The US government has committed a major slipup and has made public a highly confidential report on hundreds of the nation’s nuclear sites and programmes, according to the media reports.

The report is of 266 pages and was revealed on Monday in an online newsletter, said The New York Times. Nuclear experts have started a debate on the dangers involved, post disclosures. The Times added, the public disclosure has triggered investigations in Washington as to why the report had been made available to the public.

The report has been immediately withdrawn from the website after the inquiry.

Earlier, President Barack Obama had sent the report to the Congress on May 5 for review. The Government printing office posted the report on the website. The reasons behind this are unknown, as of Tuesday evening.

In his letter to the Congress, Obama said the information was ‘sensitive and unclassified’. The report has details of the nuclear programmes and facilities at different locations of the country.  John Deutch, former director of central intelligence and deputy secretary of Defence, said, this was not a serious breach of security and these goof-ups happen. 

But David Albright, the President of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private institute keeping track of nuclear expansion, said such reports are confidential and not revealed as anti-social elements could steal the data and misuse the inside information.

 

One of the most serious details is that of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee. It has the Y-12 National Security Complex, protected by armed guards and barbed wire. It is called the country’s ‘Fort Knox’.