And Thank You For Watching

by Mark Austin

  My heart went out to Mannion. The best, boldest, most instinctive television newsman I had encountered was going through utter hell. It was so cruel.

  I called a meeting of the guys on the team and I told them that Dave Mannion was talking about us pulling back. ‘Does anyone want to do that?’ I asked.

  Silence. Mick Inglis looked at the ground and wiped his eyes. Still silence. Nothing from anyone. Derl then said that if anyone wanted to go back then we should all go back. If just one of us wanted out, we should all go out. Steve Gore-Smith murmured agreement. I felt he might possibly want to leave. It was his first taste of war, and it was a particularly bitter one. I thought he would want to go. If he did, it would have been a disaster. He was the technical genius who kept us on air. We needed him.

  Ted Denton, the youngest member of the team, in his early twenties and a brave, funny London lad who had wanted to do sound and found himself at war, then piped up.

  ‘Well, I ain’t fucking going anywhere,’ he said. ‘I only just fucking got here.’

  Laughter in the desert for the first time in forty-eight hours. ‘Let’s crack on,’ said Inglis. ‘If we go back to Kuwait City, what would Terry think? What would he say?’

  ‘That’s me and Ted then… What about you lot?’

  Everyone said they were in – including, thank God, Steve Gore-Smith. Our war was about to begin. In the worst-possible circumstances, but we were under way.

  I phoned Mannion and he asked me to talk to Stewart Purvis, the editor-in-chief, who had also wanted us to hold off. I couldn’t get hold of him but I spoke to Jonathan Munro, whom I had come to trust and admire. He was dealing with the whole thing better than most of us. ‘You should continue, but there are new rules,’ he said. ‘You check in every two hours and we discuss every move you make.’ We agreed. On reflection, Munro would have made a good editor of ITN, but he was later lost to the BBC.

  We eventually managed to attach ourselves to a small team of Royal Engineers heading for Umm Qasr. Finally crossing into Iraq proper was a huge relief, but everything we did, every move we made, was thought through and negotiated with London. In truth, it became a cumbersome way to operate. It wouldn’t survive contact with real stories, and it didn’t. Gradually things loosened up. But the backdrop to everything was Terry’s death.

  The Royal Engineers were just what we needed. A group of soldiers who were not attracting much press attention and who liked having us around. We followed them into the port, where we were met with a giant portrait of Saddam Hussein, defaced and damaged, and a checkpoint manned, mercifully, by British troops. In the port itself, very little shipping, but one important vessel had arrived, the Royal Navy supply ship Sir Galahad.

  It had just docked, having been delayed by storms and the discovery of mines strewn across the port waters. On board were about 650 tonnes of food, medicine and fresh water. It was much-needed humanitarian aid for local Iraqis displaced by the fighting, and the Ministry of Defence believed it sent out an important message about British intentions in the war. It was also a perfect, and safe, location for that night’s Evening News. I was able to say for the first time, ‘Good evening from inside Iraq…’ It was long overdue.

  And then we had a stroke of luck that was to make our lives much easier than we could ever have imagined. We came across a base set up by Royal Marines who were staging patrols of the port area and seemed welcoming and chatty. I was able to meet the commanding officer of 42 Commando, Colonel Buster Howes, who was around my age, immensely likeable and a gem of a guy, clearly on the way up. He immediately invited us to stay the night at the base. In fact, he insisted. But there was a hitch. He had an embedded news team who he had to give priority to and who may not welcome our presence.

  ‘Who is it?’ I asked. ‘It’s Bill Neely and Dave Harman from ITN,’ he said. ‘Surely you know them?’

