Launched
Ballistic Missile. c TLAM/N = Tomahawk Land-Attack Missile/Nuclear.
d ALCM = Air-Launched Cruise Missile; ACM = Advanced Cruise Missile.
In the context of the annual assessment process, the terms "warhead,"
"weapon," and "delivery system" have different technical meanings.
o A nuclear warhead is composed of a nuclear explosive package,
which includes the components that produce nuclear energy of a
militarily significant yield and a set of supporting nonnuclear
components. Depending on the specific weapon type, the supporting
nonnuclear components control the use, arming, and firing of the
nuclear explosive package.
o A nuclear weapon includes the warhead and certain
weapon-specific components, such as fuzes, batteries, and reentry
vehicles and bodies (in the case of a ballistic missile) that
configure the warhead for DOD use in a missile or as a bomb.
o A delivery system is the military vehicle--ballistic or cruise
missile, airplane, or submarine--by which a nuclear weapon could
be delivered to its intended target.
Both DOE and DOD have responsibilities for nuclear weapons. DOE is
responsible for nuclear warheads and for nuclear bombs in their entirety
(including components such as parachutes). For reentry vehicles and
reentry bodies, DOD is responsible for components that arm the weapon and
provide authorization for its use. Specific organization responsibilities
are as follows:
o Two DOE weapons laboratories (LANL and LLNL) design the nuclear
explosive packages and conduct scientific research and development
to better understand nuclear weapons phenomena. The DOE
engineering laboratory (SNL) has principal responsibility for the
research, design, and development of nonnuclear warhead
components; integration of these components with LANL and LLNL;
and overall warhead systems integration with DOD.5
o DOE's NNSA oversees the management and operation of the weapons
laboratories, the Nevada Test Site, and four production
plants--the Pantex Plant in Texas, the Y-12 National Security
Complex in Tennessee, the Kansas City Plant in Missouri, and a
portion of the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. These plants
manufacture nuclear warhead components, assemble nuclear weapons,
and disassemble and inspect nuclear weapons in preparation for
surveillance testing and other activities. The Nevada Test Site
maintains the capability to conduct underground nuclear testing
and also conducts experiments involving nuclear material and high
explosives.
o The military services--the Air Force and the Navy, in the case
of the current stockpile--develop the operational specifications
for nuclear weapons. These specifications are defined in two
documents: (1) the military characteristics document, which
describes the required operational performance characteristics
(e.g., yield) for a particular warhead type, and (2) the
stockpile-to-target sequence document, which describes the normal
and abnormal environments a warhead type is expected to encounter
throughout its lifetime. In addition, the military services
operate nuclear weapons storage sites within the continental
United States and are responsible for the safety, security,
survivability, movement, storage, and maintenance of all nuclear
weapons in those storage areas.
o USSTRATCOM, which was established as a unified combatant command
in 1992, has primary responsibility for the use of strategic
nuclear forces, including targeting nuclear weapons and preparing
the U.S. strategic nuclear war plan. Unified combatant commands
are responsible for accomplishing the multiservice missions
assigned to them by the Secretary of Defense. Starting in 2002,
the mission of USSTRATCOM expanded and now includes
responsibilities associated with global strike planning and
execution; integrating global ballistic missile defense;
overseeing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; global
command and control; DOD information operations; and DOD's efforts
to combat weapons of mass destruction.
o The Strategic Advisory Group Stockpile Assessment Team (SAGSAT)
is part of a USSTRATCOM advisory committee and provides technical
expertise to the USSTRATCOM Commander on nuclear weapons issues.
Specifically, SAGSAT supports the Commander by (1) conducting an
annual conference on nuclear weapons stockpile assessment that
considers all nuclear weapons in the stockpile; (2) reporting on
trends regarding confidence in the reliability, safety, and surety
of the nuclear weapons stockpile and whether nuclear testing is
required; and (3) advising on performance and surety issues. The
members of the SAGSAT are recognized experts in the nuclear
weapons field and are generally retired employees of the national
laboratories and military services or have held positions with
major defense contractors.
o The NWC is a joint DOD/DOE organization established by the
Congress in 1987 to facilitate high-level cooperation and
coordination between the two departments as they fulfill their
dual responsibilities for securing, maintaining, and sustaining
the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. The NWC is chaired by the
Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and
Logistics. Other members include the Vice Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, the Under Secretary of Energy for Nuclear
Security (NNSA Administrator), the Under Secretary of Defense for
Policy, and the Commander of USSTRATCOM.
o A Project Officers Group (POG) is a joint DOD/DOE group that is
chartered by the NWC at the beginning of a weapon development
program.6 For each weapon type, a POG provides the technical forum
for coordinating activities related to the development,
sustainment, operational effectiveness, and overall management of
the weapon, including the weapon's compatibility with its delivery
system. Each POG is led by a lead project officer (LPO) who
reports to the NWC through the lead cognizant military service
(Air Force or Navy). POG membership is specific to the weapon for
which it is responsible but generally includes organizations
within DOE and DOD--such as NNSA, the weapons laboratories,
combatant commands, and the military services--that expend
resources on the weapon.
