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118Close Air Support and the Support Helicopter forces, and there was aMaritime/Air connection for Nimrod and Buccaneer. On the other hand,there were large sections of the air force which were almost exclusivelysingle-Service oriented; one thinks, for instance, of the Vulcan Force,much of the Air Defence Force and the air-to-air refuellers. Similarly,large proportions of the Army and the Navy used to go about theirbusiness in virtual isolation.Over the last ten years the RAF has totally changed its structure, itstraining and its entire approach to joint and expeditionary operations. Ifyou were to go to any of our stations, say Leuchars, you could tell themto pack up and get ready to move to the Gulf and they would be on theroad in 24 hours. Once they arrived at Prince Sultan Air Base, orwherever, they would be set up and ready to commence operationsextremely quickly. It has taken quite a long time, and it has required a lotof investment to enable us to do that, but the result is that the air forcehas undergone a fundamental transformation.At the beginning of March, I went out to the Gulf to visit all of ourdeployed operating bases (two in Kuwait; one in Bahrain; one in SaudiArabia and one in the UAE) and returned via Cyprus. It was quiteremarkable to see what our people had achieved in absolutely no time atall. Indeed, if you remember, at the beginning of February, apart fromthe handful of aeroplanes that we already had in the Gulf, we had beengoing to deploy the bulk of the British air component to Turkey. Wechanged our mind at the end of the first week in February, because wecould see that the Turks were going to be difficult. By the end of the firstweek in March, we had 100 combat aeroplanes and 27 helicoptersdeployed, all of them in the Gulf. Within a month of taking the decisionto swap locations, we were established in-theatre with all of the weaponsthat we needed to provide a full operational capability, and before wecould do anything at all, of course, we had had to get the agreement ofthe host nations to accept us. All of that is an indication of the recenttransformation in the RAF%u2019s capabilities.Sqn Ldr Colin Richardson. Sir Peter, can you reassure me, Sir, that thelatest marks of RAF Harriers are fully navalised, particularly in view ofthe fact that the Sea Harriers are shortly to be withdrawn?Sir Peter Squire. That is correct, they are. The GR7 is fully navalised inorder both to embark in, and to operate from, one of our CVSs. It has