First there was the required stop at the outpost of what was once the center of "Old Europe" in the form of a meeting at the drab Brussels headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). It was largely a hand-holding exercise as the hugely bureaucratic organization struggles with its mission in Afghanistan—its first military mission outside its region. Gates held a quick meeting with NATO General Secretary Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to encourage NATO to stay engaged in Afghanistan, where NATO has some 20,000 troops (the U.S. has 18,000).
But even before the meeting ended, U.S. reporters were already pressing Gates to talk about U.S. intentions towards Iran—especially in light of the U.S. sending a Patriot missile unit to the Gulf and a U.S. aircraft carrier to the region as a show of force. In his mild voice, Gates said Iran was playing a "very negative" role in Iraq and thinks the U.S. is "tied down" by its mission in Iraq. Then, with none of the bluster of Rumsfeld but all the punch, Gates delivered an unmistakable message—the U.S. was, by shuffling military assets on Iran's doorstep, signaling that it has a "strong presence" because of its "long-term strategic interests" in the Gulf.
Then Gates's party climbed on a slate-gray C17 flown by an Air Force reserve unit from McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. C17s are the low-slung, fat-bellied high-performance cargo aircraft that move everything the U.S. government needs moved, from presidential limos to Humvees. Today, their load was the Secretary of Defense and his straphangers. The plane has a massive interior space, with small canvas seats along the sidewalls for crew and most travelers. But parked square in the middle of the plane's floor on this trip was the Pentagon's "Silver Bullet," actually an Airstream RV, which functions as Gates' in-flight office.
After six hours in the air, the pilots changed course several times on approach—a necessity in a war zone where C17s have been shot at. But pilots are by nature a cool lot: when one of the Air Force's highest-ranking generals, Lt. Gen. Gene Renuart, popped up to the cockpit, they spent a more than an hour shooting the breeze with him. Then the pilots armed the countermeasures to defend the aircraft in case it was attacked, the interior lights were dimmed, and only the green glow of military lights shined on the Silver Bullet.