Notebook: No Rose-Colored Glasses

This reporter's notebook was written by CBS News correspondent Kimberly Dozier

Last November, I asked for a one-on-one with Iraq's four-star Commanding General George W. Casey. I'd been at a handover ceremony at Saddam's palatial complex in Tikrit — Casey was there to officiate the ceremony as the Iraqi army took control. Halfway through the speeches and the martial band music, there were some bangs, and some whistling sounds: mortars, flying over our heads.

While everyone ran for cover (I personally got up close and personal with the concrete sidewalk outside the palace), I saw one grey-haired officer surrounded by a small entourage, walking calmly into the building, like an advertisement for "Do not run, WALK toward the exits..." It was Casey. Everyone else looked just about white with terror — he looked annoyed.

"This guy, I gotta interview," I said to myself, dusting off the remnants of the sidewalk. Especially as few of the interviews of him that I'd seen before captured his attitude — someone who was honestly undeterred by the whole "danger" thing, just ticked off with it, because it was getting in the way of his day.

So all these months later, I got my answer in the form of a phone call, giving me less than 24 hours notice. It went something like this:

PAO (U.S. Military Public Affairs Officer) to Dozier: "Hi. Are you doing anything tomorrow? Your request for an interview with a certain high-ranking commander came through." (None of us can talk specifics over the phone — the insurgents, and goodness knows who else, are listening.)

Well, I was planning to spend the following morning with the 21st Military Police in Doura — one of the most bombed parts of Baghdad — a visit I'd been waiting for, for a while. The whole unit had re-organized their day so we could track their progress, as they took the training wheels off the Iraqi police in their area.

Lucky for us, there was time to do both. A drive around Bomb-Central-Baghdad and the flight to Fallujah, where insurgents love to fire rockets at aircrafts.

So we spent the morning driving around with the MPs (who went through one of the scariest convoy briefs I'd heard in a while, describing all the latest roadside bombing threats, with a mention of all the things that had recently hit them), at the end of which I thanked the gunner, as I customarily do, for "a quiet ride." (I do not know how they do that job. "Oh, look, here I am sticking out of an armored vehicle, the only person completely exposed...") Then we rushed to a helipad, to meet the Commanding General's staff. His aides told me I'd have a 25-minute flight to Fallujah, during which I could speak to him over the chopper noise through the helmet microphones, and a 5-minute interview on the ground. The poor man and his poor staff. I don't think they thought anyone could ask that many questions over the noise of a chopper engine.

What surprised me was that Casey proved far more forthcoming, forthright and critical, than I'd expected. Then we got to Fallujah, and the briefing —and that's when the gloves REALLY came off. We weren't allowed to film the briefing, but I was allowed to stay, and take background notes. By the end of the 90 minutes or so, my note-taking hand was screaming for mercy. And I was impressed.

Every tough question I'd asked in the chopper, Casey turned and asked of the commanders on the ground. There were some ugly, straightforward things said in that room. No varnish and no rose-colored glasses. No spin. It was like I wasn't there. It also put the kibosh on all I'd heard about the military not trusting the media. They said some stuff in that room that could make a media person's career. And they trusted me to honor "off the record."

The best way to summarize what I'm allowed to say from the briefing? He showed the Marine commanders a PowerPoint slide, and stopped on one with a saying from TE Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia: "Do not try to do too much with your own hands…It is their war, and you are to help them, not win it for them."

And that's the tough course he's following, instead of sending his far superior firepower into every fight in Iraq. Because the Americans have already done that in this country, in several situations — witness the multiple invasions of Fallujah — and he and his commanders have concluded that there's got to be a better way. They've killed a lot of bad guys, but it's also added gasoline to the insurgent and terrorist fire. They haven't abandoned force. They're just adding some other tools to the arsenal. We get used to hearing a lot of spin here, not a stern schoolmaster telling his class, essentially, "Fair, but must do better." And he delivers that message personally to every commander in Iraq.

Reeling from some of those revelations, hearing the echo of many conclusions that either I'd quietly come to, or heard fellow media types opine, I stumbled to my five minutes of Q&A and failed to stump the general on a single one.(You know you've stumped U.S. officers, because they say "that's a very good question..." PAOs teach them to say that, as a technique to buy time while they think up a civilized answer, instead of ripping into the uppity journalist with a "How DARE you ask that.") Nope, he didn't flatter my vanity, or buy time by telling me I'd asked any "good questions." He just answered whatever I dared to ask.

There was one time he looked a little flummoxed, when I asked him about "all his critics in Washington."

"Critics? Me?" he joked, halfway between a grimace and a smile.

Obviously, like those mortars in Tikrit, "critics" are just one more annoying reality getting in the way of his day. But they aren't making him run for cover, anymore than he ducked my questions.

One important post-script. We are careful to maintain our distance from the military — separation of the fifth estate and all that. But when some two-dozen injured Marines came in from a mortar attack outside the base, medics came running past my camera crew (waiting outside the briefing) screaming for type A+ blood. Veteran cameraman Paul Douglas grabbed his camera, and looked around for the wounded, the ambulances — and his soundman. Soundman Adam Haylett moved even faster. He'd dashed after the medics, to give a pint or so of his A+ blood. So if you meet a U.S. Marine who has developed a new taste for sweet, overly milky tea, and English ale, you'll know why.