Chinooks or Afghan evacuees?

MY PIECE TODAY: US military commanders have only days to decide whether to prioritise multi-million dollar Chinooks and other helicopters over Afghan evacuees in the last flights out from Kabul before the August 31 deadline. President Biden’s insistence that all US troops and as much equipment as possible have to be out of Afghanistan by next Tuesday has posed an uncomfortable dilemma for the military top brass. The commanders in charge of the evacuation will have to choose between reducing the number of Afghan evacuees in the final days to make room for these helicopters inside the giant C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft or sacrifice the prize military assets to provide maximum space for people desperate to leave the country. The Pentagon has acknowledged that if there is no room for the helicopters and other equipment, they may have to be destroyed. “Obviously there is a strong bias to be able to get our materiel out with our people [troops]. [But] if there needs to be destruction or other disposition of equipment at Hamid Karzai international airport, then we will do that and do it appropriately,” John Kirby, Pentagon press secretary said. More than a dozen helicopters are currently at Kabul airport engaged in security missions and evacuations beyond the airport. They include CH-47F Chinooks, UH-60 Black Hawks and AH-64 Apaches. Three Chinooks were involved in evacuating 169 American diplomatic staff to Kabul airport. In addition, the US Army’s elite 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, also present at the airport, has its own modified versions of the Chinook and Black Hawk as well as A/MH-6 Little Bird light helicopters. The standard Chinooks, Black Hawks and Apaches cannot be refuelled in flight and have to be transported by aircraft. However, the Chinooks and Black Hawks adapted for special operations do have midair refuelling capabilities. The C-17 Globemaster which , in one notable flight, carried 830 Afghan men, women and children from Kabul to al-Udeid airbase in Qatar, will play the key role in shipping military equipment back to the US. A C-17 can carry a single Chinook in one flight, or two Black Hawks or two Apaches. In wartime, and emergency situations, troops could also be packed in around the helicopters. But for safety reasons it seems unlikely US military commanders would risk having Afghan evacuees on the same flight as helicopters and other equipment. A spokesman at US Central Command which has overall charge of operations in Afghanistan, said:”We’re not going to be drawn on the disposition of our assets at Kabul airport or our plans for them.” When the US military abandoned Bagram airbase north of Kabul which had been one of the main centres of operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda over the years, a large amount of equipment was either destroyed or disabled. But all helicopters at the base were extracted. The only helicopters known to have been destroyed so far in the US retrograde programme to meet the August 31 timetable have been seven CH-46E Sea Knights used by the state department at the American embassy in Kabul. These helicopters, belonging to the state department air wing, along with several light armoured vehicles at the embassy, were disabled or destroyed after the 4,000 staff had been evacuated. The White House said yesterday that around 19,000 people were flown out of Kabul in a 24-hour period between 3am August 24 and 3am August 25. Forty-two military flights involving 37 C-17s and five C-130s carried 11,000 evacuees, and 48 coalition flights took 7,800 people. Since August 14 when the evacuations began after the Taliban took control of Kabul, about 82,300 people have been flown out of Kabul, the White House said.