Iraq To Receive It's First Batch Of F-16s

A Lockheed Martin F-16 of the Turkish Air Force performs during an acceptance flight at the upcoming ILA Berlin Air Show in Selchow near Schoenefeld south of Berlin May 19, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Tobias Schwarz

Lockheed To Deliver First Of 36 F-16s To Iraq This Week -- Reuters

(Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp this week will deliver the first of 36 F-16 fighter jets to Iraq, marking what Baghdad's envoy to the United States called a "new chapter" in his country's ability to defend its vast borders with Iran and other neighbors.

Iraqi Ambassador Lukman Faily will travel to Lockheed's Fort Worth, Texas, plant on Thursday for a ceremony at which Lockheed and the U.S. government will formally deliver the first F-16 to Iraq.

A group of three or four new jets will be ferried to Iraq before the end of the year.

"Iraq is a large country with over 3,600 km of borders, and we need to protect them," Faily told Reuters in a telephone interview. "We as a country didn't have that capability before."

Iraq has had no real air force since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that eventually toppled Saddam Hussein.

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My Comment: Americans are strange .... they destroy Iraq's air force ..... and now they are rebuilding it. I guess the wheel of commerce must go on.