Britain's Royal Navy said Monday it has launched an inquiry after a sailor who served on its submarines armed with nuclear weapons said the vessels had major security flaws and were a "disaster waiting to happen."
In a lengthy dossier released on the internet, Able Seaman William McNeilly, who describes himself as a weapons engineer, said Britain's Trident nuclear defense system was vulnerable both to enemies and to potentially devastating accidents because of safety failures.
"Our nuclear weapons are a target that's wide open to attack," wrote McNeilly, who served on board HMS Vanguard, one of the four submarines that carry the Trident missiles. He has since gone absent without leave.