Kuwaiti politics: Baghdad rush to buy F-16 aircraft amid fears of a U.S. benefit from Tehran
11/07/2012 11:26:42
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BAGHDAD (Iba) / follow up / ... Kuwaiti newspaper said that the Iraqi government decided to allocate additional funds from the supplementary budget to strengthen the air defense system, amid fears of a U.S. Iran to take advantage of advanced technology for military aircraft.
The newspaper said the Secretary-General of the Iraqi Council of Ministers on the Keywords in a statement, the day before yesterday, the government agreed to allocate additional funds to the Ministry of Defense of the supplementary budget to strengthen the air defense system according to the latest equipment to and from different origins.
The Keywords that the nature of the situation and circumstances in the region, and confrontations that may occur in the event of the development of this situation, the government made seriously considering taking preparations to face any violations and breaches may get to Iraqi airspace, and to enable the Iraqi air force to deal with any breach of its sovereignty and airspace of any party or any country.
Keywords comments came following reports of sudden political and military in Baghdad, spoke of the Syrian problem that the solution will not be a political solution and that the war is coming to topple the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
In this context, said among the mission of the Dawa Party, for the policy, the information in the possession of the government that Assad would not hand over power and will not accept any electoral scenario in Syria because he knows he will fail in any free and fair elections.
Furthermore, sources in the leadership of the Iraqi Air Force told the newspaper that the U.S. side will be presented in September is likely to display your fighter aircraft deal the second installment for the ¯ 18 plane of the F-16.
She stressed that the commander of Air Force Lt. Gen. pilot Anwar Hama Amin, intended to travel to Washington to meet with senior officials in the U.S. Department of Defense (Pentagon) in order to overcome any obstacles and to accelerate the supply Iraq with the first installment of this fighter aircraft in conjunction with the study of the U.S. offer new buy the second installment of aircraft itself.
She added that the Secretary of the team is keen to increase the number of Iraqi pilots who will also be trained on the F-16 (as provided for in the deal) from ten to 25 pilots.
The U.S. administration was announced at the end of last year's sale of its consent Iraq 18 aircraft other than F-16 fighter after a request by Baghdad to deal with a total 36 aircraft of this model.
And the importance of this deal, the Iraqi military government has doubled the budget to buy 36 U.S. military aircraft, as Baghdad pays $ 900 million value of the first installment of the deal to the U.S. government in September 2011.
On the other hand, sources in the high-Iraqi coalition led by Ayad Allawi told the newspaper that there are trends in the U.S. administration to provide the Iraqi government to freeze the first batch of F-16 fighter and the abolition of the second batch.
She explained that there are two main reasons, first is related to fears U.S. to benefit from Iran of aircraft in terms of technology and not in terms of military use because many of the pilots Iranians trained to U.S. warplanes in the past at the time of the Shah's rule, and the second is the fear that some of the militias of Iran, a recruiting Iraqi pilots to escape in one of the aircraft and landing one of the Iranian military airports.
For his part, MP of the Kurdistan Alliance Jihad Hassan Amin, said that his country does not need sophisticated weapons such as aircraft, but you need to strengthen the democratic system and focus on development.
He added that the security problem in Iraq of internal security against terrorism and that the government headed by al-Maliki to take care of the development of intelligence.
He was a member of the Commission on Security and Defence parliamentary astonishment of the frantic urgency shown by the Baghdad government for the purchase of military aircraft in Iraq as if the arms race with others, as if a regional war will take place soon. (End)
http://www.ipairaq.c...litics&id=58185
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