He has had staff appointments at the Permanent Joint Headquarters, "Navy Resources and Plans" in the Ministry of Defence, the Headquarters of the Multi-National Force – Iraq in Baghdad and the US Joint Chiefs of Staff in The Pentagon (as the deputy CDS liaison officer during the build up and conduct of the 2003 Iraq invasion), at the end of which he was accorded the privilege of addressing both US Houses of Congress, ""one of the few Royal Marines to have entered the Capitol Building in uniform since his predecessors burned it down on 24 August 1814 "".