'Some things are true even if George Bush believes them'

[Rose Siding]

'Some things are true even if George Bush believes them'

In January last year, the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman was at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, preparing to board a plane home, when he abruptly found himself very personally embroiled in the seething hostilities between Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell. He had been travelling with Joe Biden, the senior Democratic senator, and Rumsfeld - apparently out of political partisanship - had been making things difficult from the start of the trip. Now, suddenly, the order came from the Pentagon that no civilians could travel on the military aircraft waiting on the runway.

"I had visions of being stuck in Kabul for days," Friedman writes in his new book, Longitudes and Attitudes. "I confess I suggested that Biden try to contact . Biden didn't know how. I had a satellite phone in my pocket and the number of the State Department's operations room in my head." Biden quickly got through to the secretary of state, who made a few calls in Washington. "Joe," Powell eventually said to the senator, "let me talk to the air traffic controller there." Biden handed over Friedman's phone.

"It was pitch dark," Friedman recalls, "but I was sure I saw that captain's face turn completely white with shock that he was talking to the secretary of state... All I heard him saying to Powell was 'Yessir, yessir, yessir.' When he was done, he handed back the phone and told Biden, 'You're welcome to board, sir.'"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1012272,00.html