Here is a one and a half month ordeal of a Kuwaiti fighter pilot whose aircraft was shot down by Iraqi forces on the opening day of Operation Desert Storm. Kuwaiti Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Mubarak, twenty years after his terrible experience as a POW, reconstructs the events from the day of his capture to the day of his release blow by blow for the benefit of the Arab Times’ readers. More than the physical torture and starvation at the hands of the enemy, it was the haunting wail of silence, the crushing power of loneliness and the eternal clink of water dripping from a leakage that threatened his sanity. Read on for a trek to the frontlines of the true horrors of war.

Question: Do you remember that first day of the war?
Answer: On the 17th of January, 1991, our detachment, No. 20, was based in King AbdulAziz Airbase. All our flights were Sky Hawks, used by the US Navy.
The operation actually started on Jan 16 in the US, but due to the time difference, for us in Saudi Arabia, the operation began on Jan 17, because it was past midnight here when we got the news that the operation has started.

Q: Operation Desert Storm you mean?
A: Yes, operation Desert Storm was launched on Jan 17. The whole operation was called Desert Shield, but the combat phase was called Desert Storm. I began preparing for the operation, going through the ATO, or Air Task Orders.

Q: What is ATO?
A: An ATO is Air Tasking Order, which is a means by which the Joint Forces Air Component Commander controls air forces within a joint operations environment. The ATO is a large document that lists air sorties for a fixed period, with individual call signs, aircraft types, and mission types.
We have to call so many agencies before the operation. My roommate was busy doing the planning. I was looking at our timing. We had about four flights. When I say one flight, it means a package of four to six aircraft. So, we had four such packages. I was supposed to lead the fourth package. We were launching from King Abdul Aziz Airbase.
Kuwaiti pilots were all deployed, because we had the advantage of knowing Kuwait.

Q: How many Kuwaiti pilots were there?
A: Well, you could say about 30 pilots were there. I am not sure of the exact figures... it’s been 20 years now.
So, our targets were mainly in Kuwait. The longer range attacks within Iraq were carried out by American, British and Italian flights, because it required refuelling. Whereas, with an extra tank, we could simply fly into Kuwait, drop the bombs and return.
By around 3 am, we started hearing alarm sirens of possible scud missiles targeting our base. When the operation was launched, we were all very excited that Kuwait’s liberation was close at hand. We were happy to be involved in such a noble mission.

I briefed the second and third flights. Their take off was around 7.30 in the morning, so they could be at their targets by around 8 am. By 9.30 am they came back, and got a very tumultuous reception. It was the first day, and so many sorties were going out, that I don’t remember the sequence.
Our operation was limited to day time because it was not possible to bomb in the night, as there was a need for special technology to attack at night, and we didn’t have them. The first sorties were successful.
I was very tired because I had worked through the night to prepare for the attacks. By afternoon, my colleagues were asking me to rest. But I couldn’t. Moreover, I had the youngest Kuwaiti pilot in my team, who was looking up to us for confidence and strength, and being a Lieutenant Colonel at that time, I couldn’t afford to ease up at all

Q: How old was the youngest pilot?
A: Well, he was in his early twenties, a fresh graduate from the US. He had not gone through the full operational course. He was my number 6. He had of course trained to deliver bombs, but he didn’t have the experience.
My flight took off around 2.30 pm. We reached our target around 3 pm. It was January, and the sky was not very clear. There were cloudy patches. It was okay in the morning, but when we flew the weather had changed a bit.
We were about 10 miles East of Ahmed Al Jaber Base. We couldn’t see the target unfortunately because of the weather. With our aircraft and our weapons delivery system, we had to see the target with our eyes, before diving down and releasing the payload.
So, as the leader of the flight, I decided to pick on secondary targets. The Iraqis were spread out all over. We scattered, that is two aircrafts would go and release bombs on the target.

Q: When you say targets you mean battle tanks and such like, isn’t it?
A: Yes. The tanks or anything that belongs to the enemy. Our main target were rocket launchers, which were difficult to sight because of the weather. That’s why we switched to the secondary targets.
The secondary targets were small. Now, you usually dive down and deliver the whole payload of five bombs on the target. But as the target was small, I thought of not wasting the bombs, and decided to release one bomb in each dive. This was tactically not the right thing to do, but certain situations impel you to act differently. I was so fired up to deal a hefty blow to the Iraqis. I wanted to make the most of my payload.

When you dive into the same area again and again, you become vulnerable to the artillery attack. So, in my third dive, when I was about 8,000 feet low, I took a hit on my left wing.
When you have an emergency, there are three basic rules to adhere to: maintain aircraft control, analyze the situation and take proper action. I did them, and also radioed the information to the base. However, soon after that, I experienced a left bank and nose down spiral. There is also a rule that if you take a hit below 10,000 feet, you have to eject immediately. That’s what I did. I took the hit at 8000 feet and with the spiral, I lost another 500 feet.

