Rebirth of the Iraqi Air Force
DANA PITTARD
Some of the most courageous air support for the Haditha Dam operation came from Major General Falah and his squadron of fighter-bombers. During the fighting, I watched as one of the Iraqi strike aircraft scored a direct hit on an ISIS air defense gun—a Russian-made ZSU-23 hidden under a carport next to a building. Later I found out that the mission had been flown by Major General Falah himself!
I was impressed with the skill and grit of my friend Major General Falah and his eleven Iraqi pilots. Granted, they should have been flying American-made F-16s and not the older Russian Su-25s, but ISIS’ invasion had changed everything for the Iraqi Air Force. Back in 2012, Iraq had made the decision to buy a fleet of modern F-16 fighter aircraft from the United States. When ISIS seized Mosul in June 2014, the Iraqi Air Force was then running a transition pilot training course for the F-16s at Balad Air Base in north-central Iraq. Since Balad was in the Sunni-majority province of Salah ad-Din, the former home of Saddam Hussein, there was great fear that the air base would be overrun and taken by ISIS. For that reason, the F-16 training program was hastily moved to the United States.
ISIS was never actually able to seize Balad Air Base, but we didn’t know that then. The change in training venue and all the logistical and administrative delays that came along with it meant that the new Iraqi F-16s would not be ready to be fielded until late 2015. The Iraqi military needed indigenous Iraqi air support immediately to fight ISIS.
As a temporary stopgap measure, Iraq bought five older Russian-made Su-25 fighter-bombers from Iran. The fighter-bombers had 1970s and 1980s technology on board, but they could still do the job. Iraq then bought five more in July at a higher price—from Russia.1
The Iraqi’s now had aircraft to use, but there was one big problem: almost no one in the Iraqi Air Force knew how to fly the antiquated Su-25s. All the young, promising Iraqi pilots had been sent to America to learn how to fly the F-16s—a decision set in place back in 2012.
In an ironic twist, Major General Falah decided to search for any current or former Iraqi pilots who were veterans of the Gulf War (Desert Storm) against the U.S.-led coalition twenty-three years earlier. Falah was able to find ten pilots in addition to himself who were at least minimally qualified and had some experience flying the old Su-25s. All of his prospective pilots were between the ages of forty-five and sixty years old, and all were above the rank of major in the Iraqi Air Force.
General Falah and his pilots went through a breakneck, two-week Su-25 refresher course in Iran.2 The Iranians warmly greeted them as fellow Shia brothers. General Falah relayed an interesting conversation to me that he’d had early on when they got to Iran. An Iranian Air Force general asked him how he could stomach working with the Americans.
Falah laughed, “Some of my best friends are Americans!”
The Iranian general gave Falah a look of horror and incredulity. “But the Americans are so dirty and unclean. How can you stand the stench?”
Falah smiled. “That is not true. Americans are at least as clean as we are, I promise you.”
The Iranian general’s eyes got big, then narrowed. “Still, I would not be able to stand being around the disciples of the Great Satan!”
“Hmm. It really is okay, my friend,” Falah maintained. “Much is misleading,” he continued calmly. “My daughter and her family live in America, in the state of Arizona.”
The Iranian general was so disgusted by the positive comments about America from General Falah that he waved Falah off and walked out of the room. The rest of their training continued without a hitch. Following the two-week Su-25 refresher in Iran, Falah and his pilots returned to Iraq by mid-July, 2014.
Maintaining the Su-25s and getting spare parts to keep them flying was another hurdle. To properly maintain the ten fighter jets, the Iraqis had to keep at least three in maintenance at any one time. With only seven possible planes available for combat missions, the Iraqi Air Force simply could not fulfill all the airstrike requests called on by nervous Iraqi ground commanders throughout Iraq.
