She Survived Being Shot, Bombed And Working At Google - EP 58 Anna Prouse

I could also understand why the guy wanted me dead. Now, on the way there, he killed everyone in the car.

So you duck and then you get out of the car.

I duck and I figure out that they're all dead because then I have to climb over my dead friend's body. And there's chaos around the car. And I don't under— I'm like, oh my God, everyone's screaming. And I'm like, oh God, I don't want to be lynched. I mean, to die because they beat the hell out of me, please not. So I run into a house and in Baghdad at that time, all the doors are open to let the air flow. And I watched probably too many movies and I ran into a corner because at least in a corner, your shoulders are— Something behind you. Something behind you and I'll scrutinize what's in front of me. And I'll wait for the Marines to come and save me. So my husband was like, where are the Marines? Where are the Marines? And that's when you realize, no, this is not a movie. I mean, time that anyone knows that this is happening on the streets and I'll be dead. So I need to figure this out on my own. And instead of the Marines, I have a bunch of women in black chadors come in and do the classic shouting.

You're in somebody's house.

I'm in somebody's house.

Yeah, yeah.

In a corner with a bunch of dead people out. And so the lady comes in with all her friends, I guess, and they start— it's panic. So they scream, they do the panic scream.

Yeah.

And I'm like, oh God, now the snipers— because I still think about the snipers— the snipers will know that I'm here. And then I'm saying, okay, I am not getting shot at while staring at the person who is shooting at me. If I'm getting killed today, I'm running for survival.

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Core Memory Podcast. This is Ashlee Vance. As always, today we have a different sort of podcast where we're going— there is going to be some tech and Silicon Valley-ness. To this, um, at some point. But, but we're gonna— we're going to tell you one of the most extraordinary stories that I have run into in a long time. Someone who's lived just an amazing life, um, Anna Prouse is this person. How are you?

I'm good, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for being here. I'm gonna ramble for a second just to set all this up because it is a little bit different, but we, we share a hairstylist, I think is what they are called these days, um, and her name is, is Jessica Miani. She's lovely. I've been going to her for 15 years. If you, if you live in Palo Alto and you need a hairstylist, look her up. And so I'm in the chair. I don't know, it was like 2 months ago, I think. And she's like, you know, one of my other customers, she's lived this amazing life. She's, she's just written this book in Italian. She already had a book come out in Italy about a memoir, a biography. About her life, and then she's translating it into English. And I was like, well, what's it about? You know, she's like, well, she was this— she's this Italian, and she was in Iraq and Iran and was, you know, working at the Red Cross and then got involved with the US military and General Petraeus and had all these near-death experiences. It was unfolding the story. I was like, I have to talk to this woman. And so we've never met before.

No, we've not. Yeah.

And I think I emailed you just a few days ago. I was like, please, will you come into the studio and tell your story? Yeah, here you are. So the book— okay, there's a million places we could go because in your book you lay out your life story, and I want to get into it, but I thought we would maybe not go chronologically just because I want to give people a feel for this incredible career you've had, which is, is harrowing and inspiring and, and just extraordinary. So you're Italian, You've written a book called Honorary Man, which we're going to— it's an amazing title. We're going to explain what that means. But I'm going to transport us to 2001 is where I thought I would start, which is the September 11th attacks have literally just happened as you were already planning to go to Iran, I think, as a journalist, and you were going to cover something else. But in this moment when probably everybody else would have been like, I'm canceling my flight to Tehran, this is probably not the best time to go. You decide to go anyway. And this sets you up for— what is it? It's about like a 12-year run in the Middle East or even—

even more. I still, I still go out in the Middle East quite a lot. So it's been then my, my career since then.

Okay. Okay. So walk us— take, take me to 2001. September 11th has just happened and you're, you're at home or you're you're at the airport and what were you setting out to do and then what happened next?

Yeah, so September 11th happened and on that same morning I had gone to the Iranian embassy, Iranian consular office in Milan to pick up my visa. Now they knew me well because I had been in Iran before to write a book about Iran and they give me my visa and then I go home. And I see what happens. And you're right. I remember my family saying, well, of course you're not going. And my friends were like, no way. And I was like, no, I even more so want to go. It was mainly to understand what was happening in those moments. I already knew that the world would start saying, oh, find some involvement of the Iranians. The Iranians are always, seem to always be involved in something. Whether they do it or don't do it, they're always in it. And I was comfortable also because I had been there before. I need to say that. But when I landed in Tehran, I was nervous because I was like, well, I look, I'm Westerner. I clearly look Westerner. What's next? And the moment I landed and I arrived at the border control, it was like, oh my God, ma'am, we are so sorry for what happened. Which was a difference. The time before when I landed, it was like, welcome to Iran, welcome to Iran, which was It was always weird because in our mentality, especially it was 1999, 2000, it's like Iran is the axis of evil. It was Ahmadinejad, you know, there's, it's, and so already the welcome was weird. And now this time it's like, my God, we are so sorry for what happened. So I started going out in the streets. And again, I had an assignment from La República, which is the newspaper I was a foreign correspondent for, for a long time. And I had to run down, figure out what it was. To study the last example of nomads that existed in that part of the world. So I already had someone who would take me in the middle of nowhere. And you know, you don't know where nomads are, so you have to find them, run after them, and figure out from fireplaces they were here yesterday, the day before yesterday. It was a fascinating topic. So the Qashqais and the Bakhtiaris, and they hate each other. So it was a whole thing about internal Iran. And I still wanted to do that also because had I said, I want to then report about what's happening, I probably would not have got into the country. So I snuck in. But then my focus, my main focus was let's see what actually is happening on the street. Yeah.

And so you kind of shift your reportage in the moment. Yeah. And what did you find?

I found zero American flags being burnt. Zero. I found people who in the streets would stop me and say, oh my God, we are so sorry. Are you American? We're so sorry. And they all said, somehow we will get the blame. Although even then they figured out it was Saudi and Egypt. And it was like, well, somehow Iran will get some sort of a blame. And again, I couldn't find a single, nobody was angry, nobody, everyone was horrified with what had happened. So I went then to the stadium for a soccer game because I like to, when I report on countries, not just meet the people who, in brackets, count. I want to see how the people react on the streets because that is the real deal. And they observed a minute of silence.

I had never heard anything like that before. Okay. Yeah.

To commemorate the deaths that took place in the US. So that was heartwarming and shocking in a good way shocking. So I wrote about it, and I'm saying, no burnt flags, this is what I'm seeing.

Yeah. And you mentioned that you had traveled a lot before. I mean, you, in your book, people will see you have wanderlust from a young age.

Yes.

And you have a propensity to go into difficult circumstances. And so you're not a stranger even to this part of the world. And, but And like you said, going in, I mean, even you had these preconceived notions about what you would find. And I think as our discussion goes on, I mean, we're going to find there is no— there's not much black and white in this.

There's a lot of gray.

Okay, so this happens. You've been a travel writer, you're writing for the newspaper. And then I was going to cut, if it makes sense, to 2003. Which is, you've all, you, you people should also know, I mean, you had experience in your teenage years working with ambulances, like, yeah, I was a volunteer with the Red Cross.

I was working on ambulances.

And you'd had these ties to the Red Cross.

Yes.

And so, so 2003 comes, George Bush is up on an aircraft carrier. It says mission accomplished. Yeah. And so it's right around that time that I think then now you're going to Iraq. Mm-hmm. And, and you're joining up with the Red Red Cross, I believe. Yeah.

Yeah. In the meantime, I became a Red Cross International delegate because Iran kind of unleashed something inside me where it was, I still believe being a journalist is the nicest job that one can have. I would be the eyes of who is not lucky enough.

Yeah.

But I need to be the eyes. I, you know, if then what I see, you still need to publish what's happening. And I started figuring out that journalism was kind of transitioning. It was no longer, it was like, well, you need to say what we want you to say. And so maybe with a bit of presumption, I just said, you know what, I'm quitting. This is not what I want to do. I'll freelance. Now, I am not really good at selling myself.

That's a problem if you're a freelancer.

Freelancing was excruciatingly hard for me, you know, to go to dinners and pitch an idea. And if they say no, you have to insist. I'm used to if they say no, I just walk out. So then I decided I'll just try another career path. And I won this competition with International Red Cross in Geneva and became an International Red Cross delegate. And on June 6th, I get this call, 2003, I get this call and saying, listen, we are looking for someone to set up a field hospital in downtown Baghdad. We're thinking about you.

Yeah. And so like at this point, the Americans are supposed to be kind of like pulling back or no, I mean, they're sort of setting up for the—

No, Americans are there and it's full-fledged still, you know, chaos. Yeah. Actually, I think we or the coalition thought that mission accomplished, we'll hand over to the Iraqis, they will figure it out. Sort of like World War II. You know, we go there and they'll do it themselves.

Yeah.

And that's not what happened. The Iraqis, you know, people who are under dictatorships forever, they can't figure it out. And it's not because they're dumb. It's like they have never done it before. So they need coaching. They need help. Now, the Red Cross was a burn unit. And, you know, bad burns was a huge issue, not from bombs and things, but from cooking with kerosene.

I read about this in the book. I mean, yeah, tell us. So women there were cooking with these synthetic—

With synthetic clothes.

Fabrics.

Fabrics, and then with kerosene, which is highly inflammable, and they catch fire. These fabrics catch fire and they burn.

Was that somehow a factor of the war, cooking with the kerosene, or this was just an ongoing—

No, it was before. It was an ongoing. And interestingly, still very much ongoing in a lot of countries.

Okay.

It's the cheapest way to be able to cook.

So yeah, I mean, there's like, right from the get-go, there's these harrowing stories in your book about these women with the clothes fused to their bodies. Yeah, in the bodies.

And often the kids are with them in the kitchen, so they catch fire too. So it was maybe one of the most horrifying experiences that I've ever had. I still remember when I entered the the field hospital that we had to set up and I saw this line of people outside, I thought, maybe this time, Anna, you have overdone it. But I do not like to go home with my tails between my legs. And I said, well, it's done. I came in on an old Russian Ilyushin. I'm here. Let's figure it out.

And did you have a sense of going into this how long you would be there?

I thought I would stay there for a couple of months.

Okay. To set up this field hospital?

To set up the field hospital. And there was also the drone the journalist in me, it was like, this is also the best way to figure out what is actually happening here. Because if you're embedded with the US military, you'll get one vision. If you run around, you know, so it was for me also the best way to potentially, when I went back to Italy, report.

And so what ends up dragging you in longer and longer?

You know, what ends up dragging me, at first it was, okay, it's not done in a couple of months, you need to stay a little bit longer. And then when I figured out we had to then move, it was dangerous out there. So eventually, decided we need to move under a structure so that we don't get rocket— we're under tents. And it was, you know, for a few months it's fine. But then when the war is in brackets over, it's no longer fine. So once I did that shift and worked a lot with the Iraqis and clearly went along with the Iraqis, I was invited at the Italian embassy for my farewell party, which I discovered was not a farewell party. It was a job offer from the US administration.

