We Meant Well (28 page)

Airborne, the pilot dipped his right wing to turn and I saw the ground, Iraq, for the last time. I would be lying if I said I could see below me the wastelands I now knew were home to wild horses. I wanted to think I could make eye contact with one of the horses. She might look up and notice the plane overhead, the sun midway down the horizon, the smoke rising to the left where something had again gone terribly wrong in this sad place. She might have had in her thoughts the same vision that I held at that moment, colors that seemed to generate light, an image that, if the beast could think, she would have held in her mind forever. The horse had been there before I arrived, and I hoped she would go on a long, long time after I had left.

Notes

  
1
.
http://iraq-prt.usembassy.gov/20100804baghdad3.html
.

  
2
. Office of the White House Press Secretary, “Fact Sheet: Expanded Provincial Reconstruction Teams Speed the Transition to Self-Reliance,” July 13, 2007.

  
3
.
http://iraq-prt.usembassy.gov/about-us.html
.

  
4
.
http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/08/18/chris_hill_s_farewell_tour
.

  
5
.
http://michellemalkin.com/2007/11/07/a-diplomat-scolds-state-department-weenies/
.

  
6
.
http://oig.state.gov/documents/organization/140420.pdf
.

  
7
.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/05/iraq_war_ledger.html
.

  
8
.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100728/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_iraq
.

  
9
. United States Government Accountability Office,
Iraqi-U.S. Cost-Sharing: Iraq Has a Cumulative Budget Surplus, Offering the Potential for Further Cost-Sharing
, September 2010.

10
. MP 6743. MP and MG numbers refer to Department of State QRF projects.

11
. TEC 103–6428.

12
. Transparency International,
Corruption Perceptions Index 2010
, October 26, 2010.

13
. Michael Schwartz,
War without End: The Iraq War in Context
, Haymarket Books, 2008.

14
. Frederick Barton and Bathsheba Crocker,
Estimated Breakdown of Funding Flows for Iraq's Reconstruction: How Are the Funds Being Spent?
Center for Strategic and International Studies: Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project, December 2004,
http://csis.org/files/media/csis/events/041201_iraq_funds.pdf
.

15
. Curt Tarnoff,
Iraq Reconstruction Assistance
, Congressional Research Service, March 12, 2009.

16
. Brookings Institution,
Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security in Post-Saddam Iraq
,
http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/Iraq/index20060530.pdf
.

17
.
Rebuilding Iraq: Stabilization, Reconstruction, and Financing Challenges
, GAO Report to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, GAO-06-428T, February 8, 2006,
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/gao/d06428t.pdf
.

18
. SIGIR,
Report to Congress
, April 30, 2007,
http://www.sigir.mil
.

19
. SIGIR,
Report to Congress
, July 30, 2008,
http://www.sigir.mil
.

20
.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq-reconstruction-20100829,0,1409733,full.story
.

21
. Curt Tarnoff,
Iraq Reconstruction Assistance
, Congressional Research Service, March 12, 2009.

22
.
http://musingsoniraq.blogspot.com/2010/08/continued-problems-integrating-sons-of.html
.

23
.
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/04/27/iraq-detainees-describe-torture-secret-jail
.

24
.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-detainee-abuse-torture-saddam
.

25
.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=69339
.

26
.
http://www.usf-iraq.com/?option=com_content&task=view&id=15315&Itemid=128
.

27
.
http://article.nationalreview.com/349857/a-neighborhood-reborn/pete-hegseth
.

28
.
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/310127.aspx
.

29
.
http://www.army.mil/-news/2010/05/21/39590-local-art-show-paints-bright-picture-for-iraqs-future/
.

30
.
http://aidwatchers.com/2010/03/how-is-the-aid-industry-like-a-piano-recital/
.

31
.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129119290
.

32
.
http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/iraq/2010/04/great-news-for-softball-and-baseball-iraqi-national-teams.html
.

33
.
http://www.tac.usace.army.mil/deploymentcenter/tac_docs/GO-1B%20Policy.pdf
.

34
.
http://katieandchadwade.blogspot.com/
.

35
. MG 104–6465.

36
. MP 133–7490.

37
. MP 124–7279.

38
. MG 112–6700.

39
. MP 54–3936.

40
. MP 38–2914.

41
. MP 31–2458.

42
.
http://www.usf-iraq.com/?option=com_content&task=view&id=28175&Itemid=128
;
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=195401703528
.

43
.
http://www.sigir.mil/files/audits/11-009.pdf#view=fit
.

44
.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq-reconstruction-20100829,0,1409733,full.story
.

45
.
http://www.doonesbury.com/strip/archive/2007/03/01
.

46
.
http://www.hsus.org/animals_in_research/animals_in_research_news/military_uses_pigs.html
.

47
.
http://www.congress.org/news/2011/01/24/more_troops_lost_to_suicide
.

48
.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38267520
.

49
.
http://www.brookings.edu/saban/iraq-index.aspx
.

50
. Andrew Bacevich,
Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War
, Metropolitan Books, 2010, p. 86.

51
.
http://www.usip.org/files/file/resources/collections/histories/iraq_prt/45.pdf
, p. 2.

52
.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/04/smoke-and-mirrors/5849/
.

53
.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq-reconstruction-20100829,0,1409733,full.story
.

54
.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/navy/art5-w98.htm
.

