DSCA notified Congress today of a possible Foreign Military Sale to the Government of Iraq for F‑16IQ aircraft

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12, 2011 – The Defense Secu­ri­ty Coop­er­a­tion Agency noti­fied Con­gress today of a pos­si­ble For­eign Mil­i­tary Sale to the Gov­ern­ment of Iraq for 18 F‑16IQ air­craft and asso­ci­at­ed equip­ment, parts, weapons, train­ing and logis­ti­cal sup­port for an esti­mat­ed cost of $2.3 billion.

The Gov­ern­ment of Iraq has request­ed a pos­si­ble sale of 18 F‑16IQ air­craft, 24 F100PW-229 or F110-GE-129 Increased Per­for­mance Engines, 120 LAU-129/A Com­mon Rail Launch­ers, 24 APG-68(V)9 radar sets, 19 M61 20mm Vul­can Can­nons, 100 AIM-9L/M‑8/9 SIDEWINDER Mis­siles, 150 AIM-7M-F1/H SPARROW Mis­siles, 50 AGM-65D/G/H/K MAVERICK Air to Ground Mis­siles, 200 GBU-12 PAVEWAY II Laser Guid­ed Bomb Units (500 pound), 50 GBU-10 PAVEWAY II Laser Guid­ed Bomb Units (2000 pound), 50 GBU-24 PAVEWAY III Laser Guid­ed Bomb Units (2000 pound), 22 ALQ-211 Advanced Inte­grat­ed Defen­sive Elec­tron­ic War­fare Suites (AIDEWS), or Advanced Coun­ter­mea­sures Elec­tron­ic Sys­tem (ACES) (ACES includes the ALQ-187 Elec­tron­ic War­fare Sys­tem and AN/ALR-93 Radar Warn­ing Receiv­er), 20 AN/APX-113 Advanced Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Friend or Foe (AIFF) Sys­tems (with­out Mode IV), 20 Glob­al Posi­tion­ing Sys­tems (GPS) and Embed­ded GPS/ Iner­tial Nav­i­ga­tion Sys­tems (INS), (Stan­dard Posi­tion­ing Ser­vice (SPS) com­mer­cial code only), 20 AN/AAQ-33 SNIPER or AN/AAQ-28 LITENING Tar­get­ing Pods, 4 F‑9120 Advanced Air­borne Recon­nais­sance Sys­tems (AARS) or DB-110 Recon­nais­sance Pods (RECCE), 22 AN/ALE-47 Coun­ter­mea­sures Dis­pens­ing Sys­tems (CMDS), 20 Con­for­mal Fuel Tanks (pairs), 120 Joint Hel­met Mount­ed Cue­ing Sys­tems (JHMCS), 20 AN/ARC-238 Sin­gle Chan­nel Ground and Air­borne Radio Sys­tems, 10,000 PGU-27A/B Ammu­ni­tion, 30,000 PGU-28 Ammu­ni­tion, 230 MK-84 2000 lb Gen­er­al Pur­pose Bombs, and 800 MK-82 500lb Gen­er­al Pur­pose Bombs. Also includ­ed: LAU-117 Mav­er­ick Launch­ers, site sur­vey sup­port equip­ment, Joint Mis­sion Plan­ning Sys­tem, Ground Based Flight Sim­u­la­tor, tanker sup­port, fer­ry ser­vices, Car­tridge Actu­at­ed Devices/Propellant Actu­at­ed Devices (CAD/PAD), repair and return, mod­i­fi­ca­tion kits, spares and repair parts, con­struc­tion, pub­li­ca­tions and tech­ni­cal doc­u­men­ta­tion, per­son­nel train­ing and train­ing equip­ment, U.S. Gov­ern­ment and con­trac­tor tech­ni­cal, engi­neer­ing, and logis­tics sup­port ser­vices, ground based flight sim­u­la­tor, and oth­er relat­ed ele­ments of logis­tics sup­port. The esti­mat­ed cost is $2.3 billion.

The pro­posed sale will con­tribute to the for­eign pol­i­cy and nation­al secu­ri­ty objec­tives of the Unit­ed States by enhanc­ing the capa­bil­i­ty of Iraq’s Air Force. The pro­posed air­craft and accom­pa­ny­ing weapon sys­tems will great­ly enhance Iraq’s inter­op­er­abil­i­ty with the U.S. and oth­er NATO nations, mak­ing it a more valu­able part­ner in an impor­tant area of the world, as well as sup­port­ing Iraq’s legit­i­mate need for its own self-defense.
The pro­posed sale will allow the Iraqi Air Force to mod­ern­ize its air force by acquir­ing west­ern inter­op­er­a­ble fight­er air­craft, there­by enabling Iraq to sup­port both its own air defense needs and coali­tion oper­a­tions. The coun­try will have no dif­fi­cul­ty absorb­ing these air­craft into its armed forces.

The pro­posed sale of this equip­ment and sup­port will not alter the basic mil­i­tary bal­ance in the region.

There are no known off­set agree­ments in con­nec­tion with this pro­posed sale.
Imple­men­ta­tion of this pro­posed sale will require mul­ti­ple trips to Iraq involv­ing U.S. Gov­ern­ment and con­trac­tor rep­re­sen­ta­tives for tech­ni­cal reviews/support, pro­gram man­age­ment, and train­ing over a peri­od of 15
years.
There will be no adverse impact on U.S. defense readi­ness as a result of this pro­posed sale.
This notice of a poten­tial sale is required by law and does not mean the sale has been concluded.