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US, Israel, Russia absent at Berlin cluster bomb talks
Cluster bombs were first employed by the German Luftwaffe on the English town of Grimsby in 1943 and by the Red Army the same year. Their use really took off in the US bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the 1960s and 1970s.
by Staff Writers
Berlin (AFP) June 25, 2009
Delegates from over 80 countries pledging to destroy their cluster bombs started a two-day conference in Berlin on Thursday to assess progress since a 2008 agreement banning the weapons.
Absent however were United States, Israel, Russia and Georgia -- countries which have used cluster bombs in recent years and which refuse to sign up the agreement. China, India and Pakistan also stayed away.
A cluster bomb is a weapon fired by artillery or dropped by aircraft that splits open and scatters multiple -- often hundreds -- of smaller submunitions, or bomblets, over a large area.
Often many of these bomblets fail to explode immediately and can lie dormant for many years, killing and maiming civilians -- many of them children -- long after the original conflict is over.
First employed by the German Luftwaffe on the English town of Grimsby in 1943 and by the Red Army the same year, their use really took off in the US bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the 1960s and 1970s.
Most recently they were deployed by both sides in Georgia's war with Russia in 2008, and in Israel's bombardment of southern Lebanon in 2006, rights groups say, and by the United States and allies in Iraq in 2003 and in Afghanistan in 2001-02.
They were also put to deadly effect by NATO in Serbia in 1999, by the British in the Falkland Islands in 1982, during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, by Ethiopia and Eritrea, by Morocco and by Sudan, these groups say.
According to a 2006 report by Handicap International, there have been at least 11,000 recorded and confirmed post-conflict casualties and that the actual number -- levels of reporting being low -- may be as high as 100,000.
Around 98 percent of these are civilians, Handicap International says. A quarter of these are children, who often tragically mistake the bomblets for a toy.
Last year around 100 countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Australia and Japan, agreed to ban their use, development, production, transfer and stockpiling, creating the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM).
Ten countries have since ratified the CCM. Once 30 have done so -- as campaigners hope they will by the end of 2009 -- the treaty comes into force, giving the 98 signatories eight years to destroy their stockpiles.
It also requires clearing areas of unexploded submunitions within 10 years, and establishes a framework for assistance to victims.
But the United States, which has as many as one billion cluster munition bomblets, rights groups say, has not signed up. And nor have China and Russia, both of which are thought to have around the same amount.
The US has argued that destroying its stockpiles would put the lives of its soldiers and those of its coalition partners at risk, and that cluster bombs often result in less collateral damage than bigger bombs or larger artillery.
Other notable non-signatories include Israel, India, Pakistan, South Korea and North Korea, as well as Turkey, Georgia, Iran, Libya, Syria, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Nigeria, Sudan and Sri Lanka.
Thomas Nash from the Cluster Munition Coalition, a coalition of non-governmental organisations, said he hoped the Berlin conference would encourage some to drop their opposition.
"Our main focus is to get as many countries to ratify as soon as possible, get more countries to sign on so that we remove the stigma from the treaty," Nash told AFP.
"And that means telling the US, telling other allies that haven't signed the treaty, that they need to get rid of it, that this weapon is a thing of the past. It is no longer a legitimate or morally appropriate weapon to have in your arsenal."
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/US_Israel_Russia_absent_at_Berlin_cluster_bomb_talks_999.html
Foreign Fighter Pilots Over America
June 27, 2009: For the first time in fifty years, an Afghan Air Force officer graduated from the U.S. Air Force basic flight program. This was part of the Aviation Leadership Program or (ALP), which includes classroom work, including English language training, and flight school (which includes 167 flight and simulator hours). The ALP has been used for years to provide training for air force officers from countries that cannot normally afford this extensive schooling for their pilots. A total of 61 Afghan pilots are going through the ALP, and many will be flying the twenty C-27 twin engine transports Afghanistan will begin receiving later this year.
Up until now, the Afghan Air Force has been using pilots trained during the decades that Afghanistan was an ally of the Soviet Union. But these pilots are getting on in years. ALP students, in effect, receive a scholarship worth nearly half a million dollars for the ALP training (which includes housing, food, medical care, etc.). Since the 1950s, several thousand foreign pilots have attended the ALP.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htairfo/articles/20090627.aspx
Murtha Ups F-22, Downs EFV
Murtha Ups F-22, Downs EFV
By Colin Clark Thursday, June 25th, 2009 12:32 pm
Posted in Air, International, Land, Naval, Policy
Rep. Jack Murtha, chairman of the House is digging deep to find $3.2 billion for 20 more Raptors to keep the F-22 line going and is closely watching the debate about an export version for Japan. He expressed amazement that the Marine’s EFV has an aluminum underbody that woildn’t be much good against mines or IEDs. Murtha told this and much more to defense journalists. Read Christian Lowe’s take on the breakfast below.
As you all well know, I’ve been dogging Rep. John Murtha, the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee, pretty hard ever since his fly-off-the-handle accusation of murder by a squad of Marines in Haditha back in mid-2006.
Well, I nervously attended a roaundtable interview this morning in DC with Murtha and a group of the country’s top defense writers — figuring I might get the cold shoulder from the Democratic Bull. But I was surprised to find that he was remarkably candid, brewing with news and even friendly. A far cry from the confrontational chairman I’d peppered with questions in the past.
He said a lot of stuff on defense tech issues — info we’re going to build into longer stories in the coming hours — but what I thought I’d do is give you all a data dump of the basics of what he said…a sort of tear out of the pages of my reporter’s notebook, if you will:
Tanker — Murtha said he was strongly in favor of a split buy because he thought no matter who “wins” a recompete, there will be yet another protest that will delay the fielding and hamper global reach efforts. He wants a production throughput of three planes per month which he says even with the split buy, will save money in the long run because of the near crushing maintenance costs of keeping the KC-135s aloft. Murtha had just met with DefSec Gates the previous day, and though Gates has said publicly he’s against a split buy, Murtha said “I don’t know that he’s against it” hinting that the White House might be driving that argument and Gates might have some flexibility on the issue.
Raptor — Lots here. First, Murtha is against the shut down of the F-22 line for what he says are purely national security issues. He says he’s going to try and find $3.2 billion (my notes said $20B but i re-listened to the recording and he said $3.2B — not sure why I wrote $20B) to build 20 more next year and has asked Gates to provide him with some national security threat estimates that would justify NOT buying more Raptors. Murtha says he’s concerned about a rising China competing for energy resources in the coming years and noted that “World War II started because we cut off Japan’s energy supply” (though I gather some historians would object to that characterization). Murtha said he’s 50/50 on whether he can get the money for more F-22s, but he said “Lockheed has given up” on getting the extra orders.
Also, Murtha touched on the issue of an export version of the F-22 — principally to Japan who says only the F-22 can meet its range and speed requirements for a new interceptor. Murtha said Sen. Daniel Inouye is working with Japan to come up with the cash needed to “de-militarize” the F-22 (to remove the secret gadgets and gizmos from the US version) which he estimates will be around $300 million. Murtha thinks that’s way too optimistic and that gutting the F-22 for export will cost more along the lines of $1 billion.
Murtha said he’s worried about the high cost of maintaining the Raptor as well — that it might be difficult to bring that cost under control and will contribute to major sticker shock among lawmakers (and a White House) who are looking for money to spend elsewhere.
