The Office of Inspector General in the US Department of Energy has just released a “Letter Report on ‘Inspection of Allegations Relating to Irregularities in the Human Reliability Program and Alcohol Abuse within the Office of Secure Transportation” (OST):

Specifically, a review of OST documentation and interviews confirmed the occurrence of 16 alcohol-related incidents involving OST Agents, Agent Candidates and other personnel from 2007 through 2009. To put this situation in some perspective, the 16 alcohol-related incidents experienced by OST from 2007 through 2009 were from a total population of approximately 597 OST Agents, Agent Candidates and other personnel. Of the 16 incidents, 2 were of the greatest concern because they occurred during secure transportation missions while the Agents were in Rest Overnight Status, which occurs during extended missions where [nuclear weapon] convoy vehicles are placed in a safe harbor and Agents check into local area hotels. In 2007, an Agent was arrested for public intoxication, and, in 2009, two Agents were handcuffed and temporarily detained by police officers after an incident at a local bar. OST management took what appeared to be appropriate action in these cases. However, in our judgment, alcohol incidents such as these, as infrequent as they may be, indicate a potential vulnerability in OST’s critical national security mission

Vehicles with nuclear weapons go into safe harbor overnight but Agents can go out on the town. That pretty-much says it all.

The 16 incidents could implicate 3% of staff. The report does not make any formal recommendations and so it also does not try to figure out if this is a case of a few bad apples or a loosely managed and thereby insecure operation overall.

Either way, the report concludes that nuclear weapons and thereby national security is in the hands of staff who often become involved in “incidents” related to alcohol.