The Real Bravo Two Zero: The Truth Behind Bravo Two Zero [Paperback]

Being a fan of Asher's other works and having devoured McNab's and Ryan's books on the ill-fated patrol, I poured through this with interest.

Asher seems to make it a point to take the Arab side in every detail he finds, acting in the role of counsel for the other side. He sparingly credits the patrol members with performing above-normal acts of heroism and endurance.

The writing is good. His cross-referencing of McNab's and Ryan's books is air-tight. The on-the-ground research is detailed in that he followed the patrols' paths. However, in the field, he assigns each Bedu he meets with the highest virtue and credibility. Though the some of the claims of distances covered and contacts made by Bravo Two Zero are easily debunked, it is not well-balanced to trust the Bedu in every detail.

It does seem the patrol could have been better prepared by each of them studying some Arabic, learning about the Bedu, rechecking comms and having a firm E&E plan. The patrol was extremely far behind enemy lines and this was their first contact under such circumstances so some decisions probably, in retrospect, were not optimal. However, these men were on the ground making out the best they could at the time given their lot.

This is well worth a read. The fog of war assures that the details of each patrol members' accounts will be lacking in some regard. But it should be remembered, Asher easily located the Bedu involved in contacts with the patrol, proving that the Bedu were not so inaccessible as to be exempt to subjection to Iraq.

Having served in the Army, I'm suspicious of accounts like this, even one by a Para and SAS veteran like Michael Asher. But to be honest, I was already suspicious of the previous accounts by B20 partol members McNabb and Ryan. So I bought this book, and overall, I'm glad I did, though saddened by some of what Asher seems to have found.

Ex SAS officer General Sir Peter de la Billiere's Gulf War memoir has a concise account of the B20 mission, concentrating on Ryan's tremendous escape. Funny thing is, "DLB" left out the most dramatic single epsode in Ryan's later book, where, now alone, the latter turns at bay and engages and smashes up 2 jeep-loads of pursuers, at night. There's no convincing security, military or other reason why "DLB" would leave this out. It's hard to avoid concluding that Ryan must have made it up later.

This book now leaves it hard to avoid the conclusion that the patrol members' books did a lot more "sexing up" of their already-dramatic stories, for publication.

Main weakness of this book, I think, is that Asher sets out with an agenda - to prove that patrol member Sgt Phillips didn't merit Ryan's unfavourable portrayal - even tho it's a noble agenda, starting with one can cloud judgement. Also I reckon Asher sets just a bit too much stock in differences between the other accounts - complete agreement is not going to happen, even with professionals. Others criticise him, despite Asher being alert to just this point, for being rather too ready to take the word of Arab civilians and policemen in Saddam's Iraq - who basically say that the tales of shootouts are either exaggerated or just invented.

But the point is, that the Arab/Bedouin accounts just ring more true. The more so, because they don't in any way denigrate the performance of the patrol on the ground, or your admiration for their utter tenacity. In fact, at one point, his Bedouin hosts seriously slag off Asher's Iraqi army minder when he puts down the patrol, the Arabs saying they were brave men and good soldiers. Amen to that. Some who doubt the reliability of the Arab witnesses speak of the unliklihood that 3 armed civilians could put the patrol to flight from the original location, but they didn't, the mission had already gone wrong and the patrol executed a pretty textbook bug-out, just as they should have, in the later stages under fire from the 3 Arabs who included 2 very experienced Iran-Iraq war vets. No shame there, just good, solid soldiering, concluding with a successful "break contact". No need to make up a tale of a massive firefight with APCs taken out and vanloads of Iraqi soldiers going down in a hail of gunfire. But it seems likely that's what they did - they made it up. Or McNabb did, and others followed.

Like Napoleon said, the most important quality for a soldier is not courage, it's endurance - a particular form of courage to be sure. The B20 guys were exceptional soldiers and showed true courage, in all its forms, as this book makes clear. Regardless of the fact that some mistakes may have been made, in mission prep or elsewhere. Hard to fault them, later on, for trying to eke out their livlihoods after leaving the service by telling their stories. Especially after their rather better paid former boss, General "DLB", did much the same. It's just rather sad that they seem to have been unable just to tell it like it was, which was heroic enough, and in Ryan's case apparently, selling short the memory of a dead comrade.

