VEVAK
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USA supplied little in the way of weapons to Saddam. Iraqi military was Soviet and French equipped.
Some in US government were happy to see Iranians get slaughtered. It was payback for the embassy
In 1991 American troops would have taken Baghadad in a week. Iraqi army pales in comparison to the resistance offered by Germans/Japanese in WW2, Chinese in Korean war and North Vietnamese in Vietnamese war. There is no jungle to protect you in Iraq (for that matter Iraq). The USAF has become increasingly potent
Iran air force top five in the world ?? Keep drinking the hard stuff.
Yes by 1979 and after Iran received it's F-14's Iran's Air Force more powerful then the U.K. Air Force.
Iran had a fleet of 79 F-14's Air Superiority fighters that were the F-22's of that time! Neither Russia, China or Europe were capable of matching it's capabilities at that time!
Iran's Air Force also had 220 F-4's which were the top fighter bombers of that time!
Iran also had almost 300 F-5A/B/E/F
So on paper Iran had 600 Fighters with orders put in for F-16's and plans to buy and even assemble F/A-18 inside Iran which Iran would have gotten if Carter wasn't in power or once Carter left office!
Iranian pilots were all highly trained by the U.S.
So when I say Iran had the 5th strongest Air Force in the world I'm really not making things up! Back then in terms of numbers it was U.S., Russia, China, U.K., France and then Iran! And Iran was competing with France and U.K. for 4th place and in terms of Air to Air capabilities Iranian F-14's made Iran stronger than both and a handful of supersonic bombers and AWACs would of put Iran ahead of both!
Iran's Helo Force was nearly 1000 strong which made it the 3rd largest Helo force in the WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!
But when push came to shove all that equipment didn't mean much of anything after the U.S. was kicked out because the Air Force became short on Spare Parts & Weapons for it's aircraft relatively quickly and so they lacked a sufficient number of, spare parts, trained maintenance technicians and weapons to keep a good portion of it's fleet in the Air conducting strikes every day so after the 1st year an Air Force that on paper had 600 fighter jets couldn't even keep 1/10 of it's fighters in the Air every day after the 1st year.
And yes Iran could of also taken Bagdad in a week during the Shah if Iran was the one who started the war and had taken Saddam by surprise with an initial blitz attack with intel, maintenance, spare parts & weapons coming from the U.S. BUT IRAN Didn't start the WAR and Iran had just had a revolution and Iran was just putting the country back together and didn't even have time to properly restructure the military and Iranian leaders never for one second thought that Saddam would be crazy enough to invade hell they even went so far as arresting Air Force personal for creating propaganda when they kept warning the leadership of the buildup of Iraqi forces on the boarder! So yea Iran's NEW leadership was completely caught off guard.
And no U.S. didn't sell weapons to Iraq, the Saudi's, Kuwait & few other Arab states gave Saddam $80 Billion USD because by 1982 Saddam was losing badly!! Saddam had lost it's Air Force, Navy & his armored battalion was on the run and retreating day after day.
What the U.S. did for Saddam was provide intel from the position and activities of Iranian troops to the activities of Iran's Air Force & during the end the U.S. military actually engaged Iran's Navy because Saddam had No Navy to fight with. So U.S. didn't simply sit back and watch!