The introduction of U.S. airpower against ISIS in August was certainly welcomed by the tiny Iraqi Air Force. Unfortunately, there was a period of cat-and-mouse between the modern U.S. fighter aircraft and the antiquated Iraqi fighter-bombers. This was based largely on issues with the IFF—identification, friend or foe—equipment on the Iraqi aircraft.
During one of our multiple daily video teleconferences with CENTCOM, the air component commander, Lieutenant General John “Kid” Hesterman, warned about us not knowing if the Iraqi aircraft were friendly or enemy. He said that “most of them were being piloted by Iranians,” and it was “just a matter of time” before the U.S. accidentally shot down one of the Iraqi aircraft.
I chuckled before replying. “The Iraqi Su-25s are definitely friendly, and none of them are piloted by Iranians.”
Lieutenant General Hesterman seemed taken aback. “Our intelligence has reported that at least half of the pilots of the Iraqi Su-25s are Iranians.”
“Your intelligence is either incorrect or old,” I confidently answered. “There were some Iranian instructor pilots who flew the jets during their two-week refresher course in Iran. A few of them assisted in getting the aircraft back into Iraq, but the Iranian pilots have returned to Iran and now only Iraqis are piloting the Su-25s.”
“How do you know that for sure?”
“Sir, my good friend, Major General Falah, is the Iraqi Air Force vice chief of staff. He was my cultural advisor during my last deployment to Iraq from 2006 to 2007. General Falah himself told me. I’m sorry…but I thought you knew all of this.”
Lieutenant General Hesterman paused briefly before responding thoughtfully, “Can you arrange a meeting with General Falah so we can meet him and work out coordination and other aircraft protocols?”
“Of course, sir.”
Within days Hesterman’s deputy, Major General Jeff “Butkus” Lofgren, flew to Baghdad where I introduced him to Major General Falah. They worked out all the necessary coordination and details so the Iraqi Air Force could become true partners with the coalition air forces. The Iraqis agreed to put their fighter aircraft sorties on the daily “air tasking order” (ATO), which helped immensely to de-conflict sortie times and locations throughout Iraq.
The Haditha Dam operation marked the first time U.S. and Iraqi fighter aircraft formally coordinated in battle. It was a monumental achievement.
The airspace in and around Haditha Dam was incredibly crowded during the operation. Airspace had to be cleared and de-conflicted between Iraqi fighter-bombers and helicopters and our coalition aircraft and drones—in addition to Iraqi artillery rounds and mortars from Shia militia and tribal fighters—all with very little pre-coordination having taken place among the various elements. It was very complex and admittedly quite dangerous for our pilots. I was appreciative of the hard work and coordination done by our air staff, Lieutenant General Hesterman’s staff, and Major General Falah’s staff to make sure our air operations were coordinated and de-conflicted as we continued in the campaign against ISIS.
As time went on and the campaign developed, we did our best to provide intelligence-driven target packets for Major General Falah and his pilots. If we gave Falah an ISIS target, he and his fellow pilots would hit it. It was almost never “pretty,” but more than 70 percent of the time they killed the target.
Still, we had to be careful. On one occasion we handed Falah a suspected location of a senior ISIS leader in Fallujah. It was a difficult target because of the heavy saturation of buildings around the location; it had high potential for collateral damage. The Iraqi Air Force ended up going after the ISIS target and killing the leader—but they destroyed nearly an entire city block in the process.
In those cases, ultimately we only provided the intelligence on their targets. It was up to the Iraqi leadership how they would action them. Unfortunately, the fight against ISIS was not a black-and-white contest; it was truly a hundred shades of gray. ISIS was a brutal enemy and one that did not play by the rules. They’d seized nearly one-third of Iraq’s territory and the Iraqis were fighting for their survival as a nation. The Iraqi military—especially the Air Force—understood that truth loud and clear.
General Falah led by example. He flew many combat missions against ISIS personally and his pilots went after the enemy like bloodhounds. The Iraqi people truly owed a debt of gratitude to General Falah and his brave Su-25 pilots.