This podcast, it's a Costerton Touchstone production.

Mary Margaret had this management style that was so tough as to be brutal.

And it seemed to be clear to everybody that I worked with that it was a response to her own

lack of operational experience.

It's one thing to be a demanding and tough boss because you put in the hard years on the

ground and denied areas, you recruited some of the most sensitive sources, you had been

a briefer of presidents, and she had none of that. None of it. She was a

paper pusher from headquarters. It was my understanding at the time that she had had one overseas

tour, also as a paper pusher, never working outside the office, and that her overseas tour

was in a Western European country. We're fighting a war in Iraq at the time. We're

fighting a war in Afghanistan at the time. We're engaged in combat in Somalia at the time. And she

was very happy to volunteer us. But she had never done any of that difficult time. In fact,

four months after I got to this domestic post, we got a cable from headquarters saying that everybody who wanted to work in Iraq has worked in Iraq.

We've cycled through everybody.

We need volunteers or we're going to start ordering people to do 12-month tours in Iraq.

Things were not going well for us in Iraq by this time.

There was no worse assignment on Earth.

It was a mistake to invade Iraq in the first place.

Everybody knew it and we couldn't staff it.

I had a conversation with Catherine and I said,

for appearances I should volunteer, but I don't want to go and

because Mary Margaret really doesn't like me I know that if I volunteer she'll

...