Well, here's how it actually panned out when it came to Saddam Hussein's interrogation:
At my first meeting with Saddam, within 30 seconds, he knew two things about me. I told him my name was George Piro and that I was in charge, and he immediately said, “You’re Lebanese.” I told him my parents were Lebanese, and then he said, “You’re Christian.” I asked him if that was a problem, and he said absolutely not. He loved the Lebanese people. Lebanese people loved him. And I was like, “Well, great. We’re going to get along wonderfully.” (Saddam was a
Sunni Muslim, while most Iraqis are Shia Muslims.)
Bergen: How long were you with Saddam? And, of course, you’re communicating in Arabic throughout, right?
Piro: About seven months. Initially, I would see him in the mornings. I would translate for his medical staff. And then, the formal interrogations were once or twice a week for several hours. As time went on, I started to spend more and more one-on-one time with him because I could communicate directly and very quickly with him. I built that to about five to seven hours every single day, one-on-one, a couple of hours in the morning, a couple of hours in the afternoon and then a formal interrogation session or two a week.
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/12/29/saddam-hussein-cia-interrogator-john-nixon-intv-ac.cnn
And we talked about everything. So especially in the first couple of months, my goal was just to get him to talk. I wanted to know what he valued in life and what his likes, dislikes and thought processes were. So we talked about everything from history, art, sports to politics. We would talk about things that I knew he wouldn’t have any reservations or hesitations to talk about.
People have asked me about the first interrogation I did of Saddam, saying, “What was the topic?” The majority of that first discussion was about his published novel because I knew he wasn’t going to lie about that. And I had researched and studied the book.
Bergen: Was it a good novel?
Piro: No, it was a terrible novel, “
Zabiba and the King.”
Bergen: What was the plot?
Piro: So Zabiba was a beautiful Arab woman, and she was married to a horrible old man. Of course, Zabiba represented Iraq. The old man represented the United States. The king, handsome and dashing, rescued Zabiba from her misery, and they lived happily ever after. Of course, you can imagine who the king was. …
A key thing that can enhance the outcome of an interrogation is subject matter expertise. It’s extremely difficult to lie to a subject matter expert. Now, when you add that with a good interrogation strategy and approach, you are really increasing your likelihood of success with an interrogation. As an FBI agent and especially as an interrogator, I knew I wanted to know everything I could about Saddam because inconsistencies are indications of deception.
I wanted to understand Saddam and know Saddam as well as he knew himself. To give you an example: Saddam’s decision to invade Kuwait in 1990. I interviewed all the other “high-value detainees,” and we specifically talked about that decision. And there was a critical meeting where Saddam decided to invade Kuwait. I knew where everyone sat in the conference room, what Saddam did, where he even placed his gun belt, and how he positioned it.
So, when I was speaking to him, I would bring up those little details to reinforce how knowledgeable I was and how difficult it would be to misrepresent or lie about facts. It puts a tremendous amount of stress on the detainee when they are facing a subject matter expert because they must think so hard to develop any kind of lie that has a chance of maybe succeeding.
Continued at some length with some fascinating detail:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/14/...-interrogations-george-piro-bergen/index.html
when did I mention "Small" Fortis?