F-35 — Murtha said he was just as worried about the long term costs of the F-35 and the delays in production and technological maturity with that program as he is with the travails of the F-22. He said that even though the JSF is a priority for the Obama administration, his committee may not give them the requested money for 2010. “I’m for the F-35. I’m for buying the F-35. But I’m not necessarily for buying it this year.”
EFV — Murtha was stunned when his staff learned that the EFV had an aluminum underbody that would be warm butter to a mine or IED when ashore. He told the commandant that the EFV program was “on the bubble” and that he’d better get control of it and make good on the billions invested in the program already. Murtha talked to Gates about the EFV as well at his meeting the previous day and revealed that Gates has his critical eye on the program as well. “This has been going on for 25 years, this research, and it’s expensive as hell. You can’t keep spending money on research and then come to us and say you’re just going to cancel the program. That’s just not acceptable.”
VH-71 (Prez Helo) — The bottom line is that Murtha wants to make use of the $3.2 billion already spent on the program to field at least some portion of the fleet that’s already been built or is close to being finished. He said there are nine choppers either built or nearly built that we should field. He also leveled sharp criticism at the Secret Service for loading down the program with unnecessary requirements — “We continue to try to convince the administration on the VH-71. … This was Secret Service who said we need all these things on this airplane. … They said they were going to push it off to the Obama administration and there was so much bad publicity about it, I think they reacted to the publicity.” Murtha said he tried to convince White House officials and Pentagon brass to keep the program and try to see how the Congress could salvage the money already spent. They reportedly told him “okay, okay” then they went ahead and cancelled it.
http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/06/25/murtha-ups-f-22-downs-efv/
Jive-talking twin Transformers raise race issues
AP
By SANDY COHEN, AP Entertainment Writer Sandy Cohen, Ap Entertainment Writer – 2 hrs 9 mins ago
LOS ANGELES – Harmless comic characters or racist robots? The buzz over the summer blockbuster "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" only grew Wednesday as some said two jive-talking Chevy characters were racial caricatures.
Skids and Mudflap, twin robots disguised as compact hatchbacks, constantly brawl and bicker in rap-inspired street slang. They're forced to acknowledge that they can't read. One has a gold tooth.
As good guys, they fight alongside the Autobots and are intended to provide comic relief. But their traits raise the specter of stereotypes most notably seen when Jar Jar Binks, the clumsy, broken-English speaking alien from "Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace," was criticized as a caricature.
One fan called the Transformers twins "Jar Jar Bots" in a blog post online.
Todd Herrold, who watched the movie in New York City, called the characters "outrageous."
"It's one thing when robot cars are racial stereotypes," he said, "but the movie also had a bucktoothed black guy who is briefly in one scene who's also a stereotype."
"They're like the fools," said 18-year-old Nicholas Govede, also of New York City. "The comic relief in a degrading way."
Not all fans were offended. Twin brothers Jason and William Garcia, 18, who saw the movie in Miami, said they related to the characters — not their illiteracy, but their bickering.
"They were hilarious," Jason said. "Every movie has their standout character, and I think they were the ones for this movie."
In Atlanta, Rico Lawson said people were reading too much into the characters. "It was actually funny," said Lawson, 25, who saw the movie with his girlfriend in Atlanta.
That was the aim, director Michael Bay said in an interview.
"It's done in fun," he said. "I don't know if it's stereotypes — they are robots, by the way. These are the voice actors. This is kind of the direction they were taking the characters and we went with it."
Bay said the twins' parts "were kind of written but not really written, so the voice actors is when we started to really kind of come up with their characters."
Actor Reno Wilson, who is black, voices Mudflap. Tom Kenny, the white actor behind SpongeBob SquarePants, voices Skids.
Wilson said Wednesday that he never imagined viewers might consider the twins to be racial caricatures. When he took the role, he was told that the alien robots learned about human culture through the Web and that the twins were "wannabe gangster types."
"It's an alien who uploaded information from the Internet and put together the conglomeration and formed this cadence, way of speaking and body language that was accumulated over X amount of years of information and that's what came out," the 40-year-old actor said. "If he had uploaded country music, he would have come out like that."
It's not fair to assume the characters are black, he said.
"It could easily be a Transformer that uploaded Kevin Federline data," Wilson said. "They were just like posers to me."
Kenny did not respond to an interview request Wednesday.
"I purely did it for kids," the director said. "Young kids love these robots, because it makes it more accessible to them."
Screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman said they followed Bay's lead in creating the twins. Still, the characters aren't integral to the story, and when the action gets serious, they disappear entirely, notes Tasha Robinson, associate entertainment editor at The Onion.
"They don't really have any positive effect on the film," she said. "They only exist to talk in bad ebonics, beat each other up and talk about how stupid each other is."
Hollywood has a track record of using negative stereotypes of black characters for comic relief, said Todd Boyd, a professor of popular culture at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, who has not seen the "Transformers" sequel.
"There's a history of people getting laughs at the expense of African-Americans and African-American culture," Boyd said. "These images are not completely divorced from history even though it's a new movie and even though they're robots and not humans."
American cinema also has a tendency to deal with race indirectly, said Allyson Nadia Field, an assistant professor of cinema and media studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.
"There's a persistent dehumanization of African-Americans throughout Hollywood that displaces issues of race onto non-human entities," said Field, who also hasn't seen the film. "It's not about skin color or robot color. It's about how their actions and language are coded racially."
If these characters weren't animated and instead played by real black actors, "then you might have to admit that it's racist," Robinson said. "But stick it into a robot's mouth, and it's just a robot, it's OK."
But if they're alien robots, she continued, "why do they talk like bad black stereotypes?"
Bay brushes off any whiff of controversy.
"Listen, you're going to have your naysayers on anything," he said. "It's like is everything going to be melba toast? It takes all forms and shapes and sizes."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090625/ap_en_mo/us_film_transformers_jar_jar_again
those were cool pics, i had to look through them twice because there so many
Who You Can CALL
June 24, 2009: A fundamental element in improving ground operations in analyzing past battles, what went right and what went wrong. The U.S. Army Center for Lessons Learned has been around since the 1980s, and U.S. commanders use it determine what works in combat and what doesn't. This is more important than ever in the 21st century, where urban combat and counter-insurgency conflicts dominate. In urban warfare and counter-insurgency, the potential for mistakes to be made is exponentially larger than in conventional, large-scale warfare.
Instead of hogging their experts, the US Army is taking the data collected and analyzed at the CALL (Center for Army Lessons Learned) and supplying it to the Iraqi Army in hopes that the Iraqis can use the info to more efficiently finish off the few remaining terrorist groups. This is more than just a gesture of goodwill. In fact, under the recently signed US-Iraq Security Agreement, the US is required to share information and findings from the CALL with the Iraqi Army in order to better improve its combat effectiveness.
CALL is divided into several major sections. The first collects data from previous engagements, by interviewing and visiting with units in the field. This section is tasked with discovering issues and areas of needed improvement in doctrine, training and readiness. The Analysis Section deals with evaluating the data collected and assessing the methods needed to improve effectiveness and combat efficiency. Finally, the Information Integration Section is responsible for processing and distributing the suggestions and findings from the previous two departments.
The CALL is sometimes seen by other branches of the Army as a group of desk-bound analysts, but their suggestions and changes implemented in counter-insurgency and urban warfare tactics played a major role in maximizing the effectiveness of the troop surge in 2007-2008.
