Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein

CIA Analyst John Nixon spent years studying the Iraqi dictator and was responsible for the positive identification of Saddam Hussein after his capture in December 2003. He was also part of the team that first debriefed (CIA-speak for "interrogate") the toppled dictator. What Nixon learned changed him, and this is his story. What we were fed prior to the war, all the way back to the Clinton Administration, was a caricature of a man, a cross between Hitler and Yosemite Sam. As an example, in 2003, while the United States was preparing to go to war, Saddam was busy writing a novel and sending it to his ministers for critique. The CIA knew this, but thought that the novel must be ghostwritten and paid this detail no significance, because it ran counter to our assumptions about Saddam. In hindsight, it showed that Saddam in his later years paid little attention to the affairs of state, let alone masterminding the death and destruction of the United States. The 2nd Iraqi war cost literally burned 3 trillion dollars. This number is difficult to fathom, but it's basically the total sum of all auto loans, student loans and credit card debt in the United States from Alabama to Wyoming. This, not counting thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives, not only didn't make us safer, but made the world a much more dangerous place and gave rise to ISIS and lit the entire region on fire. It's too late to change any of that, but it's still instructive to understand what went wrong. This story is John Nixon's attempt at telling the story for the sake of history, and provide a critique from his view deep inside the CIA on the entire process that led us to his colossal mistake in the first place. The CIA, like any large bureaucracy, is full of talented but inexperienced young people, with a layer of middle-managers that are intelligent enough to get promoted but not wise enough to see the big picture, and an executive branch that is more concerned with finding facts that prove it right, rather than gathering intelligence to understand the real world. But before you think that Nixon has an axe to grind with Bush the 2nd, he in equal measure criticize the actions and attitude of the Clinton and the Obama administrations. This book is very readable and the story in of itself is fascinating. But more to the point, it provides the intelligent reader with a deeper, realistic view into national intelligence machinery. He left the parts that were redacted by the CIA in place, sometimes a word is blacked out, sometimes an entire paragraph. That is the only unfortunate and annoying aspect of the book, but through no fault of the author's. What's left, is still a story that needed to be told.

In "Debriefing the President," former CIA Analyst John Nixon recalls his time debriefing Saddam Hussein, the former leader of Iraq. While the book discusses the various interrogation sessions and the information gleaned from those discussions, there are much larger underlying themes that run throughout the narrative. First, Nixon discusses America’s choice and justification for entering Iraq based on intelligence that Nixon finds opaque and exceedingly difficult to accurately verify. Second, Nixon discusses Saddam Hussein’s contentious tactics and techniques for maintaining relative stability in Iraq and hints that if Saddam were left to continue his reign of power in Iraq, it may have resulted in a much different situation than the one that is currently being faced by citizens throughout the Middle East. Lastly, Nixon discusses the role of the intelligence community in advising the President and the various shortfalls that come with defending your analysis rather than toeing the party line. Overall, the book was well written and a good read. It should be noted, however, that “Debriefing the President” is less about the interrogation of Saddam Hussein and more about the political nature of the United States. I would highly suggest this work for anyone interested in Middle Eastern affairs or matters that effect the American decision making process.

