Air and Army National Guard members of Arkansas’s 61st Weapons of Mass Destruction-Civil Support Team sharpened their rapid response skills in a weapons of mass destruction training exercise last week at Kirtland AFB, N.M. As part of a course at the Defense Nuclear Weapons School there, the anti-terrorism exercise required the guardsmen to find, identify, and safely contain a sample of radioactive material hidden in a trailer. DOD has fielded 40 Guard WMD-CSTs, working toward a total of 55 teams authorized by Congress.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.

