Blair set to blow millions on military IT interoperability with US?

Whilst British troops in Iraq patrol in useless Land Rover 'snatch' vehicles

Accompanying the recent announcement from the US - which was made during Blair's latest mission to Washington - of an agreement in principle that "the United Kingdom will have the ability to operate, upgrade, employ and maintain the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter 'such that the U.K. retains operational sovereignty over the aircraft,' " was the following:

"The two leaders are pleased to announce that the United States and United Kingdom recently signed an agreement that allows appropriately cleared British and U.S. personnel to use the same computer network to access military and intelligence information and other planning tools to support joint military operations in the defense of freedom"

Whilst there may well be some champagne corks popping on account of the above apparent cave-in on the part of the US in relation to the sharing of JSF technology - the paragraph referring to an agreement to 'use the same computer network' to access information relating to joint military operations 'in the defence of freedom' seems to potentially give up more in terms of independence than we have gained in relation to one fighter aircraft.

It would be nice if Blair saw fit to make parliament aware of more details concerning this sharing of military and intelligence information relating to 'the defence of freedom' - with perhaps a clearer definition - 'the defence of freedom' is childlike bushspeak. Also, will this mean that millions more pounds are going to be spent on US computer systems 'and other planning tools' in the name of that famous scam 'interoperability'? Whilst British troops continue to patrol Basra in Land Rover 'snatch' vehicles?

We are told that you can buy 80 odd armoured Pinzgauers from the Austrian manufacturer for around 30 million quid. What will be the cost of sharing our data relating to the so-called 'defence of freedom'?