New Boss Same As The Old Boss

Our new Afghanistan commander, Gen. McChrystal, is a real character. A character out of a Tom Clancy novel, that is.

Now, at this deserted hotel, Jeff is taking an outsider into that program for the first time.

The waitress brings salads. In the pause, Jeff reminds Garlasco that he's still enlisted. The United States government can bring misery to a soldier who crosses it, so he doesn't want to be too specific about exactly who he is or when he started his assignment, giving himself the cover of reasonable doubt. Sometime in February or March, then, he reported for duty at an unmarked compound. This was Camp Nama, the home of Task Force 121, the Special Ops team that chased Osama bin Laden and caught Saddam Hussein and would ultimately locate and kill Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the self-described leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. It was Rumsfeld's baby, the Platonic ideal of his fast and mobile army. From its size to its mission, everything about it was and remains an official secret. Except for the concertina wire, Camp Nama was a nondescript cluster of buildings.

The only thing Jeff knew about Camp Nama was that he'd be able to wear civilian clothes and interrogate "high value" prisoners. In order to get to the second step, he had to go through hours of psychological tests to ensure his fitness for the job.

Nama, it is said, stood for Nasty Ass Military Area. Jeff says there was a maverick, high-speed feeling to the place. Some of the interrogators had beards and long hair and everyone used only first names, even the officers. "When you ask somebody their name, they don't offer up the last name," Jeff says. "When they gave you their name it probably wasn't their real name anyway."

To this day, Jeff has no idea of the true names of his superior officers. His supervisor was a colonel who called himself Mike, although Jeff is sure that wasn't his real name.

It was a point of pride that the Red Cross would never be allowed in the door, Jeff says. This is important because it defied the Geneva Conventions, which require that the Red Cross have access to military prisons. "Once, somebody brought it up with the colonel. 'Will they ever be allowed in here?' And he said absolutely not. He had this directly from General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there's no way that the Red Cross could get in — they won't have access and they never will. This facility was completely closed off to anybody investigating, even Army investigators."

Black ops, baby.

Black ops. And now he's in charge of Afghanistan, where our new SOCOM approach to counter-insurgency is run by a guy who's used to keeping what goes on in the dark.

That won't blow up in our faces or anything.