Modern Wisdom - #359 - Stephen Davis - The Secrets Of British Airways Flight 149

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

Stephen Davis is an investigative reporter and an author. On August 1st 1990, a British Airways flight departed London for Kuwait, on board were nearly 400 passengers including 9 secret service operatives. They landed in a war zone as Sadam Hussein's army rolled into Kuwait and took them hostage. For the next 5 months they were used as human shields, and for the last 30 years BA and the UK Government has covered up why they were really there and what happened. Stephen has been investigating this story since it happened and today we get to hear what 30 years of research has uncovered. Sponsors: Get 10% discount on your first month from BetterHelp at https://betterhelp.com/modernwisdom (discount automatically applied) Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 4.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Buy Operation Trojan Horse - https://amzn.to/3lPXIF9  Check out Stephen's website - https://stephendaviswriter.com/  Get my free Reading List of 100 books to read before you die → https://chriswillx.com/books/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact/  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My guest today is Stephen Davis. He's an investigative reporter and an author. On August 1st 1990, a British Airways flight departed London for Kuwait. On board were nearly 400 passengers, including nine secret service operatives. They landed in a war zone as Saddam Hussein's army rolled into Kuwait and took them hostage. For the next five months, they were used as human shields, and for the last 30 years, B.A. and the next five months, they were used as human shields, and for the last 30 years, BA and the UK government has covered up why they were really there and what happened. Stephen has been investigating this story since it occurred, and today we get to hear

what 30 years of research has uncovered. Honestly, this story sounds like a BBC dramatization gone wrong. I can't believe how many high level people are implicated in this. Margaret Thatcher is lying to Parliament twice about why the plane landed and what time it landed. The captain of the plane turned out to be an MI6 agent. It's insane. The work that Steven's done has uncovered some very, very scary insights. Before I get to other news, if you haven't already picked up a copy of the Modern With Some Reading List, you can go and get one right now for free at chriswillex.com slash books. There's a hundred books that you should read before you die, the most important and

impactful that I have ever read and some that I've probably forgotten as well. ChrisWillX.com slash books. But now it's time for the wise and wonderful Stephen Davis. Steven Davis, lock up the show. Thank you very much. Pleased to be here. How long have you been researching British Airways Flight 149? After my life, I first got a tip off about this when I was on the news desk of the independent on Sunday in August 1993 days after the plane landed and I'm 64

years old now. So 31 years. So pretty much half my life. It's been a long, long journey. What's compelling about this story? Why have you bothered spending three decades on it? I'm an investor, I'm going to report it. First off, I don't like being lied to. But several things drove me on. These people suffered a double injustice. First off, they were landed in war zone as a result of a secret mission ordered by Mrs. Thatcher. But secondly, they were denied even the recognition of the terrible things that happened to them when they were in captivity. So a few months after this, the Royal Military Police were commissioned by the government

to do a load of interviews with the human shields as they had become known. And they produced a report called Operation Sandcastle. And it was a horror story of rapes, other assaults, mock executions, near-stomation conditions, it was supposed to be presented to Parliament and they promptly suppressed it and it has been kept secret for 30 years. So the people on the plane were lied to about why they were there in the first place, but also denied recognition of the terrible things that happened to them while they were there. So those two things drove me on. The more I met weird official denials and contradictory anials from British Airways

and the British government, the more I kept going. And then the other thing was meeting the victims of this. Many of whom have suffered PTSD and lifelong trauma as a result of this ordeal. And again, just denied the public recognition. So every time I would talk to one and at one stage during every interview you could see them start to tremble or tear up as they were mean with something terrible that had happened to them, it made me angrier and more determined to carry on. Stephen, I'm just going to pause there. Can I get you to just move the screen down so your camera is a tiny little bit lower for me? Is that all right? Yes, perfect. That's good. Thank you. Okay, so someone that's not familiar with this

particular case, what's the story? Okay. So on the morning of the first of August in 1990, Saddam had been threatening to invade Kuwait for some time. A huge amount of Iraqi troops were gathered on the border. It was reported by the BBC that morning. A British Airways flight, 149, way to fly, one for nine was due to take-off and fly to Kuwait, which was a crew transfer and refueling stop, and then on to Madras in India, and then on to Kuala Lumpur. As it sat on the ground, there was a two-hour delay. During this time, a group of young very fit me and got on board at the last minute. Most of the passengers thought instantly these skies of soldiers went to the back of the plane, sat down. The plane took off. When it was plane took off. When it was between three and four hours flying time from Kuwait, the invasion started. Iraqi troops crossed the border. All other on. It landed in Kuwait at 4 o'clock on the morning

of the second, and at that stage Iraqi tanks were already in the city and surrounding the airport. When the door opened and Clither the Chief Person, there was a uniform British military officer waiting and Clive thought he must be here for the Kuwaiti Royal who was travelling in first class. But no, this man was there to collect the young men at the back. He said, can you please get them and we're in a hurry. So these men get off. They have people waiting for them with cases and gear and then they vanish from the airport. Never to be seen again, not captured by the Arches. Everybody else on the plane is captured by the Arches and used as human shields.

is captured by their Arkeys and used as human shields. And so who that mystery group were and why they were there and why the plane was allowed to land in the midst of a war zone with the three things that drove my investigation over the years? Is it likely that the only reason the plane was delayed in taking off to permit those guys to make it on? That appears to be the case.

