Barry Sanders was the great running back from OSU. Even though he was an Oklahoma State Cowboy, I had always considered him the greatest football player ever. But it wasn’t his record of accomplishments that brought him to mind. It was the way he would handle himself after he scored a touchdown. He never danced or dropped to his knees or showboated in any way. He’d simply hand the ball to the referee and jog to the sidelines. Whenever I heard him interviewed he was humble about his achievements, no matter how impressive they were. As I stood in the hallway at 0800 on December 14, 2003, I told myself one thing: Barry Sanders. Remember Barry Sanders.
I don’t remember hearing or seeing anything for a few moments. But as my senses slowly returned, I realized that Lee had grabbed me by the arms. “You did it, Eric,” he was saying. “Holy shit! You did it.”
Sergeant Peters just stared. The major looked confused. “This is the interrogator who got the target for last night,” the sergeant explained. The major immediately escorted us into a small office, where he showed us the first photos taken of Saddam. As I stared at the bearded, bewildered man, the major filled us in on the details of the raid.
The team back in Tikrit, along with the other two teams from Baghdad, had conducted the actual hit, while the 4th ID had cordoned off a large area around the farm. The operators searched for the first hour, but found nothing. Muhammad Ibrahim was yelling at Qies Niemic Jasim, the man who lived at the farm, to show them where Saddam was hiding. Muhammad Ibrahim apparently knew the exact spot, but didn’t want to be the one to pinpoint it. He wanted Qies to do the deed. Finally Muhammad Ibrahim realized that it was going to be up to him. He moved to an area just meters away from where the team was concentrated, and began inconspicuously kicking the ground. Two of the team members noticed that he was slowly uncovering a length of rope. Muhammad Ibrahim had taken them to the spot, the exact spot. The team dug up the rope to reveal the trapdoor to the spider hole where Black List #1 was crouching. When the trapdoor was opened, the shooter ordered him to hold up his hands. He lifted one, then the other, trading off a Glock pistol between them as he did so. Finally, with the help of a terp, he complied and dropped the pistol. With both arms raised he was yanked out of the hole.
“We never would have found him without that bodyguard,” the major concluded.
“What are they going to do with Saddam?” Lee asked.
“They’ve got him back at BIAP,” the major replied, and then turned to me. “I think your brief with General Custard has been cancelled,” he said. “But there’s a bunch of analysts who want to talk to you.”
“Sure,” I said. I was beginning to regain my equilibrium. Shock was giving way to exhilaration.
I followed the major through another door and into a large conference room where half a dozen analysts were waiting. As they took their seats, I started in with my now-standard briefing. There was only one difference: it was no longer just a theory. As of that morning, it had been proven right.
“How did you know where to start?” one of the analysts asked after I had finished my presentation.
“I didn’t,” I replied. “I let the detainees’ information guide me from the beginning. Arriving in Tikrit, I didn’t know anything. I didn’t have any preconceptions. That worked to my advantage. I could create a link diagram based on what I was being told by prisoners, not what others had already assumed.”
“What approach worked best for you in interrogating?” another analyst wanted to know.
“Utilizing family members of the actual bad guys,” I replied. “A lot of these detainees weren’t actual insurgents. But many of them had important information that I needed. I made sure they understood that, as family members of the terrorists, they were deeply involved. It was guilt by association. But I also made sure they knew that, if they were innocent and cooperated, they would be set free. I also used family members to confront each other. That proved very effective. It had a greater impact when a close relative knew you were lying and said so than if I said it. I took advantage of those relationships whenever I could.”
“What can Saddam tell us?” the same analyst asked as a follow-up question. News of the capture had been immediately relayed to the intelligence staff of the task force.
“For one thing,” I replied, “he can tell us the location of a few billion dollars he has stashed away in Syria and Turkey. That’s the money he was going to use to finance the insurgency and rebuild his regime once we left Iraq.”
“Will he talk?” another analyst wanted to know.
“He’ll talk to me,” I replied confidently, but still trying to maintain Barry Sanders humility. “He’ll want to know who betrayed him. He’ll want to know how he was captured. We can trade on that information.”
With that, the session came to an end. The analysts gathered around to congratulate me and a half hour later, Sergeant Peters had dropped us back at the hotel. Our plane home was scheduled for later that night. I spent the rest of the day in a daze. It was clear from watching television that the news had not yet been released. We had both been instructed not to tell anyone what had happened or that we were on our way home. We had no objections. With everything that had gone down in the last twenty-four hours, we were both half expecting to be called back to Iraq anyway.
Instead we boarded a commercial flight to London. I tried to sleep on the long flight, but the process of decompressing had only just begun. I kept having intense dreams, usually involving interrogations. More than once Lee had to wake me up as I shouted out in the crowded cabin.
Shortly after we touched down at Heathrow, the news was finally broken. Saddam Hussein had been captured. As I sat in the airport pub listening to the excited buzz around me, I felt keyed up and bone tired at the same time. I was looking forward to going home. But part of me would always miss the camaraderie I had shared with the team in Iraq. I had come into the war not really knowing what I could do or how I could serve. Now I had no doubt. I was an interrogator. It was as much a part of me as my name, rank, and serial number.
EPILOGUE
Whatever the rest of the world might have thought about the capture of Saddam Hussein, the American military saw it as a milestone in the war.
That much became clear almost as soon as our plane arrived in Washington, D.C. Word had traveled fast and, by the next morning, Lee and I had already been summoned to brief the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Admiral Lowell Jacoby. Also present was General Burgess, the Army’s Commander of Special Operations.
“Sergeant Maddox, I’ve heard some remarkable things about you over the past two days.” The admiral stood as Lee and I were escorted into his office. “To tell you the truth, the story I got must be exaggerated because it’s just so…” he paused. “Well, why don’t you tell us in your own words?”
When I finished an hour later, none of the top brass in the room said a word. It was Admiral Jacoby who finally broke the silence. “Sergeant Maddox,” he began, “as head of the DIA, there’s an award I’m allowed to give out. It’s called the Director’s Award. It’s the highest honor that can be given in the DIA and it’s usually handed out to civilians. But I’m permitted to award it to military personnel if the situation presents itself. I think the situation has just presented itself.” Then, right there on the spot, he pulled the citation out of his desk drawer and read it aloud. I might have been honored if I’d heard what he read, but I was too stunned to follow a word he said.