  Obviously we did. Bill is a good mate and a class act, and he was generous in the extreme about letting us hang around. I immediately agreed that he would take absolute priority on all breaking stories; my only concern was to present the Evening News from our dish each evening. Bill quickly saw the advantage of having an ITN satellite dish at the same base as him. It broke all the rules of pool coverage, but he didn’t care, I didn’t care and Buster Howes couldn’t give a damn. We opened up our direct phone line to the UK, invited the marines to make calls home and became the most popular news team in Iraq. I am sure it also broke every rule in the military book but it was great for morale, and our relationship with Buster was based on a trust that I hope we did not breach.

  Buster was a guest on our programme, and the profile of 42 Commando was higher than it would otherwise have been. Everyone was happy. It was a deal, done on the ground, that benefited all sides and offended no one. It worked.

  One night, we anchored the programme from a roundabout in front of the base gates. In the middle of the roundabout was another giant mosaic portrait of Saddam Hussein. Buster provided security for the show. His marines formed a protective shield around us, and the machine gunner in the nest above the base entrance overlooked the entire presentation area, which had been floodlit by Mike Inglis. We were pretty conspicuous, but well protected. Just before we went on air, there was a huge bang in the middle distance. Derl buckled as if to take cover, Ted flinched and Inglis said, ‘Fuck, what was that?’ The marines didn’t so much as twitch. We were in safe hands. We never found out what caused the explosion.

  These were difficult days, though. On one occasion, we went filming near a local market and saw a water tanker where residents were filling containers. The war was causing hardship and hatred. A couple of Iraqi men turned on Mike while he was filming and he had to fend them off. It was an ugly moment that threatened to get out of control and was an early sign of what was to become the story of Iraq. Local resentment was to turn into a low-level insurgency that would eventually make the occupation of Basra a nightmare for British forces, and would cost lives and reputations. We jumped in the car and made a rapid exit.

  One evening, Buster called me into his office. He wanted to brief me about the imminent assault on Basra. We pored over his maps. He was generous with details and I was grateful that he trusted me. It was for my information so we could work out our movements, and was not for reporting. It was immensely considerate and showed a confidence and an awareness that struck me as exceptional. Buster would, in fact, go on to become Commandant General Royal Marines and later the defence attaché in Washington DC. I was not remotely surprised.

  But for now he was a colonel in Iraq and he was doing me a huge favour. We were heading into Basra.

  My thoughts that night turned to Terry. This was to have been his moment. Had things turned out differently he would now be at the gates of the city or even already inside it. I am sure he would have had one of the first reports from inside Basra. It was all so desperately unfair.

  The night before the move into the city, Buster put us in touch with some military media guys who agreed to escort us in. There was little protection. They were in soft-skinned Land Rovers and were lightly armed. But they seemed to know what they were doing and where they were going, and that was good enough for us.

  In the event, it was not the easiest of journeys. We found ourselves negotiating a heavily mined road, gingerly making our way around unexploded mines that had only been partially buried. The army officers thought it had been done in a hurry by withdrawing Iraqi forces.

  Our guides decided to leave the tarmac road and drive across some muddy, boggy ground towards an industrial estate. I was not at all sure it was a good idea. It was getting dark, it was eerily quiet and I didn’t like it at all. Even Mike Inglis was uneasy. We ended up spending the night with a unit of Special Boat Service guys who wouldn’t tell us anything and didn’t want us around. In the middle of the night they were packing up and leaving. They were to be some of the first British troops into Basra. We had no idea.

  When we eventually reached the outskirts o
f the city there was gunfire echoing through the streets. We saw British snipers firing into a nearby building. It was apparently a mopping-up operation involving troops attached to the Desert Rats.

  But we were being told Basra was largely under control. We were taken to Saddam’s palace, which had become a British headquarters. That night it was: ‘Good evening from newly liberated Basra …’ It felt good. Basra and Baghdad were effectively taken, the war was progressing well from the coalition point of view. And it was a successful programme, including reports from across Iraq, from Washington DC and, of course, from London.

  During the broadcast I noticed Buster Howes walk behind the camera while we were on air. He smiled. ‘Welcome to our new abode,’ he said.

