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How to Break a Terrorist

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2008 book
How to Break a Terrorist: The US Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq
AuthorMatthew Alexander (pseudonym)
PublisherSt. Martin's Griffin
Pages304
ISBN9780312675110

How to Break a Terrorist: The US Interrogators Who Used Brains, Not Brutality, to Take Down the Deadliest Man in Iraq is a 2008 book written by an American airman who played a key role in tracking down Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Background

The interrogator who wrote the book published it under the pen name Matthew Alexander, for security reasons. The author wrote the book as a pseudonymous officer in the US Air Force who had served for fourteen years. Alexander's real name has been sealed by court order by the District of Columbia District Court. Alexander makes television appearances under his pseudonym. According to Jeff Stein, writing in The Washington Post, the author's real name was Anthony Camerino, a Major in the United States Air Force Reserve. In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, Alexander wrote that after his arrival in Iraq in 2006 he found:

The Army was still conducting interrogations according to the Guantanamo Bay model: Interrogators were nominally using the methods outlined in the U.S. Army Field Manual, the interrogators' bible, but they were pushing in every way possible to bend the rules – and often break them.

The author has stated that when the Pentagon vetted the book they initially made 93 redactions.

I sued the Department of Defense first to review the book and then to argue the redactions, because they had redacted obvious unclassified material, things that I had taken straight out of the unclassified field manual and also some items that were directly off the Army's own website. So, eventually they acquiesced on eighty of the ninety-three redactions.

Alexander is an outspoken opponent of torture. He refutes the effectiveness of torture for interrogation, citing its negative long-term effects such as recruiting for Al-Qaeda. He also argues that torture is contrary to the American principles of freedom, liberty, and justice, and that should they resort to torture, American interrogators become the enemy they serve to defeat. Similar arguments have been made by other former interrogators from the U.S. military, FBI, and the CIA, including Colonel Steven Kleinman. In an interview with human rights lawyer Scott Horton for Harper's Magazine, Alexander said

The American public has a right to know that they do not have to choose between torture and terror. There is a better way to conduct interrogations that works more efficiently, keeps Americans safe, and doesn't sacrifice our integrity. Our greatest victory to date in this war, the death of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi (which saved thousands of lives and helped pave the way to the Sunni Awakening), was achieved using interrogation methods that had nothing to do with torture. The American people deserve to know that.

Alexander described Marc Thiessen's 2010 book Courting Disaster, which defended the use of torture (referred to euphemistically as enhanced interrogation techniques), as "a literary defense of war criminals".

References

  1. "US Interrogator in Iraq Says Torture Policy Has Led to Deaths of Thousands of American Soldiers". Democracy Now. December 4, 2008. Archived from the original on December 6, 2008. Retrieved December 4, 2008.
  2. ^ Matthew Alexander (November 30, 2008). "I'm Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq". Washington Post. Archived from the original on March 27, 2009. Retrieved December 4, 2008.
  3. "Book Details How U.S. Forces Brought Down al-Zarqawi". Fox News. December 3, 2008. Archived from the original on December 5, 2008. Retrieved December 4, 2008.
  4. ^ "Torture blamed for US deaths in Iraq". Middle East Online. December 4, 2008. Archived from the original on June 12, 2011. Retrieved December 4, 2008.
  5. . Gilbert Cruz (December 2, 2008). "How to Break a Terrorist". Time magazine. Archived from the original on December 4, 2008. Retrieved December 5, 2008.
  6. David Edwards, Muriel Kane (December 4, 2008). "Brains, not brutality needed, former interrogator argues". The Raw Story. Archived from the original on January 12, 2010. Retrieved December 5, 2008.
  7. Alexander versus Department of Defense, Rosemary M. Collyer (District Of Columbia District Court September 18, 2008).
  8. . Jeff Stein (February 1, 2011). "Ex-interrogator describes mistaken Iraq raids". Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 2, 2012. Retrieved August 6, 2012. Matthew Alexander, the pen name for Air Force Reserve Maj. Anthony Camerino, describes his struggle to provide compensation for the victims of the raids in a new book, "Kill or Capture: How a Special Operations Task Force Took Down a Notorious Al Qaeda Terrorist," to be published today.
  9. Terrorist Breaker Blog
  10. Abuse Has No Place in Interrogation Policy, Nieman Watchdog Group Commentary, July 29, 2008
  11. Six questions for Matthew Alexander, author of How to Break a Terrorist
  12. Alexander, Matthew (February 27, 2010). "Courting Fear". Slate.
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