US lifts lid on UK missile malfunction
BRITAIN: Britain and the United States yesterday gave contrasting accounts of a Trident missile failure, following 24 hours of chaos over the incident which has seen Prime Minister Theresa May accused of a ‘‘coverup’’.
There have been calls for an inquiry after a British newspaper reported a ‘‘serious malfunction’’ during an unarmed Trident test in June last year and that the missile may have ‘‘veered off in the wrong direction towards America’’.
The British government said the Trident nuclear submarine had been ‘‘successfully tested and certified, allowing Vengeance to return into service’’.
May appeared on television on Monday and refused four times to say she knew about the Trident misfire off the coast of Florida in the weeks before she forced a vote in the House of Commons calling for the renewal of Britain’s nuclear deterrent.
May said only that she had ’’absolute faith in our Trident missiles’’ and that ‘‘I think we should defend our country’’.
’’I’m regularly briefed on national security issues. I was briefed on successful certification of HMS Vengeance and her crew,’’ she said, adding that the government did not comment on operational details for national security reasons.
Yesterday, May’s official spokeswoman admitted the prime minister was informed about the test before she addressed MPS on the £40 billion renewal of Britain’s nuclear deterrent last summer.
The spokeswoman said: ‘‘The defence secretary [Sir Michael Fallon] and the prime minister are routinely informed when one of these specific ‘demonstration and shakedown’ operations are planned and on the outcome of them. In this instance, that was in June, so it was under the then prime minister [David Cameron].
‘‘On taking office, the current prime minister was briefed on a range of nuclear issues, including this.’’
The spokeswoman declined to say whether May was informed of a malfunction in the missile system, stating it was not Government policy to discuss operational details of tests in public, and telling reporters she did not ’’accept the premise of the question’’.
Fallon was summoned to the Commons yesterday to answer questions from backbenchers. He repeatedly refused to discuss details of the launch.
However, as he addressed the comments, American broadcaster CNN began releasing details of the ‘‘failure’’. CNN reported a US defence official had confirmed the unarmed Trident II D5 missile veered off course after being launched off the coast of Florida.
The official was reported to have said the altered trajectory was part of an automatic selfdestruct sequence triggered when an anomaly was detected.
Mary Creagh, a Labour MP, said: ‘‘You have advised us not to believe everything we read in the Sunday newspapers. But should we believe the White House official who, while we’ve been sitting here debating, has confirmed to CNN that a missile did auto self-destruct off the coast of Florida?
‘‘And if that is the case, why is the British Parliament and the British public the last people to know?’’ she asked.
‘‘While accepting that the nuclear deterrent needs to be shrouded in secrecy, it also needs to deter,’’ said Julian Lewis, an MP with May’s Conservatives and chair of the defence committee.
‘‘Once stories get out there that a missile may have failed, isn’t it better to be quite frank about it? Especially if it has no strategic significance?’’
Fallon said that if the government had had any doubts about the capability or effectiveness of the missiles it would not have asked parliament to vote on them.
– Telegraph Group, Reuters