The Report
of the Iraq Inquiry
•
Advancing
the FRC programme – an additional £225m “in the early FRC
years”
would
enable the earlier procurement of Chinook helicopters to meet the
heavy
lift
requirement. An extra £650m across the Equipment Programme
period
would allow
the medium support helicopter purchase “(type not yet
known)”
to be
brought forward by five years to 2012 and “obviating the need to
extend
the ageing
Puma and Sea King fleets”.
1080.
Gen Granville‑Chapman
wrote:
“All of
these options are being tested now … In October DCDS(EC)
[Lt Gen Fulton]
will chair
a series of Joint Capabilities Boards to decide which of the
options I have
described
should be pursued and when. But there are real affordability
problems
in the
early EP [Equipment Plan] years and the levels of contractual
commitment
means that
it will not be easy to shift significant investment away from
other
capabilities
and into helicopters in this round. I suggest we return to this
issue in late
October
when we shall know better the worth of options.”
1081.
Mr Browne
circled both references to October in Gen Granville‑Chapman’s
note
and wrote:
“No: it should happen tomorrow!”568
1082.
On 11
September, Mr Browne’s Private Secretary wrote to
Gen Granville‑Chapman
requesting an “urgent” meeting to discuss his
advice.569
Mr Browne
was:
“…
concerned to ensure that officials are giving appropriate priority
to measures
to improve
helicopter availability and have considered, and exhausted,
every
possibility,
including those which they believe Ministers would find
unpalatable.”
1083.
The areas
Mr Browne particularly wanted to explore
included:
•
the
proposal to convert maritime Merlin helicopters to a battlefield
support role;
•
“a radical
rethink” on the eight grounded Chinook Mk3 aircraft that were
not
considered
airworthy (see Box below, ‘The eight modified Chinooks’);
and
•
leasing and
contracting further aircraft.
1084.
Mr Browne
and Lord Drayson met Gen Granville‑Chapman on 14
September.570
1085.
On 15
September, Gen Granville‑Chapman wrote that Mr Browne was
“keen
to explore
a number of options for short term relief” for crews in theatre.
Those included
“what sum
of money” would yield “significant
improvement
in aircraft availability in
the next
six months” in relation to Chinook, whether additional Merlin Mk3
could
568
Manuscript
comment Browne on Minute VCDS to SofS, 7 September 2006,
‘Helicopter Capability’.
569
Minute
Forber to MA/VCDS, 11 September 2006, ‘Helicopter
Capability’.
570
Minute
Granville‑Chapman to ACDS(Ops) and ACDS(Log Ops), 15 September
2006, ‘Helicopter
Capability’.
184