Without something like CALL, doctrine and tactics rarely change. On-site CALL troops have visited nearly every single major combat zone in the Iraqi theatre, including Nasiriyah (where the bitterest battles of the war's conventional phase were fought), Mosul (which remains a hotbed of terrorism), and Basra. CALL soldiers have also spent significant time with Iraqi Special Forces and are an integral part of the development process for the country's military and police. Major issues and problems that have been dealt with include recruitment, infiltration by insurgent militias, vehicle checkpoint procedures, and imposing law and order in the previously totalitarian state.
Despite the withdrawal of US combat troops, CALL is still required to stay in Iraq and keep in close contact with the Iraqis to help them further develop and improve their armed forces. Without their help, it is unlikely that the Iraqis will be able to get a handle on things themselves.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlead/articles/20090624.aspx
just more anti military rhetoric. they are looking for ways to cut the budget without making themselves look bad
WWIII? British release secret planning manual
Published - Jun 23 2009 03:05PM CDT
By JILL LAWLESS - Associated Press Writer
It's October 1968, and the Soviet Union has just landed cosmonauts on the moon. Warsaw Pact troops are massing on the Austrian border, and nuclear showdown looms between east and west.
This scenario never happened _ except in planning exercises by British civil servants, who meticulously rehearsed how they would govern Britain in the days before, and after, World War III. The details are included in the "War Book," a secret Cold War manual declassified this month for the first time.
The book, which featured the doomsday scenario in a 1970 version, is a step-by-step guide for dealing with a crisis, from the first stages of conflict to "R hour," the designation for the release of all Britain's nuclear weapons.
"It's a manual of how to go to war," William Spencer, military history specialist at Britain's National Archives, said Tuesday.
"It's a technical manual in a way, for the people who needed to know," he added. "But it could be seen as a horrific document for some people."
Britain became a nuclear power in 1952 and British politicians were under no illusions about the devastating effects of nuclear war. A 1955 report, kept secret until 2002, estimated that an attack by Soviet hydrogen bombs would kill 12 million people instantly.
So every two years during much of the Cold War, British civil servants participated in a dry run for the end of the world, practicing how they would do everything from crack down on subversives to evacuate art treasures from London.
The exercises, played out over weeks, included daily mock news briefings from intelligence chiefs. Senior civil servants played the prime minister and Cabinet, deciding how to respond.
The 1968 exercise, revealed in the newly released manual, imagined Soviets landing on the moon as tensions mounted along the Iron Curtain. Day by day, the crisis escalated: Soviet troops invaded Austria, West Germany, Finland, Turkey, Greece and Italy, eventually invading "Danish islands." Britons got more and more nervous _ first writing letters to newspapers, then staying home from work, stocking up on food and buying supplies to build bomb shelters.
In calm bureaucratic language _ loaded with code words to render the book meaningless to those not in the know _ the document describes how as the crisis worsened, civil servants would introduce censorship, evacuate all but the sickest patients from hospitals and eventually be sent to one of 12 underground bunkers scattered around the country.
Britain was to be governed from these bunkers after a nuclear attack, with officials exercising powers of martial law over the remaining population.
Peter Hennessy, a historian who has studied the book and pushed for its release, said it provided a glimpse into "one of the darker bits of the British secret state in the Cold War."
"The surprise really is the width and magnitude of it _ 16 chapters to get the nation from a peacetime footing to a total war footing. It is a remarkable enterprise," he told the BBC.
"When you consider where this road of decision-taking is leading to, it's the end of the world. There's no other way of looking at it. You would expect it to be cold print, coldly analytical, but this is sheer hell, really, the thought of it."
Retired senior civil servant David Omand said he played the prime minister in one planning exercise and recalled the experience as "quite scary."
"It just gives you a sense of humility that we expect our political leaders to take that kind of responsibility," he told the BBC.
He told the broadcaster about what he called his "favorite measure" _ the introduction of censorship for private correspondence _ saying it "always aroused a lot of debate when we played these exercises."
The document is the latest in a chilling series of Cold War artifacts that have recently been made public. In October, the National Archives released the scripts of statements the government planned to broadcast over the BBC in the event of nuclear war in the 1970s. "This is the wartime broadcasting service," the announcement began. "This country has been attacked with nuclear weapons."
The government's first "War Book" was created in 1911, and it was updated regularly as warfare and the threats to Britain changed. Its contents were top secret _ Spencer said only 96 copies were made of the 1964 book.
It's not known how many copies were made of the 1970 version. Parts of it were published in 2000, but the whole book was only released by the National Archives this month. Later versions remain classified.
The government no longer plans for war with the Soviet Union, which collapsed in 1991, but it still keeps a "War Book" and rehearses for disasters such as a major terrorist attack.
A Cabinet Office spokesman would give no details of the current plans, saying only that there are "lots of contingency plans to deal with lots of different crises we face today."
http://www.rr.com/news/news/article/rr/9002/8140718/WWIII_British_release_secret_planning_manual/1
Japan denies sea borders were drawn to allow US nuke ships
by Staff Writers
Tokyo (AFP) June 22, 2009
Japan's foreign minister on Monday denied a report that it had demarcated its territorial waters so as to avoid disputes over the movement of US warships carrying nuclear weapons.
"The territorial waters were not demarcated from a military standpoint," Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone told reporters.
Japan in the late 1970s delineated territorial waters that extended only three nautical miles (5.6 kilometre) from shore along five key straits, rather than the maximum allowable 12 nautical miles.
The Japanese Kyodo News agency, which said it was quoting several unidentified former vice foreign ministers, reported that this was done so that US warships could sail through those key choke points while avoiding Japanese territorial waters.
"It was set at three nautical miles so that the government would not need to lie" about the passage of US nuclear weapons, Kyodo said.
Japan, the world's only nation to have been attacked with atomic bombs, has officially maintained a "three non-nuclear principles" policy of not possessing or producing nuclear weapons or allowing them on its territory.
However, the stance has caused a dilemma for officially pacifist Japan because it has significantly relied on the US military, which has several major bases in the country, for national security since its defeat in World War II, including in nuclear deterrence.
Nakasone denied the report and said the government had designed the limits to its territorial waters "to assure unrestricted passage of foreign vessels."
Kyodo quoted former vice foreign ministers as saying US vessels carrying nuclear arms must have passed through the key straits during deterrence operations against threats by the former Soviet Union, China and North Korea.
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Japan_denies_sea_borders_were_drawn_to_allow_US_nuke_ships_999.html
Shut Down Osprey Production!
Shut Down Osprey Production!
By Colin Clark Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 4:49 pm
Posted in Air, Naval, Policy
The slugfest over the V-22 Osprey swung into round 10 or so today as Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called for a halt to V-22 production. The Marines defended the plane, including the remarkable claim by the head of Marine Aviation that US foreign policy would be fundamentally different today if the V-22 had been available in 1980 when the US tried and failed to rescue the hostages held in the US Embassy in Iran.
“It would have been a successful mission and we probably wouldn’t be where we are with Iran today,” Lt. Gen. George Trautman said in response to a “softball” question from the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Rep. Issa asked Trautman what would ahve happened if the V-22 had been available back then.
But the chairman said “it’s time to put the Osprey out of its misery,” adding that, “the dream of a viable high-speed, long-range, tilt-rotor aircraft has not been realized.”
It was about as wild as a defense procurement hearing gets. There were charges of blatant untruths and ignorance and more reasoned dialogue about operational readiness rates and life cycle costs.
Bottom lines. For the Marines, Trautman said the plane saves lives because it can do things no helo can handle. Lt. Col. Karsten Heckl, former VMM-162 commander in Iraq, said his aircraft flew everywhere and everywhen it was asked, including into the most dangerous areas in broad daylight. “I operated for seven months and did not miss a mission. I don’t know what else you want,” Heckl told the committee. For the House committee: “The Marine Corps’ own reports on the performance of the Osprey in Iraq reveal that the Osprey was restricted to a very limited role due to its vulnerability to hostile fire, its lack of maneuverability, and its unreliability in the heat and sand of Iraq.”