  We were there for several days and it was a lively time. On several occasions, shells would land close to or inside the palace grounds. There was still resistance out there. One day, we ventured out into Basra itself; it was chaos. Shops and hotels were being looted. We saw televisions, lamps and furniture being carried out, or simply lobbed from upper-floor windows of the Sheraton. Part of the building was on fire. At one point, our vehicle was surrounded by an angry crowd of locals banging on the roof and windows. Things were becoming tense and threatening, but there was little hint of the violence that would engulf the city over the coming months and years. The war was a success; the post-invasion years were a disaster for which George W. Bush and Tony Blair would pay a heavy political price, and hundreds of their troops would sadly pay a much higher one.

  While we were in Basra we were joined briefly by two former SAS security guys sent out to Iraq by ITN. They were not only out there to help protect us. They were there mainly to find out whatever they could about what had happened to Terry Lloyd and his team. They wanted to find Fred Nérac and Hussein Osman, hopefully alive, but if not then at least their bodies. Their families were suffering the most awful ordeal. An ITN producer, Nick Walsh, had also been assigned to try to find out more about exactly what had occurred on the road to Basra. There were too many questions and not enough answers.

  After another few days we had to make the decision about whether to head to Baghdad, which had by now fallen to American forces. The foreign desk was keen for us to get there to present another couple of programmes from the capital. The security guys were initially optimistic about getting us up there by road. But one night a couple of Western journalists were ambushed and badly beaten while making the drive. Others were missing, feared kidnapped. The atmosphere was changing rapidly. The advice given to us was not to go unless we could persuade the military to fly us up. That proved impossible to organize. It would be drive or nothing. I called a meeting of the team at the palace. No one fancied it.

  I was quite relieved. Our war was over. We were going home.

  But if our assignment was over, the battle to find out the truth about Terry was only just beginning. Slowly, painstakingly, Nick Walsh was putting together a picture of the events that unfolded on the road to Basra.

  He managed to obtain some photographs of the scene just after the shooting. They came from an American photographer who was embedded with the American troops nearby. It turned out he had been with the US battalion involved in the firefight. He said he’d been stopped by US Marines from going nearer to the scene of the attacks.

  Nick also managed to talk to a spokesman for the battalion, who was by now in Baghdad. Through him, he reached the captain whose tank crews had, it turned out, opened fire on Terry and his team. This is what Nick wrote about the encounter:

  He said that the tanks had seen a white pickup truck with a machine gun mounted on it coming from the direction of Basra. It was flanked by two cars marked as TV vehicles, speeding towards them. The white pickup was filled with Iraqis. Through telescopic sights, one of the soldiers had seen an Iraqi put on a gas mask and load the mounted AK-47 machine gun. He claimed the Iraqis fired first. His men thought the Iraqis were suicide bombers and had stolen the ITN vehicles. They thought they were being attacked.

  It was the first real account of how it happened. Eventually more detail emerged, and the story gradually came together. It appears that the ITN team were driving towards Basra until they saw the Iraqis approach. They turned the vehicles around but were chased by the Iraqi truck. This was the scene witnessed by the Americans. Several vehicles coming at high speed towards them. And this was when the firing started.

  But there was more. Nick also managed to meet the driver of a makeshift minibus ambulance who claims to have picked up two wounded Iraqis and Terry Lloyd. Crucially, he said Terry was wounded by Iraqi fire but was still alive when he placed him in his ambulance. ‘But then as we drove away,’ he told Nick, ‘we came under fire again.’ Ballistics experts have since confirmed Terry was shot in the head by an American bullet. All the evidence suggests it was fired while the vehicle Terry was in was driving away from the Americans.

  In October 2006, a coroner ruled that Terry was unlawfully killed by American forces. Coroner Andrew Walker said he would be writing to the Director of Public Prosecutions ‘to seek to bring the perpetrators to justice’.

