A top aide for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki today announced that the government has reached an agreement to buy 18 F-16 warplanes from US arms seller Lockheed Martin.
The deal, which officials estimate at $3 billion, will add to the Iraqi military’s growing Air Force, and will also ensure that the Iraqi government requires US military “trainers” on the ground for the forseeable future, as the nation has almost no trained military pilots.
Maliki has claimed that the Iraqi parliament does not need to be consulted in keeping US troops in the nation to train Iraqi forces on the use of military hardware. With warplanes likely to be trickling in for years, this will ensure a long-term US presence.
The planes are just the first in what could be even more purchases from the Iraq government, with officials saying they are hoping to eventually acquire upwards of 36 of the F-16s.
This is just a backdoor way of expropriating Iraqi oil revenue and funneling it to U.S. defense contractors.
well how do you know iraq has such terrible weapons?
….we looked at the receipt.
-Hicks
The puppet regime of Iraq "buys" F-16s from the US with American tax dollars. Wow! The Empire must be getting desperate indeed. Recently, the same deal fell thru with Taiwan when China objected and made the Empire eat the F-16s it was trying to pun on them. I'm willing to bet that these are the same "recycled" F-16s it was going to give Taiwan in order to start trouble against China. Ha ha! My, my, my…what a tangled web we weave when we plan to deceive.
However, if the US has such a big surplus of F-16s that nobody wants, I'm sure that our bestest friend and only ally in the Middle East will be willing to take them off their hands…as long as they are free and loaded with depleted uranium, white phosphorous and cluster bombs. They're good that way, our friends.
This is unbelievably sick. Like Iraq has billions to waste on fighter jets.
BTW, if you haven't seen a rapper named Low Key, check him out on You Tube. Great antiwar stuff and really hiphop.
what's the employment situation in Iraq? do they have electricity and water back to pre-war levels?
if not, Iraq has more pressing needs. I hear the maintenance for these things is pretty expensive
That's exactly what I was thinking. Those $3 billion could be used to rebuild electrical grids across most of Iraq. The next question should be, do they really need US Air Force Pilots to train them? Why not tech reps from McDonnall-Douglas? Better yet, do they really need the jets? I can already see the scheming going on in the Pentagon, "How can we carry out a false flag operation with those jets that would allow us to attack Iran".
We are so generous to be selling 30 year old warplanes to our ally, yes we are! I'm sure we have plenty of F-4 Phantoms sitting in storage just crying out to be sold and flown again- why don't we throw those into the deal as well?
I recall a scene from the film "Lawrence of Arabia" during which TE Lawrence is asking for weapons to be sent to the tribes in order to fight the Turks. A British politician declined, saying something to the effect of "Give them rifles and you give the victory in battle- but give them artillery and you give them independence".
We're just handing out aging rifles to Iraq- we're not giving them anything they can actually fight a war with against a determined opponent. 18 out-of-date fighters? A drop in the bucket- and just say if those planes were actually ever called upon to defend Iraqi airspace, how many do you think would return to base in one piece- or at all?