First of all let me say I was a huge fan of Michael Asher's book Shoot-to-Kill which certainly pulled no punches in regard to the Spartan nature of Parachute Regiment training in the 1970s and I reread it several times (it actually put me off the paras and when I eventually went to Sandhurst it was for the RMP). One thing I'd say though is that he should read either the Saville report or Douglas Murray's book on Bloody Sunday, the Paras were right, they were fired on first.
In this book he essentially debunks the various version of the Bravo-Two-Zero story written by members of the patrol. Now I'm debunking him.
In Andy McNab's first account he states that in their initial contact with the enemy the eight man patrol was engaged by a full enemy company (100-120 men) and two armoured personnel carriers which they destroyed. In his version of events his fellow SAS soldier Chris Ryan states that they were initially fired upon by a pair of local militiamen who were then joined by about a dozen more in a truck. He also heard the machinegun of an armoured car which he did not personally see but Mike Coburn who was also in the patrol did. Lastly they were attacked by the soldiers at a nearby artillery position using their anti-aircraft guns in the ground to ground role. According to ex-SAS soldier Michael Asher who returned to Iraq and interviewed the local people the patrol was attacked by exactly 3 local militiamen who were all veterans of the Iran/Iraq conflict.
So who is telling the truth and who is lying?
In Chris Ryan's account he states the battle started when he waved to the militiamen in order to try to fool them that they were friendly troops but he made the mistake of using his left hand which no Arab would do (in Middle Eastern culture it would be considered an insulting gesture to wave or shake hands using the left). McNab never mentions this but it's possible he simply never saw it due to his position or that he was looking the other way at the time, covering his respective arc of fire on the flank whilst Ryan who first in line in the patrol would be always scanning ahead. The militiamen who Michael Asher interviewed, having never read Ryan's book, also mentioned this detail, giving impressive credence to their story. But if they are telling the truth it suggests that 3 men armed with assault rifles could take on and defeat 8 men armed with assault rifles, machineguns, grenade launchers and anti-tank rockets in a stand up fight which seems extremely unlikely. Also it rathers beggars belief that the hundreds of Iraqi soldiers at the nearby anti-aircraft positions which all accounts agree were there simply ignored this massive gunbattle occuring on their doorstep.
So is Andy McNab telling the truth or is Chris Ryan? Or Mike Coburn? Very possibly they all were, the men were hundreds of yards apart in the midst of a life or death firefight with loud explosions, gunfire, smoke and clouds of white phosphorous running hell for leather whilst trying to carry extremely heavy loads, Ryan saw things McNab and Coburn couldn't see and vice versa due to the terrain and their recall was of what was important to them at the time which obviously differed between the three. They both saw completely different bits of the same battle and described it accordingly, like the old fable of the blind men trying to describe an elephant by touch. McNab may never have been aware of the prescence of the local militiamen because Ryan was first in line and he was some ways behind him, by the time McNab was engaged in the running battle the soldiers at the anti-aircraft battery had joined in and they were the focus of his attention. Mike Coburn says he saw an armoured car firing a machine gun and two truckloads of Iraqis. Certainly the Iraqis at the artillery position would have needed some form of military vehicles to tow their anti-aircraft guns. Morever it would be weeks before any of the patrol could sit down and make a comprehensive written record of what had actually happened during which time McNab and Coburn were subject to a series of intense firefights, hypothermia, physical exhaustion, dehydration, capture, horrific torture and the death of three of their comrades. Meanwhile Ryan endured an arduous week long solo trek through the Iraqi desert (including inadvertently giving himself radiation poisoning from a contaminated spring and being forced to kill 2 men with his knife and bare hands) which left even a superfit and tough SAS trooper like himself a physical and emotional wreck. McNab and Coburn were also incarcerated for a considerable time with their fellow patrol members meaning that they would have swapped stories about what happened and influenced one another's recollection.
My point is that numerous witnesses can see the same thing and describe it countless different ways, they're not necessarily lying. This tends to be what the public and press can never understand in court or inquires, they expect everyone to have perfect recall and to have all seen the same thing, when they don't people begin to see conspiracies where there are none (Oliver Stone I'm talking to you!). It should be noted that in Mike Coburn's account he backs up Andy McNabs version of the taxi incident which Asher disputes.
So I'm prepared to give the members of the patrol the benefit of the doubt, combine their three accounts and you probably get an accurate picture.
As for McNab's controversial decision not to take vehicles I'd point out that the other two patrols which did take vehicles had to abort their missions immediately whilst Bravo20 were able to remain undetected for up to two days.
The thing that differentiates Ryan's account from McNab's and Coburns is that he is a lot less charitable towards patrol member Vince Philips than the others. Also I dislike Ryan's attitude that they shouldn't have conducted the mission until everything was ideal, that's not the real world, if they'd have waited until everything was perfect they'd never have gone at all and the mission would be a failure before it started.
Asher conducts his interview 10 years after the event with the Iraqi secret police looking over the shoulder of his interviewees. And frankly if I read in his book one more time how honourable the Bedouin are and how he understands them I'm going to scream! I just spent a 6 month tour in the middle east this year and actually I've found quite the reverse, especially when it comes to martial feats.
One thing I would say is that it's wonderful that Asher actually comes on Amazon to discuss his books, few authors seem to have the courage to do that