Some (dare say many/most) in the anti F-35 crown have been having a figurative orgasm over a recent article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper where it is claimed thet the UK is cutting its F-35B order in half (just the most recent is a long line of Guardian completely made up BS).
Well now the UK MOD has repsonded…
http://www.blogs.mod.uk/defence_news/2010/01/defence-in-the-media-15-january-2010.html
Carriers not under threat
A letter from the Minister for Defence Equipment and Support, Quentin Davies, has appeared in The Guardian newspaper in response to an article which appeared in the paper entitled ‘Stealth fighter jets to be slashed’. The Minister’s letter said:
Dear Sir,
Your correspondent’s article in Wednesday’s Guardian on defence procurement, ‘Stealth fighter jets to be slashed’, is nonsense personified.
Our new carriers are not ‘under real threat’. There will not ‘certainly be a big reduction in Joint Strike Fighter numbers’. The article goes on to state ‘among other options being considered are: downsizing the second carrier … building both carriers but selling one perhaps to India’. No such fantastic ‘options’ are being considered at all.
As for the phrase ‘at a time when troops in Afghanistan are being deprived of helicopters and surveillance systems’, it is about as far from the truth as it is possible to be. We are currently in the midst of a dramatic increase in helicopter numbers in Afghanistan, up by 50 per cent from June 2009 – June 2010, we are adding new Reaper Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and will be introducing the Watchkeeper in the coming months.
If your correspondent would like a briefing on the real position I should be happy to arrange one for him, or to give him one personally, at any time.
Yours,
Quentin Davies MP, Ministry of Defence, Whitehall, London.
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January 15, 2010 at 9:11 pm