Human shield Uzma Bashir arrived back home in Bradford and vowed: "I'd do it all again if I had to."

The businesswoman, who spent two months in Iraq in the run-up and during the conflict, said: "I know we didn't stop the bombs from falling but we did get the message across that not everyone was against the Iraqi people.

"We took a calculated risk. Foolish is not a word I would use for my actions."

She said she never once wavered during the heavy coalition bombing raids in Baghdad. And given more time she believes the shield would have been more effective. "If we had had as long to prepare our shield as the Americans had had for their bombing campaign we would have been much stronger," said Uzma, who celebrated her 33rd birthday during the war.

"There would have been many more of us. We were flooded with e-mails in support."

She said they ideally needed up to 1,000 people in the shield to have stopped the bombing but only got around 200 at any one time.

The former Thornton Grammar School pupil, and owner of Little Monsters nursery in the city centre, was based at the Doura electric plant, two miles south of Baghdad, during the conflict.

She said homes around the plant were hit and she said she saw terrible scenes in the aftermath.

She said the bombing raids were "so scary".

"The noise was massive. The buildings shook, glass flew everywhere. But I never once thought about coming home. I was always going to see it through although when I spoke to my mum on my birthday she urged me to come home."

Uzma now returns to her job as lecturer in health and social care in London where she now lives.

She accepted Saddam was a dictator who did "vicious and evil things" but argued that Britain went against the United Nations and international law by going in to remove him.

She also said the struggle to get her through did not compare to the qualities needed for the Survivor TV reality show in 2001. "This was for real," she said. "I was glad to leave the island when I did."

She said before the war she had never been politically active.