Rafi flinched. “I was the lowest bodyguard for the president,” he whispered.
“Say ‘Saddam,’ asshole!” Adam shouted. “He’s not the president anymore.” Adam was proving his worth as a terp. He sensed the purpose behind my tactics and actually seemed to be getting angry along with me.
I let a moment pass in silence. I wanted Rafi to think about where this was going. “We know you were Saddam’s bodyguard,” I said at last. “I just wanted to see how long you were going to avoid telling me.”
“I was not avoiding you, mister,” he insisted. “I was ashamed that they made me come back.”
“What was your job in the army, before the war?”
“I am a retired lieutenant colonel.”
“I didn’t ask for your rank,” I barked, inches from his face. “I asked what your fucking job was!”
“Hamaya.” His voice was barely audible.
“So you were ashamed to come back to take a job you’d already done for twenty years?” I asked with maximum sarcasm.
“I was the lowest bodyguard,” he repeated helplessly.
“How is it that you were a lieutenant colonel and still just an insignificant bodyguard?”
“I was related to Saddam. He gave me the rank.”
As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Rafi realized he’d made a serious mistake. This was the one fact he definitely didn’t want us to know.
“How are you related to Saddam?” I asked, dropping my voice and looking him in the eye.
“My grandfather took care of him,” he answered very slowly and carefully. “My father was close to him.”
“I want to know how
“Mister, there is no blood between us.”
For the first time Jeff spoke up, telling Rafi clearly how he was sick of his pathetic groveling attitude, his lies and even his annoying personality. Jeff’s deep-set eyes were flashing and his jaw was clenched. It was the first time I’d seen his temper flare, but it wouldn’t be the last.
Over the next hour we both worked on the prisoner until we had gotten all the details of his family tree. By that time, it was clear that Rafi was closer to Saddam than we could have expected. He was, in fact, a nephew once removed. His father, Rafi told me, was Saddam’s oldest and dearest stepbrother, and Rafi’s dad was like a father to Saddam.
“But I hate Saddam,” Rafi insisted. “I will kill him myself. Thank you, mister, for saving my country. Together we will make a powerful team to bring down the regime.”
“Bring down the regime?” I repeated, “You
“But I hate—”
“Shut the fuck up!” Jeff shouted.
In any interrogation, one of the primary purposes is to establish guilt. In a war like the one we were fighting, when the enemy was everywhere and nowhere, that could prove extremely difficult. It was more than convincing yourself that the person you were questioning was a bad guy. You had to convince him of the fact. By revealing his close connection to Saddam, Rafi had also revealed that he had been trying to deceive us every chance he had. “We got you, Rafi,” I continued. “We’ve got enough to put you in prison for the rest of your life.”
“But I want to help,” he whined.
“So help. Help me help you.” I leaned in again. “I don’t like you, Rafi. You’ve done nothing but waste my time. This is your last chance. Give me a reason to help you. If I don’t help you, nobody else will.”
I was working purely on instinct. It was only later, after a lot of trial and error, that I realized I had come to a critical juncture in the interrogation process. This was the plea bargaining phase. We knew, and Rafi knew, that he was in trouble. My job was to convince him that honesty and cooperation was the better alternative to definite, long-term confinement. Once I’d made my pitch, I just kept repeating it to make sure he understood, and that nothing was going to happen one way or the other until he made his decision.
I had learned some valuable lessons in the hours I’d spent questioning Rafi. The most important was the value of complete sincerity. Whatever you were feeling at any given moment—anger, sympathy, even boredom—it had to be real. Otherwise they’d see right through you. Every emotion was operating at its peak level and it was essential to maintain that intensity. For a detainee, an interrogation is the most important moment of his life. His fate is hanging in the balance. An interrogator has to understand that and treat the situation accordingly.
At the same time I had to formulate each question and anticipate where the answers would lead. I was trying to stay a few steps ahead of the process, without seeming too calculated. I was also beginning to see the benefit of simply talking in a way that didn’t grate or irritate. Whether I was being reasonable or pissed off, what mattered was that my tone of voice didn’t get in the way of connecting with the prisoner.
These techniques came in handy as I continued the interrogation. After a few hours, Rafi began to give up more information. I knew what the ultimate goal was: to get actionable intelligence for the task force to do their job. That was one reason Jeff’s participation was so important. If our interrogation actually produced a lead, he’d have as much time and effort invested in the results as I did.
But in the meantime, I was also getting a better understanding of Saddam’s network of bodyguards. As my questioning continued, I pressed Rafi for details on the system. There were, he explained, three levels of bodyguards. The innermost circle was with the leader at all times. The second circle would usually secure locations in advance of Saddam’s travels throughout the country. The third circle was assigned to fixed locations. Rafi, for example, claimed to be the night shift guard at one of Saddam’s Baghdad palaces. But as helpful as Rafi’s information might have been, it wasn’t getting the task force any closer to real targets. It was time for me to step aside and let Jeff do his thing.
“Where are the terrorists?’ he asked Rafi, as if we were starting the whole process all over again.
“Terrorists?” Rafi asked with wide-eyed innocence.
Now it was Jeff’s turn to get in his face. “Listen, fucker,” he hissed. “American soldiers are getting shot at every day around here. Who’s doing it? Tell me or I swear to God I’ll die before you see the light of day again.”
“But I don’t know any terror—”
“Stop!” I jumped up, shouting. I didn’t want to hear those words coming out of his mouth. Once he was committed to that version of his story—that he had no knowledge or connection to the insurgency—I was sure he’d stick with it. He didn’t want to be caught lying again, and the last thing I wanted was to back him into that particular corner. I started talking fast, to keep him from trying to tell us what he didn’t know. “I have a job to do, Rafi. It’s very simple. I need to catch the bad guys. If I do my job, my boss will like me. If you help me do my job, I will like you. Then I will help you. Do you want me to help you, Rafi?”
He nodded meekly.
“I know you do. And the way you can help me is to give me the names and locations of as many terrorists as you can.”
“I want to say something,” he interjected before I stopped him again.
“Rafi, I’m going to let you speak. But please don’t tell me that you don’t know any terrorists.” I took a deep breath. “Now, what are you never, ever going to tell me again?”
“I am never going to tell you that I don’t know any terrorists.”
“Good,” I said. “So what do you want to say?”
“I want to say that when I am free, I hope you will not forget my name and that we can work together for many years to come.”
“Why would I set you free, Rafi?”
“Because I am innocent.”
I let myself get angry again. “Do I care about your innocence?” I shouted. “I only care about one thing, Rafi. What is that?” He looked confused and frightened. “My job, you shithead! That’s all I care about!” I stood over the prisoner and barked. “What is my job, Rafi?”
“To catch the bad guys, mister,” he replied, trembling.
“Are you going to help me catch the bad guys, Rafi?”
There was a long pause. I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. When he finally spoke, it was barely above a whisper. “Mister, I have heard things but I don’t know for certain. I don’t want to bring trouble if I haven’t seen it with my own eyes.”
“You’re already in trouble, Rafi. Tell me what you heard.”