5In addition to these activities, LANL maintains an interim production
capability for limited quantities of plutonium components and manufactures
nuclear weapon detonators. SNL also manufactures neutron generators.
President Clinton established the requirement for an annual assessment and
reporting process in a 1995 statement that accompanied his announcement of
support for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: "...I am today directing the
establishment of a new annual reporting and certification requirement that
will ensure that our nuclear weapons remain safe and reliable under a
comprehensive test ban." While the President's original statement uses the
term "certification," the nuclear weapons community currently refers to
this process as "assessment." The reason for this distinction, according
to NNSA and laboratory officials, is that the term "certification" has a
specific, technical meaning that is separate from that intended by the
annual assessment process. Specifically, certification is the process
through which the weapons laboratory directors establish that a particular
nuclear warhead or bomb meets its designated military characteristics,
stockpile-to-target sequence, and "interface requirements" (compatibility
with its delivery system). According to NNSA and laboratory officials,
once a warhead is certified, it remains certified until it is either
decertified or retired. As a result, annual assessment is not an annual
"recertification" of the stockpile; rather, according to officials from
NNSA and the weapons laboratories, it is an assessment of whether each
warhead type still meets the same standards as it did when it was
originally certified.
6Almost all of the current POGs were originally chartered by the Military
Liaison Committee, the predecessor of the NWC.
Following the President's 1995 statement, the NWC issued guidance in 1996
to formalize the processes used by DOE and DOD to meet the annual
assessment and reporting requirement. Subsequently, in 2001, President
Bush reaffirmed that the annual assessment and reporting process would
continue. Finally, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2003 enacted the requirements for annual assessments into law.
Specifically, section 3141 of the act requires the director of each
weapons laboratory and the Commander of USSTRATCOM to make an annual
assessment of the safety, reliability, and performance of each weapon type
in the nuclear stockpile. The Commander of USSTRATCOM is also required to
make an annual assessment of the military effectiveness of the stockpile.
In addition, these officials are required to issue individual reports on
their assessments to the Secretaries of Energy and Defense, and to the
NWC, by December 1 of each year. These reports must include an assessment
as to whether it is necessary to conduct an underground nuclear test to
resolve any issues identified in the reports. By March 1 of each year, the
Secretaries of Energy and Defense are required to submit these reports
unaltered to the President, along with the conclusions that the
Secretaries have reached as to the safety, reliability, performance, and
military effectiveness of the nuclear stockpile. Finally, the President is
required to forward these reports, along with any comments the President
considers appropriate, to the Congress no later than March 15 of each
year.
Section 3141 of the act also expanded the requirements for annual
assessment beyond the original process established in 1996. More
specifically, it required
o the weapons laboratory directors and the Commander of USSTRATCOM
to include in their reports (1) an identification of specific
underground nuclear tests that, while not necessary, might have
value in resolving any identified issues, and (2) a determination
of the readiness of the United States to conduct an underground
nuclear test (where one is deemed to be necessary or valuable),
o the weapons laboratory directors to include in their reports (1)
a summary of findings from "red teams," made up of experts from
all three weapons laboratories, who have reviewed technical
laboratory information and subjected it to challenge; (2) a
concise statement regarding the adequacy of science-based tools
and methods used in making the assessment; and (3) a concise
statement regarding the adequacy of tools and methods employed by
the manufacturing infrastructure to identify and fix any problems
addressed by the assessment, and
o the Commander of USSTRATCOM to include in his report (1) a
discussion of the relative merits of other nuclear weapon types or
compensatory measures that could be taken should any deficiency be
identified and (2) identification of any matter having an adverse
effect on the Commander's ability to accurately address the issues
covered by the assessment.
