Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20240622

[applause] thank you and welcome barney frank. First ill ask some questions and then well go to questions from the audience which i have one of these cards, so i will access or reject them. [applause] i was hoping you can say a little bit about the two stories that you tried to tell, the political stories that you tried to tell in this book which is about your life and also political work. Its as i start writing that there are two things. I was a normal teenager, my father, working programs. [inaudible] so these hearings were fascinated to me. I also decided something i have to get into politics. I was debating and arguing as i was a kid. Better than some adults. [laughs] i could do that. At the same time i realized [inaudible] so i began to say, i want to be influential, but i never will be because im gay. By the time i retired there was a disparity from being gave and politics, but the order has reversed. [laughs] i get married. I was the first member of congress to have the samesex marriage. That turned out to be much more popular than the Financial Services [laughs] as i got to be more influential in government, government got to be less influence in society. What i want to say thats the part [applause] you have a very interesting analysis of who has lost faith in government and why. So if you could Say Something about Economic Issues that underlie yeah, there were some people who dont believe the government. To some extent its economic if you have very, very wealthy, you probably have some incentive not to want to government to get vol because you will contribute. This is one we talk about, started in the early 80s with the reagan democrats, dont have very highend skills, the First Response that many people had was i thought maybe that was there was a social issue. God, guns and gays, etc. I wish they werent but they are. There was no i dont know Many Democrats because they supported samesex marriage. I really dont know. Even abortion and religion. I think the fundamental problem we have and they have become antigovernment because they believe so deeply in government. Follow from the end of world war ii if you were a white guy, you didnt have to worry about prejudice, you could go to a factory and by the time you had a second home, you could put your kids through college and decent retirement. And then changes in the Economic Situation in the world and the country began to work to their disadvantage. People in that situation now found that they were in the bottom. The trade policies, thats interesting, used to be a good article of faith. You have to be of free trade. The trade had worked. Enhanced National Wealth but distributed unfairly and exacerbate some of that. I represent for 30 years southern massachusetts. [laughs] [applause] manufactured and its made in america. Go buy one if you need one. But what happened was this, workingclass people, whites saw themselves at the shortend of the stick economically. They believed in the government. The government could have helped them and didnt and they became angry. Thats because the government only cares about white people, gay people, women. The prejudice comes in in and out because people started out prejudice, they felt like we were doing these for them for other people and not them. One of the People Democrats have numbers they have four years, clinton first two and obamas first two. It doesnt work very well. Thats the dilemma. Were on a vicious cycle. People who think government should protect them. Some of you remember. The young people dont. Winchester ca cathredral. You could have done something, you didnt do anything. They believe the government could have done something. I believe gave gay rights is not an issue anymore. The anger of white working men there was one issue and controversial and plan to pursue it, the issue where guns where liberals have to cope with. There were times where there was conflict in environmental issues. Some more important than others. Climate change, you dont compromise. Preservation, it should not overwrite everything in the mix. [laughs] that was before i started thinking in these terms. Our challenges can we persuade whiteworking class and middleclass men and is that something that the Democratic Party can do in the sense of in the issue of income and inequality . What is the way for the democrats to see that its an issue some things are happening now. The minimum wages is an example. It helps everybody. One think that you are seeing a renewed democratic recognition, that is there is a direct relationship between the unions and the equality. Example, volkswagon tells tennessee that its prepared to support union. A mainstream conservative, not a tea party guy, threatness and the company twants union. They threaten the people that if they voted for a union, state money that was supposed to go to volkswagon were being withdrawn. The union lost by a fairly lost margin. If they get a union, its a concession. The tennessee republicans said if they get union it will push up wages and if they go up, it will cause upper pressure on wages throughout tennessee and the wages go up throughout tennessee, that will diminish our ability to other states. Michigan has one and indiana has one. President is talking about this. When you make it easy for people to go to Community Colleges and higher education, thats another way that you do. Infrastructure, yes, theres been some progress in the construction trade. People out there banging and digging, thats another factor. When you say when you give what senator gives us, the argument about tennessee, it seems on absurd they get we have the liberal tradition. The problem is you cant do experiments when the subject of the experiment convert to another laboratory and get better. Thats what happened. One of the most problems you see now is highways. Eisenhower put forward program. They are not willing to raise to money to keep the highway going. No, if the states want more highways, let them do it. And then