2RHPZ
05-12-2004, 06:27 PM
Weary special forces quit for security jobs
Telegraph | News | Weary special forces quit for security jobs
By David Rennie in Washington and Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 31/03/2004)
Exhausted American and British special forces troopers, the West's front line in the war on terrorism, are resigning in record numbers and taking highly-paid jobs as private security guards in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Senior US commanders are so alarmed that they have held emergency meetings to agree new deals on pay and conditions for the men.
Men from the SAS in Britain and Australia and America's Delta Force are said to be weary after almost 30 months of nearly continuous service since the September 11 attacks.
Gen Bryan "Doug" Brown, head of the US special operations command, summoned his commanders to Washington for a crisis meeting last week. He told the Senate armed services committee that the retention of special forces had become "a big issue".
US special forces troopers earn up to £30,000 but are being offered packages of £60,000 to £120,000 to work in combat zones.
For SAS soldiers earning £250 a week in Iraq, the lure of up to £1,000 a week is easily understood. The most experienced men in the most dangerous jobs are reported to be making £5,000 a week.
The manning crisis comes as Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, pushes the military to use special forces more and more widely, favouring them over conventional forces, for their speed, small scale and ability to operate in complete secrecy with only minimal legal oversight.
Gen David Grange, a retired army Ranger, Green Beret and member of Delta Force - the elite, top-secret unit modelled on the SAS - told The Telegraph yesterday that family pressures were also taking their toll on his former colleagues.
"In my Vietnam platoon two people were married. Now it's maybe 60 per cent. Even if special forces are wild characters, with high divorce rates, there's still enormous pressure from families. They've been away more or less continuously since September 11 and wives are asking, 'Where the hell are you?' "
The war on terrorism has placed unprecedented strains on special forces. Gen Grange said: "The US army alone has people in 120 countries.
"A lot of those people are special forces - counter-drug, counter-insurgency or counter-terrorism - as well as our own insertions."
The US government is also increasingly privatising its most sensitive missions, hiring defence contractors for such tasks as guarding Paul Bremer, the Iraq occupation chief, or Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, or heading overseas to train foreign militaries.
Peter Singer, author of Corporate Warriors, a study of such privatisation, said the US defence department was the largest client for such private security contractors, paying companies large sums to supply them with former special forces whose training was paid for by US taxpayers.
Gen Grange said special bonuses were now being paid to special forces for overseas deployment and hazardous duty. But money was never the key factor for many of his comrades, he said. "In the private sector you don't have the brotherhood or the sense of duty and country."
Though many of Gen Grange's missions remain secret, he conceded that special operations offered greater excitement than private work.
"Going out to destroy something or capture or kill someone - those have to be government or military missions unless you're a mercenary or doing something illegal."
Green Berets and other special forces receive 18 months' training in combat and survival skills, including airborne and amphibious warfare, and are also required to learn at least one foreign language. They may apply only after six to eight years in the military. Army Rangers are also counted as special forces, specialising in seizing airfields and ports.
The precise number of US special forces is shrouded in secrecy, though an overall figure of between 49,000 and 66,000 is quoted for Special Operations Command.
However, Jennifer Kibbe, an intelligence specialist at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, said such large numbers included administrative and support personnel. "What they call 'trigger pullers' is more in the vein of 10,000," she said.
British officials say more than 300 soldiers have left the armed forces in the past six months to take up lucrative jobs with private companies such as Olive Security, Armour Security, Global and USDID. The problem goes beyond elite special forces. There are more than 160 British former paratroopers working in Baghdad, where the Coalition Provisional Authority has hired a battalion of Fijian soldiers to guard money deliveries to banks.
More than 500 former Gurkhas, working for Global Logistics Security, are guarding buildings for the CPA.
2RHPZ
05-12-2004, 06:28 PM
March 11, 2004
Health warnings in SAS study
The Australian: Health warnings in SAS study [March 09, 2004]
By Max Blenkin
March 09, 2004
MEMBERS of the elite Special Air Service (SAS) were exposed to lead, teargas and explosions in training, and experienced high levels of physical trauma and stress, a study has found.
It says the SAS training environment could lead to potential adverse health effects and some members of the SAS may have been exposed to asbestos during exercises.
The study, conducted by an expert panel headed by the chairman of the Repatriation Medical Authority Professor Ken Donald, concludes that actual levels of exposure of individuals to these chemicals could not be determined.
