Saving Babylon: The Heart of an Army Interrogator in Iraq [Paperback]

Paul Holton (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

A gripping, highly readable and surprising book...An inspiring volume, sure to become a classic" -- Joe Bauman, Deseret News

Compelling...Saving Babylon is a well-written story of a soldier's extraordinary experiences. A must read for every American. -- Joe Weber, New York Times best-selling author

Saving Babylon is a new and refreshing look at the Iraq War. It will open your eyes and your heart. -- Military Writers Society of America, 2005 Readers Choice Award Winner

Product Description

Saving Babylon is the gripping account of an Army interrogator in the Iraq War. Holton’s techniques, honed over 34 years, got him inside the hearts of Iraqis. He dealt with the best and the worst of Iraqi society on a daily basis. He interrogated Iraqi generals, judges, political candidates, POWs and common crooks. He saw freedom take root.

Holton saw more good being done than the media has ever published or broadcast. It’s time Americans read that side of the story.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Perihelion Press (July 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933434007
• ISBN-13: 978-1933434001
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,269,744 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The heart of the Army Interrogator in Iraq, November 25, 2005

By	Joseph Fabel "Papajoe" (Elk Grove, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Saving Babylon: The Heart of an Army Interrogator in Iraq (Paperback)

A truly motivational presentation by one who experienced the rigors and the challenges of military duty in Iraq. Holton's message is most poignant due to his daily involvement with the Iraqi people whose homeland is undergoing drastic change. Holton's role is to interrogate high ranking Iraqi POW's who run from those who wish to delay the work of rebuilding the shattered country to those who wish to assist positively and constructively in forming a truly functioning and vibrant Iraqi economy and society.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Chief Wiggles has been there, He KNOWS, February 7, 2007

By	Textcontext "JMP" (Central Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Saving Babylon: The Heart of an Army Interrogator in Iraq (Paperback)

Here we have the personal memoir of Chief Warrant Officer Paul Holton, (a/k/a "Chief Wiggles") the "morale officer" in a Utah National Guard Unit. When not in uniform, Holton works as an account manager for Federal Express Corporation and travels as a missionary with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Holton's National Guard unit reported for mobilization in February 2003. Initially stationed at a holding camp in Kuwait, Holton provided intelligence support to a battalion-level commander, whose unit participated in the southern ground invasion of Iraq. After the U.S. started the war that March, Holton conducted the extended interrogation of some fourteen Iraqi Generals who had surrendered during the early days of the invasion. Once the so called "coalition forces" pursued the war into Baghdad, Holton's role morphed slightly from interrogating high ranking prisoners to gathering information from willing Iraqi citizens. Living in the "Green Zone," Holton was one of the first American military representatives whom an Iraqi citizen with information to share, would encounter.

Apparently working with little supervision, Holton's team in Baghdad interviewed Iraqi citizens and helped to funnel seed money to individuals deemed deserving of coalition favoritism (thereby stimulating the local economy.) As a part of these public relations efforts, Holton maintained a blog website that helped to insure that awareness, donated items, and funds, were raised back home for Iraqi children. This effort to get candy, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and toys delivered from U.S. donors into the hands of needy Iraqi children, was dubbed Operation "Give."

Most of Saving Babylon's 239 pages do not relate to Operation "Give," but detail Holton's retrospective of his own experience in Iraq. As an ex-intelligence analyst in the Army, this reviewer is easily convinced that Holton's subordinates benefited from his constant optimism, his unquestioning faith in the mission of the U.S. military in Iraq, and his enthusiasm for a plan that he asserted was "divinely developed, one that had something to do with blessing the Iraqi people." After all, a soldier's job is not to question his/her legal orders but to carry them out with enthusiastic professionalism.

Chief Holton might be excused for his enthusiastic support of a war that Americans were being told pre-empted an immediate WMD danger, "we're talking mushroom clouds." Holton explains "Saddam Hussein had killed thousands of his own people, and would not hesitate to give his weapons of mass destruction to a terrorist organization or to use them himself, which he had done in the past."

Most readers will appreciate Holton's enthusiasm and his willingness to forgo the comforts of home while fighting his nation's distant battles. And perhaps they can overlook his stubborn belief that the war in Iraq was a divinely inspired conflict between "good guys" and "bad guys." But the United States and the Iraqi people are paying dearly for the absurd notion that Almighty God is using the U.S. military to root out evil from the world. This reviewer, these days a teacher of history and philosophy, will appreciate Holton's memoir for a much different reason from most readers. Saving Babylon will provide undergraduate students with a contemporary comparison between a primary source's retrospective account, and subsequent scholarship, once the rest of the story becomes de-classified and then critiqued by future historians.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why doesn't the news cover this???, August 7, 2006

By	Laurie Horrocks (Madison, AL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Saving Babylon: The Heart of an Army Interrogator in Iraq (Paperback)

My husband and I read this book together and really enjoyed hearing what the news doesn't cover--all the good we are doing in Iraq. There's hope. What we're doing over there is not all in vain.