How to Break a Terrorist Read Online Free PDF Page A

and Shia, we lived in peace.”
    I doubt the Shia would see it that way, given what Saddam did to them for years, but I make no comment, nor do I give anything away with body language. Interrogating is acting. You hide yourself away and present whatever façade encourages the detainee to volunteer information.
    He continues in a monotone, “Sunni and Shia lived as neighbors. My mother is Shia. She converted to Sunni when she married my father. There was harmony.”
    “What happened after the invasion?” I ask.
    “You Americans removed Saddam. We lost our protection. America doesn’t care about Sunnis. You let the Shia militias kill my people.”
    I’ve studied the Badr Corps. They’re Ayatollah Ali al Sistani’s Shia street army. They’re ruthless and well organized.
    “Which Shia militias?” I ask.
    As Hadir translates this, I notice he’s started to get fidgety. We’ve only been in the booth for about twenty minutes. Bobby set the air conditioner on the lowest setting, and it is chilly in here, but that doesn’t explain Hadir’s behavior.
    “The Badr Corps. The Madhi Army. There are many militias.”
    “What do they want?”
    “They want power. Dominance. They want to kill us and drive us from our homes.”
    And they want revenge for the hundreds of thousands ofShia who died under Saddam’s rule. The tyrant’s gone and now, right under our nose, the Shia are avenging those deaths.
    “I owned a clothing store,” Abu Ali continues, “One day, I came to the store and found a note. The note read ‘Pack your things and leave. You have forty-eight hours or you will die.’ The bottom of the page had the symbol of the Badr Corps.”
    He lets that sink in. We stare at each other. Bobby doesn’t blink. Neither do I.
    “What did you do?” I ask.
    “I would have stayed. This was my home. My shop. I loved my mosque. But the next morning I learned the Badr Corps had killed a friend of mine, who was also an imam. He lived in the neighborhood next to mine.”
    His face hardens. His thin lips tighten into a frown. “I did what I had to do to save my family. We packed up and moved back to my hometown in Yusufiyah. I lost my shop. My livelihood. The Badr Corps took it over.”
    It is hard not to feel sympathy for this man, despite his malignance. He is clearly traumatized. But we have to figure out how to use his trauma to our advantage.
    “I returned to the mosque of my childhood. It was there I met fellow Sunni willing to stand and fight for our people.”
    “Did you volunteer to help?” I ask.
    “No. They recruited me.”
    I lean forward in my chair. I try to act earnest and sympathetic. “Abu Ali, why Al Qaida? Why not one of the Sunni groups like Ansar al Sunna or the 1920 Revolution Brigades?”
    Hadir translates this, then cracks a Coke. As he takes a long pull from it, he watches Abu Ali’s response.
    “There were not any left in Yusufiyah. You Americans wiped them out. We had no access to money or weapons. Without Al Qaida, we had nothing.”
    That’s the first time I’ve heard this. Is he lying?
    “I did not know it was Al Qaida at first.”
    This is bullshit. He had to have suspected. I need to call him on this.
    “Come on, Abu Ali, you must have known.”
    “Not at first,” he insists. Bobby watches him, stone-faced. He doesn’t believe this either.
    “But when I found out, it was not important. We needed weapons, they gave them to us.”
    “So you believe in Al Qaida’s goals?”
    Abu Ali stares hard at me, sizing me up. He says nothing for a moment.
    “No, I am Iraqi. I only want back my home.”
    Bobby cuts in, “Tell Matthew what you did for Al Qaida.”
    The moment is broken. Abu Ali’s eyes flick to Bobby. Then he shifts in his chair and looks over at Hadir.
    “Don’t fucking look at him. I asked you the question. Show some respect,” Bobby orders. He sounds firm—perhaps overly so. He’s the youngest one in the room and seems to be compensating a little. He wants Abu Ali