His childhood instilled in him a deep desire to prove everyone wrong about him and not to trust anyone, but to rely solely on his instincts. Growing up, Saddam and his family were very poor, and initially, he was unable to attend school, but that childhood shaped the man Saddam became. He had an extremely tough childhood as he did not have a father, and his mother married his uncle, who became his stepfather. Saddam was born on April 28, 1937, in a small village called al-Awja (near Tikrit). I had already been to Iraq once, the first element of FBI personnel to deploy, and I had begun to develop an understanding of Iraqi culture and the Baath Party, which was led by Saddam. I went to Barnes & Noble and bought two books on Saddam Hussein so I could start improving my understanding of who he was and all the things that were going to be important in developing an interrogation strategy. It seemed such a significant responsibility on behalf of the FBI. Initially - I’ll be honest - it was terrifying to know that now I was going to be interrogating somebody that was on the world stage for so many years. And he informed me that I had just been selected to interrogate Saddam Hussein on behalf of the FBI. George Piro: I received a call on Christmas Eve, at about 5 o’clock in the evening, from a senior executive in the Counterterrorism Division. Peter Bergen: Tell me how this all started. Our conversation was lightly edited for clarity. Now he is writing a book about his lengthy interrogations of the Iraqi dictator for Simon & Schuster.Īs the 20th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War approaches, I spoke to Piro about what some consider the most successful interrogation in FBI history and the aftershocks of the US invasion of Iraq, which are still being felt today. Courtesy George PiroĪfter interrogating Saddam, Piro ascended to high-ranking positions at the FBI, retiring in July as the special agent in charge of the Miami field office. George Piro, who retired from the FBI in July, is writing a book about interrogating the Iraqi dictator. Even the official US Army history of Iraq concluded that the real winner of the war in Iraq wasn’t America. The war also damaged America’s standing in the world and the credibility of the US government among its citizens. The dictator’s discussions with Piro confirmed that the Iraq War was America’s original sin during the dawn of the 21st century - a war fought under false assumptions, a conflict that killed thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. He discovered from the Iraqi dictator that no WMD existed and that Saddam only had contempt for Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda. And then over a period of seven months, Piro talked to him for many hours a day, with no one else allowed in the interrogation room. The Iraq War was also sold to Americans as a “cakewalk.” Instead, hundreds of American soldiers had already been killed in Iraq by the time of Saddam’s arrest. David Petraeus: How the war in Ukraine will end REUTERS/Oleksandr Ratushniak Oleksandr Ratushniak/Reuters Ukrainian servicemen fire an anti-aircraft gun towards Russian positions on a frontline near the town of Bakhmut, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine January 15, 2023. CIA Director George Tenet had famously told Bush that the case that Saddam had WMD was a “ slam dunk.” Piro was under tremendous pressure to find out from Saddam the truth about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and purported ties to al Qaeda. The stakes could not have been higher for the FBI. at his office, which was lined with Middle Eastern history books. for a workout, so he could start on the job at 7 a.m. Piro’s work ethic was impressive: He would arrive at the FBI gym in downtown Washington, DC, at 6 a.m. The FBI decided that George Piro, a Lebanese American special agent in his mid-30s who spoke Arabic, was the right person to interrogate Saddam. On December 13, 2003, US Special Operations Forces found Saddam hiding in a one-man-size hole in northern Iraq. US and UK forces defeated Saddam’s troops within weeks, but an insurgency sprang up against the invaders, which persisted for years. Nor did he have the WMD alleged by US officials. A year after 9/11, two-thirds of Americans said that the Iraqi leader had helped the terrorists, according to Pew Research Center polling, even though there was not a shred of convincing evidence for this. These claims resulted in most Americans believing that Saddam was involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks.
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