My Share of the Task(150)

                At the end of their conversations, the emir would be taken back to detention until their next meeting. Slowly, somewhat impossibly, a respect built that would later pay off. Toward the end of their meeting early that December, the emir addressed Graeme.

                “You know,” he said matter-of-factly, “you’re a force of occupation, and don’t try to tell me differently. That’s how we see it—and you’re not welcome.” He explained to Graeme in his deliberate way that his guidance from the Koran was that he must resist the force of occupation for years—for generations even—if it threatened the faith and his way of life. He paused, as Graeme continued to listen. “We’ve watched you for three and a half years. We’ve discussed this in Syria, in Saudi, in Jordan, and in Iraq. And we have come to the conclusion that you do not threaten our way of life. Al Qaeda does.”

                It was a remarkable breakthrough—and opened up possibilities for what effect the emir might have if freed. So during the final days of December 2006, when news from Iraq was dominated by the bungled hanging of Saddam Hussein, the Coalition released Abu Wail from prison—FSEC’s first strategic release. They released him without conditions. We needed him to be a credible member of Ansar in order to stir their thinking and divert their direction. Requiring him to meet with a westerner or to spy for us would put that in jeopardy. Regardless, we worried suspicious comrades might well kill him.


* * *

                “Annie, another Christmas apart,” I wrote to her by e-mail. I was to spend the day in Afghanistan with our force and then after dark fly in one of our aircraft to Balad, arriving after midnight. Christmas Day was spent seeing parts of my force in Iraq, while Annie, with Sam home from college, followed their tradition of Christmas Eve dinner in a local Chinese restaurant. This was the third Christmas in a row that I was gone, and while she wasn’t alone, it had to be lonely.

                “We never really expected this kind of thing at this stage in our lives,” my e-mail continued, “but I still believe we are doing what is our duty—as a team—to the nation and to the people we serve with. You know the frustration I feel when I see the packed malls and overfed greed of so many Americans. But when I meet in small posts in harm’s way with young Americans who believe in their cause and their duty—and who desperately need to see leaders who reflect the values and dedication they want in the people they follow—it is pretty easy to stand the separations with the quiet confidence we are living up to all the values we were raised to uphold.”

                My thoughts were as much for me as they were for her, but Annie always seemed to understand what I was trying to say. For me, it meant staying forward deployed. And as hard as it was for her, Annie wouldn’t have had it otherwise. It was fundamental to the kind of leader I believed I should be. Being apart so long was painful, and she worried. But she was proud of me, and that meant everything.

                By the time I wrote to Annie and thousands of other soldiers sent e-mails home or called families who missed them, President Bush had decided on a new strategy in Iraq, following months of review stretching back to the spring. During Christmas and the final days of 2006, he weighed the heavy decision of how many troops he would “surge” to Iraq as part of this new way forward. He eventually decided to send five army brigades that would primarily focus on Baghdad, and two Marine battalions to reinforce Anbar. The war in Iraq was about to hit an even higher register.


* * *

                On the cusp of this expansion in Iraq, pressing developments on a different continent demanded my attention—and drew me to Addis Ababa.

                On Christmas Eve 2006, Ethiopian troops had invaded neighboring Somalia, then riven by a civil war. Six months earlier, in June, the Islamic Courts union  , an umbrella group of Sharia courts and Islamic militant groups, claimed control of Mogadishu and most of southern Somalia. One of the main militant groups of the ICU, Al Shabab, or “the youth,” had developed increasing ties with Al Qaeda, largely through its charismatic founder, Aden Hashi Ayrow. We believed Al Shabab was sheltering some of Al Qaeda’s senior operatives, including Abu Taha al-Sudani, leader of Al Qaeda in East Africa, as well as a number of those behind the 1998 embassy bombings.