I can see your point about not moving weapons except...didn’t he send most of his Air Force to Iran in the first Gulf War so it wouldn’t be destroyed by coalition forces? He had at that time just completed an 8 year war with Iran less than 2 years previous and yet was willing to take the risk of Iran “turning his weapons on him later”, yet he still did it. I think that some of his material probably went into Syria, as did some of his people. I have been out of the military for nearly 5 years, and was pretty low level when I was in, so I guess this is just an unproven hunch.
Iran did not give him back his airplanes after the Gulf war was over.