The Circuit (8 page)

The irony wasn’t lost on me. Yassin was justifying suicide bombings by evoking a scenario straight out of the Hebrew Bible: David versus Goliath. But in Yassin’s version, Goliath was the Jew, David the ‘Philistine’ and the slingshot had been updated to an explosive vest.

Almost two years after that interview, the Israelis finally assassinated Yassin, but his violent legacy lives on. His followers continue to sacrifice themselves in order to kill others. Perhaps that’s because like the biblical David, Yassin was convinced that religious superiority would allow him and his supporters to triumph over a stronger enemy.

I’m not religious, so I’ll never understand that way of thinking, but seeing Yassin speak in person gave me a newfound respect for the power of religious conviction. Yassin’s brand of radical Islam had already inspired the 11 September hijackers. Soon, it would spread to nearly every frontier of the War on Terror, creating security challenges that would change The Circuit beyond recognition.

CHAPTER 7

In September 2002 I ventured on a third trip to Jerusalem, again advising CNN. The day I landed, a Palestinian suicide bomber attacked a bus in Tel Aviv, killing half a dozen people and injuring more than fifty. Israel responded by immediately launching another incursion into the West Bank. That evening, I met with CNN’s Jerusalem bureau chief to see what he needed security-wise to cover the story.

The timing of those events couldn’t have been worse for the bureau chief. He had no available shooters to send to Ramallah, his backup correspondent had just rotated out of Jerusalem and a replacement wouldn’t arrive for several days. CNN was in a bind. If the network didn’t establish an immediate presence in Ramallah, it risked falling behind its competitors in terms of coverage. Moreover, if the Israelis locked down the city, which they almost certainly would, it would be extremely difficult to get a crew in there without someone in situ to help them negotiate the checkpoints.

I suggested to the bureau chief that as an interim measure I go to Ramallah with a live truck and engineer and work with a cameraman from TV Ramattan. That way CNN could have live pictures of what was happening and an adviser on site to help a crew get in safely, once one became available. The bureau chief told me to leave for Ramallah first thing in the morning.

Fortunately, Nihal, the young female Palestinian producer I’d worked with during Operation Defensive Shield, had been visiting relatives in Ramallah when the IDF armour started rolling in. We linked up in Ramattan Studios where she’d already finalized arrangements for a cameraman to be loaned to CNN.

We’d been in Ramattan less than thirty minutes when news filtered in that the Israelis were attacking Arafat’s compound. The story was confirmed by our own ears; we could hear the sound of heavy machine-gunfire coming from the location of the Mukhata. It was looking like Operation Defensive Shield all over again.

Nihal had a great idea of where to set up operations. She knew a woman who owned a house approximately two hundred yards from the centre of the Mukhata. After a bit of negotiating, Nihal convinced the woman to rent CNN her rooftop for two hundred dollars a week. It was money well spent. The rooftop position allowed us to see the Israeli security cordon in incredible detail. For the next forty-eight hours, CNN owned the story. The cameraman, a young Palestinian lad, worked day and night without a break, filming Israeli tanks and bulldozers laying siege to the compound. The live truck engineer also worked tirelessly feeding out pictures.

On the second night, the Israelis suddenly floodlit the area. Bulldozers began chipping away at some of the perimeter buildings, but the reason for the lights wasn’t immediately clear. Then, around 3 a.m., the tanks backed off and IDF engineers wired one of the buildings with explosives. I was just about to phone the Jerusalem bureau with the information when there was an almighty explosion. Debris from the blast went flying over our heads. When the smoke cleared, the building was gone. It had been levelled to the ground. From a clinical standpoint I had to admire the skill with which the Israeli engineers had placed the explosives; the building dropped like a stack of cards. CNN was over the moon with the pictures.

By day three, the bulk of the international press corps was attempting to enter Ramallah. The IDF was patrolling the streets aggressively and many journalists were turned away.

Once again, CNN’s leading-edge reporting hadn’t won it any friends in the IDF. Several Israeli patrols tried to kick us off the roof. Each time we were harassed, I’d produce the ‘lease’ to prove that we were legitimate residents who had every right to be there.

