PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo.—The commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command said Thursday he approved some “prudent” changes in NORAD’s headquarters after a security review prompted by NORAD’s decision to move some functions out of a Colorado mountain bunker.
Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr. said none of the changes are sweeping and that he’s comfortable with the current security.
“I think they’re all prudent changes,” Renuart said, adding that NORAD’s headquarters were built for another command—the U.S. Space Command—so changes were necessary to accommodate NORAD and its sister agency, the U.S. Northern Command, which Renuart also oversees. Northcom handles the military component of homeland security.
“They are not sweeping,” he said of the changes. “They are very effective, they’re very cost-effective as well, and they leave me with a very low concern over any risk.”
Renuart said the changes would be implemented over the next year or year and a half. He said they will “allow us to be in a position to have the best capacity for the nation in the best location and have reliable backups should a contingency arise.”
Renuart said a recently completed review led by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency recommended a series of changes and that he approved some of them, but he gave no specifics.
He said he will discuss the planned changes with congressional committees before making any information public.
NORAD, a joint U.S.-Canada command that protects the continent from air attack, decided in 2006 to move some operations from a blast-hardened center inside Cheyenne Mountain to nearby Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs after problems surfaced during a joint exercise.
The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said last year the Defense Department omitted or understated some threats to the new location. The GAO also questioned some calculations the military used to argue the move would save money.
The specific security problems have never been made public, but The Gazette newspaper of Colorado Springs reported last year it had obtained a classified document saying “the existing security system at Peterson AFB … would fail if attacked by even a low-level threat.”
