by Eric Maddox
We called this new source Fred. He had been working with Chris as one of his informants and had given him Munthir’s supposed location. As a street criminal, he was adept at infiltrating these teenage insurgency groups. When Chris finished debriefing him, I began talking with him as well. He was a fountain of information, providing details about specific neighborhoods in Tikrit, who operated where, and whether they were part of a bigger organization.
But I still needed to find a way to bring it all together, to link the suspects and sources and separate players. Maybe it was all nothing more than a freelance network of insurgents working on their own. But maybe not. Maybe someone was running the whole thing.
Chapter 8
CHANGING THE GUARD
1945 11OCT2003
By early October, the team’s tour of duty in Tikrit was coming to an end. As they prepared to leave, I naturally thought back over the last nine weeks. Even though you couldn’t call it a full-on success, I still felt that we had accomplished a lot. We had captured several bad guys and helped to identify dozens of others. We had helped to maintain a strong American presence in a part of the country that had been intensely loyal to Saddam. Most importantly, we were beginning to make progress in unraveling Tikrit’s network of power and influence.
I was sorry to see the team go. I had gotten as close to them as they would allow anyone to come. It was an honor to have served with such a group of elite soldiers. I was especially going to miss Jeff. Without question, he was a hard man to deal with. But he had also given me a lot of freedom to sharpen my interrogation skills and follow the leads I uncovered wherever they took me. In addition to hundreds of interrogations, I had sat in on upwards of thirty source meetings. Despite the fact that the raids only occasionally rolled up the targets we were after, Jeff still understood the value of a good interrogator, no matter how time-consuming the process was. The same was true of Rich, the analyst, and Chris, the case officer. We’d worked well together.
I had no idea whether the new team would be as willing to let me do my job with the same freedom. I didn’t even know if they would want me to stay in Tikrit. It was going to be like starting from scratch, but with one important difference: I would be the one person who could tell them what was happening on the ground in the town. It was going to take time for the new team to get up to speed. I had suddenly become the resident expert.
Not that I had any clear strategy. I was still trying to fit the puzzle together and it was a painstaking process. Yet, even by the end of September, the pieces of the puzzle had started to come together. We were focusing on several likely suspects who might actually be aiding and abetting the insurgency in the Tikrit area. High on that list were men like Radman Ibrahim, Farris Yasin, and Haddoushi, although conclusive evidence against them was hard to come by. I actually had my own theory as to why Haddoushi was still a high priority: It was his name. It was fun to say. I had once overhead a guard at the 4th ID prison calling his buddy on a radio by saying, “Hey, Haddoushi get over here.” In another incidence, one sentry called to another: “Cover this gate. I got to take a Haddoushi.” It had a certain ring to it. My theory was almost too ridiculous to tell anyone, but I was certain it was true.
We had also filled in a lot of the Al-Muslit family tree. There were, in all, some forty Al-Muslit men of fighting age in Tikrit. We knew who they were, where they lived before the war, and their place in the family hierarchy. Most of them had served, or had been in line to serve, in the Hamaya. Why this family? Why were so many of them bodyguards? Those were the questions I was still trying to answer as the team packed their bags.
It was the day of the OU–Texas game at the Cotton Bowl, the Sooners biggest game of the year. The last members of the old unit had left and their replacements were on the way. I exchanged a few brief but heartfelt good-byes with the departing soldiers. Within a few days, Tikrit would be a memory for them. For me it was still a reality, a place that exhausted all my energy and attention.
Ten minutes before kickoff, word came that the new shooters had arrived. We went out to the airfield to greet them and help them unload. As badly as I wanted to see that game, I also knew I didn’t want to be the dirtbag sitting around watching TV when the new guys showed up. On the ride back to the house, I met some of the new operators, answering their standard questions about the food and accommodations. I noticed that they were younger than the previous team: an operator named Jeremy looked like he was pulling weekend duty for the Junior ROTC. But they were the same superbly trained warriors as those they had replaced, and there was no doubt about their professionalism and determination. The team was balanced with a few older guys, too. Scott had been in the Army for eighteen years. Doug, the sergeant major who took Matt’s place, was also a career soldier and well respected by his men. John was team commander, but everyone called him “Bam Bam.” I never did find out exactly why. He was quiet and conscientious, and he turned out to be one of the smartest officers I’d ever worked for.
By the time we got back to the house, the Sooners were dismantling Texas, 35–7. But I still didn’t get a chance to sit down and watch the game. For the next couple of hours I showed the arrivals around their new quarters. After that, the new intelligence analyst, Kelly, wanted to talk with me.
“Before he left,” Kelly said, “Rich took me to a lot of places and introduced me to a lot of people. But I still really don’t know where we are in the fight.”
“Ask me anything.”
“Okay. Where is Saddam?”
“He could be in Tikrit.” I was interested in how Kelly might react to that statement.
“Do you really believe that?” He seemed surprised. I was surprised myself. It was the first time I’d ever shared with anyone the conclusion I had begun to draw. In fact, I wasn’t sure I did believe it. But I wasn’t sure I didn’t, either.
