The Secret History of Flight 149

On August 1, 1990, British Airways Flight 149 departed Heathrow Airport bound for Kuala Lumpur. It never arrived, nor did its nearly 400 passengers. Instead, Flight 149 stopped to refuel in Kuwait while Iraqi forces were massing at the border, handing the passengers and crew over to Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi army to use as human shields during their invasion. Why did BA Flight 149 proceed with its plans to refuel in Kuwait City, even as all other flights were rerouted and even though both the British and American governments had clear intelligence that Saddam was about to invade? The answer lies in a quid pro quo at the highest levels of government, and an unaccountable, clandestine organization—authorized by Margaret Thatcher—carried out a deniable intelligence operation to smuggle a package of intelligence offerings into Kuwait on the flight. The plane was a Trojan horse, and the plan—and its horrific and traumatic consequences for the civilian passengers—have been discredited, denied, and concealed by successive British governments ever since. This controversial book, soon to become a major television series, has been written with the full cooperation of the survivors, as well as stunning and crucial contributions from a senior intelligence source. It is a story of scandal, betrayal, and the abuse of intelligence at the highest levels of the UK and US governments—which had a direct and terrifying impact on terrorist attacks in the West and on the shape of the Middle East today. It is time for the truth to be told.