What’s worse than paying hundreds of millions of dollars for military aircraft that never show up? Paying even more money and still no delivery. That’s what the Pentagon has done as part of the United States’ plan to rebuild the Iraqi military. Two years ago, the US government shelled out $241 million to purchase Russian-made helicopters for Iraq. To date, none have been delivered. Then, the US military gave an $80 million contract to ARINC, a Maryland firm best known for providing communications, not helicopters, to facilitate another so-called sale of Russian Mi-17s to Iraq. These deals were not the first bad arrangements involving the Mi-17s. Several years ago, Iraq’s chief weapons buyer paid a Polish company for Mi-17 helicopters that were too old to use.