{"id":93814,"date":"2024-07-25T06:00:12","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T20:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simpleflying.com\/post-sadam-iraqi-air-force\/"},"modified":"2024-07-25T06:00:12","modified_gmt":"2024-07-24T20:00:12","slug":"the-renaissance-of-the-post-saddam-iraqi-air-force","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/?p=93814","title":{"rendered":"The Renaissance Of The Post-Saddam Iraqi Air Force"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>                    The French word &#8220;<em>renaissance<\/em>,&#8221; which in term derives from the Italian word &#8220;<em>rinascita<\/em>,&#8221; which means &#8220;rebirth.&#8221; Besides its primary usage in specific reference to that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=l9Aj7W3g1qo\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" >period of Western European history<\/a> that marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity,it also means, in a more general sense, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/renaissance\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" >&#8220;a renewal of life, vigor, interest, etc.<\/a>&#8221; Accordingly, I mentioned in a couple of previous articles for Simple Flying, I proudly played a small yet significant part in the renaissance of the Iraqi Air Force (IqAF;   \/<em>Al Quwwat al Jawwiyah al Iraqiyyah<\/em>) as a private military contractor (PMC; or &#8220;damn dirty stinking mercenary&#8221; or &#8220;privateer&#8221; as I jokingly tell my friends and family) at Balad Airbase from 2015 to 2019) at Balad Airbase from 2015 to 2018, providing training &#038; mentoring to the IqAF personnel at that base to help them certified to host the American-made F-16 Fighting Falcon (or &#8220;Viper&#8221; if you prefer) and thus finally modernize their force in the post-Saddam Hussein era.    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The F-16 is the flagship of the post-Saddam Iraqi Air Force. But it&#8217;s not the only warbird to help usher in that Renaissance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[396,397,625,628,297,10187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aircraft","category-analysis","category-f-16","category-fighter-jets","category-iraq","category-iraqi-air-force"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93815,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93814\/revisions\/93815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}