Saddam's Secrets Read online

  Even though I was officially retired, I soon discovered that no one is ever completely retired from the service of Saddam. Everyone in Iraq was on a short leash, including me, and I was called upon to provide service or advice on several occasions, even during my years as a farmer.

  A New Direction

  After the liberation of Iraq in 2003, I was asked to meet with U.S. military and State Department officials, and I told them about many of the problems with the Iraqi military under Saddam. I also told them about some of the incidents and missions I had been part of as an aviator, and I believe that’s why they asked me to be part of a multinational team to help plan the new ministry of defense in Iraq.

  They invited me for a series of discussions in Baghdad, and at one of them a senior officer said to me, “Georges, everybody talks about you around here—Sunnis, Shia, Kurds. Everyone seems to know you, and I’m glad to know that they trust you. So we’d like you to work with us and help us design the new Iraqi military.” Of course, I was delighted to be asked to help with such a mission. Not only because of my experience in the air force and the Staff College, but I understood the source of the problems in Iraq. I also knew many men who had served with distinction whom I could now recommend for positions in the new government.

  One of the men I recommended was a very good pilot by the name of Col. Alla Attayeh who was nearly hanged by Saddam. I first became acquainted with this man in 1989 when Saddam sent me to find out what had happened in two separate crashes, the second of which involved Col. Attayeh. The first was an accident involving Saddam’s nephew, Fadhil Dham, who was a student pilot at the Air Academy. He had been flying an L-39 Alpatros, a very advanced Czech-Russian trainer, when something went wrong and the plane crashed with two pilots on board.

  When Saddam got news of this, he was very upset because he assumed that the accident was probably another attack on his family. So he had everyone involved with the flight arrested, including the technicians, ground crew, mechanics, and even the instructors at the Air Academy. They were all put in prison until Saddam could find out what happened. So when he sent the intelligence officers to the crash site, Saddam told them, “Don’t let anybody touch anything. I want General Sada to go there and find out what happened.”

  I had been out of uniform for more than three years at that time, so someone told him, “Sir, you know that Georges is retired now.” Saddam said, “Of course I know he’s retired, but I want him.”

  His people started running everywhere looking for me. They went to my house, my brother’s house, my farm, and everywhere else they could think of. When they finally found me, they said, “Georges, Georges! You must come quickly. Saddam wants you!” They were so excited they’d found me—now Saddam wouldn’t be angry at them. So I went to Baghdad to meet the president, and when I arrived at his office, he said, “Georges, I know you’re very good at reading the black box and that’s why I sent for you. As you know, my nephew Fadhil was in a very serious crash. I want you to find out if this was an accident or if somebody was trying to kill him.”

  I flew straight from that meeting to the site of the crash and examined the wreckage. We retrieved the black box from the wreck and I took it with me back to air force headquarters where I could examine the data in some detail. It was soon apparent that this was not a case of attempted murder or sabotage. Instead, there was a combination of several different things that had gone wrong during the flight.

  First, there had been a mechanical failure and an explosion in the combustion chamber at high altitude. But there was another problem. This aircraft was the instructor model with two seats, and according to the flight manual, the instructor, who sits slightly elevated in the back seat, is supposed to eject first if there’s an unpreventable emergency. If the pilot in the front seat were to eject first, the rockets could burn and possibly kill the person in the back.

  But because the pilot was Saddam’s nephew, the instructor in the back seat was afraid to eject first. If he ejected safely and the student failed to eject and went down with the plane, Saddam would kill him. According to the data recorder, the instructor repeatedly asked his student to eject, but he wouldn’t or couldn’t do it. So they attempted a crash landing in the desert, and when they hit the ground the plane skidded a long way, then flipped over and caught fire.

  Pilot Error

  What I found was that Fadhil pulled the ejection lever when the plane first began to skid. This propelled him upward, but to such a low level that his chute was not able to open fully before his body slammed into the ground. When he fell, the force of impact was so great that it shattered every major bone in his body. The instructor was trapped in the plane, but rescuers managed to get there quickly enough to cut him loose. Fadhil was rushed to the hospital in terrible shape. He was given forty-seven pints of blood, but to no avail, and he died a short time later.

  No one had the courage to call Saddam and tell him his nephew had died. None of the government officials, military officers, or hospital personnel wanted to be the one to call and give him the bad news, so they insisted that I do it. I didn’t mind making the call; I already had Saddam’s private phone number with me, and I didn’t need to go through anyone to speak to him. There was a standing policy in Iraq that if an aircraft went down and the pilot was killed, I was to call Saddam directly and tell him what happened. So I made the call.

  Saddam was eager to hear the news. He took the phone immediately and said, “Yes, Georges, tell me, what did you find out?” But I had to say, “Sir, I’m very sorry. I offer my condolences to you, but your nephew is dead. The doctors at the hospital did their best to save him, and they even gave him forty-seven pints of blood. But it was too late. He died a few minutes ago.”

