Known and Unknown_ A Memoir - Donald Rumsfeld [439]
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Arriving at Bagram Air Base outside Kabul, Afghanistan, in December 2001, we were greeted by a band of haggard but courageous Northern Alliance fighters who had just toppled the Taliban—and by the abandoned wreckage of Soviet-made aircraft.
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During my first visit to Afghanistan I met with the determined leader Hamid Karzai in an abandoned hangar at Bagram Air Base.
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One of Karzai’s challenges was to integrate former Northern Alliance generals such as Ismail Khan into the new Afghanistan. With the assistance of our Afghan-born diplomat Zal Khalilzad he was able to do so, and Khan became an influential provincial governor.
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During the Afghanistan and Iraq campaigns, those of us meeting in the situation room of the White House could communicate by secure video with commanders around the globe—here President Bush and I prepare for an update from Gen. Tommy Franks.
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Arriving at Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, in 2003. Our country benefited from the close partnership between the then U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Zal Khalilzad, and our military commander Lt. Gen. David Barno. They understood the importance of linking American diplomatic and military efforts. Their effective model of cooperation was regrettably not always followed by their successors.
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In the lead-up to the war in Iraq, President Bush made an effort to invite his combatant commanders along with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the White House cabinet room for face-to-face meetings with their Commander in Chief.
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At a town hall meeting at Camp Buehring, Kuwait. I welcomed the opportunity to meet with our troops overseas. They were a constant source of inspiration.
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At a December 6, 2003, meeting at Baghdad Airport, I advised Jerry Bremer that the Department of Defense’s oversight of his activities as CPA administrator was ending.
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At a NATO meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, I passed a note to President Bush informing him that Iraq was sovereign on June 28, 2004—two days before the deadline.
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With my senior military assistant, Vice Adm. Jim Stavridis; special assistant Larry Di Rita; Gen. George Casey; and Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Bill Luti in Baghdad. My staff and I traveled to Iraq fourteen times over three and a half years.
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With Maj. Gen. Ray Odierno (left) in Kirkuk, Iraq, in December 2003, discussing the hunt for High Value Target Number One: Saddam Hussein.
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With Lt. Gen. David Petraeus (left) in Baghdad. Despite all the challenges we faced in Iraq, we were fortunate in the caliber of officers who led the effort on the ground, notably Gens. Chiarelli, Conway, Dempsey, Mattis, and McChrystal as well as Odierno and Petraeus, who would go on to play pivotal roles in the surge and beyond.
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Travel to remote corners of the globe was sometimes tiring but always enlightening. Onboard a C-17 cargo plane headed into Uzbekistan with (clockwise from bottom left) Torie Clarke, Marc Thiessen, Doug Feith, Vice Adm. Ed Giambastiani, and my administrative assistant Delonnie Henry.
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Sultan Qaboos of Oman was one of the most impressive observers of the Middle East. I benefited from his council after the Beirut barracks bombing in 1983 and again soon after the 9/11 attacks.
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With Kazakh officials in Astana. What I had not admitted was that the ceremonial robe they had presented me was covering up a large hole in my old pair of suit pants that had virtually disintegrated as I got out of the car to join the meeting.
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This handsome horse was a symbolic gift from the Mongolian Minister of Defense in 2005. I named him “Montana” because the surrounding steppe looked much like the big sky landscape of Joyce’s home state. When President Bush visited Mongolia the following year, he jokingly told his hosts that he had come to see how “Rumsfeld’s horse” was doing.
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(Center to right) With Gen. Dick Myers and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless, I showed my