Okay.

And the job offer was, okay, we need to rebuild the health system in Iraq. We have seen you in action and you are accomplishing things that we have no idea how you make it. Could you please come and help us?

And this, if I'm, I could be getting my timelines wrong, but this is coming from David Petraeus. No, no, David Petraeus was after.

That's later. That's later.

This came from the senior advisor. This came from, you know, You know, Ambassador Bremer. Okay.

And his senior advisor, Jim Haveman. And I couldn't believe it. I was, my first impression was, but I'm not American. I can't work for the American government if I'm not American. They had already set it all up. They had already asked the Italians, you know, to pay for my check and me to go under the US umbrella.

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Yeah.

Yeah. And like when you first get there and I mean, clearly, I think at that point, you know, the Americans, did not have the best reputation. I mean, where were you mentally on— were you still at this point where there is no black and white, or were you going in— like, when the Americans come to ask you to help, are you like, okay, you know, this is a good idea, or were you sort of like, ah, you guys might be the bad guys, I don't know if this is a good idea?

You know what, there's a point where you can keep on pointing fingers, but that doesn't achieve anything. I mean, I can keep on saying America should have never invaded Iraq. So what? There's a mess. Someone needs to help. Everyone should, you know, whoever can should pitch in. And if they believe that I'm the right person, and after a few months there, I actually started believing too. I actually, this is kind of my comfort zone. Interestingly, it was my comfort zone. I got along with the Americans. I got along with the Iraqis. Again, not taking sides. At that point, it's no longer taking sides. It's just helping whoever whenever needs help, whether it's the Iraqis, and in this case it was the Americans. To their credit, admitting that they're not getting it right is huge. You know, I'm Italian and I'm proud Italian, but an Italian government would have never hired someone from America, but not because it's America, or someone from Uzbekistan or from Portugal to work to rebuild. They would only hire Italians. Probably someone who's part of the political group who is in charge. America didn't care. I mean, James Haveman and the whole team knew that I was against the invasions. And we had a bunch of, I would really say, heated discussions, sometimes even intellectually stimulating, sometimes not intellectually stimulating. But that did not affect my job and didn't affect what they thought of me, nor what I thought of them. Yeah.

Yeah. So, okay, so this is still 2003.

2003.

And now you're being put in charge of trying to set up this health infrastructure. And what is your day-to-day life? Are you in Baghdad?

I'm in Baghdad. Okay. I was actually in Baghdad from 2003 to summer, autumn 2006.

Okay.

And I, one of the reasons why I accepted was the fact that the health team went out into Baghdad Every day. So they truly believed. Now, whether they or we made a difference, that's for the others to say, but we truly believed in what we were doing.

Because I remember back then, I mean, you would always hear about the green zone, this safety place where the American troops would be. So you're living with—

I am living in the green zone.

With American troops.

With American troops and also American civilians.

Inside of what?

The palace.

You were in Saddam's palace?

I was in Saddam's palace.

Like what, you have like a room in Saddam's palace? I actually had a room at this hotel, the Al-Rashid.

Ashlee Vance, which was down the road. And then my office was on the second floor or first floor, depending if you're Italian or American, of Saddam's palace.

You describe it a bit in the book and we've all seen pictures, but yeah, can you tell us what Saddam's palace looks like?

It's just, you know, there is, I still remember bathrooms everywhere and with, you know, golden faucets.

Yeah.

And, uh, This is a kind of funny story. Bidets. And Americans were like, what is this obsession of Iraqis with bidets? And then being Italian, there was, you know, how do you use those? Like, no, no, you know.

You jerk out of it?

Google it. It's like a water aeroflow. But it was, so there was one part of Saddam's palace that was reserved for high-level military and the other one was for the high-level civilians, and there was, you know, double doors guarded by Marines. And it was like being in a movie. You know, there was Saddam's throne. So it was, then you get used to it, like everything in life, it becomes routine.

What was the weirdest thing in Saddam's palace that you remember?

I just think, you know, the, oh, in the hall that we used to go, you know, the dining facility, there was this this massive painting of a clear attack upon the US with rockets. And they, you know, it was up there and they left it up. Oh yeah, they left it up.

Why? I don't know.

I think it was, again, the symbol of Saddam Hussein. I think also to remind who he was. There was the busts of Saddam Hussein were on the top of the presidential palace. I remember when they took them down, And I also remember when there were American soldiers urinating on Saddam Hussein, which I thought was not understanding that this guy was not a knucklehead. Yes, this guy was a monster. I actually met him. This guy was smart. He stayed in power against all odds for decades. He was not dumb. He was very intelligent. Now, one would prefer intelligence to divert it into other areas rather than murdering your own people if they disagree. But it was, you know, it was all in all, it was a very interesting experience for me. Also, I'm civilian, I'm Italian, and I'm a woman. I stood out like there's no tomorrow.

I mean, if people aren't watching, you've got blonde hair. You look Italian.

I did not wear combat boots. Boots on purpose. I mean, we all have roles. And my role is not to pretend that I am Rambo. I am a civilian. I'm rebuilding, trying to rebuild the country. But to be surrounded by military people and, you know, when my room eventually got blown up, stay with them, live with them. I specifically, when the senior advisor, Hovmand, gave me office space in his office. Well, that was the elite office. It was all, you know, 4 or 5 civilians. And I was like, no, I need to be with them. And them was the military because they need to respect me. They need to understand who I am. Not again, not because they're dumb, but it's kind of weird to have an Italian disembark and say, what on earth is this one doing?

So, okay. So like in the mornings you're going out with these military personnel and they're escorting you to health facilities?

To the Ministry of Health.

Okay.

Every day. And there had been attacks on the team. I still remember, you know, we didn't have private security. Security yet, and it was the health team providing for its own security. And most of them were reserve military in the reserves, so not full-fledged military. You know, I know how to drive. Again, from where I come from, you better know how to drive. And I never had done stick shift before. And in Baghdad, no one does stick shift. It was all, you know, they do gears.

So the Americans were used to automatic cars.

Automatic cars.

You had to do manual.

And Iraq has only manual cars. And I hadn't realized that Americans do not know how to drive manual. So I'm sitting with these Rambos with guns on their laps and the driver with a gun and looking out and in full battle rattle. And it was a constant up and down and up and down. And I was like, Jesus, I hope they shoot better than they drive because this is awful. And that's where I figured they just don't know how to use the clutch.

Yeah.

And So at the end of the day, I went up to Colonel Garber, who was in charge of the operations, and I said, you know what, Colonel, maybe I should drive. And he looked at me and said, really, Anna? And I was like, yes, first of all, I know how to deal with chaos because Baghdad is chaos and I'm used to chaos. And second, I know how to drive. So then I became the official driver, looking the way I look, of the whole convoy of people who are going to the Ministry of Health.

What do the people on the street do when you're driving by?

Well, they're staring, you know.

They must have been, right? I mean, you've got all these dudes with guns in the back and there's this blonde driving around. Yeah. Amazing. And so, okay. And then, and like, I would imagine every day was probably quite different. So maybe there isn't, you know, something really to grab onto for what a normal day looks like. But I can't even wrap my head around you're trying to add some sort of order order and infrastructure in the middle of chaos? How do you, what did you do on a daily basis to even approach the problem?

Well, the first thing, there was an interim Iraqi minister, so interact with him and his staff to, you know, what I always did and also later in my life, you already need to think about how do we make them walk on their own? So yes, we can rebuild the whole ministry for them, which we did because it had been completely looted. But then how is this going to be sustainable in the long run? How do they understand a health system? What medicines are there on the ground? What are not? What do we need to bring in? So figuring out what are the priorities. One thing that the Iraqis were completely unable of doing, and again, not because they were dumb, but because they had never done it before, prioritize. If you ask a minister or later in my life, a governor, what are your priorities, they don't No. And they come up, and I'll, we'll speak about it more, with the most extravagant ideas where you're like, yes, but what about electricity? I mean, you want a floating restaurant in the middle of the marshes, but you don't have electricity, you don't have running water. And then they're like, yes, but I saw a movie about Venice last night, and if I build things correctly, the marshes could look like Venice and true tourism comes. And you're like, but you're shooting sail at people.

Yeah. This is mostly kind of like Iraqis shooting at each other and the US.

Yes. But it was also a lot of, again, we always focused on how many Americans lost their lives or how many Italians got killed. It was at a certain point in 2004, so it became a civil war. It was Iraqis on Iraqis. And because we, and I say we, I didn't, but we made the mistake of disempowering the ones who had been in charge until then. Taking power out of the Sunnis who were the only ones who could run a country. Right or wrong, we disempowered them and we gave power to others who had never had a role, had been massacred throughout decades, and were even afraid of airing their opinions. At the beginning, I was like, well, what do you think of this? And you could see them all were like, what do you think? Well, it's not really important what I think, it's what you think so that I can build upon what you think and your priorities are. They were not capable. They were so afraid of coming up and the brain was not trained. Saddam Hussein had just flattened. You were not allowed to think with your own brain. Well, they did not know how to think with their own brains. And that was something that I discovered, which was fascinating. It's a muscle. You need to train it and you need to gain confidence. You need to also trust your interlocutor. Trust is the key word here. And that is something that the Western world often forgets. We tend to go in a place, and it's not just about Iraq, and we'll speak later about my experience with Google, and it takes time to build trust. You can't just parachute or be parachuted in a country and say, oh, here I am, and this is how it's done. No, you got to build a rapport and then slowly together you do things. So I spent a lot of time sitting down with the Iraqis at every level, just to figure out how can we actually rebuild this system. And then there was the issue with the internally displaced people. And that came up after a couple of years that I was there. And that is where my experience also as a journalist came in, because as a journalist, I knew that usually Arabic cultures go, prefer to go to family members rather than into internally displaced refugee camps if they have the possibility. And all of a sudden, the international community is donating a hell of a lot of money to the Red Cross Crescent. And they're telling us stories about thousands of people and we don't have enough equipment, we don't have enough tents, et cetera, et cetera. And no one went out to check because by then it was also, it was civil war. No one did go out. So I decided if we really want to know what's happening, we need to have eyes on there. And that's where I, you know, I went out on Black Hawks with the military. It must have been, you know, in the middle of nowhere, whether it was Fallujah or Karbala, because that's where they claimed all the displaced people were. And so I would hitchhike on these helicopters and then on the ground figure out who could take me there. And I would take pictures.

Did people think you were crazy?

Yeah, I guess.

Like the soldiers?

But they were intrigued.

Yeah.

Because I think also there was this perception, which is not a perception, it's true. Soldiers are allowed to die. God forbid if something happens to a civilian. Yeah. Hell is unleashed. And my point was always, I signed up for this. I need to be as exposed as anyone as a soldier. It's my job is to rebuild. And if to rebuild, I need to go out to the Ministry of Health, or I need to go out to IDP And that's what I have to do. I can't just sit back and trust reports who usually come in from people who, yes, they do take pictures and who knows where those pictures are taken.

