JOIN USAs doctors at the George Washington University Hospital were taking him to the operation table, 69-year-old Holbrooke, the US special envoy for the Af-Pak region, told them that he had most pressing issues to handle like ending the war in Afghanistan.
State Department spokesman P J Crowley—who spoke to a number of persons in the operation room where Holbrooke was taken after he fell ill on Friday while reviewing the latest White House policy on the Af-Pak region—gave some account of final moments of the special US envoy who died on Tuesday.
In an effort to calm him down, the doctors held conversations with him discussing his concerns, the most prominent among them being his Af-Pak responsibility.
“There was a, you know, lengthy exchange with Ambassador Holbrooke and the medical team, probably reflecting Richard’s relentless pursuit of the policy that he had helped to craft and was charged by the President and the Secretary with carrying out,” Crowley said.
But, the surgeon in question was not of Pakistani origin, as reported in some media outlets, the senior administration official told reporters. The surgeon was of Egyptian origin, well known to Holbrooke and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“At one point the medical team said: You’ve got to relax. And Richard said: I can’t relax; I’ve got—I’m worried about Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“And then after some additional exchanges the medical team finally said:We’ll try to fix this challenge while you’re undergoing surgery. And he said: Yeah, see if you can take care of that, including ending the war,” according to Crowley.
It says two things about Holbrooke, he said. “Number one, he always wanted to make sure he got the last word.
“And secondly, it just showed how he was singularly focused on pursuing and advancing the process and the policies in Afghanistan and Pakistan to bring them to a successful conclusion,” he said.