You weren't supposed to find anything...: The lead investigators at the Los Alamos National Laboratory were fired apparently for doing their job too well. This is sort of akin to Arthur Andersen auditing the companies it was also providing consulting services to. The point is only to have the appearance of actually doing something. One of the investigators is quoted as saying: "Instead of being praised for what we did, we were constantly reminded that we were working for UC (University of California, which operates the lab for the Department of Energy) and that our goal should be protecting UC's (management) contract." Comforting.