by Eric Maddox
At 0700 I was in the lobby with Lee, showered, shaved, and dressed in my most presentable clothes, which were nothing more than a pair of cargo pants and my trusty blue shirt, washed and pressed by the hotel laundry. Sergeant Peters had come to pick us up for the briefing with General Custard.
“Hey,” he said casually as we walked to the SUV, “I went back to the office after I dropped you guys off last night.”
“Yeah?” I said, only half listening as I went over my mental notes for the briefing.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I found out they did a recon with your guy last night.”
My head snapped in his direction and I could feel my stomach lurch. “What happened?” I managed to stammer.
“I was watching it on the satellite feed last night. That guy Muhammad Ibrahim showed them a location. There was a guy on the roof and another one walking around the house. They looked like they were pulling guard.”
That was exactly what I would have expected at any location where Saddam was hiding. There wouldn’t have been a large presence; just a few men pulling guard. But if they had found Saddam last night wouldn’t Sergeant Peters have been a little more excited? Had the whole thing gone wrong again?
“What happened?” I repeated, preparing myself for the worst.
He shrugged. “It was getting late,” he said. “I went to bed around 1800.”
This guy’s got to be shitting me, I thought. They were about to raid a location where Saddam might be hiding and he went to bed? The least he could have done was give me a call at the hotel.
I was trying my best to contain myself as we drove through morning traffic to the base. It wasn’t easy. As I sat silently in the back of the SUV, I succumbed to a full-blown anxiety attack. I was clutching my pant legs to keep my hands from shaking. At every stoplight I had to restrain myself from jumping out and running to CENTCOM headquarters. I had to know what was happening. Lee was riding shotgun next to Sergeant Peters. He knew what I was going through but there was nothing he could say to calm me down. All I wanted to hear was the answer to one question: did we get him?
We arrived at CENTCOM and followed Sergeant Peters through a maze of crowded hallways. I looked at the faces of everyone we passed, hoping for a clue as to what might have happened last night. We arrived at our destination and he knocked at the door. An Army major stuck his head out and looked us over warily. “Hey, what’s up?” Sergeant Peters asked.
“Nothing,” the major replied. He looked distracted, as if he wanted to get rid of us and get back to his work.
I think our driver finally realized the excruciating anxiety I was feeling. “Hey, sir,” Sergeant Peters persisted, “did anything happen last night?” I appreciated his effort to find out about last night.
“What do you mean?” the major replied.
“Did they get anyone on that raid last night?”
The major craned his head out to see if anyone was within hearing distance. “Yeah,” he said in a low whisper. “We got him.”
I didn’t laugh. I didn’t cry. I didn’t make a sound. I just stood there. I wasn’t thinking about the long months I had spent trying to get to this moment. I wasn’t thinking about all the dead ends and frustrating failures. I wasn’t even thinking about the team I had worked so closely with or the men like Jeff and Bam Bam and Kelly who had believed in what I was doing. Instead I was thinking about Barry Sanders.
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 s
till 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.
“What does your schedule look like this week?” the admiral asked me when the spontaneous ceremony was over. “The SECDEF is going to want to talk to you as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied, having no idea what or who the hell the SECDEF was.
“That’s the secretary of defense, hero,” Lee whispered, coming to my rescue.
Two days later, when we arrived at the Pentagon office of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, we found that the audience had grown to include Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and four-star Marine General Peter Pace, who would later be named chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Admiral Jacoby was also on hand.
The biggest oak desk I had ever seen dominated the secretary’s inner office. He was behind it as we entered, his arms folded across his chest, flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. He had his trademark scowl on his face, but as we approached, he came out from behind the desk to greet us personally.
“Mr. Secretary,” said the admiral, “I would like to introduce you to Staff Sergeant Eric Maddox. He is an Army interrogator and has just returned from Iraq.”
“Staff Sergeant Maddox,” the secretary repeated in a matter-of-fact tone. He squinted at me from behind his rimless glasses, taking my measure. I liked the fact that he was all business. He wasn’t there to hand out compliments. He wanted an actual intelligence briefing.
After introducing Lee, Admiral Jacoby continued. “Mr. Secretary, I would like you to hear Staff Sergeant Maddox’s brief firsthand.” I had been told I’d have twenty minutes to do my thing. I started in immediately, moving at a fast clip through my last five months in Tikrit. I could tell the secretary was keeping up with me, so I didn’t worry about slowing down or repeating key pieces of information. At the twenty-minute mark, he was still listening intently, so I continued, bringing the brief to an end after another ten minutes.
