The SAS
Are UK special forces the best in the world?
Without a doubt. Obviously, everybody says they're the best, but that's all to do with getting pride. But it's actually a fact. The UK special forces are the best in the world, and you can talk to anybody else, in any other special forces, and they've actually modeled themselves on us. And the reason is, is the coterie -- we've always had to do everything, from maybe fighting in the desert to a jungle, then coming back and doing counter-terrorism work, or undercover work, where you learn surveillance skills, technical surveillance skills. And then all of a sudden, you're in the middle of a Tora Bora, running around in Afghanistan. Whereas a lot of special forces, foreign special forces, they're dedicated troops. It would be hostage rescue, or it would be their forward reconnaissance troops. Because we do everything, what happens is there's lots of stuff we might learn in one theater of war, that we can transfer, so we're looking out that way, instead of very narrow. And the system works. It works.
Why do you describe joining the SAS as your greatest achievement?
The feeling of actually joining this group - again, we just call it the regiment - has nothing to do with going through the selection process, but I just feel lucky to have got through that process anyway. It wasn't pride, it's just that they were going to find me out sooner or later. The only way to explain it is if you're a footballer, you know you want to go to the Premiership, or if you're a carpenter, you want to do some fantastic work of furniture, and there's nowhere better to go. That is it. If you want to be a professional soldier in the best organization, then that's the place to go.
Were you ever asked to assassinate Saddam Hussain?
No, no I was not asked to assassinate Saddam Hussain. There was no, if you like, plot to go out, so there wasn't a job. When these jobs come, up the mission statement is very clear and it will say, "The mission is to assassinate Saddam Hussein". It is just as simple as that. There was no job like that. A lot of that was just all done up in the media, that all of a sudden you are going to get regiment guards running around Baghdad before the war and they are going to kill him. It doesn't work like that because the most important weapon is not the guy with the rifle, it is the information you equip the guy with the riffle. So all the efforts were about finding the information, which there never was enough, because otherwise he would have been killed. Again, all of this stuff sort of gets taken out of proportion.
Do you think special forces should be used to assassinate our enemies?
Special forces are one of the, if you like, the tasks, the charter - what's called "prime target assassination" that's used. That's done in many different ways. Wherever it is, in a very traditional sense, wherever it's a sniper, or what we call free sniper, four sniper option where you've got four snipers on different levels, different directions. You've got a one in four chance of hitting this guy. Or, wherever you're doing an explosive ambush, making explosive devices, car bombs, and all that sort of stuff. That's part and parcel of our job anyway. That stuff does get used.