When I interviewed Captain Brunette, who was the captain, who subsequently turns out to have been an MI6 asset, he told me it was an issue with the air conditioning. It may or may not have been, but it seemed like a bit of an excuse. We know now that the men who arrived at the last minute were checked in using military ticketing codes, and the British Airways lady who checked them in, who subsequently told colleagues that they had military codes, subsequently refused to talk

about it and remarkably enough, Chris was given a new job at the Ministry of Defence. I've seen that captain say the air conditioning thing on a documentary as well. Yeah, I mean, look at may have been, I think it was one of the, the Captain always has the ability to delay the fight if he's worried about it. Which had told me, which had Brunette told me that he was also thought if he delayed the flight, maybe it would be cancelled. Yeah, yeah, that if you push it later, the ground invasion may begin and they won't actually have to take off

Yes, but to be honest as I Subsequently found during the course of the my investigation some of the things he told me you know two initial interviews were Let's say it's a bit deceptive. Was there anyone else interesting on the passenger manifest? Yeah, there was a There was a Kuwaiti Royal a senior member of the royal family who was seem to have double duty as both the minister of sport and the head of security and he was on the flight and he died shortly so he went to the Desmond Palace and he actually died, I think, defending the palace from Iraqis.

So he was one of the early casualties. Okay. Other than that, they were a mixture of, there were a few people landing in Kuwait. There was an American banker called George Shaluman,uminus family who had a remarkable story. Of course, the crew were getting often co-8 and there was a replacement crew to fly on the next leg. But most of the passengers British, French, Malaysian, Canadian, Indian, Germans, Spanish, etc., etc., 15 different countries, Danish, were flying on to either Madras or Kuala Lumpur. And some of these people made decisions which seemed in the hindsight to be okay, which really proved out to be costly. A couple called the Hellkjards, Kiwis, fellow Kiwis of mine, Henry and

Daphne Hellkjard, who had were New Zealanders but also had British passports, made the last minute decision to fly on the British passports, which meant in captivity they were treated as Brits, not New Zealanders, and that was not a good deal for them. What happens once the passengers are captured by the Iraqis? Well, this was the interesting thing. It was clear originally the Iraqis didn't really know what to do with them. The initial few days, Chris of the occupation were chaotic, very chaotic,

and actually some people just escaped then by getting in their cars and driving to Saudi Arabia and Jordan. A lot of the troops that were initially occupying Kuwait were conscripts into Saddam's army, not the Republican Guard who were the Yelite, the Fanatics, and the conscripts were by all accounts pretty hopeless and not to mention apparently scruffy uniforms and not very well feared. The conscripts were often hungry. Anyway, so the Iraqis had this prize, a British Airways plane, and all of these people didn't really know what to do with them.

So they took them to hotels, and they kept them in these hotels for several days or sometimes a week. And that was an interesting example then of spin, kind of affecting how people think of a story. So initially, the foreign office is briefing, yes, one for nine's landed in a war zone, but don't worry, the passengers are like having a little holiday. They're sipping cocktails by the pool and the sunshine in luxury hotels. And of course with spin, often the first version of the store you get out is what is believed. So that became the common belief. And it was true for a few days.

As I said, the Iraqis kept them the hotels and they were looked after by the air crew and they were fed and but then of course Saddam worked out that he had this prize. And after that they were sent and often moved constantly and ended up at 70 different places all over Kuwait in Iraq along with Westerners captured on the ground who became human shields who joined them and these 70 places were sites Which Saddam had identified as potential sites which the allies would attack If they attacked his country or tried to kick him out of Iraq so that's where the phrase human

shield goes. So damn, put them there in dams and chemical warfare plants and I want to clear enough, this was when Saddam actually had weapons and mass destruction programs. And so he put them in places he thought the Allies would bomb. So for a long time, of course, these people thought they would be a good chance they would be killed by their own side. And then they had halish a halish time in captivity, most of them. What is this team of operatives doing while everyone's in this first hotel? Okay, so they dispersed. one group were actually picked up by Iraqis, but obviously not a very clever bunch and talked their way out of it and will let go. How many was the rental of these special units? The nine four two men teams and an intelligence officer.

So this is a surveillance operation, It's important to bear in mind. People have this idea of special forces operations as me and who go in with guns blazing and wall firing, SAS, SAS, BS, all of that. And of course, they can do it, required, if they're attacking somebody. But the specialization of these groups is actually to hide and observe and report back intelligence

to blend in. And so these teams were set up in various parts of Kuwait to report on what the Iraqi movements were, the placement of where the Republican guard was, you know, where they were putting their artillery, classic intelligence, which you then feedback to London and Washington. So they had all gone and the passengers were all in captivity. How do you know what these intelligence officers were doing? Surely this is all secret information? Well, it was. And for a long time, and then I've done a lot of reporting on special forces. And I have, by the way, on three, no, four separate occasions had the UK government take legal action against me to stop stories coming out. And I've beaten them four times in a row, so I'm

probably a bit of an irritant. So I have a lot of contacts. And eventually, with a colleague from television New Zealand, we flew to Britain and it's the usual thing you have a contact to trust you and then you introduce you to somebody else. And eventually, I had a man who was very well known in the Special Forces community in this binon television called Snapperpper War and he confirmed that the mission took place because one of his mates was on it and then after a long other process I actually ended up interviewing people from the mission and who

planned the mission. So this is all from the horse's mouth. Okay, so what are they doing? There's four of them get caught, but then let go because they talked the way out of it What are the rest of them get caught? But and so the four two man teams are at four different places in Kuwait My contacts ended up in southern Kuwait, which was one of the crucial things. So their job They ended up setting up a hide in a village near across roads where they could observe the movement of Iraqi troops and they would hide all day long.

