Mr. Cooper is full of it here. Much of the Iraqi Air Force was sitting on the tarmac at Riyadh International Airport during the Iran-Iraq war, How can your air forces be 'shaped and seasoned', when its materiel assets are sitting in the 'custody' of a third party?
How do I know this to be a fact? Simple, in 1981 I was working at Riyadh International, and had some of those same Iraqi Air Force planes, with Iraqi Air Force markings, parked right next to the hangar I was working out of.
So, go peddle your Bravo-Sierra elsewhere Cooper, I *know* better...
the infowarrior
Iraqi assets may well have deployed to other countries, but Iraq had the largest air force in the region, leading up to the Kuwait War. Was even half the Iraqi Air Force in Saudi Arabia? Highly unlikely, since we are talking of at least 400 aircraft/helicopters. That’s a huge logistical operation. And the fact is that the Iraqi Air Force was active in the Iran-Iraq war. If a large number of Iraqi assets were in the KSA, the Iranians wouldn’t have hesitated to strike the KSA, like they attacked tankers.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/iraq/air-force-equipment.htm