Naturally, other news organizations tried to ride CNN’s coattails. I lost count of how many snappers (stills photographers) and crews from other organizations tried to climb up on our roof. Some had the cheek to walk up there without even asking first. I’d show them right back down. I’m all for helping other networks and especially snappers (photojournalists usually work alone and for very little pay compared to their paparazzi counterparts), but I didn’t want other journalists compromising our position. The IDF had already escorted two rival news crews off the rooftops of nearby buildings and out of Ramallah.

By day four, CNN was finally able to get a correspondent and shooter to Ramallah, not that there was much of the Mukhata left to film by that point. Most of the compound had either been blown up or knocked down. Even the main building housing Arafat had sustained structural damage.

Once again there was tremendous world pressure for the Israelis to back off. As the siege dragged on I thought for sure Arafat would either be killed outright or kidnapped and forced out of the country. Israel’s tactic of cutting power and water to the Mukhata also posed a graver threat to Arafat’s health, given the time of year. September is very hot in that part of the world and the searing midday heat would make the crowded, primitive living conditions inside the Mukhata that much more unbearable.

On day ten of the siege CNN got word that the Israelis had bowed to world pressure and were planning to pull back from the Mukhata. Ramallah was absolutely buzzing with press by that point so if CNN was going to be the first network in to see Arafat, we’d have to move fast.

CNN had learned that a United Nations envoy was in Ramallah waiting to meet with Arafat as soon as the Israelis withdrew. I figured that if we could find the UN convoy we could latch onto the back of it and beat everyone else to the punch.

I loaded the correspondent and the cameraman into the Land Rover. After searching a few streets, we found the UN convoy; it was fronted by an Israeli escort vehicle. I stayed back until the convoy moved off, at which point I crept up behind the UN vehicles. I tailed them as inconspicuously as possible until the Mukhata was in sight. Just before we reached the entrance, I hit the gas and overtook both the UN vehicles and the Israeli escort. As far as the IDF knew, we were just part of the convoy. We drove straight past the Israeli security cordon and right up to Arafat’s front door. For CNN, the story ended just as it had started; with the rest of the press corps playing catch-up.

This time, there would be no exclusive with Arafat. He held a press conference though he did throw out the first question to CNN. Once the dust settled and the cameras stopped rolling, Arafat walked over to me. He took my hand firmly in both of his and looked at me with a big grin on his face.

‘Bob, have you got my flag?’ he asked, keeping his hands locked on mine.

I looked down at him and smiled. ‘What flag, General Arafat?’

When I retired from the Regiment, I thought I was saying goodbye to the most exciting era of my life. As it turned out the Regiment was just a warm-up; working with the media in the West Bank and Gaza was more exhilarating than anything I’d done in the military.

I didn’t take for granted how rare it is for a man approaching fifty to experience a professional renaissance. I felt enormously fortunate and was delighted by this new market opening up for The Circuit. I couldn’t see myself looking after billionaires ever again.

Over a six-month period, I’d advised my clients through two Israeli incursions into Palestinian territories, one Hamas operation and interviews with Yasir Arafat and a notorious Islamic radical. With each assignment I learned something new about my job, my clients and the nature of insurgency.

I couldn’t have known it then, but those lessons would resonate through every assignment I’d accept from 2002 onwards. I would have been perfectly content to continue working with the media in Israel and Palestine but by the start of 2003, The Circuit’s attention was turning elsewhere. I started getting calls asking if I’d be interested in working with the media in Iraq – should the need arise.

PART TWO

THE BOOM YEARS

CHAPTER 8

We knew instantly that it wasn’t just the Americans who had fired on the ITN journalists. The scorched chassis of the crew’s 4x4 had incoming bullet holes on both sides; clear evidence of a two-way contact. It didn’t take a genius to figure out they’d been caught in crossfire.

