How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq - Hardcover

Alexander, Matthew; Bruning, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1416573151 ISBN 13: 9781416573159

Publisher: Free Press, 2008

Synopsis

Finding Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, had long been the U.S. military's top priority -- trumping even the search for Osama bin Laden. No brutality was spared in trying to squeeze intelligence from Zarqawi's suspected associates. But these "force on force" techniques yielded exactly nothing, and, in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the military rushed a new breed of interrogator to Iraq.

Matthew Alexander, a former criminal investigator and head of a handpicked interrogation team, gives us the first inside look at the U.S. military's attempt at more civilized interrogation techniques -- and their astounding success. The intelligence coup that enabled the June 7, 2006, air strike onZarqawi's rural safe house was the result of several keenly strategized interrogations, none of which involved torture or even "control" tactics.

Matthew and his team decided instead to get to know their opponents. Who were these monsters? Who were they working for? What were they trying to protect? Every day the "'gators" matched wits with a rogues' gallery of suspects brought in by Special Forces ("door kickers"): egomaniacs, bloodthirsty adolescents, opportunistic stereo repairmen, Sunni clerics horrified by the sectarian bloodbath, Al Qaeda fanatics, and good people in the wrong place at the wrong time. With most prisoners, negotiation was possible and psychological manipulation stunningly effective. But Matthew's commitment to cracking the case with these methods sometimes isolated his superiors and put his own career at risk.

This account is an unputdownable thriller -- more of a psychological suspense story than a war memoir. And indeed, the story reaches far past the current conflict in Iraq with a reminder that we don't have to become our enemy to defeat him. Matthew Alexander and his ilk, subtle enough and flexible enough to adapt to the challenges of modern, asymmetrical warfare, have proved to be our best weapons against terrorists all over the world.

About this title

From the Publisher:

In the wake of the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib, the U.S. military overhauled its approach to interrogation. How to Break a Terrorist documents the struggle of a task force to replace torture with cunning. Alexander and his team got to know their enemies, carefully questioning a rogue's gallery of egomaniacs, fanatical adolescents, and smug clerics, as well as a number of people for whom collaboration with terrorists was a financial rather than ideological decision. Before long, negotiation and manipulation had yielded stunning results and allowed them to ferret out one of the world's most elusive criminals. How to Break a Terrorist reads like taut true crime but also serves as a timely reminder that we do not have to become our enemy to defeat him.

From the Back Cover:

I grew intrigued by the subject of interrogation in 2001, not long after the September 11th attacks, because to combat small cells of terror-bent fanatics, the essential military tool would not be weaponry, but knowledge. How do you obtain information about a secretive enemy? There is, of course, spying, both electronic and human. America is perhaps the most capable nation in the world at the former, and would have to get better fast at the latter. The third tool, potentially the most useful and problematic, would be interrogation. Long after US troops leave Iraq and even Afghanistan, the work of defeating Islamic fanatics will go on worldwide. We need more talented gators like Matthew, ideally ones with broad knowledge and experience in the parts of the world where they work, with fluency in local languages and dialects, and with a subtle understanding of what makes people tick. Because if you know that, you also know what makes them talk.
- Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down

About this edition

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1416573151
• ISBN 13: 9781416573159
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304