John Nixon's Debriefing the president offers a must read tell all about Saddam Hussein and the war in Iraq from the perspective of a CIA analyst. This book is written as an autobiography in the first person, discussing the author's career up to and beyond the war in Iraq. Into this frame, the author inserts his discussion of Saddam Hussein and what he was really like. As a leadership analyst at the CIA, Saddam and his personality were long studied by the author. His debriefing of Saddam offered him as a historian the rare opportunity to encounter his subject of study in the flesh. The book is broken into three parts. The first part of the book discusses the author's early life and his early career as an analyst. I found this a fascinating account of all that goes into making a professional spy. The author describes the run up to the Iraq War and how the CIA provided faulty intelligence for the Bush administration who did not want to hear truth, but evidence that confirmed their own preconceived notions about Iraq. However, the narrative was somewhat tedious at times, becoming overly bogged down with data on the author's personal life. While this goes a long way to humanize the author, I bought this book to read about Saddam, not the author's wedding. The second part of the book is the real meat of the book, as you get a front row view of the interrogation of Saddam Hussein. Saddam comes across as a very traditional man devoted to Arab nationalism and secularism. With the modern decline into sectarian violence between Shiites and Sunnis, it is often very easy to forget that this was not always the case. Sa/ddam was proud that his predominately Sunni Ba'athist party contained Shiites, Kurds, and Christians, at least when it began. Respect and loyalty appear to have been gold under his administration, as they earned you fabulous western consumer good. However, disloyalty and disrespect were harshly punished with death. Saddam like many dictators was intensely suspicious of his inferiors, always on the look out for coups. In many ways, Saddam reminded me of Julius Caesar. Like the Roman dictator, the Iraqi dictator also seized control of a republic, replacing it with semi-monarchic rule. Both heavily emphasized their name not unlike Donald J. Trump today. Throughout the interview, Saddam appears to have talked about himself in the third person. Saddam will not tolerate this. Would Saddam do that? Both were also eager to give themselves all the glory for military accomplishments, minimizing the successes of their subordinates. At one point, Saddam even talked about how his dignity would not allow him to perform some action. Caesar famously said his dignity would not allow him to back down from the Roman civil war that ended in his dictatorship. However, we should be careful about labeling Saddam a dictator and laying on all the negative connotations this word implies. As the author notes, Saddam did not admire Hitler and Mussolini, as many have suggested in an attempt to blacken his name by associating himself with the worst of the worst of human history. He admired George Washington, Mao Zedong, Lenin, and others for founding a political system. His chief model was Saladin who destroyed the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem. Intriguingly, the author also undercuts the traditional narrative that Saddam Hussein was abused as a child by his stepfather. Modern psychology has a way of looking for childhood abuse to explain violence as an adult. For example, this is often used as a vector to understand dictators such as Hitler and serial killers such as Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy. But as the author shows, Saddam had a positive, loving relationship with his stepfather, to whom he believed he owed his later success because he encouraged the young Saddam to go to Bagdad to pursue his career. The book is full of revelations such as these. The third and final part of the book returns to the US and CIA, detailing the author's subsequent career at the CIA. The author had the rare privilege to meet and clash with President Bush on a few occasions. Nixon is heavily critical of G. W. B., whom he sees as incapable of understanding Iraq and unwilling to change his long held views of Saddam and the region. Bush and his administration seem unwilling to drop any pretense that this was a freedom mission and something of a personal vendetta. Apparently, Bush was looking for connections between Saddam and 9/11 immediately after the terrorist attacks. The CIA was only to willing to oblige the president with fictions rather than the cold truth. Saddam himself thought 9/11 should have brought the US and his regime closer together in the fight against sectarian violence. Saddam was right that this is what should have happened, but he could not understand that the president and his advisers genuinely believed that toppling Iraq would result in vibrant, American democracies throughout the Middle East. As time has proved, this vision is grossly out of touch with the realities of the Arab world. Saddam is intriguing in this regard because he had a real grasp of the Iraqi mind that Westerners lack. For example, even the author struggles with Saddam's belief that he was the leader of the Arab world, fending off the threat of Iran. Nothing could be further from the truth, but this belief is instructive. There are some in this part of the world who still for a leader of all the Arabs like the caliph once occupied. We are now witnessing the fulfillment of that mentality with ISIS and the restoration of the caliphate. The book ends with an intriguing comparison of Saddam and Bush Junior, highlighting their similarities as militarily inexperienced ideologues at the reins of government. I found the book's conclusion compelling, as the author condemns the modern western tendency to demonize dictators and view them as all powerful despots. Essentially by viewing them through the lenses of evil Hitleresque dictator, we miss important insights into them as people. As the author suggests, by the end of his regime Saddam was a non-threat who had given up on WMD and simply wanted to finish writing his book. The author also cautions against the confirmation bias of American politicians such as G.W.B. who was unwilling to listen to news that did not confirm his view of the world. This is sadly a trait inherent to politicians in our two party political system. I suspect that many a president whether democrat or republican will continue to suffer from this flaw. On the whole, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to friends interested in this subject. But I would caution readers. This is not history. Sections of the book are regrettably blacked out. The author also does not cite official documents or other testimonies in his assessment of Saddam, which could undercut his image of the Iraqi dictator. The author suggests that perhaps one day he will write a critical biography of Saddam based on testimony about his regime and official documents. I sincerely hope he does.

Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein Voila enfin un livre qui révèle une partie de la vérité sur Saddam Hussein et sur l'erreur grossière que fur la guerre du Golfe et l'élimination de Saddam Hussein.

Reads like the real deal. There has been so much nonsense written about the Iraq war it is refreshing to read something with the ring of truth in it. Very interesting and entertaining.

Enjoyed this book very much for two reasons, firstly because it contains a lot of information, and secondly because it contains no padding, it has been well written and properly edited. The account of the meetings with Saddam himself are of great interest of course, and give some insight into the way he thought and what kind of man he was. However the later part of the book, which gives an insight into how the Bush administration operated and in particular into the way the CIA operates is equally interesting, especially at the moment when we are subject to a daily barrage of information or misinformation supposedly deriving from the intelligence agencies. Nixon gives an account of the office culture in the CIA, guess what, it's much like any other office culture, nobody wants to upset the boss and people who actually know their job are few and far between. A good, well written book that won't waste your time.

I bought a second hand book. I was stunned by the condition of the book. You wouldn't be able to tell a difference between a new paperback and this used one. As for the book itself, I had been intrigued by its title ever since I read an article that Nixon was coming out with this book. It's very interesting a page-turner and an overall amazing read.

A gripping book only if you understand why it was written. Initially looking at the cover I thought it would tell me more about the issue of Saddam Hussein but the book hits a much deeper issue, "the choices we make". Speaking anything more than this would, I believe, ruin the book for you. Read it to know it. It has a beauty in facts and analysis for the reader. How correct or how wrong is definitely for the reader to decide but I am sure I am taking a life lesson on how to choose from Mr. Nixon. And yes the author does share the name with a famous president, as he jokes. :-)