The Circuit (30 page)

About four hours into the patrol an IED exploded forward of our vehicle. We could hear and feel the blast from our position in the back of the Bradley so it must have been a big one. At that point, the patrol had achieved absolutely nothing apart from shooting a few wires and whacking missiles into ‘possible IED locations’. It looked like the big armoured crocodile wasn’t going to draw the Mehdi Army into a fight. The colonel called it a night.

CHAPTER 29

Our embed in Sadr City lasted thirty-six, non-stop hours. When we got back to the Palestine, I took a long, cool shower and fell into bed. Later that afternoon, I went to the bureau to check in with the rest of the AKE team. I found Diana hard at work on yet another story. She’d barely got any sleep before being thrown right back into the mix.

I was making my way to the AKE desk when the bureau chief called me over. As usual, he was sitting in his chair, rocking back and forth.

‘You need to take Diana back to Sadr City,’ he said.

‘Why?’ I asked

‘She needs to shoot a stand-up for another story,’ he said. I searched his face. He seemed completely unaware of the fact that his request was incredibly dangerous.

What the bureau chief wanted was one thing. What Diana wanted was another. If she needed to shoot a stand-up, then I wanted to help her do it – safely.

‘Going to Sadr City is out of the question. But if you like, I could take Diana to an area where you can see Sadr City in the background,’ I said.

The bureau chief’s face tightened. ‘So you’re telling me you won’t do it?’ he asked.

‘I’m saying it would be absolute madness to drive unilaterally into Sadr City and do a stand-up,’ I said.

At that point, Diana jumped into the conversation. She told the bureau chief she wasn’t prepared to drive into Sadr City either, and that my suggestion was a good alternative.

I guess having his correspondent side with the security adviser was the final straw for the bureau chief. He stormed off.

Later that evening, I met with Diana and her cameraman. We all agreed to search for a suitable stand-up location the following morning. I put both armoured 4x4s on reserve for the assignment as the bureau chief still hadn’t binned the BMW.

The next morning, before heading out, I briefed our drivers, Diana and the cameraman to make sure we were all on the same page. I explained that our main objective was to find a suitable stand-up location and shoot it in as little time as possible. I wanted to limit our exposure on the ground. With that in mind, I asked Diana and her cameraman to work out what they wanted to do before leaving the Palestine; there’d be no rehashing the stand-up whilst operational.

One of CNN’s Iraqi fixers had suggested a location just over a canal running east to west on the southern edge of Sadr city. When we got there, Diana and the cameraman said it would work. I asked them to stay inside their vehicle and review their stand-up notes one more time while I had a look around outside. I immediately spotted a possible drama. Across the road from our location I saw a man crouched down on his knees holding an RPG. After thirty seconds he stood up, ducked into a side street and then walked back out again. He didn’t take any notice of us which indicated that he was waiting for a specific target.

Not long after, he was joined by a tall, skinny man wearing a long black leather coat. The man in leather noticed us straight away. He beckoned me over with his hand. I shook my head to indicate that I wouldn’t leave my position. The man in leather started walking towards me. I moved ten metres away from our armoured vehicles to meet him. I wanted to keep him away from my clients in case he wanted to make trouble.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

I immediately detected something familiar in his accent.

‘Journalists,’ I said. ‘We’ll be done here in two minutes.’

‘You’re Scottish, aren’t you?’ he said. This time the accent was unmistakable. The man looked Iraqi, but he was definitely a Geordie.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Are you a Geordie?’

‘Yes,’ he said, smiling.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked.

‘I’m in the Mehdi Army.’

I figured as much. There had been plenty of media reports about British nationals travelling to Iraq to fight alongside the insurgents. But I never thought I’d actually meet one of them.

‘What’s wrong with the Toon Army?’ I said, referring to supporters of Newcastle United football team.

He laughed, but the light-hearted moment was brief. ‘You’ve got twenty minutes,’ he said, pointing to his watch.

