Brigadier General Peter J. Palmer served in a variety of different roles as the chief of plans for Multinational Force-Iraq (MNF-I) in Baghdad, Iraq, from March 2004 through June 2005 in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He begins by describing the initial plan for forming MNF-I with Third Army assuming the headquarters responsibilities and how, midway through a planning conference, the plan and MNF-I were thrown into a purely ad hoc mode by removing Third Army from that role. Although he feels that his previous military experience and schooling helped prepare him for the initial MNF-I environment, it was extremely challenging because the headquarters went through five different major changes, including the creation of Combined Joint Task Force-7 and its subsequent split into two separate headquarters. He was also handicapped in that, while the members of his staff were smart, motivated young officers, none of them were graduates of the War College or the School of Advanced Military Studies, or had any experience in the planning arena. "Understand also that we're dealing with the fact that we had the Coalition Provisional Authority that was not teamed well with the military component underneath them," adds Palmer. "That was significant and my perspective is that we lost strategic/operational opportunities because we were still trying to figure out how to work." He highlights that MNF-I was a coalition headquarters and that the contributions made by the British, the Australians and the Polish were "stellar." The three main elements of the campaign plan they put together - the establishment of Iraqi government institutions, putting together the Iraqis' first elections and establishment of the various transition teams - emphasized government solutions over military ones. He talks at length about planning the elections and how they developed the 15-city strategy as a means of legitimizing the resulting government. He also talks about working closely with the State Department, their strengths, their limitations, and the real need for training with them before arriving in a deployed environment. Palmer discusses working with the Iraqis, supervising security for the top levels of their government and the reality of interacting with its various branches. He feels that one of his real strengths was his ability to be a mentor in the realm of planning, for both his own staff and for the Iraqis. Palmer explains in some detail how important strategic communications is and gives an example of how the minor and tactical can become major and strategic. He closes the interview by stating that this was the first situation in his career where he wasn't sure we were going to win.

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