The Government is to order 20 troop-carrying Chinooks after the families The face-saving £1billion deal with US aircraft-maker Boeing was being seen last night as a desperate pre-Election move by Labour to defuse the helicopter row. The first of the Chinooks is expected to be deployed to Afghanistan within two years, but many will not be ready until 2017 – by which time the Tories may be in power and Britain is likely to have pulled out of the war-torn country. Wanted: Chinooks are needed to help British ground forces in Afghanistan Senior Ministry of Defence sources have told The Mail on Sunday that last week’s row between the Prime Minister and Jacqui Janes, whose Guardsman son Jamie, 20, died in a roadside bombing, has guaranteed the order will get the go-ahead within the next month. Mrs Janes told Mr Brown in an angry phone conversation last Sunday: ‘I am the mother of a soldier who, really, you know, his death could have been prevented in several ways, lack of helicopters being the main one.’ At least five of the helicopters will be used on Special Forces operations. But the majority will be deployed to fly troops around the battlefield more safely than in vehicles which are regularly blown up by the Taliban. Some of the Chinooks will be newly-built at Boeing’s plant in Boston, Massachussetts. However, several older refurbished former US CH-47D variants are expected to be customised at the AgustaWestland helicopter factory at Yeovilton, Somerset. The helicopter order will be welcomed by senior military figures, including the new head of the Army, General Sir David Richards, who, in a recent private briefing to commanding officers, described Afghanistan as ‘the war of our generation’. Last night, Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said: ‘The delays are inexplicable. Our defence industry is not on the war footing it needs to be. ‘Senior officers have spent years asking for more helicopters. If we had waited this long in the Second World War, we would have lost the Battle of Britain.’ In 2006, former SAS commander Brigadier Ed Butler, who commanded troops in southern Afghanistan, asked for more helicopters. His request was denied and he later resigned. During Brig Butler’s tour, six paratroopers were trapped in a minefield at Kajaki, but could not be rescued as the RAF did not have a single helicopter available to winch them to safety. Instead, an American Black Hawk helicopter was called in and took three hours to arrive – by which time one of the men had died. Earlier this year, the previous Army chief, General Sir Richard Dannatt, admitted he had to hitch a lift on a US Black Hawk because there were no British ones available. More recently, Lt Col Rupert Thorneloe, the most senior British Army officer to be killed on the frontline since the Falklands War, emailed a friend complaining about the lack of helicopters. An MoD spokeswoman said last night: ‘We made clear over summer we are looking at our future helicopter plans, but do not comment on speculation.’Government orders 20 Chinooks in £1bn face-saving deal
Last updated at 2:50 AM on 15th November 2009
of soldiers killed in Afghanistan told Gordon Brown they blamed their deaths on helicopter shortages.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1227872/Government-orders-20-Chinooks-1bn-face-saving-deal.html#ixzz0WvNmiICW
Sunday, 15 November 2009
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