Rapid Fire 2011-01-11: Iraq’s Military Spending

• Iraq to spend $26 billion on US aircraft, helicopters, tanks, armored vehicles, warships, and missiles, according to a Baghdad newspaper.

Italy Moves to Complete Tornado Fleet Mid-Life Upgrades

Italian Tornado IDS

In late December 2010, the Italian Air Force signed a EUR 96 million ($127.7 million) contract with the Panavia consortium to begin upgrading another 25 of Italy’s strike fighters. The contract will see 15 more Tornado ECR and 10 more Tornado IDS planes brought to the latest RET 8 Mid-Life upgrade (MLU) configuration. The total cost is actually about EUR 161 million, as EUR 65 million has already been spent on government furnished equipment that will go into the upgrades. Most of the work will be carried out by Finmeccanica’s Alenia Aeronautica in Turin, Italy, with deliveries running until 2015.

RET 8 will complete the Italian MLU program, and the end result will be a 58 plane Tornado MLU fleet which could remain on duty beyond 2025, out of the original 99 planes delivered in ECR and IDS configurations…