LACK OF CANADIAN HELICOPTERS IN AFGANISTAN "COSTS LIMBS"

ZABUL PROVINCE, Afghanistan - Every suicide bomber and every improvised bomb the Taliban has aimed at a Canadian resupply convoy underscores the point. Canada's Achilles heel in Afghanistan is its lack of a helicopter to move supplies and troops by air.

The U.S. Army has a dozen bus-sized twin-rotor Chinook choppers in Kandahar. Every day, the air crew of the Kansas-based 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment -- the Spartans -- moves more than 10 tons of cargo and hundreds of troops to and between austere U.S. forward operating bases such as Wolverine, a dusty patch of nothing about an hour's flight north of Kandahar.

The Spartans' commander, Lt.-Col. Walt Bradley, was unequivocal. His Chinooks save lives.
"By flying resupply for our troops, we are staying off the roads, avoiding ambushes and suicide bombers, not having breakdowns or hitting IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices)," said the reservist.

"By virtue of taking everyone out of harm's way, we save lives. It removes danger from the equation."

Canada has no rotor aircraft capable of flying in the extreme heat and mountains of Afghanistan after years of questionable helicopter decisions in Ottawa, such as when the Chretien government aborted the purchase of the EH-101, which cost half a billion dollars in penalties -- the price of 40 Chinooks.

As a result, front-line combat troops with the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry fighting in the neighbouring province of Kandahar have been resupplied mostly by convoys that run a daily gauntlet of landmines, improvised explosives and suicide bombers.

The shortcoming may be resolved soon with a government announcement, expected this week, of the purchase of more than a dozen Chinook CH-47 refurbished D or new F models. However, to get the choppers into action will take time. Aside from jostling for priority places for aircraft in the Boeing assembly line, it will take pilots a few months and avionics specialists up to a year to be fully trained on the aircraft.

Getting water, food and ammunition overland to combat troops can be a grim business. Four Canadian soldiers have died while on convoy duty here this year.

Canada's helicopter problems were brought into sharp focus again last week when two convoys struck roadside bombs left by the Taliban and another patrol was targeted by a suicide bomber.
That Canada has no helicopters in Afghanistan is a fact its allies in southeastern Afghanistan find odd. A senior coalition officer said earlier this week he was astonished that a country of Canada's wealth and size had not bought any military transport helicopters for its domestic needs, let alone for its troops at war. Bradley, the U.S. Chinook boss at Kandahar Airfield, expressed similar amazement. "For the size of your country, with a geography that is similar to ours, with the same mountains and prairies, the Chinook is ideal."

Canadian officers and senior NCOs in Afghanistan have been vexed by the helicopter problem for some time.

"It is quite possible it has cost limbs, if not more, because we have had to sustain on the ground," Lt.-Col. Ian Hope, commander of the Canadian battle group, said in a recent interview. "That has produced a risk that would be reduced if we could take helicopter flights.

"It does not take a military tactician to know this. We have mitigated the risks. Losses have been reduced, but you can't get to zero."

A warrant officer with the Canadian battle group said nothing would make the troops happier than to know Ottawa was finally going to purchase a small fleet of transport helicopters for duty in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

PUBLICATION: Edmonton Journal
DATE: 2006.06.26
BYLINE: Matthew Fisher