Hello, geniuses. Let me tell you about E1 Ventures. They are a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, a longtime supporter of this podcast and a longtime supporter of big, fantastic, world-changing ideas. If you have such an idea, hit up E1 Ventures or send me a note and I'll put you in touch with E1 Ventures. It's, it's quite a, quite a deal for listening to this podcast. Thank you again, as always, to E1 Ventures for their support. I don't want this to be sensationalistic. I mean, there's some incredible moments you go through, so I'm not doing this as kind of like disaster porn or life-risking porn. I want people to have a sense of the stakes of what you're talking about that you, you went through. So, And I know you write about it, so I feel like it's okay to ask about. I mean, because it's quite difficult stuff. I mean, some of them very difficult. It feels a little bit lighter with time or something. I mean, you wrote about this one incident where Saddam's sons are— I'm trying to remember now. I mean, they're captured and they're killed.

They were captured and killed right there.

And the people are celebrating. And I mean, tell me the story.

Well, at that point I was still kind of cut out from the world. I'm, you need to imagine Baghdad, the summer heat and—

Damn. This is mid-2003. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And we don't have, there's no cell phones. We have these Thuraya satellite phones. I always joke you had to point the antenna towards Mecca to figure out if you could get a signal or not. So we are cut out. We're just dealing a constant drama night and day. You know, during the day it was a birth unit, at night it was take out bullets out of people's bodies because people who couldn't go into hospitals because they would have got arrested or got in trouble would come to us. And being super partes, we just took care of everyone. And so you need to imagine this chaos where you're, you know, and you're in the middle of town. Yes, you have T-walls and barbed wire and we had the Carabinieri, which were the equivalent of the Marines, guarding us. But that's it. And so all of a sudden, one afternoon, we started all hearing shooting, but not a couple of shots, like massive shooting. And I was like, okay, they're attacking, which is something that I remember the UN told us, you'll eventually get attacked. Interestingly, the UN got attacked a few months later, and we hadn't got attacked. You'll get attacked. So it was in my mind, oh my God. And this was on my shoulders. I was taking the decision patients. So I'm like, oh my God, we're getting attacked. So immediately the first, the first thing is like, we need to take cover. And the first thing, you run into the tents.

This is, it's like a field hospital.

Okay, tents. And there's the Carabinieri on the loudspeakers, they do not run in the tents because then you'll get a bullet and some plastic in you, not only the bullet. So it's like dangerous, do not. So go under the trucks. So we had to all run on the trucks and everyone was like, and it got worse and worse. You could hear screaming, you could hear the gunfire was worse, You started hearing the bullets because bullets were flying in. So then they were all like, call the ambassador, figure out, tell them to come and rescue us. And so I try to call, nothing happens. And finally I managed to get hold of an Iraqi who's a friend of mine and say, I say, they're attacking us, could you please help? But while I'm on the phone, I hear from the phone, I hear gunfire. And I was like, but it seems like you're being attacked too. What's going on? And he's like, oh no. Oh, doctora, it's friendly fire. It's celebratory fire. We're celebrating the killing of Uday and Qusay.

So is everybody shooting their guns?

And everyone's shooting. And it seemed like a full-fledged battle out there.

Yeah. And then not too long after that, if my notes are right, still in 2003, you have this ambush directly on you. I was reading about this in the book. I mean, please tell the story. It sounded like your bodyguard kind of sold you out.

Yeah. Well, and that was right at the beginning. I remember it was in September, October, right at the beginning when I had moved away from the Red Cross and started working with the US. And I had to go. And that's where things had started also getting worse. The words started coming out, civil war, civil war. No one pronounced announced it. And to me, it was like, why aren't we discussing this? Because this is bad. More and more civilians stopped going out into the red zone, and we kept on going out in the red zone. And I had to go to Medical City. I was at the Ministry of Health and had to go to Medical City. And again, we are Westerners, we're always in a rush. And I had waited a day, two days, three days, and I said, we really need to go Oh, and so they set up a mission for me. At that point, the message was still, we trust the Iraqis, so we'll give Anna an Iraqi bodyguard. How on earth they picked them, who knows? Because you make an interview and you do not know what allegiances they have. And so I get into this pickup and I have my good friend from the Red Cross that I had brought over. Ahmed was driving. An Iraqi medical doctor lady was the passenger. In the back, there was another one, a doctor. And between me and the doctor in the back was this Iraqi bodyguard. And I still remember he was sitting and he had his Kalashnikov between his legs and he was nervous. And I remember saying, oh my God, if he's that nervous, how nervous should we be? And I would pull jokes. And so eventually we took off. And when we arrived at Medical City, I saw an opening, a parking space opened. And I tap on the shoulder of Ahmed and say, hey, you know, Italian, park, park.

You want some help?

You know? And that's where the bodyguard got out. We stopped and the bodyguard climbed out of the car. Climbed over the doctor. And I said, well, maybe he's not as weird as I thought. I thought he's trying to help us park. That's not what he was doing. Now, I did not know what he was doing. I figured it out. They told me afterwards. But the next thing I know, there's full-fledged gunfire.

So he turns on you.

He got out, got behind the car, and from— I would say half a meter, unloaded his AK on me because the shots then were against my headrest. And I heard a click. You know, you can call it luck, you can call it fate, you can call it God. We all call it in a different way, but it's clear that it was not in my cards to die that day.

But you're sitting in the car, he's behind you.

He's behind me.

And you're his target.

And I'm his target.

Target. And he starts unloading. You hear this click, like you duck down. Did you just have this instinct?

I had this instinct.

Yeah.

I duck down and I remember apologizing with my family.

Like in that moment?

In that moment, I was especially with my dad who had always been worried about my extravagant life choices. We'll talk about the bar later. And there I was like, oh God, I'm dying. This is it. And then I thought, how did they know that we were coming? Because this was a last-minute mission. And I thought, these are snipers on this side because the shots— I knew that much— they're on my side. And so it's snipers on this side who are waiting for us and just waited for us to park and started shooting.

But it was the bodyguard.

It was the bodyguard.

Yeah. And then why did he want to kill you?

Listen, I even understand why. Here comes the invader. Now again, I want to point out, it's not all— most Iraqis welcome the American invasion because most of them were Shia. The minority was Sunni and they were the elite. So they, of course, were against it. A lot fled, a lot joined the Islamic State later in life. But the Shia were like, "Hallelujah, we're liberated. We are now in charge." But this guy, who knows who he was, who knows And I am a woman. I look the way I look. I was in charge in the car. I was also being very warm with Ahmed. I was European. I was American. I was, and I'm sure he thought I was American. Doesn't matter. I was something that he didn't want in his country, most likely. And you know what I learned is we need to stop judging people who I don't mean to stop judging, but often people who are violent are violent because they have only known violence in life. And I learned it throughout the years. It's if you have never learned compassion, you have never learned love, you have never learned trust, you solve your problems. I disagree with you, bang, you're dead. Dead. There's no debate. So I could also understand why the guy wanted me dead. Now, on the way there, he killed everyone in the car.

So you duck and then you get out of the car.

I duck and I figure out that they're all dead because then I have to climb over my dead friend's body. And there's chaos around the car and I'm like, oh my God, everyone's screaming. And I'm just like, oh God, I don't want to be lynched. I mean, to die because they beat the hell out of me, please not. So I run into a house and in Baghdad at that time, all the doors are open to let the air flow. And I watched probably too many movies and I ran into a corner because at least in a corner, your shoulders are—

Something behind you.

Something behind you and I'll scrutinize what's in front of me. And I'll wait for the Marines to come and save me. So my ultimate is like, where are the Marines? Where are the Marines? And that's when you realize, no, this is not a movie. I mean, time that anyone knows that this is happening on the streets and I'll be dead. So I need to figure this out on my own. And instead of the Marines, I have a bunch of women in black chadors come in and do the classic shouting.

You're in somebody's house.

I'm in somebody's house.

Yeah, yeah.

In a corner with a bunch of dead people out. And so the lady comes in with all her friends, I guess, and they start— it's panic. So they scream, they do the panic scream. And I'm like, oh God, now the snipers, because I still think about the snipers, the snipers will know that I'm here. And then I'm like, okay, I am not getting shot at while staring at the person who's shooting at me. If I'm getting killed today, I'm running for survival. And that's where I got out of the house. And at that point, they were beating the hell out of someone right behind the car. Of course, I didn't stop and check. And I'm like, oh my God, what's going on here? And I managed to, I got, and I thought if I run away looking the way I look, it won't be a long run for me. So I thought the only way to get out of here is in the same car.. And Ahmed was the driver. And I still wonder how I could be so cold-blooded. He was dead. I pulled him off the car, left him on the road, and I drove off.

So you're like sitting in a pool of blood of your friends. Yeah. And then you have to—

With the two dead bodies next to me.

Try to drive back to the grief zone with—

Drive back to the Ministry of Health.

While you're pumping full of adrenaline and shock and—

And checking if the snipers from the rear mirror, if the snipers are following.

And like no real idea of how how you're going to get to where you're going. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It must be— I mean, you write about it in the book a bit, but so you were able to be clear-headed? I was extremely clear-headed because you had no choice.

No, and I had no training. A lot of people say, well, were you trained? I don't think you can really— of course you can train, but there's— you— everyone reacts in different ways to— and I was as cold-blooded as I was calm. And it was shocking to me to realize how I had reacted.

And you kind of instinctually get back to the Ministry of Health and everybody wants to question you about, I'm sure they want to know what had happened, but you're like, look, I need some space.

I need to be alone.

Yeah.

And it was also then they wanted to, you know, I had then to drive from the Ministry of Health to the Green Zone in the afternoon. And so they had set up a new car for me. And I was like, "No, no, if I didn't die in this car today, I'm not supposed to die in this car today." So I insisted that I drive in the same vehicle that I had been shot at. And what was shocking was when I went back into the garage, you know, the truck from the morgue had already arrived, had taken away my two and the gardener was already hosing down the car. So to me it was, if I had died or someone of us had died, it would've been a huge drama. And now two Iraqis die, it's normal. And it was mainly the Iraqis, like, "Whoops, let's go to the morgue and let's move on." They were so used to, and it wasn't because of the invasion, they were just so used to the concept of death that there was like, oh, let's just hose it down, prepare the car for Anna, and let's get going.

So this is just a few months into your new job. Certainly at this point you must be like, okay, maybe now that's enough.

No, I, again, a lot of, especially in the group that I was, was all military guys. They all thought this one won't make it. The same day I went out because I had seen I've seen people for way less decide to go home, which by the way is fine. It's not, if you do not feel like it, it's not a, like you don't make a hero statement. Actually, you are dumb if you stay, if you're scared. So I said, I'll need to see, I need to, if I want to have a chance to get out again, I need to get out immediately and see what happens. And that evening I had an invitation at the Italian ambassador's house. And the Carabinieri came and picked me up. And that's where I also learned that there was a journalist at the place. And I was like, no, I am not speaking about this. This needs to stay in-house. And it's interesting how it took me years actually to speak about it and to write about it, because when you write about it, it goes even deeper in the bones. And there were a lot of people who wanted me to tell the story. And I just started sweating. And I just decided I won't tell the story.

