“We send our best guy to Iraq and he comes home in a box”

[rooboy]

Sergio Vieira de Mello was the real thing. I met him in East Timor in 2001, at the United States mission on the evening of 4 July 2001. He told my brother Peter Galbraith (his colleague in the transition cabinet) that he would not attend a dinner for the Australian foreign minister that night: “because I dislike him intensely.” Two days later I saw him again, as we joined the new East Timor self-defense forces for the last leg of a march to a new training ground. On that day, surrounded by guerrillas, their United Nations officers and the civilian staff, he was clearly having a good time.

Sergio was blunt, charming, energetic, funny. He knew his business, minced no words, commanded the loyalty of his mission and the respect of the Timorese. They knew he was working for them – for the cause of a free and independent and self-governing East Timor. And so it should have been in Iraq.

But it wasn’t. We face in Iraq what the UN did not face in Timor: an organised, brutal opposition, able to strike when and where it chooses. Why is this so? Partly because in Iraq large parts of the population do not want us there, and are prepared to abet those who would throw us out. The UN mission was simply an auxiliary target. And the security at the Canal Hotel was not good.

http://opendemocracy.net/themes/article-2-1451.jsp

[Rhiannon12866]

1. WOW!

This was an excellent summary. This should be required reading for the Defense Dept.

I had not known much about Sergio Vieira de Mello. This article made him quite human. His death really is a tragedy.

[lindashaw]

2. It takes my breath away...I can't see for the tears...

I hope I can be forgiven for not knowing that there was a man like him over there. What a waste, what a waste.

[Rhiannon12866]

3. I agree. I saw addtional footage of him tonight on CNN

This was really tragic. Another life cut short. Thanks for posting this, rooboy. He is someone we needed to get to know.:-(