And they were quickly able to establish that the Iraqis were taking up defensive, not offensive positions in southern Kuwait and not getting too near the border with Saudi Arabia. This particular group to guys got into trouble because they ate some rations which made one of them really, really ill with severe food poisoning. And so ill that they had to be rescued. And they ended up with one guy dragging his mate across the desert hour after hour to the swatty,

where they were rescued by a American Special Forces helicopter, and taken to a US warship called the US Antietam, where they ended up in the sick bay. Now, this is an interesting thing, Chris. This was a key moment for me in confirming part of the investigation. I ended up with many sources. The British government will tell you now, if you phone them up tomorrow, they would say, oh no, this never happened, Chris.

This mission never existed. These people just didn't happen. But unfortunately for them, I tracked down the captain of the US warship, the Antietam, a wonderful man called Lawrence Edingfield. He's a pastor now, isn't he? Yes. So he had gone from being a captain to being a very senior planning man at the Pentagon, and then a vicar at a church in San Diego where I went to talk to him.

So a man of completely and utterly un-unpeachable reputation, and unfortunately for the breads, Lawrence decided to tell the truth and confirmed every single part of the story. He visited the men in the sick bay. He knows exactly what happened. He had them on his ship. They were picked up by the Suezcu helicopter. They arrived on 149. So we're in this weird business now. Sometimes, I mean, look, I'm not a person who is opposed to national security on legitimate grounds. Clearly, special forces and spying has to be a degree of secrecy. And a lot of my contacts, you know, would say, out and mentally, that's the case.

But sometimes it becomes absurd. You know, 30 years later, they're still denying it. When I have a on-camera confirmation from the US captain, so, yeah, becomes a bit crazy, really. What are the conditions of the passengers at this point? Okay, so it was a bit crazy, really. One of the conditions of the passengers at this point. Okay, so it was the lack of the draw. So first of how you were treated, depended on whether your country was being seemed to be aggressive and intent towards a damn or not.

And I had a memorable occasion, conversation recently with one of the Stuart S's. So she described being in the hotel and Iraqi troops came in and they had two lists. And then they got all the passengers and they divided you on the left, you on the right Which of course has a lot of sinister historical echoes Especially with some German people on board. Yeah

Absolutely and this but this woman said so she realized that the people on the left Were mainly white and Americans and British and so forth. And the people on the other side were Indians and Malays and others, but the funny thing not amusing in which respect, but she thought to herself, she looked at the other group and thought oh those poor people They're gonna be really given a hard time and we're all right because we're on this side and in fact it was the exact opposite of course The Indians and malaise were better treated and let go early So Saddam had you know this this sort of as it were I don't know whether I can say it on your podcast, shit list,

effectively. And then the French, for a long time, or a lot of French passengers captured over 50, for a long time, they thought that they were going to be okay because Mitterond was refusing to join Bush's grand coalition. And then suddenly one day there's an announcement that Mitterond and the French have joined and they're suddenly plummet into despair because that puts them in the bad category, not the good category. Right from the start, of course, the British and Americans were prizes because that was Gung Ho and saying, yeah, we're going to kick him out, we're going to invade. Bush

was saying, I've drawn a line in the sand, his famous quote. But other countries, people who had Irish passports were okay. So it was a real mixture in terms of nationality. And of course, the Iraqis also reacted to every single thing that Bush and Fatshah said. So at one stage, the passengers heard to the horror. Somebody asked that sort of question saying, are the fact that all these human shields being held in Iraq and Kuwait, will it stop you

taking military action? And that just said, oh no, we won't. And so saw the passenger all thinking, wow, that's great, we're going to be bomb, that's just terrific. And at that very moment, by the way, in one of the camps, in a couple of the camps, Iraqi troops turned up and started digging big trenches and eventually the passengers were told by some friendly guards over very sorry but when the invasion starts we're to shoot you and dump you in these dump your bodies in these trenches. So how you were treated first off was dictated by geopolitics and the other part was really the lack of the draw in who held you, who was in charge of your captivity. So if you were in a camp run by the Bathasts, who were the

Wheelhard Linus, Wheelhard Linus, You got a very hard time indeed and one of the most shocking stories I heard was some people in a camp who were Taken out of the camp in the middle of the night driven out in the desert made to get out given shovels Made to dig a deep trench Made to kneel in front of the trench made to dig a deep trench, made to kneel in front of the trench, soldiers lined up behind them, and of course by this stage the people are convinced they're going to be shot in the back of the head and dumped in the trench. And then there's a click and the bathists fall about laughing. It was their idea of a joke, psychological torture. So you could end up in a place like that.

A couple of the people I interviewed, such as Barry Manners, ended up with an engineer at a dam who was determined to treat them courteously despite Sir Dam's instructions and despite the guards wanting to be meaner. So he took a great risk. I mean, he actually invited them to tea at his house and did what he could, tried to give them food. Barry became lifelong friends with this man, which is rather nice, and Mr. Troll, as I call him, immigrated to Sydney, where I spoke to him recently.

So there was an element of randomness, there was an element of lack of the drawer. A lot of people thought about escaping, and there were various complicated escape plans. There was a bit of the old POW spirit among the breads, you know. They didn't quite get to the stage of working out how to dig a tunnel, but it was more or less like that. But when they heard that Douglas Cospri, who was a breter, who had decided to try and drive out, ended up being his car was riddled with gunfire by Iraqis, and he was killed. That kind of put a damper on the whole.

