Pass-Fail results of Pentagon inspections of America’s nuclear weapons facilities have historically been a better of public record, and one which has proven a repeated embarrassment, as those inspections have repeatedly shown substandard performance and disastrously bad security.

Officials seem to have figured a way around that, as they have begun withholding inspection results, including the very basic pass-fail details that the media usually knows about. This was apparently an internal policy recommendation as a reaction to all the embarrassing failures.

The Pentagon is urging that this is an “additional level of secrecy,” which is meant to prevent “enemies” learning about the nuclear program. In practice, the information made public would’ve been of limited interest to other nations.

The real goal seems obvious. Facts about the systematic failures within America’s nuclear weapons program lead to embarrassing media coverage, and keeping those facts secret is ultimately much simpler than actually making improvements so the inspections are all passed.