Air Force One

4 years ago, just before Christmas, I was summoned to my commander's office in Iraq. "Perez, he said, " you've been selected to represent the unit to greet a distinguished visitor to the base." "Who?" I asked nervously. "The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld."

 

At 3am the next morning I stood in the foyer of the headquarters building, housed in what used to be Uday and Qusay Hussein's summer palace. After a couple of hours, I heard Rummy's chopper land, watched as his personal security detail (private contractors, of course) entered and cleared the building. I listened as he spewed the party line about success in Iraq, touting the merits of his policies where I had seen them fail with my own eyes. 

 

He talked about the then "successful" push into Fallujah, which had not defeated the insurgency, but had only pushed the fight into the less heavily defended city of Mosul. Where we were. He talked about the "successful" efforts to train the Iraqi police force, a police force which almost entirely melted away when the insurgency attacked Mosul. Where we were.

 

As directed, I held my tongue. I should have held my nose. I skipped breakfast and walked back to my bunk bitter, more certain than ever that our leadership was failing us.

 

12 hours ago I was summoned to my commander's office here at Bagram. "Perez, he said, " you've been selected to represent the unit to greet a distinguished visitor to the base."

 

Respectfully, I declined.