Was he one of the passengers? No, he was captured on the ground. Good. But my book Operation Trojan Horse, of course, includes the stories of all the human shields, both the ones who arrived on 149 and the ones who were captured on the ground. But that was quickly communicated to everybody. And after that, it was, they had to be pretty careful. A lot of the Iraqi guards were pretty trigger happy. They would pull their weapon. At one stage, Barry Manners told me he lost his temper

and started shouting, he just had enough. He started shouting at the guards in the office, I just got it pointed at Barry and was going to shoot him until other people calmed him down. So it was a terrible ordeal and as I said what really has made me cross over the years is hopefully it's changed in the last week or so, but people didn't realize what a horrible time these people had and some people used to say to them, oh When they got back, oh, well, you're safe and well yet a bit of a holiday, you know Terrible There's a one passenger who was 14 years old and

Jennifer chapel and she has suffered lifelong depression and mental health problems. She's literally never recovered from her ordeal as of others. Didn't the captain try and hide somewhere, the captain and some of the crew? Yeah, so this is a controversial moment. So at one stage, Yeah, so this is a controversial moment. So at one stage, Brunier decided to escape, and he did so, and he took a few of his crew with him, not all.

And it's fair to say, I wouldn't judge the man not having walked in his shoes in that difficult circumstance. But it's fair to say that a lot of the passengers felt completely abandoned, you know, the captain deserting the sinking ship. And I had a very interesting conversation with, which had bune about this when I was interviewing him. So he ended up, he escaped and ended up with the Kuwaiti resistance.

And I asked him, I said, which had, how did you find the Kuwaiti resistance after you escaped? And he said, well, I walked out of the hotel and my shorts and T-shirt and I knocked on a few doors and I found them. and I was sitting in his living room at the time and there's certain moments as a journalist when you're looking at somebody and you know they're not telling the truth and he was looking at me and he knew I knew he wasn't telling the truth but clearly he wasn't going to say anything more the The idea of this

Englishman knocking on doors in a Iraqi occupied sitting saying, hello, it's anybody from the Kuwaiti resistance here is just the most British way to do it though. If you go to do it, excuse me, is this the Kuwaiti resistance I'm looking for you at the moment? But it's absurd and the quainity resistance was subject to the most brutal repression and when I read Richard's diary actually one of the resistance people helping him Was brutally captured and tortured One of the great uns told stories about this by the way is the incredible heroism of the quainity resistance many of them young woman. So which it's escape and fairness to him also he had obviously as an MI6 asset he had reason to be worried about being captured and he also had a

reason to be worried about being captured funny enough because of his dad. So at one stage the Braunjaits lived in Baghdad and his dad was a businessman who apparently had fallen out with Saddam Hussein. So Saddam Hussein is not somebody you want to make an enemy of. So you know, there's a lot of different opinions on whether which had Bruñate was right to free, free. He clearly had been given contacts in the resistance in advance to use the fiat to, and that's how he found them. But you know, I wouldn't judge. I mean, you know, genuine fear of his life

probably should have gone, should he say who knows. And which by the way like so many of these people who were involved in this by the way Chris died before their time you know which had died in his 50s his co-pilot Gordon Gault died in his 50s the chief engineer Wildman died in his 60s so that's three for three in the cockpit who died. What circumstances? Well, a variety, I think a heart attack, cancer. You know, I'm not saying anything nefarious happened to them, but definitely the accumulated stress and things of that ordeal. Lots of people, Carol Miles, the woman who checked in the men, and kept the secret she died before her time,

a Michael London, the controller at BA on the day, a man who I would have loved to have interviewed died of a heart attack just a few months later. Many of the passengers who have suffered mental health problems or physical health problems have died early. Stress is a health drug. Exactly. Poor Denise Dyer, one of the stewardesses who are husband, Neil, who suffered badly from PTSD and who has been a long time trying to get to the truth of this matter, died. British Airways, by the way, treated this their own staff and passengers,

appallingly. I mean, they, when several passengers, several of the staff tried to write books or find out the truth, British Airways threatened them. And it's passengers, you know, here's a truth, British Airways threaten them. And its passengers, you know, here's a situation where British Airways fought tooth and nail all the way to the House of Lords, not to pay compensation to the British passengers. At the same time, it turns out they got a massive insurance settlement from their plane. Now their plane was not destroyed by their Arkeys. As we've been told for years, it was sitting intact on the runway. It was destroyed by the US Air Force. Deliverately. So, here's British Airways denying any compensation to its passengers while pocketing a large check

because the Allies blew up their own plane. Amazing. You knew this, right? Because there's this very famous photo, the back of a blown-off tail of the British Airways flight. But as you said in the book, the Iraqis were taking light bulbs out, copper piping, anything that they could that was a value because they had quite scarce resources. So having an entire functioning plane and then blowing that up was at odds with their modus operandi outside of that.

So it looks like the Americans blew up the British plane to... And the request of the Brits, although certainly. I mean, it always struck me as being unlikely. Remember that it couldn't have been accidental. I mean, remember BA-1 for no, was literally sitting there by itself at the airport. It's not like it's next to a military target or surrounded by other things, it's sitting there on its own, and for weeks and weeks and weeks. And I said the Iraqis were busy looting stuff and why not, the planes are prize, why not just fly it back, alternatively,

just leave it there. Take it as a trophy, yeah, exactly. As a symbol, and suddenly it ends up as this wreckage. And as I said, it really always struck me as unlikely that it happened. And then I had two different sources, one in the US and one Britain confirmed that it was blowing up by our lot as it were. How did the passengers get back? Because they're distributed, right? You've got 70 different locations, you've got some of them in hiding with the Q8 resistance, what happens to get them back to the country?

