This post is a bit out of date. Went on a trip with Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, in August/September last year to Iraq and Afghanistan. But a few recollections.
What's it like travelling with a superpower Secretary and his team of superpower civil servants and military? Well, first off, we get our own Air Force One plane - probably Air Force Three, but you get the picture - for the main part of the journey but then switch to a C17 Globemaster super transporter for flying within Iraq and then from Iraq to Afghanistan. It's decked out to carry VIPs and the like (I and 17 American newshounds are the like in this case). The Secretary spends the whole of the C17 flights sitting inside a steel box, like a giant garden shed at one end of the plane. No doubt with hot and cold running water, a Queen's size bed, DVDs, leather armchairs and a phone to speak to the President.
No sign of Himself on the C17 trips, but plenty to watch from my more humble seat along the side. Everything is about pecking order. One poor Pentagon official pretty high up the ladder was forced to sit in the second row of a line of seats in the middle of the plane. Front row with a scattering of generals had masses of leg room, but his second row seat was so jammed up against the front row - think Easyjet and then halve the space - that he spent each journey with his legs and feet twisted and contorted while he tried to read the endless verbiage in the special Top Secret File given to all the officials to consume before they landed anywhere, so that they were fully prepared to emit verbiage when they got there. He looked bored the whole journey from Iraq to Afghanistan and in total agony. When he was delivered a meal to eat he spent at least ten minutes wondering how on earth he was going to have the elbow room to use his knife and fork to poke at the burger - yes of course a burger - while continuing to read the secret stuff written by teams of super-intelligent people back in Washington. So much for being a high-up defense official.
A man with more leg room and sitting in another section, facing my row of seats was a large official with a protuding belly. He was also engrossed in the Top Secret material and when his burger arrived, he put his file down momentarily, piled the burger, tomato, lettuce, mustard, tomato sauce and mayonese into one huge chunk and took a mighty bite, the various sauces squeezing out in all directions and sending splashes of red and cream onto his shirt. He didn't notice. In between subsequent bites, like a shark grabbing the unfortunate leg of a swimmer off Miami Beach, the official - even higher up the food chain - picked up the file he had placed next to him and continued to read. After each bite and when he wanted to turn a page he would briefly lick his right thumb and forefinger to facilitate the turning of the page. Each lick, and presumably each top of the page must have tasted of burger, tomato sauce, mustard and mayonese. He devoured both the huge burger and the Top Secret File with the sort of concentration and devotion normally associated with hyenas scavenging on the carcass of a hunted-down gazelle. After he finished his banquet he was summoned to A Meeting with The Secretary whose eating habits were fortunately not on public view. Being a former Director of the CIA he would have known everything in the secret file anyway, so he probably enjoyed his burger while watching the New York Yankees losing again.
While the C17 ride was perfectly comfortable, this was a military plane, so no carpets anywhere, just a mass of unexpected floor rivets, and a deadly rail system under the seats in which our scrunched-up senior official was sitting which moved the seats back and forth when the plane took off and landed. The rail was deadly because the end bit stuck up - right in front of me - and presented to the unknowing passer-by an instant metal banana skin. ie everyone from assistant secretaries of defense to the New York Times reporter to the Voice of America broadcaster, tripped up every time they went by. It provided comic moments every five minutes, not a bad bit of free entertainment on long journeys. The only ones who knew to sidestep this jagged piece of metal were the military of course - and me who spotted the problem as soon as the very senior official with the tummy nearly fell into my lap, spluttering apologies and tomato sauce into my face. Incidentally, before he went off to brief The Secretary, Mr Secretary as they call him, he had seen the splash of red on his white shirt and spent five minutes dipping his serviette into a glass of water and sponging himself down. He did a pretty good job although Secretary Gates must have wondered why one of his most top advisers had a large damp patch on his shirt.
The mass of officials and journalists, exhausted and overfed, landed at 11pm at some remote Iraqi airbase, only to find of course the time difference meant it was 6.30am the next day, so straight to work, on to helicopters and down to Ramadi in western Iraq to speak to troops and get hot - 130 degrees and rising. Gates had a different baseball hat for each occasion. Then onto the C17 for Baghdad for the handover ceremony - from combat mission to advise and assist mission (a new lexicon of language is now de riguer in Iraq, the word combat is banned). During the ceremony which went on too long - the speeches getting more and more verbose and more and more unrealistic - I became riveted by the name on the back of the American soldier standing in front of me. It was Wyrizchkistiwan, or something like that and it reminded me of a wonderful BBC comedy show called the Fast Show which had a sketch about the FBI - or Feebi as Paul Whitehouse, my favourite comic pronounced it. He comes in and says: "Can I introduce you to Sergeant Wzichigh...Wwyzwz...Wyzziff, Sergeant Wozychi.. etc etc. He never gets it right. Gates looked pretty cool the whole time and must have shaken the hands of more than 1,000 soldiers by the time he had finished the trip - his tradition is to meet about 300 soldiers on each part of the trip, shake their hands and given them a coin. The poor officials, still clutching their Top Secret files, and sweating in their suits, flak jackets and helmets, looked like versions of Quasimodo by the time they climbed aboard for the journey home. I still looked immaculate of course in my smart blue suit, and polished shoes, well ok they were a little dusty.
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