7.62x39 Ammo Shortage

7.62 x 39 AMMO SHORTAGE

London Daily Telegraph: "US Sets Up £215m Deal for Afghan Arms--From Russia"

(Source: LINK notice courtesy of Prof. Kenneth W. Martin, DISAM, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, kenneth.martin@disam.dsca.mil) [Editor's note: This is an excerpt of an article available in full at the Source website.]

May 22, 2006, By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent. American defence officials have secretly requested a "prodigious quantity" of ammunition from Russia to supply the Afghan army in case a Democrat president takes over in Washington and pulls out US troops. The Daily Telegraph can disclose that Pentagon chiefs have asked arms suppliers for a quote on a vast amount of ordnance, including more than 78 million rounds of AK47 ammunition, 100,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 12,000 tank shells - equivalent to about 15 times the British Army's annual requirements.

The Bush administration is said to want the deal because of worries that the next president could be a Democrat, possibly Hillary Clinton, who may abandon Afghanistan. White House insiders fear that Afghanistan could "drift" and consequently, they want heavily to arm President Hamid Kharzai's government before the 2008 US presidential election. Diplomatic sources also believe that the US may be offering the estimated $400 million (£215 million) deal, including transport costs, to the Russians as an inducement to embargo its arms and nuclear technology exports to Iran.

Defence specialists said Russian arms chiefs at first "fell about laughing" because they thought the order was a joke when it arrived this month. But with the Americans said to be pressing for a price and earliest delivery date, the request is being rapidly processed and exports could begin before the end of this year. The "decade's worth" of ammunition will give the Afghan National Army a vast arsenal to deal with Taliban or drug warlords if Washington withdraws its troops. . . . .

The order also suggests the Afghan army will be equipped with T62 tanks, Mi24 Hind attack helicopters and Spandrel anti-tank missiles. If fully trained it will provide a formidable force against insurgents and potential foreign aggressors, including Pakistan where tensions are high on the southern border. "This is completely refitting the Afghan army for the long term and it should stop a resurgence of the Taliban in its tracks," a British arms expert said. "The order will take a year to make and deliver but the Russians are used to large quantities."

A senior British officer said: "The point of getting Afghanistan up and running is so they can take on their own operations. "This deal makes sense if we are going to hand over military control to them." Some observers pointed to the irony of the deal, because when the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan the Americans sold Stinger surface-to- air missiles to the Mujahideen to enable them to shoot down Moscow's aircraft.