The New Iraqi Airforce

As well as rebuilding the Iraqi army, The Coalition is also helping to build the New Iraqi airforce. Heres a good link for anyone who wants info on it:



According to this site, 5 Iraqi airbases have now been rebuilt. The New Iraqi air force is currently equipped with Mi-17s, UH-1s, C-130s and hte jordanian built SB7L-360, a surveillance aircraft. Currently the airforce is mostly used for training and counter-insurgency, but as time goes buy, its duties will expand to aerial combat. In 15 years time (If that country isn't torn apart by then) I believe Iraq will have Tornadoes, F-16s, F-14s and toher western aircraft. Be my guest if anyone else has any theories. And if anyone knows of any current Iraqi air force development, please post it here.

Perhaps China can sell a few FC-1s or J-10s. I think that looks to be pretty favorable. I don't know if the U.S. would give Iraq free fighters, but China would definitely give them a good price. It'll be interesting to see.

Vlad Plasmius said:

Perhaps China can sell a few FC-1s or J-10s. I think that looks to be pretty favorable. I don't know if the U.S. would give Iraq free fighters, but China would definitely give them a good price. It'll be interesting to see.

Click to expand...

Would China be interested in selling Iraq advanced fighters? I'm not sure. I'm not aware of any major Chinese interests in Iraq. Much of the Iraq's oil is controlled by America. Infact, nearly the whole country is controlled by America. I don't really see how the Chinese would be able to gain any benefits there. And they were never very intersted in Iraq anyway. I know that the new Iraqi navy's patrol boats wre Chinese built, but I think its more likely that Iraq's combat aircraft would be Western. Eventually, Iraq may provide a useful buffer for the West against Iran, so it would make sense for alot of Iraq's weapons to be western.

Here's a couple US military articles on the new Iraqi AF:

don't think china would want to sell fc-1 or j-10 to iraq for security reasons. currently they are china's best fighters, and since iraq is under american control. selling these planes to iraq just means USA will get a good long look at it and play around with the stuff inside. which means USA will know exactly what the strength and weaknesses of fc-1 and j-10 are. that is certainly a huge disadvantage to china, especially since china actually use j-10 for the air force. it will not be good for china if there's a confrontation with USA, when US knows about all the secrets in J-10 already. so no matter what.. don't think china will be selling fc-1 and j-10 to iraq.. maybe some J-7 or J-8, since they are old and everyone have the tech already.

So far the US has been pretty careful with what it gave to the Iraqi's. The New Iraqi Army received some cold-war era surplus T-72M's from Hungary, and retired M113A1 APC's from Swiss government (via UAE). The new Iraqi AF has been given some helicopters and AC-130 transports, but no real combat aircraft.

In the past, some have speculated that the US would rebuild Iraqi military with its own hardware - M60, possibly even M1 MBT's, surplus F-16's, AH-1's, and so on. They had hoped the Iraqi people would welcome the US with open arms and turn into a democratic US ally and hedge against Iran, or so they thought.

The realities of Iraq today is quite different and I don't think the US really trust the new Iraqi Army yet. Also the Iraqi army themselves said they're more familiar with Soviet/Russian arms, so the US army even attempted to purchase AK-47's from China for the New Iraqi Army, opposed by the Pentagon.

selling these planes to iraq just means USA will get a good long look at it and play around with the stuff inside.

Click to expand...

I doubt the country will be in our hands for long.

I don't think there'd be real objections to offering FC-1. The Pakistanis are allies with China and are very close to the U.S. Hell, Pakistan's also getting the J-10. If we wanted to see the aircraft's performance we could go to the more experienced pilot's. I think China would only have a problem with the possibility that a few might "disappear". That would only work if we have tight control and there's still some chaos to blame it on.

there is a difference between strategic alliance and a puppet.

And if you haven't noticed, there is almost a civil war going on in Iraq.

The new Iraqi Airforce can also purchase the Dhruv military helicopter from India. It will immediately give it a quantum leap in helicopters as compared to many airforces in the world, as the Dhruv is a very competent helicopter in the 5.5 ton category. It is similar to Eurocopter models in that category.

Also, Iraqi Airforce can purchase used MiGs from India, ranging from MiG-21s to MiG-27s.

Why on earth would Iraq want to purchase stuff from india? you realize all the weapons must be new, so why would anyone want to buy second hand Migs? Iraq is preparing for the 21st century, thus will lay hands on at least mig-29s, not older.

Dhruv might have a chance if the Iraqi army is interested in helicopters.