Seaman William McNeilly. Photo from his Facebook page.
MINNEAPOLIS — He called the United Kingdom’s nuclear submarine program a “disaster waiting to happen,” creating a flurry of discussion about a dangerously neglected arm of the military-industrial complex. Now, Able Seaman William McNeilly has turned himself in, ready to face charges for leaking inside information on dangerous safety flaws on the Trident program.
WikiLeaks released the allegations against the British Royal Navy on Sunday, a lengthy document culled from months of observations by McNeilly, who spent a year preparing to release his report. McNeilly had been on leave but due to return to duty when the leak was released. He told media he traveled between countries and used multiple aliases to avoid arrest, before turning himself into police on Tuesday. According to his brother, the navy is holding McNeilly at a secure facility in Scotland.
McNeilly accused the British navy of leaving its nuclear weapons program open to infiltration by terrorists or other enemies, and he documented numerous incidents of both inept security and incompetent safety procedures. Tomas Hirst, writing for Business Insider, outlined some of the most dangerous claims. Among those allegations are that McNeilly could record safety guidelines for nuclear weapons systems on his smartphone, unchecked luggage and poorly tracked personnel, and he had easy access to secure areas of the nuclear submarines.
“A serious fire in a missile compartment caused by stacking toilet roll along the decks of the submarine set alight by the head of electrical cables running alongside them,” recounts Hirst.
The subs were also leaky and poorly maintained, according to McNeilly, with some doing extended periods of duty because the HMS Vanguard needed almost continual repairs.
However, security concerns are what ultimately led McNeilly to become a whistleblower. “All it takes is someone to bring a bomb onboard to commit the worst terrorist attack the UK and the world has every [sic] seen,” he wrote on WikiLeaks.
Elsewhere in his report, McNeilly recounts the ease at which he could access a secure area of the nuclear submarine facility. “At the gate the guard barely looked at my pass, which was a paper sticker with my face on it; mounted onto a piece cardboard. … It’s harder to get into most nightclubs.”
Unfortunately, other security was just as lax. McNeilly could even access the submarines themselves, and recounts using a hotel-style key card, without even a photo, in place of his military ID on at least one occasion.
The British navy has rejected McNeilly’s claims, and called him too inexperienced to be taken seriously, referring to “subjective and unsubstantiated personal views, made by a very junior sailor.”
The first Astute class nuclear submarine is rolled out at the BAE Systems production plant in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England, Friday June 8, 2007.
Meanwhile, Euan Bryson, a former British navy communications and information technology specialist, came forward Monday to offer his support for McNeilly, including recounting how “a shipmate routinely used a blue bank card to get past security into his base after losing his Royal Navy identity card on a night out.”
“I made my thoughts clear when I served, including when I handed in my resignation notice. The chain of command system has failed. If McNeilly felt ignored what other option did he have?” Bryson told The Guardian.
Media have already begun to assassinate McNeilly’s character by questioning his mental health or attacking him for exposing security vulnerabilities to the world. But in a Twitter conversation with Bryson, WikiLeaks argued this only reinforces the message of serious, unaddressed concerns:
Joe Glenton, a former British soldier, who served five months in a military prison for refusing on ethical grounds to return to duty in Afghanistan, accused the media of ignoring the substance of McNeilly’s claims while engaging in a “preposterous” and all too familiar debate over whether he’s a “Hero or Traitor?”
Glenton reserved his strongest criticism for the navy itself, dismissing their official statements.
“We do know that ad hominem has become the automatic response by the state to those who expose the truth these days,” he wrote.
Glenton emphasized McNeilly’s qualifications:
“McNeilly … is a highly trained, highly paid engineer trusted by the Royal Navy to operate on an advanced WMD-carrying submarine.
Junior or not, safety is a central part of his job — as it is of any submariner’s role.”
He concluded:
“The fact that [McNeilly’s] view is one from the bottom up — from the coalface of our bloated, sagging nuclear program — does not diminish the strength of his arguments. It is far more likely to multiply them.”