20 years later ... looking back at the War on Iraq
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Opinion: ‘At my first meeting with Saddam Hussein, within 30 seconds, he knew two things about me,’ says FBI interrogator Opinion: ‘At my first meeting with Saddam Hussein, within 30 seconds, he knew two things about me,’ says FBI interrogator
Two decades ago, on March 19, 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the US invasion of Iraq. Bush and senior administration officials had repeatedly told Americans that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was armed to the teeth with weapons of mass destruction and that he was in league with al Qaeda.
These claims resulted in most Americans believing that Saddam was involved in the September 11, 2001, attacks. 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. Nor did he have the WMD alleged by US officials.
US and UK forces defeated Saddam’s troops within weeks, but an insurgency sprang up against the invaders, which persisted for years. On December 13, 2003, US Special Operations Forces found Saddam hiding in a one-man-size hole in northern Iraq.
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. Piro’s work ethic was impressive: He would arrive at the FBI gym in downtown Washington, DC, at 6 a.m. for a workout, so he could start on the job at 7 a.m. at his office, which was lined with Middle Eastern history books.
The stakes could not have been higher for the FBI. 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. CIA Director George Tenet had famously told Bush that the case that Saddam had WMD was a “slam dunk.”
More at:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/14/opinions/saddam-hussein-iraq-war-interrogations-george-piro-bergen/index.html
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