Staff Brig Gen

Qaa’id Kerish Mashthoob Al-Khuzaa’i

, Iraqi air force, is director of air operations in the Iraqi Air Force Command. A 1978 graduate of the Iraqi Air Force Academy in Baghdad, he earned his flight instructor’s diploma in 1985. General Al-Khuzaa’i continued his academic and professional pursuits to earn a Staff Academy diploma in 1989 and a BA degree in law in 2003. He enrolled in a training course at the US Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute in Washington, DC. His professional career includes teaching at the Al-Bakr Military University, duties as an air force wing commander, and eight years of service in various leadership positions. In 1999 he was discharged from military service for political reasons. He returned to service after the liberation [US led invasion] of Iraq in 2003 as an assistant commander of the Al- Diwanya Province Public Safety Directorate, working with the US Marine Corps to maintain civil peace and order; he then assumed his current air force post.