The Iraqi Quagmire

Abstract

Sergio Vieira de Mello was the real thing. I met him in East Timor in 2001, at the US mission on the evening of July 4, 2001. He told my brother (his colleague in the transition cabinet) that he would not attend a dinner for the Australian foreign minister that night: ‘because I dislike him intensely’. Two days later I saw him again, as we joined the new East Timor self-defense forces for the last leg of a march to a new training ground. On that day, surrounded by guerrillas, their UN officers and the civilian staff, out on the road in the bright tropical sunshine, he was clearly having a good time.