PS:

There was a large Iraqi Budget and Finance Conference at Al Rasheed in June 2008 for the 2009 Iraqi Capital Budgets. Two UN and two DoS attendees (by invitation).

Those DoS folks (one of which may or may not have been me) made the mistake of inviting a US officer heavily involved in the budget execution process so that he could understand what was to come.

A senior Iraqi official stopped the officer, and with great courtesy, explained that the US had done many great things for Iraq, but this conference had to be by and for Iraqis. He was set up in great style with a listening device and coffee, but not allowed in.

As the regular budget bickering began (as in Wisconsin, Maryland or DC), the Iraqi budgeteers and planners began arguing over the standards and procedures for project ranking and evaluation----and they all decided to use the federal project submittal standards and procedures from the pre-Baath period, which many were familiar with (and still had copies of). Arrangements were made to republish them for the new folks.

It was at that point that I knew the US involvement in Iraq had substantially turned a corner which would lead directly to the SOFA. (Yes, I wrote one of those papers that is, like the Lost Ark, somewhere in the bowels of government records). But the paper only reported what occurred; the subject event is what was important.

Iraq was it's own country for better or for worse, and after all the formal project submittals were made, with technical racking and stacking, they would then be torn to shreds by the politicians just as they are in the US---but on TV for all Iraqis to see. Dangerous or not, Iraq was ready to go on its own.

As one of the last residents of the Republican Palace (they were literally pulling the CHUs all around us during my last three weeks there while the pallets made a nice, but lonely, bonfire at the old Cigar Club fireplace, I remembered that June day when I knew we were done.

As a former Tank Commander, I really do understand something about the role and purpose of the military, but the end of our Iraq War required civilian transitions for which military matters were supporting.

How many more people like me have their personal and individual trees that have not even surfaced yet. Sooner or later, we might have the parameters of the whole forest.