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EUROPE

26 May 12. Afghanistan: OP HERRICK. A Captain from 1st Bn The Royal Welsh was killed when his vehicle struck an improvised explosive device in the Nahr-e Saraj District on 26 May 12. A soldier from 1st Bn The Royal Welsh was fatally wounded by small arms fire in the Nahr-e Saraj District on 1 Jun 12. UK deaths since the start of Operations on 7 Oct 01 thus rose to 416, of whom 376 were killed due to hostile action. (MoD, 1 Jun 12.)
Tornados of 617 Squadron provided useful intelligence for ground Forces. The 39 Squadron Reaper detachment delivered some 240 hours of full motion video during the previous week. Sentinel R1 aircraft of 5 Squadron provided about 70 hours of radar reconnaissance and analysis during the week. (RAF Ops Update, 26 May 12.)
Soldiers from 1st Bn The Royal Anglian Regiment made a considerable discovery of insurgent narcotics and supplies in the Nad ‘Ali District. (MoD, 29 May 12.)
UK Forces were among those involved in the successful rescue of four aid workers in Northern Afghanistan on 2 Jun 12. One of the aid workers is British, one Kenyan and two Afghan. (FCO, 2 Jun 12.)
Comment: There have been several adjustments to the ISAF troop contributing nations’ (TCN) contingents. The apparent increase (of 508) in the overall total is due to all troops from Canada and The Netherlands now being included in the Table. (Source: DNA DEFENCE NEWS ANALYSIS, Issue 12/22, 04 June 12)

01 Jun 12. Procurement Card: Committee of Public Accounts (PAC) Report
The PAC published (1 Jun 12) a Report on The Government Procurement Card (GPC). The GPC was introduced in 1997, to enable more convenient and cost-effective purchasing of low-value goods and services. Central Government spent £322m using the cards in 2010/11 with the MoD accounting for some three-quarters of all expenditure.
Comment: The Report is published with a record of the evidence taken by the PAC on 26 Mar 12. The evidence makes for more informative reading than the Report. One of the Chairman’s more memorable remarks is: “This is not necessarily fraud; this is questionable expenditure.”. The Report is published, as HC 128, for £10:00. (Source: DNA DEFENCE NEWS ANALYSIS, Issue 12/22, 04 June 12)

USA

01 Jun 12. Another round of dramatic U.S. defense budget cuts will be “devastating” to the arms industry and will force thousands of people out of their jobs, American corporate giant Boeing warned June 1. Dennis Muilenburg, president and chief executive of Boeing Defense, Space and Security, said smaller companies from around the world that form part of the U.S. firm’s supply chain will also be affected Boeing’s defense business has already seen its workforce slashed by around 8,000 people to 61,000 over the past two years as a result of a $500bn U.S. defense budget cut currently being implemented. However, there is also the potential for automatic defense spending cuts, called sequestration, totaling another $500bn over 10 years from 2013 if the U.S. Congress does not reach a deal on slashing the country’s deficit. “That’s very significant. We believe that would have a devastating impact on industry,” Muilenburg told reporters in Singapore on the eve of the Shangri-La Dialogue. “We are strongly encouraging the U.S. government to find a way to avoid that sequester scenario and avoid the impact that would have on jobs and industry.” Muilenburg said he could not confirm the number of jobs that could be shed in the event of such cuts, but it would be likely to run into the “thousands” in the U.S. alone. “We have thousands of suppliers in our global network that support our defense and commercial business and the ripple effect to second- and third-tier suppliers would be very significant,” he added.
Boeing’s defense business has so far managed to survive the effects