ARTICLE

February 2004

Energy Dept. Commandos: ‘As Good as the Military’

by Geoff S. Fein

The Department of Energy is seeking to beef up its team of commandos, which is trained to help protect nuclear weapons facilities in the United States.

The Composite Adversary Team (CAT) is the Department of Energy’s equivalent to the Defense Department’s special operations forces. Unlike conventional security forces, CAT operators train to think like terrorists. Acting covertly, they find ways to challenge DOE’s security measures at nuclear weapons facilities. The protection of nuclear power plants, however, is the responsibility of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

CAT team members are the cream-of-the-crop of DOE’s security guards. Joining the ranks isn’t easy. Positions are not advertised. Recruiters periodically visit DOE sites, review personnel records and interview potential candidates, said Glenn Podonsky, director of the DOE office of independent oversight performance assurance. He said he is looking for individuals who have the physical and mental capability, as well as the ability to work effectively as part of a team.

The mission that CAT teams perform today used to be assigned to U.S. special operations forces, including Army Rangers, Navy SEALs and Delta Force. That arrangement did not work out, said Podonsky, because SOF units were being deployed constantly and could not devote adequate time to DOE. Another problem was that SOF tactics sometimes don’t fit the DOE missions, he said.

Army Rangers had been tasked once to protect a DOE site, but they were “ill prepared to thwart off dangers,” Podonsky added.

“We decided to develop our own team,” said Podonsky. “We’re as good as, if not better than, any military organization we have today.”

There are 26 CAT members, in addition to 12 to 15 trainers.

Once accepted into CAT, guards are expected to change their mindset gradually, Podonsky said.

“They have been trained in a defensive posture, now they must train in an offensive posture,” he said. “We get them to think as terrorists would, get them used to weapons that terrorists use.”

Teams go through a week of training about two to three times a year. There are no full-time CATs. Team members are pulled from their regular guard duty to take part in exercises. The idea is for CATs to apply the knowledge gained in the training for their sites, said Podonsky.

Trainers are people with “real world experience,” said Podonsky, although he declined to discuss the professional backgrounds of trainers. They “run the gamut from former POWs to groups that have broken up terrorists groups.

“We need the best of the best to do what we do,” Podonsky said. “Our guys are unsung heroes. They test and stress systems to make sure the facilities in the United States are protected.”

Teams train at the Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) site at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and the Nevada Test Site, near Las Vegas, Nev.—a 1,375 square mile area that since 1992 has been used for testing hazardous chemicals, conventional weapons and emergency response training.

Congress had considered funding a training facility for the CAT, but that never materialized, said Podonsky. He remains hopeful that funds one day may be available.

Having a facility dedicated for CAT training would allow them to work with live explosives, something that many team members never do, said Podonsky.

Although their training regimen is secret, they do have a vast arsenal of weapons at their command. CAT members are armed with light machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, light anti-tank weapons, and whatever other weapons terrorists might use, said Podonsky.

Each exercise takes weeks of preparation. The size of the CAT varies depending on the facility and the training scenario. The team leader visits the facility, scopes it out, gets the security plan and examines the configuration of the site’s operations, said Podonsky.

A formal inspection plan is given to the site manager, without specifying the date, time or nature of the scenario, said Podonsky. During the “window of inspection,” the exercise is run.

“It’s well choreographed, so that everybody understands the state of play,” he said. “But the scenario is only known by the author.”

An armed “shadow force,” is on stand-by, in case the facility actually is attacked during the training exercise, Podonsky added.

The exercise can run, in bits and pieces, for up to three days, or as one long 24-hour drill, said Podonsky.

“We attack the facility against its existing security plans,” said Podonsky. “Testing gives us tremendous information on vulnerabilities.”

CAT members have to penetrate the varying layers of security, from non-lethal weapons to hardened buildings to a protective force, to get to their target, said Podonsky.

To accomplish this, CAT members apply terrorist tactics, he said. “Our guys are very inventive.”

In one scenario, a team member left behind a mock explosive and a booby trap, which a site guard stumbled upon.

But CAT tactics don’t go beyond what the site security personnel are capable of handling, Podonsky said.

Like military units, CAT teams use Multiple Integrated Laser Equipment System (MILES) marksmanship equipment during the training. It allows them to record kills and misses, and conduct detailed after-action reviews.

“We don’t use live ammunition. We have zero tolerance for injuries or casualties,” said Podonsky.

Exercise controllers also are on hand to make sure that the site guards are not warned in advance about the presence of CAT teams, said Podonsky.

The exercises are not meant to have winners and losers. If an attack is thwarted by the site’s security guards, it doesn’t mean necessarily they are great guards, said Podonsky. Likewise, if the CAT members are able to gain access to a site, it doesn’t mean that security personnel are entirely incompetent.

If CAT members are able to penetrate a site’s defenses, it just means there are some vulnerabilities in the layers of security.

“When we find a failure point [in a site’s security system], our goal is to fix it,” he said.

Once the exercise is completed, evaluators discuss what they saw with both CAT members and site management.

The data is compiled into a report. It’s given to site management to review and comment on, said Podonsky.

A quality review board then comes out to the facility and verifies the accuracy of the report. The report is re-evaluated by the site management before it is sent to senior DOE managers, the secretary of energy and members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Podonsky.

Podonsky acknowledged that the program has received some bad press over the years, particularly news accounts that documented lax security at nuclear sites. He admits there are some areas where security needs to be bolstered.

“We’re not looking to sugarcoat things, but you don’t want people to exploit things either,” he said. “[Site security] is not a rent-a-cop outfit, it’s fairly robust.”

Following the example set by the DOE, the Canadian nuclear power industry is developing its own adversary teams, similar to CAT, in order to help improve power plant security.

On November 17, police, private security personnel and senior security managers, involved in armed response capabilities, trained for four days near Pasco, Wash. The program was conducted by Nuclear Security Services Corp., of Illinois.

On-site responders can be police contracted to the licensee, or private security personnel hired by a facility, said Cleroux.

“The purpose of this course was to train on-site armed responders to think and act like terrorists so they can help recreate realistic training exercises that simulate a major terrorist attack on nuclear facilities,” said Michel Cleroux, a spokesman for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC).

Because this was the first group of professionals from Canada to go through the adversary training program, information about the specifics of the course were classified, said Cleroux.

Participants in the November training came from the Bruce, Pickering and Darlington nuclear generating stations in Ontario and the Point Lepreau station in New Brunswick. Additional personnel came from Atomic Energy of Canada, Ltd., and the CNSC.

The goal is for the trainees to help form adversary teams that can participate in realistic attack exercises, using simulated ammunition, at nuclear power facilities in Canada, said Cleroux.

“These exercises will probably take place around the end of 2004 at various sites in Canada, including the nuclear generating stations,” he said.

Canada has 22 licensed nuclear power reactors at five different sites in Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. Ontario has 20 of the 22 facilities, said Cleroux.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, the CNSC ordered all major nuclear facilities, including high-level radioactive waste management sites, to implement security measures that included on-site armed response available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, said Cleroux.

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