Iraq buys its aircrafts entrusted to Iran by millions of dollars?
The Iraqi air force is the right arm in support of the Iraqi armed forces in the ground and and responsible for protecting the skies of Iraq, and one of the oldest military institutions in the field of its competence in the region and its mission is the surveillance of the border and national property and carry out air operations.
The IQAF also acts as a support of the Navy and the Iraqi Army to rapidly deploy its developing Army.
It was founded in the twenty-second of April 1931, when Iraq was under British influence, it has been trained group of pilots in Britain, who returned to Baghdad with planes to Washash Airport (now Muthanna military airport); to form the first nucleus of the Iraqi air force.
And the Iraqi air force has reached its peak and power after the Iran-Iraq war 1980 – 1988, as the number of its aircraft amounted around 1050 aircraft to become one of the largest air force in the region, but it soon weakened , as nearly 500 aircraft have been destroyed , the equivalent of half the power of the air force in the second Gulf War in 1991, and part of which entrusted to Iran which has reached 150 aircraft to protect them from the US bombing which are valued at that time since 27 years ago by 1.6 billion US dollars; and after the end of the Gulf War, Iraq demanded to return the aircrafts secured to Iran, but declined to return the trusteeship to Iraq, and considered it as a part of the compensation of the Iran-Iraq war, and Iraq was struggling to enter mediators but in vain , and then coalition forces after the war imposed no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq, and the rest of the Iraqi aircraft have been destroyed during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the remains of aircrafts , which were not destroyed , have been sold as a scrap.
The agreement, under which the Iraqi aircrafts have been sent to Iran during the 1991 Gulf War, when the coalition forces led by the US were preparing for the war on Iraq which tried to restore its relations with Iran to negotiate to minimize losses as much as possible from the results of the expected war, and the agreement between the two countries based on the mutual benefit on specific points, as it was agreed on the following:
- Open air traffic between the two countries and linking Basra International Airport to Iranian air transport network via Abadan Airport.
- Exchange of information and experiences in the meteorological and open mail and coordination between the telephone lines and Telegraphic services through the ground station ” Intelsat ”
- Open area of maritime transport and ports between the two countries and to allow Iraqi ships and vessels to dock in Iranian waters, and specifically in the ports of Bandar Khomeini and Bandar Abbas for fear of American threats and the Iranian side suggested of the maritime transport from the port of Bandar Khomeini to the port of Umm Qasr in Basra province, while Iraq proposed to study the possibility of exporting Iraqi oil through Iranian ports and extending an oil pipeline across the Shatt al-Arab to the port of Bandar Khomeini that Iraq takes care to implement this project in terms of expenditure .
- Activating trade exchange between the two countries within the contexts to be agreed upon.
- The use of the railway train from the port of Bandar Khomeini to Muhammara and to Basra through the establishment of an extension of the new railway from Muhammara to Basra to facilitate the transport of passengers and cargo between the two countries.
- Opening lines for road travel for tourism and religious visits between the two countries, and Iraq offered to open a passage between Khanaqin and Iranian Shirin Palace special for the Iranian visitors.
- The most important agreements is to secure Iraqi aircrafts to Iran temporarily until the end of the war, but this trust raised a lot of reservations, especially since the two countries came out of the war of 1980 -1988 in which approximately one million people were martyred , wounded and handicapped , and the Iraqi and Iranian wounds had not yet healed after by the war, but it is necessary to retrieve some of the options that were on the table in front of the Iraqi leadership before judging on the validity of its options or not, noting that when the war broke out ,the air coverage of coalition countries was in control of the battle sky completely, and intelligence data indicated that military and civilian aircrafts will be targeted in less than an hour, on these basis the following options were put forwarded :
1.pushing aircrafts in air battles with aircrafts of coalition forces resulting in the loss of aircraft and pilots as well as air military defeat of the first round with the exception of MiG aircraft and advanced Mirage, the rest of the aircraft cannot be confronted with modern aircrafts in terms of number and combat capability and speed of maneuver, which will be reflected negatively on the morale of the land troops, which was adopted by the Iraqi leadership as the winning card in the war.
- Keep the aircraft in the fortified bunkers without the participation in the fighting, and the loss of this option would be all aircrafts.
- The last option is to try to smuggle them to a neighboring countries so according to international law, the coalition aircrafts can not attack Iraqi aircrafts in the event of its presence in another country because it is a violation of the sovereignty of that State and declare war on them, and this option will ensure in maintaining some of the aircraft in the event of not being destroyed during attempt to fleeing to one of neighboring countries, which represents less damaging options.
