The Circuit (31 page)

Later that evening I learned from a mate that the OC was planning to send me to the United Arab Emirates to lead the Close Protection team for the British Ambassador. Not only did the OC want me off the patrol, he wanted me out of the war.

The next day I was officially replaced as patrol leader. I was gutted. The Regiment lads meant everything to me. Despite my clash with the headshed, I was still a senior NCO. I couldn’t just stand by and let them go forward with what I believed was a fundamentally flawed patrol. I went and had a quiet word with the new patrol leader. I told him my concerns regarding the skills mix, and about my run-in with the headshed. For the sake of the lads, I urged him to go back and convince the headshed to rework the patrol. The new patrol leader thanked me for my input but said he didn’t see a problem. He told me not to worry and that he had everything under control.

Later that day, I was dismayed to learn that after their initial deployment into Iraq by helicopter, the patrol planned to operate on foot, rather than take vehicles. I went back to the patrol leader and to some of the lads and told them I thought this was madness. I reminded them that during the Second World War, the founders of the SAS had learned the devastating consequences of deploying on foot; if you get bumped (attacked), your firepower is limited to what you can carry and you lack the ability to escape and evade quickly. I told them that vehicles would give them heavy, mounted machine guns to respond to an attack plus the option to bomb-burst, regroup and head west for forty kilometres, where they could join up with D Squadron (who were operating in an adjacent corridor).

It’s in the spirit of the SAS to stand up and be counted. But as in any organization, Regiment lads will sometimes ignore their better judgement and get on with the job. I’m certain the new recruits felt a lot of pressure to do so. I’d made a strong case, but in the end the lads decided to stick with their plan and operate on foot as a covert patrol.

I was absolutely devastated that no one in a position of authority would listen to reason. But by that point, I had done all that I could.

Two days later, in the wee hours of the morning, a helicopter deposited the patrol into the Iraqi desert. Eighteen hours later, I learned they had run into enemy fire. Apart from the initial contact report, they hadn’t been heard from.

In the meantime, I never went to the United Arab Emirates. I unilaterally transferred myself to D Squadron, where the headshed did listen to my suggestions, and I had a great war.

For the patrol, however, the consequences of poor squadron-level leadership were catastrophic: three members of the patrol died, four were captured and one evaded on foot to Syria. In my view, it remains the worst operational patrol in SAS history.

That patrol is now infamously known by its call sign: Bravo Two Zero.

CHAPTER 31

By the end of 2004, my work with the media had taken me to the Palestinian territories, Iraq, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. With each trip, I gained a greater understanding of the agendas driving the War on Terror and the role The Circuit plays in them. Looking back, I couldn’t believe how much I’d learned since that first trip to the West Bank. Advising journalists from Ramallah to Riyadh had taught me to think for myself and view all media reports with a critical eye. I felt like I’d got an accelerated university education – better even.

As much as I loved working with the media, by the beginning of 2005 it was time for me to move on to something new. It’s important for me to vary clients; different jobs require different skills, and I don’t want any of mine wasting away.

During an assignment in Kabul in January that year, I met a Close Protection team looking after an embassy in Afghanistan. The contract for the job was held by a British commercial security company, which I’ll call KR. Some of the lads working on the CP team had been in the Regiment with me. They told me if I ever wanted to join them, there’d be a position waiting.

During a break at home I got a call from a KR manager in London – a man I’ll call Colin. I’d met Colin years before, when he was an officer with the Special Boat Service. He asked if I’d be interested in becoming the co-Operations Manager of the contract in Kabul.

I didn’t say yes immediately. At that point, I’d only worked for boutique firms on The Circuit, or on contracts held independently by mates I trusted. I’d always avoided the big players because on balance they had bad word of mouth. I’d heard countless stories about large CSCs flannelling their clients and their staff on the ground. Big firms also had a reputation for being very tight with wages.

