US nuclear facilities 'vulnerable to attack'

A report says the US's 10 nuclear weapons facilities are vulnerable to terrorist attack.

A watchdog says the sites have failed around half of all their recent security drills.

US Army and Navy commando teams removed nuclear material capable of mass destruction during the exercises.

The report says states situated near the plants could have been destroyed if the material had been detonated.

Government security rules require the facilities to defend themselves against theft of their materials, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The Project on Government Oversight report cites a drill at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in October 2000.

It states: "The mock terrorists gained control of sensitive nuclear material which, if detonated, would have endangered significant parts of New Mexico, Colorado and downwind areas."

In an earlier test at the same laboratory, a household garden cart was used to take enough weapons-grade uranium to build several nuclear weapons.

A spokeswoman at the National Nuclear Security Administration, a branch of the Energy Department, declined to comment on the report.