Events over the past several years have served to intensify concern about
how the United States maintains its nuclear deterrent. Specifically,
o The 2001 Nuclear Posture Review stated, among other things, that
Cold War practices related to nuclear weapons planning were
obsolete, and few changes had been made to the size or composition
of the nation's nuclear forces. Furthermore, the review found that
there had been underinvestment in the nuclear weapons complex,
particularly the production sites. The review called for, among
other things, the development of a "responsive infrastructure"
that would be sized to meet the needs of a smaller nuclear
deterrent while having the capability of responding to future
strategic challenges.
o The 2002 Moscow Treaty between the United States and Russia set
a goal of reducing the number of operationally deployed strategic
U.S. nuclear warheads to between 1,700 and 2,200 by 2012. However,
a significant number of existing warheads will be kept in reserve
as augmentation warheads to address potential technical
contingencies with the existing stockpile or geopolitical changes.
o In recent congressional testimony, the Secretary of Energy and
the Administrator of NNSA emphasized that while they believe
stockpile stewardship is working, the current Cold War legacy
stockpile is wrong for the long term, and the current nuclear
weapons infrastructure is not responsive to unanticipated events
or emerging threats.
o NNSA and DOD created the Reliable Replacement Warhead program to
study a new approach for providing a credible nuclear warhead
deterrent over the long term.7 The Reliable Replacement Warhead
program would redesign weapon components to be easier to
manufacture, maintain, dismantle, and certify without nuclear
testing, potentially allowing NNSA to transition to a smaller and
more efficient weapons complex. A design competition between LANL
and LLNL was originally scheduled to be completed in November
2006. While NNSA and DOD have not yet announced the selection of a
preferred design, the two departments have determined that the RRW
is feasible.
o Finally, in 2006, NNSA offered a proposal to address
long-standing problems with the condition and responsiveness of
the nuclear production facilities. Under its plan--Complex 2030: A
Preferred Infrastructure Planning Scenario for the Nuclear Weapons
Complex--NNSA proposed to build a new, consolidated plutonium
center at a yet-to-be determined location that would replace the
interim plutonium production capability at LANL. A key
responsibility of the plutonium center would be to manufacture
components for a Reliable Replacement Warhead-based stockpile. In
addition, NNSA proposed modernizing the remaining production
capabilities at their existing locations, including the Y-12
National Security Complex, Savannah River Site, and Pantex Plant.
NNSA also proposed eventually removing all weapons-grade material
from the three weapons laboratories.
7The conference report accompanying DOE's fiscal year 2005 appropriations
act provided that funds appropriated were available for the Reliable
Replacement Warhead Program. H.R. Rep. No. 108-792, Div. C, at 951 (2004),
accompanying the fiscal year 2005 Consolidated Appropriations Act, Pub. L.
No. 108-447.
The Annual Assessment Process Results in a Package of Reports That Make
Conclusions and Judgments about the Nuclear Stockpile
The annual assessment process results in a series of high-level reports
that make conclusions and judgments about the safety, performance,
reliability, and military effectiveness of the weapons in the nuclear
stockpile and whether there is a technical issue that requires resolution
through underground nuclear testing. These high-level reports are
underpinned by technical reports that capture ongoing work on the
stockpile, specifically activities associated with DOE's Stockpile
Stewardship Program and other DOD surveillance activities. In total, the
following seven types of reports are produced during a single annual
assessment cycle:
o Weapons Laboratory Annual Assessment Reports (AARs): AARs are
prepared for each weapon type by the technical staff of the
weapons laboratory responsible for the nuclear explosive package
(LANL or LLNL) and their engineering counterpart at SNL. Each AAR
contains technical information concerning the potential need for
underground nuclear testing and whether each warhead type meets
its required military characteristics, such as warhead yield,
throughout its stockpile-to-target sequence.
o Weapons Laboratory Red Team Reports: A red team at each weapons
laboratory issues a report to the laboratory director that
assesses the technical information contained in the laboratory's
AARs and the potential need for underground nuclear testing.
o Weapons Laboratory Director Reports: Each laboratory director
submits an independent assessment report of the safety,
performance, and reliability of the nuclear stockpile to the NWC
and the Secretaries of Energy and Defense by December 1 of each
year.
o SAGSAT Report: The SAGSAT prepares a report for the USSTRATCOM
Commander that provides the technical underpinning for the
Commander's assessment of the stockpile. This report expresses the
SAGSAT's confidence as to whether each warhead type will perform
as designed and makes recommendations for USSTRATCOM action.
o Commander of USSTRATCOM Report: The Commander of USSTRATCOM
submits an independent assessment report of the safety,
performance, reliability and military effectiveness of the nuclear
stockpile to the NWC and the Secretaries of Energy and Defense by
December 1 of each year.
o POG Reports: Each POG issues a technical annual assessment
report to the NWC on the warhead type for which it is responsible.
