Iraq still a no fly zone for what remains of Iraqi air force

Baltimore Sun:

Iraqi pilots bitterly recall one of the commands that came down from Saddam Hussein as the dictator prepared for the U.S.-led invasion three years ago: Bury fighter jets in the sand.

Today, the men who flew those jets are in effect still grounded, even though they make up the bulk of the new Iraqi air force.

The U.S. military has hurriedly tried to turn over square mile after square mile of territory to Iraqi soldiers and police officers, but it has yet to yield control of a single cubic inch of the country's skies.

Despite U.S. pledges to help, the fledgling Iraqi air force remains tiny and ineffective - consisting of three Vietnam-era cargo planes, a few secondhand helicopters, some problem-ridden experimental aircraft and just 14 pilots, decades older than their American counterparts and under threat from Sunni Muslim insurgents and Shiite militias alike.

U.S. military officials say that addressing the question of when they will allow the Iraqi air force to acquire combat capabilities is years away.

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"I think they're afraid of terrorists taking over the air force and attacking American bases," said an Iraqi airman who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Washington is also concerned about the loyalties of Iraq's Shiite-dominated government in light of regional dynamics, notably with regard to neighboring Iran, also led by Shiites.

If the Iraqi air force develops combat capabilities, questions will arise about how to ensure that the firepower is not misused, said Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and a former teacher of air power strategy for the U.S. Air Force's School of Advanced Airpower Studies. "They might do more harm than good," he said.

Although U.S. officials describe a harmonious collaboration between the Iraqi airmen and their American advisers, Iraqi officials say it is fraught with suspicion.

One Iraqi air force official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Iraqis were routinely kept in the dark about missions and sometimes found their requests for missions inexplicably denied.

"The initiative to do anything is in their hands," he said of the U.S. officials.

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The reality is that the air force can contribute little to fixing the current problems in Iraq. At some point, they will need to upgrade their transport capability to make the Iraqi ground forces more logistically self sufficient. However, logistics represent the best control the US has over Iraqi forces right now. If an Iraqi unit decided to go rogue and start attacking other units or US forces, they would quickly run out of bullets and food. As long as we are feeding them and supplying them we can keep them focused on fighting the terrorist.