By 2005, wages on The Circuit were in freefall and even the most qualified adviser working in a hostile environment couldn’t expect fair compensation. The bubble that had lured dozens of new firms and thousands of new advisers and contractors to The Circuit had burst. The decline followed a classic pattern. When the bubble formed in 2003 the demand for security personnel far outstripped supply. CSCs could practically pluck a figure from thin air when bidding for contracts, and advisers on the ground, no matter what their level of experience, could name their price.

Inevitably, supply caught up with demand and the competition for contracts and positions intensified. CSCs began cutting prices to keep their old contracts and win new ones. The tipping point hit around autumn 2004, when reconstruction contracts started scaling back in Iraq (ironically, due to the deteriorating security situation). In less than three years the pendulum had swung from chronic under-supply of firms and advisers to an unsustainable glut.

Faced with declining revenues, many CSCs tried to buoy their profits by slashing the wages of personnel on the ground. All over The Circuit, advisers were being pushed to sign full-time employment contracts with annual salaries. In 2005, an average contract paid around £50,000 a year, and required the adviser to spend six weeks at a time in a hostile environment with only two weeks off in between rotations. That works out to a rate of approximately £170 per day in theatre; a phenomenal drop in pay considering that two years earlier an adviser in a hostile environment could expect to earn between £300 and £500 per day.

Many advisers held their tongues and took the hit, fearing that if they complained there were ten others lined up to take their jobs.

That said, I believed at the time, and still do, that highly experienced advisers with key skills can and should charge a premium for their services. When I joined The Circuit, I promised myself I’d only work for a certain fee and I’d never slip below that level no matter what the climate. Just because there’s an oversupply of advisers doesn’t mean they’re all qualified. Some jobs demand a certain level of knowledge and experience to be successful. The old adage ‘You get what you pay for’ is very relevant in the security world.

It was pointless discussing the job any further with Colin until we first agreed on my daily wage. It took a bit of convincing but he finally relented. With that sorted, we moved on to other points; specifically, I wanted to know how KR conducted itself towards its clients and its employees on the ground. Colin assured me that KR was one of the most professional firms on The Circuit. He asked me to come to his office in London for a meeting so I could see that for myself.

When Colin met me at reception, I barely recognized him. Back in the SBS, he had been in very good physical condition. It looked like years of sitting behind a civilian desk had taken its toll. Colin had gone to seed and he stank of cigarette smoke – a habit I find offensive and unproductive. Our meeting dragged on for an hour and a half. It should have finished within forty-five minutes but Colin had to keep excusing himself to go outside for a cigarette.

I knew from my conversations with the Close Protection team in Kabul that KR had held the embassy contract for just over six months and that it covered both CP for the ambassador as well as hostile environment training for the Afghan guards and drivers employed by the embassy. It was a very demanding workload and KR had assigned two teams of six advisers each to work the contract on back-to-back rotations. As co-Operations Manager, I would be in charge of one rotation.

In between Colin’s cigarette breaks, I learned that for budget reasons the embassy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs wanted to reduce the number of advisers for each rotation from six men to two. I told Colin that a two-man Close Protection team was the minimum for looking after a client in London and didn’t correspond at all to the level of threat in Kabul. He agreed and said KR was pushing to keep the teams intact but hadn’t yet convinced the client.

Convinced or not, I pointed out that you can’t have clients dictating the size of a CP team, especially in a hostile environment. Again, Colin agreed and asked if I wouldn’t mind pushing the issue directly with the client when I got to Kabul.

Colin then dropped what should have been a bombshell: he informed me that at present the team in Kabul had no weapons but assured me that within the next two to three weeks we’d be receiving top-grade weapons and ammunition. It was a huge red flag. The idea of providing an ambassador in Kabul with unarmed protection is ludicrous. The only reason I didn’t walk out of the meeting was that I knew that the lads on the ground had already procured weapons locally.

I should have paid more attention to the warning signs. But I trusted Colin when he said everything would be put right shortly. More fool me.

