New post added at News Channel 365 - Here’s The Aircraft Carrier France Is Sending To Chase Down ISIS In IraqSource: businessinsider - Thursday, January 15, 2015 France is sending its aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf to serve a support role in the country's bombing campaign against ISIS in Iraq, the AFP reported on January 6. The decision to deploy the Charles de Gaulle was made before the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and the subsequent hostage crises that claimed 17 lives and shook the nation last week. But in light of French defense minister Jean Yves Le-Drain's assertion this week that "ISIS must be wiped out," the deployment looks to be part of a long-term engagement in the Middle East for what is Europe's largest military force. "Thanks to the Charles de Gaulle we will have intelligence ... we may also conduct operations in Iraq," President François Hollande told military personnel in the annual presidential address from aboard the 38,000-ton carrier on Wednesday. Here's a look at the French navy's flagship. Construction on France's first nuclear-powered carrier began in 1987. Budget constraints halted the process on four occasions in the early '90s until the Charles de Gaulle's inauguration in 1994. But the ship would only be launched in 2001. During final seaworthiness tests in the Bermuda triangle in November 2000, part of the blade from one of the carrier's 19-ton propellers (below on the left) broke off. The Telegraph called the incident a "further twist" in one of "the most embarrassing sagas in French maritime history," considering the ship's dragged-outAll Related
Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 22:12:50 +0000
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