Summary

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the adequacy of the Department of the Army's physical security measures to guard against attacks on chemical weapons storage and production facilities and against the diversion or theft of those weapons.

GAO found that: (1) the Army only recently approved physical agility standards for guards; (2) the excessive overtime that some guards worked affected their proficiency; (3) at five of the nine storage sites visited, security guard fleets' vehicles had high mileage and were frequently out of service for unscheduled maintenance; (4) the Army transferred personnel who did not meet the requirements of the Chemical Personnel Reliability Program; (5) despite the 1986 Department of Defense (DOD) requirement that the Army conduct formal site vulnerability assessments, the Army did not issue its implementing regulation until 1989; (6) no uniform method existed to enable local commanders to make vulnerability assessments based on identical standards; and (7) there was no provision for considering the impact of the assessment results on the minimum standards.