The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) made several recommendations to the Department of Defense on how security inspections of locations that store Security Risk Category (SRC I) ammunition are done in accordance with policy.
The DOD maintains stockpiles of SRC I ammunition—which consists of nonnuclear, portable missiles and rockets in a ready-to-fire configuration —and it requires a high level of protection and security due to its ability to cause extreme damage or lethality. However, the DOD’s rules for safeguarding the storage of SRC I ammunition are not the same across the various branches of the armed services.
For example, DOD requires at least eight hours of backup power for intrusion detection systems, but the Army, Navy, and Air Force guidance requires only four hours. The Army and Navy plan to revise their guidance to be in line with DOD requirements before the end fiscal year 2018. The Marine Corps and Air Force also plan to revise their guidance to be consistent with DOD requirements.
Also, the GAO found that the services do not consistently document resolutions. For example, only three of 14 Army locations provided documentation about how security deficiencies were resolved. It recommends that the DOD revise its guidance to ensure that the military services establish a process for documenting the resolution of all identified security deficiencies.
Further, the GAO determined that some inspections of the ammunition storage spaces were not conducted on time in accordance with military service guidance. Of the 125 Army, Navy, and Marine Corps inspection reports the GAO reviewed, 54 inspections (or 43 percent) were late by one day to 14 months.
The GAO made recommended that the Army, Navy, and Marines conduct physical security inspections on time. The office also suggests that the Air Force consistently document that all minimum requirements for physical security were checked. Finally, it says the DOD should establish a process to document the resolution of all identified physical security deficiencies consistently.