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Report: Bases don’t meet anti-terrorism standards

The Navy is overhauling its anti-terrorism programs after an internal audit found its installation-level protection efforts have been poorly monitored and incomplete.

Investigators with the Naval Audit Service last year visited 22 of the 66 Navy installations in the continental U.S. and found that only one of them had fully complied with post-Sept. 11 Navy directives to develop an anti-terrorism plan.

Those results were vastly different from official information moving up the chain of command.

Navy regional commands were reporting that 89 percent of Navy bases had developed complete anti-terrorism plans, according to the audit service, a Washington, D.C.-based office that monitors the efficiency and effectiveness of Navy programs.

Senior Navy anti-terrorism officials stressed that Navy bases are safe. The investigators did not assess base safety, but rather how well the Navy was adhering to its own standard.

The report does not specify which bases investigators visited or which installation had fully complied.

In the months after Sept. 11, 2001, the Navy ordered all bases to develop anti-terrorism plans with protocols for identifying high-value terrorism targets, conducting risk assessments and distributing information about suspected terrorist threats.

But it remains unclear which Navy installations are meeting the new standards, according to the report.

“We concluded that the current … reporting process does not appear to be an effective means to accurately track and validate the progress of Navy installations in meeting and maintaining compliance with DoD and Navy [anti-terrorism] standards,” the report says.

The investigators looked at the Navy’s existing system for tracking terrorism vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities included observations such as “access control procedures at gates are inconsistent, poorly defined, outdated,” or “active vehicle gates are subject to high speed and have no positive stopping capability.”

Investigators found that an estimated 49 percent of the vulnerabilities identified by installations had no corresponding “mitigation action plan” listed, according to the report.

They also wrote that this was a “systemic problem” because it limits senior leaders’ ability to decide where best to direct limited funds to shore up security at Navy bases.

A ‘favor’ for Navy planners

The Navy agreed with essentially every aspect of the audit report, which was published internally in October 2008 and obtained by Navy Times through the Freedom of Information Act.

“The [Navy-wide] anti-terrorism plans were probably not as structured as we’d have liked them to have been,” said Capt. Jim Cunha, head of anti-terrorism programs for the chief of naval operations.

“The audit service did us a favor. ... These are things we knew were a problem and were working on.”

He said the problem stemmed from a failure of communication between upper-level policy-makers and officials at installations regarding the anti-terrorism measures that needed to be taken and how they should be reported up the chain.

One key difference sailors can expect to see in the coming months is a shift in focus by uniformed patrols — moving away from law enforcement and toward anti-terrorism.

“We’ve been kind of doing it old school” Cunha said. “I think we were overboard on the law-enforcement side. ... We’re going to be looking for the terrorist, not the mother who’s illegally parked by the commissary.

“We’re not going to get all the resources we want. I think this process is going to allow us to be more effective and efficient.”

Room for improvement

Changes designed to improve installation security that could be coming soon, according to Capt. Jim Cunha, head of anti-terrorism programs for the chief of naval operations:

• Some security officials likely will shift from patrols to guarding specific “high-value Navy assets” later this year.

• A Web-based system to track anti-terrorism efforts, which would give senior leaders real-time insight into the status and progress of installation-level activities, is under consideration.

• Installations will be ranked under a new system that will help senior leaders allocate money and resources. Bases with nuclear weapons will get the highest priority, followed by those with vital ships and aircraft.