guy, and an air tactician, whose job was to coordinate air support for the raids. Counting Jack and Matt, the first and second in command, the mansion was home to about sixteen men, give or take the occasional analyst or brass from Baghdad.
The entire team had arrived in Tikrit only three weeks before me and they were still trying to get a feel for the environment. They were on the same steep learning curve I was on just three weeks ahead of me. I listened carefully as the shooters at the dining table talked matter-of-factly about last night’s raid while they ate their breakfast.
My own breakfast was an MRE—meal ready to eat. I had noticed the well-stocked refrigerator and pantry in the kitchen but I didn’t know whom all that food belonged to, much less if I could help myself.
“Hey, man,” said the guy with the handlebar mustache, who I would later find out was the air tactician. “We got a whole supermarket in there. You don’t have to eat that shit.”
The fact was, I liked MREs, providing I could pick just the best parts out of two or three of them at the same time. Right then, what had my attention was the shooters’ conversation. Jeff, the Texan I’d met the night before, had come downstairs and was talking to Carl, who’d accompanied me on the raid.
“So,” he asked casually, as if I wasn’t even in the room. “How did Eric do last night?”
Carl nodded his approval. “Went right at the guy. Didn’t even flinch when we got lit up, either.”
If Jeff was the least bit impressed, he didn’t show it. Instead he turned to me and said, “I don’t know when you’re going back, but I’d still like you to interrogate that bodyguard.”
“I’m here as long as you need me. Anything I should know about the guy?”
“Fourth ID picked him up. Drunk off his ass. Supposed to be a big shot, but nobody knows for sure. Maybe you can find out.”
“Okay.” Despite the good report Carl had given me, I felt bad about last night. The task force had done their job. My job had been to find Nezham. I didn’t know what the expectations were, but for me the bottom line was I hadn’t found the guy they were looking for. Maybe I’d have better luck next time, though who knew if there was going to be a next time.
After breakfast I rode with Jeff out to the 4th ID prison where the detainee was being held. With Jared due to ship out, there was a new terp for the session, a haggard-looking Iraqi-American named Adam. He seemed harmless enough.
As the three of us drove through the sprawling 4th ID base, Jeff gave me a brief tour. Formerly Saddam’s palace complex in Tikrit, it was as big as a good-size college campus. There were up to fifty mansions, each the size of the task force quarters, and three massive castles interspersed around manmade lakes. There had once been a luxurious garden, but that had long since died from lack of attention.
“The Fourth ID controls this base camp,” he told me. “We just live here. Fourth ID is responsible for most of the Sunni Triangle. They make the rules and they own the battle space. We go after the HVTs. It is as simple as that. We get whatever we want and need to find them. If a detainee or source knows something about an HVT, we get them. Other than that, Fourth ID is in charge.”
Five minutes later we were at the detention facility. I didn’t know what this little prison had been before; it was nothing more than a large office room with two windows and a doorway. But it worked well as a prison. There was enough space to allow thirty to fifty detainees to stay in the big room and still maintain tight security.
“Let’s go see the sheriff,” Jeff said as he parked the car next to the entrance, where three guards were staring into the detention room monitoring about two dozen captives.
“We’ll be right back. We’re going to talk to the sheriff,” Jeff notified the guards and they nodded their approval. Across the way there was another building guarded by a mutt dog with a menacing snarl. The sheriff was the 4th ID staff sergeant in charge of the battalion detention facility. He informed us that the drunk bodyguard had not completely detoxed but that they did have another bodyguard who had been detained the day before. Jeff and I agreed that talking to anyone was better than no one at all. So the sheriff released the bodyguard to us and we watched as the prisoner was handcuffed with thin plastic zip ties and an empty sandbag was placed over his head. We put him in the backseat with Adam and returned to the task force headquarters.
Jeff, who had done most of the interrogations before I came, had used the mansion’s guesthouse for questioning detainees. It was there that we took the bodyguard. The place was well suited for the task at hand. It had four bedrooms, the largest of which had a couple of couches, some plastic folding chairs, and a piece of plywood propped on ration boxes to serve as a table. The windows were also covered with plywood but what really made it ideal was the air-conditioning. Considering the long hours spent in there, and the intensity of the work being done, air-conditioning was essential to cope with the 120-degree heat.
“So how do you want to handle this?” Jeff was being polite by asking me first, but I knew the meaning behind his words: You’re the interrogator. This is where you earn your keep.
“I’m flexible. I figured I’d just start. Any time you want to jump in is fine with me. Maybe we can take a break every hour or so, to give the terp a rest and evaluate where we’re at.”
Jeff agreed. I knew I needed him in there with me. First, he knew more about the situation on the ground than I did. But equally important was the fact that I wanted to be able to gain his trust in my ability to interrogate. Not that I exactly trusted myself. I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
But this really wasn’t about proving anything to him, or to anyone else. I had to be totally focused on getting information, information the task force could use. As of that moment I had no idea what this handcuffed man with a bag on his head might be able to tell me, or if he’d tell me anything at all. I was looking for something. I just had no idea what it was.
I could feel Jeff and Adam’s eyes on me as I sat down and removed the bag from the prisoner’s head. I took a deep breath. Those few minutes I’d spent last night in the chaos and confusion of the raid were just a warm-up. Now I needed to earn my keep.
The prisoner’s name was Rafi Idham Ibrahim Al-Hasan Al-Tikriti. Rafi was the name his parent’s gave him; Idham was his father; Ibrahim was his grandfather; Al-Hasan was his tribe and Al-Tikriti identified his hometown. His name alone provided some useful information.
The rest would be up to me. And I wanted to find out as much as I could. I was new to the job, new to the country, new to the war. To me Rafi was more than a detainee; he was a walking encyclopedia. He could tell me what it was like to be an Iraqi, a Muslim, a Sunni. He could describe the world of a bodyguard and take me inside their inner circle. I needed to hear it all. But most of all, I needed to learn what it meant to be an interrogator. This was my chance for some on-the-job training.
From the beginning I had my doubts about my prisoner. He was a former lieutenant colonel in the Iraqi army, but he looked like he was more familiar with taking orders than giving them. Hunched and frail, he acted polite and eager to please, ready to tell me anything he thought I wanted to hear. As time went on and I gained more experience interrogating, I would learn the detainees with balls were actually the best subjects. They didn’t just tell you what they thought you wanted to hear. Instead they’d test and challenge you in a game of wits to see who would prevail. When you went toe to toe with them, at least you had the chance to catch them in a lie. The weak and passive ones were only interested in placating you and staying out of trouble. You had to move past their fear and submission to even have a chance of getting at the truth. For the moment, all Rafi wanted us to know was how happy he was to be fully cooperating with the liberators of his country.
“How do you feed your family, Rafi?” I asked him once I’d gotten the preliminaries out of the way—mostly routine questions about his background. He answered with a longwinded story about how he had retired from the military, had gone into farming and was then drafted back into service in the run-up to the war. It was all pretty vague, but I preferred it that way, even though it took hours to get through. I wanted to know what he was most afraid to tell us.
“What did you do when you left the military?” I asked.
He went on to disavow any knowledge or connection to the regime. “I only worked at the palace,” he insisted.
“Not where, Rafi. What? What did you do?”
“Hamaya,” he muttered. It was the Arabic word for “bodyguard.” After several hours going around in circles we were finally getting somewhere.
“Whose bodyguard?” I asked, already knowing the answer. Rafi glanced around the room, like he was looking for a way out.
“Whose bodyguard!” I repeated loudly.
