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Exclusive: Putin’s Pilots Set to Fly Over Iraq

northernlou

Idi Admin
Exclusive: Putin’s Pilots Set to Fly Over Iraq
07.01.14

Russia may not have boots on the ground in Iraq—yet. But it will have them in the sky; Russian pilots could be flying over Iraq within days.

While the Obama administration struggles to speed up delivery of U.S. military assistance to the government of Iraq, Vladimir Putin has already delivered not only fighter jets but also the pilots needed to fly them, diplomatic sources told The Daily Beast.

On Monday, Russian television trumpeted the arrival of the first five of 12 promised Sukhoi Su-25 combat fighter jets to the Iraqi government, saying it had also sent “trainers” to help the Iraqis use them. Gen. Anwar Hama Ameen, the commander of the Iraqi Air Force, told The New York Times the fighter jets would enter the battle against ISIS within a few days, after which the Russian trainers would leave Iraq. He said Iraq had plenty of pilots with “long experience” flying the Su-25. The Russian ambassador to Iraq also said Russian pilots would not fly missions inside Iraq.

Perhaps. But diplomatic sources told The Daily Beast that Russian pilots will fly the planes due to a lack of Iraqi pilots with the proper training. Neither Russia nor Iraq as explained how the Iraqi air force could possibly have pilots trained and ready to fly the Russian fighters. The Su-25 planes were used in the Iraq-Iran war but have not been employed in Iraq since at least 2002, when Iraq’s military was controlled by the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein.

If Russian pilots begin flying attack missions in Iraq, Moscow will be doing the job Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki first asked of the United States. Russia likely won’t officially acknowledge its pilots’ role, if they do carry out strikes or air support missions for Iraqi government troops. Similarly, in the Syrian civil war, there are unconfirmed reports that pilots from North Korea are flying jets in combat.

“I’ll be frank and say that we were deluded when we signed the contract [with the U.S.] We should have sought to buy other jet fighters like British, French and Russian to secure the air cover for our forces… If we had air cover, we would have averted what had happened.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/01/exclusive-putin-s-pilots-set-to-fly-over-iraq.html
 
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