Debriefing the president : the interrogation of Saddam Hussein

A riveting and revealing account of the CIA's interrogation of Saddam Hussein, written by the agent who conducted the questioning. In December 2003, following an extensive manhunt, US military forces captured Iraqi president Saddam Hussein near Tikrit. Amid rumors and false alarms, the Bush administration required positive identification of the prisoner before announcing his capture. John Nixon, a senior CIA analyst with years of experience studying Hussein, was tasked with making the official ID. He examined telltale scars and tribal tattoos and asked questions only Hussein could answer. While confirming the identity, Nixon discovered that both he and America had fundamentally misunderstood who Saddam Hussein truly was. This account presents a candid portrait of one of the era's most notorious leaders. As the first to conduct a prolonged interrogation of Hussein post-capture, Nixon offers expert insights into the history and psyche of a complex adversary. He recounts his debriefing sessions, stripping away the mythology surrounding a brutal figure. This narrative is not an apology but a sobering examination of how preconceived notions misled Washington policymakers and their allies. Unflinching and unprecedented, it highlights a fundamental misreading of a central figure in modern history, presenting a bold counter-narrative to the established account.