De Daily Telegraph bericht: 'US sets up £215m deal for Afghan arms - from RussiaBy Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
American defence officials have secretly requested a "prodigious quantity" of ammunition from Russia to supply the Afghan army in case a Democrat president takes over in Washington and pulls out US troops. The Daily Telegraph can disclose that Pentagon chiefs have asked arms suppliers for a quote on a vast amount of ordnance, including more than 78 million rounds of AK47 ammunition, 100,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 12,000 tank shells - equivalent to about 15 times the British Army's annual requirements. The Bush administration is said to want the deal because of worries that the next president could be a Democrat, possibly Hillary Clinton, who may abandon Afghanistan.' Lees verder:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/05/22/warms22.xml&sSheet=/news/2006/05/22/ixnews.html De vraag is hoe lang de Nederlandse troepen daar blijven om de democratie op te bouwen. Voor een democratie heb je kennelijk heel veel wapens nodig.
Inmiddels ontkennen de Russische machthebbers. 'Moscow has denied Western media claims of the U.S.’ alleged intention to buy “an unthinkable amount” of ammunition from Russia for Afghanistan. “Moscow is not considering large deliveries of ammunition to Afghanistan, and the United States has not made any such offer,” a high-ranking Russian military diplomat said. “Russia does not plan to supply ammunition or military hardware to Afghanistan. Besides, the Afghan army has sufficient reserves of all types of ammunition,” he said.' Lees verder:
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/05/22/russianotconcideringafghan.shtm l
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