In another of a growing series of comments by US military officials about how dangerous it will be if they indeed withdraw from Iraq, as required by treaty, in 2011, Brigadier General Jeffrey Buchanan warned that Iraq will be totally vulnerable to air attacks throughout 2012 and possibly beyond.
“There will be a gap in their capability that they would need to have a complete conventional defensive capability,” warned Buchanan. At issue is that Iraq has no warplanes, with the US having destroyed them all in the lead up to the 2003 occupation.
Iraq is currently in talks with the US to acquire several F-16 fighter planes, but the earlier these would be available to them is in 2013. It could be well beyond this date before Iraq actually has a functioning air force.
But the question remains, and perhaps it could’ve been asked before Iraq started trying to buy billions of dollars in US warplanes, of whether they really need them. The talk of dominating their own air space aside, the claims of “air attack” seem silly, as no one seems particularly keen on bombing Iraq right now, and indeed none have been since the US stopped doing so in 2003 and marched ground troops in.
In the Middle East it seems, increasingly, buying a gaudy number of advanced warplanes from the US is a sign of national prestige, which poses another problem: Iraq probably couldn’t afford to field the ridiculously oversized air force it would need to guarantee air superiority in the region. The expense, then, seems mostly about giving the US one less thing excuse not to end the war.
Bush claimed he invaded Iraq to protect the Iraqis from Saddam and to locate Israel manufactured 'evidence' of Saddam WMDs, of course despite protestation he accomplished neither objective. Now Buchanan tells us the Iraqis will be vulnerable to air attacks unless Iraq gets brand spanking new US Airplanes because in 2003 the US destroyed all Iraqi Airplanes.
The US had better cough up the $$bil to replace the Airplanes they destroyed during their illegal preemptive war. Better still the US ought to redirect the $$bil Israeli subsidy to Iraq. Instead of allowing Israel to use $$bil to fiance their illegal occupation, mass murder and apartheid policies against defenseless Palestinians whose only crime is that Israel covet their land. Redirecting the $$bil to the Iraqis could be interpreted as good will and a down payment for reparation claims which is bound to follow.
Iraq is going to be an unofficial part of Iran shortly so why not allow iran provide the air defense. Iran will be happy because it will give them a better chance to shot down the IDF attack planes when the IDF got to bomb the Iranian nation.
What is needed is to stop the silly cries that we should give away a few hundred billion more military equipment to another foreign nation. When are we going to learn that our military experts are only interest in selling more military equipment. Israel as a major death equipment supplier will be happy to support any silly excuse to waste money. If Iraq needed an air force then we should not have destroyed the one that they had.
And we still need to protect Japan and Germany too!
Whether we give it away or we force them to buy, it is the MI complex that makes the money. Most generals can become consultants to the complex once they leave military.
MIC, baby. Smedley is still right.
Air attack? By whom?…. Swarms of flying carpets from Iran? ….C-130's laden with bagels from Jerusalem?
I think America is the only country to have bombed Iraq in a long time.