BAGHDAD, Iraq – An Iraqi MP claimed Sunday that the United States is demanding that Baghdad fly the first F-16 fighter planes to be delivered this summer from an air base in Jordan.
Abed Issawi, an MP from the Shiite bloc in the Iraqi parliament, told reporters in Baghdad that Washington was delaying delivery of the first three planes in order to put pressure on Iraq’s Shiite-led government.
“We have information the US has decided that the three F-16s should carry out airstrikes from the land of Jordan while Iraq has a big airbase in the Ziqar province in southern Iraq,” Abed Issawi, an MP from the Shiite bloc in the Iraqi parliament, told reporters in Baghdad.
“America has delayed the delivery of 36 F-16 warplanes that were purchased from the US according to a military agreement in 2011,” he added. “For now, they will send only three of the purchased warplanes," he added.
There has been no indication from the United States that it has called on Iraq to fly its US-made fighters from Jordan, nor that deliveries are delayed. Iraq is locked in an intense war with the Islamic State (ISIS) group, which controls about a third of the country.
In mid-June the US ambassador to Iraq, Stuart Jones, said that Washington would deliver the first of the F-16s by the end of this summer.
Jones added that the US does not plan to open new military bases in Iraq, but said the Balad airbase would be prepped to receive the promised jets. Balad is located in the Sunni Triangle 40 miles (64 kilometers) north of Baghdad.
Iraqi pilots have been training to fly the F-16s in the US state of Arizona. One of the fighter planes belonging to Baghdad crashed on a training mission late last month, killing the Iraqi pilot.
