The Life of a Spy: An Education in Truth, Lies and Power by Rod Barton

Author:Rod Barton [Barton, Rod]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781743821763
Google: sskHEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B08MZH6ZYS
Published: 2021-05-04T23:55:25.206000+00:00

CHAPTER 8

THE FREE AGENT

‘The biggest risk is not taking any risk … In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.’

Mark Zuckerberg

My secondment to the United Nations had spun out from six months to two years, and I had become anxious about my job in Canberra. Because of my prolonged absence, someone else was appointed as Director of Strategic Technology in early 1996. I wondered whether I still had a job in intelligence. Jan and I decided it was time to go home.

I had a new boss, Major General Jim Connolly, whom I had written to from New York shortly after his appointment to introduce myself. Upon my return to DIO, I thought it would be a good idea to stop by his office to meet him.

Things began awkwardly. ‘Good morning, General Connolly,’ I said, extending my hand. ‘I’m Rod Barton. You may recall that I wrote to you recently about what I’ve been doing over the past couple of years.’

He took my hand but looked blank. After a moment or two, obviously trying to work out who I was, he simply asked, ‘I’m sorry?’

But we soon got chatting, more about Somalia than Iraq. I was not surprised to learn that neither he nor anyone else seemed to have given much thought to my role on my return. I was beginning to fear that before long I would be transferred out of intelligence and into some backwater in the Defence department.

During my time away, there had been a shift in DIO, to focus more on Australia’s immediate region rather than the Middle East and global issues such as weapons of mass destruction. As a stop-gap measure, I suggested to General Connolly that I could write some ‘lessons learned’ papers on the Iraq saga that might have wider application for the intelligence community. He seized on this, perhaps to disguise that he had no other plans for me.

I spent the next few days wandering the corridors of DIO, looking for an office and a desk. At least here, unlike in Somalia, I wouldn’t have to bribe an official to get these basics.

I barely had time to settle into my new office when the United Nations asked me to return for a few weeks to help with resolving the remaining issues on Iraq’s biological warfare program. Soon I was back with the Gang of Four, and my comings and goings – a few weeks in Iraq at a time – continued for the next six months. In between, I worked on the ‘lessons learned’ papers. It was a strange existence, made stranger at times by the events going on in Iraq. It seemed that we still had much to learn.

Saddam’s son-in-law and heir apparent, Hussein Kamel Hassan al-Majid, had defected to the West in August 1995, and this had caused some political turmoil. We were told that he was the one who had made the decisions on the acquisition of the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.