These reports are based largely on the weapons laboratories' AARs
but also include additional information on military-service
specific issues, including the results of surveillance testing
performed by DOD and its contractors, operational issues such as
deployment numbers, and logistical issues such as the status of
work on weapons being done at military installations.
o Report on Stockpile Assessments: The NWC prepares a report
package, known as the "Report on Stockpile Assessments," on behalf
of the Secretaries of Energy and Defense. The package includes an
executive summary, a joint letter signed by both Secretaries, and
unaltered copies of the weapons laboratory director reports and
the Commander of USSTRATCOM report. This package is conveyed to
the President by March 1 and forwarded to the Congress by March 15
of each year.
Each annual assessment cycle takes approximately 14 months to complete.
Figure 1 illustrates the time frames during which each type of annual
assessment report was developed and completed during the 2005 cycle.
Specifically, technical analysis conducted by the laboratories began in
December 2004 and was completed in July 2005. Subsequently, the laboratory
directors and Commander of USSTRATCOM completed their high-level reports
by the middle of October, in advance of their December 1 statutory
deadline. The NWC prepared the executive summary between the end of
September 2005 and the end of February 2006.Figure 1: 2005 Annual
Assessment Reporting Time Line
Note: The red team reports are not listed separately but are used by the
laboratory directors in completing their reports.
The Weapons Laboratories' and Laboratory Directors' Reports Are Based on
Ongoing Stockpile Stewardship Program Activities
According to laboratory officials, the information provided in the
AARs--the technical basis for the annual assessment process--is derived
from ongoing activities associated with NNSA's Stockpile Stewardship
Program. Specifically, the AARs focus on the following three areas:
o Surveillance: A key component of the Stockpile Stewardship
Program is annual surveillance testing, in which active stockpile
weapons are randomly selected, disassembled, inspected, and
tested--either in laboratory tests or in flight tests--to identify
any problems that might affect a weapon's safety or reliability.
Problems identified during surveillance testing that may warrant
further testing and analysis result in the creation of a
"significant finding investigation" to determine the problems'
cause, extent, and effect on the performance, safety, and
reliability of the stockpile. As part of the Stockpile Stewardship
Program, NNSA tracks surveillance results through quarterly
reports on significant finding investigations and other
surveillance reports. Each AAR (1) summarizes the status of
surveillance testing at the three laboratories; (2) details any
backlog there might be in surveillance testing; and (3) describes
the effect of surveillance results, significant finding
investigations, or surveillance backlogs on weapon performance,
safety, or reliability. In recent years, AARs have called
attention to the importance of surveillance testing as weapons in
the stockpile are aging beyond their original design lives.
Further, AARs have highlighted limitations at the production
complex, particularly at the Pantex Plant, that have contributed
to surveillance backlogs.8
o Performance: The annual assessment seeks to determine whether
each warhead type still meets the same standards it did when it
was originally certified. A key standard is whether the
performance of the nuclear explosive package would meet
requirements for generating militarily significant yield should
the weapon be used. To support this determination, LANL and LLNL
use a "quantification of margins and uncertainties" (QMU)
methodology, which focuses on creating a common "watch list" of
factors that are the most critical to the operation and
performance of a nuclear weapon.9 QMU seeks to quantify (1) how
close each critical factor is to the point at which it would fail
to perform as designed and (2) the uncertainty that exists in
calculating the margin, in order to ensure that the margin is
sufficiently larger than the uncertainty. The laboratories' use of
QMU depends significantly on their ability to simulate the
explosion of a nuclear weapon. Toward this end, the weapons
laboratories rely on NNSA's Advanced Simulation and Computing
program, which supports stockpile stewardship by providing
computer simulation capabilities to predict weapons' performance,
safety, and reliability. Computer models are validated against the
historic data collected during previous underground nuclear tests
and are constantly improved and updated as new data becomes
available from surveillance testing, material properties testing,
and other physics experiments. Based on the use of QMU, computer
simulations, and experimental data, AARs report a warhead's
expected yield, factors influencing the expected yield, and the
extent to which there is uncertainty in the expected yield.
o Reliability: All nuclear weapons are originally certified to
meet a key military characteristic known as weapon reliability.
