This is going to quite a long term effort but it is good to see that the US Air Force is making head way in getting the process started:

Lt. Col. Mark Bennett, a U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber pilot, stopped and watched for a moment.

The single-engine Cessna 172 would hardly attract a second glance anywhere else, but in this country, the planes marked “Iraqi Air Force” are something special. To veteran Iraqi air force pilots and the American aviators advising them, the new aircraft represent the modest rebirth of Iraq’s once-formidable air force.

“It’s symbolic,” Bennett said. “It sends a message that their air force is back.”

Although rebuilding the Iraqi air force has been slow and has had some problems, there are signs the fledgling service is finally beginning to take off.

Iraqi pilots are flying reconnaissance and surveillance missions over oil pipelines and power plants. C-130 planes donated to Iraq by the U.S. Air Force fly out of Baghdad on cargo missions. In what American pilots consider a milestone, surveillance planes with cameras and thermal imaging helped Iraqi soldiers earlier this year in a mission against insurgents.

Another major step was the creation last month of a flight training school. The school welcomed its first six students.

Establishing the school is critical to creating a new generation of air force pilots to fly the future fleet of planes. Pilots currently flying missions are in their 40s and 50s and flew under Saddam Hussein’s regime. [Scott Schonauer - Stars & Stripes]

From my prior exerience from the first year in Iraq after the war we found plenty of untouched Iraqi aircraft.  Many of them were pulled off their airfields are parked near farmers homes so they would not be bombed.  Other aircraft were even found buried out in the desert.  However, some of the aircraft was extremely run down because of the sanctions though I did find the amount of spare parts for their French aircraft quite interesting. 

There are plenty of aircraft floating around Iraq so it will be interesting to see what type of aircraft the new Iraqi Air Force will one day field.  Will they go for the older aircraft they currently have or will they completely modernize and field a new western aircraft?  Not only are there a lot of aircraft floating around but there is a lot of former Iraqi Air Force personnel as well.  The man power and equipment is there, it is just a matter of funding, organization, and retraining to get the Iraqi Air Force back and operating.  Hopefully the US Air Force will be able to get them back and operating adequately sometime soon.