A week later I touched down in Kabul. My point of contact at the airport was a lad named Joe who’d been with the contract from the beginning. I knew Joe reasonably well and was pleased to be working with him. He had a reputation for being as strong as he is bright. A tall, broad-shouldered, ex-Para in his mid-thirties, Joe’s a good heavyweight boxer and a published poet. As soon as I saw Joe’s face, I knew something was very wrong. He told me that within three days our six-man team would be slashed to two, leaving only himself and me on the ground.

I told Joe that Colin had assured me that KR London were doing everything at their end to keep our numbers up. Joe said it was too late; the embassy’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs had made its decision. The rest of the team were already packing their bags.

During our ride to the hotel, Joe filled me in on some details Colin hadn’t mentioned during our meeting. I already knew about KR’s failure to provide the team with weapons and ammunition; a situation which Colin had assured me would be remedied within three weeks’ time. As it turned out, weapons were just the tip of the iceberg. All of the advisers on the contract had been sent to Kabul armed with nothing but flight tickets and visas; no weapons, no body armour, no helmets, no comms equipment, no medical kit and no armoured vehicles (except for the ambassador’s, which was provided directly by his Ministry of Foreign Affairs, not KR). The lads had been trying to make the job work; putting pressure on Colin to send them what they needed and making do in the meantime by scrounging around for bits and pieces from mates attached to other security firms operating in Kabul.

I couldn’t believe the embassy had accepted the situation. Given Kabul’s declining security situation, the clients did not seem as concerned as they should have been. I suspected they were naïve and didn’t know what to look for when it came to CP basics in a hostile environment.

My suspicions were confirmed a day later during my initial meeting with the embassy’s home country security manager; I’ll call him Mr K. At any embassy, all security issues, including outsourced duties, are coordinated by a manager from the home country. Mr K had taken over his job a week before I arrived in Kabul. He was furious with the service KR had provided. One half of the contract – the provision to train Afghan guards and drivers in security matters – had barely been addressed.

Fortunately, Mr K and I had the same aims: we both wanted the ambassador to have the best possible protection, and the local staff to receive the best possible training. Our immediate priority was the ambassador’s CP team; Mr K agreed that a two-man security detail wasn’t sufficient. We decided the best course of action would be for me to light a fire under KR London while he took up the matter with his bosses at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in his home country.

I set about gathering ammunition to present to KR London. I spoke with mates of mine working security details at other embassies around Kabul to get an idea of the size of their CP teams. All of them had more than two advisers and several of the teams were expanding. No one was downsizing.

During these conversations, I also learned of a disturbing new security issue in Kabul. One of the lads told me that his client had been recced several times while travelling around town. My mate was fairly certain that the men doing the surveillance were Pakistani; he’d observed them filming his client from right-hand-drive vehicles (Afghans predominantly use left-hand drive). I asked around to see if anyone else had had similar problems. Several mates of mine confirmed that their clients had been recced in this fashion as well.

It would be difficult enough for a two-man team to suss out obvious threats to a client travelling around Kabul. Picking up forms of covert surveillance would be nearly impossible. We desperately needed to boost our numbers back up to six. It was the only way to adequately fulfil the requirements set forth in the contract. The training of the local staff alone was a full-time job, so that was one adviser spoken for. Looking after the ambassador meanwhile required a minimum of five people: four on the ground with the client and one manning an in-country operations desk to coordinate a response in the event of an incident. Let me be very clear on this point: an operations desk is not dispensable. I hate to think what might have happened if AKE hadn’t had a manned ops desk in Baghdad to dispatch a vehicle when the BMW broke down with my clients in it.

I put all of this in several emails to Colin. My blood would boil each time I pressed ‘Send’. It was well known at the time that security in Kabul was deteriorating rapidly. To me, it was unforgivable that KR London let the contract go down to two men. If the client wouldn’t listen to reason, then as far as I was concerned KR should have binned the whole deal.