Comment at end
30th August, 2009
‘Iraqi officials have been hunting for missing assets in a number of countries where Mr. Hussein had made military purchases, including Egypt, Russia, France and Italy.
The Iraqis have also found two naval vessels belonging to it in Egypt and two others in Italy, and other materiel [sic] in France and Russia, according to Mr. Askari.’
WHAT? How can ANY country’s people including officials, forces, authorities, politicians, scientists, technicians, historians etc FORGET that they once had an airforce? No chance that they might also have forgotten that they once had Weapons of Mass Destruction too?
Of course not. Silly me.
Remnants of Iraq Air Force Are Found (source here)
BAGHDAD — Iraqi officials have discovered that they may have an air force, after all.
The Defense Ministry revealed Sunday that it recently learned that Iraq owns 19 Russian-designed MIG-21 and MIG-23 jet fighters, which are in storage in Serbia. The ministry said Iraqi officials are negotiating with the Serbs to restore the aircraft.
The Serbian government has tentatively promised to make two of the aircraft available “for immediate use,” according to a press release from the ministry. The rest would be restored on a rush basis, the ministry said.
An Iraqi delegation went to Serbia as part of aneffort by the government to locate funds stashed abroad by Saddam Hussein to evade sanctions first imposed during the 1990’s. Serbia had had friendly relations with Mr. Hussein.
During that visit, the Iraqi officials discovered that Mr. Hussein had sent the 19 jet fighters to Serbia for repairs in the 1980’s, during the Iran-Iraq war, but was unable to bring them back after sanctions had been imposed on his country.
Iraq immediately sent a technical delegation, including air force chief Gen. Anwar Mohammed Amin. The web site of the Iraqi Supreme Islamic Council, the leading Shia political party, quoted Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari as saying that the aircraft had been sent in 1989 “for maintenance and everything was paid for by Iraq’s money.”
Mr. Askari said the discovery was important because Iraq has no jet aircraft with defensive or offensive capabilities. “Our air force has only helicopters,” he said.
“Everyone knows how much we need fighter aircraft,” the ministry statement said. “We have reached a tentative agreement with the Serbian side to rehabilitate the aircraft and deliver them to Iraq in the shortest possible time, in recognition of Iraq’s need for such aircraft.”
The Defense Ministry statement was issued as a rebuttal to Iraqi press reports claiming secret negotiations with Serbia indicated some sort of corrupt deal.
The American military’s training command has recently arranged for the delivery of Iraq’s first jet aircraft trainer, the T-6, in December. There are no immediate plans as yet for Iraq to purchase American fighter aircraft, although the T-6 is used to train pilots for the F-16.
U.S. officials could not immediately be reached to clarify whether Iraq would continue to develop an American jet fighter capacity.
So far, the Iraqi air force has only 87 aircraft, mostly transport and reconnaissance planes and helicopters, and only one ground attack aircraft. It has no jets.
Mr. Hussein’s government, which in 1990 had the sixth largest air force in the world with 750 aircraft, lost many of its advanced MIG and French Mirage jets when the United States bombed them during Desert Storm; nearly 100 of them were flown to Iran to escape destruction, even though Iran was then an enemy of Iraq.
Iran has still not returned the aircraft, despite otherwise warm relations between the two countries now, saying they were war reparations for the Iran-Iraq war.
The Serbian discovery would potentially give Iraq a jet fighter capability long before it could develop one for American aircraft.
Iraqi officials have been hunting for missing assets in a number of countries where Mr. Hussein had made military purchases, including Egypt, Russia, France and Italy. The Serbia discovery was a result of that hunt.
The Iraqis have also found two naval vessels belonging to it in Egypt and two others in Italy, and other materiel in France and Russia, according to Mr. Askari.
In Belgrade, the B-92 independent news channel quoted officials as saying that Serbia had reached a separate arms export deal with Iraq that would result in employment for 6,000 workers in six military factories. Last year, Serbia exported $235 million worth of arms to Iraq.
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September 1, 2009 at 7:01 am |
Well, well, well. What do we have here? I guess that clarified why France, Italy, Egypt and Russia were so much against the invasion: they were friends with Mr. Hussein. So close with him indeed that they are baby-sitting military assets for him. I guess the aforementioned countries also forgot that they were baby-sitting Mr. Hussein’s babies and forgot to mention it to the new guys in charge. Until, well, those guys came looking for the babies.
September 1, 2009 at 7:20 am |
Caela – love your code – “babies”. I’m not all that sure if France for one, would have been “friends” of Saddam or any stronger “friends” than Britain was at one time (Realpolitik and ONLY “allies in international politics, not friends.)
I point to this more as cock-up than conspiracy.
But what a cock-up to leave the baby outside the supermarket!