Sadly, yes, I was a "gullible" Ops Off (somebody had to do the horrible job!). My next door neighbour in Weeze was Peter, your GLO at Tabuk -so you might now know who I am. TTT was my SLOPS. Wg Cdr Ops was a small supercilious man. "W***Y" AKA "The smiling knife". The Stn Cdr was a peculiar Scot who had a penchant for delivering bacon & egg sarnies to everybody to denote Endex of a Minival/Taceval.
You on the squadrons certainly knew what happened in your immediate close sphere of operations - but you never saw the bigger picture as Ops did back at Laarbruch on a minute by minute basis. Aircrews will never see the politics between ATOC/Operations/Engineers as to types of weapons available/selected for targets etc.
I saw many strange decisions made - by some very brave men. What really stuck in my throat though was that at the end of Granby I had to orchestrate the return of the two Johns from Akrotiri to Laarbruch. One of them had cocked up yet they were treated like returning Heroes. JP quietly carried on with a normal RAF career. The night prior to their return to Laarbruch I was in transit accomodation waiting to drive back to the UK to a new posting. I had my evening meal & ended up in the bar with JN's brother who proceeded to get thoroughly p****d.
At breakfast the next morning I was alone at the next table to the JN clan. There was JN, his brother, parents & a Lawyer. Their whole conversation revolved around how JN could capitalise (financially) on his incarceration in Iraq. The results are there for everybody to see...