Britain to US: Share JSF Technology or No Deal

Britain should cancel a deal with the United States to purchase Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) jets if America does not share sensitive technology by the end of the year, a report by the parliamentary defense committee will say, the Financial Times reported on Dec.8.

The yearly report on British weapons spending, which is due to be released Dec. 8, says “it is still uncertain whether the U.S. is prepared to provide the required information”, despite Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush agreeing in May that Britain would get the technology it needed.

Bush and Blair had said then that they agreed that Britain “will have the ability to successfully operate, upgrade, employ, and maintain the Joint Strike Fighter such that the U.K. retains operational sovereignty over the aircraft.”

Britain was planning to purchase 138 JSF aircraft that would be operated on two new aircraft carriers by 2013, but the MPs’ report said: “If required assurances are not obtained by the end of the year, we recommend the MoD (Ministry of Defence) switch the majority of its effort and funding into a fallback ‘Plan B’.”

Britain has thus far committed $3 billion to the JSF project, a spokesman for the defense ministry told AFP. It was planning to buy 150 fighter jets at $104 million each, the defense ministry said in May.

The defense ministry spokesman said, however, that the final figure for how much the deal would be worth was not yet clear.

According to the Financial Times, the issues lie in the aircraft’s advanced missions systems and its stealth capability. Britain wants key technical details so that it can upgrade the jets without having to send them to the United States.

“I have been absolutely crystal clear on this issue. Our ‘Plan A’ is to buy this aircraft, but our ability to buy it depends on having operational sovereignty,” Paul Drayson, the British defense procurement minister, was quoted as saying by the daily.

“We will not buy the aircraft until we have that.”

He said that he had a “Plan B” if the JSF project was abandoned, but declined to give details.

Drayson is to travel to Washington next week to try and break the deadlock over the project.

The JSF has been billed as the United States’ biggest fighter program. The Pentagon has planned to buy 2,400 of the stealthy multi-role fighters and other countries could purchase another 2,000 to 3,500 aircraft.

The aircraft is manufactured by Lockheed Martin with funding from the U.S. Department of Defense along with international partners Britain, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore and Turkey.

The MPs’ report also criticizes the government for its inadequate provision for troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying they are “desperately short” of equipment, according to The Independent daily.

They also criticized the defense ministry for mistakes made in an order of Chinook helicopters from Boeing which have resulted in eight Chinooks being grounded in Britain, with the defense ministry writing off the 200 million-pound cost involved.

“During our visits to the U.K. armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq we were told that additional equipment was required urgently, such as the helicopters,” the report reads, according to The Independent.

A spokesman for the ministry, however, was quoted by The Independent as saying: “We haven’t had any requests for additional helicopters since we went out two additional Chinooks to theater in July.”