  ‘Terry Lloyd died following a gunshot wound to the head,’ he said. ‘The evidence this bullet was fired by the Americans is overwhelming… There is no doubt that the minibus presented no threat to the American forces. There is no doubt it was an unlawful act of fire upon the minibus.’

  After the inquest, Chelsey Lloyd, Terry’s daughter, said that the value of the inquest had been demonstrated and that the culprits should now face a court of law. She was determined to pursue the case, and so too was ITN. But there was no court hearing and there was no justice.

  The final word, legally at least, came in July 2008. The head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) counterterrorism division, Sue Hemming, said it was not possible to say who fired the shots that killed Terry. She agreed that forensic evidence indicated he had been injured by shots from Iraqi forces and then he was hit by US fire. But there would be no prosecution.

  ‘Having considered all the evidence gathered by UK authorities and the evidence from the US, together with advice from counsel, we have decided there is insufficient evidence for a prosecution,’ Hemming said. ‘I understand that this will be very upsetting news for the family and friends of Mr Lloyd but I can reassure them that every care was taken in pursuing lines of inquiry and reviewing the evidence.’

  I remember reading those words at the time. They seemed to me weasel words. It had all the hallmarks of a CPS inquiry that went through the motions and little more. I do not imagine for a moment there was any real pressure put on the Americans to identify the perpetrator.

  I am convinced the US Department of Defense had little time for the whole issue. And I am equally convinced the Ministry of Defence in London had no wish to ‘go to war’ with their allies and pursue the case with determination and vigour.

  But the fact remains, and I’ll say this again, that all the evidence points to Terry having been shot in a makeshift minibus ambulance travelling away from the American troops who opened fire. I hear what people say about the ‘fog of war’, I understand the argument that Terry and his crew had put themselves in a very dangerous situation. They had chosen to be there. But it is, on the face of it, a war crime. And, at the very least, the coroner’s ruling that he was killed unlawfully should have been put to the test in a court of law.

  There was no justice for Terry or his family. Like many others who knew Terry well, it angered me at the time. Then it became an overwhelming sadness that, despite Andrew Walker’s conclusion, there was to be no closure. No satisfactory ending. No justice.

  David Mannion was worn down by it all, and it had a lasting and very noticeable impact on him. But he was philosophical, under the circumstances. ‘The fact is, Mark, there isn’t much more we can do,’ he told me. ‘The Americans know that one of their men fired the bullet that killed Terry. But they will never say who it was. They probably haven’t even bothered to find out. And they w
ill certainly never allow him to speak for himself in a court of law. That’s it. That’s where we’re at after five years of fighting. I think we’re done.’

  He was exhausted and defeated. I am not sure that the exuberant, warm, emotional, inspirational, driven man I respected and admired has ever been quite the same since. Terry’s death took a terrible toll on his family, but it also wounded his boss and his mate grievously. It is so terribly sad.

  Ten years after Terry’s death, I returned to Iraq with his daughter Chelsey and Daniel Demoustier, to make a documentary about the events of that terrible day. Chelsey was visiting Iraq and the scene of her father’s death for the first time. It was harrowing and emotional but ultimately rewarding, she said. She said she felt ‘strangely at peace’.

  We also managed to track down the commander of the platoon involved in the firefight. Vince Hogan, who had since left the US Marines, agreed to meet Chelsey in a coffee shop in Virginia. They talked for half an hour about his memories of the day. Hogan said he wouldn’t do anything differently had the same scenario unfolded today. ‘We felt under threat,’ he said. ‘You have to make split-second decisions and you have ultimately to protect your men.’

  In an interview with me, he said he was horrified when he heard that journalists had been killed.* He was sympathetic, kind and helpful to Chelsey.

  As we left that coffee shop, she told me on camera that she no longer had feelings of vengeance or a desire to see men prosecuted for her father’s death.

  I am not sure I could be so generous.

  * Fred’s and Hussein’s bodies have never been found. It is a truly hideous situation for their families. My heart goes out to them.