Sort of. Actually what I was doing at 7:05pm June 29th was sort of dull – walking back to my apartment from work / spinning class. (my new hobby). Headed to same bar I went to on my last ‘this date’ post for a going away party – six guys from our group are leaving and we had a little shindig for them. I did not drink this time…
BUT, what I was doing exactly 5 months and one day after I received the call was pretty cool. I had taken a USAF biz jet from Bahrain to Basra, Iraq to pick up three folks – one Brit and two Iraqis – to take back to Bahrain. Very cool in that I was the only passenger in a six seat biz jet on the flight up – my once in a lifetime ‘Trump’ moment. Almost as cool was the flight taking off from Bahrain as soon as I was ready – no waiting as a pseudo-DV. Anyhow, we land in Basra (an hour early) and the place is essentially a ghost town – just three Iraqi airfield workers who were there to see if we needed gas and they knew nothing about our passengers to be.
Ghost town, Basra International Airport. Just to the right of this is the deserted commercial airline passenger terminal. Langoliers, anyone?
The two pilots also knew nothing – and it was their first time in Basra. I tried calling, but my cell phone would not call reliably, and the Iraqi's cell phone was not answering. NOT a warm fuzzy. So, I walk over to the air traffic control tower – past the ubiquitous Ugandan security guards – and wander around the mostly deserted building to the top of the tower and find two Iraqis working – a control tower for an essentially deserted airfield. They knew nothing either, as did the two US guys who showed up. I then wandered back to the jet and the Brit had shown up, and he had a bit of news about the Iraqis…so we waited, for a good hour. Again, cell phones would not work, though I was able to send / receive texts from the wife nicely! But, the Iraqis did show up – pretty much on time. We hopped on the plane and had a nice night flight out of Basra. A couple of notes about that. First, you don’t take off from Iraq like you do elsewhere – there is a lot of maneuvering until you get up to a safe altitude – still folks out there with Surface to Air missiles…. Second – Basra at night looked like any US city from the air – though I did notice some rolling blackouts as the strained Iraqi power grid struggled with 120 heat and a lot of a/c units.
My ride, getting fueled up, in Basra, Iraq. The Brit had arrived by this time, so I was greatly relieved at this point.
The other interesting part of the day was that is was ‘Freedom Day’ in Iraq – our troops pulled out of the cities, and there were celebrations in many places. Side note – there was some mixup on the date – Iraqis thought we would be out 12:01 am on the 30th (midnite on the 29th) – we thought it meant 11:59pm on the 30th – a 24 hour difference. Once we realized the mixup, we honored the Iraqi understanding.
Not as ominous as you may suspect – just an oil well in southern Iraq burning off natural gas. Natural gas comes out with the oil normally, and since they have no easy way to collect, process, and transport the gas, they just burn it – you see it all over. Common practice – Nigerian oil platforms will burn off some 850 BILLION cubic feet of gas in a year – enough to heat every home in the US for the month of January!
Back to the rest of the week… once I got the Iraqis to Bahrain, I had to manage their events for their three day stay – ALL aspects of it – customs, visas, hotels, pay, meetings, tours, translators, etc etc. Not rocket science, but a lot of pesky details. And, I had to drive them around as well – made me a bit nervous as I had not driven in Bahrain yet… but it turned out well. Sort of fun, actually, first time driving a car since late March.
Had a nice dinner with my Iraqi counterpart – with a translator to help. (he is starting to learn English, and I am starting to learn Arabic, so we could say a few words to each other – mostly greetings and small talk). We had a lot of similarities – about the same age, same rank, he has three boys about the same age as my older three who love soccer…. he is a head coach but can never find enough time to do it regularly… I can relate.
Why are we hosting folks from the Iraqi Navy? Simple – it is called ‘Theater Security Cooperation’ - it is my job. For a variety of reasons, it is good to have regular interactions with Navies around the world. You build relationships with your counterparts, work together in exercises, train together, swap people (e.g. have foreign sailors come ride your ships and vice versa), and just get to know each other. Then, if something bad happens (natural disaster, conflict, etc) in the area, you have counterparts you personally know that you can call and work with, and your Navies can work together. Always good to have a personal relationship – same reason in my civilian job it was good to travel to see my customers once in a while. Phones and video teleconferences are useful, but it easier to work with someone after you know them personally and have had a couple dinners together to get to know each other. And frankly, some problems are easier solved in a room face to face, rather than over weeks of painful group meetings…
Anyhow, as the US pulls out of Iraq over the next couple of years, we are working to transition the relationship from trainers (and invaders) to regional partners. That is the gist of my job for the Iraqi Navy. And, it is incredibly cool… just had a US ship (minesweeper) do an overnight port visit in Umm Qasr, Iraq and am planning lots of things like that in the future. And no, it is not about the freakin’ oil. Yes, we want stable oil sources (as does the rest of the world..), and a stable Iraq helps there, but if you read the news about the recent oil contracts let by Iraq, you will notice that US companies get no favors – was a process driven by business and business only. (and, if you read a bit more, a Chinese company just bought a Brit company that has oil contracts in northern Iraq… not exactly something we would allow if we were pulling the strings in Baghdad!). It would be nice if Iraq turns out to be a nice stable friendly democracy, but the fact is it will turn out how Iraqis want it to turn out…
Finally, did anyone catch the subtle ‘Friends’ reference in the title?
Maa Salaama!
No comments:
Post a Comment