they say, well, give them back the money. The conservative perfected a very nice twostep. You send things to the state. You send things back to the states and then in the state, the conservatives say, we cant do this. So you send it back to the state and you have and among the things we can do, federalism in some areas work, but when it involves expenditure for social purposes, federalism state by state becomes of our values. Im curious what you would say about the legislative solution about that. You correct the impression, thought well of him on the first level. You also make the point that he did not feel that it was possible to work against the president s agenda because it would undermine our system of government. Not only the Political Party but the issue. People who said what happened to bipartisanship. I am a member of a Minority Group that is picked on and undervalued. It is essential democratic government. The people did two things, denounced them and phoned them. You need Political Parties representing a general tendency or else politics is all personality. And thats what weve had. We had two big parties in many western democracy that recognize you need a private sector but the government should be expanded. Yeah, you need some government and politics for the first time we have a group in america that doesnt believe in the public sector. When a republican president , yes, we democrats have an incentive to give them brief, but we have incentive to cooperate because the government has to function, we have to help people. As you see with obama, they have zero incentive to cooperate with the president. Fine with them if the government breaks down. If they cause problems in the function of the government, we take bailouts. They are very unpopular. People think theyre terrible. There were five bailouts. Every single one of them was initiated by george w. Bush. Two he did by myself. Three we cooperated on. But people see us bush as president and in 2008 he comes to harry reid and nancy pelosi. On the one hand it would have been better for the democrats. It would have been worse for government. They worked with him on that. A year later, obama did not ask because we had done focus groups they had done the focus groups. You know what a focus group is, you gather people and try the problem with that is very often people dont have favorable opinions because theyre air heads. [laughs] you look at the focus groups, all the undecided people in october on the focus group. Who is undecided between obama, mccain or bush, kerry. Maybe a few people. The focus groups reported that stimulus was a bad word. So thats why it was called the economic recovery act. Recovery was a more attractive thing that stimulus. Most people would rather be stimulated than recovered. [laughs] they gave bush a stimulus. In 2008, bush said to top economic people, democratic, seven weeks before the election. I remember that. We had a great weekend plan. We were enjoying dating and i had to call him, the senate, the anniversary why on earth. [laughs] but we sit with george bush seven weeks before the election, were in terrible shape, we have to fix it Going Forward but we have no option now so we pass as the most unpopular successful thing we ever did. Democrats voted for it in the house more than republicans, so we give folks, barack obama backs it when john mccain refuses. Obama becomes president and it goes in 2008 there was a bipartisanship. But obama said thats the end of bipartisanship. They dont they use to not care so much if the government get checked out. Now a number of them its a good thing. Basically here is the deal, the story of king solomon. Cut the baby and see if i care. Thats the problem. We have the be the ones that say you cant do that. Well, youre a liberal but one of the things you talk about in the book and it seems to date back to your experience when in 1964 you were part of freedom summer in mississippi and you were interviewed by someone who quoted you at the time a great socialist. And you said then, i mean, i guess you were about 24, that you were not there to create a Perfect World and that you believed, i mean, in letting im not here to build a perfect society, just to ensure that the negro gets its chance to live his life its own way and then you talk about in that quote, the tactical importance of remaining realistic. If you can Say Something about that how philosophy [inaudible] what i saw with the African American movement. Martin luther king people were making fun of him. If you remember the great play green past pastures, the lord sd this and the lord said that. Mocking him as mr. High and mighty. You had most of us, i think, and this turned out to be the majority and its been replayed with lgbt people. Lgbt people who were initially oppose to marriage as a goal. Marriage is an institution that oppresses women. Why do we want that . There are people who said, look, we gays and lesbians, we want to have the same right as anybody else. There were others who said, the group can be the spear, they will understand that we should rebuild it entirely different and that there will be new communities, and the average citizen said no, i want to be like anybody else. There were people who were poor, black, they never had great support. People thought they werent being treated equally. You had the same with people in the gay community. There was a tactical different and strategic that gay people said, you know what, rossa parks never had to sit in the middle of the bus. You say, separate but equal but it aint equal. Think said they were going to allow black people in separate schools and they proved that they werent separate. They did get them admitted. Fanned you read books about Marthur Luther King he was constantly being realistic about your goals is important for a couple of reasons, one of which is because if youre unreallyic unrealistic you will move your followers. I think that finally people in the lgpt movement understood it. What do you think moving into june and a decision from