Report: fed. agents took ammo to Oak Ridge without authorization

Report: fed. agents took ammo to Oak Ridge without authorization

July 19, 2007

OAK RIDGE (AP) -- A published report in Knoxville says federal agents took 3,400 rounds ammunition from a training exercise in Texas back to Oak Ridge on board a government plane without declaring it.

Those agents are with the Office of Secure Transportation, tasked with safely transporting nuclear weapons, warhead components and special nuclear materials.

A report in Thursday's Knoxville News Sentinel quotes a report by the Energy Department's inspector general as saying 119 rounds of the armor-piercing ammunition is still unaccounted for.

Further, the report says someone had colored the tips of some regular ammunition black in an apparent attempt to conceal that the more lethal variety was missing.

The exercise was held at a private firing range in Kingsville, Texas, to train agents on a new rifle. Afterward, 3,400 rounds out of the 15,000 taken to the exercise were unused.

The inspector general says most of it was later checked in to a federal magazine, but 119 rounds is still not accounted for.

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