Indian Military

WASHINGTON: The United States said on Friday Iraq had agreed to keeping US troops in the country beyond a year-end deadline for withdrawal, but Baghdad insisted the issue is still under negotiation.
In an interview with two US newspapers, defense secretary Leon Panetta said that the Iraqis had made up their mind to extend the presence of American troops.
"My view is that they finally did say, 'Yes,'" Panetta was quoted as saying by Stars and Stripes.
Iraqi political leaders announced on August 3 that they would open talks with the United States over a possible training mission after 2011 but have yet to say definitively if some American troops would remain.
Under the terms of a 2008 security agreement, all of the roughly 46,000 US troops still in Iraq must pull out by the end of the year unless both countries forge a new deal.
In Baghdad, the Iraqi premier's office promptly rejected Panetta's account.
"We have not yet agreed on the issue of keeping training forces," Ali Mussawi, media advisor to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, told AFP after Panetta's remarks.

WASHINGTON: A US Army Apache helicopter accidentally dropped an inactive missile over central Texas, forcing dozens of homes to be evacuated, officials said Wednesday.
No one was injured in the incident in which residents in Killeen told police they saw an object falling from an AH-64 attack helicopter into a field late Tuesday, according to a statement from the army's Fort Hood base near Killeen.
"Killeen Police Department responded and located the object which was impaled into the surface of the ground. Officials immediately cordoned off the area," the statement said.
No one was injured in the accident but local media said about 100 homes were evacuated.
An explosive disposal team found an inert M36 missile, a dummy version of a Hellfire missile used for training, officials said.
"The M36 is an inert training device without a warhead or propulsion system and is designed to enable crews to simulate Hellfire missile engagements in the cockpit without launching from the aircraft," the Fort Hood statement said.

[Stratpost]

The Indian Air Force (IAF) trials for an estimated USD 2 billion order for 22 attack and 15 heavy lift helicopters have been held up because the Russian contenders in the two shortlists have failed to arrive in India.

Senior IAF officials said on Monday that for reasons that were, as yet, unclear, the Russian Mil Mi-28 and the Mi-26 helicopters had not been cleared to come to India for trials. The trials for both categories of aircraft began in July.

IAF officials have chosen not to label this a delay and deny they’ve set any deadline for the Russian aircraft to arrive for trials, even though this could put the two acquisition contests in limbo. Boeing’s Apache AH-64D attack helicopter and the Chinook heavy lift helicopter are the other aircraft in the competition.

The IAF would, presumably, want to prevent the process of acquisition of the two types of aircraft from being jeopardized by the withdrawal of the Russian helicopters from the contest.

[Stratpost]

India is going to be disappointed with President Barack Obama’s visit beginning Saturday after next. The upside of this is that the Indo-US relationship has come a long way in so short a time as to engender expectations that could induce performance anxiety.

This sense of anticlimax comes after the much tom-tommed civilian nuclear commerce double play by the two countries, which continue to relay over multiple hurdles. US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns said at a White House press briefing on the visit on Wednesday, “We’ve worked hard in this administration to follow through, completing, for example, a reprocessing agreement between the US and India six months ahead of schedule.” He also marked the Indian accession to the Convention on Supplementary Compensation on Wednesday, important especially after the Nuclear Liability Bill passed in India, imposing liabilities on nuclear suppliers as well. “We look forward to US companies contributing to Indian civil nuclear development.