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UK admirals call for rethink on navy cuts

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, Nov 10, IRNA -- A group of former British navy chiefs Wednesday urged the government to reverse its decision to scrap the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and the fleet of Harrier jets, saying they were 'the most dangerous of the defence cuts'.

In a joint letter to the Times, the former admirals warned that the cuts would leave the oil-rich Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic open to a fresh Argentinian attack 'from which British prestige ... might never recover'.

The signatories, including former navy chief Lord West, said they believed Prime Minister David Cameron had been badly advised before agreeing to the measures as part of the Strategic Defence Review and the need to cut the country’s defence budget.

They suggested that scrapping the aircraft carrier and its fleet of Harrier jets “practically invited' Argentina to attempt to inflict a national humiliation on the British on the scale of the loss of Singapore in 1942.

West, who served as security minister under the previous Labour government, warned that if the islands were captured as they were in 1982, there could be “absolutely no way whatsoever of recovering them unless we have carrier air.'

He told the Times that he was not convinced that the prime minister had been given a 'full and proper briefing about the implications' of the defence cuts.

But Armed Forces Minister Nick Harvey insisted that the Falklands could still be protected - and if necessary, retaken - without an aircraft carrier.

'The Falklands is a very different situation now from what it was in 1982. We're far more alert to the threat now, we've got a well-defended airfield, we've got a company of troops there, we've got submarines,' Harvey told the BBC.

He also argued that the Tornado fixed-wing planes were the right aircraft for the current conflict in Afghanistan and for the next decade or so.

'This was a very difficult decision. It was looked at in immense detail. In the end a decision had to be made and we took the decision on the basis of the balance of military advice coming from the current military leadership,” Harvey said.

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Islamic Republic News Agency/IRNA NewsCode: 30068410