Operation: Simoom
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Operation: "Simoom" (Polish: Operacja Samum) was a top secret Polish intelligence operation conducted in Iraq in the 1990's.
In 1990 the CIA asked European intelligence agencies to assist in the extraction of three American operatives from Iraq before the Gulf War. Many countries such as Russia, Great Britain and France refused to help in such a dangerous operation; only Poland agreed to help. The operation was very risky because if the cover were to be blown, all spies from both sides were likely to be killed.
Poland sent a few operatives to start working from scratch. Gromosław Czempiński became the commander of this operation. The main plan was to reestablish contact with the hiding American spies and give them Polish passports so they could escape from Iraq in a bus, alongside Polish and Russian workers.
The operation was very difficult because the Iraqis already suspected some kind of American-Polish intrigue and captured a Polish engineer (who was also the son of an UOP operative). The entire operation was stretched to the limits to free the Polish prisoner.
An Iraqi soldier who was patrolling the border had studied in Poland and knew Polish well enough to communicate. When the bus arrived at the border, he asked one of the American spies a question in Polish. Since the spy did not know Polish at all, he pretended to be heavily drunk (another version states that the operative in question fainted). Nevertheless, the bus managed to cross the border with all occupants. Operatives from both sides returned to their countries. As a reward for Poland, the USA's government cancelled 70% of Polish debt (instead of 50% which was planned)[citation needed].
A few years later, the Polish director Władysław Pasikowski made a movie about this operation.