‘Why twenty minutes? I asked.

‘Because in twenty minutes time, every day on the button, an American patrol comes past and today they’re getting it,’ he said and turned to walk away.

I called after him. ‘What if the patrol was British?’

He looked back over his shoulder. ‘That’s why I’m in Baghdad and not Basra.’

I checked my watch to mark the time. Extra incentives aside, I’d never intended to be on the ground anywhere near twenty minutes. I got Diana and her cameraman out of the vehicle. I didn’t tell them about the situation with the Geordie and the insurgent with the RPG. I wanted them to concentrate fully on their stand-up, shoot it and get out of there. As for the American patrol, if I could have alerted them I would have but it was impossible. I didn’t have their radio frequencies, I had no idea which direction they’d be coming from, and if I did try to wave them down they’d probably think I was an insurgent and drive over me.

Diana did her stand-up in one take and we were off. In total, we’d spent less than ten minutes on the ground. As we were driving back over the canal I heard the double thump of an explosive being detonated. I wondered whether it was the insurgent’s RPG slamming into an American military vehicle.

Back at the bureau, we heard that an American patrol had been attacked by insurgents south of Sadr City. Thankfully there were no casualties.

That night I sat on my bed thinking about all that had transpired on this assignment. The Geordie was the clearest signal yet that journalists could no longer operate unilaterally in Baghdad safely.

I decided to call it a day in Iraq. The situation had become too unpredictable and volatile to provide my media clients with proactive security. Even if I switched to working outsourced military jobs, like looking after diplomats, I’d still face the same problems. Driving around in an armoured vehicle all tooled up with your fingers crossed hoping you don’t get whacked is not security; it’s just playing at it.

Some of the experienced members of the press corps were also thinking about not returning to Iraq. The risk/reward of going around the streets had tipped against them and they weren’t willing to endanger life and limb just to stand on a hotel rooftop and repeat parrot fashion what their ‘sources’ had told them.

The competition between news networks is cut-throat and no one wants to be the first to leave Iraq. As it stands, however, the majority of journalists reporting from Baghdad rarely leave their bureaus, except to go on military embeds. The network hierarchies need to ask themselves whether it’s really worth it to put their employees in jeopardy just for the sake of having a minaret in the background of a live shot.

There are wider, more disturbing ramifications to this practice; the western media presence in Iraq feeds the perception that internationals can operate there within a reasonable margin of safety. They can’t, nor have they been able to in my opinion since the end of 2004.

In all probability, the insurgents know exactly where all the major international news networks are stationed in Baghdad. For a long time now, most of the news coming out of the Iraqi capital has been negative and worked in favour of the militants. They’ve had little reason to specifically target news bureaus. But there will come a day when insurgents will take issue with someone’s reporting – and when that happens, I have no doubt they’ll take out a media location.

If I were to sit down with the major network news heads, I’d advise them all to pull their operations back to Amman, Jordan, and only launch journalists into Baghdad for specific stories. I applaud the network brave enough to lead the way.

PART THREE

BUST & BEYOND

CHAPTER 30

I’ve often been asked why I never wrote a book about my time in the SAS. The main reason I haven’t is out of respect for the lads still in the Regiment. I strongly believe that active SAS soldiers don’t deserve retired Regiment lads discussing former exploits in detail because many of the skills that made operations successful in the past are still in use today. Some will argue that’s rubbish; the Regiment has moved on since my time. In some respects, I agree. The men in the Regiment today are far better soldiers than I was; in part because as Britain has evolved so too have SAS recruits. I believe the type of man who joins the Regiment improves about every decade and a half. If that weren’t the case then the Regiment would be in danger of standing still, which would be disastrous. I’m glad I did selection in the 1970s because I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of passing today.

