Please Wait Patiently For The Insanity To Commence....

I haven't posted in months. Many months. Mostly because if I did the posts would have been a stream of consciousness consisting of ranting and venting and I didnt think that would be fun for any of you to read. Also, I felt like anything I could have posted on a given Tuesday would no longer be true on that week's Friday. Needless to say,this entire process of applying for this job in Iraq has been painfully, dreadfully slow and full of uncertainty and mostly taking a step forward to take several steps back. I think perhaps they make it so difficult as a test - if you can't endure six months of beurocratic red tape and hair pulling here in the states then you probably aren't gonna hack it working in a developing government...I can tell you from working in Cambodia that working in a developing nation is frustrating to the extreme in that nothing goes as you think it should and nothing works in a logical way (unless, of course, you grease the wheel and then magically things speed up and happen as you think they should). I digress.

I became interested in this job in Iraq because it was advertised as a detail at my job. A detail means my job would release me for a year and let me go work for this other component of DOJ and then return to my job after the year was up. From what I gather, DOJ is supposed to be supportive of allowing their employees to go on detail to other sections of the department but it didnt turn out that way in this case. I don't know why. I have stopped trying to figure it out. It doesn't matter....what it comes down to is after six or seven months of jumping through hoops (including interviewing with a panel of six people who point blank told me i was vastly unqualified for the job...yet kept me in the interview another two hours after making that comment), tomorrow is my last day at OIL (Office of Immigration Litigation) and I start on a new adventure...which means, if you havent figjured it out...I GOT THE JOB IN IRAQ!!!! In the past week my life has tranformed from the six months of waiting and wondering and hair pulling to being hired on at OPDAT (Office of Prosecutorial Development and Training), giving notice at OIL (and tomorrow is my last day), and finding out I will be leaving the country mid-February (so in less than two months). I've been waiting six months to have this week (and the upcoming weeks) of mad rushing. Getting a diplomatic passport. Getting weapons qualified. Getting immunized. Passing a Department of State health exam. Doing all the paperwork necessary to depart my current job (which I think might be more time-consuming and difficult than the process I had to go through to actually get the job!).

I have so much to say...much more than just the factual details of what has happened...today i met with the guy (Joe) who is in my position at the moment (he is home on leave)who gave me a ton of info about what i will be doing. I am thinking about what projects I will do...is sustainability a requirement of anything i do or is it about modeling a good legal system and helping people for today. What will i focus on? Judicial safety? Criminal procedure? Women's issues? Defense clinics? Which leads me to the next question..am I qualified to do any of the above.. aka what the fuck did i get myself into??). Travel...where am i going to go on all my leave time!! Woo hoo. And helicopter issues....oh my.

Let me just fill you in on the basics for now...i will delve into the abstracts more in the coming posts, but for now I'm sure you want to know the 411. So as I said tomorrow is my last day at OIL...so i no longer have to try to candy coat what i do (i'm an immigration attorney...what kind you ask? well,i defend the government's position in immigration cases...what does that mean? well, i represent the attorney general at the appellate level...what does that mean? ok, fine...i argue to deport people..there, are you happy? i said it)...I'd feel less morally conflicted about saying I help establish rule of law in Iraq (although who knows..it may turn out the Iraqis don't want American style "rule of law" and don't want our help but im not anticipating that and feel better about my new job description than my current) (but to be fair my job at OIL is necessary and i didnt have a moral objection to most of the cases i argued). Again, off track...

So my title is going to be Rule of Law Advisor for the Office of Prosecutorial Development and Training within the criminal division of Department of Justice. I will be working at Speicher Air Force Base near Tikrit, Iraq (about 105 miles north of Baghdad). It comes from a pilot in the first Gulf war named Michael Scott Speicher, who was shot down in 1991 and for almost 10 years thought to be Killed in Action. During the Invasion on Iraq in 2003, the initials M.S.S. were found in 2 different Iraqi prisoner cells along with documentation that Cmdr. Speicher was a prisoner. His status was then changed to Missing in Action, and some still believe he is alive today. FOB Speicher is on an old Iraqi air force training base called Al Sahra air base. It is about 10 miles west of the city of Tikrit, which you may have heard of on the news as the place where Saddam was captured. Tikrit was also his birthplace and he had many large palaces built. Because the province is full of the former ruling class the people are better educated and had better lifestyles than many other places in the country, but also becuase it is Saddam's home place it gets the stink eye from the new government and the rest of the country.

I'm leaving for Chicago Xmas eve and will be there and around until I return to DC Jan 3 or 4 and then i start training at the Foreign Service Institute January 8. Im set to leave for Iraq sometime around Feb. 20..so it really has been many many months of waiting to all the sudden rush like a mad person...

I'll try to make my posts more organized and cohesive in the future but I just have so much to say right now that I'm rambling a bit...but I wanted to let you know that my wait is over and I step off into the abyss on the next adventure starting now...