US short of helicopters for Darfur mission – Gates

November 17, 2007 (WASHINGTON) — US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday November 15 he has received no request for helicopters for a UN/African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur but the US military was too stretched to be of much help.

Gates said that he was lobbying NATO defense ministers to provide more allied helicopters in Afghanistan to ease the stress on the US assets there.

The head of the UN department of peacekeeping operations, Jean Marie Guehenno, said Wednesday that the mission of the 26,000-member peacekeeping force for Darfur may fail without air mobility and firepower.

The force needs 24 helicopters, including six helicopter gunships, to overcome any test of strength in the early phase of their deployment in 2008, he told reporters.

Diplomats have said several Western countries able to provide the helicopters are reluctant to do so because of a lack of confidence in the command and control structure for the joint force.

Admiral Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, echoed Gates, saying that the US military would find it difficult to provide helicopters for the Darfur mission.

“That there would be a need makes sense. But where they’d come from would be pretty difficult for us right now,” he said.

(AFP)