England, March 23: The cost of the UK’s military action in Libya has been estimated to be “tens of millions” of pounds, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said.
Royal United Services Institute estimated that the cost of UK’s participation in Libya war would be 100 million pounds in four to six weeks, which makes it two to three million pounds a day.
According to the defense ministry’s figures from costs of Kosovo conflict, for every hour in the air, UK’s Tornado GR4 will cost 35,000 pounds while the amount for the Typhoon aircraft is 70,000 pounds.
UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said at the Commons that Defense Secretary Liam Fox will not fund the UK’s military involvement from the ministry’s budget, since the Defense Ministry is facing a 1 billion-pound shortfall this year.
He claimed the costs would be met from contingency reserves.
Osborne said it was early to give a complete estimate of the UK’s operation cost.
“What I can say is that the costs should be modest compared to some other operations like Afghanistan, and the Ministry of Defense’s initial view is that this will be in the order of the tens of millions not the hundreds of millions of pounds,” he added.
—-Agencies