3 January 2014
2008
ISBN 978-0-312-67511-0
287 Pages
Paperback
Never trust an interrogator.
That’s the bottom line message of the book.
Matthew Alexander is a pseudonym, but the man has appeared
on television, which is how he came to my attention. Alexander was the guy who come up with the
clue which led to the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in 2006 by the U.S. military
in Iraq. Al-Zarqawi was the leader of al
Qaeda in Iraq, and was the man responsible not only for a lot of terrorism in
Anbar province, but for sparking the civil war between Shiite and Sunni sects
that was only broken by the “surge” of 2007-8.
What makes the book interesting is the inside look it gives
to the methods of “Industrial Counterterrorism” that was developed by U.S.
General Stanley McChrystal to combat al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan. McChrystal’s book, published in 2013 and
reviewed previously, gives the official account of the interrogation which led
to the vital clue that ultimately led to the killing of al-Zarqawi. Alexander’s book, published five years before
McChrystal’s book, refutes the official account and Alexander claims for himself
the success of having “broken the terrorist” that led to Zarqawi. Since McChrystal does not deal with
Alexander’s claim and admits that his book was written with security of
operations in mind, one can conclude that Alexander is right, and that several
people were decorated for an achievement they did not themselves gain but were
nevertheless decorated for reasons of internal politics. Alexander was shafted, and this book gains a
measure of revenge.
At the time of the book’s publication, the enhanced
interrogation techniques employed by the CIA to break three of the highest
value terrorists in al Qaeda had become known and were highly
controversial. Alexander tossed gasoline
on that fire. His book is sub-titled
“The U.S. interrogators who used brains, not brutality, to take down the
deadliest man in Iraq.” He spends
several mercifully short chapters needlessly to preen about his skills, and
otherwise compare himself favorably to the knuckle-dragging brutes in the CIA.
While the thrust of his preening was that brutality was not
necessary to the breaking of his terrorist, by focussing on his skills he
proves that brains in general do not always suffice either. Alexander writes about how it was his brains,
his experience, his knowledge base, his risk-taking, and his insights which led
to success and not those of the team of interrogators that had been assigned to
breaking the key terrorist.
The book does provide lots of detail about the inner
workings of Industrial Counterterrorism, and how U.S. interrogators work to
break people and find out what they want to know. Alexander admits that the person he was to a
terrorist was false, and the promises he made them were broken. He can justify this as the way it works in
order to achieve a good end.
In all, this book is worth a read.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment