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Citat: here is a photo of all the five examples, taken at Landvisiau as they were made ready for flight to Iraq (undertaken on 7 October 1983 via Italy, then via Kalamata airfield at Peloponesos Peninsula in Greece, Larnaca International at Cyprus, and the H-4 or H-5 ABs in Jordan; the last SuE arrived in Iraq on 29 October 1983).
Citat:The delivery of SuEs to Iraq was known as Operation "Sugar".
Now, after going through our files, I haven't found any particular "anecdote" about Iraqi SuEs except their combat activities. That is, we haven't found anything similar like the story about the delivery of the first Mirage F.1EQs to Iraq, on 29 January 1981. Namely, while the first four Mirages stayed over the night at Kalamata AB, one of the (E)PA’s guards did some "gymnastic" hanging himself on the pitot-tube, and bending at least one of them. Noticing the mess he caused, he bended the tube back, but this only worsened the situation. In order to cover up the mess, he then bended the pitot tubes of all the other three Mirages too!
The damage was later noticed by an airport official, causing a fierce Iraqi protest, and the French to send a repair team to Kalamata (which was certainly not cheap to do; we don't know who paid the bill, however)...
Anyway, the Iraqi SuEs flew their first combat sortie on 27 March 1984, obviously after quite a few problems with training of their crews, which caused the Dassault to sell Iraq also three Falcon 50s, equipped with the Agave radar, and also capable of carrying up to two Exocets: these were used for training of pilots, which was certainly easier to do in the spacious cabin of this "biz-jet"....
The first victims of Iraqi SuEs were Greek tanker Filikon L, which carried Kuwaiti oil from Al-Ahmadi terminal, and South Korean supply ship Heyan Ilho, which was underway some 74km/40nm southwest of Khark. Yet for that mission Super Etendards, refueled in mid-air from two Mirage F.1EQ-4s equipped with buddy-pods, suffered technical problems and spent too much time at high altitude over the target area while searching for some ships to attack, so, they actually only found the targets for two Super Frelon helicopters, which then launched AM.39s. The Exocet that hit the Greek tanker failed to explode, but the Korean ship was sunk.
From March 1985, Iraqi SuEs started operating together with newly-delivered Mirage F.1EQ-5s, which were also equipped with the Agave radar, and capable of using AM.39 Exocets. And, from May 1985, SuEs also flew their first night-time missions. But, from June 1985, the remaining two or three intact examples were hardly ever used again, as their lease time was nearing an end, the the Iraqis were not eager to pay France more if additional SuEs would be lost.
 http://www.air-defense.net/forum/index.php?topic=3543.0
http://www.aviacionargentina.net/foros/historia-de.....quies.html
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