That was the heart of Towns’ opening statement as he faced Trautman, back from last month’s aborted hearing.
The chairman did not let up. Towns said the combat readiness rate for the Ospreys was “surprising and appalling.” Of the 105 Ospreys bought since 1988, he said, “only 47 are considered ‘combat deployable.’ Worse, we asked the Marine Corps how many of these are ready for combat on any given day. On the day the Marine Corps picked, June third of this year, only 22 of these 47 Ospreys were ready for combat. In other words, fewer than half could be used for combat on a good day.”
Towns’ was drawing on the latest GAO report about the V-22, which makes for occasionally grim reading. One statistic sure to draw close scrutiny from the House and Senate as they mark up the defense spending and authorization bills is a new estimate for the long-term costs of the tilt-rotor aircraft: “The aircraft’s operations and support costs, currently reported at $75.4 billion (then-year dollars) for the life cycle of the program, are just beginning and expected to rise. The MV-22’s costs per flight hour is over $11,000—more than double the target estimate and 140 percent higher than the CH-46E helicopter.”
The man who, until recently was the lead analyst on the MV-22 at the respected Institute for Defense Analyses, went much further. Arthur Rivolo criticized the V-22 as a dangerous aircraft, saying the V-22 “would fail to meet basic airworthiness requirements” set by the FAA. The Marines’ commitment to the aircraft “represents a cynical disregard for soldiers’ lives in favor of supporting a blind allegiance to the cause of this aircraft.”
Those claims led an outraged Lt. Col. Heckl to counterattack: “Some of what I’ve heard here today is just blatantly inaccurate. I don’t agree with a single thing Mr. Rivolo said.
Trautman didn’t answer Rivolo’s claims. He focused on the mean time between failures for Osprey parts, citing them as the biggest problem the plane faces and the main cause of the sharply rising life cycle costs.
The GAO report recommended a fundamental rethink of the Osprey program. “Questions to consider include: To what degree is the V-22 a suitable and exclusive candidate for the operational needs of the Marine Corps and other services? How much will it cost? How much can DOD afford to spend? To what degree can a strategy be crafted for ensuring control over these future costs? If the V-22 is only partially suitable, to what degree can another existing aircraft or some mixture of existing aircraft (including V-22s) or a new aircraft perform all or some of its roles more cost effectively? Some consideration should be given to evaluating the roles such aircraft play in today’s theaters of war and whether their performance warrants their cost,” the GAO said.
What’s at stake? “Failure to re-examine the V-22 program at this point risks the expenditure of billions of dollars on an approach that may be less effective than alternatives.”
Round 11 coming up soon.
http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/06/23/shut-down-osprey-production/
Is F-22 Strategic Linchpin?
Is F-22 Strategic Linchpin?
By Greg Grant Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 10:57 am
Posted in Air, Policy
The F-22 Raptor is the proxy for two opposing views of planning and preparing for current and future wars: Gates’ view, that after half a century spent building a military of unparalleled size and sophistication to fight a repeat of World War II against the Soviet Union, the Pentagon’s focus and resources should be shifted a bit to include the many small wars the U.S. tends to fight with some frequency; and the view of powerful constituencies within the defense community who believe the U.S. will one day have to battle a big powerful country such as China or Russia and in such a fight only a massive conventional arsenal will suffice.
Like so much else in Washington, the debate over the F-22 has become theater. When on April 6 Gates said he wanted to end production of the F-22 at 187 aircraft, he told reporters that: “The military advice that I got was that there is no military requirement for numbers of F-22s beyond the 187.”
Considering the popularity of the air-superiority fighter among so many in Congress and other constituencies, few thought the story would end there, and it didn’t. Last week the House Armed Services Committee added $369 million to the 2010 defense budget to begin building 12 more F-22s. The move would keep the fighter’s production line open indefinitely. At a press conference, Gates made it clear he was not amused by the HASC’s actions.
To read the press on this, it would appear that the Obama administration is considering unilateral disarmament that would leave the country’s air fleet gutted, inviting attacks from malicious opponents across the globe. Alarmists claim the strategic linchpin to American military might, without which the U.S. position in the world is otherwise suspect, is the F-22.
Mark Bowden, of Blackhawk Down fame, penned a 10,000 word tribute to the F-22 in the Atlantic, of all places. He cited the 381 Air Force figure as the minimum number “independent analysts” say is needed to maintain U.S. air supremacy over a battlefield. “Without a full complement of Raptors, America’s aging fighters (F-15s) are more vulnerable, and hence more likely to be challenged,” he writes. “Countries such as Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea will be more likely to take on the U.S. Air Force if their pilots stand a fighting chance. This could well mean more air battles, more old-style aces—and more downed American pilots.”
In Air Force Magazine, service advocate and analyst Rebecca Grant said that because the Pentagon leadership determined the nation needs fewer F-22s than the Air Force’s stated numbers, the military may no longer be able to operate under a secure air umbrella in future wars. “Potential adversaries must be smiling at the prospect of the United States unilaterally giving up on one of its greatest military advantages.”
The Lexington Institute’s Loren Thompson writes: “Command of the air is the central, indispensable mission of the F-22… Our enemies cannot see the plane with their radars, and they cannot catch it with their fighters. They are defenseless against it, and will remain so for decades to come.” He says that only the F-22 will allow future air campaigns without “fear of horrendous losses.”
Tom Donnelly and Gary Schmitt of the right wing American Enterprise Institute went for the jobs argument in campaigning for more F-22s: “If he decides to terminate the F-22, Obama will, in effect, be firing the 25,000 people who directly work on the Raptor program (and the initial “stop-work” orders and layoffs would begin within months) and perhaps another 50,000 to 75,000 in the supplier base that supports it.”
The award for most hyperbolic argument must go to the well known Australian F-22 advocate Carlos Kapp. “If the US wishes to retain the deterrent capability it has enjoyed since 1991, it has no choice than to build and deploy up to 750 F-22 Raptors, with a bare bones minimum of around 500-600 F-22 aircraft for a credible strategic effect,” he writes. He then spells out the list of horribles that will result if the Obama administration buys fewer F-22s: lost aircraft and dead pilots; Obama’s drive for integrity in public service governance and management; the administration’s credibility on efforts to stimulate the economy (he cites Donnelly and Schmitt’s editorial); and the U.S. aerospace industry. Deterring Iran and even Venezuela is dependent on buying enough F-22s.
The oddest thing about this whole debate is that it’s not about whether or not to develop and produce the admittedly impressive air-superiority fighter. That has already happened. The F-22 is operational and current plans are to build the final of 187 Raptors by 2011. The argument F-22 advocates make is that 187 is not enough and that only by buying more Raptors will strategic catastrophe be avoided in what has become the ultimate “bean counting” game, conjuring memories of measuring the NATO vs. Warsaw Pact balance, with the difference, of course, that no adversary currently exists to bean count against.
A story last week on Congressional Quarterly’s site said that Gen. John Corley, chief of Air Combat Command at Langley, Va., wrote to Senator Saxby Chambliss, R- Ga., saying that building only 187 F-22s would jeopardize U.S. national security. Corley reportedly said 381 F-22s would be the ideal number but that a fleet of 250 fighters would be tolerable. The Air Force, and other F-22 advocates, have pinned the need for a larger F-22 fleet on what has ostensibly been a cornerstone of Pentagon planning: the need to prepare to wage two major and simultaneous conventional wars. As we’ve reported for some weeks and the New York Times confirms today, the two major conventional war planning construct is being jettisoned in the forthcoming QDR.