the Supreme Court on gay marriage, another decision, whatever that decision is, what do you think given in congress you were never able to and it seemed unlikely that in many states theres this kind of Movement Towards religious freedom to kennedy, lgbt opinions and secondly when a lot of courts of apel appeals allowed marriages and the states asked the Supreme Court to state the decision, suspend it, the Supreme Court said, no. If it was not sure, it would have been pretty irresponsible to allow them to go forward. So i think marriage will be done by the way, among those who are hoping that the Supreme Court does this, they know wedge issue when they see them. If they come out against marriage, they look out they look target [laughs] nondiscrimination is critical. The country was still too many people were uneasy about transgender people. The next time you democratic president , we will pass nondiscrimination bill. Two things, it is not a constitutional but statutory one about any individual being able to say nondiscrimination goes against my principle. When they want to do that in arizona, you mean right the ignore the state, money municipal laws, are you crazy, people dont want to come here. Thats been very helpful. Beyond that, look, this isnt just lgbt people who will be excluded. There are people who had marriages. Do muslims have a right to say that unveil women if you look at the bill and you pass it, a woman who was not dressed will be kicked out. So i do think in the end thats we are going to win that fight politically because its damaging economicically. The first breakthrough on nondiscrimination is both sectors in the American Economy said, no, we cant have that. So im not sure a bill is passed right away but i think we will be able to defeat this. So before we go to questions from the audience, i want to say that i saw in describing your early life you were studying for a ph. D still am. [laughs] you got an unlimited extension. I did. Yeah, i dont know [laughs] i was working to and took some time to write it. I didnt know him very well. I went to work for him and he won. At the end of it he said i need you to work for me. He said, hey, you want me to be liberal but if you walk away dont complain to me about the things you want. That was pretty persuasive. Fine, i have to finish. He came out with several books, and he said okay. After you took ph. D exams you have five years to finish your thesis. I talk today kevin, you know, we will do extension beyond the five years. So that was in 1967. [laughs]. The man who would have been my representative, tom allen, is here. [applause] one question is in my ability to read peoples handwriting so forgive me. Mr. Frank how is the issue Voter Suppression into the consciousness of the large majority of American People . Its very hard to do because its concentrated against minorities and of course some people, it is republicans who make the rules to make it physically harder for people to vote. For example i have africanamerican members of the house who said my mother was born in mississippi. She had no record of her birth. They didnt give those to black people in the 20s and 30s and when you lengthen the line you can appreciate it cut down early voting. Thats facilitated by the worst decisions the Supreme Court has made to me even worse than citizens united. It was throwing out the Voting Rights act. It was the last gasp of conservative saying we dont like judicial activism. It was passed by congress and not that it was unconstitutional but they thought congress had made the right judgment about the criteria and it was a terrible thing and enabled things to be done. What we have to do is to make it clear to environmentalists, people defending medicare that if they succeeded in diminishing black votes that means fewer legislators who will be providing Climate Change and protecting medicare. It will be for supporting the rights of but let me say this i have another problem. Theres another foam form of Voter Suppression that is as vicious and clearly of the different order. I wish some of my friends on the left saying to people theres no point in voting. They are all bombs. They are all corrupt. They never listen to you. [applause] i have to say jon stewart is funny but i was once in while on the show some politician did something good because if people get a steady diet of a are all bombs whats the difference . I think that contributes to the lower turnout especially with younger people. I wish they would say in fact rule out to be the worse you think it is the more incentive you ought to have two boats to try to change it. [applause] that recalls to my mind what you say in the book and what you said here about the way the murder of emmett till inspired you to want to be, Public Servant working in public service. Do you think the name of Michael Brown in the name of aragorn and the name of Matthew Shepherd will ring for people . It will with some. The cases are different. I think the Michael Brown cases much more complicated and the guy that was indicted in new york for firing a random shot in the stairwell that ricocheted and killed someone but they are doing that with africanamericans in missouri theres no question. And like us of the brown case is more complicated but in fact the result of the election and ferguson is that more black people take office thats going to have a good message. People would say there is a point in voting so there is some of that and i hope it will also, scott walker will do this. Too many union people have been ambivalent about this. Scott walker allout attack on collective bargaining will motivate some of the union people. One of the great annoyances that troubles me is Police Departments have become very and they consistently vote for people who want to cut the money they can get attack them in every way and its a selfdefeating kind of thing. I understand some of the anger but i do hope we can get that but the answer to your question i think thats the impact of whats going on in ferguson. This is a question