Q: Does the aircraft fall through like a stone once hit?
A: You can say that. Because mostly the hydraulic cables run through the fuselage and when that is hit, the controls are totally gone. So I pulled the lever under the seat, and a rocket was fired, ejecting the seat with me firmly harnessed in it out into the air. The canopy opens first and the seat shoots out. As it is rocket propelled, the ejection takes place at great speed. This causes your blood to rush down from the brain. So, I was experiencing a grey out and a black out momentarily. The seat separated, and a small chute opened out initially, and then the big chute opened. By then, I was back to normal, fully conscious.
I had the control strings, and I was studying the ground to choose the spot to land. The wind was blowing from South and I tried my best to land into the wind.

Q: It’s best to land against the wind, isn’t it?
A: Yes. Moreover, you also have an emergency kit with you which makes the landing heavier. Instead of landing on your legs, you actually land on your sides and roll over.
The moment I released the chute, I had Iraqis surrounding me. They said, ‘Don’t move.’ I had a 9 mm gun, which they seized. They put me in one of their jeeps, face down, and took me to one of their shelters in the desert, a trench in the sand. That’s the usual procedure in warfare, because then you are least vulnerable to artillery fire. It’s also camouflaged during aerial attacks.

Q: Where was this exactly in Kuwait?
A: This was in South of Kuwait, between Wafra and Ahmed Al Jaber Airbase. I was stripped of my uniform, and asked some basic questions. I was then taken to three other command posts, blindfolded. I was very exhausted. At all the posts, I would hear a lot of abusive language, take kicks and beatings. Obviously, they were very angry with Kuwaitis. After the third command post, I knew that I was being taken out of Kuwait.
I was made to sit with my hands handcuffed behind my back and blindfolded in a jeep. I had two guys with me. I remember one of them was called Jaffer. And the other was First Lieutenant Ahmed, from the Iraqi Intelligence. They were asking me to sit up straight, which I couldn’t as my hands were bound behind my back. They were taking me to Nasriya, I guess, because they have a major command post there.

Q: How many hours had passed by then?
A: Well, I couldn’t tell, firstly because I was blindfolded and couldn’t judge the amount of sunlight outside. Secondly, I would also fall asleep on and off as I was very exhausted. I was finally taken into an office and made to kneel down there. My blindfold was taken off and I could see many officers around me. There was one high-ranking officer who asked me a lot of questions about my identity and from which airbase I was coming from and so on. Then he asked me if I recognized anybody in that room. I said, ‘Yes,’ and pointed to a man in the room. That was Uday, Saddam’s son.

Q: Did Uday speak to you?
A: Yes. He asked me some questions about the relationship between our royal family and the Saudi royal family, and other questions of a political nature.
After this, they put me in another room, and a second round of interrogation began after I was allowed to refresh. The blindfold was back on my face. They asked me technical questions about my aircraft and about the squadrons in my airbase and so on. I was taken from there to another command center. It was like an intelligence office and they registered my details there.
I was interrogated again. This time they took off the blindfold. My hands were handcuffed. I saw flight boots. When they take off your blindfold, they will not torture you. Because you see them. They were the air force people. Two officers were around. They asked me aviation related questions. As an aviator I didn’t carry very vital information regarding the coalition.

The information I give them would be very inconsequential from the coalition’s point of view, because when they came to know of my capture, they would also know the sort of information that Iraqis could avail from me and take adequate measures so the information would be of no advantage to the enemy.
They were telling me that I was an Iraqi and that I should have shown my loyalty to Saddam Hussein by offloading the bombs in the desert and landing in an Iraqi airbase and turning in the aircraft to Iraq. That was their propaganda.
I spent the night in a room and when I moved my blindfold, I noticed that it had a window through which I could see artillery flashes. I slept on a couch in the room. It was not a proper jail. The next day, I heard voices of people and I realized that there were other POWs like me, and we were going to be shifted from there.
I had heard, before I took off on my mission, that a British Tornado had been shot down in Iraq. So, I guessed the other POWs must be from that aircraft. I didn’t know their names then. It was John Nickel and John Peter.
It was the 19th of Jan and I had another round of intense interrogation.

Q: Were you beaten?
A: Of course, yes. They were beating us with different objects. Sometimes it felt like a cane, and sometimes like a rubber tube with something filled in it. Sometimes bare hands. We have had our training to face interrogations, and these people who ask you questions are also smart. The idea is to buy time to evade giving useful answers, and the moment they sense you are dillydallying, they beat you. The blow comes very hard on any part of your body.
There was also an Italian POW whose aircraft was shot down over Iraq. I later learnt that he had gone into a partial amnesia, and was disoriented. The Iraqis had an interpreter to interrogate him and beat him very hard when he was not offering answers.
I was then taken out into a corridor, where there was also a British POW. That was John Peters, who was beaten very badly. This because they thought he was an Israeli pilot. The Iraqis thought that even Israel was involved in the operation, and because John Peter had black hair and looked less European, they thought he was an Israeli pilot.

