Ten years after being shot down during the Gulf War, former RAF navigator John Nichol
travels back to Iraq to revisit his prison cell, find his shot down aircraft, and visit the Iraqi people.

John Nichol - Back to My Cell
The Mirror, Monday 13th Nov 2000

WITH trembling hands, John Nichol touches the graffiti scrawled on the
four
walls which once imprisoned him.

When he was last here, the former RAF navigator was a prisoner of war,
suffering torture and interrogation at the hands of his Iraqi captors
and
afraid that he would never see his family again.

Now he has gone back to revisit the horrific past and try to make sense
of
what happened to him there.

"There were times I thought my life might have ended," he says. "I
truly
believed I was going to meet my maker. Words can't describe how I feel.
Emotionally drained... my heart is pounding."

John was a 27-year-old flight lieutenant when his Tornado was shot down
by a
missile over the Iraqi desert during his first airborne mission of the
Gulf
war in 1991.

He and pilot John Peters ejected safely from the blazing jet, only to
be
captured and tortured until they agreed to appear on television and
denounce
their actions.

Their battered faces were flashed across the world - lasting images of
the
horrors of war.
Blindfolded and handcuffed, John was kicked, punched and whipped.
Cigarette
ends were extinguished on his face, tissue paper stuffed down his back
and
set alight.

Days after the humiliating TV appearance, John was brought here, to the
Military Police HQ in the capital, Baghdad.

Today, returning with The Mirror and the BBC breakfast news, he
crouches in
the dust, examining the empty 9ft-square cell in minute detail.

The smell of decay is unbearable, but John doesn't notice as he slowly
works
his way around the discoloured, flaking walls.

Amid the Arabic graffiti left by other prisoners, pictures of women cut
from
newspapers have been glued to the plaster. He runs his hand over the
rusting
steel door - and jumps visibly at the sound of doors banging shut in
the
corridors.

The stone floor is covered with pieces of rubble and rags and the beige
walls are pitted with holes which he used to fear were left by bullets.

Locked up for nearly 24 hours a day, he was allowed just 10 minutes'
exercise every couple of days. His bed was a piece of foam and his one
meal
a day was bread, watery soup and occasionally meat or beans.

"I was terrified for my life. I was the most scared human in the
world," he
recalls. "In the middle of the night I was kicked awake and brought
here.
When they took the blindfold off, I was standing in front of a group of
Iraqi military policemen."

The Iraqi military police who greet him today are smiling and shaking
hands
and offering tea.

The prison commander, Brigadier Sa'ad Minim, has offered to help find
his
old cell.

John's face flickers as his memory is triggered by a simple band of
red,
painted on the white walls.

"There was a small barred window high up in my cell," he explains. "If
I
jumped up, I could just make out this red band running around the tops
of
the buildings."

Then he stares through a tiny window and turns round, smiling. "Oh, my
God!
This is definitely it," he says.

The block has been empty for seven years and the key has long been
lost. The
brigadier orders his men to force their way in with sledgehammers.

Then the armed guards watch in amazement as John races around the
corridors
and finds his own cell.

Despite his ordeal as a PoW, his stay here was bearable, he says.

"I'm glad we came back to this prison, because I was treated with
respect
here," he tells the brigadier. "I wanted to come back and meet the
Iraqi
people as real people. It's amazing how friendly they've been.

"I'm pleased I've made myself do this, but I won't be sorry to leave.
Seeing
the prison again took me back to some of my darkest days. I don't think
I
could have faced revisiting the bad places."

There were a few lighter moments even then. He remembers being summoned
by
the guards to play football with them.

"We came out here into the courtyard and they put me in goal," he says.
"They kept shouting: 'Gascoigne' and 'Kevin Keegan' at me, and I'd nod
and
say: 'Yes, they are good footballers.' It was bizarre."

Now the brigadier calls his guards - and another impromptu game begins.

It is a bizarre but emotional scene. John, in jeans and a shirt, kicks
the
ball to the guards, who throw themselves vigorously into the game
despite
the blistering heat and their heavy uniforms.

The courtyard echoes to shouts and laughter and dozens of other
officers
crowd in to cheer them on.

Afterwards. the guards hug and kiss John on both cheeks and ask to have
their photograph taken with the curious British airman who was once
their
prisoner.

When we are invited to stay for lunch, John jokes: "If we say No, will
you
allow us to leave?"

"Of course," smiles the brigadier. "You are free to go."

The last time, John heard those words was on March 5, 1991. He
remembers: "A
guard came into the cell one morning and said: 'The war is over. You
will be
going home in 20 minutes.'

