Bravo Two Zero

Bravo Two Zero was the call sign of an eight-man British Army SAS patrol, deployed into Iraq during the First Gulf War in January, 1991. According to one patrol member's account, the patrol were given the task of "gathering intelligence;... finding a good LUP (lying up position) and setting up an OP" on the Iraqi Main Supply Route (MSR) between Baghdad and North-Western Iraq, while according to another, the task was to find and destroy Iraqi Scud (missile launchers) along a 250 km (160 mi) stretch of the MSR. The patrol was the subject of several books, firstly patrol commander Andy McNab's Bravo Two Zero (1993) followed by Chris Ryan's The One That Got Away (1995). Accounts in both these books, as well as the account by the SAS's RSM at the time of the patrol, Peter Ratcliffe (Eye of the Storm, 2000), did not always correspond, leading to accusations of lying from the media, the investigative book The Real Bravo Two Zero (2002) by Michael Asher which followed the patrol route and interviewed witnesses, and the subsequent book, Soldier Five by patrol member "Kiwi Mike" in 2004. For McNab's conduct during the patrol, he was awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal, whilst Ryan, and two other patrol members (Steven Lane and Robert Consiglio) were awarded the Military Medal.