Mission: Black List #1 Read online

  Mission: Black List #1

  Eric Maddox

  Davin Seay

  Everyone has seen the footage: a heavily bearded Saddam Hussein blinking under the bright lights of infantry cameras, dazed to find himself in U.S. Army custody. Yet while the breaking news was broadcast around the world, the story of the remarkable events leading up to that moment on December 13, 2003 has never before been fully told. Mission: Black List #1 offers the full, behind-the-scenes account of the search for Saddam Hussein, as related by the Army interrogator whose individual courage and sheer determination made the capture possible.

  In July of 2003, Staff Sergeant Eric Maddox was deployed to Baghdad alongside intelligence analysts and fellow interrogators. Their assignment was clear: gather actionable intelligence—leads that could be used to launch raids on High Value Targets within the insurgency. But, as Maddox recounts, hunting for the hidden links in the terrorist network would require bold and untested tactics, and the ability to never lose sight of the target, often hiding in plain sight. After months of chasing down leads, following hunches and interrogating literally hundreds of detainees, Sergeant Maddox uncovered crucial details about the insurgency. In his final days in Iraq he closed in on the dictator’s inner circle and, within hours of his departure from the country, pinpointed the precise location of Saddam’s Tikrit spider hole.

  Maddox’s candid and compelling narrative reveals the logic behind the unique interrogation process he developed, and provides an insider’s look at his psychologically subtle, non-violent methods. The result is a gripping, moment-by-moment account of the historic mission that brought down Black List #1.

  Eric Maddox

  with Davin Seay

  MISSION: BLACK LIST #1

  The Inside Story of the Search for Saddam Hussein—As Told by the Soldier Who Masterminded His Capture

  To all of those who have served, fought, and sacrificed, and to all those who yearn for a seat at the bar

  Map

  PROLOGUE

  1400 15DEC2003

  A cold blast of December air hit me as I made my way down the connecting corridor into the busy terminal of Heathrow Airport. Holiday travelers, hurrying home for Christmas, surrounded me on every side. The crowded airport seemed like a surreal place, safe and clean and worlds away from the war I had been fighting. Despite the noise, all I could hear was the beating of my heart as I thought back to the place I’d just left. It was a whole other reality, one that changed forever not just who I was, but the world I was about to reenter.

  I wanted that dreamlike feeling to last, that inward sense of satisfaction that I had done my job and completed my mission. But my focus right then was on another mission: to find coming-home gifts for my two boys, Joe and Eric Marshall. In my travels, I always made a point of bringing back souvenirs for my young sons. There were no gift stores where I’d spent the last five months, so something quick and easy from the London airport would have to do. But the Tony Blair bobble heads and Big Ben shot glasses in the gift store probably weren’t going to do the trick. As I looked around for something more suitable, a television in an airport pub across the way caught my eye.

  I wasn’t the only one. A small crowd began to gather, watching the breaking news report. On screen, a man walked up to a podium in a room filled with cameras and reporters. His name appeared as he cleared his throat and leaned into the microphones: Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

  The noise of the airport seemed to die down as we strained to hear what he would say. It was as if we somehow already knew that this was one of those events we would always remember, a key moment in history.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Bremer said. “We got him.”

  There were probably only a handful of people in the world watching at that moment who didn’t know what Bremer was talking about. But his next words left no doubt. “Saddam Hussein was captured Saturday, December thirteenth, at eight-thirty P.M. local time in a cellar in the town of Ad Dawr, which is some fifteen kilometers south of Tikrit.”

  The sound of cheering in the pressroom blended into the buzz of the crowd around me, a mix of surprise and skepticism. An old man at the bar turned to his friend and said, “They had him the whole time. Bush is bringing him out now just to win the bloody election.”

  I closed my eyes and smiled as the two drinking buddies agreed that the capture of the most wanted man in the world was nothing more than a political stunt. The truth was, there was only one person at that bar, in that airport, or anywhere else for that matter, who knew the real story of Saddam Hussein’s capture.

  I was that person.

  An hour later, I was still thinking about that chatter in the pub as I settled into my seat for the long flight home. Maybe the real story of the hunt for Saddam would never be known. But if it ever was told, where would it begin? As we lifted into the murky London sky, I looked down on the city below. I remembered another landscape I’d once flown over, a long way from these peaceful rows of suburban houses. It seemed as good a place as any to start.

  Chapter 1

  NIGHT RIDE

  2200 28JUL2003

  We came in low, a hundred feet over the desert under the cover of night. The tiny two-man OH-58 scout helicopter was moving at eighty miles an hour, skimming over the farms and small villages. But I wasn’t noticing the view. I was too busy hanging on for dear life, tethered to the chopper and stuffed into a space behind the pilot so small that my legs dangled in midair. Beside me was my kit, packed, as I’d been ordered, with enough gear for two days.