"I literally got down on my knees and said a prayer of thanks. I
couldn't
believe that I had survived. "

John has co-written an account of his ordeal and has left the RAF to
write
thrillers.
 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/shtml/NEWS/P24S1.shtml

John Nichol: Ten Years Ago I Tried to Bomb Your Country Yet Now We're Here As Equals. My Heart Is Very Full RAF hero comes face-to-face with an old enemy
The Mirror, Tuesday 14th Nov 2000

THE British Tornado was skimming over the Iraqi desert at just 50ft
when the
missile struck.
Thrown sideways by the blast, the warplane erupted into flames,
streaking
through the air like a fireball.

Flight Lieutenant John Nichol screamed at John Peters, his pilot:
"We've
been hit! We've been hit!"

Desperately, the airmen battled to control the crippled aircraft,
taking it
into a steep climb before preparing to eject into enemy territory.

John says: "This was the start of the end of my war - the start of the
worst
seven weeks of my life."

Though they parachuted safely down, they were captured by Iraqi troops
and
tortured during a harrowing ordeal as prisoners of war.

Today, John has returned to the southern Iraqi desert with The Mirror
and
the BBC breakfast news to try to pinpoint the spot where his wrecked
Tornado
has lain for almost a decade.

Now the skies are virtually empty. Only the occasional whine of British
and
US jets, patrolling the no-fly zone imposed on Iraq at the end of the
Gulf
war, disturbs the silence.

John is standing on the deserted runway of Ar Rumaylah air base, the
site he
was trying to destroy seconds before his mission came to a violent end.

Beside him, shrapnel and rubble surround a 40ft crater carved out of
the
airstrip by an Allied bomber sent to finish the job.

"This is what we were trying to do when we were shot down," explains
John.
The base guarded Iraq's biggest oil field, close to the border with
Kuwait.
But now there is nothing left, and Ar Rumaylah is just a ghostly shadow
in
the desert.

We have driven hundreds of miles from Baghdad, hoping to find the place
where John was shot down. At Al Basrah, the main city in this area,
John
flinches as an air raid siren begins wailing, a stark reminder that
Allied
jets still fly missions here.

Armed with letters from the Iraqi Ministry of Defence, we arrive at one
of
the few occupied air bases left in the south, Shaibah, to ask
permission to
retrace John's steps.

AN IRAQI MiG warplane on display above a portrait of Saddam Hussein
dominates the main entrance, where guards stare incredulously at the
documentation we show them.

But the suspicions of the base commander, Staff Colonel Ala Salman
Dawood,
quickly disappear once he and John begin reminiscing about the war.

"You are John Nichol?" he asks, staring intently at John. John nods.
"You
fly the Tornado?" John nods again.

"How many hours?" asks the colonel, referring to John's flying record.
"2,000", says John, and the colonel replies: "I also have 2,000."

Ten years ago, they might have come face-to-face in combat. But now the
two
laugh and joke as they compare experiences.

Colonel Ala was shot down 10 days after John, ejecting from his MiG
when it
was attacked by US Eagles.

"It happens in war," says the colonel, whose forehead still bears the
scars
of his ejection. "We are airmen. We are the same. I haven't flown a
plane
for six years.

"Now, only the birds are free to fly. It is terrible for a pilot."

John takes out the photographs of his wrecked Tornado taken by British
intelligence officers. In his pocket, he has the co-ordinates he took
seconds before ejecting.

The colonel agrees to help us and orders one of his men to fetch his
pistol.
Guards dressed in olive green uniforms and sky-blue berets throw their
Kalashnikov rifles into the back of our car and climb in. As we drive
through the desert, dozens of camouflaged tanks lie partially hidden in
the
sand. In the distance, the flames of the Ar Rumaylah oilfields light up
the
horizon.

"If you'd told me 10 years ago that I'd be here with an Iraqi pilot,
I'd
have thought you were mad," says John laughing." This is incredible.

"Ten years ago, I tried to bomb his country, and now we are here
together as
equals. My heart feels very full."

The colonel smiles: "There must be something very special inside you to
return to Iraq."

At another bombed-out air base, Jalibah, the twisted wreckage of
several
Iraqi MiGs lies surrounded by the rubble of their hangars.

As Colonel Ala and his men look at the scene in dismay and turn away,
John
studies the rusting remnants of the planes. Shards of wing lie next to
battered engines.

With the help of our translator, he turns to one of the soldiers and
says:
"How do you feel towards me, knowing that I came to your country to do
this
to you?"

