Ominous submarine portents - Part 1 PNS

USS Miami
"The fire, the Navy said, started when hot welding slag in a vacuum cleaner caught fire when the implement was placed among some cleaning supplies and left unattended." - NavyTimes

Navy leaders have vowed to repair the 22-year-old submarine — which already is scheduled to be taken out of service in 2020 — but no decision is expected until the investigations are complete.

“To do this, additional interviews may be conducted as well as additional documentation collected.” - Capt. Chris Sims, for U.S. Fleet Forces Command, Norfolk, Va.

The effort will continue “as long as it takes to get the answers we need,” Sims said.

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While "Answers we need" are yet undisclosed, critical thinkers had guessed some key questions from the beginning of the $400Million disaster. However, one must ask the obvious: to what extent the "answers we need" are actually answers politicians wish (exculpatory of minority, crony and espionage factors).

Why would an approved (or unsupervised unapproved) government shipyard housekeeping subcontractor suck up slag in a vacuum and then store the apparatus unplugged among unspecified, highly flammable (or volatile) cleaning supplies stored on a US nuclear sub during welding or cutting work? Two prominent possibilities are evident, but have not been addressed publicly:

a) the cleaning subcontract had been awarded to minority-owned company with political connections and little if any shipyard, much less submarine, experience; or,

b) one of the last persons operating the vacuum at the time and in the space of the fire's inception was a minority, an arsonist, an agent of an unfriendly government with a point to make, or (hat tip to Juan Caruso) an Islamist fascist, whom the government has been habitually loath to identify as such but eager to say "acted alone".

How long before truthful answers are exposed to sunshine and fresh air? The only answer that we could hardly expect to be revealed during our lifetimes is the one involving a foreign agent.

We won't have to wait for WikiLeaks because Navy scuttlebutt will air the dirty little secrets after the current administration, if not sooner.

Submarines, even drydocked, are always silent and strange.