US pushing to get Iraqi Air Force off the ground

Iraqi Second Lieutenant Mohammed Habeeb sat in a flight simulator in Kirkuk. (Ernesto Londono/washington post)

KIRKUK, Iraq - Colonel Abdul Karim Aziz, a fighter pilot who survived the war between Iraq and Iran during the 1980s, had all but given up hope of flying again when his mother told him in 2005 that it was time to get back in the air.

"When the war began, I didn't think of coming back," said Aziz, 49, speaking about the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

The US military all but paralyzed the Iraqi Air Force after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, turning veteran pilots such as Aziz into grounded bureaucrats. The little that remained of the country's once-mighty airpower was obliterated during the early weeks of the Iraq war. And Iraq's skies became the domain of the US military, controlled from an operations center in Qatar.

Now in an about-face, the US Air Force is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to get Aziz and others to fly again, train a fresh generation of pilots, and build up the Iraqi Air Force's fleet and infrastructure from scratch.

The Air Force project is part of a broader effort to train and equip specialized units of Iraq's security forces.

As violence has decreased in Iraq in recent months, these initiatives have become one of the US military's top priorities. But they are beginning at a time when Iraq has stepped up calls for the withdrawal of American troops and as US lawmakers are increasingly demanding that Iraqis pick up a greater share of the tab for security.

Building an air force takes years, if not decades. And rebuilding Iraq's has been a particularly challenging mission, US officials say. It was been hindered by the ongoing conflict, what US officials describe as a chronic inability by the Iraqi government to promptly fund operational needs, and a generational divide between seasoned - albeit rusty - pilots and the small group of rookie officers who are about to complete flight training.

Though small, modest, and - for now - devoid of firepower, the Iraqi Air Force has given Iraqis something to be proud of, US officials say.

The Iraqi Air Force was among the best equipped and trained in the region when the country went to war with Iran in 1980. The eight-year conflict took a considerable toll on the force, but when the Persian Gulf War started in 1991, Iraq still had hundreds of combat aircraft and skilled pilots operating out of dozens of bases.

The Iraqi Air force, however, was no match for the US-led coalition, which quickly crippled it.

The Iraqi Air Force's fleet currently has 76 aircraft, most of which were donated by the United States and other nations. Although the force has no fighter planes, US military officials say Iraqi pilots will soon be allowed to carry out air attack missions.