Robert Earle - Nights in the Pink Motel: An American Strategists Pursuit of Peace in Iraq

This book has been brought to publication with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

2008 by the United States Naval Institute

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-61251-882-4 (eBook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Earle, Robert.

Nights in the pink motel : a strategists pursuit of peace in Iraq / Robert Earle.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Iraq War, 2003Personal narratives, American. 2. Earle, Robert. 3. DemocracyIraq. 4. InsurgencyIraq. I. Title.

DS79.76.E25 2008

956.7044'31dc22

2008023341

14 13 12 11 10 09 08 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

First printing

The opinions and characterizations in this book are those of the author and do not necessarily represent official positions of the U.S. government. Additionally, the identities of some individuals have been obscured.

To the memory of my mother and father

Contents

A s it plummets toward Baghdad, the C-130s roar penetrates my bones. The cargo bay is so packed that our knees are zipped together, eighty sweaty, tense civilians you might otherwise see on parents night at the local high school. The only person I recognize is Whitey Courts, his platinum hair and craggy Irish mug luminous in the darkness. Courts will be Negropontes spokesman. My role will be more unusual. Negroponte has asked me to be his thinker.

Think about what? I asked him when he made this proposal after his confirmation hearing. The two of us were sitting in his State Department office, a map of Baghdad spread over the coffee table. To start with, who is the enemy? he said. We dont have a good answer to that question. Everyone says something different. I need someone to help me think through the entire agenda so that we can try to turn this around. Would you be interested?

Everything in my life said no. For the last three years, I had been his part-time speechwriter, comfortably producing texts at home in Virginia for him to use at the United Nations in New York. Having retired from the Foreign Service, I viewed helping him at the United Nations as an interesting and efficient way to bolster the battered college fund my wife Mary and I had set up for our sons, Nick and Rob. In my mind, my career in government was over. Yes, I was focused intensely on the Middle East, but not todays Middle East. My new novel centered on Herod the Great, Augustus, Tiberius, John the Baptist, Jesus, and Pilate. So Id gone to Negropontes hearing to become the first U.S. ambassador to post-Saddam Iraq out of loyalty and curiosity, not with any intention of accompanying him to Baghdad. But as I had listened to the senators question him, I realized he wouldnt have enough hours in the day to think through the breadth and ambiguity of what he was about to undertake.

A year after the invasion, the occupation was coming to an ugly end. In spring 2004, America wanted out of Iraq. These senators wanted out. The hydra-headed insurgency was burgeoning; bombs were exploding everywhere; our operation to clean out Fallujah had failed; our vast reconstruction effort was stalling. Thats why the Bush administration decided to restore Iraqs sovereignty and dispatch its most senior career ambassador instead of a proconsul. This act would be a step back, substituting an embassy for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Even so, the senators questioned how sovereign a nation Iraq could be with a government brokered by the United States and United Nations and 130,000 foreign troops on its soil. And Negroponte didnt have a convincing answer. The truth was that Iraq wouldnt be very sovereign, but a diplomat couldnt say that. Words wouldnt change anything anyway. Wed have to formulate new policies, build new relationships, and take difficult steps to help make Iraqi sovereignty real and enable it to survive. Thats where Negroponte wanted my help. He told me that his interview with the president consisted of one question: Do you think democracy is possible in Iraq? We paused as I digested this oddity, confirming yet again my view of the quirky, arbitrary nature of power and its manifestation in a single personality. But I said Id consider his proposal.

My psychiatrist wasnt pleased. You left the Foreign Service to write, Bob. Now youve published a novel, and youre working on another one. Thats your dream. Why put it at risk?

I suppose because Iraq is the worst thing since Vietnam, I answered. What if I can help get us out of this disaster? How do I say I wont even try?

Id be more optimistic if we had a different president.

Negroponte says hell have latitude. The people at the White House know theyve made a mess of things.

What about your new book?

Ill work on it in the off-hours. What else will there be to do?

He remained skepticaljust like the senatorsbut Mary and Nick and Rob went along with it. It would be a year; there would be two home-leaves. So I told Negroponte okay, and Courts did the same, joining me in a one-week course on how to avoid being kidnapped, how to recognize improvised explosive devices (IEDs), how to triage and treat burn and blast victims, and how to shoot assault rifles. Wed both served in rough places for decades but nothing like this. Again and again, we were given the message that serving in Iraq as diplomats would be a long step beyond hazard and danger. We made out wills. We provided blood samples that would facilitate DNA identification of our remains. We listened to a woman describing how shed had much of her upper arm blown off, and wed had a look at the gnarled results.

To avoid a brass enema, I am sitting on my flak jackets. This flying truck is penetrable. Its plunging in a gassed-out panic, no evasive corkscrew descent, gravity hauling us in faster than the propellers can turn. Whats out there? All I can see are these men and women, their faces drained of expression. Everyone seems to be climbing a steep mental hillside of thought in the opposite direction of where were heading. Some of us have been up since four in the morning; its now mid-afternoon. Weve been bused to an Army base in Kuwait where we were served breakfast in a factory-sized chow hall. Weve been bused to a Kuwaiti air base, where we lined up our luggage on a crumbling service road for the bomb-sniffing dog to inspect. Weve reloaded our luggage onto the bus. Weve been told the plane would be three hours late. Finally, we were led out to this C-130 for chalk ten, whose route might take us north to Kirkuk and Mosul or might go straight-shot to the capitalnot for us to know until we were airborne.