That leaves the F-22 as a strategic deterrent argument, one that has a few holes in it. For example, if the stealthy fighter truly deters potential adversaries, then one must ask the question why a couple dozen Raptors are not a credible deterrent but 500 of them are? The Israeli Air Force operates 328 F-16 and F-15 fighter and strike aircraft, of which 75 percent are operationally ready at any given time, according to figures compiled by Anthony Cordesman. If the Israeli Air Force truly deters its hostile neighbors from launching a conventional attack, then it does so with a couple hundred operational aircraft, all of which are fourth generation.
Some F-22 advocates say that next generation Russian built SAMs of the triple digit variety, S-300 and S-400, are so advanced, that the stealthy F-22 will be the only aircraft able to operate against them. If the new, Russian built SAM systems are as capable as some claim, then perhaps we should take a page from the asymmetric warrior handbook and subject nations who want to buy them to a cost imposition strategy. Building a large fleet of inexpensive drones that could still carry a lethal payload and salvo launching them at an enemy’s air defense system would seem to be a better approach than sending in an incredibly expensive fighter, and far less risky to any pilots. Desire aside, few countries have the economic wherewithal to buy and operate the Russian built SAM systems and top of the line fighter aircraft.
http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/06/23/is-f-22-strategic-linchpin/
China Develops An EA-6
June 23, 2009: China has developed an electronic warfare aircraft, similar to the U.S. EA-6B. This is apparently one reason for resuming production of the JF-7 fighter bomber, which was made possible by progress in manufacturing engines to power it. The JH-7 entered service a decade ago, although only about a hundred were built. Additional production was delayed because the aircraft was designed to use a British engine (the Spey 202), which was not supposed to be going to China after the 1989 embargo. But Rolls Royce, the manufacturer quietly continued exporting some engines, and technical assistance. China thought it could reverse-engineer this engine, but ran into more problems than they expected.
While China continues to have problems with manufacturing jet engines to Western standards, they now claim that their WS-9 engine is equal, in performance and reliability, to 1980s era Western engine technology, like the French M53-P2 (which is a somewhat simpler design compared to the contemporary U.S. F110 used in the F-16 and F-15.) The M53-P2 is used in the French 17 ton Mirage 2000, a contemporary of the 19 ton U.S. F-16.
The Chinese also appear to be developing an electronic warfare aircraft, similar to the U.S. EA-6B and EA-18G. For the last two years, JF-7s, carrying electronic warfare pods, have been spotted. No anti-radiation missiles have been seen, but that does not mean that JF-7s cannot, or have not already, been modified to carry, and tested using, such weapons.
The JH-7 is a 27 ton, twin engine aircraft, with a 40 foot wingspan. It is underpowered, and only has a five ton bomb load. But using new Chinese made smart bombs and air-to-ground missiles, the JH-7 becomes more useful. The JH-7 is used mainly by the Chinese navy. The aircraft has an operational radius of about 900 kilometers, enabling it to contribute to an attack on Taiwan, or a blockade of the islands ports. The JH7A could carry four KD-88 missiles. China wants to build another 150 JH-7s, as an improved version (JH-7A) with more powerful engines and better electronics.
The Chinese JH-7 electronic warfare aircraft would be similar to two U.S. models in service. Last year, the U.S. Navy received its first operational (as opposed to developmental) EA-18G ("Growler") electronic warfare aircraft. The current electronic warfare aircraft, the 27 ton EA-6Bs, are not expected to last much beyond 2015 (they entered service in 1971). They are being replaced by the 29 ton EA-18G. The older EA-6B carries a crew of four, while the highly automated EA-18G will have only two people on board. The F-18E costs $94 million each, but the more elaborately equipped EA-18G goes for $105 million. The EA-18G carries up to five electronic warfare pods, plus two AMRAAM air-to-air missiles and two anti-radiation (HARM) missiles. It may be the last manned aircraft to handle the EW job. UAVs are becoming more capable, and will eventually take over this dangerous task.
The navy will receive 52 EA-18Gs over the next four years, and another 30 after that (at the rate of about five a year). The U.S. Air Force and Marine Corps are planning on developing an electronic warfare version of the new F-35, or using a UAV.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htairfo/articles/20090623.aspx
Israel Seeks Old Soldiers
June 23, 2009: Having an increasingly difficult time to maintain their military spending, Israel is planning to get rid of the twenty year retirement policy they have used for over half a century. This policy was implemented to keep the military leadership young, and enable professional military officers and NCOs to leave service while still in their 40s, and start a second career. The government is changing this so troops in combat jobs (20 percent of the force) would retire after 24 years, while non-combat troops would have to serve 35 years. This would save billions of dollars down the line, mainly because Israelis live so long, and currently collect those pensions for over 30 years.
In the U.S., most military personnel take advantage of the twenty year retirement system. This system was first introduced by the Romans two thousand years ago and used by many other nations since. But until recently, twenty years of military service left most men in no condition for further service. The 20th century changed that, with thousands of very experienced. highly trained and still physically fit soldiers retiring each year while still in their late 30s or early 40s. The pension isn't really enough to live on, so most retirees start a second career.
Israel has noticed that the U.S. actually encourages the most able officers and NCOs to stay in longer (to 30 years, when you qualify for a 75 percent of active duty pay pension, or 40 years and retire at full pay). Some NCOs make it to their 60s before finally getting out. But Israel may also want to note that U.S. attempts to lengthen the early (20 year) retirement period brought with it serious morale and recruitment problems. The 20 year retirement is seen as part of the deal, not some kind of bonus for the troops. Israel also wants active duty troops to contribute to their pension plan. Some Israeli politicians feel they might get away with lengthening the active service period for non-combat personnel, but would have to keep it where it is for combat troops.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htlead/articles/20090623.aspx
Happy Birthday ONEBGG!
Lawmaker wants Medal of Honor review
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Sunday Jun 21, 2009 14:22:47 EDT
A California congressman who served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan convinced the House Armed Services Committee to order a full review of the criteria used for giving awards for gallantry and valor after a senior defense official said technological advancements and new combat tactics might be the reason fewer of the highest medals are being issued.
At the urging of Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Calif., a Marine combat veteran elected to Congress in November, the armed services committee has asked for a review of trends in awarding the Medal of Honor to determine if the low number of awards in the current wars is the result of “inadvertent subjective bias amongst commanders.”
The committee also wants the Defense Department to survey officers and noncommissioned officers in leadership positions to look at attitudes about acts of valor. Hunter is looking for the reasons behind not just fewer nominations, but also a trend since the Vietnam War in which the only Medal of Honor awards have been for people who died during an act of valor.
He hopes the review and study, approved by voice vote during debate on the 2010 defense authorization bill, lead to an overhaul of defense and service guidance.
Hunter has been pressing the Defense Department for a review since a nomination for the Medal of Honor for Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta was downgraded to a Navy Cross. Peralta died as he smothered a grenade in Iraq in an act that saved lives — the same act that resulted in some veterans receiving Medals of Honor in the past.
In a June 2 letter to Hunter that was released Wednesday, Gail McGinn, acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said defense officials see nothing amiss in the Peralta decision.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who made the final call, “was advised by five independent reviewers who all individually concluded that the evidence included in the [Medal of Honor] recommendation did not support the award,” McGinn wrote.
