quote from 'The Australian' papers:
Daniel Stacey, London
May 09, 2005
A FORMER British military official has backed a sensational claim
that the Russian nuclear submarine, the Kursk, was torpedoed by US
forces in August 2000.
An official inquest concluded that the disaster in which all 118
crew drowned in the Barents Sea, 135km off the Russian coast was
caused by an accidental explosion of an onboard torpedo.
But Maurice Stradling, a former torpedo engineer and a key figure
in the original investigation, believes a new French documentary,
The Kursk: A Submarine in Troubled Waters, should change world
opinion on the sinking.
"On the balance of probabilities, the Kursk was sunk by an American
MK-48 torpedo," said Mr Stradling, formerly a senior member of the
British Defence Ministry.
BBC editor Nick Fraser called the claim a "pack of lies" and has
refused to air the documentary, which attracted a record audience
of more than 4 million when it screened on French TV.
The BBC used Mr Stradling as its main authority for a documentary
it made in 2001 What Sank the Kursk?, in which Mr Stradling
theorised that the sinking was caused by the malfunctioning of an
old-fashioned HTP torpedo.
Mr Stradling, who also appears in the new French documentary, said:
"At the time (2001), that was a perfectly reasonable film, given
the facts as we knew them then, when there seemed to be no
third-party involvement,"
The new explanation for the Kursk's downing is based on film
footage of a hole in the side of the vessel, and evidence placing
US submarines in the area at the time it was sunk.
The French film shows stills of the Kursk raised above the water
after being salvaged, with a precise circular hole in its right
side. The hole clearly bends inwards, consistent with an attack
from outside the submarine.
A US military source in the documentary declares the hole to be the
trademark evidence of an American MK-48 torpedo, which is made to
melt cleanly through steel sheet due to a mechanism at its tip that
combusts copper.
The film suggests the attack happened while two US submarines, the
Toledo and Memphis, were shadowing the Kursk in a routine military
exercise.
The documentary says the Toledo accidentally collided with the
Kursk, at which point the Russian submarine opened its torpedo
tubes, leading to an attack from the Memphis, which was protecting
the damaged Toledo while it retreated.
The cause of the sinking was covered up at the time in an act of
diplomacy between then US presidents Bill Clinton and Russian
President Vladimir Putin a deal that included the cancellation of
$US10 billion ($12.5 billion) of Russian debt, the film
states.
After the documentary received its only public broadcast in
Britain, some claimed the Russian navy had drilled the hole and fed
doctored footage to the film-makers to create a false
impression.
