The Gulf Conspiracy Read Free Page B

the colleague who had looked after him as somewhere behind them a Scottish technician murmured sourly, ‘Aye, right.’
     

TWO
     
     
    Dhahran Airbase
    Saudi Arabia
    February 1991
     
    Lt. Colonel James Blamire arrived at the television studio in plenty of time to confer with his American counterpart as they’d previously arranged. A few inches shorter than the gangling Blamire but broader and with an iron-grey crew cut in contrast to the Englishman’s thinning fair hair, Marine Colonel Max Schumacher got up and held out his hand when he saw Blamire come in through the door.
    He smiled and suggested, ‘Why don’t we walk and talk outside?’ He picked up his briefcase from the side of his chair.
    Blamire, noting the number of people in the room and the noise being made by the technicians as they went about their business of preparing for a press conference, grimaced and nodded his agreement.
    The two men made their way to a side exit, stepping carefully over cable lines and easing between satellite broadcasting equipment to leave the studio, pausing only to tell the floor manager who was clutching a clipboard in one hand and gesturing to a man setting up the lighting gantry with the other, that they would return in plenty of time for the start of the conference.
    ‘ The word is out that some of the press are going to be asking awkward questions about Saddam’s use of CB weapons,’ said Blamire.
    ‘ I’ve heard that too and I’m not exactly relishing it. I don’t suppose you’ve any idea what they’ve got?’
    ‘’ Fraid not. I tried my sources but no joy. Hopefully it’s just the stuff of rumour but by God, there’s plenty of it going about.’
    The two men continued their slow walk in silence until Schumacher broke it by saying, ‘Between you and I, 513 Military Intelligence have filed a report of anthrax being found in King Khalid City,’ said Schumacher. ‘Thought you should know.’
    ‘ One of our field labs has identified Plague bacillus at Wadi al Batin,’ said Blamire.
    ‘ Jesus.’
    ‘ But there is to be no change to the official line,’ said Blamire.
    ‘ Which makes our position about as comfortable as sitting on a barbed wire fence,’ said Schumacher.
    ‘ Trotting out the same old crap like some military parrot.’ said Blamire. He recited, ‘There is no confirmed evidence of Saddam ever having used CB weapons intentionally.’
    ‘ Note the all-important use of the word, “intentionally”,’ snorted Schumacher. ‘The Iraqis use plague and we use semantics. Still, I guess in some quarters of the UN this would be regarded as progress.’
    ‘ If either of these reports has been leaked to the media - despite the fact they’re top secret – Joint Intelligence suggests that we point them in the direction of air strikes carried out on Saddam’s labs.’
    Schumacher smiled and said, ‘An unfortunate but unavoidable fall-out carried on the desert wind?’
    ‘ Precisely. These facilities posed an unacceptable threat to the civilised world and had to be destroyed. Any collateral damage due to escaping micro-organisms is to be regretted.’
    ‘ Think the media’ll swallow it?’ said Schumacher.
    ‘ Personally I’d prefer if they swallowed the bugs and got off my bloody back. I’m fed up pandering to a bunch of holier-than-thou scribblers so that Joe Public can watch the bloody war on television.’
    ‘ Know how you feel,’ agreed Schumacher.
    ‘ There is one thing that bothers me though,’ said Blamire. ‘I don’t quite understand why we’re bending over backwards to pretend that Saddam isn’t using CB weapons when he damn well is.’
    Schumacher looked at Blamire sideways. ‘You’re serious?’ he said. ‘You really don’t know?’
    ‘ No, I don’t,’ confessed Blamire.
    ‘ We sold him the weapons, James. Uncle Sam supplied him with the bugs less than six years ago and George Bush reckons the American people couldn’t quite handle that fun piece of information