The reviewers included a former commanding general of Marine forces in Iraq, a neurosurgeon, two pathologists and a Medal of Honor recipient, McGinn said.
Her letter also responds to Hunter’s larger question about whether the criteria have changed over time. A 2008 review of guidance used in making the awards “found no evidence of a posthumous requirement, either written or unwritten,” she said.
What has changed, McGinn said, is warfare. U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq “are inherently different from previous major conflicts,” she said.
“The conduct of warfare has evolved significantly in the 30 years since the end of the Vietnam conflict,” she said. “Technological advancements have dramatically changed battlefield tactics, techniques and procedures. Precision-guided stand-off weapons allow our forces to destroy known enemy positions with reduced personal risk.”
Another factor, she said, is that the two modern conflicts involve adversaries who use tactics like remotely detonated explosive devices, rockets, mortar and sniper attacks — all of which reduce face-to-face engagements.
Hunter isn’t fighting alone. Fellow Iraq war veteran Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Pa., another armed services committee member, said he also thinks something is wrong if the Medal of Honor is being given only posthumously. “If this trend continues, we will have no more living heroes,” Murphy said.
The order for the study and survey are included in the report accompanying the defense bill, HR 2647, which the armed services committee approved early Wednesday after an all-day and all-night marathon session.
The bill calls for the study and report on the Medal of Honor process to be delivered to Congress by March 31.
http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2009/06/military_medalofhonor_061709w/
New U.S. rule: No fighting near Afghan homes
By Jason Straziuso - The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Jun 22, 2009 14:14:46 EDT
KABUL, Afghanistan — The top U.S. general in Afghanistan will soon formally order U.S. and NATO forces to break away from fights with militants hiding in Afghan houses so the battles do not kill civilians, a U.S. official said Monday.
The order would be one of the strongest measures taken by a U.S. commander to protect Afghan civilians in battle. American commanders say such deaths hurt their mission because they turn average Afghans against the government and U.S. and NATO forces.
Civilian casualties are a major source of friction between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the U.S. The U.N. says U.S., NATO and Afghan forces killed 829 civilians in the Afghan war last year.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who took command of international forces in Afghanistan this month, has said his measure of effectiveness will be the "number of Afghans shielded from violence," and not the number of militants killed.
McChrystal will issue orders within days saying troops may attack insurgents hiding in Afghan houses if the U.S. or NATO forces are in imminent danger and must return fire, said U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Greg Smith.
"But if there is a compound they're taking fire from and they can remove themselves from the area safely, without any undue danger to the forces, then that's the option they should take," Smith said. "Because in these compounds we know there are often civilians kept captive by the Taliban."
McChrystal's predecessor, Gen. David McKiernan, issued rules last fall that told commanders to set conditions "to minimize the need to resort to deadly force."
But McChrystal's orders will be more precise and have stronger language ordering forces to break off from battles, Smith said.
In the most recent civilian deaths case, a May 4-5 battle between U.S. and Afghan forces and militants in western Farah province killed dozens of civilians. A U.S. report last week said U.S. forces killed an estimated 26 civilians. However, Karzai's government says 140 were killed, while an Afghan human rights group says the number is about 100.
In the latest violence, a suicide bomber on a motorbike killed seven civilians Monday when he drove into the center of an eastern Afghan city and set off explosives.
It was unclear who the bomber was targeting when he detonated a bomb on his motorbike in front of Khost city's electric power headquarters and then explosives on his body a few minutes later, said Kuchi Naseri, a spokesman for the governor of Khost province. The Interior Ministry said seven people were killed.
There were no military or police nearby, Naseri said, but added the later blast may have been planned to hit police or officials rushing to the scene. Another 30 people in the area were wounded, he said.
In southern Kandahar province, meanwhile, another suicide bomber killed three Afghan soldiers in an attack on a convoy of troops inspecting a highway bridge for explosives. The attacker drove a car into the convoy and it exploded, said Zadi district Police Chief Niaz Mohammad Serhadi.
Serhadi said two civilians were also wounded in the blast, along with five other soldiers.
In eastern Nangarhar province, an explosion at a weapons cache killed a 6-year-old boy and wounded 20 others, police said.
It was unclear what sparked the chain reaction of explosions in caves used to store weapons and other material collected from insurgents on the outskirts of Jalalabad city, said Nangarhar province police spokesman Ghafor Khan.
"We are still investigating the incident. It is possible that the explosives ignited on their own," Khan said.
The caves where the weapons were stored were about 100 yards (meters) away from a village, and the blast shot some shells or other items into the residential area, Khan said. Two soldiers who guarded the cache were among the wounded.
http://www.militarytimes.com/news/2009/06/ap_afghanistan_battle_rule_062209/
Iran claims SAM breakthrough
File photo: US Army HAWK missile. Credit: Raytheon.
by Staff Writers
Tehran (UPI) Jun 19, 2009
Iran's defense ministry claims that it has reverse-engineered the MIM-23B Hawk surface-to-air missile manufactured by the Raytheon Corp. and is producing the system to bolster sits defenses against possible US or Israeli air strikes.
Iran's state-run media reported that the defense minister, Gen. Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar, formally inaugurated the production line on June 6. The Iranians call their new missile the Shahin, which means Hawk in Farsi.
Shahin missiles on display for the event, seen on Iranian television, appeared to be identical to the Hawk missiles that the U.S. supplied to the Iranian military in the years preceding the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
But Jane's Missile & Rockets, published in London, reported that "it was not clear if the missiles on show were new production rounds or refurbished missiles from the existing stock of U.S.-supplied rounds."
Still, the Iranians have been making major advances in missile technology in recent years, with considerable assistance from Russia, China and North Korea, and it is quite probable that they have mastered the required reverse-engineering.
The capabilities of the Shahin that Mohammad-Najjar described were more or less the same as those of MIM-23B -- a range of just less than 25 miles against high-altitude targets, 12 miles against low-flying targets and a maximum ceiling of around 30,000 feet.
The United States provided Iran's pre-revolutionary forces with hundreds of MIM-23Bs and 120 launchers, enough for 12 battalions of air defense troops. During the 1980-88 war with Iraq the Hawks were believed to have downed at least 40 Iraqi aircraft.
Air defense was for many years one of the Iranian military's major deficiencies and Tehran has gone to considerable lengths to fill that gap, essential if it is to get anywhere near the ability to counter the high-tech air forces of the United States and Israel.
In 2006, Iran took delivery of 29 Russian Tor-M1 low- to medium-altitude surface-to-air missiles under a $700 million contract with Moscow. These were deployed in early 2007 and are believed to ring key installations in Iran's nuclear infrastructure.
The Iranians have been pressing Moscow to provide the more advanced truck-mounted S-300PMU-1/2 missiles (NATO designation SA-20). The S300 is considered to be one of the world's most advanced air-defense systems.
It is able to shoot down cruise missiles and aircraft from 90 miles away and can intercept aircraft or ballistic missiles at altitudes ranging from 30 feet to 16 miles.
However, there have been conflicting reports about whether the Russians have agreed to do provide these weapons, which would make any air attack on Iranian nuclear facilities extremely hazardous and costly.
Russians news agencies reported earlier this year that Moscow had signed a deal on the S-300s. On March 19, the agencies quoted a senior defense official in Moscow as confirming that an $800 million contract for five S-300 units had been signed in 2007 but that no weapons had been delivered.