My SAS instructors taught me terrific skills, which I improved on as did others like me. We then passed those skills on to the next generation, who enhanced them further. Each era makes its contributions, but the foundations of SAS soldiering have changed very little throughout the years. Therefore, if I were to write a book giving details of how we performed operations during my time, I truly believe it would compromise Regiment lads today by robbing them of some very effective tools.

So while I’d never pen a detailed memoir about my military career, for the benefit of readers of this book I will offer a brief overview of my worst encounter with bad leadership in the Regiment. I write about it here for two reasons: first, because a lot has been written about this particular subject, and at least one published first-hand account smeared the reputation of a very fine soldier. As someone whose involvement is not widely known, I’d like to have my say to set the record straight. The second reason I’m writing about this episode is to help you understand why I am so uncompromising when it comes to maintaining operational standards on The Circuit. Bad management, be it in the military or the commercial security world, doesn’t just cost money, it costs lives.

It was 1991 – the first Gulf War. The Regiment had deployed three of its four squadrons to the Gulf, including B Squadron where I’d been assigned to upper management. I was thirty-six years old at the time; ancient by Regiment standards. But I was still in excellent physical condition and my knowledge of operations was valued – or so I thought.

The American-led campaign had come up against a major glitch. Then, as now, the US military was overly dependent on technology to execute its battle plans. Weather conditions at the start of the war were terrible and the satellites the Yanks relied on to target enemy positions were being blinded by rain and cloud cover. Technology wasn’t enough to win the war. To achieve its aims, America and its allies needed ‘eyes on the ground’.

That’s where the Regiment came in. The ‘headshed’ of B Squadron (the OC or Officer Commanding and his Sergeant Major) assigned me to lead an eight-man patrol on an operation behind enemy lines. Our mission: observe the MSR between Jordan and Baghdad for troop movements, vehicles, weapons and other relevant military activity.

The sergeant major handed me a list of lads assigned to my patrol. As patrol leader, I was, in effect, the manager. It was my job to make sure the patrol as a unit had a good cross reference of skills so the individual members could mutually support each other whilst operational.

As I’d been out of B Squadron for about four years doing other tasks, I went to the lads named on the list to get a rundown of their abilities. One of them, Vince, was exactly the kind of soldier I needed; a big, strong, fit lad, Vince was a middle ranker with bags of operational experience. He had the background and character to be an absolute asset to the patrol. I put him at the top of my keep list.

Three of the lads assigned to the patrol, however, were straight off selection and had never been on operations with the Regiment. As great as they were, the new recruits hadn’t had time to bed in and learn their core skills: communications, medical, linguistics and demolitions. Given the nature of the mission – operating deep behind enemy lines in a very small team – this was not a job for new boys. It required skilled, veteran troopers.

I canvassed B Squadron to compile an alternative list of lads whom I felt would make a highly effective team. I took the revised list to the headshed. I thought the headshed would be on board with the suggested changes. Hardly. When I presented the alternative list to them, they were infuriated. I explained that I needed experienced troopers with complementary skills to achieve the task but they weren’t interested in hearing it. I was told the original list was final and that was it.

I was absolutely shocked. Dismissing a logical argument out of hand was not in keeping with Regimental thinking at all as far as I was concerned. I’d been in the SAS since the age of twenty and never before had I come across such a negative and frankly illogical response.

I couldn’t bury my head in the sand to pacify the headshed. There was no way I was going on the ground when I felt strongly that the patrol was a disaster in the making. I hadn’t done it before and I wasn’t going to do it now. There was a whole squadron to mix and match. It was a dangerous mission and if the patrol lacked comprehensive strength, it would put everyone at risk. I had to get the headshed to agree with the changes.

I explained again that I had compiled the new list for tactical reasons in order to achieve a successful patrol. They still didn’t want to hear it. As far as the headshed were concerned the original names were fine and my arguments, solid as they were, counted for nothing. Perhaps they didn’t want a strong character questioning their authority. Or perhaps they’d become so mentally committed to their original plan that they couldn’t conceive of altering it. I remember thinking they were just out of their depth.