WASHINGTON -- I learned of Katsuhiko Oku's death last week; a caller from Baghdad told me that "Katsu" had been shot on a highway together with his younger colleague, fellow Japanese diplomat Masamori Inoue.
Our enemies in Iraq use exemplary murder as a routine tactic. By killing my two friends, they hope to erode resolve within the coalition working with us in that country. How cruel it was to so callously kill these men, the pride of Japan -- yet cruelty is our enemies' calling card. How stupid to let them succeed.
Katsu and I had traveled to Babylon a week after we first met, both of us in the first groups going into Baghdad after the war. I wrote these notes about the visit: