Faulty Phone Wrecked MI6 Bid To Kill Chemical Ali

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 1-8-2004 | Michael Smith

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Faulty phone wrecked MI6 bid to kill Chemical Ali

By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
(Filed: 08/01/2004)

Faulty military satellite links caused the failure of an MI6-led operation to assassinate "Chemical Ali", a senior aide to Saddam Hussein.

Secure satellite links to London broke down on the first day of the war in Iraq. The British commander, Air Marshal Brian Burridge, at first thought the Iraqis had mounted a successful "cyber warfare" attack.

Military satellite phone links broke down, often for hours at a time, leaving British commanders without any secure line of communication to the Prime Minister, a major problem when political decisions were needed, as in the attacks on Chemical Ali.

Defence sources say the problems were caused by the Government's refusal to allow the forces to order urgently-needed equipment until British participation in the US-led attack on Iraq was confirmed, three months before the war.

Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as Chemical Ali because of his role in the 1988 chemical weapons attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja, was military governor in southern Iraq.

He was the target of two successive air raids called in by the commander of 1 (UK) Armoured Division, Maj Gen Robin Brims.

They followed tip-offs from MI6 agents in Basra that were passed back, via members of the Special Boat Service operating in the city, to an MI6 officer working with Gen Brims.

The first attack was on a Ba'ath party headquarters. When an MI6 agent reported that several hundred Saddam loyalists were meeting in the building, Gen Brims called in an attack from two US air force F15e Strike Eagles.

There were no problems obtaining permission from London. SBS commandos on the ground guided the American JDAM bombs on to the target and a large number of those inside were killed. But al-Majid escaped.

A week later, an MI6 agent reported that al-Majid was in his house on the edge of Basra and Gen Brims called in two US F16 Fighting Falcons to attack it with laser-guided bombs.

The raid was a disaster. Concerned that civilians might be hurt in the attack, which was in a built-up area, British commanders asked for permission from London to bomb al-Majid's house. But the secure satellite link to London failed, leaving them unable to contact government ministers, who had to authorise the attack, for around two hours. Eventually they used a civilian satellite telephone to obtain permission.

The two US F16s then missed the target on the first run; one bomb hit another house, killing a number of civilians. The other bomb nearly killed the SBS commando who was trying to guide it on to the target.

A second attack was successful in destroying the house but al-Majid had already gone, possibly one of two men spotted leaving the area before the first bombing run. He was eventually captured by US troops in August.

"Initially we had no training on it and no cryptographic equipment," one source said. "You can't wait until the last minute. You need time to train to turn equipment into a capability."

Some secure emails took as long as 48 hours to get through while the secure satellite links broke down repeatedly for hours at a time, forcing British commanders to resort to insecure civilian satellite phones for vital communications.

The Ministry of Defence report on lessons for the future from the war in Iraq admitted that personnel "did not have complete confidence in their ability to use" urgently procured communications systems.

It did not mention any failings in the equipment, although the National Audit Office report says: "The force sometimes had difficulty maintaining strategic communications between the UK and units in-theatre."

The failure on the first day of the Iraq war was caused when a contractor at a switching centre in London fitted new equipment without authorisation, but most problems were caused because of insufficient band-width to carry the communications.

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I expect we'll hear a number of these type stories.

I remember one from Gulf War I - The commander at Cheyenne Mountain (in Wyoming) that monitored for scud missile launches in Iraq, discovered the quickest way to alert the commander in Iraq was simply by placing a long distance phone call on the public phone system.

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And they're still waiting for Beagle to call home from Mars. No public phones, I guess.