  Saddam was furious and exploded when I told him that. “What?” he yelled. “How could they do that? Don’t they know this boy was the nephew of the president?” I said, “Yes, sir. Everyone knows this, and I’m very sorry. But if you like, I will come and explain everything to you.” But he began yelling even louder, “I don’t want you to come here. Make me a flash report, and send it to me immediately!” So that’s what I did. I made a report and gave him all the information I had found, broken down into twelve separate points. He must have understood, because I never heard any more about it, and the technicians and instructors were allowed to leave the prison and go back to work.

  The second incident that Saddam wanted me to investigate happened on the morning of July 2, 1989. The situation this time was that Saddam had told the air force commander he wanted a group of our pilots to stage a mock attack on his family home in Al Oja, which is the village near Tikrit where he was born. He had apparently received intelligence saying that the Israelis were planning to hit that house while he was there, and a squadron of thirty of their best fighters would be making a low-level attack, coming in from the west.

  To help our guys find out how to counter such an assault, Saddam had ordered the local base commander to send up a squadron of Iraqi fighters to fly over the house at low level from the same direction. That way, he said, they would be able to check out the effectiveness of our air defenses and make sure he wasn’t hit.

  The commander sent a group of nine Sukhoi fighters, and Saddam was there at the time so he could observe everything. The weather was not very good that day, but the pilots moved into formation and the jets came in low and fast from the west. But just as they began making their approach, the engine on one of the Su-25s suddenly cut out and shut down, at which point the pilot had no other choice but to eject at the last minute.

  The plane crashed, but fortunately it didn’t hit Saddam’s house. It came close enough, however, that Saddam was convinced the pilot was trying to kill him. So he had the officer arrested immediately, along with his air crew and ground personnel. And it was certain that he was going to be hanged if there was even the slightest hint that the pilot was trying to kill the president. But, before giving the execution order, Saddam once again sent men to find
me so I could carry out the investigation, examine the wreckage, and tell him what really happened.

  Following the Leads

  After the crash, that pilot was in very serious trouble—it was clear that they were already prepared to hang him. As soon as they told me his name, Col. Attayeh, I knew who he was. His father had been a member of the Communist Party and his brother was in the Al Dahwa Party, and both of them paid a heavy price for their dissident status. The father was hanged and the brother was currently serving a life sentence in prison. But I also knew that Attayeh was a trustworthy officer and a good pilot, because he had been one of my students at the Operational Conversion Unit (OCU). He had always earned very high marks, so I was eager to find out what went wrong.

  When I arrived at the base to begin my investigation, I took a seat in the waiting room. After a few minutes, a general I’d never seen before came down the hall. I was officially retired, so I wasn’t in uniform. In fact, I was wearing a T-shirt and slacks. Apparently this general, who had been assigned to assist me in the investigation, was expecting someone in a military uniform, and he came over and said, “Excuse me, but can you tell me if General Sada is here?”

  So I said, “Yes, I can tell you if he’s here. Who are you?” He told me his name, and I said, “I’m General Sada.” He was obviously surprised, but he sat down and, without being asked, began telling me all about the pilot’s family background and his suspicions about the act of sedition he had committed. In effect, he had already decided the case. He had made himself judge and jury; my former student was going to be found guilty without further investigation.

  I just looked at him and said, “What’s your branch of service, General?” He told me he was an infantry officer. So I said, “Are you a pilot?” He said no. So I said, “Do you know anything about the mechanical configuration, airframe integration, or avionics of the Sukhoi aircraft?” He said, “Oh, no, sir. I know nothing about it.” He was obviously surprised by the question. “Well, then,” I continued, more forcefully this time, “surely you must be an engineer, to know so much about this accident already.” He answered nervously, “No, sir. I’m an intelligence officer, not an engineer.”

  At that, I stood up and said, “Okay, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to go to your commander, or whoever is in charge of intelligence around here, and I want you to tell him that General Sada doesn’t want you.” He said, “What? What do you mean?” I said, “Go and tell your commanding officer that I don’t need an infantry officer who knows nothing about aircraft for my investigation. Tell him to send me a pilot, or an engineer, or a specialist who understands the mechanics of a jet engine. And tell him I said you won’t do.”

  Mechanical Problems

  The man was humiliated, but he left and went to report to his boss. In the meantime, one of the sergeants who worked in that office told me that a group of Russian officials were working there that day, and they were sitting over in the cafeteria at the moment. So I walked down to the cafeteria and I saw a group of men, obviously Russians, sitting at one of the tables. I went over and spoke to them in Russian. I introduced myself, and they were delighted that I knew their language.

  I told them about the crash and the pending fate of my former student, and I asked if they could help me sort out some mechanical questions and make some sense of what had happened that day. They assured me they knew all about the avionics, hydraulics, power configuration, and other mechanical features of that aircraft, and they would be delighted to help. They said that if I had any questions, they would be glad to help me find out exactly what went wrong and why the Sukhoi’s engine had failed.

  This was just what I’d been hoping for. So with the assurance that I would have access to expert opinion, I walked down to the room where they were holding the pilot, and an intelligence officer let me in. When I entered the room, the pilot was visibly shaken and in tears. He began blubbering to me, “Sir, there’s nobody who can save my life except God and you! You know I’ve done nothing, sir, you’ve got to believe me!”

