hayder كتب:Iraq had a contract to assemble 52 Mirage 2000S 2-seat strikers from France.
Along with that contract it also included local construction of 120 or so Alphajet aircraft to become the primary trainer of the Iraqi air force.
Iraq had also included as part of the "french deal" a plan to assemble an unknown number of AS 365F Dauphin 2 helicopters locally in Iraq.
Since I saw a number of related documents to this topic, first hand, let me add few observations here.
The background of all the relevant negotiations and contracts was provided already in the late 1960s and through 1970s. Iraq first wanted to obtain Mirage IIIs, back in 1967. France demanded oil-deliveries (no cash) in exchange; Iraq refused, and no contract was signed. In 1974, Iraq attempted to purchase Hawk T.Mk.1s and Jaguar GR.Mk.1s from the UK. The French, who had stakes in the Jaguar project, managed to interrupt these negotiations and attract Iraqi attention at their Mirage F.1s. Following extensive negotiations, an order for Mirage F.1s was issued and a contract signed, in June 1977.
The contract for Mirage F.1s was code-named "BAZ" (falcon in Arabic). Curiously, all the BAZ-contracts were signed with Thales, not with Dassault. There was not just one BAZ contract, but actually dozens of them, each relevant to another piece of equipment, starting with the airframe, weapon pylons, ejection seats, avionics, engines etc. So, they run from BAZ.100 upwards.
Why is this with BAZ-contract numbers important?
Well, because one of the BAZ-contracts from 1983 - when actually the majority of Mirages that were to be delivered to Iraq were ordered - stipulated an order for Mirage 2000s, a new air-to-air missile and two types of new air-to-ground missiles. Between others, and in addition to the development of such multi-role variants of the Mirage F.1, like F.1EQ-4 and F.1EQ-5, in accordance to that contract, Iraq financed the development of a strike-, two seat variant of the Mirage 2000, the MICA, the ASMP and the AS.30L with billions of Francs. Accordingly, during the following years, all such weapons were developed. We've seen the development of the Mirage 2000D and 2000N (the latter equipped with nuke-tipped ASMP, just as ordered by Iraq), we've seen the development of the MICA and its entry into service, and we've seen the maturing of the AS.30L into a combat ready weapon. Just, all of them entered service in France, not in Iraq.
Now, what was the reason for nearly nothing of these weapons reaching Iraq? Well, the reason(s) was/were actually multiple. Firstly, there were specific paragraphs of the BAZ contracts that caused a near-mutiny and a coup d'etat within the IrAF, in late 1983. Sufficient to say that even though Iraq continued financing some of these projects, and continued purchasing Mirage F.1EQs, because of that mutiny, no Mirage 2000s, MICAs, and ASMPs were ever delivered.
Secondly, although some 380+ rounds of AS.30Ls were delivered to Iraq, and many of these used during the war with Iran, local licence production was never launched. The reason in that case was the price, which proved far too high. Indeed, Iraq never paid for all the AS.30s delivered in the 1980s.
However, the IrAF was never interested in the Alpha Jet: it always wanted the Hawk. Thus, even though Iraqi (and Egyptian) test-pilots flew the Alpha Jet, and Iraq even helped Egypt purchase two batches of these aircraft, as well as to buy the licence for their manufacture in Egypt, the IrAF never acquired the Alpha Jet. Correspondingly, Iraq also never signed any orders for Alpha Jets, and these are not mentioned in any of BAZ contracts with a single word. And, because Iraq did not want the Alpha Jet, the Iraqis would not finance their production in Egypt and thus the Egyptians could not afford manufacture them. Thus, the rumours that there was a contract for licence manufacture of Alpha Jets in Iraq is just that, a rumour.
On the contrary, when the Egyptians managed to convince the British to sell them the licence for local production of the Embraer EMB.312 Tucano, the IrAF jumped at this opportunity and began purchasing Tucanos.
The Iraqi financing of the development of the Brazilian AAM-1 Piranha air-to-air missile (and also an anti-radar missile), run separately from the BAZ-contracts. It was launched as a back-up to MICA, in the late 1980s, and interrupted by the embargo from August 1990. That's one of major reasons why the Piranha (and the said Brazilian anti-radar missile) entered service only in recent years.
With regards to the Soviet union, I know of no plans to buy TU22M or MiG31s. The SU-27 however was planned.Iraq had signed a contract in 1989 with the Soviet union to assemble locally 120 Mi28 helicopters locally in Iraq.
The plan for acquisition of Su-27s was the only of the above-mentioned that had a serious background. Indeed, the Iraqi order for these, issued in 1989, was the reason that the IrAF collected only some 30+ out of 160 MiG-29s manufactured for this (all the others were stored in Russia, and subsequently sold to countries like Malaysia, Bangladesh, Burma/Myanamar, Yemen etc.).
On the contrary, while "considering" an acquisition of the Tu-22M, Iraq eventually decided to replace all of its Tu-22Bs with Su-24MKs.
On a more historical footnote, when the "CENTO" a.k.a "Baghdad pact" was signed Iraq was gifted 5 F86 aircraft by the US. This was in 1955-1956. I don't know if these ever reached Iraq.
Actually, the USA were pushing for delivery of 36 F-86 Sabres, including some 12 F-86K radar-equipped night-interceptors, already as of 1957. The British came in between and postponed this delivery with an explanation of their "special interests and connections" in Iraq. Eventually, the Americans lost patience: in early 1958, fifteen Iraqi pilots went to the USA to train on Sabres, and five F-86s - slanted to service entry with No.4 Squadron - were delivered to Habbaniya AB shortly before the 14 Tammouz Revolution. They were subsequently stored and returned to the USA in 1963. The full story about these negotiations, based on original documents, is to follow in the book "Arab MiGs, Volume 2", due out in October this year.