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UK Royal Navy "Trident" nuclear weapons submariner William McNeilly, aged 25, who has been in communications with WikiLeaks since the beginning of May, has decided he wants to go public about the detailed nuclear safety problems he says he has been "gathering for over a year". An excerpt from William McNeilly's exclusive original report to WikiLeaks follows:
My name is William McNeilly. I am an Engineering Technician Weapons Engineer Submariner for UK's Trident II D5 Strategic Weapons System.
This is document will enlighten you to the shockingly extreme conditions that our nuclear weapons system is in right now, and has been in the past. It describes different threats and events that have happened and are threats that are highly likely to happen; each one individually should raise maximum concern. I need you to publish this document or send it to someone who will; please, for the safety of the people.
This will jump between things like food hygiene and a flooded toilets, till describing the complete lack of security, floods, a blazing inferno in the Missile Compartment etc. My aim is to paint an overall picture of what I've seen, and to break down the false images of a perfect system that most people envisage exists.
[More after the break...]
According to a BBC report, A Navy spokesman said:
"The Royal Navy takes security and nuclear safety extremely seriously and we are fully investigating both the issue of the unauthorised release of this document and its contents."
"The naval service operates its submarine fleet under the most stringent safety regime and submarines do not go to sea unless they are completely safe to do so."
The spokesman also said the Navy "completely disagreed" with Mr. McNeilly's report, claiming that it "contains a number of subjective and unsubstantiated personal views, made by a very junior sailor".
However, they added that it was "right" that the contents of the document were considered in detail.
At the risk of editorializing, I am not surprised a navy spokesman is delivering a point-blank denial, along with an implicit admission that the very release of classified information is more troubling to them than the probable and imminent nuclear security threat, but I am curious about the limits of the public patience. If past leaks are any indication, this report will be found accurate. What then? A navy spokesman is either lying to the press about a matter of national security, or is ordered to lie to the press. Either way, it feels like the Navy is piling new crimes on top of the old ones.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by lizardloop on Tuesday May 19 2015, @11:49AM
I guarantee nothing of consequence will happen. Ultimately there is no real power for change in an organisation like the Navy or NSA. The people there aren't elected, they are hired staff with no public accountability. IN THEORY our politicians should be acting upon this and insisting that there is reform and change otherwise the funding for the organisation will be pulled. Except we know that our politicians are largely spineless and just seeking to keep the status quo for as long as possible.
Media attention is fickle, the public are largely apathetic and our politicians are useless. Nothing will change.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday May 19 2015, @02:02PM
I can't speak for the UK, but their structure isn't DRASTICALLY different from the US. We fashioned our Navy on that of England, after all.
Yeah, some things get swept under the rug. Other things are pursued lackadaisically. Yet other things are aggressively tackled, head on. The things alleged in this leak are exactly the things that are tackled head on. At least in the Navy that I know.
For examples of major shakeups in the military, just google for stories about the US Air Force and lost nuclear warheads. The entire command structure was shaken, and shaken hard.
The US Navy has had some lesser shake ups. They've pretty much always managed to stay out of the public eye, or at least to limit publicity, but we've experienced command restructuring after some scandal or another.
One must be aware, however, that precious few officers, and particularly flag officers, are ever publicly embarrassed. Instead, they are offered a forced early retirement, or quietly informed that they are persona non grata. Every effort is made to avoid public embarrassment.
In this case, it may be necessary to put a high ranking officer's neck in the chopping block, to avoid continuing embarrassment, but I don't really expect that to happen.