4 – which brought the military leaders at the time to study ways of military coordination and pave the way for Iraqi Iranian cooperation after the two parties have lost a lot of allies in the region, as well as coordination on the transfer of Iraqi civilian and military aircraft to Iran in order to avoid the destruction of the aircrafts by the coalition forces. On January 15, 1991 on the eve of military operations against Iraq, it was transferred the first group about 33 Iraqi aircrafts to Iran ranging between civilian and military aircrafts.
5 – Knowing the number of aircraft seized in Iran is approximate because the number of planes that have been dropped by the coalition forces was not known, and was as follows: –
The value of aircrafts estimated to worth 1.6 billion US dollars, before 27 years , and the operation of transfer of Iraqi aircrafts to the Iranian airports was carried out in a manner of tension from the moment of take – off until allowing to land, and to camouflage, it took off from different Iraqi bases to land in the various Iranian bases .
The transfer is carried out in a very short time limits for the purpose of getting rid of monitoring of the US early warning aircraft , AWACS E-3 and Hawkeye E-2 and to avoid its pursuit and interception of fighters and aircrafts of Alliance of Intruder A6 – F18 – F16 – F15 flying over Iraqi airspace, which were receiving at all hours the guidance and electronic signals from radar and air space satellites about Iraqi aircraft movement.
Once the border was crossed into Iranian territory , the Iraqi pilot was addressing by contacting the Iranian intercepted aircraft P – 4 Phantom on the international wireless transmission waves which are known for emergency, seeking permission from the Iranian airports where he was, authorized him after the notice of Iranian observation towers and get permission to land.
In the days of the departure of Iraqi secured aircraft seeking refuge to Iran , the AWACS aircraft for monitoring and warning discovered squadron of Iraqi aircrafts consisting of seven aircrafts heading east towards the Iranian border and warned the formations of US aircraft F – 15 at this time but the squadron of Iraqi aircrafts had crossed the border and reached Iranian airspace and landed with its crew safely at Mehrabad air base on Tehran’s borders noting that the Iranian leadership prevented aircraft type (MiG-29 fighter Volkerm and huge Iraqi military transport aircraft Ilyushin 11- 76) from landing in Tehran for unspecified reasons and ordered those aircraft to go to the Iranian city of Zahedan, near the Pakistani border .
During the nineties of the last century , the former Director – General of Iraqi Airways declared that he visited Iran twice for talks on the return of the aircraft, but the Iranian side refused to allow the Iraqi delegation to see the aircraft.
Iran did not announce the actual number of Iraqi aircraft that were arrived safely as Iran has planned for a process of taking it in compensation to Iran – Iraq war, and rejected to hold any talks on this side with Iraq or others and Iranian officials warned allies in the Iraqi government from talking about it.
Source BBC
These pictures show how the identity of the Iraqi aircrafts are changed to Iranian identity, why Iraq does not demand from Iran’s government to return – the aircrafts.
While Iraqi officials refuse to talk about the fate of Iraqi civilian aircrafts in Iran, the former international aviation expert and general manager of Iraqi Airways confirmed the presence of these aircrafts in Iran, and stressed that they are not restored.
Officials in the Iraqi Ministry of Transport announced through a press statement, they did not negotiate for the restoration of civil and military aircrafts in Iran.
Iraqi officials of the airline apologized to declare anything about the Iraqi aircraft in Iran, and also this was happened with officials in the Iraqi Ministry of Transport.
Civil aviation experts said that Iran is using Iraqi aircraft in internal transport, since smuggled by more than 27 years, where it has changed the identity of aircrafts by painting them in Iranian aircraft colors, and the Iranian civil aviation authorities changed the identity of the Iraqi civilian aircrafts, to Iranian identity to paint it in the Iranian aircraft colors.
, Efforts have failed to convince the Commission boycott of the United Nations to bring back Iraqi civilian aircrafts to Iraq.
It is an important ironic that the BBC, published on 2 July 2014, the batch of aircrafts, which were sold by Iran to Iraqi forces during the occupation Daesh of the city of Mosul were an Iraqi originally, and analysts at the International Institute IISS in London, said the planes are the same where Iraq secured them to Iran since 1991, as they were sold to Iraq noting that they are Iraqi.
It is ironic also that most of the planes purchased from Iran, by millions of dollars are in fact part of the Iraqi air force and Iraqi aircrafts, which were entrusted to Iran and this trust was not returned till now .
We wonder; when Iraq will demand for the return of entrusted civil and military aircrafts in the Iranian side, and why does not open this file, whether through bilateral negotiation or through the United Nations or through the US administration?
Does the Iranian influential presence in Iraq prevents it?
Shatha Khalil
Translated by: Mudhaffar al-Kusairi
Rawabet Center for Research and Strategic Studies