"Nevertheless, the panel was able to determine that the SAS training environment involved a range of exposures that can lead to potential adverse health effects," the study says.
"In particular, development of the counter-terrorist capacity of the SAS in the late 1970s and early 1980s involved the development of new skills and expertise, which brought exposure to risks associated with experimentation and intense periods of enhanced hazard."
The study finds SAS personnel encountered lead on indoor firing ranges, high levels of teargas, coloured smoke and masking agents as well as explosions and high levels of physical trauma and stress.
In some training environments, they may have been exposed to asbestos.
The study was launched in 2002 after SAS veterans expressed concern that their arduous and realistic training caused long-lasting health problems.
Veterans Affairs Minister Danna Vale said the Government had agreed to adopt all 14 of the report recommendations.
"The report has confirmed that SAS members are exposed to a level of health risk reflecting both defence service generally and the specialised nature of SAS training," she said.
"The panel found that most of these potential health exposures are covered by the existing compensation principles of the repatriation system. In a small number of cases, the panel recommended revision of the existing arrangements. The Government accepts all of the panel's findings."
Defence Personnel Minister Mal Brough said the Defence and Veterans Affairs Departments would work co-operatively to address the panel findings.
"Many of the issues raised by the panel are already being addressed through the Occupational Health and Safety strategy that is being be implemented across Defence," he said.
"In accepting and acting on these findings, the Australian Government maintains its commitment to meeting the health and safety needs of all defence personnel."
Mr Brough said key responses to the panel's findings would involve continued development of transition management services for ADF members receiving a medical discharge plus long-term monitoring of the types and levels of exposure to different stresses during military service.
privacy © The Australian :roll:
2RHPZ
05-12-2004, 06:30 PM
March 10, 2004
Operation certain death
When the SAS was told to rescue British soldiers in Sierra Leone, the odds were so high that the top brass warned of a possible disaster. Damien Lewis reveals how they triumphed
Nosing their inflatables up yet another vast sandbank, the SAS men gathered in the darkness. They were exhausted, soaked to the skin, covered in mud from the river and eaten alive by mosquitoes. The boat trip was clearly over. It was time to say goodbye.
The inflatables disappeared into the night, leaving 10 men behind. They were the advance party of one of the most hazardous rescues in the history of the SAS.
It was August 2000. Eleven soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment had been kidnapped by Sierra Leonean rebels known as the West Side Boys. UK special forces commanders had been told to prepare a plan to free them.
The first move was to dispatch these 10 observers to spy on the rebels? jungle camp at Gberi Bana about 30 miles up a river called Rokel Creek from Freetown, Sierra Leone?s capital.
The SAS men now trekked for five miles through the jungle on extreme ?hard routine?, carrying their weapons, their communications equipment, specialist spying gear and food. They had waterproof bivvy bags, but not for sleeping in; they were for emergency use if a man was ill or injured.
They had only the clothes they stood up in. Ultimately each man would take on the musky scent of an animal. They would eat cold food, chocolate, sweets and dried fruit. They would urinate into bottles, defecate into plastic bags, and stow them in their bergens.
They approached the rebel base just before first light. The final 200 yards turned out to be so impenetrable that they were forced to lie up with no sight of the village. They searched for the most uninviting and thorny thicket they could find and crawled into it. This was home for the next few days.
By mid-morning they were able to radio Waterloo camp, the British special forces base outside Freetown, Sierra Leone?s capital, with the bad news that the terrain was totally unsuited to a covert overland assault. Nor had a river assault any chance of succeeding. And the landing zone picked from satellite photos for a helicopter attack had turned out to be a vast swamp.
It was to be Operation Certain Death then, as the men had started calling the only remaining option: putting an assault team on helicopters and flying them right into the heart of the rebel camp.
This was a plan born of desperation: roaring into the target, dropping down by rope and rescuing the hostages before the well-armed and much larger force of rebels carried out a threat to kill them.
Flying in on choppers and fast-roping onto the target were tactics that had gone badly wrong for US special forces in Mogadishu in the Black Hawk Down incident in 1993. None of the men assembled at Waterloo camp had forgotten the naked corpses of American soldiers hauled through the streets by a victorious Somali mob.
If this operation went pear-shaped ? and there was every possibility it might ? it would be a disaster for Tony Blair?s government.
The prime minister was receiving daily briefings. Mission assessment was that in the worst-case scenario they would have to be willing to lose half an SAS squadron and a helicopter crew. In other words, 40-odd members of the special forces, Britain?s finest, could die.
