Flying The Tyrant

USPA NEWS - Published earlier this year in the USA, Flying the Tyrant book by Mohammad Sulaiman and Lauren Ungeldi is an impressive book of lies and fake encounters. One can only wonder about the how these two writers came up with so many fake stories and weaved them together in one book.

Starting with the writer Mohammed Adel Sulaiman, a 1984 graduate transportation pilot, misrepresenting his VIP squadron placement as a special event while he was among many others assigned to this squadron, and tasked to air transport VIP members inside and outside Iraq. The squadron contrary to Sulaiman’s clams was not considered royalty if you will, nor a presidential squadron by any meaning. Instead, it was merely a regular squadron that belonged to Iraqi air force with rotating pilots to help building up their skills as a team and accumulating flight hours mainly because this squadron had much lower flight time than the average squadrons and the pilots constantly needed flying for skill building and more importantly for promotions.

Sulaiman’s highest achieved position in that squadron was first officer for domestic trips. He never took, let alone pass the captain’s course according to the training department of Iraqi air force documents.
In this short article, I will continue to highlight some of his false stories, prattle, and allegations in his book.

1. Chapter 3 page 41, he said, “in summer 1987 while flying Iraqi minister of trade from Baghdad to Yemen Sana’a and Aden and then to Somali republic Mogadishu airport”. As he approached Mogadishu to land he was surprised with the unusual communication response as he requested permission to land, and it was only after he landed he figured there was a coup going on in Somalia and they have landed in the middle of civil war with bullets sound filling his ears. However, history shows that the political situation in Somalia was calm and peaceful between 1969 and 1991 under the government of Mohammed Siyad Berry who ruled the country then. Which makes one wonder, what coupe Mr. Sulaiman is talking about?

2. Chapter 5 page 85, he tells a nonsense story about his highly classified trip where he flew Saddam Hussein alone and without any of his special security details or presidential guards from Baghdad airport to Habaniya airbase (80 km west of Baghdad) in Summer of 1996. He claims that after landing and as he parked his jet next to another private jet in the hanger. In an unbelievable moment he suddenly saw Yitzhak Rabin getting off the other private jet and meet Saddam, saluting him as if they were close friends. Sulaiman continues that then they (Hussien and Rabin) both got into Rabin’s plane and met for 3 hours! However, and oddly enough, Mr. Rabin was killed on November 4th ,1995 one year earlier than Mr. Sulaiman’s claim. One must wonder, what else is fake, and what level of credibility does this book offer?

While I can completely understand when some authors merely write for financial benefits to get by, but that level of disrespect to the audience intelligence is another level of low. History is full of private pilots flying presidents, kings, royal families and celebrities, but we rarely see one divulging secrets as this is a moral issue. Something the author seems to be missing in addition to honesty.
Eventually this book failed to change the historical facts, and cannot distort the clarity of Saddam Hussein’s last words on the gallows, “Long
Live Palestine, Arab and Free”.