“Is Black List number six, Al-Duri with him?”
I took a deep breath. This was my time to test the waters with my Saddam theory. This guy didn’t know what had been going on here the last three months. There wasn’t anyone left here to tell him except me. I could pitch this any way I wanted. “We’re not interested in Al-Duri,” I told him in a confidential tone. “He’s no longer a player. We’ve got other players we’re after now.”
“Like who?”
Over the next forty-five minutes I gave Kelly a full data dump. It was then, for the first time, I spelled out in detail the hypotheses that had been coming together for me over the last few weeks. “Saddam trusted his bodyguards,” I explained. “We know that. We also know that there were thirty-two of them in the inner circle. We’ve identified them all. Some were killed and captured. Some have left the country. And there are some still here in Tikrit.”
“How many?”
“There are probably ten leaders of the entire insurgency here. I think four of them are from the Al-Muslit tribe. All of them were inner-circle Hamaya. They were linked directly to Saddam. Maybe they still are.”
“Where are the reports on this?” Kelly asked.
“I’ve got it all in my head.”
He glanced around the room where we were sitting, the one Rich had used as his office. Pinned on the walls were link diagrams with names in boxes connected by lines of influence and family ties. “Is that what you’re talking about?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Those have been here since before the last group came. None of the people I’m looking for are on those diagrams.”
“Well, put up your own then,” he said. “Get all these diagrams down on paper. I need to get up to speed on this. If you die and it’s all still in your head, we’ll have to start over.”
I could have gone a lot further with Kelly that night. But I didn’t want to overload him. What I had told him was a general overview, but I had already narrowed my focus from the list of thirty-two inner-circle bodyguards Nasir had given me. Through countless hours of interrogation, chasing down numerous rabbit holes, I finally zeroed in on four spe
cific Al-Muslits: the brothers Radman Ibrahim, Muhammad Ibrahim, and Khalil Ibrahim, along with their cousin Farris Yasin. These were the names that kept coming up in talking with detainees and informants. The four had taken an increasingly central place in the link diagrams I had created in my mind, connected to numerous former regime members, Hamaya, and known insurgents. As I’d sifted though hundreds of pages of my notes, I could make out the faint traces of a pattern that kept taking me back to these four men.
But there were still a lot of questions to be answered. Why would the Al-Muslits be involved in the insurgency at all? Most of them had been men of position and rank. They didn’t need money: Saddam had seen to that. The only motive that made any sense was personal loyalty to their leader. These men had been sworn to protect and obey Saddam. Whom could he trust now, if he was in hiding or on the run?
The truth was, I was a lot more convinced that Saddam was somewhere in or around Tikrit than I had let on to Kelly. My evidence was the close proximity of bodyguards in the area, particularly the Al-Muslit brothers and their cousin. Saddam would keep them close. They might still be following his orders.
I wasn’t sure whether I’d made a convincing case to Kelly, but over the next few days I had the opportunity to present my theory again. This time it was to the team’s commander, Bam Bam, as well as to Rod, the new case officer who had replaced Chris. In his early thirties and a former Special Operations soldier, Rod had a great attitude. He was willing to accept that he didn’t know anything about the situation and was willing to learn from anyone who did. I became his primary source of information.
At first it was a little overwhelming for him. Rod tried to write down as much as he could, putting it on a white memo board and hanging it on his wall. He had listed the names of the primary targets I’d provided, along with a brief description of what was known about them.
One particular entry on that white board reflected both the extent of my knowledge and my ignorance of the insurgency network in Tikrit. The name was Muhammad Ibrahim, one of the three Al-Muslit brothers I had identified as prime suspects. Next to it Rod had written “Wildcard.” That pretty much summed it up. The intelligence I’d gathered often referred to Muhammad Ibrahim as the primary insurgent leader. But none of the prisoners or sources had allegedly spoken to him or even seen him since before the war. If he was in any way still connected to the bodyguard brotherhood, he was doing a great job of keeping a low profile.
The same wasn’t true of his brother Radman. Although he was just as elusive, we occasionally got word of his whereabouts and activities. The Three Amigos, the walk-in sources brought to me by Sergeant Olsen, claimed they could hunt him down. So did two Kurds, who had worked as informants for Chris shortly before he left. In early October they came to us claiming that Radman was way out west in the city of Haditha. If we raided the location within the next three hours, we’d capture him. That wasn’t possible. We’d need at least twelve hours to properly prepare for the hit. The Kurds were clearly disappointed, but promised to come back when they could provide a larger window for Radman’s whereabouts. I really liked their motivation. There was no hidden agenda. As Kurds, a persecuted minority under the regime, they hated Saddam. It was as simple as that.
As Rod settled into his new job, he began working more closely with Fred, the young street criminal who was our best source for the teenage gangs that served as foot soldiers for the insurgency. Unlike the Kurds, Fred had a mixed motive for his cooperation. He had aspirations to be the leader of his tribe and encouraged us to arrest any and all of his rivals for the position. He had also developed a crush on Zita, a local female translator who had volunteered to help us. He never came to a session without a gift for her.