DOE defines weapon reliability as "the probability of achieving
the specified yield, at the target, across the Stockpile-to-Target
Sequence of environments, throughout the weapon's lifetime,
assuming proper inputs." According to laboratory officials, LANL
and LLNL use QMU to support the reliability assessment of each
weapon type's nuclear explosive package, while SNL uses
statistical data and QMU-based methodologies to predict the
reliability of nonnuclear components. SNL then combines these
probabilities to come up with an overall reliability calculation
for each warhead or bomb type. NNSA issues a separate, semiannual
report on weapon reliability and provides it to USSTRATCOM for use
in war planning. The laboratories' AARs republish the most recent
reliability calculations in the context of annual assessment.10
8For information on the status of surveillance backlogs, see DOE Office of
Inspector General, Follow-up Audit on Stockpile Surveillance Testing,
October 2006, DOE/IG-0744.
9For more information on QMU, see GAO, Nuclear Weapons: NNSA Needs to
Refine and More Effectively Manage Its New Approach for Assessing and
Certifying Nuclear Weapons, GAO-06-261 (Washington, D.C.: Feb. 3, 2006).
To oversee the development of the AARs and to facilitate key annual
assessment deliverables, each laboratory relies on an annual assessment
coordinator and key technical staff. Laboratory coordinators develop
schedules for the circulation of between three and five drafts of each
AAR. Laboratory program managers for each weapon type are responsible for
the technical content of each AAR, and dozens of other scientific and
engineering staff at each laboratory participate in the development and
review of AARs. Drafts of the AARs are reviewed by officials from the
other weapons laboratories, the relevant POGs, and NNSA. In addition, one
laboratory coordinator told us that he looks at cross-cutting issues in
the AARs to ensure that they are being consistently and completely
addressed. Beginning in the 2006 annual assessment cycle, laboratory
coordinators from LANL and LLNL collaborated to organize an additional
level of peer review by bringing both laboratory directors together to
receive technical annual assessment briefings from their staffs upon
completion of the AARs.
NNSA oversees the weapons laboratories' annual assessment reporting
activities through the use of an annual assessment coordinator. The NNSA
annual assessment coordinator said that officials throughout NNSA review
drafts of the laboratories' AARs and provide comments to the laboratories
on the accuracy of these reports. In addition, NNSA has issued formal
business and operating guidance11 for the conduct and oversight of the
annual assessment process that contains milestones for key laboratory
deliverables and requirements for the format and organization of
laboratory AARs. At the beginning of each annual assessment cycle, the
NNSA annual assessment coordinator meets with the laboratory coordinators
to agree on the major milestones and key deliverables for the year and to
highlight areas for improvement from the previous year. NNSA also issues
formal tasking letters and an execution plan to each of the laboratories
for the annual assessment cycle. The letters state that AARs should not
become advocacy platforms for specific upgrades or enhancements, or for
specific facilities or technology developments. In addition, the plan
states that, aside from meeting statutory requirements, the format and
organization of the laboratory directors' reports are left entirely up to
each director.
Red teams, comprised of experts from all three of the weapons
laboratories, also develop reports and provide additional technical input
for each laboratory director's consideration. The use of red teams is
mandated by section 3141, which requires the red teams to challenge the
technical information provided in the laboratories' AARs and to provide
independent analysis to each laboratory director. According to laboratory
officials, red team members' activities are not constrained. For example,
they can interview laboratory employees without notifying laboratory
management in advance. In addition, some red team members are retired
laboratory employees, which is seen as enhancing their independence.
However, laboratory officials said that red teams do not have separate
budgets and do not have resources to perform their own experiments or
gather their own data. Instead, they are expected to pose questions to
those responsible for the technical information in the AARs and make
recommendations to the laboratory director. A LANL official said that the
findings of LANL's red team are shared with its laboratory director and
senior laboratory weapons managers. However, at LLNL and SNL, the red
teams' findings are shared more broadly with laboratory staff.
10In commenting on our draft report, NNSA officials stated that the
laboratory AARs also focus on safety. Specifically, NNSA stated that the
annual assessment seeks to determine whether each warhead type still meets
the same safety requirements as it did when originally certified.
11NNSA Policy Letter: BOP-10.001 dated July 14, 2005 and annual tasking
letters.
