Sen. Dallaire accuses PM of lacking courage/Aircraft procurement

It's sad to say, but the good, Liberal, senator really has been losing his grip for some time, especially about Darfur. But now he is playing politics with Afstan.

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"I think setting up the Liberal party to split over Afghanistan is a demonstration of lack of courage (on the part) of the prime minister," he said...

Now that he is acting as a partisan his views can only be treated--like Liberal defence critic Dosanjh's--as politically motivated.

But Sen. Dallaire is right about this:

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He decried the "emasculation" of the Canadian Forces through more than a decade of budget cuts and said even increased spending promised in the latest federal budget won't meet the military's needs...

Let's hope this story is accurate:

The Harper government is expected to announce as early as Monday a $5.5-billion investment in a fleet of long-range cargo planes and the replacement of its aging Hercules transports, sources say...

Most...projects, including armoured trucks, ships and other aircraft, have been pushed back to the fall, but two major transport aircraft purchases are ready to launch.

The most controversial of the two will likely be the purchase [sole-sourced] of four C-17 Globemaster long-range strategic transports at a cost of $1 billion for the planes themselves, plus a 20-year support and maintenance plan that will bring the overall cost to $2.5 billion...

The Tories will also revive part of a plan announced by the Liberal government shortly before the last federal election to replace the aging fleet of Hercules transports at a cost of $3 billion for up to 16 new planes.

The government is expected to open that project for competitive bidding, but industry insiders say the specifications will likely favour the U.S. firm Lockheed Martin's modern version of the Hercules, the C-130J.

Sources say the Conservatives could not risk sole sourcing two large airplane purchases, so they expected the statement of requirements for the Hercules replacement will be brief -- as short as one or two pages as opposed to thousands of pages of details specifications usually placed before bidders -- and it is expected to call for delivery of the planes by about two years.

That would eliminate the C-130J's main competitor, the Airbus A-400, which is in the design phase and isn't expected to go into production until 2009.