UK buys Chinooks to help troops in Afghanistan

Wednesday, December 16, 2009
LONDON: Britain said on Tuesday it would buy 22 Chinook transport helicopters to aid its military operations in Afghanistan but is expected to cut spending in other areas to balance a stretched defence budget.

One hundred British soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan this year and the Labour government has been criticised for failing to provide enough helicopters to transport its soldiers, leaving them vulnerable to attacks by roadside bombs. The Chinook is a twin-rotor, heavy-lift helicopter made by US company Boeing.

The order will expand Britain’s fleet of Chinooks to 70,with the first of the new batch coming off the production line in 2012 and entering service in 2013.

British forces took delivery of 14 Chinooks in 2001, but eight of them could not be used because software source code needed to certify their airworthiness was not supplied. Access to the code had not been specified as part of the contract. Those eight helicopters are expected to be in full service by the end of 2010 after modifications. Britain, which holds an election next year, is facing a record budget deficit this year of 178 billion pounds.

The BBC reported that a Royal Air Force base could be shut and thousands of defence jobs lost as the government rebalances its spending. Other media reports said there could be reductions in Britain’s force of Tornado and Harrier jets and a small cutback in the Royal Navy fleet.

A parliamentary spending watchdog warned on Tuesday the defence budget falls at least 6 billion pounds short of spending commitments on aircraft, ships and other equipment.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said the shortfall over the next decade would rise to 36 billion pounds — equivalent to a full year’s military budget — if defence spending was frozen.

“In either case the budget remains consistently unaffordable over the next 10 years,” the watchdog said. Closing the gap would require “bold action” in a strategic defence review planned after the 2010 general election, NAO head Amyas Morse said. “The Ministry of Defence has a multi-billion pound budgetary black hole which it is trying to fix with a ‘save now, pay later’ approach,” he said. The watchdog said defence chiefs were slowing major procurement projects to achieve short-term savings at the cost of greater overall expense.

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