Well, a lot of different things, really. First off, there were some early releases of various nationalities who Saddam thought should be on his side. Malaysians and Indians and others got home recently early. Then a lot of the passengers used to call them, that human shells used to call them celebrity visits. People get turning up and Baghdad to be captured on camera talking to Saddam Hussein, negotiating the release of hostages. Jesse Jackson turned up, I think, Edward Heath went, Tony Ben-

Who are these people? Jesse Jackson's American well-known African American politician and civil rights campaigner and Heath of course is former British prime minister, Ben's of British politician. Anyway the celebrity visits, they they turned up and there was this great photo opportunities and and then Sudan would release a few people so they could go home. The passengers were very cynical about this exercise as they were about the Iraqis used to run this television program called guest news and the passengers would be gathered and

Saddam would turn up with an Iraqi crew and Hear that all these happy people the benefit of our wonderful hospitality. That's when the famous image happened of Saddam patting the boys to at Lockwood on the head. And by the way, during this unreported, Saddam, a few minutes later or beforehand, another little boy, apparently kicked him in the shins, hard, and so damn turned round and said, who are his parents? That was a bad moment for the parents. So anyway, there was this all this weird stuff going on, and people being released. Then after a month or so, he announced he would let the woman and children go.

He was being, at the time, I think he had hopes that they would let him keep Kuwait and there would be some negotiating settlement. So this was the sort of great dictators gesture. And that led to some incredibly intense moments because husbands and wives, you know, does the wife go and the husband stay? The husband of course had no choice, but the wife had a choice. And I'd want an amazing description in the camp where a lot of couples were kept. There was this long

after they heard there was this kind of long night of intense, emotional, whispering conversations. Where husbands and wives decided and then incredibly painful departures. Some of the wives decided to stay with their husband. They didn't all go. No, the help yards, Daphne and Henry, Daphne decided to stay with Henry. And when I interviewed them, and this is, I interviewed them on camera seven years later,

when they talked about the moment, just the memory of it, Daphne had tears in her eyes, and Henry was very emotional and said, look, I will forever be grateful to her for staying with me. But of course, I think he also constantly had doubts about whether it was the right thing to do as you would, a natural human was the right thing to do. And Henry, by the way, his daughter, Rowan, said, he never ever recovered from this, ever. And he died a few years later, definitely he died recently. So yeah, these tremendously intense and emotional decisions. So that happened. Then of course, Saddam had a whole package of me and a few women. And often by the way, Chris, they were moved around.

So some of them, they were shuffled around in the middle of the night, not knowing where they were going. And they'd be at an electricity substation. So they recognized. Sometimes they didn't even know where they were because they were shoved in at night in sheds. And the windows were. So they could, they could have been anywhere. Another

time they they bus turned up at something which was obviously to do with chemical warfare. So that was particularly scary for them. They only few you know imagine that being bombed. I mean just absolutely who end this They had to live with that. The quality of the food deteriorated, the attitude of the guards deteriorated. It was clear they were going to be killed if there was an invasion. So for several months after that, it was even more halish for those who were caught behind. Then, Saddam Hussein, of course, in many ways, was a very odd individual in his decision-making, as we know. For instance, why would anybody pretend to the West? He still had weapons of mass destruction programs when he

didn't, which you know if he don't adapt to it and allow them to inspect that it would be no 2003 Gulf War, but also in a decision which nobody to this day ever understands. In December as the war built up was in full swing, and the Westerners were seriously worried, the Western military planners were seriously worried about these hostages. They had the SAS and Delta Force had drawn up possible rescue plans, put in special forces teams and try to get them out before the war started. So there's no boots on the ground yet at this stage? No, no, it's a build up to war.

But they decided it was impossible. They didn't really know where everybody was. And this would have been 70 odds, simultaneous special forces, rescue operations. So they had to abandon it. So Western planners, military planners, their planning was really made difficult by the presence of these human shields, which was sedams intention. Should we bomb this dam? Should we bomb this other place? Here's a place we probably should bomb a bridge, but we don't know whether the human shields are there or not. They had some locations identified and others not. If the Moines storm into this beach at Kuwait, should we first shell these hotels and gun emplacements?

Maybe not because there are hostages in that hotel. So all these incredibly difficult decisions and Saddam had a trump card to play. Now, thatcher and Bush kept saying it didn't matter, but it mattered to the military planners. And there was quite a history, Chris, of prisoners of war being killed in bombing missions. Famously, years later it was revealed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hundreds and hundreds of Americans were killed. They were held as prisoners in the cities. So here's the situation. And then an early December,

before the war started. Saddam, I don't know, woke up one day and made a public announcement work up one day and made a public announcement that he was letting everybody go. And the military planners were overjoyed. This removed a whole set of problems that they then didn't have to think about. Nobody knows why, as I said, the best explanation I've heard is that still in the back of his mind, he thought he could negotiate his way out of the war. The war started, by the way, in a dispute about an oil field which is half and co-aid and half in Iraq, the proceeds of the oil field. That was one of the main issues. So the best explanation for this inexplicable decision was he thought, I'll make another gesture, I'll have the world on my side, I'm a man of peace, excuse me, I'm a man of peace and this

will help me as a negotiator. But whatever the reason was, all the men got let go, wore home, there were these tremendously emotional reunions. But then everybody forgot about them. It's classically the media where we, you know, often for big stories, we can only concentrate on one big thing at a time. And I, maybe, with the independent on Sunday, I was really interested in investigating these people. But by December, the war was coming and the invasion was coming, the Gulf war was coming, desert storm was coming. So we all got interested in that. And, and you know, we set up a war desk and we went for coverage and correspondence and TV crews went and so the hostages were forgotten. And left, they got virtually no help of any kind, no office of psychological help, no real office of financial help.