Finally, the laboratory directors rely on the AARs, the red teams'
findings, and additional technical assessments provided by laboratory
experts and managers to write their own report, which reflects their
individual assessment of the safety, performance, and reliability of the
weapons in the nuclear stockpile. In particular, laboratory directors
consult with laboratory technical staff to assess nuclear test readiness,
the adequacy of the tools and methods employed by the production complex,
and the adequacy of science-based tools and methods. Details of each of
these areas of assessment are as follows:
o Test readiness: According to laboratory officials, each
laboratory has technical staff with specific responsibilities
related to the Test Readiness program, which is managed by NNSA
and focuses on the ability of the Nevada Test Site to conduct an
underground nuclear test, should a decision be made to resume
underground testing. Laboratory staff work on an ongoing basis
with their counterparts at the Nevada Test Site and, for annual
assessment, brief the laboratories on the status of issues related
to test readiness. In addition, laboratory directors identify
high-priority nuclear tests--tests that would provide significant
data to resolve identified issues--in their annual assessment
reports, and this information is provided to NNSA and Nevada Test
Site officials for their use in the Test Readiness program. In a
separate, biannual report to the Congress, NNSA also provides data
on essential workforce skills, capabilities, and infrastructure
requirements to support test readiness.12
o Adequacy of tools and methods employed by the production
complex: Laboratory officials said that laboratory employees work
on-site at the production plants and provide regular updates to
the laboratory directors on the status of the production complex.
These officials noted that laboratory directors are not obligated
to assess the overall adequacy or capability of the manufacturing
complex; rather, the laboratory directors focus on the extent to
which manufacturing tools and methods are sufficient to allow them
to assess the safety, performance, and reliability of the
stockpile. NNSA officials said that limitations at the production
complex, particularly at the Pantex Plant, have contributed to
surveillance backlogs, which affect the laboratories' ability to
make a complete assessment. However, because the existing weapon
types have been in the stockpile for decades, laboratory officials
expressed confidence in their understanding of production
processes and the extent to which production capabilities or
inadequacies affect their ability to assess the stockpile.
o Adequacy of science-based tools and methods: Laboratory
officials said that to assess the adequacy of science-based tools
and methods, laboratory directors consider whether the
laboratories have the capabilities to continue to effectively and
efficiently assess the safety, performance, and reliability of the
stockpile. For example, LANL officials said that impediments to
addressing significant finding investigations may call attention
to areas where the laboratories' science-based tools and methods
need improvement. In addition, LLNL officials said that they rely
heavily on the QMU methodology to assess the adequacy of their
computer modeling efforts. However, laboratory officials said that
meeting the standard for adequacy does not require laboratories to
have capabilities to address every question about the stockpile
that may arise. Other laboratory officials acknowledged that the
laboratory directors' conclusions about the adequacy of
science-based tools and methods do not always agree and that,
while tools and methods may currently be adequate, this assessment
could change in the future.
12H.R. Rep. No. 106-945 S3192, accompanying the fiscal year 2001 National
Defense Authorization Act, Pub. L. No. 106-398.
The Commander of USSTRATCOM's Report Is Based Primarily on the Advice of a
Technical Advisory Group
According to USSTRATCOM and SAGSAT officials, the SAGSAT fulfills its
primary mission--to provide technical expertise to the USSTRATCOM
Commander--by conducting an assessment of all nuclear weapons in the
stockpile and reporting on this assessment to the Commander. The SAGSAT
holds an annual conference to gather information from all of the parties
involved in annual assessment, including the weapons laboratories, the
POGs, NNSA, and DOD. The conference is typically held each year in June
and lasts approximately 1 week. In advance of the conference, the SAGSAT
issues guidance to each of the conference attendees describing specific
topics of interest on which the SAGSAT and Commander would like to
briefed. The guidance that SAGSAT issued for the 2006 annual assessment
cycle directed the weapons laboratories and the POGs to provide warhead
system-specific briefings that focused on safety and security, nuclear
explosive package performance, operational testing plans and results, and
the projected health of the warhead. In addition, this guidance directed
o NNSA to address the overall status of the production complex and
plans for addressing shortfalls in current stockpile support
activities, such as surveillance testing;
o LANL and LLNL to provide information on their efforts to advance
the QMU methodology and on the status of a study on the lifetime
of plutonium;
o SNL to present its approach to using the QMU methodology; and
o Air Force and Navy to present an overview of the operational
readiness and reliability of delivery systems to the extent that
delivery system performance may have a direct effect on the
performance of a nuclear warhead; a SAGSAT official told us that
the SAGSAT has requested this briefing from the military services
each year since 2004.
After its conference, the SAGSAT prepares its own report for the Commander
that covers all of the warhead types. The report (1) makes qualitative
statements about the SAGSAT's confidence in each warhead or bomb's safety,
reliability, and performance; (2) provides the SAGSAT's opinion as to
whether a return to underground testing is warranted for each warhead/bomb
type; (3) calls attention to areas of disagreement with the laboratories
or NNSA; (4) focuses on areas that could affect operational decisions; and
(5) makes recommendations for USSTRATCOM action. The SAGSAT report is
forwarded to the DOD and DOE, and SAGSAT members also provide this
information in an annual briefing to the NWC's Standing and Safety
Committee--a working-level group that meets monthly to develop,
coordinate, and approve most actions before they are reviewed and approved
by the full NWC.
