Argyll
02-04-2004, 08:00 AM
Not sure if this has been posted before,I've just come across it,so apologies if it has!
His take on Iraq is pretty interesting
SUNDAY PEOPLE
‘If I’d been born here, I could have joined the IRA’
ALAN HEALY talks to SAS man-turned-author Andy McNab, who served in Derry in the 1980s
Prior to the Iranian Embassy Siege in 1980, very little was known publicly about the SAS, but now, what with ‘Bravo Two Zero,’ and Chris Ryan’s books (not to mention his personal SAS fitness guide recently serialized in The Sun) the SAS has become something of a public commodity. What’s your take on the recent media explosion?
It’s a very strange, bizarre situation because before the Iranian Embassy Siege you did have a lot of books about the regiment but they were only bought by military buffs, whereas now the badge has become commercially viable.
Yes, some former SAS members are very pissed off because people died for that badge and now it’s being abused.
I’m now a director in a security company and the vast majority of guys we take are ex-Regiment but they consciously stay away from this stuff. I’d say 98% of the guys don’t go public on their past due to the nature of the operations they were involved in and wouldn’t want to be associated with it anyway.
How do you feel about the fact that people who don’t normally read literature seem to have read Bravo Two Zero at some point?
A recent survey showed that Bravo Two Zero alongside Harry Potter - was one of the most popular books being read by schoolchildren. When asked about the violence in the books the teachers said they didn’t mind as long as they were reading!
In the books, in many instances the Stone character is trying to run away and I hope that this realism gives readers an exposure to the fact it’s not all heroics.
How do you feel about the SAS’s involvement in the Northern Ireland conflict, particularly in relation to controversial killings carried out by the unit in the early to mid eighties?
Well, if you go back to Ancient Greece you’ll find that every conflict necessitated the use of special forces, covert forces or whatever you want to call them and we were just part of that war alongside other groups like Special Branch.
And as far as this business of a “shoot-to-kill” policy, it simply didn’t exist because there would have been a lot more people dead.
And a lot of people don’t know that the SAS were actually offered immunity by a government at the time for any work we carried out. We refused because we knew that the next year it would have been lifted.
And yes I was in Derry for quite a while- I worked in the Bogside, Shantallow and Creggan as part of the SAS and later in 14 INT where the bulk of our work was intelligence gathering.
There’s a lot of misperception about us – we were just walking around and we blended in, the grey man, nondescript. We weren’t like ninjas hiding under floorboards because if that’s the kind of thing that gets noticed.
Look when it comes down to it, if you grow up on housing estate in South London, you join the army, and if I had grown up on a housing estate in Shantallow, I could well have joined PIRA.
We were simply a strategic force and I do think our work in the SAS and 14 INT in Derry and Northern Ireland played a big part in bringing forward the eventual Good Friday Agreement because PIRA were losing lot of intelligence – and a lot of men – to us in the mid to late eighties and early nineties.
Have you returned to Derry since then?
I was in Derry as a ‘civvie’ three years ago doing some Christmas shopping and I had a good walk around and Christ, it’s changed. There seems to have been a lot of investment in the city and it’s great to see, the place is looking really well.
Another book focusing on your exploits in first Gulf War, ‘The Real Bravo Two Zero’ by Michael Asher claimed that you fabricated much of your story in Bravo Two Zero – how did that affect you?
If it had have been five years ago then yeah, I would have really sparked up about it – but I understand the business now, and what many people don’t realize is that there is a huge fraternity of people making money off the back of this book.
Asher wasn’t even in the regiment, so I don’t where he’s coming from a about this but I don know there’s a lot of people growing fat off the back of him and his book.
And funnily enough, sales of Bravo Two Zero actually went up after Asher’s book was released, so it really did me no harm.
Having served in the first Gulf War, how do you view events unfolding now on a daily basis in Iraq, especially in light of many commentators comparing the current situation with Northern Ireland?
I was actually out there a month ago and went on patrol with the Americans - it was mostly just a bunch of very young nervous men still getting zits, many of whom were National Guards and had basically joined the military for the dental plan.
It was very like the situation in Northern Ireland, except the Americans just aren’t equipped – or properly trained - for that kind of role and conflict, while the British Army have this kind of experience in both Northern Ireland and Bosnia.
The situation is bad though - I witnessed soldiers putting their body armour in their Hummer jeeps so they wouldn’t be hit by bullets passing through the doors, so they’re learning the hard way, but at least they’re learning.
Some of those guys are veterans now. They thought they would be only posted for a couple of months but the soldiers that were there for the pre-war build in Saudi have been out there for a year now and most of them just want to get back home.
What I found amazing was that so many American soldiers didn’t realize that Baghdad was fully functioning, sophisticated and grown–up modern city – they thought they were going to be greeted by people living in mud huts. And many of them were like, “What the…?”
While we were out on patrol, they had no interpreter and some of them didn’t really know what they were doing.
I asked them if they knew about the 20-minute rule - part of our standard operating procedure in Northern Ireland to ensure we weren’t in the same spot for too long and presented an easy target, but these guys we’re still hanging around after 45 minutes and I was telling them that they really should be getting out of there!
The Brits wear their berets and take off their sunglasses when engaging with the locals and this has done them a lot of good, meaning that low level intelligence off the street – which often the most important – can be passed all the way back up the line. Whereas the Americans were relying on passing by and listening to the mosques to gauge local opinion.
Your new book, ‘Dark Winter’ focuses on the Al – Qa’ida as the ‘bad guys’ – is it a conscious decision for you to mix reality with fiction when planning your next work?
A lot of people seem to think that Osama Bin Laden is the chairman of the board but what they don’t realize is that Al Qa’ida is actually made up of a lot of fragmented groups such as the Muslim Bortherhood so this isn’t necessarily a new thing – and the U.S had been fighting this war on terrorism a long time before the events of 9/11.
There was a bounty of $25 million being offered for Bin Laden’s head before the public had any idea of who he actually was.
Have you watched Ultimate Force?
(Laughing) No I haven’t, I’ve been in the States.
And whose books are better, yours or Ryan's?
That’s easy – mine!
His take on Iraq is pretty interesting
SUNDAY PEOPLE
‘If I’d been born here, I could have joined the IRA’
ALAN HEALY talks to SAS man-turned-author Andy McNab, who served in Derry in the 1980s
Prior to the Iranian Embassy Siege in 1980, very little was known publicly about the SAS, but now, what with ‘Bravo Two Zero,’ and Chris Ryan’s books (not to mention his personal SAS fitness guide recently serialized in The Sun) the SAS has become something of a public commodity. What’s your take on the recent media explosion?
It’s a very strange, bizarre situation because before the Iranian Embassy Siege you did have a lot of books about the regiment but they were only bought by military buffs, whereas now the badge has become commercially viable.
Yes, some former SAS members are very pissed off because people died for that badge and now it’s being abused.
I’m now a director in a security company and the vast majority of guys we take are ex-Regiment but they consciously stay away from this stuff. I’d say 98% of the guys don’t go public on their past due to the nature of the operations they were involved in and wouldn’t want to be associated with it anyway.
How do you feel about the fact that people who don’t normally read literature seem to have read Bravo Two Zero at some point?
A recent survey showed that Bravo Two Zero alongside Harry Potter - was one of the most popular books being read by schoolchildren. When asked about the violence in the books the teachers said they didn’t mind as long as they were reading!
In the books, in many instances the Stone character is trying to run away and I hope that this realism gives readers an exposure to the fact it’s not all heroics.
How do you feel about the SAS’s involvement in the Northern Ireland conflict, particularly in relation to controversial killings carried out by the unit in the early to mid eighties?
Well, if you go back to Ancient Greece you’ll find that every conflict necessitated the use of special forces, covert forces or whatever you want to call them and we were just part of that war alongside other groups like Special Branch.
And as far as this business of a “shoot-to-kill” policy, it simply didn’t exist because there would have been a lot more people dead.
And a lot of people don’t know that the SAS were actually offered immunity by a government at the time for any work we carried out. We refused because we knew that the next year it would have been lifted.