Yeah, because we went kind of quick, but I mean, Ahmed is, he was a friend of yours.

Very good friend of mine.

Yeah, dear friend.

And also from there, you know, before I heard the gunfires, I heard, and at nights when they went off, because it was, you know, people who had to kill their neighbor who had pissed them off for decades or who knows what. And then I started, when I started hearing gunfires, I started panicking because I would relive the moment. That's where, you know, I was forced to go through PTSD.

It's a pretty funny part of the book with this therapist trying to crack you open. You're resistant. Okay. I mean, there's honestly, there's so many incidents. It's hard to even know which ones to pick. I mean, in the middle of this, I'm not going to spend a ton of time on this because I want the ones where you're, you're directly in it. But I mean, you, you like leave your hotel for a few days and your, your room, my room gets blown out by like a rocket. Yeah.

And it was this time I wasn't the target. They just, you know, it was like something. Yeah, it was in that hotel.

Yeah.

And they, so they just decided let's just hit the hotel with a bunch of rockets and One hit my room. And the night before I had decided to go and check on the state of the clinics in prisons. And I said, let's start with Kurdish Iraq, which is the calmer part. So I just jumped on a flight and went to Kurdish Iraq with no, there was no task. It was just like, I'm going.

Destiny.

Yeah. Whatever.

Do you end up staying back in that hotel?

No, it was blown up. So we had to, when I, and there was another, you know, when I came back, We were all put into, everyone went to what we call the chapel, which was inside the palace, a huge room that was used as a chapel. And being a woman and being very few women, they reserved like a special treatment. The women could get a trailer. And by then I had, I've always been a team player. I thought, you know, if my whole team is in the chapel and stays up at night because they can't sleep because there's hundreds of people in there. I'm with them.

You're sleeping like what, on a cot?

We were sleeping, they put bunk beds everywhere. We're talking about hundreds of people in bunk beds.

And that's where you slept?

And that's where I slept for quite a long time. And I still remember, I like bunk beds. I like to be on top. But then I realized being a woman, if I want to have a little bit of privacy when I change my shirt, I better be on the bottom. And put towels all over. Yes. So then I can have, you know, 20 seconds of privacy where I can change clothes without having too much attention.

You mentioned meeting Saddam. You're at his trial after he's captured. There's— you talked about the celebration when his sons were killed, but it's more muted when Saddam is captured. And I guess intuitively you might think, oh, well, the celebration is going to be even bigger because Saddam. Tell me about meeting Saddam. Tell me, you know, why, how people reacted when he was captured and what it was like in his trial.

You know, I think we foreigners tend to categorize these dictators as like, oh, they're crazy. Meeting him, I had heard a lot of stories about Saddam Hussein, and a lot of these stories were so gruesome. I mean, I'm talking about, you know, Ahmed.

Like maybe one of the worst stories I've ever heard in my life.

Yeah. Like having—

Do you want to tell it?

I, I, I, you, it's up to you, but I can also see—

No.

Having— Yeah.

I mean, you tell me that you, you tell in the book about you learn some of these stories that take place during these poker nights and things like that. But it's okay. So Ahmed is a very good friend of yours. You're spending all this time with him. And so one night he's recounting the story of what happens to him at one of these poker games. Games, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And they were, you couldn't, you couldn't, like in every dictatorship, more than 3, 4 people cannot gather, especially after a certain time. And they knew that sooner or later, you know, the Republican guards would hunt them down. And one night someone knocks at the door. So they say, okay, that's it. So one poker player gets up and decides I'll be the first one who he dies in this endeavor. So he gets up, opens the door, and Saddam's guys walk in, you know, all in black. And they don't shoot. They have, Ahmed recounted this vividly, a large yellow plastic bag. And they walk in and they set it right in front of Ahmed. And they tell him, open it. So Ahmed opens it and it's pretty dark in there. So he starts putting a hand in the plastic bag and feels like there's other plastic bags what's in there. And he has no idea. It's kind of mushy. And until he bumps into something that he clearly recognizes, and it's an ear, a human ear. His 16-year-old son had been arrested for plotting against— I mean, seriously, 16 years old, thrown into jail. He hadn't seen his son in a very long time, had kept on asking Saddam, please, please bring my son back, give me my son back. And Saddam gave him his son back.

In a bag. Unbelievable.

And so when you listen to all these stories, you start having, you start understanding the grays. You start like, hmm, this guy was actually a monster. Now, a smart monster. So when I met him, when I saw him at the trial, I've met a lot of monsters in my life. I will never forget those eyes. He was in charge of the room, although he was handcuffed, although he had the Quran. I mean, he had never been religious and he was commanding, still commanding the room. And—

So what kind of eyes? Like dark? Yeah.

Dark. It was in Iraq. They always talked about him like Satan. You know, in spite of me being someone who's against the death penalty, they needed to kill Saddam because he had super— in the eyes of the Iraqis, he had supernatural powers and they were convinced he'll come back and the Americans will eventually free him and he'll come back. So if I work with you, if I do anything, he'll hunt me down.

Which is why And that's why when he was captured, there was not celebration because you might be caught celebrating and then he comes back.

And then he gets back to you. So, and I made a huge mistake at the trial, you know, in Iraq, you are not allowed to show your shoe soles. So you say, well, of course not. Well, we Westerners always sit down in a way that, you know, we put one leg on top of the other and one shoe sole is pretty visible. Now, if you look at me now, you will notice both shoe soles are looking down. It's so engraved in me that I sit down and managed to keep both feet looking downwards. But at some point the trial went on and on and on, and I was on the upper floor and I just laid back and showed my shoe sole.

You crossed your legs.

I crossed my legs. And they stopped the trial. The judge started screaming. Saddam was staring at me. That's where the eyes was, like Saddam had this scornful look on him. And I, you know, when you would like to disappear and say, "I was wrong, I made a huge mistake." And then at the end, I think I got up, they came to get me, and they must have seen that I was sorry. I hadn't done it in any attempt to be insulting of any culture or anything. I was just really sorry. So they eventually had me stay there. But that's where I kept on having Saddam keep on staring at me. So people who underestimate that kind of smart evil have difficulties in understanding the world.

Yeah. Do you think his brand of control over the people, I guess it's probably on some level similar to other dictators over time, or was there something really unique?

He was, because I was in all these countries, I was in Libya, and his level He had stepped it up a notch compared to all the others. Now, there's a lot of dictators in the area, and we'll get there probably, but it's also an area who understands strength, courage, violence. So having a leader who is pleasant and kind and a listener who doesn't kill people. That's not in the DNA of the people on the ground. So I remember once telling to, down the road when I was in charge of the reconstruction of Southern Iraq, telling to my US State Department deputy saying, Iraq didn't, Iraq needed a smoother dictator. In those countries, you go from, there's Saddam, and just a little smoother, a little smoother, a little smoother. So that people get used to it. And instead, you can't go from a full-fledged dictator to smoothness. The smoothness will never survive.

Yeah, we talked about this a little bit, but let's— so as the years are going by, you're doing this work. Eventually, just as you mentioned, you're going to end up in the southern part of the country, um, after David Petraeus asks you to take on your next mission. But I guess all this is playing out I know you said it's not black and white. The US was trying to do some things apparently right, but I mean, God, I mean, like, as you're watching the way this is getting reported around the world, I suppose on some level by this part, the rest of the world isn't paying as much attention as they used to, and they've kind of lost interest in the story.

Yeah.

But like, what's your— What's your reaction? What's going through your mind as to same thing? It's like there is no right side. We just have to fix this thing. Or was it obvious to you that some people were really fucking up and some weren't and, um, or just chaos and it was utter chaos.

It was very clear that we were going around it in the wrong way. And so when Petraeus, the idea of the surge came up, I didn't believe minute. I wanted to go home. I have never had a death wish. I stayed there, not because I get my adrenaline from getting blown up or shot at. I get my adrenaline from thinking creatively. Let's figure this out. Let's figure this out. And after a couple of years, I was like, there's nothing to figure out. We civilians need to get out of here because the ones who stayed were all locked up in the green zone. So I'm not one of those. I don't want to stay locked up. And if I keep on going, going out, I'll get killed. And it's not my country. So I might, you know, now I'm also American. I'm happy to get killed for either Italy or America, but Iraq is not my country. So I was like, I'm out. This is it. And when I first was offered the job, I declined. It was a huge honor.

So this is a couple of years later. It's kind of like '05, 2006, 2006. So like 3 years. And so, okay, so you've kind of had enough.

Yeah.

And, and, and you're ready to go. And then, and then Petraeus comes and he's heard about your skills. So you're, you're like a victim of your own success in, in a lot of ways. And, and he's, he's saying, um, so the southern part of Iraq— I mean, and I learned all this from your book, so please correct me— I mean, it's, it's controlled by Iran to some degree at this moment in time. So there's like a whole bunch of extra complexity. Yeah, and the U.S. knows that it's pretty much sucked at like doing the kind of, um, the kind of on-the-ground work you would need to do to build trust, to sort of maneuver. And you've developed this reputation as someone who's uniquely good at these types of things. And so Petraeus is coming and saying, can you come add some— what, some order to southern Iraq?

No, it was, um, you know, the surge— everyone thinks it's a surge of troops. Yeah, yeah, there was a surge of troops, but it was also a shortage of creative ideas. And that's where I got picked.

Okay.

It's like, we need to start thinking creatively because if we keep on building the brick and mortar, okay, you need a hospital. Oh, we'll build it for you. We're not going anywhere. They're just using us for our money, but we're not creating a society that will eventually change in the right direction. But to do that, you need to— I had no idea. I still remember I was on this flight and I had these bullet points. You need to tap into rule of law. Rule of law. I mean, go out there and say, well, please, could you just chill out torturing people? I mean, I had absolutely— it was such an abstract concept. It's like, where do I even start? And then agriculture. I said, well, agriculture, I can figure something out there. And interestingly, there was no health. On there. And I was like, you're talking about the hearts and minds. I am not gaining the people's hearts and minds if I am tapping into rule of law right away. I need to figure out a way on how to get the population to like me. And then the population will probably also take care of me, which is then what actually happened. Now, this is not a thing that happens in one day or to. I at first said, no, I don't believe in any effort anymore. We need to get out and you do whatever sort you're doing, but I'm out and I might come back when you figure this shit out and get out. And then I was convinced, okay, do it. And then, and I said, figure out, find someone who can do it. I'll set it up. I'm good with setting up teams. I'll set up the team. But also my main point was I'm a woman and you're sending me in deep Shia land where they're all voting for Muqtad al-Sadr, who is the famous clergy that we all know who had started the Sadrist movement and in the hands of Iran. Women, you know, in Baghdad went a lot without scarf. If they did, they had one, a few in some parts of the town had the black gown. In the south, they all had the whole battle rattle black thing. Thing. So it was like, you need a man because a woman won't manage to get where you need the team lead to go. Right.