According to USSTRATCOM officials, the Commander of USSTRATCOM bases his
assessment report largely on the advice of the SAGSAT. However, the
Commander also relies on other operational information he receives from
USSTRATCOM staff and the military services. For example, one group within
USSTRATCOM determines the number of nuclear weapons the command needs each
year, which affects decisions made about each weapon type. In addition,
USSTRATCOM staff serve as voting members of the POGs. In this capacity,
USSTRATCOM staff participate in and inform the Commander about operations
and logistics decisions. Finally, USSTRATCOM sets requirements for flight
testing, an important part of surveillance testing in which mock weapons
are flown in realistic environments. The results of flight tests are
reflected in the Commander's report and affect his ability to express
confidence in the military effectiveness of weapon types in the absence of
underground nuclear testing.
As the operator of nuclear weapons, USSTRATCOM uses information on overall
weapon system reliability, which is calculated by the military services,
in war planning. To this end, the USSTRATCOM Commander's annual assessment
is distinct from the laboratory directors' assessments in that the
Commander provides an operational perspective in his report. The
Commander's report makes observations about the immediate and longer-term
needs for underground nuclear testing and states whether his confidence in
the reliability of each warhead type has increased, decreased, or remained
unchanged. He also discusses the extent to which he believes the
laboratories and military services are addressing known issues in the
stockpile, calls attention to issues that could be addressed if additional
programs were authorized or funded, and discusses operational alternatives
to address any identified problems.
The POGs Produce Assessments for the NWC Based on Their Review of Ongoing
DOD and DOE Nuclear Weapon Activities
Each POG develops its own annual assessment report for the NWC, reflecting
the combined technical input of the POG members, including officials from
NNSA, the weapons laboratories, and the military services. The information
contained in the POG reports is derived from ongoing DOD and DOE nuclear
weapon activities that the POGs regularly monitor. POGs conduct their work
through subgroups, whose members have technical expertise in the areas
germane to the subgroup's responsibility. For example, members of POG
subgroups on safety and reliability are responsible for ensuring that
their warheads meet all joint DOD/DOE safety and reliability requirements,
including military characteristics and stockpile-to-target sequences. In
addition, the LPOs of each POG are required to provide an annual briefing
to the NWC's Standing and Safety Committee on the status of each weapon
type, including any issues identified within the context of the annual
assessment. All reports and briefings issued by the POGs are reviewed and
approved by the applicable military service before being submitted to the
NWC.13
The NWC Synthesizes and Summarizes the Other Reports to Produce the
"Report on Stockpile Assessments"
The NWC uses the POG reports, the weapons laboratories' AARs, the
laboratory directors' reports, and the USSTRATCOM Commander's report to
produce the "Report on Stockpile Assessments" for the President and the
Congress on behalf of the Secretaries of Energy and Defense. The "Report
on Stockpile Assessments" is a package of reports, including the unaltered
reports from the laboratory directors and the Commander of USSTRATCOM,
NWC's executive summary, and a joint letter from the Secretaries of Energy
and Defense, which provides the overall assessment of the stockpile and
states whether any official has concluded that there is a technical
requirement to perform an underground nuclear test. The executive summary
and joint letter are reviewed and agreed upon at three levels of the NWC
over the course of several months: (1) the Action Officer level, which
includes military officers at the Air Force Colonel or Navy Captain level
and their civilian equivalents, (2) the Standing and Safety Committee, and
(3) the full NWC. In these successive reviews, information is brought up
to a higher level, and policy concerns are addressed. NNSA and laboratory
officials told us the Secretary of Energy receives an extensive briefing
from senior NNSA officials and the three weapons laboratory directors
before signing the joint letter. USSTRATCOM officials told us the
Secretary of Defense does not receive a formal briefing but rather relies
upon staff in the Office of the Secretary of Defense to inform him of any
issues before he signs the joint letter.
NNSA and laboratory officials have questioned whether the NWC's executive
summary provides additional value to the annual assessment process,
particularly because it takes over 5 months to complete. For example, NNSA
officials said that they brief the Secretary of Energy on annual
assessment several months before the NWC's executive summary is complete.