Back in Hereford, we wanted to believe that we were heading to Iraq on a rescue mission. Despite the wreckage in front of us, we couldn’t rule that out, nor did we want to. We had signed on to this job with the intention of finding the men alive and returning them home safely to their families. That alone was enough to keep us going. But time was working against us. It had been nearly a fortnight since the men had vanished in a hail of gunfire and the trail that could lead us to them grew colder with each passing minute. If we were to have any hope of finding them alive we’d first have to suss out exactly what had happened. We needed to conduct a thorough and meticulous forensic investigation of the incident area; which in this case, happened to be in an active war zone sandwiched between the British Army and Iraqi troops loyal to Saddam Hussein.

Five days earlier, the Iraqi desert was the last place I expected to be. I was on home leave watching the opening days of Gulf War II unfold on TV. It was the first time in my adult life that my country had gone to war and I wasn’t a soldier. Admittedly, I made a lousy spectator. I was so hacked off by the reporting that I spent most of my time shouting at the television. The major networks were plastered with coverage from correspondents ‘embedded’ with military units in Kuwait and Iraq. Some of the embedded journalists were giving the impression that they were right where the action was, but at the start of Gulf War II most of the broadcasters at least were miles behind the front lines. I couldn’t believe how many reporters were using military phrases out of context or big-timing it like they were combat soldiers themselves. It was like watching actors on a film set, not genuine journalists covering a real war.

There was a handful of established correspondents on embeds but many appeared to be young and very green. Not that it seemed to matter. The embed was a novelty so, experienced or not, embedded journalists got the most airtime. Meanwhile, many veteran war correspondents who could offer serious analysis were left struggling for something compelling to report.

Terry Lloyd fell into that category. A highly regarded ITN war correspondent, like many un-embedded journalists, Terry and his crew had been sitting in Kuwait City waiting for British troops to invade the southern Iraqi city of Basra.

The invasion of Iraq began on 20 March 2003. The next day, Terry and three ITN crew members crossed the border from Kuwait into Iraq. The following day, 22 March, Terry and his crew attempted to enter Basra unilaterally ahead of British forces. They never made it. The ITN crew were attacked on the outskirts of Basra. Terry was killed. One member of his crew, Belgian cameraman Daniel Demoustier, managed to escape to safety. The two remaining crew members, cameraman Fred Nerac and translator Hussein Osman, were missing.

I was as surprised as anyone by the news. Not because Terry was a so-called ‘seasoned’ war reporter (I’d worked with the media long enough by that point to know that ‘seasoned’ meant little more than ‘lucky’), but because what he and his crew had attempted struck me as nothing short of foolhardy. As I watched the various media outlets turn the story over and over, I kept wondering about the two missing men. Were they alive? Had they been captured? Were they riding it out in a safe house in Basra? I’d never met Fred Nerac or Hussein Osman, but I felt for them and their families.

Fred and Hussein had been missing for five days when I received the call at home from AKE asking if I would go to Basra as part of a two-man team to investigate what had become of them.

I wanted to say yes immediately, but before I committed to anything, I needed to know who I’d be working with. My partner would definitely need to know his way around a hostile environment. At that stage, Basra hadn’t fallen to the British and irregular Iraqi forces known as the Fedayeen were proving far more formidable than the coalition had bargained for. It was also important that whoever I teamed with was physically capable of handling the assignment. I knew first hand how challenging the Iraqi desert could be having spent six consecutive weeks there during Gulf War I undertaking operations with the Regiment.

AKE told me I’d be working with a highly regarded lad I’ll call Martin. I accepted the assignment, though I had my doubts about what Martin and I could accomplish given how much time had already passed. It was imperative we get on the ground ASAP.

Ten days after Terry Lloyd and his crew were attacked, Martin and I boarded a flight from London to Kuwait. Before take-off, I bought a newspaper to see if anything new about the incident had hit the headlines. As I flipped through the pages, I came across an article that knocked me for six; a huge double-page spread featuring Daniel Demoustier, the only member of Terry’s crew who made it to safety. In the article, Daniel gave a blow-by-blow account of what took place on the outskirts of Basra that day. Topping it off was a huge photo of Daniel, posing on the balcony of his Kuwait City hotel room. Cuts and bruises were visible on his face.