In November of 1990 Vice Admiral of the Iraqi Air Force, Georges Sada made a frightening discovery.
Saddam Hussein ordered planning for an aerial assault on Israel in retaliation for being forced to give up Kuwait. The mission was to attack with ninety-eight of their best fighter aircraft in two waves of back to back assaults. They were to use three types of chemical weapons: The nerve agent Tabun; Sarin 1 and Sarin 2. The attack would begin as soon as the U.S. led coalition forces began their assault.
Sada was the only man willing to make the case against such a plan. He did so based on the anticipation that the sophisticated technology of the Israeli air force would result in the destruction of most or all of the Iragi fighters. They would most likely be shot down over Jordan and Syria. This would spread the deadly chemical agents on their Arab neighbors.
After an hour and forty minutes of making his case before Saddam and his advisors, the room fell silent. It was heavy with the anticipation that Saddam would remove Sada’s head right there on the spot. It had happened before to other officers who had angered Saddam.
Vice Admiral Sada had other motivations for risking his life with Saddam. As unlikely as it seemed, Georges Sada was an Assyrian Christian. He was not a member of the Baath party and Saddam had come to trust his knowledge and judgment free of political motivations.
Vice Admiral Sada dared disobey Saddam’s orders once more. Col. David Eberly of the U.S. coalition forces was shot down over Iraq and imprisoned. He begins his Forward as follows:
“You are about to learn some of the previously unpublished secrets of the most tyrannical leader since Adolf Hitler, as told by a most courageous man, Georges Sada, retired Iraqi General, fighter pilot and a man of faith who faced certain death at the hands of Saddam’s mad son, Qusay… “
General Sada was put in charge of the prisoners of war and formally interrogated Col. Eberly during his imprisonment with respect for his human dignity. Nevertheless, as the bombing of Baghdad intensified, Qusay ordered all of the prisoners to be executed.
Georges Sada argued that the rights accorded to prisoners under the Geneva Convention were inviolable. Col. Eberly writes; “He was able, by the grace of God to convince Saddam that the captured pilots must not be killed.” As a result, Sada himself was put in prison by the Republican guard in January of 1991 under threat of death.
This book is a fascinating glimpse into the rise and fall of this centuries most brutal of despots. To some, it will appear self-serving and lacking an honest assessment of General Sada’s own culpability as part of this despotic regime.
Today Georges Sada is a key figure in the rebuilding of Iraq and the forming of a new constitution respectful of human rights.
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