Reaper Force - Inside Britain's Drone Wars. Peter Lee M.

radical ideologies on the civilian population’.8 This radical ideology is enforced by extreme violence, enslavement, rape, murder, torture and more.

      In the first three chapters, I take the reader into ‘Reaper world’ through my own experiences as I set out on my research. Chapter 1 follows the journey from Las Vegas to Creech Air Force Base and into 39 Squadron, concluding with the pre-flight briefing for the day’s mission. Chapters 2 and 3 are spent in the GCS with two different crews on successive days. The first day captures hour after hour of surveillance activities, while the second day sees two missile strikes against IS jihadists. Chapter 4 is the most historically focused of the book, providing an insight into the origins of the UK Reaper Force through the eyes and experiences of several pioneers who developed their understanding while serving on exchange with the USAF Predator fleet.

      Chapters 5-9 are all highly detailed and operationally focused, highlighting specific individuals or experiences. Chapter 5 recounts the 2011 civilian casualty incident through the eyes of the MIC involved, going on to reflect on living with what happened that day. Chapter 6 challenges many assumptions about gender and war as ‘Tara’ flies Reaper operations, including her employment of lethal weapons, through to advanced pregnancy. Chapter 7 provides a major ‘What if?’ moment for a crew whose target fixation could potentially have had a disastrous outcome, then follows the retraining process that brings them back to full capability again. Chapter 8 re-lives the moral dilemmas of one Reaper SO who struggled with killing, and controlling missiles onto human targets. Then Chapter 9, Happy Boxing Day, proves to be anything but as a crew spends Christmas night 2014 helplessly observing a series of horrors on the ground in Iraq, whilst being unable to intervene to protect the ‘friendlies’ below.

      The final four chapters are more reflective. Chapter 10 brings together the thoughts and experiences of a range of Reaper crew members in their own words. Chapter 11 provides a moment-by-moment account of one of the most famous RAF Reaper missile shots from those involved. The shot disrupted a public execution and the video was released by the MoD at the same time as it was announced that there would be no medallic recognition for the Reaper Force personnel for their fight against IS. The penultimate chapter gives voice to several spouses and partners who speak about their lives with those who go to war every day, and the challenges they face. The final chapter combines my own thoughts on what I have seen and experienced, with reflections from Reaper operators on the personal legacies of having been at war, continuously, for up to seven years and more. One additional, unplanned chapter appears as an Epilogue and captures a glimpse of the human cost of war. It started as a brief, personal account from a Reaper MIC who witnessed the death of a US Marine, Corporal Matthew Richard, in Afghanistan, and still remembers it every day. The story evolved over several months as I got to know Cpl Richard’s parents, his Squad Leader and five fellow squad members, who all shared their perspectives on what happened on 9 June 2011.

3 RPAS is the legally designated descriptor used by the International Civil Aviation Organisation. See http://www.icao.int/Meetings/anconf12/IPs/ANConf.12.IP.30.4.2.en.pdf, accessed 23 July 2018.

4 Cole, C., Dobbing, M. and Hailwood, A., Convenient Killing: Armed Drones and the ‘Playstation’ Mentality (Oxford: Fellowship of Reconciliation, 2010).

5 Philip Alston, 28 May 2010, Report of the Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Study on Targeted Killings, Human Rights Council, UN Doc. A/HRC/14/24/Add.6, http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/14session/A.HRC.14.24.Add6.pdf, accessed 5 February 2018.

6 Vic Pittman, Salem News, 18 April 2013, ‘Cowardice Redefined, The New Face of American Serial Killers’, http://www.salem-news.com/articles/april182013/american-killers-vp.php, accessed 10 February 2018.

7 War on Want, ‘Killer Drones’, https://waronwant.org/killerdrones, accessed 10 February 2018.

8 Pinheiro, P.S., 18 March 2014. Statement by the Chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic. United Nations Human Rights, http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14397&Lang ID=E, accessed 12 February 2018.

       CHAPTER 1

       INTO THE DRONE LAIR

      ‘YOU’RE FLYING WITH ME TODAY’

      SQUADRON BOSS

      It is an odd feeling, knowing that I am about to watch someone be killed. Perhaps not today, and perhaps not even tomorrow, but almost certainly before the week is over I will see someone’s life ended before my eyes. Deliberately, precisely and with extreme prejudice, using a missile or bomb from an RAF MQ-9 Reaper – a drone, in popular terminology, or an RPAS to use its more technical term. The very possibility transports me to another time and place that I try not to think about too often. To a military hospital in Cyprus in 2003 where I spent five months of the Iraq War at the bedsides of the wounded, injured and dying. Maybe I haven’t thought this through properly. But here I am, not in Cyprus… in Vegas. And not to gamble. (No way. The house always wins.) My cheap casino room is merely a base from where I will venture into one of the most secretive communities on Earth.

      An hour’s drive from the epicentre of Vegas’s hedonism stands Creech Air Force Base, home to an array of USAF capabilities, the most famous – or infamous, depending on your opinion – of which are the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper. It is also one of the two places from where the UK operates its own Reapers, the other being RAF Waddington. I am about to spend several days alongside the RAF Reaper crews of 39 Squadron, with a behind-the-scenes view of the war they are waging against IS in Syria and Iraq. I cannot dignify the jihadists’ self-styled use of the bogus name ‘Islamic State’, and I’m not sure how neutral I will be as I watch events unfold. Any group that kidnaps, sells and rapes thousands of young girls, and murders Muslims and others in pursuit of its aims, does not have the hallmarks of Islam or of statehood.

      The early morning traffic is accumulating rapidly as my condescending satnav guides me briefly along the Las Vegas strip and then away on a circuitous route to US95. Highway 95 takes me northwest out of Vegas towards Creech where 39 Squadron has been based since its re-formation as a Reaper Squadron in 2007.

      As the Vegas suburbs give way to desert the transition comes quickly. The last signs of civilization – if that is the right word – are the power cables above the highway. High- and low-voltage cables: the twenty-four-hour pulse that keeps the city alive. No electricity, no lights; no electricity, no pumped water; no electricity, no pinging slot machines.

      There are no signs of life as far as the eye can see. The car thermometer says it is 43ºC (109ºF) outside and the sky is a rich morning blue, edged with paler shades around the horizon. No clouds, no hope of rain. The road is arrow straight for miles ahead and a constant shimmer maintains its distance half a mile in front of me as the sun works its magic on the tarmac. In the