Canadian Forces will receive six U.S. Chinook helicopters, an essential capability supporting their Afghanistan operations, while the U.S. Army supports a coalition partner and interoperability under a Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LoA) signed by Canada and the U.S. Army, according to a service official.
Under the LoA, Canada will buy six used Chinook D model helicopters already in theater from the U.S. government (Defense Daily, Aug. 11). The total program cost, which includes training, support, spares and the helicopters, is valued at roughly $250 million, Keith Webster, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Defense Exports and Cooperation, told sister publication Defense Daily in an interview.
Israel McReynolds, director of Security Cooperation Integration at DASA DE&C, said, “We have a desired Initial Operational Capability (IOC) of February of ’09. The Army will be able to meet that IOC. The aircraft are already positioned in theater and currently in use by U.S. forces.”
Webster is responsible for the Army’s Security Cooperation programs, which involve security assistance, export policies and oversight, direct commercial sales of Army defense articles and international cooperative research, development and acquisition. This work exceeds $6 billion annually in sales and cooperative efforts with over 100 foreign countries.
Fulfilling the request reflects national security themes such as supporting coalition partners and building partnership capacity.
“We are working hard every day to support the U.S. Army’s goals and objectives with its coalition partners, in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world,” he said.
“Here we are talking about an OEF partner, who’s continued participation is extremely vital to the Army,” Webster said. “Now, that said, the Army assumes some risk in doing this. But at the end of the day the decision was made to support [the Canadian request] by the Army senior leaders.”
Canadian officials concur in an Aug. 21 memo to Webster: “This program exemplifies the close relationship between the United States and Canada and is another example of how allies can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles in the pursuit of common goals.”
The initiative, the Interim Medium Lift Capability Project, was described as part of the Canada First Defence Strategy announced Aug. 5. Additional helicopter lift also was one of the conditions Canada’s parliament set out in a March 13 motion to extend the nation’s Afghanistan military mission until 2011. The Independent Panel on Canada’s Future Role in Afghanistan also recommended this.
The urgent requirement for six helicopters is separate from a plan to sign a contract for 16 new Chinooks later this year for the Medium-to-Heavy Lift Helicopter requirement.
It was early this year that Canadian officials approached Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey with an urgent request for six Chinooks to support the Canadian presence in Afghanistan.
The tandem rotor heavy lift Chinook, produced by Boeing [BA], is uniquely equipped to handle the stressing environmental conditions–altitudes and heat– coalition forces face.
“General Casey tasked the Army to try and support Canada on this urgent requirement,” Webster said. “Thus various elements of the Army, largely led by elements of my team here, worked through all of the details. It was not easy, worked through several options to come up with something we thought would be successful.”
Final approval to move forward was received from Army leadership.
“The Canadians secured their Parliamentary support–because it was an unprogrammed purchase–as well to resource the program and they worked that in an urgent manner as well in parallel to our efforts, and we were able to write the program and present it to the Canadians and they accepted it a few weeks ago,” he said.
The FMS LoA is really more of a bi-lateral agreement that lays out the terms and conditions of the program, Webster said. What underpins that bilateral FMS LoA is the actual contracting activity as appropriate between the United States and any suppliers or vendors on the U.S. side.
“The biggest challenge, was sitting down bi-laterally and defining all the moving parts and pulling the proposal together in such a way that both governments could support it and accept it,” Webster said. “That I think is where most of the energy was expended because we had multiple avenues we could take to achieve the same general outcome. Which is Chinook support to Canada.”
Part of the process looked at the entire Army fleet of aircraft, taking all of its known requirements into account and assessing its ability to support the Canadian requirement, Webster said.
Once the decision to move forward is made, Webster’s office works within the broader Army community–the training community, the program office, the program executive office, the Foreign Military Sales aspects of the business at Army Materiel Command, and the sustainment community–to put together a total package “to ensure Canada is positioned for success in assuming these airframes into their total mission.”
And, ensuring interoperability with U.S. forces is all part of the work.
“Outside of the Iraq-Afghanistan urgency, we have a long history of collaboration with Canada for example on the very issues of achieving greater interoperability in preparation for the next conflict. We do that with many of our partners as well in Europe and elsewhere. Better interoperability is always a desired outcome of that collaboration.”
Though the six-helicopter Chinook project took roughly seven months from inception to completion, it’s all part of the daily ebb and flow, Webster said. “I would say for our coalition partners in Iraq and Afghanistan this is what we do on a daily basis. Now, we’re not always moving Chinooks. It could be radios, but it runs a whole spectrum of urgent support to our coalition partners. So, for them, that type of speed and urgency and running processes in parallel is what we do because of the urgent situation that we’re in, in that regard.”
McReynolds said, “Every request is a little different. In this particular case the Canadian shortfall was with helicopters. You take another country’s shortfalls. They may be in the area of ammunition or they may be weapons or they may be individual soldier equipment. So everyone is a little different, there is no template.”
One such request Webster can discuss was to support France and worked over the Labor Day holiday, as the French Minister of Defence met with Defense Secretary Robert Gates. “We were approached by his [Gates’] front office–we, the collective community–and worked an urgent delivery of radios to French troops,” he said.
“Secretary Gates wanted a commitment over the weekend that we could deliver and he got that commitment…and the AMC (Army Materiel Command) community had that on contract within 48 hours.”
The contract amendment for the radios has a total value of $8.36 million.
They really pulled out all the stops to get that done–a critical need for French troops. It was all for some important radios, which for the French troops to remain connected on the ground, that was critical. So we, the DoD, got it done.”
AMC is a vital member of the team, not only reflected in the French work but on the Chinook program as well, he said. “It takes a team to get it done.”