The same wasn’t true of his brother Radman. Although he was just as elusive, we occasionally got word of his whereabouts and activities. The Three Amigos, the walk-in sources brought to me by Sergeant Olsen, claimed they could hunt him down. So did two Kurds, who had worked as informants for Chris shortly before he left. In early October they came to us claiming that Radman was way out west in the city of Haditha. If we raided the location within the next three hours, we’d capture him. That wasn’t possible. We’d need at least twelve hours to properly prepare for the hit. The Kurds were clearly disappointed, but promised to come back when they could provide a larger window for Radman’s whereabouts. I really liked their motivation. There was no hidden agenda. As Kurds, a persecuted minority under the regime, they hated Saddam. It was as simple as that.
As Rod settled into his new job, he began working more closely with Fred, the young street criminal who was our best source for the teenage gangs that served as foot soldiers for the insurgency. Unlike the Kurds, Fred had a mixed motive for his cooperation. He had aspirations to be the leader of his tribe and encouraged us to arrest any and all of his rivals for the position. He had also developed a crush on Zita, a local female translator who had volunteered to help us. He never came to a session without a gift for her.
Yet we all agreed that it took a criminal to catch a criminal. Rod directed most of Fred’s efforts toward keeping tabs on Munthir, the most notorious of the gang leaders. But it was gratifying when Rod subsequently approached me to double-check the list of targets I had identified. I had reason to hope that he would direct Fred to keep a lookout for the Al-Muslit brothers and their cousin Farris Yasin.
The frequency of hits dropped sharply in the first week following the team’s arrival. They were getting familiar with their new surroundings. But they were also waiting for the intelligence staff to provide them with concrete targets. I had made as good a case as I could for the Al-Muslit connection to Saddam and their involvement in the insurgency, but I still had no hard evidence to back up my claims. Rod asked more than once why we were after guys that he’d never heard of. I needed to give him a reason.
I finally got one when I interrogated Ahmed Yasin, yet another of the nine brothers who made up the Al- Muslit fraternity. Ahmed wasn’t on my list of key Al-Muslit targets simply because his name hadn’t come up during interrogations or source meetings. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t worth interrogating. One of the most important lessons I had learned during the last two months was that completely innocent people could provide important information about extremely guilty people.
No more than twenty years old, Ahmed, the overweight kid brother in the family, had been picked up by the local police a week earlier. He’d been held for four days before being transferred to the 4th ID.
After six hours of fruitless questioning he finally started to break. “What is your involvement with the insurgency?” I asked.
“I already told the other interrogators everything I knew.”
I looked around. “Do you see those guys here?”
He shook his head.
“That’s because they’re not here. I don’t care what you told them. I only care what you tell me. So let’s start from the beginning.”
Ahmed had already admitted to some low-level involvement in the insurgency. He had even taken soldiers on a raid of his uncle’s house, although it had turned out to be a dry hole. But I wasn’t interested in that. I wanted to know about his brothers. And I was willing to go all night to get what I wanted.
“The men you are involved with are very bad, Ahmed,” I told him. “They have killed many Americans and innocent Iraqis.”
“I did not want to get involved,” he pleaded, his jowls quivering. “I was so happy to be captured. That is why I am trying to help the Americans.”
“You’re full of shit. You’ve been with the insurgency from the start.”
“No mister. They made me join. They told me I had to when my brother Nasir was arrested. He delivered weapons. And they made me do it in his place.”
Nasir Yasin Omar Al-Muslit. Another senior bodyguard and another Al-Muslit. Ahmed had just implicated his own brother. It was the first independent corroboration I’d had from an Al-Muslit that another Al-Muslit was directly involved in the insurgency.
There comes a point in some interrogations when you have a chance to turn it all around. When that happens, you can’t think about your next move. You can’t reveal to the prisoner what’s at stake with the next question. You have to take your shot before he fully realizes what he’s just said.
“Listen to me, asshole. Who was Nasir delivering weapons for? Lie to me and you’ll never get out of this prison. You’ll die here.”
The kid was shaking. “I don’t know,” he whined. “Nasir told me Radman was involved.”
I sat back in my chair. It was unexpected but gratifying. My theory was proving itself true. Now at last I had a direct link to one of the four Al-Muslits I had put on the top of my most wanted list. But I was just getting started.
“Does Nasir work directly for Radman?”
“No. He gets messages from Farris.”
Farris Yasin Omar Al-Muslit? This was another of Ahmed’s brothers and one of my top four Al-Muslit suspects. It was confirmation of everything I had told Kelly, Bam Bam, and Rod, even though I hadn’t quite believed it myself before now.
“Is Farris higher than Radman?”
Ahmed shook his head. “Farris plans attacks and has two groups. But he’s not a big leader.”
“Who is the big leader? Is it Radman?”
“I don’t know. I never see Radman.”
“Do you see Farris? Don’t lie to me.”
He thought for a moment. “Farris has two friends,” he finally said. “They are Shakir and Abu Qasar. They would know where he is. They are very close.”
“Are they in the insurgency?”
“Shakir, maybe,” he answered. “But Abu Qasar is too old. He just sits all day and plays dominoes.”
I made a mental note of the names, than turned to my next area of interest. “What about Radman’s brother, your uncle Muhammad Ibrahim? Have you seen him?”
“Maybe two weeks ago,” he replied. “He was driving through Tikrit. I am certain it was him.”
“Who does Muhammad Ibrahim report to?”
“Mister, Muhammad Ibrahim he does not report to anyone. Except the president.”
For one of the first times in my life I was left speechless. The president was Saddam.
Chapter 9
NINETY PERCENT
My interrogation with Ahmed had been a gold mine. I made sure to tell Kelly exactly what I had found out. He quickly passed the news on Bam Bam and Rod.
“I’m told you have the entire Tikrit network mapped out in your head,” Bam Bam said to me the next morning at the dining room table. “Is that true?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“You need to make sure you and Kelly get a link diagram done,” he told me. “And quit calling me, sir. Call me Bam Bam. Everyone else does.”
I obeyed both orders and by that night had put together a chart with about sixty names on it. They were broken out into tiers according to my best estimate of each suspect’s importance in the insurgency.
At the top, of course, was Saddam. Below him were the Al-Muslit brothers and Muhammad Haddoushi. Kelly also insisted on adding Al-Duri. I didn’t object; even though it seemed like a waste of time, I realized he was a priority for the others. But I knew who belonged at the top of that chart. The only targets I wanted the new team to focus on were the Al-Muslits. From Ahmed Yasin’s interrogation on, I would ignore any rumors or tips on Al-Duri that might come my way.
