Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday May 19 2015, @11:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the pointed-commentary dept.

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.

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 5, Disagree) by VLM on Tuesday May 19 2015, @12:17PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 19 2015, @12:17PM (#185035)

    It WAS interesting, and very long, but I was more or less unimpressed.

    Yeah its dangerous, no shite, thats why you get endless extra pay and bonuses, almost like wartime pay because (drumroll) during peacetime its near as dangerous and stressful as service on a surface ship in wartime. Its kind of like joining the infantry and writing a breathless expose that the infantry marches a lot, yeah no kidding. And even more comical its an expose that when VIPs visit they get the potemkin village treatment, no shit, not like thats ever happened anywhere else in the world especially the civilian world. Trust me, the VIPs know they're being fed a line of optimistic BS, they don't need a kid to tell them.

    So the russians put 550 Kg of explosive into a Type 65 to sink a Trident, and he's freaking out that gate guards don't notice or care about things smaller than a can of soda. Hmm. Well sure an inside job is a little more effective than being outside / nearby the hull, but... You have to realize you could have a hell of a lot better odds pulling a Wesley than carrying something in (remember that ST:TNG episode where wesley got drunk or whatever and pulled all the chips out of the ships computer stranding them... well, blowing up the reactor with a smuggled in 155mm artillery shell smuggled in is extremely "Hollywood" movie plot and security theater inducing anxiety, but more realistically just unplug the reactor coolant pump or open certain valves while locking the watertight doors. Why worry about smuggling stuff in if the stuff already in there is more than enough to do the job? Why sneak a bomb in when the torpedo room is full of them?

    The above is the kind of big pix stuff the kid doesn't get. So you vet and analyze and monitor the hell out of everyone partially so it doesn't matter that they let him F with his phone over a secret document. It would be nice if full security theater were enforced but in the big pix it gains nothing and wastes time better spent... oh maybe fixing the leaking plumbing he was bitching about. If he did his job instead of fooling around, maybe in some chain reaction effect stuff would have gotten taken care of before leaking... Its a team effort and playing wanna be 007 is I suppose relaxing in its own way, but for a guy who seems to spend most of his time being ineffective spying and spinning yarns and documenting stuff onboard, he complains a lot about other sailors being ineffective, despite being less ineffective than him. One dude flipped the wrong switch once so he's worthless and should have walked the plank according to OP, but OP spent hours snapping pix of secret documents, now who is the "real" lazy screwup between the two of them?

    The kid drank the kool-aide with respect to security theater. We like to tell ourselves that racial profiling is wrong so we don't do it, blah blah. Well, lets be realistic, the guards have seen your file, know when to expect you, see you, you're a white dude in the navy, they are not going to put a thousandth of the effort into watching you as looking for some arab dude wearing a really heavy looking vest. Politically incorrect? Oh hell yeah. Militarily effective and safe? Oh hell yeah. He's also drinking the security theater bit where if its isn't inconvenient then its not secure, which is stupid. You put a person onsite basically to punish them by making them stand out in the rain and greet people, the real security and monitoring is the guys in the CCTV room and the overall holistic security process of everybody knowing everyone else, more or less.

    Yup a kid doesn't like the decisions the captain made. Without knowing whatever else the captain may have avoided thats worse. Or without the perspective to know its not a big deal in the big pix. Does it suck for him at that instant, sure. But he seems to assume that automatically means it sucks for the overall mission or the navy in general. Maybe the best of a worst situation means it sucks right them for him. Welcome to hierarchical organizational structures, not just the military but corporations and .gov.

    I would say its probably all true or smells true enough, but doesn't really matter. His data is good and interesting, analysis OK, conclusions extremely weak.

    He probably should have complained to the chain of command or transferred out rather than just publishing. Normally in the .mil things get fixed via complaint or abandonment, not by journalism. Journalism usually is less effective than the alternatives. In general I like what wikileaks does and it serves and important purpose and maybe a somewhat censored and professionally edited version of this guys story would make an interesting book. But this individual incident... eh?

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Insightful=1, Interesting=2, Disagree=3, Total=6
    Extra 'Disagree' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @03:11PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @03:11PM (#185083)

    Normally in the .mil things get fixed via complaint or abandonment

    A bureaucracy fixing it's internal problems without external pressure? Ha-ha-ha, good one!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @03:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @03:22PM (#185087)

      A bureaucracy fixing it's internal problems? Ha-ha-ha, good one!

      FTFY

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @04:35PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @04:35PM (#185122)

        A bureaucracy fixing it's internal problems? Ha-ha-ha, good one!

        FTFY

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday May 19 2015, @03:56PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 19 2015, @03:56PM (#185097)

      A bureaucracy fixing it's internal problems without external pressure?

      From my own .mil experience they're shockingly effective at self correction and closing feedback loops from the bottom up ALTHOUGH every time they fail the journalists do an excellent job of waving pitchforks. From the top down if its a corrupt purchase process or just a dumb idea then you are correct nothing can fix that, nothing from the bottom up anyway.

      This is what I don't understand about OPs complaint list. At least in the American Army, you see a leaky valve you report it, it gets taken care of at best effort which is usually pretty good. Ditto WTF about food storage issues or whatever. Maybe the UK navy runs differently, but they aren't THAT far inferior to us so it seems unlikely they're that Fed up.

      If your humvee leaks oil, you redline it on the monthly PMCS form and it gets fixed or someone gets disciplined for not un-red-lining it, publishing to wikileaks doesn't really work, doesn't really do anything. If your humvee is in general an over engineered unreliable POS then there's nothing anyone can do about it and publishing to wikileaks is a waste of time. Either way, I donno.