that refers to your work in the finance world with doddfrank and i thought it was interesting in your book that you have two appendices that specifically deal oh three, with a history of subprime lending. Its great but heres what happens. We are in a situation where the economic model for lending changes because money comes in outside of the Banking System and Information Technology allows people now instead of making loan by loan to make loans that are packaged. The result is where as many of the people in this audience when they first bought a home got a loan from a bank and paid back that bank and that bank watched very carefully who they landed at two. Younger people have the loan immediately sold them packaged and the lender did not care whether you paid a loan or not. The incentive for them to switch from a quality of each home to the quantity of shaky homes led to this crisis. And what was made worse was that the republicans were in power but too Many Democrats in the clinton years bought into this and did not regulate the so what happened with these mortgages, they were packaged into these new kinds of Financial Derivatives. Derivatives used to be hog bellies and corn. They used be physical. That is why the main regulators of derivatives are called the commodity futures trading and Financial Derivatives came in and we had no rules for them. Thats what the courts address. During the period on these loans were being made, the new democrats he made the banks lend to the poor people and gave them these terrible loans and protected fannie mae and freddie mac but here are the facts. First of all as to the loans by 1994 democrats get worried about those loans and pass a law telling the Federal Reserve to regulate them. Thats an interference in the market i wont do that in the republicans took over in congress. We tried on several occasions the states and pass some laws to regulate predatory lending. The Bush Administration used federal powers to preamp that and to tell the states they couldnt regulate National Banks and their state tanks became National Banks to be exempted. 2004 democrats in the house tried to pass a bill to restrict subprime lending and tom delay blocked it. When i became chairman in 2007 i didnt get a bill through the committee i chaired. It said no lending to people who cant pay you back in the wall street journal attacked me. Why is mr. Frank stopping these homes to go to lowincome people . White as they want Minority Groups to have loans . In other words while those loans were being made Alan Greenspan in 2007, its in the appendix. When he wrote a book before the crash. So before the crash Alan Greenspan said im aware that the loosening of mortgage credit terms for subprime borrowers increase financial risk and subsidize homeownership initiatives distorted market outcomes. But i believed then as now and remember you the power to regulate, i believed then as now that the benefits of homeownership are worth the risk. Protection of Property Rights so critical to a market economy requires a Critical Mass of owners to sustain political support. In other words lets lend these people money so they will be conservatives and of course they dont pay you back. The wall street journal said most of these new homeland of low income families often minorities would otherwise not have qualified for mortgage. In the name of Consumer Protection mr. Franks legislation would ensure that far fewer of these homes were made in the future. [applause] the loans that they kept us from slowing down caused the crash and they were panicked because the logical argument is as the followthrough we needed regulation. We should have regulated these loans and regulated these derivatives. Aig was selling credit default swaps of very obscure term. Jim is known as the server who best understands them because he is listened to me talk about them for so many years. They were obscured names for insurance. Aig issued them. Its a policy that are seldom reported to securities and securities dont pay off you have to make up the difference. Aig came to the federal government under bush in september of 2008 instead we are 85 billion short of paying our debts and that will cause this terrible reverberation. You have to come up with the money which they did. A week later bernanke m. Paulson talked about how much they needed for the tarp, 50 for this comment 80 for that, 85 for aig. The answer was this was an additional 85 billion for aig. Aig not only owed a total of 75 billion they did not much they owed. Mr. Greenberg called hank the great baseball player who was the founder of aig although he was no longer running at the time but was a major shareholder is now suing the federal government for damages because in the federal government paid off 170 billion of debts that his company had incurred a you wouldnt take care of. This is the arsonist suing the Fire Department for water damage. [laughter] but the conservative protected these loans but afterthefact they discovered they were all because the alternative was to have regulation. They talked about you eliminated all these people. Mike bloomberg said a couple of years ago the liberals forced to put the liberals tried to stop it. The fdic commissioner said the democrats tried to stop it in the republicans would let them. The other one fannie mae and freddie mac into thousand three i was too sanguine about fannie mae and freddie mac rated 2004 george bush and all this is in the appendices george bush ordered them to increase home loans for people below the Median Income which is dangerous. By 2005 i join the republican chairman in passing the bill in the house and the committee. It passed the house. The Senate Republicans didnt like the House Republican bill the Senate Democrats did. We try to work it out in the bush magician pulled the plug so oclsa who is chairman of the committee of sarbanesoxley at good legislator when he was asked why Nothing Happened with fannie and freddie you said george bush gave me the one finger salute. In 2007 i had become the chairman