“How close are we to getting the final members of the insurgency?” he asked when I was done.
“Sir,” I replied. “I think we are very close.”
He finally stopped staring me down and looked over to Admiral Jacoby. “Jake, what the hell is he doing here?” he asked. “He has to go back.” I realized that he thought I had come back simply to be awarded for my accomplishments.
“Mr. Secretary,” the admiral replied, “their tour is up. Sergeant Maddox’s last day was the day that Saddam was captured.”
“God,” he said, now giving Admiral Jacoby the stink eye. “We’re that close to finishing this thing and these two are allowed to come home. I need them back out there.”
“Yes, Mr. Secretary,” the admiral responded.
“Sir,” I chimed in. “Our bags are packed and ready to go.” For Lee and me, the war was the most natural place to be. We were interrogators. That was the only place where we could do our job.
At that moment, an aide entered and whispered something to General Pace. “Sir,” the general announced to Secretary Rumsfeld. “I’ve just gotten a report that eleven million dollars was found in a raid on Muhammad Ibrahim’s farm.”
The secretary looked me straight in the eyes and stood up. The rest of the room fell silent as he began to applaud. It wasn’t just the news of the money or even the capture of Saddam. As soon as I had walked into his office, I knew he was sizing me up. What he wanted to determine for himself was what kind of soldier I was. Meeting with his approval was one of the proudest and most meaningful moments of my military career.
It turned out that our rounds in Washington were just getting started. Later that day we were taken to the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to brief George Tenet, the head of the CIA. Unlike our meeting with Secretary Rumsfeld, the hour I spent at the CIA was more of a courtesy call, a chance for us to get a pat on the back.
It had only been a few days since Saddam had been rolled up, but I was beginning to realize that there were more than a few people who wished it had happened differently. There had been a lot of intelligence personnel from a lot of different agencies who were assigned full-time to find Saddam. And there were many interrogators and human intelligence collectors who had wanted in on the capture. I could understand their attitude, and their suspicion that I had just been in the right place at the right time. It’s a very competitive field and professional envy comes with the territory
But George Tenet was a friendly, easygoing man who basically wanted to add his congratulations as a fellow member of the intelligence community. It was only after I’d finished the briefing and he’d left that a member of his staff leaned over to me and asked, “You want a job, Eric?”
“Don’t even think about it,” Admiral Jacoby interjected.
He was only half kidding, as I quickly found out. “What are your plans, Sergeant Maddox?” Admiral Jacoby asked me on our way back from Langley.
“He needs a job, sir,” Lee interjected. “But he’ll never ask you for one.” No matter where we were or whom we were with, Lee never had an unspoken thought.
“Sir, I’ll be getting out of the Army in April,” I explained. “I’m thinking of sending in my application to the CIA and the FBI.”
�
�What about the DIA?” he asked.
“Of course, sir,” I replied.
“Go home and relax, Sergeant Maddox,” he said. “When you’re ready to make your next move, all I ask is that you give me the right of first refusal.”
“I will, sir.” I paused, then asked the question that had been on my mind since that morning. “Sir, Secretary Rumsfeld mentioned something about Lee and me being sent back to Iraq.” I turned to look at Lee, wondering if he was thinking the same thing I was.
He was. “Sir,” he told Admiral Jacoby, “as Sergeant Maddox told Secretary Rumsfeld this morning, our bags are packed and ready to go.”
When we got back to the admiral’s office another briefing request awaited us. This one was from General Alexander, the head of intelligence for the entire Army. My presentation to him began like all the others, until he interrupted me by pulling out a newspaper clipping from the New York Times. “What is this article referring to?” he asked me sternly. I glanced at the headline: “4th ID Gumshoes Track Down Saddam.”
I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t just that someone else had rushed in so quickly to claim credit for capturing Saddam. It was that the head of Army intelligence was relying on a newspaper for his information. It made me wonder about the bureaucratic infighting that seemed to run rampant among the various agencies and branches of government.
“I’m sorry, sir, but that story is totally wrong,” I told General Alexander. “The media was not allowed anywhere near our operations. Whenever we got a big catch in Tikrit, we would turn it over to the 4th ID. They would brief the press. But no one in the 4th ID had anything to do with getting Saddam.”
Maybe I was too direct in my explanation of the 4th ID’s lack of involvement. No doubt a three-star general wouldn’t be overly impressed by a staff sergeant’s opinion. But I was telling him the simple truth; maybe not enough soldiers were asked—or most likely even allowed—to come back and talk honestly about the situation in Iraq.