On the 20th I was taken through another round of interrogation, and told that as I was an Iraqi, I was guilty of betrayal, which calls for a death sentence. In order for my sentence to be commuted, they gave me an offer of speaking to the media what they wanted me to speak. I agreed. My idea was to tell the world that I was alive. And so I spoke what I was told, basically something to show Iraq in good light, and things like I was guilty for having acted in defiance of the Iraqi regime and all.
This footage of the interview of POWs actually worked to our advantage, because it turned international sentiment against the Iraqis, because it was evident that we had been tortured.
We were there till the 22nd of Jan. Then we were taken to a military base. There was a jail. The cell that I was in had writings on the wall by prisoners who were there before me. Members of a crew of a ship that had docked in Shuaiba during invasion had also been put there. Here we were given prison uniforms. They were yellow.

This camp was nicknamed Bungalows by the American POWs. John Nickel, and the Italian pilot and others were there in the jail, each in a different cell. This jail was under the Muhabarath, or the core of the military intelligence. The treatment was not so bad here.
We were here until Jan 31. On that night, they took us out from here, and put is in a jail, the American’s named it Biltmore. The cell in this jail was covered with ceramic tiles of dark burgundy color. There was no ventilation and there was no way I could tell whether it was day or night.
There was a flap on the door through which they would bring us our food, a bowl of soup. It was a watery tomato paste with a few pieces of potatoes for the whole day. It was very inhumane. I mean, imagine someone calling you names and spitting you in the face early in the morning, and there was nothing we could do to defend ourselves.

There was a leakage in my cell and water was constantly dripping from it, adding to the chill. I used to cover myself with the only blanket I was given, and walk around the room to keep myself warm.
The guards would frequently change and there was absolutely no communication. The silence was torturous, and the sound of the dripping of water rang like gongs in my ears, driving me mad. It was physically and emotionally sapping. I used to call out for help expecting some guard would respond and do something about my plight. But there was no reply at all. The water leakage in my room added to the chillness, and even today I get pain in my knees in the cold. I can’t do without a heater.
The walls are very thick. There was no way you could communicate with other inmates by knocking on the walls or doors using Morse Code. No sound would escape from your room. You were totally isolated.
The sound of the dripping water was very annoying. I trained myself to ignore it and be positive. On the few occasions I meet the guards, I could sense a look of gloom on their faces. It told me that they were losing.

On Feb 23, this prison took heavy shelling from the coalition forces. They didn’t know that we were inside it. This prison was an intelligence headquarters and hence the raid. The whole building was shaking. I went to a corner of the room, which was facing another block in the prison, which I thought would provide some shield from the bombing. In between the explosions, there was absolute silence. We could hear the whistle of the bombs hurtling into the prison before exploding with deafening sound. Moreover, we were scared because the coalition might use what is called delayed fuse explosives. These are bombs that don’t blast off on impact, but take some time so that the bomb dives deep into the target and take out the target from inside. Luckily the bombing stopped after some time. The door of one of the cells was blown open in the raid. I think it was the Italian’s cell. So there was a lot of shouting and noise once the bombing subsided. We were calling out to find out if the others were all right.

Q: This was on Feb 23. What happened after that?
A: We were then bussed to Abu Ghraib Prison from here. We took beatings in the bus, which once again was fully shuttered. Here I was put in a cell along with a couple of other American and Italian POWs. We huddled close together to keep ourselves warm. The Italian POW, who had lost his memory, had regained his memory fully, and was aware of things. Gradually, there were a lot of people moving into the prison. We were offered soups in big bowls. And then the radio was turned on for us. Saddam Hussein was giving a speech. It was Feb 24, the day when land forces started moving into Iraq. He was giving a fiery speech, encouraging his men to fight hard. Later on, we were all scattered in different cells. Abu Ghraib was a civilian jail and a very old one. So, the walls had holes, through which you could communicate with the inmate in the next cell.

Meanwhile, there was war going on outside, and we used to hear a lot of firing. On Feb 28, as usual we heard the firing. But this time round, there was a distinctly different ring to it. It sounded like celebratory gunfire. We were then transferred to another location on March 2. This place was nicknamed the Batman’s Cave. This was the last stop to our freedom. We were already feeling it, because we were given the choice to stay together or in different cells. We preferred to stay together. Then a senior officer walked in and gave us a nasty speech. He said that he hates to see us all leave alive, and that if he were in command he would have ordered us all slaughtered. And he asked me to translate it exactly like how he said it for the benefit of the Americans and Britons. But after that the treatment was much better. They fed us well. On March 4, some of the injured POWs were released first as a gesture of goodwill by the Iraqi army when the coalition forces ordered ceasefire. Two days later, we too were released.

biography
Kuwaiti Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Mohammed Mubarak was a pilot flying in the first wave of strikes in Operation Desert Storm. During the strike, his aircraft was shot down. He was captured by Iraqi forces and was among seven allied airmen who were captured in the first wave of strikes. On Jan 20, 1991, Mubarak appeared on Iraqi television in an apparent propaganda effort by his Iraqi captors. First the voice interviews, followed by the videotapes, were released by CNN. Mubarak was eventually released by March 6.