About this item
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.
About the Author
Matthew Alexander (a pseudonym) has spent over eighteen years in the U.S. Air Force and Air Force Reserves. He personally conducted more than 300 interrogations in Iraq and supervised more than 1,000. Alexander was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his achievements in Iraq, including leading the team of interrogators that located Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who was subsequently killed in an airstrike. Alexander has conducted missions in over thirty countries, has two advanced degrees, and speaks three languages. He has published Op-Eds in the New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times. His article, Martyrdom, Interrupted, was on the cover of the Mar/Apr 2010 issue of The National Interest. He has appeared over fifty times on television including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, The CBS Evening News, ABC's Nightline, Fox News, and MSNBC News.
