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Some bio info from 2004:

"Born in 1953 in Montgomery, Ala., Fast was reared in a military clan: Her father was a chief master sergeant in the Air Force, and her mother served in the same branch before leaving to raise a family.

In 1971, Fast enrolled at Central Missouri State University, near Kansas City, where she joined the sorority that would play such a large role in her life. When Delta Zeta honored her in 2000, sorority sisters she had met nearly 30 years before gathered in Virginia for the ceremony.

"They had a lovely reunion," said Karly Burns, the former national president, who lives in Tierra Verde. "I know everyone was impressed not only by meeting her but by the words she had to say, talking about how a woman can go wherever she wants to go and that drive and fortitude will get you there."

In 1973, Fast transferred to the University of Missouri, where she graduated with a degree in education. According to her official biography, she also got a master's degree in business administration from Boston University in 1980. That could not be verified; she has put a restriction on release of her records.

By then, Fast had spent four years in the Army and was stationed in Germany, where she met and married another officer. Paul Fast never rose as far as his wife; he retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel and "is truly my partner in everything I do," Fast told the Lamp.

From the start, Fast decided military intelligence "was the most interesting" area of the Army and "where I felt I could contribute the most." In 1997, she wrote a report that presaged the intelligence gathering challenges she would face years later in Iraq.

With the end of the Cold War, "each service is addressing its warfighting business, looking for ways to operate with a smaller, yet more lethal force," she wrote. "Accessing information and leveraging technology are central to a new way of warfighting."

At the time, Fast commanded the 66th Military Intelligence Group, based in Augsburg, Germany. She was in charge of gathering data that could be used to protect U.S. peacekeepers in Bosnia and to track down war criminals.

Jardines met Fast on Thanksgiving Day 1997, when she stopped by the base cafeteria to make sure the meal was good. He and a friend were the only ones left, and Fast offered to give them a ride back to their barracks.

For a colonel, that was "very unusual, and it was obviously a very good first impression," Jardines said. "She was asking us questions, getting to know who we were."

Fast discovered that Jardines was an expert in "open-source intelligence" - using publicly available material such as newspaper stories and Internet discussion lists to augment more clandestine forms of intelligence gathering.

"She said, "I'd like to pick your brain about what we might be able to do,' " Jardines said. "Shortly afterward, we talked, and I was reassigned to head up that effort. By the time I left, things had grown to the point where what we were doing got a lot of publicity."

Jardines said Fast sometimes jogged with her soldiers and liked talking to him in Spanish since both were fluent. She also had "an affinity for her dog," Jardines recalls. "It was a little fluffy dog - I don't remember the name."

After returning home to the Washington, D.C., area, Jardines again had contact with Fast when she worked for Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy, the only woman ever to become a three-star general. Fast and Kennedy were developing the Army's Intelligence Task Force XXI. Jardines was asked to help.

"We were looking at how to reinvent our business of intelligence now that the Soviet Union doesn't exist and we're having all these nontraditional engagements and involvements."

Last summer, Fast became deputy commander of Fort Huachuca in Arizona, home of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center. But she soon transferred to Iraq as chief military intelligence officer.

In September, Fast set up the Joint Interrogation and Debriefing Center at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison. There, detainees were questioned for whatever light they could shed on the insurgency.

Fast's involvement, if any, in the abuse remains unclear. She was in charge of military intelligence officers at the prison, including Col. Thomas Pappas, who is accused in an Army report of being "directly or indirectly responsible" for the abuse. According to the New York Times, Pappas emerged from meetings with Fast and Sanchez "clutching his face as if in pain."

Fast also had oversight of civilian interrogators at the prison, two of whom are implicated. And another female general says Fast was largely to blame for the overcrowding at Abu Ghraib."

That last sentence just screams, "Cat Fight!"

Some are saying that Fast, et al are paying for Rumsfeld going into Iraq too light, which caused prison problems. Wolfowitz LOVES her, so who knows?

"She's done outstanding things," said Paul Wolfowitz, deputy defense secretary, "and I expect more in the future."

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/05/28/news_pf/Worldandnation/Military_star_sideste.shtml