Where did the military industry in Iraq reach after its rehabilitation?

Baghdad -

3 decades ago, and the weapons manufacturing sector in Iraq suffered from neglect after the decision of civilian governor Paul Bremer to dissolve the Military Industrialization Authority following the US invasion of the country in 2003, before the Iraqi parliament returned to vote in 2019 on a new law to form the Military Industrialization Authority.

This body aims to rehabilitate the stalled arms factories to meet the security services’ need of weapons and equipment. Indeed, this body has already begun to work by conducting international framework cooperation agreements for the development of defense industries in particular, and initiated them with the Turkish side to secure the two countries’ needs of military equipment, with the possibility of selling them to a third party. Iraq also recently received a factory for the production of pistols and machine guns, the first of its kind, which the commission has contracted since 2003.

At the end of 2021, Iraq held talks with Poland in Warsaw regarding the prospects for a strategic partnership in the field of military industrialization between the two countries, the transfer of modern technology, and work to modernize military equipment.

Al-Daraji: The authority's new projects will focus on the production of air defense systems and arming the army forces (Al-Jazeera)

Strengthening military capabilities

In an exclusive interview with Al-Jazeera Net, the head of the Military Industrialization Authority, Muhammad Sahib Al-Daraji, said that the agreements concluded by the authority to develop defense and military equipment will contribute to activating the file of war industries in Iraq, which has been neglected for 3 decades, noting that representatives of international transport companies and production lines will visit Baghdad. To meet with Iraqi experts with the aim of enhancing cooperation and exchanging defense expertise.

Al-Darraji affirms that "the authority's new projects will focus on the production of air defense systems and arming the army forces," pointing out that the equipment currently produced uses modern technology imported from abroad, stressing that increasing the rate of armament production will contribute to reducing the import budget.

He pointed out that the annual rate of exchange for the defense policy in Iraq within the financial budget for the years from 2015 to 2021 amounted to $5 billion, an amount that burdens the state treasury because it imports about 96% of the needs of the security forces from abroad.

An armored vehicle produced by the Military Industrialization Authority in Iraq (Al-Jazeera)

According to Al-Daraji, the commission was able to restore work in a group of its military factories that were suspended, including the cannon factory in the city of Fallujah (west of Baghdad), rehabilitating the Badr and Qaqaa plant and missile production factories, as well as the project to produce the "Babylon pistol and the Al-Rafidain rifle", and working on Production of drones for use in surveillance.

Al-Darraji continues that the political will was not absent from the Iraqi armament file, and the possibility of developing weapons factories, as some parties deliberately disrupted them for several years, and there are (unnamed) security figures and leaders who invent pretexts to circumvent the law in order to return to contracts with countries and merchants abroad. And leave the local product that enjoys the specifications of international standards.

Mortar shells produced by the Badr Factory (Al-Jazeera)

Authority factories

The recently rehabilitated Badr factory is one of the Authority's most prominent factories, and its production lines have been put into operation to be specialized in the production of mortar shells.

And the director of the factory, Raad Nuri, said - in an interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that "their industries focus on producing mortars and light and medium munitions, with an annual production capacity of 50 pieces of different bullets."

There is also the Al-Karama Factory, which was one of the famous factories in the production of missiles during the 1990s, and it was recently rehabilitated, but it is currently focusing on manufacturing aerial missiles, according to its officials.

The Military Industrialization Authority has introduced some modern technologies in production to supplement the military establishment with advanced surveillance methods to control and surprise, including the project of thermal cameras and batteries at the Karama factory.

Al Karama Factory specializes in the production of thermal cameras (Al Jazeera)

The director of the thermal cameras project at the factory, Ali Saeed, reveals "invitations to companies specialized in the field of thermal cameras in order to cooperate and open production lines," stressing that the factory began producing endoscopes and supplying them to the armed forces.

There is also the Nahrawan factory in the past decades, and it specializes in the production of valves for mortars and aerial missiles. Recently, work has been done to rehabilitate it in order to be a specialist in the manufacture of war boats and the rehabilitation of ships and tanks, according to the factory manager, Hadeer Fawzi.

Al-Bayati called on the Iraqi government to impose the sale of the products of the Military Industrialization Authority to the security forces and the army (Al-Jazeera)

body products

Security expert Sarmad Al-Bayati believes - in an exclusive interview with Al-Jazeera Net - that if Iraq succeeds in restoring the military industry to what it was before 2003, this will help it strengthen its military capabilities and eliminate ISIS cells as soon as possible.

Al-Bayati added that there are certain manufacturing projects such as mortars and munitions, but the problem lies in contracting to purchase them because many security departments and institutions do not do so, and therefore the Authority's manufacturing projects will be useless.

He stressed the need for the Iraqi government to impose on the security forces and the army the purchase of the products of the Military Industrialization Organization to support them, as well as providing large sums of money to the state budget.

Several decades ago, Iraq established huge factories for the manufacture of missiles, equipment, and heavy, medium and light weapons, which include cannons and missiles, but the successive air strikes that the country was subjected to during the 1991 Gulf War led to the destruction of its missile arsenal, as well as the rest of its military arsenal and its war factories were looted after the American invasion for Iraq in 2003.