There was a British medical journal study saying there was an extraordinary high percentage of them that lost their jobs, their homes, their their mental well-being. They were forgotten about. They were briefly debriefed when they arrived by spies who wanted to know where they were and what the place looked like. And that was it, they were gone. And then as I said a few months later, Operation Sandcastle is commissioned which would have been presented to Parliament and reminded people what happened to the hostages but was suppressed.

Clearly because the war was over, the traders are great success, victory for Bush, victory for Thatcher, victory for freedom in the West. And they didn't want anybody thinking of or being reminded of why British Airways Flight 149 landed and what actually happened to all the human shields in captivity. What was such as reason for British Airways flight landing? To um, was basically a favor to the Americans to get an observation team on the ground in a hurry um, so they could keep an eye on the uh, quatey um, sorry the Iraqi troop movements in Kuwait. What was her public statement about it, though?

What was her justification? She can't have said that to the public. No, no, no. She's denied it ever happened, and she gave a completely false, not denied the plane landed, but she's denied that it ever happened. There was a mission. She gave a completely false statement to Parliament a month later. She said the plane landed, the crew got off, the replacement crew got on, and all of this happened

before the invasion, and she repeated it. All of this happened before the invasion. It's completely untrue. The invasion started when the plane was four hours flying time, and she knew on the day I have the actual intelligence intelligence flash messages which went around in London and Washington. So a month later she's lying about it and then the lies and cover-ups have been perpetrated ever since. It's fair to say that the people I've talked to from the team on the ground felt it was a military success that they delivered valuable intelligence on the Iraqi troop movements and they helped. But they have a conscience about what happened to the passengers.

You see one of the things, you know, often things in history, Chris, as we know, are cock-ups and not conspiracies to an extent. And it's important to understand when they originally drew up this plan, the team who were going in were told that the Kuwaiti military would hold out for between three and five days. When the Iraqis cross the border, as I explain in Operation Trojan Horse, the Kuwaiti military collapsed like a pack of cards in a few hours. The Kuwaiti royal family took off to Saudi Arabia in a long convoy of Mercedes and Range Rovers without leaving any

instructions for the defense of their country. So rather than three to five days, Iraqi tanks arrived at Kuwait Airport in about three and four hours. And so it's fair to say that the mission as originally planned, one for nine would have taken off long before. But that doesn't let them off the hook because the simple fact is that the invasion started when the plane was four hours flying time and could have been turned around any time up to the point of final descent by which days Iraqi troops were at the airport. And Kuwaiti air traffic controllers were, remember, Kuwaiti air traffic controllers were contacting a Kuwaiti airlines flight and say, you must land in Bahrain, don't come here and yet nobody told one for nine not to

land. So it was outrageous. It was a case of the air traffic controllers not telling one for nine not to land, not that they told them and the captain didn't hear or turned off the radio. They didn't. Well, this the air traffic control is never delivered a warning. All all messages on approach were normal messages. Now, here's one mystery, by the way, and if there's anybody out there who knows this, please feel free to contact me. One mystery I've never been able to solve is why coediat air traffic controllers who had weighed with all the approaching planes or flights.

Why would they say, turn away to one plane and not another? I mean, they're responsible professionals doing their job. turn away to one plane and not another. I mean, they're responsible professionals doing their job. Why would they do that? The best explanation that I've heard, and I haven't had it thoroughly sourced enough to put it in the book, but I didn't, so I didn't. But it's plausible was that the Brits,

because there's a big British military liaison team in Kuwait, the Brits had put somebody in the control tower effectively taking it over to make sure no Kuwaitier traffic control is said to 149, oh you better turn around here, because they wanted the plane to land. And all of this was to facilitate getting those nine men... Absolutely, on the ground. Getting the team on to the ground, who disappeared and wall, others were captured. And so if there's anybody out there who knows what happened in the air traffic control, tell, please, feel free to contact me.

So the, the, as a military mission, I think, you know, you can say there was justification for it, but there was no justification once you knew the invasion started. Of risking those people's lives and bear in mind, Chris, that in landing the plane while tanks were at the airport and the airport soon to be bombed by mig fighters, of course, they were dropping their own team in it as well. It was perfectly possible that those nine guys could have been captured. And I can tell you what, if their identities

had been revealed at special forces, they would have been very badly treated indeed by the Iraqis. What's the broader geopolitical implications of what's happened? So this is interesting. The team was sending back very clear intelligent. The fear was that Saddam having taken over Kuwait would go on to invade northern Iraq, at which point the dictator would control 40% of the world's oil supply. So I have historically, as it were, I read all the history and all the reports, we have this moment when Dick Cheney and Norman Swartzkov fly to Saudi Arabia,