Yet a decision had already been taken that the hostages had to be rescued, at any cost. If the men of the assault force ended up paying a heavy price for that freedom, then so be it.
There was now a real prospect that the hostage crisis could rally Sierra Leone?s various rebel factions into a force that would beat the best the British military had to throw at them.
This would give the Libyan-backed, Al-Qaeda-financed rebel coalition a real opportunity to succeed in their avowed aim of ?doing a Somalia? on British forces in Sierra Leone.
COLONEL GS was in a rage. Walking down the line of British hostages, he jabbed each of them hard in the chest, spitting out a number from one to 11.
?Kneel,? he yelled in Creole. ?Go get down on your knees. You know what the numbers are for? That is the order in which we go start kill you. One for each hour the deadline no go met for our demands.?
It was day four of the crisis, and the West Side Boys were frustrated by the lack of response from Britain. One of their leaders, Colonel GS (for general staff) was taking his anger out on the hostages.
?Go na fetch my gun,? he barked at a boy soldier called Movement. The boy came hurrying back with an ancient but well-used AK-47 assault rifle. GS cocked it, patting it lovingly.
The hostages found themselves praying: ?Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come . . .?
?Which of these your men is actually stupid enough to believe that there is a God?? GS asked their commander, Major Alex Martial.
?We all are, colonel. Every man under my command believes there is a God.?
?Which of you really believe it enough to admit it and die?? Slowly and deliberately, Martial raised his hand. ?I do, colonel.?
There was a moment?s deathly silence. Then Captain Ed Flaherty, Martial?s second in command, raised his arm. So did Sergeant Mickey Smith, and within the space of a few seconds all the British soldiers had raised their hands. F*** it, they thought. The major had always said it would be all of them or none of them. They?d stick together, even if this was the end.
?Say the prayers, then, whiteboys,? the colonel sneered. ?You go have less than one hour left. We go see if this your God can save you now. Think about it. One hour. And then I go start the shooting.?
The kneeling men asked themselves what Martial was going to do. One of the youngest majors in the British Army, he was the only hostage with special forces training. In the hours after the ambush of his convoy on a jungle road, his ?conduct after capture? training had kicked into gear. He had made detailed mental notes of rebel weapons positions and fortifications with a view to escape. But he also behaved in a way that his training would have taught him not to.
Classic conduct after capture doctrine is that the quiet, unnoticed individual is the last person a captor might think of executing. Yet the major deliberately offered himself up as the focus of the rebels? anger and violence.
Now, Martial spoke up: ?Excuse me, colonel, but we have a tradition in England that a man who?s about to die is granted a last request. If you?re agreeable, I?d ask you to share a last drink with us.?
The hostages barely dared breathe. They were half expecting the colonel to grab his gun and shoot the major. Instead, an evil grin spread across his face.
?I like your idea,? he purred. ?A dying man?s last drink. Movement, go na fetch some drinks. The English men they want to go get drunk with us before we go kill them.?
Movement returned with plastic jerrycans of palm wine, a slimy, milky-white liquid generally full of dead insects. It is mildly alcoholic and tastes nauseating.
?Drink!? the colonel ordered.
Martial took a pull. ?Not quite Guinness,? he said, ?but not bad.?
The palm wine went down the line, followed by cartons marked rum, gin and whisky, each containing the same gut-wrenching liquid.
Ten minutes passed. A crowd of rebels gathered to join in the binge. Two of them chopped up cannabis and passed round joints. Others heated up heroin or crack cocaine.
The hour deadline came and went. Soon 30 or more West Side Boys were joining the party. There was no more talk of execution.
?Jesus, but that was a blinding move, sir,? Ranger Sandy Gaunt told the major as they crept away to their hut, leaving the Boys to party on through the night.
Next day Martial was even more of a hero in this young man?s eyes. The major was taken to meet two hostage negotiators who had flown in from London. He returned with news that some of the hostages would be exchanged for a satellite phone, which the rebels wanted so they could talk to the BBC. Martial said that the youngest and most junior of his men should be released ? Gaunt and three other Rangers, the lowest rank in the regiment.
?Bloody A, sir,? enthused Gaunt.
When the news came that the satphone had been delivered, the four Rangers scrambled to get their kit together. They were heading home. Then the major spoke up.
