Swiftships Orders Build Iraqi Navy’s Coastal Patrol Capabilities

PB-301, Umm Qasr

Swiftships’ 35-meter coastal patrol boat (CPB) contracts are part of a larger program that’s also delivering spare parts, guns, ammunition, training, naval simulators and infrastructure to the Umm Qasr Naval Base in southern Iraq. That total program for the Iraqi Navy was the country’s 3rd largest foreign military sale case, according to the Pensacola Council of the Navy League’s Bullhorn newsletter. That’s probably an appropriate priority level, as Iraq seeks to monitor and protect its southern oil export infrastructure.

Meanwhile, the US Army Corps of Engineers is partnering with Iraq by managing a $53 million pier and seawall project. This set of projects in southern Iraq will provide the Iraqi Navy with new port facilities as it continues to expand its military naval capabilities – but in the end, it all comes down to boats on the water, manned by well trained crews. The Swiftships are currently the medium tier of those capabilities.

Standing Up the IqAF: King Air 350s

IqAF King Air 350

It has been a long road for the Iraqi Air Force. According to Iraqi figures, the IqAF boasted more than 1,000 aircraft before the 1991 Gulf war – and around 300 after it. More than 6 years after Operation Iraqi Freedom began, and 4 years after the first Iraqi Provisional government was formed, the once-mighty IqAF still operates just a handful of mostly-unarmed propeller aircraft and helicopters.

Unarmed aircraft can still offer value, of course. Surveillance is critically important to Iraq, especially surveillance of national infrastructure like telecommunications lines, pipelines, and other facilities. In addition to its Cessna “Bird Dogs” and handful of other light spotter planes, the IqAF is strengthening its fleet with an unlikely star of the Iraq War: Hawker Beechcraft’s propeller-driven King Air.

87 Squadron has begun all-Iraqi operations with the new equipment, but recent articles and announcements illustrate that there’s a lot more to fielding new equipment than just signing the contract.

US (Almost) Gives Up Anti-personnel Landmines

• The White House announced the US will not use antipersonnel mines outside of those deployed to protect South Korea, as well as destroy their stockpiles not necessary to defend the peninsula. This aligns the country with most of the requirements of the Ottawa Convention without ratifying it. The WSJ had first reported that such a change was under consideration back in June.