With a defiant look, the young guard replies: "It's not a matter of
bearing
malice towards you, but I would ask what you think of your country
coming
all this way to bomb us?`"

John nods, and says: "Politics aside, I was carrying out orders, as you
carry out your orders." They shake hands, and the guard tells John in
Arabic
that he is welcome in his country.

John was 27 when he first set foot on Iraqi soil in 1991. Equipped with
a
map and a compass, we drive for an hour through the featureless desert,
towards the spot where he believes he baled out. He knows the chances
of
finding his Tornado are slim. It probably crashed at least a mile from
his
last known position.

We are finally forced to stop several miles short. The stretch of
desert in
front of us is peppered with mines. But we are almost at the point
where
John was captured.

"It was somewhere out there," he says, pointing into the distance. "The
vehicles the soldiers came in would have come along this same track."

Harnessed to their orange and white parachutes and visible for miles
around,
it was only a matter of time before Iraqi soldiers captured them. He
says:
"John Peters and I were laughing, because we couldn't have been more
visible
if we'd tried.

"There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. It was a terrible feeling -
we
were so exposed.

"For a moment, we thought about taking them on and going out in a blaze
of
glory, but it was John who made me realise that there is always hope."

For an hour, the two airmen made their way across the desert, praying
they
would be rescued. They realised they had been spotted when they saw a
red
truck half a mile away and Iraqi soldiers opened fire. Armed with only
a
pistol each, the airmen surrendered.

Their hands were tied behind their backs and they were pushed into the
back
of the truck and driven to a nearby air base - the first of many
locations
they were taken to during their seven weeks as prisoners of war.

John stands for a moment, gazing towards the horizon, before taking a
few
cautious steps into the danger area.

AT HIS feet, empty gun cartridges lie rusting in the sand. John picks
up a
couple in his hand. "These could even be from the guns they fired at
us," he
says.

Back in Baghdad, we visit the Amiriya air raid shelter, now a shrine to
the
400 Iraqi men, women and children killed when it was bombed by the
Americans.

The Iraqis call this the most savage crime of the century. The
Americans
claimed the shelter was a military target and that the civilians were
being
used as a human shield.

Whatever the truth, photographs of piles of bodies hanging on the
inside of
the shelter reveal the shocking effects of the bomb. John is uneasy as
he
walks in. He is all too aware that once, at the controls of his plane,
he
could have caused destruction like this.

A giant hole has been torn through the centre of the shelter. The
bodies
were removed and it has been left as it was on the day it was bombed.
There
are row upon row of bouquets and flowers beside portraits of the
victims.

"You can feel that something hideous happened here," John says. "I
don't
think people have any concept of the devastation caused by modern
warfare.

"Just because you are sitting at the controls of a plane doesn't mean
you
are blissfully unaware of what is going on beneath you. War is not a
computer game.

"I have seen people killed, and when I was a prisoner in Iraq our
prison was
bombed. It was a terrifying experience. I know what the reality is.
Coming
back here has made me see the wider view. I feel very privileged to
have
been able to do that."

On the last day of our trip, John begins packing his bags for the
12-hour
drive across Iraq to Amman in Jordan, from where we will fly home.

He feels depressed and emotionally drained after the events of the past
few
days. "Before I came back, I thought it would be exciting. Now I feel
quite
strange - melancholic," he says.

"People here have gone out of their way to help me. I feel I've made
friends
with them, but I don't know if I will ever come back. I will carry on
with
my life and they will carry on with theirs. I wonder if our paths will
ever
cross again."

He has thrown away one of the gun cartridges he picked up in the sand,
explaining: "I suddenly thought: 'I don't want that to be my memory of
this
trip.'

"Before I came back to Iraq, my strongest memories of this country were
obviously those of being a prisoner here. I look back at the time with
a
mixture of feelings. With a degree of horror, but, in a strange way,
with
fondness.

"I can't get away from the fact that it was a major part of my life.
Everything changed from that point.

"Now, I have the abiding memory of meeting the Iraqis as a free man for
the
first time. I have walked side-by-side with people who were once my
enemies.
That is what I will take home with me."
 

Friday, 17 November, 2000, 21:57 GMT

Back to Iraq: The people

The inside of the Amiriya shelter is still a shocking place, ten years after an American missile ripped through its roof killing
over 400 people.

It is now kept as a shrine to the dead, pictures of them hang on walls which are blackened by fire from the explosion.