?Hang on a minute,? he said quietly. There had been a change of plan. Five men were being freed, but they were the older and more senior hostages. He was sorry, but he had decided to favour married men ?with wives and kids and families?. The young Rangers couldn?t believe their ears.
?What the f***! No way, sir!? ?Sir, youse it was who said it was the juniors . . .?
?We?ve all of us got families, sir . . .?
The four young men slumped onto the floor. Burn in shame, they thought bitterly. Burn in shame.
They watched the lucky ones file down to the canoe that was waiting to carry them to safety. Martial also went to the riverside, but he came striding back with the news that the rebels would not let two of the married men go: they were signallers needed for negotiations.
?Quickly, before the bloody boat leaves,? he urged the young men, ?get your names scribbled down on to a scrap of paper. The first two pulled out of a hat get to go.?
Gaunt lost the draw. So did his mate Gavin Rowell. They had been friends since boyhood in east Belfast. Now they would share whatever fate awaited them.
TWO mornings later, the major again showed his quixotic courage. The rebels? self-styled camp commandant ? a former mental patient dubbed ?Calm Down Fresh? by the hostages, as that was what his wife said to pacify him ? ordered Martial to speak to the BBC on the satphone to assure the world the hostages were all right.
He refused, to his men?s dismay.
?Just speak on it, sir,? Gaunt pleaded.
?Please, sir, he?s not f****** around,? Rowell urged. ?Just say a few words on the phone, sir.?
?Go on, sir. Go on.?
?I can?t, lads. I have to let them know that something?s wrong.?
?Come on, sir, surely it can?t do no harm.?
?I?m sorry, lads. We have to get the right sort of message out. Things are in a bad way right now. This is the only way I can think of doing it.?
Calm Down Fresh flew into a rage. He ordered the hostages to strip to their underwear and kneel.
A mob quickly gathered, and a savage free-for-all began as it bore down on the kneeling men. Women tore at the men?s hair. One grabbed a Ranger by his ********s and began to scream obscenities.
Enveloped in sweating bodies, the soldiers went down under the blows. All except Martial, who refused to buckle. Boots, fists and rifle butts rained down on him. Finally, he keeled over on to the ground, where the frenzied mob continued to kick and beat him.
Calm Down Fresh danced about, screaming: ?Refuse to speak to the BBC! Refuse to speak to the BBC!? The mob discussed raping the men before killing them.
The uproar had not gone unnoticed. Hidden 200 yards away, a Mancunian giant with the nickname of Mat was operating a dish-like SAS listening device similar to a satellite television aerial.
He could not see what was happening, but he had heard the shrieks of ?Refuse to speak to the BBC!?, and he now detected a small group of rebels heading out of the village. By the sound of things, they had at least one of the soldiers with them. Mat could make out the flip-flop of the rebels? sandals, and the heavier thud of a set of boots. They were ordering their captive to kneel.
?I think the bastards are about to top one of our boys,? Mat reported urgently. He tensed himself for a gunshot and the sound of a body hitting the ground. ?I can hear a gun being cocked now. Sounds like an AK. One of the bastards is saying he?s going to shoot him. No response from the hostage. Hold on! The bastard?s just pulled the trigger ? with no round up the spout. Mock execution. They?re all pissing themselves laughing.?
Mat heard the rebels call for Foday Kallay, the leader of the West Side Boys. But who was the prisoner? ?Hold on ? it?s Major Martial. I can hear it?s him ? he?s started talking to Kallay now. ?Came to see you to tell you to stop all the fighting,? he?s saying. ?Didn?t come with any bad intentions. If you kill us, it will be for no reason. Won?t do you any good. Spare the hostages? lives, and I can get the British to start giving you what you want. If you kill us, they will know about it very quickly. Give me three or four days. That?s all I ask. But you have to let me talk directly to the British hostage team.?
?Now Kallay?s replying. ?All right. But we need to see some of the things we are asking for being given. Need to know the British are serious. Otherwise . . .?
?Kallay?s ordering them to take the major back inside now. That was a close one. The major sounds on good form, though. Voice firm. Not shaking. Wasn?t begging, either. Just reasoning with them.?
Mat?s account had an electrifying effect when it reached British commanders. That night they moved to within a hair?s breadth of ordering the assault. It would only take one more move by the West Side Boys to trigger the rescue. There were two. When the rebels brought along three decapitated heads on poles (including a baby girl?s) to a hostage negotiation meeting, the British team began to realise that talking to such depraved people was pointless.
