C.J. Chivers brings us this Borat-worthy, tragi-comic scene:
Hashim al-Menti smiled wanly at the marine sergeant beside him on his couch. The sergeant had appeared in the darkness on Wednesday night, knocking on the door of Mr. Menti’s home.
When Mr. Menti answered, a squad of infantrymen swiftly moved in, making him an involuntary host.
Since then marines had been on his roof with rifles, watching roads where insurgents often planted bombs.
Mr. Menti had passed the time watching television. Now he had news. He spoke in broken English. “Rumsfeld is gone,” he told the sergeant, Michael A. McKinnon.
“Democracy,” he added, and made a thumbs-up sign. “Good.”
The marines had been on a continuous foot patrol for several days, hunting for insurgents. They were lost in the hard and isolating rhythms of infantry life.
They knew nothing of the week’s news.
Now they were being told by an Iraqi whose house they occupied that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, one of the principal architects of the policies that had them here, had resigned. “Rumsfeld is gone?” the sergeant asked. “Really?”
Mr. Menti nodded. “This is better for Iraq,” he said. “Iraqi people say thank you.”
The sergeant went upstairs to tell his marines, just as he had informed them the day before that the Republican Party had lost control of the House of Representatives and that Congress was in the midst of sweeping change. Mr. Menti had told them that, too.
“Rumsfeld’s out,” he said to five marines sprawled with rifles on the cold floor.
Lance Cpl. James L. Davis Jr. looked up from his cigarette. “Who’s Rumsfeld?” he asked.
The accompanying photo is haunting