55
.
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/05/06/
.

56
.
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24.pdf
.

57
.
http://en.aswataliraq.info/?p=132514
.

58
.
http://www.niqash.org/content.php?contentTypeID=28&id=2660&lang=0
.

59
.
http://www.sigir.mil/files/quarterlyreports/April2010/Report_-_April_2010.pdf#view=fit
.

60
.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/fullmaps_sa.nsf/luFullMap/41BA4475787A02B1852576470058C3FD/$File/map.pdf?
.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks and more to my readers Lisa Ehrle, Mari Nakamura, Abby and Sarah Van Buren. Thanks also to Laurie Russo for the initial proofreading, Torie Partridge for the author photo, and to Raeka Safai for good counsel with a sense of humor.

My heartfelt gratitude to all the wonderful people at Metropolitan Books and the American Empire Project who worked to bring this story to daylight. In particular I am grateful to Sara Bershtel, Riva Hocherman, Steve Fraser, Tom Engelhardt, Jason Ng, and Roslyn Schloss.

Great thanks go to the men and women of the Third Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division, the First Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, and especially the Second Brigade of the 10th Mountain Division for their patience, time, and willingness to educate me during my year in Iraq. I came home safe because of your dedication and skill. Respect to my long-suffering Army S-9 partners Major Jason Conner, Major Geno Hwangbo, Captain Tom Eddy, and Mobile Max Ranger Minton, all good men who demonstrated professionalism while swimming upstream.

My thanks to Lieutenant Colonel Mike Davies and Lieutenant Colonel Mike Laabs, with whom I shared my fiftieth birthday, sipping whiskey from paper cups in the desert.

A shout-out to Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Robert Manazares, who helped inspire me.

Though we have never met or spoken, my thanks to
Dispatches
author Michael Herr. His book is required reading for anyone interested in modern conflict. Although presumptively about the Vietnam War, and while many sections speak about specific battles and places in Vietnam, his remains the best book ever written about the personal experience of being in war (
Catch-22
is in second place).
Dispatches
certainly informed my experience in Iraq, and every soldier I could persuade to read it came to the same conclusion. The chapter titles “Inhaling” and “Exhaling” are based on Herr's and appear in homage to his work.

Not thanks really but a special notice to Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, who led an organization I once cared deeply for into a swamp and abandoned us there. In a sad way, their actions created this book—I just wrote it all down. There was one little hint about how unimportant this all was to the highest levels of even the new management at State. On our last day of PRT training, the facility was put into lockdown for a visit from the new Secretary of State (it's cool that when she visits her own staff the Secretary's security puts us into lockdown). She greeted and congratulated the Afghan PRT class down the hall from us Iraqis, then left. We didn't even rate a walk-on. Our war no longer really mattered, though it would take me a long year in the desert and writing this book to fully figure that out.

About the Author

Peter Van Buren has served with the Foreign Service for over twenty-three years. He received a Meritorious Honor Award for assistance to Americans following the Hanshin earthquake in Kobe, a Superior Honor Award for helping an American rape victim in Japan, and another award for work in the tsunami relief efforts in Thailand. Previous assignments include Taiwan, Japan, Korea, the UK, and Hong Kong. He volunteered for Iraq service and was assigned to ePRT duty 2009–10. His tour extended past the withdrawal of the last combat troops.

Van Buren worked extensively with the military while overseeing evacuation planning in Japan and Korea. This experience included multiple field exercises, plus civil-military work in Seoul, Tokyo, Hawaii, and Sydney with allies from the UK, Australia, and elsewhere. The Marine Corps selected Van Buren to travel to Camp Lejeune in 2006 to participate in a field exercise that included simulated Iraqi conditions. Van Buren spent a year on the Hill in the Department of State's Congressional Liaison Office.

Van Buren speaks Japanese, Chinese Mandarin, and some Korean. Born in New York City, he lives in Virginia with his spouse, two daughters, and a docile rottweiler. This is his first book.

The American Empire Project

In an era of unprecedented military strength, leaders of the United States, the global hyperpower, have increasingly embraced imperial ambitions. How did this significant shift in purpose and policy come about? And what lies down the road?

The American Empire Project is a response to the changes that have occurred in America's strategic thinking as well as in its military and economic posture. Empire, long considered an offense against America's democratic heritage, now threatens to define the relationship between our country and the rest of the world. The American Empire Project publishes books that question this development, examine the origins of U.S. imperial aspirations, analyze their ramifications at home and abroad, and discuss alternatives to this dangerous trend.

The project was conceived by Tom Engelhardt and Steve Fraser, editors who are themselves historians and writers. Published by Metropolitan Books, an imprint of Henry Holt and Company, its titles include
Hegemony or Survival
and
Failed States
by Noam Chomsky,
The Blowback Trilogy
by Chalmers Johnson,
The Limits of Power
and
Washington Rules
by Andrew Bacevich,
Crusade
by James Carroll,
Blood and Oil
by Michael Klare,
Dilemmas of Domination
by Walden Bello,
Devil's Game
by Robert Dreyfuss,
A Question of Torture
by Alfred McCoy,
A People's History of American Empire
by Howard Zinn,
The Complex
by Nick Turse, and
Empire's Workshop
by Greg Grandin.

For more information about the American Empire Project and for a list of forthcoming titles, please visit
www.americanempireproject.com
.