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A review by janetvande
How to Break a Terrorist: The U.S. Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq by Matthew Alexander, John R. Bruning
5.0
The only problem with this book is the title: It really should be "How to Break a Criminal."
In the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal (aka, crimes against humanity), defense officials realized they needed actual trained interrogators, not torturers, to get information about the people we call terrorists but the Iraqi government call criminals. This book details, as best possible and with redactions, how that's done. And how it was used to bring down a genuine threat.
The author is a trained criminal investigator and he shows more than you might think about the tension between the "new guys"(interrogators) and the "old school" (the ineffective brutes). I read this for research and have taken copious notes. But it's a little weird carrying it around where I live with that title, so in addition to the paperback, I went and bought the Kindle so I can do my research with less drama.
In the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal (aka, crimes against humanity), defense officials realized they needed actual trained interrogators, not torturers, to get information about the people we call terrorists but the Iraqi government call criminals. This book details, as best possible and with redactions, how that's done. And how it was used to bring down a genuine threat.
The author is a trained criminal investigator and he shows more than you might think about the tension between the "new guys"(interrogators) and the "old school" (the ineffective brutes). I read this for research and have taken copious notes. But it's a little weird carrying it around where I live with that title, so in addition to the paperback, I went and bought the Kindle so I can do my research with less drama.