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| Air Islande 2008. |
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French Mirage 2000s
posted to defend Iceland
By Jean-Michel Guhl
in Paris, France
As of last Monday May 5th, four French Mirage 2000-5F air superiority fighters have taken their NATO tour of QRA duty at the former US Keflavík naval air station in Iceland, now the country’s international airport situated some 50 km south-west of Reykjavík. They should remain there for a period of six weeks, ending June 30th, endowed with the top cover protection of the Nordic island, one of NATO’s oldest members.
France is the first NATO country to fulfill this new Quick Reaction Alert air defence task in Iceland — under full NATO responsibility — from the Alliance air command centre in Denmark.
The four Mirage 2000-5Fs (numbers 48, 54 , 57 and 62) belong to Escadron de Chasse 1/2 « Cigognes » normally based in Dijon-Longvic (BA 102), France’s only squadron flying the advanced Mirage 2000-5 variant of the well-known Dassault delta. Fitted with the multi-mode Thales RDY digital air multi-target interception radar and armed with MBDA Mica IR and EM all-aspect medium-range AAMs, the Mirage 2000-5F is today the most potent air defence aircraft of the French arsenal. It is also a very good interceptor in operational use in Greece, the EAU, Qatar and Taiwan. The French detachment “Air Islande 2008” is composed of a 110-person party placed under the command of LtCol Gilles Bertrand, squadron EC 1/2’s boss in Dijon.
Devoid of all air protection since the curt departure two years ago of the last rotating USAF fighters assigned on TDY to the air cover of the small Nordic republic — which has no army nor military aviation — Iceland particularly fears today the return in its surrounding air space of the Russian Tu-142 "Bear". These flights are now recurrent after President (now Prime Minister) Wladimir Putin decided last year to officially resume the sorties of these strategic bombers over the North Atlantic in response to George W. Bush’s decision to go further with the US ballistic shield project in Poland and the Czech republic.
The defence agreement signed recently between the Icelandic republic and some of her foremost NATO allies, according to § 5 of the Charter, will thus see every six weeks (or longer three months periods for others) different foreign air detachment taking their turn at Keflavík international airport. So far several memoranda have been signed with France (Mirage 2000), the United-Kingdom (Tornado F3), Slovakia (MiG-29), Spain (Mirage F1M), Norway (F-16), Denmark (F-16) and the USA (F-16). Negotiations are under way between Ottawa ad Reykjavík for a likely participation of Canada (CF-18) as of next year.
For Mrs. Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, the Icelandic minister of foreign affairs, the arrival of the French fighter detachment has the taste of victory, notably after the desultory way in which the US abandonned univocally their NATO partner two years ago. To mark the event, a welcome ceremony was organised at Keflavík by Mr. Thorir Ibsen, head of the Icelandic National Defence department, in presence of Mr Olivier Mauvisseau, the French ambassador to Iceland, and Brig. Gen. Olivier Allard, Général adjoint territoire national (GATN) from the French Air Force Air Operations Command (CDAOA).
A 103 000 km2 island close to the Arctic circle, with a small population of only 310,000 inhabitants, Iceland, as a founding member of NATO, has been participating in numerous military actions of the Alliance, from the Balkans to Afghanistan, during the past decade. Historically close to the USA, since the political accords signed before and after the small republic’s independence in 1944, the former province of Denmark has always been very dependent on the United States for her defence. It should be recalled that the USAF, from 1951 to 2006, had the exclusivity of the island's air protection. A full squadron of US fighters, notably the 57th Fighter (Interceptor) Squadron at NAS Keflavík, embodied by himself the Nordic nation’s air defence for some fifty years, with such famous fighter planes as the F-89 Scorpion, the F-102 Delta Dagger, the F-4 Phantom II and the F-15 Eagle.
For the government of Mr. Geir Haarde, the Icelandic Prime Minister, the arrival of NATO fighters in Iceland sounds like a homecoming event, such is the faith his country has always placed in the Atlantic Alliance for so many years. The move to have European countries to first partake in the defence of Iceland rather than US Forces, is also an offset sign of comptempt sent to the G.W. Bush administration, as this US president has made much single-handedly to damage the image of the USA in the Icelandic public opinion. For France, detaching combattants to Iceland is also a premlere, even if the French Air Force is already familiar with Keflavík as the airport has been a staging point for French fighters in and out of North America for many years on.
Further NATO countries like Poland or the Netherlands should later add their names on the Alliance's expeditionnary roster and thus bring more air defenders by the side of Iceland. (Keflavik – 05-05-2008)
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| Arrival at Keflavík of the first French Air Force Mirage 2000-5F fighters from France on May 5th, 2008. A party of four Mirage 2000-5F deltas will fulfill the air defence of Iceland until next June 30th in response to an official NATO request. © Baldur Sveinsson |
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