Israel has claimed that some units have reached Iran but there has been no independent confirmation of that. U.S. President Barack Obama's efforts to improve ties with Moscow may have encouraged the Russians to stall any deal involving S-200s for Iran.
In the meantime, The Iranians have been hardening their missile silos against airstrikes and restructuring their military forces to improve air defense.
Gen. Ahmed Mighani of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the main Iranian military force which controls Iran's ballistic missiles, announced Feb. 16 that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had ordered the formation of a separate air-defense command within the armed forces to coordinate operations to repel airstrikes.
http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Iran_claims_SAM_breakthrough_999.html
Problems for U.S. Russian Helicopter Order
Jun 1, 2009
By Sharon Weinberger
The U.S. Army signed off on an unusual procurement contract in December 2007: A $322-million order for 22 Russian helicopters bought through a U.S. defense company for Iraq. The contract was a rush order, designed to deliver Mi-17 helicopters in a bid to quickly reequip the Iraqi air force and allow it to perform counterinsurgency operations. But 18 months after signing, not a single helicopter has been delivered, despite full payment. The Army now concedes the contract is over budget and nearly a year behind schedule.
Such are the perils of buying Russian equipment through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) system, a unique requirement that is rapidly escalating into the billions of dollars for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Buying Mi-17s, and other Russian equipment, for the Iraqi military seems logical. The Iraqis flew and maintained Soviet (now Russian) aircraft in the Saddam Hussein era. Another important feature: Russian rotorcraft are significantly cheaper than U.S. helicopters, at least in theory.
The Mi-17 is the export designation for the Mi-8 airframe (NATO designation “Hip”), and after 40 years the aircraft still has brisk sales, with new orders from India, China, Pakistan and Colombia, among others. That has been good news for the factories that produce Mi-17s: Ulan Ude and Kazan. Just a few years ago, work at the plants had slowed to a crawl, but now even getting a slot in the production line can be a challenge.
The U.S. Defense Dept. dubs the aircraft destined for Iraq as counterterrorism helicopters. They are designed to insert and extract special forces “and provide limited air assault capability to clear and hold a landing zone, [and] provide self-protection . . . against insurgent small arms fire and SAM defenses.” The helicopters will have Western-style cockpits and modifications that include Flir Systems’ AN/AAQ-22 Star Safire electro-optical sensor and monitor; identification-friend-or-foe system with encryption; AN/AAR-60 Milds (missile-launch detection system) from EADS; and VHF/UHF/HF radios.
When the helicopter contract was awarded to Arinc of Annapolis, Md., a communications and engineering company, it was, by everyone’s admission, an unusual sale. While the Army has bought Russian helicopters in the past—and modified them with Western cockpits—it never bought anything in the quantity seen for the Iraqi FMS case.
In a controversial move, the Army’s Threat Systems Management Office in Huntsville, Ala., sole-sourced the contract to Arinc, rather than soliciting multiple bids. That raised questions about procurement cost. In 2001, the price of a newly refurbished Mi-17 was between $1.2 and 1.7 million, while a helicopter fresh off the production line went for around $3 million. The cost has since more than doubled, with vendors quoting new Mi-17s at around $7.5 million. But the Mi-17s for Iraq are sold for more than twice that price—between $13 and $16 million per helicopter (cost varies depending on the batch and whether spare parts and other equipment are included).
Part of what drove up costs is the unusual way the contract was structured: Although Arinc is the prime contractor, it’s working essentially as an arms broker. And rather than buying the aircraft from the factory, Arinc has a contract with Air Freight Aviation, a Russian company based in the United Arab Emirates. Air Freight Aviation buys the helicopters from the Mi-17 plant at Ulan Ude and modifies them at its UAE facility.
This arrangement has led to cost overruns and delays. The helicopters were supposed to be delivered starting in February, but the Defense Dept. concedes that the date for first delivery has slipped to 2010, and the contract is between 5 and 10% over the original $322-million budget. Officials insist, however, that the plan is to catch up with deliveries, completing the full contract on schedule. As of now, however, none of the helicopters has left Ulan Ude.
Army officials defend the sale, arguing that the urgency of the requirement and the uniqueness of buying Russian equipment necessitated going with Arinc as a sole source. Arinc, despite its lack of experience buying Mi-17s, was selected as the contractor because the company was already in Iraq performing maintenance work on the nascent Iraqi air force’s skeleton fleet, which included older Mi-17s and Bell helicopters. Arinc also claimed to Army officials it had an exclusive relationship with the Mil helicopter plant—the design bureau. (Iraq’s Mi-17 requirement was, however, known for several years before the contract was signed, and there are over half a dozen U.S. companies with experience buying Russian helicopters and parts for the U.S. government.)
To some extent, the Mi-17s illustrate the problems that have plagued weapon sales to Iraq. Since the FMS process started with Iraq in 2005, approximately $4.5 billion has been spent, but less clear is how much of that equipment has been delivered. Going through FMS—rather than direct commercial sales—was meant to avoid the mistakes and corruption that plague direct sales. In one now-infamous case, Iraq entered into a contract to buy Mi-17s from a Polish company—most of the helicopters ended up being too old or in no condition to fly.
The FMS process is meant to protect Iraq from these problems, says U.S. Air Force Col. Lawrence Avery, deputy director of the security assistance office in the Multinational Security Transition Command-Iraq. “[They] view FMS as the anticorruption mechanism for their government, because nobody can get their hands on the money, nobody decides who the contracts go to,” he told reporters in a recent conference call. “That’s all done through the U.S. acquisition system.”
But officials in Baghdad cite delays and confusion about the FMS process. The sales become even more convoluted when they involve a U.S. procurement process cross-matched with Russian weapons. In one particularly frustrating case, the Iraqis initiated—then canceled—a large order for BTR-3E1 armored personnel carriers that were to be bought from Ukraine through FMS.
Defense Dept. officials concede that they made mistakes in the Mi-17 case for Iraq, but defend the overall process. While U.S. officials downplay the Russian FMS cases—noting they are the exception, not the rule—the truth is that these sales could prove more common over the next few years as attention moves to Afghanistan. The Pentagon has already approved a “pseudo-FMS” case for the purchase of 10 helicopters for Afghanistan for $177.5 million. That contract also went to Arinc.
While FMS may guard against outright corruption, it has not done much in the case of the Mi-17s to prevent delays, or even guarantee reasonable costs. If there’s a lesson from the Iraqi helicopter case, it may be that the U.S. acquisition system is a poor conduit for Russian weaponry.
“FMS works best when you buy and use what the U.S. military is buying and using, because if we give you a price on that, we’re probably pretty good about it,” says Avery. “If we’re buying equipment from countries and companies that we’ve never worked with, every problem that we run into is a new problem.”
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=dti&id=news/IRAQ060109.xml&headline=Problems%20for%20U.S.%20Russian%20Helicopter%20Order
NorthCom/NORAD Seeks Multirole Aircraft
Jun 22, 2009
By John M. Doyle
The U.S. Air Force general in charge of U.S. Northern Command (NorthCom) says he needs multi-role aircraft to perform his varied missions, meaning the newest U.S. fighter is not necessarily the answer.
Those missions include maritime surveillance and air patrol and interdiction, Gen. Victor Renuart told Aviation Week after a speech last week on Capitol Hill. “Part of this air sovereignty mission is identification and non-kinetic enforcement. It’s diverting airplanes away. It’s identifying unknowns in our system. That doesn’t always require an F-22,” he said.
“I continue to advocate with Congress, and with the Air Force in particular, that you need to maintain a baseline capability of air defense-capable fighters that have an ability, also, to detect threats in the maritime,” Renuart said, “so it’s air-to-air and air-to-surface sensor capability that I need.”
