Iraq may have secret MiG parts supplier

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Iraq’s air force is sending fighters aloft more often for training, suggesting that Iraq is avoiding sanctions and importing spare parts for its dilapidated MiGs, the Pentagon says.

U.S. airborne radar aircraft that guide American and British fighters patrolling "no-fly zones" over Iraq have picked up a surge in flights by Iraqi fighters in recent weeks, a U.S. defense official said.

The increase indicates that someone is violating sanctions against Iraq by sending spare parts for its planes, the official said.

The supplier is not known. The parts could come from any number of sources, as Russian-designed MiGs are plentiful in Iraq’s part of the world as well as in Eastern Europe.

Iraq has about 300 combat aircraft, mostly older Russian-designed MiG and Sukhoi fighters from the Soviet era and French Mirage jets.

During the Gulf War, Iraq’s ability to put up an air force died quickly against superior U.S. and coalition fighters in air-to-air combat. U.S. smart bombs destroyed other Iraqi planes in their fortified hangars. More than 100 Iraqi combat aircraft were flown to neutral Iran, where they were impounded.

Since the Persian Gulf War, years of restrictions on the importation of military equipment to Iraq have taken its toll on its air force, with many planes cannibalized for spare parts to keep others flying. The latest increase in training flights suggests an outside source, the U.S. defense official said.

Iraqi aircraft occasionally cross into the no-fly zones, which usually prompts U.S. and British fighters to give chase. Such episodes seem aimed at baiting the allied jets, trying to lure them close to Iraqi surface-to-air missile batteries, the defense official said.