So it's like an impossible situation to begin with. Plus, with all this extra baggage, impossible baggage on top of it.

Yeah. And, you know, I said, I'll do it a couple of months and then you figure out who else can take over. And then I want to go go home. And that's where I started seeing how things started working. It took a while, but just the fact that I could pick my team and do things the way I wanted to do them. And I did stuff that was frankly quite dangerous, you know, and reach out the way I want to reach out.

What does that mean? I mean, to paint a picture, like, what are your techniques for doing this?

The first biggest issue was the governor. I needed to become kind of the trusted advisor to the man who is in charge. And the man who is in charge is fellow Iranian. He fled during Saddam's time, the south, and fled to Iran. Like a lot of people know about how much the Kurds, what the Kurds went through caused by Saddam. Not a lot of people know that the marshes used to be called the Garden of Eden. The marshes, when I was there and still nowadays, slowly coming back, was desert.

It's in Southern Iraq.

Southern Iraq. Okay. Because Saddam Hussein, the marshland Arabs had rioted against Saddam Hussein, and, um, President Bush had promised air support, um, if they did so. For some reason, that air support did not take place, so Saddam crushed the riot. And not only— he wasn't happy to just kill the guys who had, but he decided, I'm just exterminating the entire population population. And to do so, they have to stop being able to hide in the marshes behind the reeds. So he had his engineers divert the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers and made the marshes a complete desert.

Wow.

Okay. So that he could spot people and kill them. So your option was either I stay here and get killed or I run to Iran. And the governor, of the southern province that I had been appointed to was one of those who ran to Iran. So he hated Iraqis, and he hated Saddam Hussein with a vengeance. Now, but then when Saddam was toppled, his second priority was America. And no one had ever met him before. He refused to meet with Americans. And what I was seeing was the civil affairs people, American, were doing a great job, but they were catering to someone. They weren't forcing someone to think differently. And so they had promised this big hospital in downtown Nasiriyah. Nasiriyah is the fourth town in Iraq. So it's a major city. And I was like, well, that's with, again, with US taxpayers' money. You're building something which has no future because there's no doctors, there's no nurses, there's There's nothing. And so I had this, the luck also that Petraeus and his team said, no, no project will get implemented unless Anna Prowse signs on it. So I get the whole list of projects and the first one I say, this needs to be canceled, is the hospital. And I remember that—

You're like a personal doge.

Yeah. And so the Americans like, he'll kill you. And I knew it. I said, I will, but I need to start. I'm not down here. I have not been, frankly, a huge honor because I take it very seriously to be in charge of rebuilding something. And then I don't do something which is frankly the right thing to do. And so I met with the governor. Sorry, that was a terrible joke. I met with the governor there. They were all military was there because they had never met him before. And, you know, they were scared. They was like this one. And the governor could not believe that I just stood up and said, I will build it for you. But after we trained a bunch of people.

So he's like, yeah, you're trying to curry favor with this guy, but you're being tough.

I'm tough. And he marched out, slammed the door. And he was, he looked like he was just, you know, everyone, he looked like Saddam, miniature Saddam, the black mustache, the Kalashnikov, of the black dyed hair and he played the role really well. And so, you know, a couple of days later he invited me at a ribbon cutting ceremony of one of the gazillion schools we were building for him. And we were never allowed to go to ribbon cuttings. This time he invites me, but it's in Sukhachyuk, which was one of the most dangerous places in the world. And no military had even been to Sukhoi. And they tell me, you've got to go. And I'm sorry, I'm not going. And so at that point, there was also the Australians were also present in southern Iraq. There was Italians, Australians, the Romanians, and Italians had actually pulled out. And so I go in this huge convoy, half American and half Australian, with them telling me they won't know in which if you are in which Humvee or which MRAP you're in. And that's again, underestimating the people on the other side. Of course they have people on base who watch. And of course they knew in which convoy I went in. So when I entered Sukhachyu, bam.

Your car was hit with an IED.

My car was hit by an IED. I can't hear from an ear thanks to Governor Azizov.

Zalwan.

Never made it to the ribbon cutting, made it to the hospital. And a couple of days later, he calls me. He has his man call me to invite me for a hunting trip. Friday was coming up. Actually, it was next day was Friday. And he said, I'm going hunting. Do you want to come with me?

And you know that he's just trying to kill you.

And yeah. And I say yes. And I think that he, they stopped there because they expected a no. So as to probably blame it, oh, they don't have the courage that's needed. They don't have. And I said yes. And then it was like, okay, tell me where and when. And that's when I was like, well, I need to call you back later because they were just being, you know, being aggressive as they are all the time. Always. And I set up a whole plan without involving direct the military because they could not. He also made it clear, you're coming alone. You're not coming with that whole convoy and everything. So I walked out of a military base in a black chador, no one knowing that it was Anna Prowse.

Did you like drove yourself or you?

He picked me up.

He picked you up.

With his man.

Okay.

Took me out there. And I had no idea whether he would, it was just finishing the job. Mission or testing me. And when he took out the rifle from the boot of his car, he pointed it at me knowing exactly he was the cat playing with a mouse. And I just stood up and looked at him. And then he said, let's go, let's go, I'll teach you how to shoot. And of course, it was wild boar hunting. We didn't even see a wild boar even close. I mean, there was nothing happening. And then he said, okay, it's time for lunch. And that's where I see a bunch of pickup Two trucks come from the desert. And I was like, okay, now maybe he's having someone else do the dirty job for him. And that was his private militia. And they laid out blankets on the floor and pillows and a sumptuous—

It's very nice.

Lunch. And I sat there for a couple of hours and that's where he started trusting me. He told me about himself, things that no one knew about. And that's how I got into his graces.

Yeah. So I mean, well, you do a lot of things I would not do. I actually wish I had some of the, as a reporter, some of the courage to do many of the things you did. But like, in that, I mean, you talked about it a bit, but it's like, I mean, do you really, like, why would you, did you care about Iraq that much at that point that you were—

Yes, I guess. I think more than Iraq, because I thought about it a long time, because it's the values that we brought to the table. And I had by then seen that it maybe was not a mission impossible, but you bring values to the table not by talking about values. You have to show values.

Okay.

So there was, I always thought I need to be out there with them. I need to show the friendly face of the Western world because they right now are used to seeing soldiers in full battle rattle the same way soldiers are used to seeing terrorists. They're not used to seeing normal people. So I sort of started being the bridge. Bridge between two cultures who hated each other. But I think they hated each other because they didn't know each other. And I was like, okay, I need to show the Iraqis that we are actually nice people.

You see signs of hope that you could actually make a bigger change.

And, you know, I started seeing signs of hope.

Yeah. Unbelievable. Like the night before you Do you do that? Do you sleep?

No, no, no, no. That one, that was probably the worst night also because I had to set up a whole, if I disappear, so I couldn't tell my own team because they would've ratted me out immediately and I would've done the same, by the way. I couldn't tell the military because if they say, okay, Anna, we'll cover you, whoever covers me and something happens to me, it's court martial and I can't inflict that on someone. So I told a colleague of mine, State Department, US State Department colleague who worked on another team. And he was also a former Marine. So to me, it was like, he told me, don't do it. It's crazy. But the whole plan was like, if I do not show up at this time in front of the Nasiriya prison, because I did ask the military to come and be in front of the Nasiriya prison at a specific time on that Friday late afternoon. And I didn't tell them anything else. So as you didn't know what I was up to. And, um, but I told the other guy from the other team, if they don't— if I don't show up at this time, you need to tell them that I have gone out with Governor Aziz. And this is so they can at least hunt down the governor and see what happened. So there was a whole plan in But then I also noticed that I got stuck in a traffic jam coming back from the hunting trip. And I was like, oh my God, now we will have the whole forces unleashed to free me. And I am stuck in traffic, banal traffic. But you know, when you don't have phones, it's kind of hard to communicate. It's all things you don't think about when you live in this part of the world. But when you live in that part of the world, it's like, well, I just pick up a phone and call. That's not how it works.

Yeah. So at this point you've been You've been almost shot by your bodyguard. Your hotel room has been blown up by a rocket.

My beloved governor, a few months later, I had him over for dinner and he tells me, you know, they called me Dottora because they were sure I was, they were convinced I was a medical doctor. And I told them I'm not, but it's useless. You know, they're pretty stubborn when they decide that you're something, you're something. So He looks at me and says, you know, Dottora, I am so happy I didn't succeed in killing you because you're a very nice person.

He confessed it. Wow. Oh my God. What do you say to that?

It was a candor to it where he wasn't here hiding behind anything. He was like, yeah, we kill people here. We just like, and I tried to kill you, but I was wrong because you're a nice person.

Did you say thank you to that? Yeah.

It's like, well, I'm also kind of glad you didn't succeed.

Um, there's one incident I think I'm gonna have to like fast forward over because, because there's a bunch of other stuff I want to get to. You end up— Soleimani's controlling this part of, of Iraq at the time. You end up having a fatwa placed on you by somebody else. You've— your reputation now has gotten to this point where you're able to get word to Soleimani to call off the fatwa. So you, you know, you're one of these very few people who've been in that circumstance is unbelievable. And then, you know, you've earned this title, Honorary Man, which is, you know, it's both endearing, respectful, and hilarious. And, you know, it's such a— it comes with so many undertones and meanings. But yeah, can you, I mean, explain this title?

It You've got to understand that, again, we humans are very adaptable. One thinks, oh, she did all this stuff. You know, if you live in that part of the world, eventually you adapt. And I had so got used to my role that I would just take helicopters, have— at that point I had bodyguards and they take me places and they would often have me sit at the head of the table or on the right-hand side of the general in charge or the governor. And the tables are these long tables full of guys where they put their AKs on the table and these mustache. And it's all about violence and strength. And here comes Anna. I had a flak jacket on and I would embellish it with plastic flowers, you know, just to show that I'm not Rambo. I don't have guns. I got to wear this because, you know, for safety reasons. And some French journalists came and visited and stayed for a while with the team. And then I became quite friends with one of them. And after one of these large meeting. She said, listen, Anna, do you even realize how weird this is? Because whether it is also with Americans— also Americans, it was all American soldiers, 3-star generals, and me briefing General Odierno or Petraeus— and it's just me and a bunch of guys. And he's like, do you even know how weird this looks? So weird. And I was like, does it really look weird? I was like, yes, it looks weird. And you're the only woman. So I was like, yeah, let's try the woman question here. So I went to one of these big meetings, all military guys and the chief of police of Nasiriyah. And I said, I just said, listen, just to end up the meeting. And there was journalists there. I said, why me? I'm a woman. Why me? And why not others? And oh, it was like, it was started. There was a true brainstorming session around the table, everything in Arabic. And then The 3-star general comes out and says, because, Dottora, you are an honorary man. So they had fixed the issue. Not a woman. The title is that. Let's move forward. And, you know, it was, you know, I said that to a few colleagues when I used to work for Google and they were like, oh my God, what an insult. That's again, the Silicon Valley view.