Renuart, who further heads U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command, says he has sufficient fighters “right now” to fly air sovereignty and defense missions. But “there is a fighter gap developing” there as older Boeing F-15s and Lockheed Martin F-16s -- flown mostly by the Air National Guard – age and retire. Renuart and National Guard leaders have been sounding related concerns all year (Aerospace DAILY, March 28).
The number of fighters available for the air sovereignty alert (ASA) mission is expected to sink below 2,000 aircraft because 250 fighters are slated for retirement in the Fiscal 2010 budget (DAILY, June 2). The Guard operates 16 of the 18 ASA sites. Eleven units on alert status fly F-16s and of those, eight are expected to reach the end of their service life between 2015 and 2017.
The congressional Government Accountability Office reported in January that if Guard aircraft are not replaced by 2020, 11 of the ASA sites theoretically could be without tactical aircraft.
But in his Hill speech hosted by the National Defense University Foundation, Renuart noted that he is not specifically seeking ASA fighters. “I’m careful not to ask for dedicated fighters that can only do my mission, because if you say they only do air defense, then they become less relevant for the many other missions we have.”
He said the real sticking point will come “from here to 2013 as we begin to see higher-rate production of the F-35 coming along -- and that will require just careful management.”
Those concerns are shared by National Guard officials and some in Congress. Language added to the Fiscal 2010 defense authorization bill passed by the House Armed Service s Committee last week would require the Pentagon to study and submit a report on an interim buy of upgraded F-15s, F-16s and F-18 to close the so-called “fighter gap” predicted by many observers between 2015 and 2025.
The measure, sponsored by Rep. Frank Lo Biondo (R-N.J.), calls for the Pentagon to study whether Congress should authorize a multiyear procurement contract for so-called 4.5 generation fighter aircraft – those equipped with advanced weapons, avionics and active electronically scanned array radar (AESA).
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story.jsp?id=news/NORAD062209.xml&headline=NorthCom/NORAD%20Seeks%20Multirole%20Aircraft&channel=defense
Saladin Mates With an APC In The Jungle
June 22, 2009: During the two decade Tamil rebellion in Sri Lanka (recently concluded with a rebel defeat), the Tamil minority showed enormous resourcefulness in their fight to partition the island (into Tamil and non-Tamil nations). When the Sri Lankan army recently scoured territory long controlled by the Tamil rebels, they found all manner of improvised weapons. But none was as amazing as a Tamil "tank" that had been improvised by mounting the turret, from a captured (British made) FV601 Saladin reconnaissance vehicle (a six wheeled armored car), on a (Chinese made) Type 63 tracked APC (Armored Personnel Carrier.) The result was a lightly armored, 13 ton tank, armed with a 76mm gun. The Saladin usually has a crew of three, but the slightly roomier Type 63 Saladin could probably hold four or five. This is apparently a one-of-a-kind vehicle, and testimony to wartime grit, determination and unwillingness to waste anything. And probably worth quite a bit on the armor vehicle collectibles market.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htarm/articles/20090622.aspx
Rhapsody In Concrete
June 22, 2009: One troublesome relic of the Cold War for Russia is the thousands of bomb shelters built when communists bureaucrats ran the Soviet Union. Nuclear weapons frightened the communist officials, and they planned to actually participate in a nuclear war, and survive. Thus, from the 1960s, they began building more shelters, eventually enough to hold five percent of the population (nearly 15 million people.) Because of the size of the Soviet Union, much of the population were expected to survive simply because they were far from where the A-bombs were going off. The shelters were mostly for the communist party members and government officials living in metropolitan areas deemed likely targets for enemy nukes.
Through the 1990s, the lack of money to maintain these shelters, led to most of them being abandoned. Some, especially the more elaborate ones for the senior leadership, were kept up, and remain ready. But most of them are seeking a use, because there's no money to dismantle them either. Without that, these structures will last a long time. In the West, thousands of concrete fortifications remain from World War II, especially in the countryside where there was no new construction that warranted demolition. Many have found commercial use; for storage, growing mushrooms or even as factories. In some poor nations, the underground facilities became homes. Many of the aboveground fortifications become tourist attractions, and are more likely to acquire second lives as homes, or, in remote areas, shelter for hikers or hunters.
A major problem with these underground shelters is water. Many are built beneath the water table and are not waterproofed sufficiently to keep water out. Unless pumps are kept going all the time, they flood. Leaving the water there for a decade or more weakens the structure and makes them unstable, and dangerous for anyone poking around. Even with that, concrete lasts a long time. The Romans developed a very modern version of concrete, and many of their structures built with it survive some two thousand years later. So we can expect these Cold War relics to outlast most other artifacts of this period in history.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htpeace/articles/20090622.aspx
Lawyers Seek To Control The Battlefield
June 21, 2009: Recently, a British appeals court ruled that military commanders could be sued (usually by a family member) if someone died while in service, and the plaintiffs believed the death was the result of command error. The ruling is based on the fact that Britain, as a member of the European Union, is subject to the European Convention on Human Rights. This act includes a clause guaranteeing a right to life. As a result of this ruling, which the military may appeal to the House of Lords (the highest appeals body in Britain), military commanders have been assured that the Ministry of Defence will go to court to shield them from legal proceedings. That, however, may not work. Thus a law may have to be passed to grant commanders immunity from such "wrongful death" suits. This would not be the first time this has happened. In the past, Britain has passed such laws to protect agents for Mi-6 (the British CIA) from such suits in British courts. These are the Mi-6 agents with the "license to kill," so to speak.
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/articles/20090621.aspx
now that you are on the board of directors, you are expected to increase our dividends
as much as i hate the thought of him playing for the queens, he has every right to work. but i dont have to cheer for him
uhhmmm duh!!!! we dont need to tell anybody the truth! hell im only learning from the best fraud in the game! and i wont burn his jersey no matter who he plays for
to many cpatains n cokes. i can leave that up to you. just dont ask for a pay raise
it also might help is someone posts something about the packers!
im still waiting for one of you to pick it up here! you guys are so lucky nitro didnt leave me any funds to pay you guys to do yours jobs!!! lmao!!
win a date with Jenna Jamison to a Packer game would work better!
i looked at all of them, and thought the 42 would end up in the best place, the 47 hasnt had enough laps, the 9 just hasnt done well at this track and the 42 has done decent here
i bet we get a lot more board marks if we just use aintrights ihub alias BigRichard(Dick)
and i bet hendrick is kicking himself in the ass for getting rid of him!
why is everyone picking the 9? his track performance there has been horrible, and im a mopar fan
its just difficult picking a damn toyota
have you seen a packer game in late December?! more shirtless guys than any other stadium i have seen on TV. especially under 30 degrees. almost wish the pack played in miami.
step it woman! i havent seen you doing anything to increase the board marks, like putting up pics in a cheerleaders uniform. lol
watching a rain delay for the brewers?
the road races are a crap shoot, more so than any other race. to many drivers have very little xp on them with these types of cars.
with that said, none of the road race mercs have had much success either.
when i was looking at who to pick, i noticed that little shrub was the only one to get better with each race at the track. but i didnt pick him because think he is running out of luck and friends
i volunteer for cameraman!
that actually sounds like a good plan, except for the part where 25 others keep pickin better than me. lol
it is disappointing about not having any cheerleaders who arent prep school kids, but on the other hand Lacy is one hell of a stand in!
let me know when those tickets come in. lol