And yes I was in Derry for quite a while- I worked in the Bogside, Shantallow and Creggan as part of the SAS and later in 14 INT where the bulk of our work was intelligence gathering.
There’s a lot of misperception about us – we were just walking around and we blended in, the grey man, nondescript. We weren’t like ninjas hiding under floorboards because if that’s the kind of thing that gets noticed.
Look when it comes down to it, if you grow up on housing estate in South London, you join the army, and if I had grown up on a housing estate in Shantallow, I could well have joined PIRA.
We were simply a strategic force and I do think our work in the SAS and 14 INT in Derry and Northern Ireland played a big part in bringing forward the eventual Good Friday Agreement because PIRA were losing lot of intelligence – and a lot of men – to us in the mid to late eighties and early nineties.
Have you returned to Derry since then?
I was in Derry as a ‘civvie’ three years ago doing some Christmas shopping and I had a good walk around and Christ, it’s changed. There seems to have been a lot of investment in the city and it’s great to see, the place is looking really well.
Another book focusing on your exploits in first Gulf War, ‘The Real Bravo Two Zero’ by Michael Asher claimed that you fabricated much of your story in Bravo Two Zero – how did that affect you?
If it had have been five years ago then yeah, I would have really sparked up about it – but I understand the business now, and what many people don’t realize is that there is a huge fraternity of people making money off the back of this book.
Asher wasn’t even in the regiment, so I don’t where he’s coming from a about this but I don know there’s a lot of people growing fat off the back of him and his book.
And funnily enough, sales of Bravo Two Zero actually went up after Asher’s book was released, so it really did me no harm.
Having served in the first Gulf War, how do you view events unfolding now on a daily basis in Iraq, especially in light of many commentators comparing the current situation with Northern Ireland?
I was actually out there a month ago and went on patrol with the Americans - it was mostly just a bunch of very young nervous men still getting zits, many of whom were National Guards and had basically joined the military for the dental plan.
It was very like the situation in Northern Ireland, except the Americans just aren’t equipped – or properly trained - for that kind of role and conflict, while the British Army have this kind of experience in both Northern Ireland and Bosnia.
The situation is bad though - I witnessed soldiers putting their body armour in their Hummer jeeps so they wouldn’t be hit by bullets passing through the doors, so they’re learning the hard way, but at least they’re learning.
Some of those guys are veterans now. They thought they would be only posted for a couple of months but the soldiers that were there for the pre-war build in Saudi have been out there for a year now and most of them just want to get back home.
What I found amazing was that so many American soldiers didn’t realize that Baghdad was fully functioning, sophisticated and grown–up modern city – they thought they were going to be greeted by people living in mud huts. And many of them were like, “What the…?”
While we were out on patrol, they had no interpreter and some of them didn’t really know what they were doing.
I asked them if they knew about the 20-minute rule - part of our standard operating procedure in Northern Ireland to ensure we weren’t in the same spot for too long and presented an easy target, but these guys we’re still hanging around after 45 minutes and I was telling them that they really should be getting out of there!
The Brits wear their berets and take off their sunglasses when engaging with the locals and this has done them a lot of good, meaning that low level intelligence off the street – which often the most important – can be passed all the way back up the line. Whereas the Americans were relying on passing by and listening to the mosques to gauge local opinion.
Your new book, ‘Dark Winter’ focuses on the Al – Qa’ida as the ‘bad guys’ – is it a conscious decision for you to mix reality with fiction when planning your next work?
A lot of people seem to think that Osama Bin Laden is the chairman of the board but what they don’t realize is that Al Qa’ida is actually made up of a lot of fragmented groups such as the Muslim Bortherhood so this isn’t necessarily a new thing – and the U.S had been fighting this war on terrorism a long time before the events of 9/11.
There was a bounty of $25 million being offered for Bin Laden’s head before the public had any idea of who he actually was.
Have you watched Ultimate Force?
(Laughing) No I haven’t, I’ve been in the States.
And whose books are better, yours or Ryan's?
That’s easy – mine!