      The other .mil strategy I've seen a lot is abandonment. Oh that lot number of that NSN number of that M-series spec'd rifle ammo has too many misfires to meet combat specs? Who cares, remove the "wartime" grade from the whole lot number and dedicate it to training, the boys at basic training need more practice at immediate action drills anyway. Why'd it fail? Who cares, its 20 yrs old and we'll burn thru the stocks in training. Similar experience with a broken extractor on my old M16A1, who cares we're all getting new A2s issued in three months so just try not to get deployed before then LOL (yeah I'm old). I suppose "when it breaks, toss it" works a heck of a lot better with rifles than with nuclear submarines, but maybe on a smaller component scale, sorta...

      • (Score: 2) by CRCulver on Tuesday May 19 2015, @04:02PM

        by CRCulver (4390) on Tuesday May 19 2015, @04:02PM (#185100) Homepage

        At least in the American Army, you see a leaky valve you report it, it gets taken care of at best effort which is usually pretty good.

        Best effort? One of the first bits of the lingo I learned in the Navy was "Close enough for government work", said with a shrug as you walk away from a half-ass job that won't be discovered for a while.

      • (Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday May 19 2015, @05:59PM

        by Arik (4543) on Tuesday May 19 2015, @05:59PM (#185151) Journal
        "If your humvee leaks oil, you redline it on the monthly PMCS form and it gets fixed or someone gets disciplined for not un-red-lining it, publishing to wikileaks doesn't really work, doesn't really do anything."

        What if you are receiving undue pressure from a senior officer to NOT red-line it to begin with, hmm?

        That's where it really does start to get too dicey for mortal men to account. That's when you suddenly realize that an anonymous line to a military lawyer and/or a journalist really is a necessity, not just a nice-to-have.

        "If your humvee is in general an over engineered unreliable POS then there's nothing anyone can do about it and publishing to wikileaks is a waste of time. "

        Great can't do attitude there. There's just nothing you can do about it, wasted effort to even try eh?

        No, the truth is there ARE things we can do about it, they are just none so effective or easy as we would like. What can be done about it is to cut the unseemly close ties between the contractors and the government. And the only way that can happen is if people keep leaking this shit, so that the populace keeps being reminded about it, and can vote some people out over it.

        "The other .mil strategy I've seen a lot is abandonment. Oh that lot number of that NSN number of that M-series spec'd rifle ammo has too many misfires to meet combat specs? Who cares, remove the "wartime" grade from the whole lot number and dedicate it to training, the boys at basic training need more practice at immediate action drills anyway. Why'd it fail? Who cares, its 20 yrs old and we'll burn thru the stocks in training."

        That one I'd call good thinking, frankly.

        "Similar experience with a broken extractor on my old M16A1, who cares we're all getting new A2s issued in three months so just try not to get deployed before then LOL"

        This one, on the other hand, is a shocking lapse. Your equipment should be maintained at all times, and it's not like there wasnt another rifle in a locker or a crate somewhere on base, c'mon.
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday May 19 2015, @06:24PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 19 2015, @06:24PM (#185163)

          receiving undue pressure from a senior officer to NOT red-line it

          Yeah that could be a pickle, the mechanics obviously didn't like it when we red-lined their stuff, but our own NCOs and officers were like F them thats their job so you can guess who we made happy and who we made angry. So it would have to be someone above us in the org chart, pretty much the captain or some officer above. Why the captain (or above) would care if I redline one of our many humvees would be a mystery. I admit life might be different, less confrontational, on a ship in the middle of the ocean with no higher level organization support down the road for the mechanics.

          it's not like there wasnt another rifle in a locker or a crate somewhere on base

          That was pretty much the armorers attitude, yeah. I'll never have to qualify with it again, if I "really needed one" there's unassigned rifles, but he's not going to do the paperwork to assign me an unassigned rifle if we're all getting new rifles soon anyway. Why not let the national guard spend the $ fitting a new extractor instead of us (him), etc. Maybe they scrapped the old A1s at a steelmill so putting a new extractor into something that'll be razor blades in two months would be a waste, I donno, but he wasn't too concerned it was broken.

          • (Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday May 19 2015, @06:52PM

            by Arik (4543) on Tuesday May 19 2015, @06:52PM (#185176) Journal
            "Why the captain (or above) would care if I redline one of our many humvees would be a mystery."

            Because he owes someone else who cares would be the most likely scenario, but you never know. It would also be possible he has either a monetary or a career interest in minimizing such reports under his command.

            "but he's not going to do the paperwork to assign me an unassigned rifle"

            And there is your number one enemy. You can shoot another nations troops, rocket their tanks, etc. but you cannot turn your guns on the beancounters so you are condemned to drown in red tape.

            And the worst part is even with all that paperwork the beancounters still cant balance the books, and havent been able to for decades.
            --
            If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Jeremiah Cornelius on Tuesday May 19 2015, @06:38PM

        by Jeremiah Cornelius (2785) on Tuesday May 19 2015, @06:38PM (#185169) Journal

        FIGMO
        SNAFU
        FUBAR
        TARFU
        SHTF
        BOHICA

        --
        You're betting on the pantomime horse...
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @04:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 19 2015, @04:21PM (#185115)

    I agree with everything but the racial profiling line. The fact that he's in the navy and cleared is what gets him close, not the fact that he is white. Now, there may racial profiling that keep someone from being cleared, but that's clearly far before that person shows up at the door.