Customer Reviews

The Interrogators: Task Force 500 and America's Secret War Against Al Qaeda

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The book does a very good job explaining what it is Army interrogators do and how they operated in Afghanistan. The term "intelligence" is thrown around a lot these days and it is very interesting to read about how this information is actually gathered from enemy combatants. If you are interested in reading about modern intel-gathering techniques applied in the war on terror, I would definitely recommend this book.

However, I only give it three stars because of its horribly biased point of view. The book chronicles the experience of one of the co-authors/Army interrogators, Chris Mackey. Throughout the book he takes shots at every other relevant organization involved in the War on Terror including Army Special Ops, the FBI, Marines and MPs, and the CIA (referred to in the book as OGA: Other Government Organization). You can tell that he sees US Army interrogators as the end-all, be-all of the intelligence gathering community in Afghanistan. He is especially critical of the CIA, although he admittedly had no concept of their facilities, operations, or abilities in Afghanistan during his time there. There are a couple instances described in his book where he and his MI colleagues intentionally get in the way of the CIA agents' work, which I found incredibly disconcerting, because it was that sort of thing that allowed 9/11 to go down to begin with!

If you can get past Mackey's ego and general disdain for anyone that doesn't wear an MI patch on their arm, then it is a pretty good read. It is definitely not a balanced or all-encompassing account though, so I would supplement your reading with a couple other selections. Ghost Wars by Steve Coll and First In by Gary Schroen are both excellent selections. Between these three books, any questions you had about the war in Afghanistan should be answered in more than enough detail.

This is one of those books that is, on its face, deceptive about what it is and what it covers. The cover of the book shows what's apparently the shadow of a special forces operator, wearing a boonie hat and carrying a non-standard assault rifle, walking as part of a patrol. Because of this you might expect some combat in the narrative, some action or something, but there's only one real combat scene in the whole book, the author never fires his weapon, and the narrative of tbe book recounts activities that are only tangentally related to combat. The back of the book says it reads like a suspense novel, which I take issue with also: it's not boring, but it's not suspenseful either. Instead, it turns out to be rather intriguing.

Chris Mackey (a pseudonym) was in the Army reserves for most of the 90s, having joined the army at 17 and learned first German, then Arabic, and been trained as an interrogator. By the time of Operation Enduring Freedom (the campaign in Afghanistan) he was a Sergeant First Class in his unit, and a tax advisor in civilian life, working in London. He's recalled, and the plot takes off as the author and his comrades are transported to Kandahar, where they begin to interrogate various Afghans and Arabs who've been taken into custody, trying to figure out if they should be kept, kicked loose, or sent to Guantanamo for further interrogation.

The heart of the book recounts the author's experiences as primarily an administrator of this interrogation unit while it operated, first in Kandahar, later in Bagram. There's discussion of the tactics used during interrogation (including a list of "approaches" taught by the army's school on the subject) and of the evolution of their tactics and attitudes towards what was allowed during interrogations and what wasn't. As time goes on, the author's unit loosens its restrictions on the tactics that can be used to interrogate subjects, and their whole attitude towards what they're doing and who they're interrogating changes.

The author has several opinions which aren't likely to be completely popular. He considers the Other Government Agency (to all appearances the CIA) a bunch of incompetent fools, and thinks the FBI only marginally better. The techniques taught the interrogators at Fort Huachaca (where the army based itself when hunting Geronimo in the later 1800s) were some of them useless, or only of marginal value. The interrogators were trained to work on soldiers from the Soviet Army or one of its Warsaw Pact Allies, but events conspired to have them interrogating Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters who didn't wear uniforms, have rank, or react anything like European soldiers. As a result, the interrogators learned on the job, and got much better at what they were doing as they progressed. Of course, at the end of the book, they're all replaced by guys from a new unit, and the new commander refused to take any advice from the experienced soldiers, because he knew better. As a result, the author and his comrades saw what they had learned go to waste.

I enjoyed this book, and it dealt with a topic with which I'd never dealt with before, much. Interrogation of enemy prisoners is an esoteric art, and one which I think would merit further study, especially with regards to the Middle East and the sensibilities of the people there. It's an interesting book, anyway.

In addition to being an interesting read, this book is salutary in that it confirmed that the abuses of Abu Ghraib and the other archpelago of U.S run prisoner facilities, far from being useful to intelligence gathering and bringing more "heat" down on the likes of Al Qaeda terrorists, were damaging both to the long and short-term interests of the U.S. It also restored my faith in the professionalism of the average American soldier and intelligence operative, and confirmed that no right thinking operative would have been caught dead condoning such outlaw tactics.

As the author notes in the introduction:

"It may be impossible to grasp fully how destructive [these] actions were - to the reputation of the intelligence corps, to our country, and to the world hoping for better from those who wear the army's uniform."

Later in the book the author raises additional interesting points that make equal good sense: that the more prisoners hate America, the harder they are to break; and the more the populations where Al Qaeda hides out hate us, the less likely its citizens will be in helping to lead us to suspects. But almost equally as important, the book points out that the converse is also true: When the U.S. proves to be more civil than the terrorists indoctrination has led them to expect, the more quickly that indoctrination and their anti-U.S. worldviews break down. And of course once broken down -- whether through benign or hostile methods -- the more willing they will be to assist us.

This point was dramatically drilled home on page 426, when after being "broken," a prisoner responsible for helping to store and transport Ricin (an essential ingredient for chemical weapons) for possible use against the USA was asked why he decided to talk. His answer was that once he realized that hostile questioning was the worse the Americans were going to do, he decided it was time to reconsider which side he was on.

