Reluctantly, we agree (it's hard not to when you're ordered to do something) though given every opportunity we cast verbal assaults his way. And the fun begins. It turns out we weren't going into this alone, we were meeting up with individuals from his* old office** who do mostly the same thing we do. So we all drive to a local national living compound, and walk into their dining hall.
Literally, ones of people were sitting, eating. Watching TV. Ignoring us. Except! The contingency of Air Force Military Police, who were all sitting and laughing, and called up over. Our seating arrangements decided, we were effectively boxed in by and unable to converse with any one of the 5 potential "assests" walking around. A waste. And not a quick one either, it sidetracked our report writing (already a day behind) by another 3 hours. Thanks, L-Word, who at the end admitted, we only went there for the food.
The next day Chanatee and I drove to the gate to scoop up a man we eventually started calling Rocketman. We switched to this name, from his former moniker, Ugly, because in the middle of sitting and meeting with him he started to describe rockets he had seen. Excited for some real work, Chanatee had him describe them to a T. Digging further, he said that he witnesses American forces burying them.
"What? Burying? Are you sure?"
Yes, he said, they were being buried by American troops so that no one would shoot at us. Further questions revealed that he didn't observe this, his friend did. And this was a year ago. And we got sick of asking for details, because it was obvious he was describing something he saw on television. It got so bad that I couldn't help but laugh in his face. Under my breath, choking and heaving sobs of laughter which I tried to pass off as a cough but I know came out more insulting.
And then he asked us for some money. I mean, why not? What about the meeting suggested anything but funds? Us, sitting on leather couches, guns on hips, digging for information about a televised flattening of a roadside ditch where insurgents had been emplacing roadside bombs. This all sounds like money to me. And it sounded the same way to Rocketman, who a week later would call us and tell us that he had vital information of an immediate attack going on that very day! And we would say, "let's meet right now." And he would in turn say, "Nah, I got stuff to do. Let's meet tomrrow."
And this was the last time we would ever see him, because the less sources...The less reports.
*Due to writing reports, I keep wanting to write pronouns in all capital letters, like "workers from HIS old office told HIM that HE was..." It's frustrating.
**He worked in an investigative office of Counter Intelligence people on Speicher. From what I can tell, the entire office is incompetent (including those that came from it) and should have just been eliminated entirely. They're of course, putting together a team to do that here on Al Asad.
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