{"id":189538,"date":"2010-03-14T06:20:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-14T11:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/03\/14\/why-would-the-usaf-buy-french-mirages\/"},"modified":"2010-03-14T06:20:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-14T11:20:00","slug":"why-would-the-usaf-buy-french-mirages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/03\/14\/why-would-the-usaf-buy-french-mirages\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Would the USAF Buy French Mirages?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Because <a href=\"http:\/\/g2globalsolutions.com\/review\/?p=3485\">they don&#8217;t want the planes sold to the Iraqi Air Force<\/a>, and this would take them off the market, so the Iraqis could buy F-16s:<\/p>\n<blockquote style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 153);\"><p>This is an interesting rumor.  While the Mirage F-1 has almost reached the end of the line as an operational asset with the AdA,  it remains a capable fighter and should stay in service for about another decade with a few other air forces (Ecuador,  Morocco, and Iran).  The Iraqis have recently requested that France delivers the 24 pre-embargo F-1s ordered at the time by the regime of Saddam Hussein in 1985.  The Iraqi air force has a long, and relatively successful, history with the F-1 and is particularly looking forward to rebuilding its air defense capability with an aircraft it knows well.  However,  things are somewhat more complicated;  there has been a long standing rumor of F-16s going to the Iraqi Air Force instead and lately, it would also appear that the UAE Mirage 2000-9s have entered the fray.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Sorry, but if this is true, and note that it only a rumor, some heads should roll.<\/p>\n<p>While I understand how US Air Force officers might favor the F-16, it is something that they are familiar with, the idea that they would purchase the aircraft in order to clear the way for a defense contractor is over the top.<\/p>\n<p>This appears to be a decision driven by a desire by some Air Force officers to secure a cushy gig at Lockheed-Martin in retirement, not a decision driven by the real needs and capabilities of the Iraqi military.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Because they don&#8217;t want the planes sold to the Iraqi Air Force, and this would take them off the market, so the Iraqis could buy F-16s: This is an interesting rumor. While the Mirage F-1 has almost reached the end of the line as an operational asset with the AdA, it remains a capable fighter &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1007,970,1008,1063],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aviation","category-corruption","category-defense-procurement","category-iraq"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189538"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}