Yeah.

And that's a tribal view.

You.

That's how it works. If you really want to change that world, show your face. That was my whole point. Let's not talk about women's rights. Let's implement them. So by seeing me every day out there, and not only the men, but also the women were like, huh, maybe we can get there. And also within my Iraqi team, at the beginning, there were very few women. Then there were more women to the point where then I picked my deputy as a a woman. And I like to say that it's like she was the most qualified engineer among all. So I picked her also because she had the right numbers. I didn't just pick her because she was a woman, but it was so— I slowly transitioned to a very mixed team of men and women. But that's how you do make change. You need to show it.

So, I mean, we've touched on some of this. The anytime. Okay. I remember reading, um, No Good Man Among the Living. Have you, have you ever read that book? It's, it's this guy who he goes to Afghanistan. Okay. Motorcycle.

And okay.

He's a kid. I think if I remember right, he was like at MIT and he just decides, screw it. I wanna find out what's happening in Afghanistan. Yeah. And, and he goes on a, on his motorbike and he's driving around or a bicycle. I for— I think it was a motorbike. And, um, you know, so he ends up getting this, It's like one of the best books I've ever read, honestly. And he gets this, this un— well, I don't— it's a biased view, but he's getting this unfettered view of what happened from the American occupation. And, you know, it's all very similar. There were similar themes, right? It's like all this money comes in and there's good intentions and then things just go awry as people try to grab all the money and nothing, you know, it feels like so hopeless. Yeah. And clearly it's just like repeats again and again, right? And countries have done this forever, but the US is sort of the main one now who like goes and tries to set up shop and fix things. I mean, from your experience, you outlined some of the things you did, but like, is this universally just a hopeless thing to do, to go into some country and try and establish order? Are there like any— any— clearly you had a means of operating in this total chaotic environment that was effective. Um, I'm sort of changing my question on the fly because maybe it is just hopeless for some, some country to come in and try to establish order. But certainly there must be lessons to be learned of, um, effective things that can be done in dramatic situations like this. And, and so you did highlight a couple, but I just, I wondered if there's any other lessons.

Yeah, I I think one of the first things is we all speak about involve them, involve them, involve them. But at the end of the day, we involve them and then they come with a shopping list. I need 4 bridges here. I need 8 schools there. And then you look at the bridges, they all go from some prominent person in the province or in the city to drive to the— it's call favors. Now I understand maybe initially you need to do a little bit of that, but then you've got to stop. Then it needs to, we need to change the way people do business. And that's what I did with the governor. Governor, you, if you want to be successful, you need to start making a difference in the province. You need to stop. That's where then the rule of law comes in. You really think that you He can lock everyone up. He would, how do you say?

Hammer?

Hammer. When he knew that his opponents would gather in the evening in specific places, he would have his militias go there, close all windows and all doors and burn people alive in there. I know there's like, oh my God, this is horrible. Oh yes, it is horrible. It happens everywhere. Now I can't go to the governor and say, oh, come on, stop doing this. He will just, oh, he will, first thing he'll deny, oh, it's not me. And we all know it's him. He needs to understand what is on the table if he stops doing it. And my argument was, if you keep on being seen as the murderer, we're going towards elections. They won't vote for you again. So you need to start governing the way. And as I do, like I had set up a complaints day so that people would bring in the complaints to me. At the beginning, I would look into them and see what can I do here and there. But then it was like, Governor, this is what your people need. And by the way, it would be much more effective if you 'If you took a day from your schedule and sit there and listen to your constituency.' And he did it. And then the head of the provincial council did it. Interestingly, the head of the chief of police did it. So you need to be in touch with your people because now it is a democracy. You are going, people are going to vote. Saddam is no longer here. So, and he did not get voted again. Men. So, you know, you need to get them to train them in thinking differently. And like, I used to have a huge amount of, I mean, you just mentioned the fatwa. It's the Iraqis who saved me from the fatwa. Why? Because killing me would have been counterproductive. I was seen like, she's the only one out here. Muqtada al-Sadr preaches anti-Western, but he's in Iran studying to become an ayatollah. Kolla. I never see him here. She is in the slums. She does stuff. She brings in medical teams from all over the world to help us. So all of a sudden, and I went regularly to the amusement park. Now we pay very little attention to normal life. We speak about, oh, lack of electricity, oh, lack of water, lack of normalcy, lack of Lack of spaces where you have a picnic on Friday night. That's where I decided I'm building an amusement park where women can also walk around because after, you know, when the sun goes down, women are all locked up in the houses. Let's build a place where they can walk with their husbands, their kids, go out and flirt, exchange little tickets. That's how I saw— how do you actually date in a country where you can't do that? Tickets going out, love notes, phone numbers. But if you don't create that space, space, that life stops. And I created that space and regularly went on Fridays. And there's actually a video about, and I hadn't, where I come down from this catapult where you're with the legs up and the head down. And that's where I realized this is probably more dangerous than anything else I ever did, knowing the engineers who just screwed the things like, oh my God, this is so. But when I go down the whole park, we're talking about Hundreds of people were cheering my name.

Yeah.

And this is how we need to start thinking about rebuilding. I don't want to go into the whole Gaza thing, but you need, we have created a gazillion of new terrorists out there. We need to bring them back on board. How do you do that? Hope. We need to bring back cope. We need to involve them in whatever is going on. It will be, you say, mission impossible. I don't like that word. It will be not something that you do in 1 or 2 years. It will be a lifelong thing where groups, hopefully of smart people, take over and then at the end do it behind the scenes. Because the big work that I did, it was never slammed out there.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it was this mix of like going out in the field, having relationships.

Don't be on the media bragging about the last great thing that you did.

Well, this is the heart of my question. I mean, I know you don't want to hear the word impossible. The care and nuance of what you're talking about and somebody who's lived through this and now has this experience and this knowledge, this does not strike me as like, you know, it seems —like a much cruder, broader brush that is usually applied to these things. And it's inevitably going to be military-led. And so, I mean, how does that change? I mean, how do you get not just one Anna, but, you know, like 100? Yeah.

And it was also in Iraq, it was military-led. But then you gotta, you know, the military listens. The military are, at the end of the day, also the first ones who do not want to do reconstruction. They invade countries. Yeah. So they would be more than happy to have civilians jump in and do that work. But a lot of civilians do not want to put their life at risk to do that work. And so it's really, because also when I would tell, and often, you know, I had to tell the US military. I remember once there was a high-level official from the Italian government and it was during playing, I think, D'Alema's mandate. And he was, you know, central left. And one thing I'm quite proud of, I survived everyone. That's the fact. I am apolitical. Now, of course, I have my political views, but I am a technocrat. I do this for a living. So when this person, high-level official, came, she was like, I don't want to see a a single US military in your team. And we were on a US base in southern Iraq. So it's like, you will see plenty of them. But then I went to my team members, the ones who were embedded in my team who were military. And I just told them up front, it's not my choice. I would have everyone in here and say, everyone is, I am the face of this, but everyone is working at this. Whether you're Iraqi, whether you're American, whether you're Australian, whether you're in Europe, which was also the difficulty as a team lead to bring all these different mentalities in one shop. But she, it was anti-US military. And so, and they all left. I said, just stay away from here for the whole day. And let's just pretend that it's just us. So there's the military listens. If they're treated with respect, they'll respect back.

Yeah. How are you? Do Are you hearing from friends about Iran right now? Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, what are you hearing? What do you think?

You know, Iran, this is again, we like the black and white, the bad guys and the good guys. Let's not forget that the regime that is in place has been in place for decades, and this regime has come out of a revolution. Revolution. So they have put in place everything to counter exactly what we're seeing today. Secondly, when Ayatollah Khomeini took over, he had a whole cabinet written out. He had a whole plan. For years he had worked with the mosques. He had worked, worked with the bazaris, which are the ones who work in the the people who do commerce. He had it all planned ahead. I find it amazing that we're talking about the Shah's son replacing, and he lives, he has lived for 45 years in Virginia. He's rich. The Shah got toppled because he was more often in St. Moritz skiing. He was never in his country. Country. We're talking about— I mean, also a lot of Iranians who live in the US are all former Shah supporters. Um, I know Iran well. The Shah used to impose Western way of dress code. So if you wore a chador during the Shah's time, they would hit you. You had to wear a skirt. Well, that's not democracy, frankly. Of course the Western world likes that. They have, you know, they have makeup and they have miniskirts and they travel. And, but that was imposing a way of life to a population that is Persian. It's, you know, whereas for example, Iraq, we struggled in getting Iraq together. Iraq is all tribal. They don't, there's not even any Iraq. God forbid we get against Persia. They will reunite against the common enemy. There's no tribes there. They'll get all together and then they'll start fighting again. So I really hope that there's no vacuum also, because this is not— I've watched all the— I've actually worked in all the countries where the Arab Springs were unleashed. I was in Libya, I was in Egypt, and I had welcomed them Maybe because I came from Iraq, it was so damn hard, it's better if it comes from the inside. Well, none of those countries have succeeded. Libya, I go there, it's in hands of militias, ruthless militias. It's more dangerous than Iraq at its peak. No one speaks about it anymore. But Syria shows that a dictator can stay in place and be the dictator of a bunch of ashes for 10 years. That's what happened in Syria. Tunisia, they voted actually democratically. They have a president. And after 10 years of democracy, he dismantled the parliament and everyone's clapping because finally we're back to a dictatorship and it will function. The only country that actually somehow functions is, uh, Egypt. Well, Egypt has al-Sisi. He's a general and he's definitely not democratic, but we're fine with that because he's the friend of the Western world. I would love to see a transition like that in Iran. To me, that's the only way where you go, as I had said in Iraq, you've got to go from the extreme and slowly, slowly chill.

So someone who's something of a dictator, but more moderate. Yes.

And maybe not so religious, you know, start being, you know, probably a Qasem Soleimani would've been kind of the perfect fit in there. Although he's, you know, but he was a general. He had the buy-in from the population. Population. He had fought in the Iran-Iraq War, so he was the strong man, but he didn't have, you know, he wasn't religious. These slow transitions need to happen in those places.

So what do you make of MBS? MBS? In Saudi Arabia. Oh, correct. Yeah. Trying to make, you know, I mean, cosmetically, or I think not even cosmetically, like some actual changes. He, I think he is.

I haven't been to Saudi. Yeah, okay. I hear that it's improving. But again, we also need to be careful not to align ourselves because now if we align with Saudi, of course we are disaligned with Iran because one is Shia and the other one Sunni. I always wonder why are we aligning ourselves so closely to someone and why aren't we just taking a step back and understanding What can we do with a country? Like, I actually wrote a post last week on LinkedIn. Do you know that in Iran, there is, Iran is the second country in the world that performs sex-changing surgeries? I did not. So I did not. Either. But number one is, I think, uh, Thailand. No, number one is Thailand, number two is Iran, and it is sponsored by the government. Now, I'm not saying this just to shock, but this is a government that if it manages to work around religious rules, which in that case is you are a woman in the wrong body. So you're not, you know, whereas they throw gay people into, into prison if you want to change your sex. No, because it is black and white. You're in the wrong body, we will help you get in your right body. So now there is a law that allows Iranians to change their sex, and the government pays for part of the operation. So this shows that if they find some loopholes They will go for those loopholes. We need to find the loopholes. We need to sit around the table with them and say, okay, it's in Italian, we say mettere acqua nel vino. We need to put some water in our wine reciprocally and come up with something that is diluted for both, but works out initially as a stepping stone towards something else.

