Iraqi air force not a force in war _ yet

The Associated Press ^ | 3/25/03 | John J. Lumpkin

[LdSentinal]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- So far, the Iraqi Air Force is sitting out the war, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.

It appears the Iraqi wing commanders have decided scrambling fighters is a futile gesture in the face of superior American and British combat aircraft, U.S. defense and intelligence officials said.

"A total dominance of the air. It is not air superiority. It's dominance. They have not put an airplane up," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday, briefing reporters at the Pentagon.

The lack of any air war is in stark contrast to fierce fighting between ground forces as U.S. and British troops drive on Baghdad. Still, allied fighters face threats from Iraqi ground fire and, in one case, a fratricidal American surface-to-air missile.

But the quiet skies haven't stopped U.S. and British planes from targeting Iraqi planes on the ground. Several have been destroyed, according to Pentagon officials.

Prewar intelligence estimates from earlier this year said Saddam still had about 300 combat aircraft, all of them survivors of the first Gulf War. Most are aging Soviet-era MiGs, Sukhois and older French Mirage fighters. The best are MiG-29 Fulcrums, one of the most advanced fighters produced in the Soviet era.

But many Iraqi jets were thought to be unflyable. U.N. weapons embargoes prevented Iraqi from importing spare parts, and Iraqi pilots have received little training since the last Gulf War.

The combat aircraft are kept at military airfields around the country, with the greatest concentration kept near Baghdad. Military officials say the Iraqis have dispersed and hidden a number of them to protect them from bombing.

Last week, Iraqi air force airmen played soccer before a flag-waving crowd in Baghdad. They haven't seen any action since.

Some experts suggested Iraq may be holding its air force in reserve, ready to use only when the time is right.

"You could see there's a rope-a-dope strategy, to conserve until critical moment in the battle," said retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, the top Air Force general during the first Gulf War.

Some of Iraq's planes are capable of attacking with chemical or biological weapons, U.S. intelligence officials have said. The Iraqis have also tested sprayer tanks on a few of its jets.

Given the absence of any Iraqi aircraft in the skies, McPeak criticized U.S. Army air defenders for not taking more care in identifying targets before they accidentally shot down a British plane Sunday. A U.S. Patriot missile battery shot down a Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 near the Kuwaiti border, killing the two crew members.

"There is absolutely no enemy air threat, and you suddenly pop and shoot down an RAF plane," he said.

Military officials say an investigation into the friendly fire incident continues.

[martin_fierro]

Oh, no! Fierce fighting is taking place? We'd better surrender. < /sarcasm>

[journey7873]

Iraq...air force...huh?

[journey7873]

wonder when they are gonna fire up their navy?

[Chummy]

...U.N. weapons embargoes prevented Iraqi from importing spare parts...

See? UN weapons embargoes work. Iraq didn't import ANY spare parts.

[cactusSharp]

you betcha an air force...if only to fill full of fuel, bios, and fly tree top kamakazi style into us Saddam
proved his imagination. We need to use ours too

[daviddennis]

Articles written before the war note that the Iraqi air force is under the direct command of Saddam and nobody else.

With Saddam incommunicando, as far as anyone can tell, it doesn't seem surprising that the Iraqi air force is idle. They are waiting for commands that only a man who is either dead or incapacitated can give.

D

[Humbug]

"There is absolutely no enemy air threat, and you suddenly pop and shoot down an RAF plane," he said.

To me that was a rather poor example since there have been scud missiles launched and that's what the Patriot mistook the RAF plane for apparently. Anyway had nothing to do with whether Iraqi planes were flying or not.

[HarryKnutszacke]

Exactly.

I think perhaps McPeak is a democrat, like McCaffrey and Wesley Clark.

[USNBandit]

A Tornado going .95IMN at a constant altitude, most likely in the high 20's, doesn't look anything like a ballistic missile traveling at supersonic speeds coming down out of an extremely high altitude.

[Mo1]

If I recall .. Didn't Saddam hide his planes in Syria during the First Gulf War?

[goldstategop]

They send up what's left of an air force, they won't have one. Good thing for our ground troops that they don't have to worry about being blasted from the air by the enemy.

[ArneFufkin]

It's more accurately fierce slaughter.

[goldstategop]

He hid them in Iran which was not so dumb as to hand them back to its arch-enemy.

[Humbug]

I know that. What i meant is that from what i understand the primary purpose of the Patriot, at least as used in the Gulf Wars, is to shoot down missiles. So to me the General was comparing apples to oranges in that it seems to have been simply a case of a malfunctioning Patriot and that it almost certainly had nothing to do with whether or not we should have taken more care in selecting targets.