Neil Talbott and Tom Mowle

Tom Mowle talks about being a retired Air Force major and teaching political science.

TM talks about going into the Green Zone in Baghdad, Iraq in fall 2004, a year following the invasion of Iraq, to oversee the process of elections in Iraq as a political strategist.

TM talks about one of his first tasks: militia disarmament.

TM talks about frequent "re-organization" and being reassigned to the same work under a different colonel. He talks about being assigned to assess risk analysis of comparative cities as locations for a major operation/attack.

TM talks about strategizing for attacking Fallujah, which the U.S. had backpedaled on in the previous year and was still intent on doing.

TM talks about his next task--review the entire election campaign to assess decisive factors in the election. TM talks about concluding that it was important that the election was perceived in particular ways, and why.

TM talks about pressure from the general to assess impacts of strategy on George Bush's re-election. TM talks about feeling unprepared to carry out the work he was responsible for, and that there were too many tasks in the 4 months that he was in Baghdad to obtain thorough information, or to reflect.

TM talks about calling the decision-making process "The Vortex"--frenzies of urgent activity and no further information as to how the work was used.

TM talks about the ultimate attack on Fallujah being postponed until 4 days after George Bush had been reelected.

TM talks about his experience of so many people making decisions on the fly who were not qualified to be making them.

TM talks about what he wants other to learn from his experiences, and that there was a possibility of withdrawing from Iraq at one point during his time there.