Yeah. Are you doing, are you okay on time? I'm fine. All right. I've kept you over what I promised already. Okay. Well, we're not a Middle Eastern politics show. I'll pull back for a second. And then I'm just grossly fast-forwarding through a ton of stuff because obviously you stayed in country for a number of years longer. The people are going to have to read your book, which we should say. I mean, so it's been published in—

Well, right now the title is De la Mi Guerra, De la Mi Paz, Of My War, Of My Peace.

Okay.

And it's published in Italy by HarperCollins and it's had a huge success.

Yeah, it was a bestseller and you're on media and everything. Yeah. And then, okay, so maybe I was wrong. I mean, Honorary Man was the title I saw on the book.

Well, no, Honorary Man is the title that I always loved, but it translates awfully bad in Italian. Okay. So I have now rewritten it trying to, you know, in English. Yeah. And the title that I like is Honorary Man. Okay.

So, so hopefully people will be able to get this?

I need to find an agent and then hopefully pitch it in the US market.

I mean, it's incredible. I got to read the English translation. I mean, it's just, it's a, there's parts of your story. I mean, you kind of start chronologically and you're born in Italy. I'll be honest, because I want to kind of come back to contemporary, more contemporary times. But I mean, it's, I'm a, your mother sounds like quite a difficult person to grow up with. You go through some of the travails of her judging your weight all the time and keeping this constant watch on you, being very hard on you, kind of like undermining everything you try to do. You were a tennis prodigy growing up. I played competitive tennis when I was identifying with all that. You come from this tennis family from a— it was either an uncle or a grandfather who built—

My grandfather was the founder owner of the most famous Italian tennis racket, Tuxima. Yeah, yeah. You know, during World War II.

And through about the age of 16, you're winning all these tournaments, you're heading towards being a professional tennis player, you have a horrific knee injury and then a series of surgeries that go wrong that kind of ends that. And then like we talked about, I mean, you end up doing, working with these ambulances in Italy and then becoming a journalist and a traveler.

Yeah, and I might add, you know, it took me a long time to write the book, not so much because the Iraq stuff, but because of the mother stuff.

I'm shortchanging it, but it is, it's very—

And it wasn't just, she was brutal. I mean, I don't go in details because I don't like, but it's, you know, when you're 13 and your mother takes you to a plastic surgeon because she hates your face.

She didn't like your chubby cheeks.

And I needed to change my face and weighed me every day and beat the hell out of me because, and I never was overweight in my whole life. It was never pleasing someone and it was the daily, it wasn't so much just the beating, but the daily humiliation. So one of the messages that I like about, that I try to give out is capitalize on bad juju. We all get hit by shit in life eventually, whether it's this, and my childhood was extremely hard, but use it as a trampoline to do other stuff. So a lot of people ask me, how did you survive in Iraq? You know, when you are a small kid and your mother hates you, you just don't understand. You don't figure it out. It's just a conundrum. You go in your room and I would think all night through. And then you go to an Iraq, 1 1 makes 2. You know, my bodyguard didn't like me. It makes sense that he didn't like me. He tried to kill me, period. I actually wanted to meet him. They didn't want to meet him. They didn't want me to meet him because they thought I'll beat the hell out of him. No, I wanted to sit sit down and have a chat. It made sense. Instead, if for decades you live thinking, why, why, why? It was important. I mean, it prepared me for what came after. So I say sometimes Iraq was a walk in the park. It wasn't a walk in the park, but at least mentally it was compared to everything that I had to endure when you don't have the tools fight.

So where do you think this part of you, like this, that sort of realization that you're talking about, first of all, I mean, is that something that you have when you're a teenager? I find, um, you know, there's so many people that bad things happen to them and they let it kind of control their lives. And then there's a whole other class of people who, like you're talking about, I mean, I remember my, my mother was battling cancer for years and years and years and years. Horrific. She's, she's, well, she's 78 now. She's most like active, uh, generally happy person, I know. And like always kind of was like, it's not going to get me down. And, you know, there's just people who kind of react to these things differently. Did you— so was this like a— do you remember a conscious moment?

No, it wasn't conscious. I think I always had the fighter instinct in me. It wasn't conscious, but I would, you know, always try to maintain my integrity. I always tried to please my mom and had to cut it off with her because this trying to please would then I would eliminate myself. Well, she does some crazy shit. Yeah. You know, so at some point 10 years ago, I was like, this is it. And she still can. It's a mother. So she still has the— can get in your head. Can get in my head. So the only way to get away with it was like, I can't do this anymore. I tried for 40 years to please you. I tried and tried. It's not working. Let's just quit.

What about this, like, wanderlust? This almost— maybe I'm wrong. It feels like you almost have like an addiction to, or a thirst to like feel this, these dramatic situations, to put yourself in pretty dramatic sort of spots. Or, you know, you're okay with that. I'm okay with it. Yeah. Like, is that— because I've always had a wanderlust. It was clear from how much you were traveling at a young age. I mean, you've got that. And we're both journalists. I mean, there's that, I want to see the world. I want to see how this thing actually functions and meet all the interesting people. That part I get. Where did that come from? Some of your upbringing, or do you think that was just always inside? I think that was inside.

And I did travel a lot with my family, with all the pros and cons. I mean, with my dad, and he was a famous mathematician, went a lot to Russia. I traveled a lot. I think the main thing that I have is, I mean, I'm curious. I have this deep curiosity that I want to stick my nose in stuff that I don't understand. And I hate judging what I don't understand. So I don't like to sit back and watch what's happening in Iran and say, oh, and just listen to the talking heads. I want to go there and figure it out myself.

When I do, and I have not been in nearly as dramatic situations as you have, it's like a few that are a little harrowing, And, you know, even just doing the job of like, we make this travel TV show. I mean, there does become something of like an addiction, though, to, to like living these, these very full, dramatic days. And then you come home and it just feels, it feels so much more sedate. It's a little hard. Like, did you, did you start to ever question, like, maybe I'm, I am, I'm just pushing things?

I had that and I was my husband. And my husband was really happy about it. Didn't last long. We went to Pakistan on a motorcycle and it was the most undangerous country I've been to. And everyone thinks, oh, it's Osama bin Laden land. It was maybe the nicest trip I've ever had. It was a year and a half ago. I've always wanted to go. Yeah. It's a gorgeous country, but more than gorgeous, you know, the whole Karakoram Highway to the China border, the people are extraordinary. Extraordinary. And that's where I also learned, we always look at people that, oh, they must hate America. People have more important things to do than hate America or hate the Western world. They have to put bread and butter on the table. So going there, especially with a husband who is American, looks American, he was scared shitless. Yeah. He's like, I can't, I can't. And then they all wanted selfies with him. It was a completely different vibe. So we often get also scared of what we see on TV. And of course, we only see the flag and Allahu Akbar, but people are different. And I think that experiencing that and talking about it and writing about it is still something that I feel very deeply about.

I have the same experience pretty much everywhere I go, universally everywhere I go.

But on a motorcycle in Pakistan, eventually It was so dangerous. And I went to India, it was way less dangerous. I mean, in the mountains and sliding on ice and everything and trucks and tuk-tuks and everything. One, the first, I think the second evening, I told my husband, it's like, I think it's over. I reached the age thing. There's an age for everything. And so I might have to chill out a little bit.

I should know this because it's in the book, but I was looking your husband up earlier and I saw Air Force and Marines and a couple.

So I wasn't sure He's a Marine. He's a retired Marine colonel. I met him in Baghdad. He was a fighter pilot in Baghdad. He was an advisor to the Ministry of Finance, and now he works for Google.

Yeah. The two of you get married, you come to— you end up in Palo Alto. This is supposed to be the kind of relaxing, more sedate portion of your life. You almost immediately get a brain tumor at the age of 46, I think. Yeah. So still very, very young. I was embarked here. Yeah. And the doctor first tells you this is pretty much inoperable. It's behind your eye. You're screwed. And then some other doctor kind of gives you what might be better news, I suppose. He's like, he's like, I have options. Although one of them, you know, is that you'll be a vegetable after this surgery is done. And so you take this really high-risk surgery. So, I mean, that must have been shocking. You've lived this insane life. Yeah. You come to Palo Alto. So it's very, it's very— Finally. The weather's nice. It's pretty easygoing here. You're working at Google, you're getting free lunch. Yes. And then you get a brain tumor.

Yeah. Well, that was, again, it was, I had not looked after myself for a long time. So even when I went to the ER and they said, but this is a golf ball. I mean, did you have migraines? I had had migraines for years. Yeah. And I was going blind. And finally I had time. So I said, okay, let's go and get a pair of glasses. Now I have time to go get myself a pair of glasses. And they were like, you need to go to the ER. And all of a sudden I have this and they tell me there's nothing we can do. And then again, luck, God, I get this call from, you know, from Dr. Chang, who is one of the gurus of experimental surgeries at Stanford. And, but again, even after the surgery, of course I thanked him profusely. And then he said, I have never seen anyone fight so hard to live.

Yeah, and you're trying to get out of— like into Kenya the next day or something.

So again, there is definitely, and that's also a message where fighting helps. It's not just some rumor that is around. I mean, if you really hang on to life, life, there's up, there's, there's your options, uh, yeah, go up.

I mean, you mentioned God. Are you religious?

I, I'm spiritual.

Okay, I'm spiritual. So you're not a, you're not a hardcore Catholic?

No, I'm not, although I met with the Pope, but I'll let this, uh, and let whoever will read the book, that was a very—

I should say, I don't want to go through everything because I want people to read the book when it comes out. Um, all right, we're gonna do a couple just last stories. Um, I mean, there is For me, it was hilarious that you end up working for Google X and, you know, they used to have this project. Oh, and now I'm blanking on the name, Project Loon. And, you know, it was to fly these high-altitude balloons where they would deliver internet to places that were struggling to get high-speed internet. So it's in some ways a fantastic job for you because you're going to have to go to these countries, these difficult spots, arrange the the politics and everything to make this happen. Without getting shot. Without getting shot. But I mean, we'll get into the mechanics of that, which I thought were quite amusing for me, just knowing tech companies so well. But you know, one of your first moments at Google, I was talking about the free lunches. Well, they're having these like, you know, the Larry and Sergey sort of gripe sessions where the workers can— actually, this was with AstroTellers. I had Google— Yeah. And so, so you've just come back, you've, you've almost been blown up like 18 times. You've had a fatwa called against you and the people at Google are complaining about the quinoa. Yeah. The quality of the solution.

