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Pravda.RU:Companies:More in detail 18:20 2003-03-28 What If Iraqi Army Had Russian MiG- 31 Jets? Russian Perm Motors enterprise has something in common with the war It seems that there is absolutely nothing in common between the aggression of the United States and Great Britain in Iraq and the Russian motor enterprise Perm Motors. However, if you pay attention to the fact that the Iraqi army has Mi-8 choppers equipped with TB-2-117 engines that were produced at Perm Motors, a connection becomes clear. The company manufactures gas turbine plants for the Russian gas giant Gazprom, as well as D-30F6 engines for MiG-31 pursuit planes. If the Iraqi army had several regiments of MiG-31 jets, it is not ruled out that there would be absolutely no war. No aircraft carrier or a bomber plane of the US army would venture to approach the Iraqi border on account of a possibility to be destroyed. The majority of missiles that the US forces launched from their cruisers and planes would also be shot with those battle planes. Sergey Permyakov, a member of the Perm Motors’ Board of Directors said: “I remember I talked to one of vice presidents of Pratt&Whitney about a year ago. We talked about the point and the need of the defense order of the company Perm Motors. American businessmen said that their participation in Perm Motors’ share capital did not impede the company from getting the defense order. Americans said that they did not need the defense order, since they did not need military aircraft. I asked them how we were going to defend ourselves from external threats. Americans answered that they would defend us, for they were our friends, not enemies. Then I asked them: “Are you going to defend us the same way as you defended Yugoslavia? With missile spot attacks?” Pratt&Whitney answered that question of mine in a month time – they bought the blocking shareholding of the Perm Motors. “It would be possible to continue the discussion now, when bomber and pursuit jets of our colleagues from Pratt&Whitney fly above the Iraqi territory. However, as experience shows, all international discussions can be possible if the correlation of forces of the debating sides are balanced. Otherwise, a discussion becomes an imposed settlement. “I feel very anxious when I watch news reports about the war. It is painful for me to see the Iraqi people so helpless. However, the anxiety goes by, when I hear MiG-31 flying somewhere nearby. I feel calmer, when I think that the Russian army has modern defense technology. However, what can we oppose to those, who will have a wish to defend us and our different point of view regarding the world order? “It becomes obvious today that the euphoria of eternal friendship with the American nation that developed in Russia during Boris Yeltsin’s era has to give way to sober pragmatism and calculation in all international affairs. Those people, who deal with it, have to deal with it.”