Then on Friday September 8, day 15 of the crisis, Mat and the SAS observation team overheard a large group of rebels preparing to seize the hostage negotiators and take more British prisoners. The negotiators were already approaching a meeting with the rebels when they got the warning. They could see the Boys were well armed and far more numerous than usual. They hurriedly turned back. An urgent message was sent to the British military?s Permanent Joint headquarters (PJHQ) in London and on to the prime minister in New York, where he was attending a United Nations summit. Within hours the message came back from Blair: proceed with the attack.
The following evening at Waterloo camp, the commander of D Squadron SAS told his men they would be going in with a force from the Special Boat Squadron (SBS) before dawn. ?And, gentlemen,? he said, ?Her Majesty?s government has made it very clear: you are to give those bastards a bloody nose.?
The men headed for the cookhouse tent before bed. With only hours to go there were now some troubling last-minute thoughts. How would they feel about shooting the many child-soldiers among the rebels, no older than their own kids? And would they survive an attack against such heavy odds?
Lance-Corporal Brad Tinnion wrote a letter home. He had hardly had time to say goodbye to Anna, his girlfriend, before leaving SAS headquarters at Hereford. He was looking forward to seeing their new baby on his return.
Very early the next morning, Sunday September 10, the hostages were asleep in their night quarters: a locked room in Calm Down Fresh?s single-storey house. They were jerked awake in the grey pre-dawn light by the faint throb of rotor blades reaching them on the chill jungle air. ?Any of youse hear what I hear?? Gaunt croaked.
?Choppers,? came a muttered reply.
?Who d?you think it is??
?Keep it down, lads,? the major hissed under his breath. ?It sounds like helis coming upriver. More than one, that?s for sure. ?
?But who is it, sir?? Gaunt hissed back, with rising panic. ?The f****** UN??
A few days previously, the West Side Boys had attacked a UN base manned by Nigerian peacekeepers. Was this a revenge attack? The noise grew louder but then gradually faded away.
?Maybe it was the UN, and they sort of lost their bottle, like,? Gaunt whispered. The six men settled again. But no sooner had they put their heads down than the noise returned.
?They?re coming back in again, and f****** fast this time.? A chopper roared in low. Suddenly all hell broke loose as heavy machineguns chewed into the village. The soldiers pressed their faces down into the dirt floor, their hands over their heads. ?F*** off out of here, why don?t youse just f*** off!?
Rowell screamed, his voice all but lost in the ear-splitting roar of gunfire. There was a deafening sound of tearing metal and splintering wood above them as the downdraught from a Chinook ripped the roof off the house. The soldiers cringed deeper into the dirt. Now they could hear the distinct crack-crack-crack of gunshots inside the house, very close to them. A boot smashed at their door. Oh, ****e. Were the Boys about to burst into the room with murder in their eyes? There was a sharp splintering of wood as the door caved in. Martial yelled: ?British soldiers! British soldiers! British soldiers!? The figure silhouetted in the doorway shouted back: ?British Army! British Army! Stay down! Stay down! Stay on the floor.?
He took a step into the room and asked in a voice straining over the din of battle: ?Are you all here?? ?All six British,? the major replied. ?All except the Sierra Leonean, Corporal Mousa.? Mousa was a local soldier who had been kidnapped with them, but he had been separated from them and forced to endure his own horror, tied up in a pit of water. Martial had whispered encouragement to him whenever he could get near. He was now lying in his bindings behind Foday Kallay?s house.
?Where the hell is your Corporal Mousa, then?? ?Out the front door. Turn left. Large white building.? ?Right. Stay down. And here, take this,? the man ordered, handing the major a pistol. ?But no heroics. Only use it if you have to. And if you see any of our guys, keep it hidden. You don?t want to be seen with a weapon, okay? Now, I?ll be back in a jiffy with your Mousa.?
It was not so simple. The trussed-up Mousa had woken to the noise of the air armada. As the noise grew louder, he could hear Kallay raging. Kill all the hostages. ?Kill, kill, kill ? kill them all!?
Half a dozen men under the command of a rebel called Mr Die rushed off to the hostage house just as the sky exploded with gunfire, chewing up Kallay?s house. There was a screeching sound as the roof was ripped off and came crashing down on top of Mousa. He lay there for what felt like 15 minutes, listening to the Chinooks raining down death from above. Then he had heard the choppers withdrawing and Mousa thought the British attack had failed. Convinced that he would be executed, the corporal struggled to free himself. He got his hands behind his back up against a piece of torn galvanised roofing, and began to saw painfully on the ropes binding him. ?Mousa! Mousa!?