On one wall the silhouette of a woman vaporised by the heat of the bomb - on the floor wreaths and bouquets to the dead.

In the ceiling the gaping hole where the missile entered, the metal rods from the reinforced concrete bent back like grotesque
fingers reaching in towards you.

John Nichol has dropped bombs and missiles in combat and has been bombed by his own side while a prisoner of war.
 
 

He knows what bombs are designed to do and the effect they have, but he admits he has never seen anything like this.

"When you walk in and see the destruction of it, see it close up, it makes you sad that it happens at all; but sometimes it
does".

For a few moments he stares in silence at the sunshine breaking through the gaping hole above us.

"It's a haunting place. It's a place that captures and signifies the reality of modern warfare."

John has seen the video pictures taken by the aircraft which fired on this place; the black and white pictures with a cross hair
which became famous in the Gulf War.

Clinical images of destruction: "This is not a cross hair on a target. It is brutal, it is horrific and it kills real people".

This is John's first chance to see Iraq properly, to meet the people of Baghdad. During the war he was blindfolded whenever
he was moved.

We walk through the old market, soaking in the atmosphere, the noise, the smell of the brightly coloured spices on sale.

These people know John tried to bomb their country, but he is warmly welcomed.
 

He tries to buy some Arabic sweets, the stall holder insists they are a gift and will not take any money.

"I didn't expect anyone to be unpleasant or anything like that," John says as we stroll.

"But on the other hand, I didn't expect them to be quite as friendly as they have been. Everywhere we've gone people have
said hello and waved."

In the oldest street in Baghdad, dating back to the Ottoman empire, we drink tea. In the corner of Hassan Adjmi teahouse
there's a huge collection of old brass water boilers, and a row of modern aluminium teapots brewing.

The room is half dark, filled with the sound of conversation, the rattle of backgammon dice, the clatter of dominoes.

Old men smoke through ancient water cooled pipes, deep in thought.
 

These are the thinkers of Baghdad: professors, writers and wise old men.

"Iraq won the war," one of them tells John. "You don't believe you lost the war with Iraq. The future is more beautiful for
Iraqi people than English."

The war may be over, but the conflict continues; not just in the tea rooms here.

Sanctions still limit what Iraq can buy and sell. American and British aircraft patrol daily stopping Iraqi jets flying. They bomb
most weeks.

As we prepare to leave we visit the parade ground, beneath the huge crossed Arab swords which have become one of the
famous sights of Baghdad.

John Nichol was afraid as we entered Iraq, now he is sad to leave.

"I feel quite melancholy. It's been a journey of discovery, seeing places I never expected to see. It's been a journey of
learning, for somebody to say this is where you were, go and have a look. I will go away from here with fond memories."

A journey which began ten years ago has finally ended.

--------- Commentary on above articles -------

Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2000 12:50:56 +0000
Subject:  Re: from today's observer
From: "farbuthnot" <asceptic@freenetname.co.uk>
To: soc-casi-discuss@lists.cam.ac.uk

John Nichol's excellent analyis and insight (Observer 19th November)
has
just one flaw. Having just returned from Iraq and again driven throught
the
north and south (to Mosul and Basra) it is impossible to agree that
British
and American pilots 'risk their lives on a daily basis to fly into
Iraq.....' (apart from the risk which accompanies any form of travel
including crossing the road.)
The idea that Iraq's - by today's standards - antiquated old
anti-aircraft
guns - are a threat to allied pilots flying at the heights they do is
almost
farcical. Reports (not verified independendently for obvious reasons)
from
villagers north and south over the last two years is that when flocks
of
sheep are bombed planes allegedly circle quite low. But in remote
plains
where sheep graze there is no reason for anti-aircraft ordnance. (Tho'
were
I a shepherd, I might think differently.)
The Iraqi regime has offered huge rewards to any military who shoots
down
planes overflying the no-fly zone. Like all except about seven percent
of
the population, the Iraqi military is on monthly wages which would make
the
buying of a slab of chocolate for thier children impossible. A reward
such
as this would render them not only rich, but a national hero. Politics
aside, this is a brave and inventive people. Yet no one has managed to
claim
this prize.
Three days ago I was outside a building in Basra next to an army depot.
Air
raid sirens suddenly howled, soldiers appeared, looking skywards and I
queried what was happening. They pointed upwards and in near
stratospheric
heights two others from the Sheffield Delegation to Iraq identified the
almost pinpoints which were UK/US planes returning to their bases.
Anti-aircraft guns were visible, there was no scramble, just an
acceptance.
They didn't even bother, it was no contest.