On 6 September 1990, Margaret Thatcher rose to make a statement to a packed House of Commons. The previous month, Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait. George Bush Sr had drawn his line in the sand and was assembling his grand coalition. The countdown to the first Gulf war had begun.
But British concern was focused on the fate of the passengers and crew of a British Airways jet that had landed in Kuwait at the start of the invasion. These passengers were taken hostage by the Iraqis and were soon to join the group known as “human shields”. This group included, most famously, the five-year-old Briton Stuart Lockwood, whom the world would see being patted on the head by Saddam when the hostages were paraded on television.
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