Photo: guncopter.com
The Pentagon has decided it’s in the national interest to keep buying MI-17 transport helicopters for the Afghan military from a Russian company.
The Defense Department “has an urgent, near-term need to purchase an additional 30 new military-use MI-17 helicopters” to equip Afghanistan’s counter-terrorism forces, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter wrote today to U.S. lawmakers in a letter obtained by Bloomberg News.
Carter outlined steps the Pentagon took to reevaluate purchases from Rosoboronexport, Russia’s state-run arms trader, in the letter sent to lawmakers including Republican Representative Bill Young of Florida, chairman of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, and Democratic Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, who heads his chamber’s defense appropriations panel.
The Pentagon decided to keep buying from Rosoboronexport after the U.S. Army canvassed other helicopter makers and failed to find an alternative that would meet the Afghan military’s requirements, Carter said. Afghan personnel have flown the MI-17 since the 1980s and are deeply familiar with their operation, Pentagon officials have said previously.
“Careful consideration of all the information available to the department” after the Army evaluation “confirms it would be in the public interest to procure the MI-17s needed” from the Russian firm, Carter wrote. The U.S. Army had one $375 million contract to buy 21 Russian-made MI-17 helicopters for the Afghans from Rosoboronexport. The Pentagon agreed on July to buy 10 more for $171 million.
Rosoboronexport has the official status of the exclusive state intermediary, entitled to supply the world market with the whole range of permitted to exports arms and military equipment made by the enterprises of the military-industrial complex of Russia.