  I knew what he was feeling, but his crying was inappropriate, so I chided him. “Okay, stop that and listen to me. You’re a fighter pilot, an officer of high rank, and I don’t want to see you behaving in this way. Do you hear me?” He said, “Yes, sir. I understand.” He may have understood me, but his demeanor didn’t change very much, and the tears continued to flow. So I said, “Tell me exactly what happened. What was your position in the formation?”

  He said, “Sir, I was in position, and we had just made our turn and were going in for the flyover, and as soon as I leveled out the engines just shut down.” I said, “Okay, but that aircraft has two engines. You’re telling me that both engines shut down at the same time?” And he said, “Yes, sir, both of them. It just went dead.” So I said, “What was your fuel level?” He told me the gauges indicated that there was plenty of fuel and each drop tank had at least 1,100 liters.

  Well, that caught my ear because there’s no way there should have been so much fuel in the tanks at that point. The Su-25 is designed to use the fuel in the drop tanks first, and when that’s gone the system switches over to the main tanks on-board the aircraft. So I asked him to tell me again what the gauges had said, and he repeated everything exactly as he’d said it the first time.

  So I said, “Okay. Don’t worry. It sounds like there was some sort of mechanical failure and your drop tanks didn’t function properly. That explains why the gauges were so high. Instead of taking fuel from the outside tanks, the engine had already switched over to the internal supply, and when you ran out, the engines just shut down.”

  I asked him, “If the drop tanks don’t work on that aircraft, what kind of signal would you expect to get in the cockpit?” He told me that there are three small green lights down by his leg, and if the fuel tanks don’t work they blink four times and then stop. So I asked him, “Did you see them blinking?” He said, “No, I didn’t.” So I said, “Okay. What was your position in the flight?” He told me, “I was number five, sir, flying very close to the ground, below and behind the leader.”

  An Obvious Conclusion

  At that point I understood what had happened. The planes were coming in from the west with the sun straight ahead of them, which meant that the cockpit panel would have been in the shadows. It was ten o’clock in the morning, but the sun had been behind the clouds most of the morning, as it was when they began the maneuver. In addition, because he was in the number five slot, close to the ground and looking up at his leader, the pilot never saw the green lights blinking down by his leg.

  So I called the intelligence officer and told him, “Okay, take this man from the room and let him sit in the pilot’s room.” He said, “Sir, I can’t do that. The order to put him there came down from the main intelligence head-quarters.” So I said, “Okay, I want you to listen to me. I am in charge of the investigation of this case and the only man above me is the president. Unless you want to explain to the president why you’re not obeying my orders, you had better take this man to the pilot’s room right now!”

  He got the message, and they moved the prisoner down to the pilot’s day room. His spirits were much better by that time, but I still had to take a helicopter and go out to the crash site to see what was there. I needed to speak to the Arabs who lived in the village nearby to find out what they had seen. The villagers are always afraid of these official investigations and they don’t want to get involved, so I had to talk to them for a while and reassure them that everything would be okay. I told them that I was sent by the president and if any of them had lost anything in the crash, I would make sure they were compensated.

  Suddenly everyone became very vocal. They all had something to report, and one of them told me, “When this airplane hit the ground, a sea of gas and oil came out and went all over our cattle, and now they’re dying.” As I began looking around to see if he was telling the truth, the man yelled to his son to bring the cows for me to see, and I could see that
they had been covered by jet fuel. They had tried washing it off, but already a few of the cows had died, and they showed me the carcasses.

  Now I knew my theory was correct. I said a silent prayer, Thank you, Jesus! and then I compensated the farmers for their animals. Of course, they saw this as a chance to make some money, so one man said he had lost twelve cows. I looked him in the eye and said, “Yes, twelve cows?” He said, “Well, you know. If you pay me for six, that will be okay.” I knew it was two, but I paid him for six. I was glad to have this information confirmed.

  I went back to the air headquarters to put together my report, and I wrote a letter to go to Saddam. I told him what I had found out, and I said, “Sir, I know this man, and he’s a good pilot and a good officer. If someone tells you about his father and his brother, that’s all true, but it has nothing to do with what happened here.” I told him it was a mechanical failure which had happened before on these types of aircraft, and the fault was in the design.

  “If anyone was to blame,” I said, “it was the Russian engineers who had used three small green lights instead of a beeper or a horn or some other audible and more visible warning that tells the pilot the fuel system isn’t working. Furthermore,” I continued, “if you permit me to go to Gen. Amir Rashid in the military industrial division, I will ask them to come up with a modification that will solve this problem.” We had about fifty of those planes and there was no reason to risk losing any more of them.

  Shortly after receiving my report, Saddam wrote to the commanders to congratulate me on my findings. He agreed to release the pilot and other personnel who were being held by the intelligence service, and he told the air force commander to observe my recommendations and to have a new warning system installed in the Sukhois so that this kind of accident would never happen again. And then, much to my surprise, he also had a special present sent to me: ten thousand dollars and a gold watch.