In 2003, The U.S. Military discovered a number of Mig-25 Foxbat fighters and SU-25 Frog Foot fighter-bombers buried in the desert next to the to the Al-Taqqadum airfield near Baghdad, Iraq. The aircraft had been stripped of their wings and completely covered with sand. Despite their time under the desert, the aircraft were in decent shape and could have been returned to service with minimal maintenance. Instead, the aircraft were found by coalition forces and two Mig-25s were placed in the belly of a C-5 Galaxy cargo plane and returned to the United States for examination.

The obvious question surrounding this discovery is why would the Iraqi Air Force bury their planes rather than fight? The answer takes a little bit of history to explain. Back during the first Gulf War, the Iraqi Air Force flew the bulk of their air force to Iran before hostilities began. This caught America by surprise as Iran was Iraq’s traditional geo-political enemy. Iraq knew that its air force, made up of predominately older Soviet-designed aircraft, wouldn’t stand a chance against the combined might of America and its allies who had superior planes and pilots. The plan worked great except for the fact that Iran didn’t give Iraq back all of its aircraft after the war.

This left Iraq with a dilemma of what to do with its aircraft when it was again faced with invasion a decade later. All Iraq could expect of its air force in a fight with the United States was for its pilots to die with valor, but the aircraft still had value in a potential conflict with one of its neighbors. The Mig-25 might be old but it could still best most of the third generation fighters that equipped many of the air forces of the Middle East. The SU-25 might not be able to bomb approaching U.S. forces but it could definitely be used against Kurdish forces in the North of Iraq in its ongoing civil war. While Russian built aircraft were inexpensive compared to western aircraft, they still cost millions of dollars to procure and that was an expense that Iraq couldn’t bear when it was strapped with economic sanctions by the international community.

So Iraq did the only thing it could do. It hid its aircraft in the hopes that it could recover the Mig’s and Sukhoi’s later and rebuild its air force once coalition forces left. Only this time was different. Coalition forces toppled the Iraqi government and when the Iraqi air force was reconstituted, it was equipped with surplus American aircraft and the older Russian designs were no longer needed. The Mig-25’s and SU-25’s that were pulled from the desert are an interesting footnote to Iraq’s history and reminiscent of a time when Iraq was a Middle Eastern power to be reckoned with, not a country overtaken with civil war. As only a dozen aircraft were pulled from the desert, it can be expected there are more buried and yet to be found. They will make an interesting find for an archaeologist one day.