I had no idea what quinoa was. Quinoa. I was like, what is that? It must be a project name.

So you think this is a code name for some project that's not going quite right, but really they just, they want better, they want better grains in sushi at lunch. Yeah. So that must have been a massive culture shock. Yeah, it was.

You know, and it was, and I have to say I still struggle with that.

Yeah, it's not like we've improved on it.

You know, and that is why I think that going to places, you know, Lund was great. Oh, we are saving people around the world. But then the one who went around the world was me. And then eventually I started, because I am not a deeply technical person. So if I can speak big picture about the project, it's good. But then if we got to go into the technicalities, I need engineers. And the first trips with those engineers were really interesting because, you know, they're like, you know, then I saw myself sort of like the mama. It's like, do you have a suit? Oh, I never wore a suit, not even at my wedding. I don't care about about your wedding. You have to wear a suit if you're meeting with a minister, a prime minister, a president, a human, a common human on the African continent or in Indonesia, suit and tie, no flip-flops and Bermudas. And you know, gotta clean up. And it was a battle. It was this whole, but then again, it's not knowing the world because then when I finally traveled with them and always said, we need to go there a couple days sooner, because it's not about having a successful meeting. It's about trust. And it's a PowerPoint slide for them up there. Who cares about the logo a little more upright, a little more like this? This is just what we focus on. It's about, is there the right warmth around the table? Do these people actually care for us? So how do you show care? Go there a couple of days before. I would tour the slums of Dar es Salaam on a bicycle with the engineering team, just these are the people that you claim you want to help. You need to meet them. You need to stop and talk to them. I went to mass in a Catholic country and I was like, oh, I don't go. I don't go to mass either. But it's in the cathedral. You meet the people, they will see you. Probably a lot of ministers will be there. So on the Monday meeting, they will already know you and you showed respect. Also, after mass, you usually get invited. They won't. They'll invite you over for lunch, but you also had to see the faces of the Africans when you get to mass. And it's like, but you should go to the Anglican mass. I was like, no, no, no, I want this mass. And it's like, but do you speak Swahili? No. I was like, well then why? It's a different mass. The Anglican mass, I know it by heart. It's frankly pretty boring. Swahili mass with a guy on the thing that screams and you get to know a culture. And then interestingly, when you show curiosity about the culture, they invite you for lunch and that's where you build a rapport with people. Yeah.

I mean, do you think this is clearly a flaw of Silicon Valley? I think it's, I don't want to besmirch an entire nation. I think it's kind of an American flaw, if I'm honest. I mean, I think we're always in a rush to do so many things in business and I don't know if we are wired to take care of these kind of details and we shortchange all this stuff.

Yeah, it is. I mean, I am afraid that the world is kind of taking that thing.

That was my next question. Yeah.

Is it American? Is it Western? Maybe it was initially an American trait, the workaholics, everything needs to be done by close of business. Well, that, or You know what's the motto of Google X Astro is like, break, build and break.

And do the go fast, break things.

Go fast, break fast. If I break a relationship, it's over. I need to wait for a coup or the guy to die. So I cannot break it. So I really need to do my homework well. I need to dress appropriately. I mean, the homework that's done around it, you just don't walk in a place like that. You need to You know everything about your interlocutor at whatever level he or she is. Also to be able to do small talk. If they go biking, if they swim, if they do that, I mean, anything. And it takes a long time.

So, well, and you're a consultant now, right?

Now I'm a consultant. Yeah.

So did you find, was it, you know, I don't know how freely you want to speak about this or not, but I mean, did you find Google could internalize some of these lessons you were trying to teach or do you find that the culture here is just, it's just never going to get it.

Well, I think either then they give up on all the projects that are worldwide and that need human approval. You know what really shocked me? You know, at Loon, there were, I don't know, 150 engineers, up to 200 really smart engineers. I was the only one. And the only one in charge of relations with government. Right. Okay. And I'm like, I had to be everywhere because to fly those balloons, we flew them out of Winnemucca in the US. Yeah. To get to Africa, Kenya, they have to fly over a bunch of countries.

Yeah. I should describe it maybe a little bit better. I mean, these are, these are kind of persistent balloons that are flying in the stratosphere all the time. And so it's like another country's airspace and you're trying to provide infrastructure, you're trying to provide internet to, to consumers, um, and institutions. And, and so, you know, it's infrastructure. I mean, this is, this is like a thing a country is gonna care about, right? Oh yes. I mean, the telecoms are are going to care.

Everyone. Everyone. And Google is one of the largest companies in the world. It is American. We have balloons flying on top of their heads. The question is, do you have cameras? Are you spying on us?

Well, and you're like, in most cases, they were trying to do it for free often, which I'm sure the local telecommunications companies are not super thrilled about.

Well, it was never free. It was always an agreement with the local telecom. Okay. So those are hard to get. So, for example, to get to Kenya, we had to fly over Congo and Tanzania, and those don't get Anything. So I had to go to these places and usually talk to the secret services and aviation authorities and say, can we just fly over? Because we're serving the Kenyans. Well, for example, Tanzania hates Kenya. I still remember when the last CEO of Loon said, well, just tell them that you're serving their Kenyan brothers. They hate each other since centuries. So he'll kick me out. That's done. So I am trying to get to fly over systematically over countries that don't have anything in, you know, they're just like, well, you're just spying on us. You're just— still remember I met once President Museveni, who is another full-fledged dictator in Uganda. And I had met with everyone in his— for 2 years, everyone in his cabinet and had everyone on board. Then finally I meet the big guy and he says, so who's kicking the can? Because with dictators, you often get to the point, who's kicking the can? It's like, well, I don't know who, but the can is being kicked. And it's like, but what's the concern? And it's like, the My concern is that we spy on you and we do not have cameras, but I can't really prove it. And, you know, Mussolini just laid back and said, but you already spy on us. If you want to know how much sugar I put in my coffee in the morning, you already know if you want to know. And I said, yeah, that's what I try to say. We don't do balloons in the stratosphere flying with the winds to spy. We already have satellites for that. Yeah. Yes. Just easier ways. Yeah.

I could see a world where I bet the Silicon Valley approach was sort of like, let's not talk to these people, let's just do this because it was at the beginning, it was like that. They're gonna say no.

And it's like, and at the beginning it was like that, but then it became too large and we had to scale. And then there's the Civil Aviation Authority, ICAO, you know, they all wanted to know, okay, end of this, we need to, you know, have things in place that allow you letters of agreement that allow you allow you to do this. Yeah. So frankly, pretty much from the get-go, I knew it wouldn't work out.

So are you like, are you cynical about— so I mean, you know, so the cliché here is that everybody's trying to save the world, or they say they're trying to save the world, even if they have, you know, the shittiest, um, most rudimentary app for like, you know, whatever, ordering sandwiches or something. Um, are you, when you have your step back, do you find Silicon Valley, I guess it's not black and white, but yeah, I mean, does it drive you crazy or is this an inspiring place with interesting thinkers?

It drives me crazy. It has interesting thinkers, not too many in my line of work, but it does this whole close of business. And there are countries where, and I had to explain it actually to, it was Mike Cassidy, who's extraordinary. Human being. But it was like, you know, I finally, another thing that was hard, hire people on the ground. I was like, well, no, you go. No, I need people who are also have the right connections with the right person. Maybe it's all about, you know, knowing people. Now when you are in places where, you know, there's a dictator and the dictator would never pass Google's ethics and compliance. So if I'm trying to hire someone within the circle to get me to, and get, you know, in the door. And of course he doesn't, he or she doesn't go through ethics and compliance. But I can't, if I can hire an 18-year-old student, it helps the student, but the student doesn't help me. Yeah. I need those people. So to even get Google to understand, I need those dodgy people to move forward because the governments that we interact with are dodgy. Yeah. To start with. So either we say we do not work with dodgy governments. Well then you don't, you stop working because every government is in some shape or from dodgy, then you have to, you know, put water in your wine.

Yeah, yeah. And when I was at Bloomberg, I'll probably get someone in trouble, but I don't care, I'm not there anymore. I remember we'd film somewhere like Nigeria, you know, and it's like, uh, you know, we would take our annual, um, little automated HR courses on bribery and things like this. Yeah, it's It's like, okay, well, I'll click these boxes. I'm not sure you guys understand the mechanics of actually filming.

Have they signed an NDA? I'm in the middle of the desert and I gotta have NDAs signed.

I hate to tell you, but there is money that needs to change hands in some circumstances in order for things to happen. And you probably want to ask fewer questions.

Yeah, just don't ask questions if you don't want to be told lies. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, Anna, it's so fascinating. We could— I mean, I could badger you with questions forever. I cannot wait for your book to be translated and out in the United States. This 100% all needs to be a television show or a movie. I kept picturing— oh, God, now I'm going to forget the— Zero Dark Thirty or something like that, except the heroine is like helping people and not torturing and kidnapping. Torturing people. Yeah.

I would like to avoid that.

That was how I was picturing you going through all of these things. I feel like— Well, it's very nuanced.

I have very good friends who have tortured people. And we have discussed it because I discuss things. But I also think people feel that there's no judgment. So it's like, explain to me why. Then I might disagree or in some ways agree on some things, but it's the whole thing when people feel comfortable, then they are. I remember the chief of police of Nasiriyah knew that I had issues with this whole, you know, torturing stuff. And he would tell me, you know, I'm chilling out.

Like, great, progress. He's like, I'm in therapy. We're torturing less now. It's okay. Yeah. I mean, I think I'm like you on some sense. I'm just a very very open-minded person. People are often put in extraordinary circumstances and have to navigate those. And the world is complicated and, you know, far more dramatic than day-to-day stuff in Silicon Valley quite often. But it's an extraordinary life. I'm so glad Jessica told me about this. I did not— I— kind of a crazy thing while you're sitting there getting your hair cut to hear about all this. And so I'm really grateful. And then I think, You're off on a fun trip or something.

I'm going to, again, after the tumor that I had, I decided I need to tick some boxes here before next round shows up. And I always wanted to go to inauguration ceremony of Olympic Games. And now there's the ceremony, Olympic Games opening ceremony is in Milan. I am from Milan. I still have my one-bedroom little apartment there from when I was a student. So I'm off to Milan. On tomorrow.

Okay, we'll see it there. We're ending on a positive note.

Yes. Where people actually fight for the flag without killing each other.

Yes. Well, thank you so much. I hope we stay in touch because I think you live, you probably live. I like to follow up. Yeah, too far from the office. So, and thank you so much for being generous with your time. Well, thank you.

Thanks a lot.

The Kore Memory Podcast The podcast is hosted by me, Ashlee Vance, and/or Kylee Robison, or both of us together. It is produced by me and David Mickelson. Our theme song is by James Mercer and John Sortland, and the show is edited always by the John Sortland. Thank you so much to Brex and Ewan Ventures for all your support, and thank you most of all everybody for listening or watching. We love you. Please leave us a like, a review, a subscribe, all those tremendous things. Thank you, and we'll see you again.