Defence Industries Commission president Mohamed Sahib Al-Daraji had discussed the Commission future vision to adopt new production lines of weapons and munitions into the service, and move toward combat aircraft assembling, as well as manufacturing ground scanning aircraft, Al-Daraji indicates that commission future plans is to conclude several memorandums with many countries to flourish arms industry.
AL-Daraji stated in an interview with the Iraqi News Agency " there are new production lines of arms and weapons, part of them already in service while other in the process.
Memorandum of understanding to support arm industry
Al-Daraji also assure the interview " Iraq have signed memorandum of understanding with many countries to enhance arming security personnel, and helping arms industry development, the credibility and impact of these memorandum will be reflected by the experience, we have signed memorandums with Turkey and Poland, and we are in the framework of signing other memorandums with Britain and Pakistan, as we monitor the progress by time.
New strategy of building defence capabilities
On building Defence capabilities, Al-Daraji stated " Iraq went through tough circumstances led to lack of military and economic resources, we are looking for new strategy to build our Defence capabilities and enhance army performance, this strategy has to be based on strengthen the country as a power of peace while weapons are only as defensive mean to protect us from any attack.
He added "we need to develop arm industry in term of quantities and quantities, wars strategies have changed, cyber security, cyber warfare has a clear role by now, so it is important to enhance military industry in Iraq to confront any economic warfare, and preserve hard currency to strengthen our national security.
Achieving self-sufficiency
Al-Daraji also stated " in order to reach high level of self-sufficiency in arming industry, we need to apply a clear strategy, such as signing partnership agreement with private sector, and focusing on only one aspects which is achieving self-sufficiency of the army by supporting Defence Industries Commission performance.
On the other side, Al-Daraji indicates who important is to manufacture arm locally, to support Iraqi security as a nation duty, and this step has great economic benefits to the country by investing in Iraqi resources.
Aircraft assembly
Regarding aircraft assembling and manufacturing, Al-Daraji stated " we have project to assemble combat aircraft, the government backed the idea of manufacturing combat aircraft locally, we held several discussions with many countries focusing on assembling helicopters in Iraq as well as maintenance or repair services.Al-Daraji says " the Commission adopted the project as well as manufacturing fuselage inside Iraq, and we had done three versions already.
Developing arms industry requirements
About the requirements of developing Defence Industries in Iraq, Al-Daraji stated " the military industry need to enhance new hire experience and provide young engineers and technicians, their vision is more flexible to adopt the new digital revolution, also we need to merge between existing experience and the new youth capabilities
Iraqi Defence Industries Commission
6/5/2022
