First, consider the source. The wording of the article itself is a very good clue. No objective journalism there in the least.
Second, when you take the obvious bias into consideration in such an article...the first thing you start looking for is some sort of notation that gives you some sort of credible source for these claims.
Guess what? There aren't any.
More and more red flags.
Also...did you note the date of the article? 2011. That was right after Iraq made the first $1.5 billion payment towards what Iraq itself said would eventually be 36 aircraft.
In fact, in 2012 Iraq did sign the deal for the second set of 18 and they paid the same price as the first...$3 billion for eighteen including all of the spares, training, maintenance, etc.
So Iraq will get a total of 36 fighters, with training, support, maintenance, and all sorts of spare parts for $6 billion. I do not know what the final breakdown is, but I believe that the 36 fighters would probably cost on the order of $3.2.-3.4 billion by themselves.
I know this...the individual cost per plane without spares, training, consulting, maintenance, etc. is not going to be anything like $165 million...nothing even close. Probably closer to $90 million, maybe $95 million.
For the US, the cost would probably be around $85 million...which by the way, is the ultimate target for the F-35A costs when they are in full production and benefiting from that economy of scale.