Yet we all agreed that it took a criminal to catch a criminal. Rod directed most of Fred’s efforts toward keeping tabs on Munthir, the most notorious of the gang leaders. But it was gratifying when Rod subsequently approached me to double-check the list of targets I had identified. I had reason to hope that he would direct Fred to keep a lookout for the Al-Muslit brothers and their cousin Farris Yasin.
The frequency of hits dropped sharply in the first week following the team’s arrival. They were getting familiar with their new surroundings. But they were also waiting for the intelligence staff to provide them with concrete targets. I had made as good a case as I could for the Al-Muslit connection to Saddam and their involvement in the insurgency, but I still had no hard evidence to back up my claims. Rod asked more than once why we were after guys that he’d never heard of. I needed to give him a reason.
I finally got one when I interrogated Ahmed Yasin, yet another of the nine brothers who made up the Al-Muslit fraternity. Ahmed wasn’t on my list of key Al-Muslit targets simply because his name hadn’t come up during interrogations or source meetings. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t worth interrogating. One of the most important lessons I had learned during the last two months was that completely innocent people could provide important information about extremely guilty people.
No more than twenty years old, Ahmed, the overweight kid brother in the family, had been picked up by the local police a week earlier. He’d been held for four days before being transferred to the 4th ID.
After six hours of fruitless questioning he finally started to break. “What is your involvement with the insurgency?” I asked.
“I already told the other interrogators everything I knew.”
I looked around. “Do you see those guys here?”
He shook his head.
“That’s because they’re not here. I don’t care what you told them. I only care what you tell me. So let’s start from the beginning.”
Ahmed had already admitted to some low-level involvement in the insurgency. He had even taken soldiers on a raid of his uncle’s house, although it had turned out to be a dry hole. But I wasn’t interested in that. I wanted to know about his brothers. And I was willing to go all night to get what I wanted.
“The men you are involved with are very bad, Ahmed,” I told him. “They have killed many Americans and innocent Iraqis.”
“I did not want to get involved,” he pleaded, his jowls quivering. “I was so happy to be captured. That is why I am trying to help the Americans.”
“You’re full of shit. You’ve been with the insurgency from the start.”
“No mister. They made me join. They told me I had to when my brother Nasir was arrested. He delivered weapons. And they made me do it in his place.”
Nasir Yasin Omar Al-Muslit. Another senior bodyguard and another Al-Muslit. Ahmed had just implicated his own brother. It was the first independent corroboration I’d had from an Al-Muslit that another Al-Muslit was directly involved in the insurgency.
There comes a point in some interrogations when you have a chance to turn it all around. When that happens, you can’t think about your next move. You can’t reveal to the prisoner what’s at stake with the next question. You have to take your shot before he fully realizes what he’s just said.
“Listen to me, asshole. Who was Nasir delivering weapons for? Lie to me and you’ll never get out of this prison. You’ll die here.”
The kid was shaking. “I don’t know,” he whined. “Nasir told me Radman was involved.”
I sat back in my chair. It was unexpected but gratifying. My theory was proving itself true. Now at last I had a direct link to one of the four Al-Muslits I had put on the top of my most wanted list. But I was just getting started.
“Does Nasir work directly for Radman?”
“No. He gets messages from Farris.”
Farris Yasin Omar Al-Muslit? This was another of Ahmed’s brothers and one of my top four Al-Muslit suspects. It was confirmation of everything I had told Kelly, Bam Bam, and Rod, even though I hadn’t quite believed it myself before now.
“Is Farris higher than Radman?”
Ahmed shook his head. “Farris plans attacks and has two groups. But he’s not a big leader.”
�
�Who is the big leader? Is it Radman?”
“I don’t know. I never see Radman.”
“Do you see Farris? Don’t lie to me.”
He thought for a moment. “Farris has two friends,” he finally said. “They are Shakir and Abu Qasar. They would know where he is. They are very close.”
“Are they in the insurgency?”
“Shakir, maybe,” he answered. “But Abu Qasar is too old. He just sits all day and plays dominoes.”
I made a mental note of the names, than turned to my next area of interest. “What about Radman’s brother, your uncle Muhammad Ibrahim? Have you seen him?”
“Maybe two weeks ago,” he replied. “He was driving through Tikrit. I am certain it was him.”
“Who does Muhammad Ibrahim report to?”
“Mister, Muhammad Ibrahim he does not report to anyone. Except the president.”
For one of the first times in my life I was left speechless. The president was Saddam.
Chapter 9
NINETY PERCENT
1100 14OCT2003
My interrogation with Ahmed had been a gold mine. I made sure to tell Kelly exactly what I had found out. He quickly passed the news on Bam Bam and Rod.
“I’m told you have the entire Tikrit network mapped out in your head,” Bam Bam said to me the next morning at the dining room table. “Is that true?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied.
“You need to make sure you and Kelly get a link diagram done,” he told me. “And quit calling me, sir. Call me Bam Bam. Everyone else does.”
I obeyed both orders and by that night had put together a chart with about sixty names on it. They were broken out into tiers according to my best estimate of each suspect’s importance in the insurgency.