think the 6th of August it was, four days after the plane landed. And they talk to the Saudi king and they show him satellite images and they say, look, we can help you stop the Iraqis invading your country, but you have to allow our troops and planes to base themselves in your country. Now during this famous meeting, the king turned to his fellow princes and brothers who universally said no, don't want it. And the Saudis had by this stage sent their own scout troops over the border and could detect no sign of Iraqi troops close to the border. And by this stage, the teams who had landed on 149 were sending intelligence back, saying, saying there's no evidence they're adopting offensive positions and it turns out

there was satellite imagery taken by the Russians but apparently quite accurate and broken by an American newspaper at the time although the story was ignored that the Iraqi troops weren't in the offensive positions. So they had all of this suggesting that there was no need for American troops on Saudi soil, and the kings, everybody telling the king, don't do it. But Cheney and Swartzkov saying, oh, you might be invaded by the Rakees, we can help you, let our troops in. So for some reason, the king said yes. They were so surprised by the way that Schwartzkopf said he nearly fell off his chair and Dick Clark, who was in the meeting,

a senior state department guy, said we were shocked. We never expected them in a million years to say yes. So the Saudis had had a previous offer from a man who went to the Saudi defense minister, a rich Saudi and said, I will raise an army of holy warriors, a hundred thousand strong army, and I will kick Saddam out of Quate City for you. And this man, when he found out that they allowed American troops, and instead of his offer, this man Oshama bin Laden swore revenge. And of course, on 9-11 carried out his threat. There would have been no 9-11 without American troops on Saudi soil. And Dick Clark, in the book Trojan Horse, you will find a remarkable comment from Dick Clark, who's an expert in this field, saying actually 30 years of chaos and destruction in the Middle East,

including the Gulf War, including ISIS, including failed states, all comes from that crucial decision to have American troops on Saudi soil. So the significance of this is immense, much wider than just the hostages. And, curiously, this is one of the unexamined parts of history. People just accepted at face value that Cheney and Swartzkov were presenting a proper case and presenting the accurate intelligence. As we know now, of course, there's a long history of misuse of intelligence in these areas. But this is huge. This is where history changed gears. And my closing sentence in Operation Trojan Horses, if the secret team that had gone in on one for nine, if their intelligence had been acted upon, and

there'd been no immediate control out, and the world would clearly be a safer, more peaceful place now. Clearly. Do you think that Cheney and Swatkov were lying about what the British intelligence officers were feeding back? Would they a culpable insight on the ground that was allowing them to say we've actually seen it, British have got some intelligence officers that are down there. This is what we're being told. That's a good question. I mean, they had satellite pictures, which apparently showed Iraqi troops somewhere, although there doesn't seem to be satellite pictures, which showed them near the border. They could have, I think it was case of cherry picking. That's the problem

with misuse of intelligence. Of course, intelligence intelligence by definition is not there's there's not exactitudes and intelligence. It's bits of this and bits of that and best guesses. And you can often have intelligence that's contradictory. So you can just cherry pick the bits that you want to achieve the aim that you want and and ignore the rest. Although that being said, Cheney of course has a reputation for,

for, you know, completely exaggerating and totally misusing intelligence. So yeah, like if you're going to lie about what the assets are feeding back to you in terms of information, why not just lie about the assets being there at all? And of course part of the interesting thing in the cover-up, you know, say the year after the Gulf War when

America had bases in Saudi and, you know, maybe some of the consequences are becoming clear to people, if there was a revelation that the Brits were delivering intelligence on the ground right from the start, that the Iraqis were adopting defensive positions, there would have been very hard questions asked by everybody. So that was kind of another reason for the cover-up, I think. You know, the fact the mission was there, the fact they dropped all these people in terrible circumstances, and the fact they ignored a lot of the intelligence that was delivered. And bear in mind that right from the start, Mrs. Thatcher was very gung-ho about

this whole thing, right from the first minute. One of the extraordinary revelations, I think, in my book, in Operation Trojan Horse, was when the team were briefed, they were told that if necessary, if necessary, and if the Republican Guard were in southern Kuwait looking threatening, Fatcher was prepared to authorize a tactical nuclear weapon on the Republican Guard. So basically Fatcher was prepared to nuke Southern Kuwait, which is just mind-boggling, really. When we spoke to her private secretary, he denied it all, but my people are adamant. And actually, if you look at Fatcher's comments about the use of nuclear weapons, there's you know my team my people are at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at at reputation. You know, I think this was part of the cover-up. The fact that she was all kind of,

you know, super gung-ho and super aggressive, I think there was an element of protecting her reputation as a statesman. And of course, as you said previously, during this whole business, she was actually dumped and replaced by John Major. Yeah, perilous time to be a prime minister in the UK at that point. Yeah. What, what about the last few months or so? Because obviously you've, it's 30th anniversary. You've brought the book out, calling to account people, trying to say British airways, what have you done? Why haven't we seen the correct reports?

Look at all of the damage that's been done to people. Look at the implications that occurred geopolitically in terms of terror, in terms of boots on the ground and wars and loss of life and all that stuff. What's happened recently? Okay, so for a long time, I never thought I was actually going to get the book out. thought I was actually going to get the book out. The previous efforts had been frustrated, actively frustrated, I'd been deliberately sent misinformation and disinformation to disrupt the process years ago, and unfortunately most of the media had given up on this. So for the last 15 years, I've carried out my investigation in my own time. The fantastic New Statesman and its great editor and friend of mine, Peter will be wearing a piece by me about 16 years ago about this, but most of the media had given up, put it in the too hard basket. So I kept going and got a publisher and an American publisher and we arranged this reunion on August

the 2nd, which it was supposed to be 30 year reunion but the pandemic put paid to that. So it was August the 2nd just gone and so I appeared at a press conference, alongside me remarkably, was an MIT, a retired MIT Six Office, a called Tony Pace, who courageously had agreed to appear to back the passengers' case. I mean, this is unheard of. MIT Six agents are bound by a lifelong official secret act. They can go to jail for revealing things. Tony was the man who, so British Airways have claimed for 30 years that the briefah at the Kuwaiti Embassy

said it was safe to fly, so they flew. Tony Pace was this briefah and he says the opposite. He didn't tell them it was safe to fly at all. He specifically said if you have a plane going through mid-p after midnight, it could get caught in the invaraki invasion, which the plane was due to land at 4 a.m. So faced with that warning, by the way, from the briefer, no airline in its right mind would have flown to a quaint, but British Airways did. So here is pace, breaking his silence, appearing in the press conference alongside me, risking prosecution under the official sequels act, a very brave man. So here we are. We have the press conference, there's me and pace and some of the other human shields. Lots of media, which was great. The charming John Snow,

who interviewed me afterwards and ran a good piece, the BBC. In a weird moment, by the way, when Tony Pace met John Snow, Tony said, I know you, and the two of them were in a church choir together at 12 years old. How weird is that? Of all the things, my MI6 contact, John Snow turning up to press conference in a choir together at age 12. Anyway, after the press conference and after the interviews, to be honest, I felt, I mean, obviously adrenaline was pumping. To be honest, I felt overwhelmingly melancholy. And I had to go and sit upstairs in a room by myself for a couple

of minutes. And I started to worry whether I had raised the hopes of these people. I mean, there's a demand for an apology, there's a demand for the release of documents. And I thought, oh, have I raised the hopes of all of these people beyond what's achievable? Because, well, I can tell you for a start, they will never admit to the Delayable Mission. Actually, governments of all stripes, toys and and labor, like the ability to do this black ops stuff. So they're never going to own up to that in 100 years. British Airways will never own up to what they did because they'd be facing tremendous financial claims. There was, I think, a chance that we'll get Sandcastle released under the 30-year rule. And so it should. There's no earthly

national security reason now for not telling people what happened, the suffering that these people suffered 30 years ago. Is that there's no reason whatsoever. Anyway, I sat there thinking to myself, ah, I really hope I haven't raised their hopes too high. Anyway, then I went upstairs and all the human shields had gathered in another room. We were put on a lunch for them and we were union. And I walked in and they all just came over to me one by one to hug me and say thank you for bringing this to the public attention. And to be honest, a lot of them were crying and so is I.

And then I thought it's okay. And since then, by the way, I've had so many other people come out of the woodwork and email me, people on the plane who I hadn't even talked to before, saying the same thing. So you know, at least I have the satisfaction after 30 years of work of many more people knowing what happened to the human shields of the Gulf War than did before. So after that I ceased being a mel Colley and felt reasonably cheerful again. And in fact, we've got now a major podcast in preparation next year, which is going to

be the story of the story. And also, I have a fantastic script writer called Matt Orton, who's one of Britain's top script writers, and a production company called House Productions working on a TV drama. So hopefully next year there will be more of a booster publicity to further embarrass the government in keeping the pointless secret. I love it. I mean, the podcasts that I've heard about similar things is a very popular one called Passage a List, which is basically this story but fictionalized, that's unbelievably popular. You know, dramatizing this will get attention on it and if it can help bring these people some closure, I suppose it's efforts well

spent. Yeah, I mean, I'm not as a, as a, as a pretty serious, I think my friends would tell you, in Vesca, the reporter, I'm not, I'm slightly uncomfortable with the dramatization of anything. But sex sells. Seven, six, I know. And but, but it's a way to bring it to, to close the public attention. And it's also a way to be frank,

to tell some of the more horrific stories. I mean, in some of the more horrific cases, I have of course not identified the people who were the victims. Terrible things happened to people while they were there. And so when we dramatize it, we can of of course, show people the terrible things while creating

some kind of composite character to whip scenes. So I guess in that way, it's helpful. But yes, you're right. Look, it's the modern world. And I'm a little old-fashioned about some of these things. So, you know. Stephen Davis, ladies and gentlemen, Operation Trojan Horse, the

most shocking government cover-up of the last 30 years will be linked in the show notes below. Where else should people go? Is there somewhere they can go to sort of keep up to date with developments around this? Yes, so obviously, the book is hardcovered and it's available on Amazon. The audio book is out now, but you can also look at my site, Stephen Davis Writer.com, Stephen Davis Writer altogether.com. And if people are, so one of the things this experience taught me

was a real interest in misinformation and disinformation. So I've actually developed a course about that. I teach it at university in New Zealand, University of Otago. I teach it at university in New Zealand, University of Otago. I have a tremendous interest in the use of misinformation and disinformation. And if people want to read how misinformation and disinformation was used in this particular story, if you go to my site and you will find a headline called Misinformation and Disinformation, click on that and you will read quite an interesting case history.

So I'll be updating that site when I finish my, two weeks worth of interviews with people like you and we'll be continually pushing for, there's some suggestion of new legal action by the passengers, we'll be, I'm gonna keep going pushing for the truth on this, Chris. Stephen, thanks very much for today. William, no trouble. you