Further, a laboratory official said the executive summary focuses too much
on restating technical information rather than providing the context in
which the technical information should be received. However, congressional
staff and a former National Security Council official with whom we
spoke--end users of the annual assessment reports--told us they found the
executive summary useful for identifying issues and comparing high-level
conclusions from year to year. For example, the 2005 NWC executive summary
(submitted in March 2006) highlighted differences in opinion between (1)
the LANL and LLNL directors as to the adequacy of science-based tools and
methods and (2) the laboratory directors and the Commander of USSTRATCOM
on long-term needs for nuclear testing. Furthermore, NWC and congressional
staff said that a lot of time is spent coordinating between the Offices of
the Secretary of Energy and the Secretary of Defense to get their
signatures on the "Report on Stockpile Assessments" package. As a result,
according to these officials, the NWC would still take a considerable
amount of time to complete its activities even if it did not write an
executive summary.
13In the Navy, the chief officer of the Strategic Systems Programs Office
reviews Navy-led POG reports and briefings. In the Air Force, the chief
officers of the Nuclear Weapons Counterproliferation Agency and its parent
organization, the Strategic Security Directorate, review Air Force-led POG
reports and briefings.
The Annual Assessment Provides a Forum through Which the Nuclear Weapons
Community Collaborates on Technical Issues
While individual members of the nuclear weapons community are responsible
for developing their own reports as part of the annual assessment, the
annual assessment process has broad participation from organizations that
are responsible for the stockpile and provides a forum through which the
nuclear weapons community collaborates on technical issues affecting the
safety, reliability, and performance of the stockpile. For example,
officials from DOD and DOE stated that the SAGSAT provides a unique
function within the annual assessment process. Its annual conference is
the only occasion that brings together all of the organizations involved
in annual assessment--including the weapons laboratories, the POGs, NNSA,
DOD, and the military services--at one time to discuss each weapon at a
technical level. One DOD official said the collaborative aspect of the
annual assessment process is unique and is a benefit completely separate
from the reports or other written products. Collaboration during the
annual assessment process can also lead to the resolution of
disagreements. For example, after concerns over DOD support for weapons
flight tests were raised, the NWC tasked NNSA and USSTRATCOM to determine
whether the agencies could support changes to flight test requirements.
Figure 2 illustrates the collaborative aspect of annual assessment
process.
Figure 2: Interagency Collaboration During Annual Assessment
The Annual Assessment Process Is Not a Vehicle for Reporting Immediate
Issues Regarding Nuclear Testing
While the principal purpose of annual assessment is to provide an analysis
of the safety, reliability, performance, and military effectiveness of the
nuclear stockpile, the process would not be used as a vehicle for
notifying decision makers about an immediate need to conduct a nuclear
test. As stated earlier, the annual assessment process takes 14 months to
complete. According to DOE and DOD officials, if an issue with a weapon
were to arise that required an underground nuclear test to resolve, the
Secretaries of Energy and Defense and the President would be notified
immediately and outside of the context of the annual assessment process.
DOD and NNSA officials told us that the annual assessment reports are
intended to provide information on the safety and performance of the
stockpile within a particular time frame and are not a good tool for
reporting on problems that need to be addressed immediately. A senior
congressional official agreed with this characterization and said that if
an immediate issue arose for which nuclear testing was considered
necessary to resolve, it would be appropriate to notify executive and
congressional decision makers directly.
Finally, according to laboratory officials, there are several options the
nuclear weapons community could explore before conducting an underground
nuclear test. These options include component replacements,
refurbishments, selective retirements, and approving exceptions to
military characteristic or stockpile-to-target sequence requirements.
Laboratory and congressional officials said all of these options would be
rigorously considered before recommending an underground nuclear test.
However, a DOD official also said that if an issue were to surface
suddenly that required an underground nuclear test, the length of time it
would take to prepare for an underground test--which could be 18 months or
more--would probably exceed the length of each annual assessment cycle. As
a result, the annual assessment reports would ultimately reflect a
decision to resume underground nuclear testing.
Agency Comments and Our Evaluation
We provided a draft of this report to NNSA and DOD for their review and
comment. Overall, NNSA stated that it generally agreed with the findings
of the draft report. The complete text of NNSA's comments on our draft
report is presented in enclosure I. NNSA also provided technical comments,
which we incorporated into the report as appropriate. DOD provided oral
comments of a technical nature, which we incorporated into the report as
appropriate.
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If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact
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of this report. Key contributions to this report were made by James Noel,
Assistant Director; Allison Bawden; Jason Holliday; John Delicath; and
Doreen Feldman.
Gene Aloise
Director, Natural Resources
and Environment
Enclosure
Enclosure I
Comments from the National Nuclear Security Administration
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