Debriefing the President by John Nixon

Debriefing the President by John Nixon

Debriefing the President presents an astounding, candid portrait of one of our era's most notorious strongmen. John Nixon, the first man to conduct a prolonged interrogation of Hussein after his capture, offers expert insight into the history and mind of America's most enigmatic enemy. 

In December 2003, after one of the largest, most aggressive manhunts in history, US military forces captured Iraqi president Saddam Hussein near his hometown of Tikrit. Beset by body-double rumors and false alarms during a nine-month search, the Bush administration needed positive identification of the prisoner before it could make the announcement that would rocket around the world.

At the time, John Nixon was a senior CIA leadership analyst who had spent years studying the Iraqi dictator. Called upon to make the official ID, Nixon looked for telltale scars and tribal tattoos and asked Hussein a list of questions only he could answer. The man was indeed Saddam Hussein, but as Nixon learned in the ensuing weeks, both he and America had greatly misunderstood just who Saddam Hussein really was.

After years of parsing Hussein's leadership from afar, Nixon faithfully recounts his debriefing sessions and subsequently strips away the mythology surrounding an equally brutal and complex man. His account is not an apology, but a sobering examination of how preconceived ideas led Washington policymakers--and the Bush White House--astray. Unflinching and unprecedented, Debriefing the President exposes a fundamental misreading of one of the modern world's most central figures and presents a new narrative that boldly counters the received account.

John Nixon attended High Newton Primary School in Ulverston, South Lakes, where he was born in 1953. After graduating from Cartmel Church of England School in 1968, he worked in a variety of jobs before joining Her Majesty's Prison Service in 1974. He is currently retired and works as a freelance writer after 32 years of service. John is also the author of 'Wings over Sands,' a history of RAF Cark and RAF Grange-over-Sands, and 'Warbirds of Walney,' a history of RAF Walney Airfield,' which was nominated for the Lakeland Book of the Year in 2014.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780399575839
ISBN 10	0399575839
Title	Debriefing the President
Author	John Nixon
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Penguin Putnam Inc
Year published	2018-07-17
Number of pages	256
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.