Do Iraq’s F-16s Have A Future?

So far 2020 has not been a particularly good year for the Iraqi Air Forces’s F-16 Fighting Falcon jet fighter bombers. That being said, the future of that fleet isn’t necessarily all that bleak. 

In January, U.S.-Iran tensions escalated with the U.S. assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in a drone strike in Baghdad and Iranian missile strikes against two bases with U.S. troops in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan.

As a result of these heightened tensions, the U.S. began drawing down from several bases across Iraq. As part of this drawdown, American contractors were evacuated from Balad Airbase, where Iraq’s F-16s are based, due to the danger posed by those rocket attacks. 

Those American contractors had helped Iraq maintain and keep its F-16s operational. 

Since then, several of those jets have become grounded for lack of technical support and maintenance. One senior Iraqi official recently went so far as to say that Iraq’s F-16 fleet “is almost gone.” 

At present, Iraq reportedly can no longer continue the routine combat air patrols its F-16s used to carry out over Iraq’s western province of Anbar, where those jets kept a look out for Islamic State infiltrations from the Syrian border.

Iraq began receiving its first F-16s in mid-2015 when it was engulfed in the war against the Islamic State. The fighter jets are, by far, the most advanced warplanes the Iraqi Air Force has operated since Saddam Hussein’s rule.

Despite these setbacks over the past six months, Iraq’s F-16s should not be written off just yet. 

“Iraq is not likely to write off the significant investment in the F-16 fleet and its pilots,” said Michael Knights, a noted Iraq expert and Lafer Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. 

“Iraq would not be the first nation to put a segment of its fleet into mothballs or lower the number of flight hours its pilots get due to funding shortfalls: this is happening all over NATO countries,” he added.

U.S. personnel in Iraqi bases, including Balad, have come under rocket fire by Iran-backed Shiite militias over the past year.

This June, however, the new Iraqi government under Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi took a stand. It arrested 14 members of the Kataib Hezbollah group, the prime suspect in many of those rocket attacks. 

Such a firm approach by the Iraqi government against such groups could help convince American contractors that it’s relatively safe to return to Iraq and continue helping Baghdad maintain and keep its F-16s operational.

“Protection of foreign citizens is necessary for the F-16 support to resume,” Knights said.

He also pointed out that basing Iraq’s F-16s at Balad Air Base was “always troubling due to the presence of both militias and the Islamic State in the area.”

On the other hand, Balad is also “an ideal location from a range perspective, with F-16s being a short-range aircraft and Iraq lacking air-to-air refueling capability.”

Knights suggested that Iraq could potentially relocate many of its F-16s to other bases in the country. Alternative bases could include Baghdad Airport or Erbil, the capital of the relatively stable Iraqi Kurdistan region, or Al-Asad Air Base in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, situated near the Syrian border.

For now, Iraq’s F-16s are not instrumental for the continued operations against Islamic State remnants in Iraq.

“The Iraqi F-16s are presently not very important due to the presence of the international coalition and its airpower,” Knights said.

However, if the U.S.-led coalition were to leave Iraq’s F-16s, “would become the only highly-capable ‘fast air’ in Iraq, capable of reaching a location quickly to strike a target of opportunity, such as an ISIS leader.”

“As time passes, the pressure will grow for all kinetic strikes to be Iraqi, not international, so the need for Iraqi F-16s or other fast jets will grow,” Knights said.

On the other hand, he concluded by suggesting that a number of other “less sophisticated aircraft could eventually fill the role, including the replacement of F-16s with a large number of less expensive counter-insurgency aircraft and drones that are constantly airborne and close to the likely targets.”