It’s Hellfire missiles — not F-16s — that Iraq is ready to use now
For weeks, the Iraqi government and the U.S. media have pressed the Pentagon on why it will not deliver the first F-16 fighters promised to Baghdad until later this year. Militants with the Islamic State, an Al Qaeda offshoot, have taken control of broad swathes of Iraq over the last two months, and Iraq’s military has done little to stop them. Surely, the thinking goes, some well armed American-built fighter jets would help.
The Pentagon has pushed back, saying the plan all along has been for the first two Iraqi F-16s to arrive no earlier than this fall. To argue that the schedule has slipped or is late “is just false,” Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, said last week.
Dana Priest and Aaron Gregg reported for The Washington Post on July 3 that there are a variety of complications at play politically and practically before Iraq can use its first F-16 fighters. Among them, no Iraqi pilot team has qualified yet to fly the aircraft in combat and the military installation eyed to house them, Balad Air Base, is no longer considered secure because of the insurgency.
But it’s even more complicated than that, a former defense official with broad knowledge of Iraq’s F-16 program told Checkpoint. First, the Iraqi F-16s cannot be outfitted with the full range of missiles and bombs that Baghdad plans to install on them until they arrive in the country, and even then, it could take months to incorporate them, the source said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2014/07/10/its-hellfire-missiles-not-f-16s-that-iraq-is-ready-to-use-now/