  It had been four days since I first arrived in Iraq, landing at the military base at Baghdad International Airport (BIAP) along with my friend and fellow interrogator, Lee. We had been assigned together in the Defense Intelligence Agency for almost two years, and in that time Lee had earned a reputation as a top-notch interrogator. But, for me, this was the first real shot I’d have at doing the job I signed up for back in 1999. Since then I’d never had the chance to even question a prisoner. This time I was determined to make the most of the opportunity and from almost the moment I landed, I got to work interrogating the detainees in the prison built in an airport hangar on the base.

  I’d kept it up day and night since then, grabbing a meal or a few hours’ sleep between sessions. After a few days, some of the other interrogators advised me to pace myself. It was easy to burn out in this job. But I didn’t want to hear that. Nobody knew when this war might get shut down. Until that happened, I wanted to get in as much interrogation experience as I could.

  But I was also beginning to realize that the prisoners I was questioning were sometimes nothing more than frightened and confused civilians, not the bad guys we were looking for.

  “Bad guys” was the term we used for anyone we were going after. They could be insurgents, former members of Saddam’s regime, or just troublemakers who crossed our path at the wrong time but to us, they were “bad guys.” There were a lot of them that summer. The invasion of Iraq had begun back in March and enough time had passed for the opposition to begin to organize itself. Former Baathists and regime officials; army officers; foreign fighters and jihadists: we faced a wide variety of enemies.

  As a result our intelligence gathering efforts were ramped up. I was part of a group of case officers, analysts, and interrogators from various agencies and military branches. We had one overall mission: to gather actionable intelligence on the identities, influence, and whereabouts of the insurgents. It was a steep learning curve.

  I began to wonder whether our efforts were stalling for a lack of good information. Most of our intelligence was provided by paid informants, who obviously had an incentive to give
us leads, whether or not they were solid. Maybe there was a better way to get at what we needed to know.

  Within twenty-four hours of our arrival Lee and I were asked if we’d be willing to serve as interrogators on “hits,” the raids that were conducted in Baghdad to search for High Value Targets and round up suspected insurgents. Neither one of us had been beyond the perimeter of the airport. We were eager, both for the opportunity to be useful, and for a chance to get “outside the wire” for the first time. Since Lee was senior to me, he would obviously be the first to go, but he promised me that I would get the next available mission.

  The night of the hit, I could see that he was excited and even a little nervous, although he did his best not to show it. I could understand why. It was dangerous work. But forever after he’d be able to say he was part of a wartime raid in hostile territory.

  But with only minutes to go before the hit was launched, it was abruptly canceled. Disappointed, Lee headed back to his quarters.

  “Does that count?” I asked him, half joking.

  He gave me a look. “No,” he said, then shrugged. “I’m turning in. If something comes up in the next few hours, it’s yours.”

  Something did. Later that evening, while he was still in the rack, a soldier came looking for him. “He’s asleep,” I told him. “What’s up?”

  “They’re looking for an interrogator to go to Tikrit.”

  My heart skipped a beat. “What’s going on?”

  “They captured a bodyguard up there,” he explained. “Drunk off his ass, but he might know something.”

  “So what do I need to do?”

  “Are you cleared to go?” he asked skeptically.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I’m actually on standby for anything that comes up.”

  “Pack enough for a couple of days,” he told me. “Grab your weapon. The chopper’s waiting.”

  My lack of sleep over the last few days was beginning to catch up with me as we took the ninety-minute flight to Tikrit. But every time I started to doze off, I could feel myself slipping out of that metal mosquito and snapped back awake.

  We finally set down on a small landing pad. Numb from the rotor vibrations and deep fatigue, I fumbled to unlatch myself from the tether. From out of the shadows a big, hulking guy with a handlebar mustache appeared and without waiting for an invitation, pulled me from the chopper.

  “You the interrogator?” he asked.

  I nodded and stumbled after him to a waiting Humvee. I assumed that I was in Tikrit, but had no way of knowing. I could barely make out the outlines of the military compound in the darkness and only later found out that I had landed at Camp Ironhorse, headquarters of the 4th Infantry Division, responsible for Tikrit and the northern section of the Sunni Triangle. After a few minutes we passed through a checkpoint and continued into the driveway of an imposing marble mansion.

  I would learn a lot about Tikrit in the days that followed. As the hometown of Saddam Hussein, it was full of the palaces, estates, and farms of the ruling elite, mostly members of Saddam’s extended family and the allies of his clan. The mansion where we had arrived had actually been a vacation getaway for Saddam’s wife.

  The place had a huge two-story front with a balcony that ran around its upper floor. I followed my guide through the wide front door and into the spacious reception hall, stacked high with crates of ammunition and an impressive array of weaponry. The only remnants of the former occupants were some sofas and sideboards and a few pictures of Saddam still hanging on the wall. We headed up a wide sweeping stairway to the second floor and down a long dim corridor and into a brightly lit room. A group of soldiers were gathered around a map, talking in low tones. It was only later that I realized I had walked into the midst of an Operations Order. These men were planning a mission.