The author makes one other telling point in the book's summary: He disavows the commonly accepted notion that "monstering" does not work, because in fact it does work. As he notes in the epilogue to the book: It should not be used because, in addition to the reasons cited above, it is also wrong; violates international norms of civility; and undermines every value that America stands for.

One can gather from this, and from the subtext of the book that interrogating prisoners is as much a "seat-of-the-pants kind of art" as a science; and thus must of necessity evolve along with the nature of the conflict and the culture of the prisoners interrogated. Although trickery and deceit does often indeed work, the brutal and sadistic tricks popularized in the movies apparently do not, and often are never even tried by the professionals. In the end, the author likens the process to that of finding the correct pieces to put a big jigsaw puzzle together. The advantages almost always goes to the skilful interrogator, in that the prisoner, unlike his interrogator, has no way of knowing what slivers of information he might inadvertently "give up" will be valuable to putting the whole puzzle together.

It is equally true from the subtext of the book that in order for such information to be useful requires not only innovative tricks, developed on the fly, but seamless information processing up through a robust chain of the military and intelligence command. And while the 911 Commission Report demonstrated conclusively that what we have is far from ideal, this book shows in excruciating detail how incompetence at either end of that chain can hurt our efforts at catching and removing the terrorists threat. A litle too much description of scenery, but still a truly great read: Five stars

Mackey and Miller (pseudonyms) have written a truly insightful dispatch from the front lines (actually just behind the front lines). Operating under frustrating restraints (i.e., the Geneva Conventions, mind numbing fatigue, no physical contact with the prisoners, etc.) they perservered in their task of interrogating those suspected of supporting the war in Afghanistan. The day-to-day operations are fascinating as they bring every interview and interrogation to life. They do a great job, considerating the fact that all the action is essentially one intellect battling against another. This is a thick tome, but a very easy and enjoyeable read. It nicely compliments the other action-oriented Special Forces accounts of American's military operations in the area. Highly recommended.

This book is a bit MASH and Three Kings. That The Interrogators is destined for the big screen is a testament to two things: its easy read, and its fantasy over substance.
I do not doubt SFC Mackey's experiences. I do not question the authenticity of events. Greg Miller does a great job with Mackey, by creating a work that does less to get a reader lost in jargon and more to keep the reader involved. The story moves fluidly, and does a good job of keeping the reader entertained.
Mackey really captures the spirit of reserve soldiers, especially at the beginning of the second Gulf War: gung-ho, but not as well-equipped or prepared as they should have been. [I will add that I do not disparage the efforts of the reserve soldiers. The lack of preparedness and equipment was/is based on national fiscal policies unrelated to the willingness of reservists/guardsmen to contribute to national security policy]
When I read this book, almost four years after the US' "War on Terror" started, I found myself thinking of the people who remain doing the work of the Mackeys today.
The men and women of the US military who continue the interrogations may not face the same sense of urgency as they did in the early days of the mission, but they face the same hurdles, adversaries and bureaucracy. Chris Mackey gives a thoughtful and entertaining look behind the curtain of an endless and nebulous "war" our government is waging. If you don't believe for an instant that a kid, a colonel and some bearded ladies are being interrogated behind a curtain by people that don't subscribe to a Fox News mentality, then you may need to draw back your curtain.

Countless serious factual errors make this book almost unreadable. These aren't the sorts of errors which might have arisen from the military's edit - they're just damnably sloppy writing and editing.

Some factual errors from the top of my head:

Ethnic Turkic peoples from Western China are Uyghurs. Mackey misnames them 'Vighurs' throughout the book. Uyghurs primarily live in Xinjiang province - Mackey childishly renders this as 'Chang Ching' province. The Uighurs' claimed homeland is called East Turkestan. Mackey refers to it as Turkmenistan, which is doubly frustrating because Turkmenistan is a totally unrelated UN member state. Mackey claims that gin contains mefloquine. He's confusing gin [no anti-malarial properties whatsoever] with tonic [which has quinine, but not mefloquine]. Mackey makes a reference to Israel's flag as having a blue five-pointed star. Is he truly unaware that the Star of David has six points?

I'm sure there are more errors, these are just a few of the glaring ones.

Perhaps a more serious infelicity is manifested in Mr. Mackey's timeline of Afghan history. It is limited to three events: the invasion by Alexander the Great, the Soviet invasion, and the US invasion. This is a country with several thousand years of history and culture, and the only thing Mr. Mackey considers worthy of his interest are those few brief moments where Europeans/Caucasians are there. This is a hopelessly narrow world view.

Five minutes on wikipedia would have cleared any of these things up. I worry for a country with interrogators as ignorant of the world - and so incurious in their ignorance that they feel no need to fact check - as Mr. Mackey. I don't doubt Mr. Mackey is well-meaning and hard working, but good intentions aren't enough.

This is the story of military interrotagtors, how they are trained, and what they do in combat. To my knowledge it hasn't been told before. I see this as a pretty reasonable and accurate account -- Chris Mackey is obviously one of the most capable, cleve, and cunning linguists DLI has ever produced.

Dave Taggart (Arabic class 02-78)

So far I didn't get the purchase. Obviously the German Postal Service sent it back to... So I would kindly ask you to send it again...
otherwise I cannot rate anything.

Sincerely,

Stefan Schaller