He could hear shouts getting nearer. Were the West Side Boys trying to find him so they could kill him?
?Mousa! Mousa!? They were British voices.
?Yes, I?m here! British soldier! Mousa is here!? There was a tearing at the galvanised sheeting above him.
?Don?t move or I shoot!?
A soldier towered above him, his white face daubed in black and green warpaint, his eyes raw red with aggression. He stuck his gun in Mousa?s face and shone a powerful torch beam in the corporal?s eyes.
?Right. What?s your f****** name!?
?It?s Mousa. Don?t shoot. It?s me, Mousa.?
The soldier lifted Mousa by the scruff of the neck.
?Again! What?s your name??
?Mousa. I?m Mousa . . . I?m Corporal Mousa. I . . . I?m one of the hostages.?
?All right, corporal, on your legs and follow me. And look smart now. I?m not f****** waiting.?
?I . . . I can?t move . . . My legs . . . my arms . . . I can?t move.? Crouching down, the soldier looked closer. ?Jesus, the evil bastards. They?ve given you a hard time, haven?t they, mate??
Taking a knife from his belt, he sliced through the ropes. Then he lifted Mousa up, slung him over his shoulder, resting the corporal?s weight on his bergen and an anti-tank rocket strapped to it, and grabbed his machinegun with his free hand.
?Geordie,? he yelled to another soldier, ?cover me, mate.?
And he set off at a run with Mousa on his shoulders, Geordie putting down covering fire. As Mousa was carried the 40-odd yards to the hostage house, he saw rebel bodies scattered in the long grass. A quick crack-crack-crack from Geordie?s gun and Mousa saw another of the rebels go down. These guys are good, he thought to himself. Each time they fire they find a target. Suddenly the British hostages were all around Mousa, embracing him. ?It?s all over,? said the grinning major. ?Time to be happy.?
IT WAS not all over for the SAS, however. The rebel gunfire was too inaccurate to be very effective, but even stray bullets could kill. As the rebels counterattacked, one of these rounds hit Brad Tinnion in the leg and the bullet slewed off the bone up into his body. He had taken cover like the rest of his fire team, but the round struck him from behind. It must have been a ricochet. Shock affects the wounded in different ways, and at first Tinnion seemed alert and was able to talk. Within minutes, a Chinook pilot braved direct hits from rebel gunfire to evacuate him. But halfway to the Sir Percival, a hospital ship docked at Freetown, Tinnion told the special force paramedic tending him: ?I?m f*****, mate . . . I just felt one lung collapse. I?m a gonner.? Tinnion knew what he was saying; he was his team?s medical specialist.
He left a message of love for Anna before passing out, and he died later that morning on the medical deck of the Sir Percival. It was 10.45am by the time the British helicopters lifted off from Gberi Bana with the last of the assault force on board ? leaving behind a gutted, deserted camp.
Tinnion was the only special forces soldier to die; but another nine were seriously wounded and almost all the 70-odd men taking part in the attack on Gberi Bana suffered minor wounds from stray battlefield ordnance. There were also nine badly hurt among a paratroop force that had carried out a diversionary attack on another rebel camp across the river. There were consolations, however, as D Squadron?s commander told his men after the battle. He expected the final casualty figure on the enemy side at Gberi Bana to be more than 100 dead. And ?the paras may have accounted for a similar number? in their separate battle.
Many of the rebels had been finished off at close range, and there were women and children among the dead. D Squadron had cleared up the bodies, because headquarters didn?t want the press crawling all over the village after the assault, recording what they?d been up to. If the SAS had been carrying out the same sort of operation in the centre of London ? like the Iranian embassy siege had been ? they would have faced all sorts of forensic questions afterwards.
But nobody was going to be brought to book for what they had done in Gberi Bana. As one member of D Squadron put it: ?We?d been sent in to eliminate a rebel base in the morning. That?s what we did. And we were back in time for tea in Hereford by the next evening.?
© Damien Lewis 2004 Extracted from Operation Certain Death by Damien Lewis published by Century at £17.99. Copies can be ordered for £14.39 + £2.25 p&p from The Sunday Times Books First on 0870 165 8585 or at www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirstbuy
Copyright 2004 Times Newspapers Ltd.
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