  Their intense concentration shifted from the map to me as we entered. The driver made the introductions, first to Jack, a major who was the commanding officer of the small elite task force headquartered at the mansion. They were, I knew, superbly trained and equipped and tasked with some of the most dangerous and difficult missions of the war. True to their reputation, as I would come to discover, they didn’t have much use for anyone who wasn’t part of their world. They were never rude or arrogant, but because they were the best of the best, they didn’t want to have to deal with anyone who wasn’t.

  That attitude was summed up by the cool appraisal I got from Matt, the second in command. At six feet two inches and two hundred twenty pounds, with shoulders like bowling balls, Matt made an immediate impression. And the look he gave me that night made it clear he had no use for straphangers. In Airborne terminology, a straphanger is a paratrooper who just goes along for the ride, trying to log the required number of jumps. Until I could prove otherwise, I was a straphanger.

  “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” he asked, still looking me up and down.

  I swallowed hard. I would have remembered meeting this dude, but maybe I’d pissed him off in a bar somewhere or, worse, hit on his girlfriend back in the States. “I don’t think so,” I muttered and tried to change the subject. “I was told you needed an interrogator.”

  A third member of the team, a wiry redhead, stepped forward and introduced himself as Jeff. “We got a couple of detainees we think are Saddam bodyguards,” he explained in a deep Texas accent. “One of them is too drunk to talk but the other might actually know something.”

  “I’m here to talk to anyone you want me to.”

  “That’s good,” Jack cut in. “Because before you start, we’ve got something else we need you to do.”

  “Anything.”

  “We’re getting ready to go on a raid,” he explained, nodding at the map in front of them. “We’d like you to come along.”

  It was close to midnight when Jeff, Jack, and Matt gave me a quick rundown on the raid. We would be following up a lead from a low-level source claiming that one of Saddam’s old bodyguards was in a farmhouse on the outskirts of town. He was supposed to be leaving that morning for Syria to meet Saddam. My job was to find out where that meeting would take place.

  After the briefing, they sent me downstairs, where a half dozen other soldiers were methodically preparing for the mission. With zero idea what to take on a hit, I started rummaging through the baggage I had brought with me from Baghdad.

  “Got everything you need?” Matt asked, coming up behind me.

  “Should I, uh, take my rifle?” I must have looked as dumb as I felt.

  “Yeah,” he replied dryly. “A weapon is a good idea.”

  “And how about my helmet?”

  “Always useful,” he agreed. Whatever impression he had of me upstairs, I wasn’t doing much to improve it. I decided not to ask any more questions.

  Jeff arrived to introduce me to my interpreter, or “terp” as they’re called. His name was Jared, and he looked to me as if going on this raid was the last thing he wanted to be doing.

  I’d already had some experience with terps back in Baghdad. They were mostly Iraqi-Americans who had been contracted by the military for their language skills. A lot of them had the attitude that they knew everything and the interrogator knew nothing. In my case, that was actually true. If you asked what they thought was a stupid question, they’d roll their eyes and start asking their own. If you got a rambling answer from a prisoner they’d tell you he didn’t know anything and leave it at that. They were definitely on our team, but, in most cases, that didn’t make working with them any easier.

  Jared surely wasn’t interested in making things easier. It wasn’t until Jeff pulled me aside that I found out why. The terp was shipping out the next day, he told me. This would be his last mission.

  “I appreciate your helping me out tonight, Jared,” I said as we sat together lacing our boots. “I’ve been down in Baghdad this whole time. What’s the target set here in Tikrit?” The “target set” was the known list of bad guys the team was looking for in Tikrit. I was determined to get as m
uch information as I could, regardless of how foolish it made me look. And I must have looked pretty foolish, considering the fed-up expression on Jared’s face. He continued silently lacing his boots as I tried another approach. “I guess you’ve been here awhile,” I said. “Any tips for a newcomer?”

  That caught his interest. Now I wasn’t just asking for information; I was asking for his opinion. “Focus on Saddam’s bodyguards,” he said while around us the preparations for the raid continued. “They are all relatives of Saddam and they are all from Tikrit.” He looked at me. “I have a list. Alphabetical. With all their sub-tribes. I write down if they are killed, captured, or unknown. Over two hundred names.”

  “No shit. Can I see it?”

  “It’s all on the computer, but you can have my copy.” He rummaged in his pack and pulled out several sheets of paper filled with single-spaced columns.

  I took a quick look at his handiwork, immediately noting the “Unknown” status written alongside most of the names. “Wow,” I said. “How did you put all this together?”

  His bored attitude quickly disappeared. He obviously took a lot of pride in his accomplishment. “Over the last few months I kept running across bodyguards and their family members,” he told me. “So I made the list. For example, tonight the bodyguard we are going after is an Al-Muslit. That’s one of the big tribes loyal to Saddam.” He pointed to a section of about forty Al-Muslits on his list.

  “Anyone I should be paying special attention to?” I pressed. I could tell he appreciated my interest in his work. I had his attention now. I also had the feeling that what he was telling me might prove very useful.

  He tapped his finger next to another name on the list. “Al-Haddoushi,” he said. “Especially Muhammad Al-Haddoushi. He was very close to Saddam.” He leaned forward. “They may still be in contact.”