[NeroASERCH]

23:34 GMT, 6 June 2012 | Daily Mail

The Army will have to rely on help from private contractors and foreign soldiers in future wars, the
Defence Secretary will announce today. Several regiments will be axed or merged as the Army downsizes
from 102,000 personnel to 82,000 by 2020.

Private military contractors, Nato allies and Territorial Army reservists will be employed to plug the gaps,
Philip Hammond will say.



This could lead to recently retired soldiers being rehired as mercenary contractors to deliver kit to front-line
soldiers. Britain could also be forced to rely on other countries for vital transport and logistics tasks, which
are currently undertaken by soldiers’ own countrymen.

The long-mooted cuts to personnel were detailed in the Strategic Defence and Security Review in 2010.
However, the plans for greater involvement of private military contractors will fuel fears that the economic
crisis will leave the UK saddled with a cut-price Armed Forces, placing our soldiers in danger.

Hammond is also braced for a bitter fight over Army reorganisation when he publishes a plan to slash the
number of regiments before the summer.