The End of the No Fly Zones

The French Air Force couldn't fight during the first Gulf War. The Iraqi Air Force was equipped with French fighter aircraft, thus concern for coalition forces shooting down French planes "by mistake" was high enough to keep them grounded.

Still, even without French assistance, the US and its allies won the air campaign, destroyed the Iraqi Air Force, then settled in for a twelve-year period of rotations in and out of Turkey and Saudi Arabia enforcing the "no-fly zones". (That presence in Saudi Arabia contributed greatly to Bin Ladden's hatred of America and his popularity, by the way, and his recruiting soared. But I digress...)

It's all over now, as they say, the past is past, the future is now.

Iraq's new air force took to the skies this week for the first time since the U.S. invaded last year and disbanded the country's armed forces, the U.S. military said.

Iraqi pilots on Wednesday flew two Seabird Seeker SB7L-360 reconnaissance aircraft on what the U.S. military described as "limited operations missions intended to protect infrastructure facilities and Iraq's borders."
<...>
In the 1990s, Iraq's air force fell apart due to two wars with the United States and a dozen years of international sanctions.

Okay - "fell apart". Apologies to anyone who was drinking a beverage when they read that bottom line.

Now, will the French get to equip the new Iraqi Air Force too?