We’ve spent years and billions re-building Iraqi ground forces. Many millions more have gone into a reconstituted Navy. The new Iraqi air force however, is just getting going. IZAF pilots – many of them veterans of the ancien regime – want to get their hands on fast movers. Like any self-respecting fighter pilot anywhere would.

But just now they’re flying Cessnas and helos:

In his crisp flight suit, sunglasses and polished boots, Lt. Gen. Kamal Barzanji looks every inch the fighter pilot he once was as he strides onto the flight line here.

But the planes lined up on the tarmac at the air base here resemble a local flying club. A single row of Cessna single-engine propeller planes are lined neatly in a row, bearing the markings of the Iraqi air force.

It’s not easy hiding his frustration. “The Iraqi people are waiting to see an F-16 or F/A-18 flying with an Iraqi pilot in the sky,” says Barzanji, Iraq’s air force chief, referring to iconic American combat planes. “Now it is the weakest air force in the Middle East.”

They’re pretty darned nice Cessnas, as CWO BillT’s cockpit photo here demonstrates. And more help is on the way, according the linked USA Today article. But at least they’re flying now, and IZAF morale continues to improve with a mission tied to supporting ground forces in anti-insurgency operations.

General Barzani plans to bring jets back into his stable by 2012. By that time the training and support architecture will hopefully be in place, and we can all pray that the new Iraqi air force has been thoroughly vetted and their individual loyalties firmly established.

It’s one thing to give a bad guy pretending to be a good guy a rifle and LBE. It’s another thing entirely to hand him the keys to a supersonic strike fighter.