U.S. helps Iraq’s air force fly again

The project is part of a broader plan to train Iraqi forces to take over when U.S. forces leave.

By Ernesto Londono
The Washington Post

Article Last Updated: 08/13/2008 08:30:56 PM MDT

KIRKUK, Iraq — Col. Abdul Karim Aziz, a fighter pilot who survived the war between Iraq and Iran during the 1980s, had all but given up hope of flying again when his mother told him in 2005 that it was time to get back in the air.

“When the war began, I didn’t think of coming back,” said Aziz, 49, speaking about the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Referring to the American military, he added: “I didn’t like the friendly side.”

The U.S. military all but paralyzed the Iraqi air force after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, turning veteran pilots such as Aziz into grounded bureaucrats. The little that remained of the country’s once-mighty fleet was obliterated during the early weeks of the Iraq war. And Iraq’s skies became the domain of the U.S. military, controlled from an operations center in Qatar.

Now in an about-face, the U.S. Air Force is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get Aziz and others to fly again, train a fresh generation of pilots and build up the Iraqi air force’s fleet and infrastructure from scratch. The Air Force project is part of a broader effort to train and equip specialized units of Iraq’s security forces, which U.S. commanders see as a critical step to set the conditions for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.

As violence has fallen in Iraq in recent months, these initiatives have become one of the U.S. military’s top priorities. But they are getting off the ground as Iraqis have stepped up calls for the withdrawal of U.S. troops and as U.S. lawmakers, who in recent years have allocated billions of dollars to train and equip Iraq’s security forces, are increasingly demanding that Iraqis pick up a greater share of the tab for security.

U.S. lawmakers appropriated $8.5 billion to train and equip Iraq’s security forces in 2007 and 2008. Of that sum, roughly $457 million went to the Iraqi air force.

Building an air force takes years, if not decades. And rebuilding Iraq’s has been a particularly challenging mission, U.S. officials say.

Though small, modest and devoid of firepower, the Iraqi air force has a solid foundation and has given Iraqis something to be proud of, U.S. officials say. Iraqis, accustomed to U.S. helicopters that hover over their cities round the clock, wave excitedly when they see aircraft with the Iraqi flag.

The Iraqi air force currently has 76 aircraft, most donated by the U.S. and other nations.