of the committee and we pass the bill. What im refuting is in cheneys memoir the Huffington Post today and i said the last time i was in your office i gave what some people know as the washington read when you look for your name in the index. I can tell you by the way that almost every book about politics is on Benjamin Franklin and away away the reason i know that is by the time i get to Benjamin Franklin he has franklin derek goes. But i have turned my name into cheney and cheney says in his memoir in 2003 we tried, we submitted a bill to reform fannie mae and freddie mac for Financial Services Committee Chairman for barney frank to toga. The problem is i was not chairman of the Financial Services committee in 2003, 2004, 2005 or 2006. As i said when they raise this if i was really giving the orders to tom delay to stop it i would not i had power over tom delay and there were other things i would have done. I would have canceled the war in iraq i would have stopped the big tax cuts and i would have told him not to go to i said in the book cheney said in 2003 chairman barney frank killed the bill. I felt a kinship to iraqi weapons of mass distraction because cheney lied about for both of us were doing in 2003. I give the chronology that they didnt do anything about fannie mae and freddie mac for the 12 years they were in control and we did in our first year. They restricted subprime lending and they and thats gotten too much currency because people are always ready but that the purpose. It was to solve the Financial Community from the responsibility so that they could avoid legislation to regulate them. I think we have time for two questions that are related. Aside from Hillary Clinton do you have any preference for democratic president ial candidate . Any hope for another and a related question from a different person is would you consider running on the same ticket with Elizabeth Warren for president and Vice President . That may give it a constitutional argument. If we did and we won i could not get the votes of the commonwealth of massachusetts because it says in the constitution the electors shall cast their vote for president one of whom shall not be from the same state as those electors. Its not that the constitution doesnt like a two for one state that you give up the electoral votes. She would have the votes. Can you change her registration to maine . I could have but thats controversial. Thats possible but heres the deal. In the first place jim made the point that john mccain slices on record which had elements of distinction by nominating a person to be Vice President who is clearly unqualified to be president. The only thing you can say if you get to be a president ial nominee you have an absolute obligation to pick someone to be the Vice President who can take over. When an expresident is elected, inaugurated i will be almost 77 years old. Theres no way someone who is was nearing 80 would be in a position to become president. Ive seen too many great people, mostly men, stay beyond when it made sense and the problem is ive seen some the most able distinguish people i ever saw in politics become pathetic i staying too long. Beyond that though someone said would you support or Elizabeth Warren and 16 and i said yes. I would support are very intelligent decision not to run for president. She is an extraordinary force for good stuff. It would allow people to criticize her for her motives. Right now someone wants to argue they have to argue on the merits of the legislation and shes very bright and wellinformed. I do wonder to be put in a position where they can denigrate her and secondly im happy. But as paul krugman documented in the 2008 campaign Hillary Clinton on domestic issues, when we had this weakening of the financial reform bill she put out a statement very quickly she cant allow any weakening. The second is this when people say we want to see this good fight i have to ask my friends on the left does anybody think that what happened in the republican nomination process in 2012 was helpful to them . Why do we want to replicate that and theres another factor. We are in a financial disadvantage. Some of the richest people split their money may be 6040 particularly the community got so mad at the present admin the democrats further reform bill. But the president criticized them. They gave a lot of their money to help against thanks to citizens united. We have got to save our money to satisfy some arch per contest is not a good idea so i would vote for Hillary Clinton i think we should get behind her. [applause] thank you very much. Its a testament to your own career that when he talked about what it could be Vice President or president you talk about your age and not the fact that you are and jewish. The jewish part has been this perception was a problem. Joe liebermans candidacy was have come to regret for other reasons but the fact that he had zero negative effect on the ticket. I think we are getting closer cf the battalion to captured iraqi president Saddam Hussein in 2003. That interview about his book we got him is next on booktv. Host congressman Steve Russell republican of oklahoma according to general raymond odierno, you were one of two individuals most directly responsible for the capture of Saddam Hussein. Why is that . Guest i think im in the title of the book is we got him not i got him but when they go back and look at the series of events and where we saw possibilities, people didnt imagine that we were actually putting pieces together and developing a human intelligence that proved so crucial later. It was very high praise from a man that i respect a great deal, very unusual to have a sitting chief of staff in the army right a forward to anything while they are still serving, so i was very humbled by the comments and jim hickey who now serves on the Senate Armed Services staff which is interesting that we are both here now, but at the time there was this sense that we might be able to get on his trail and with a team of teams if we all worked together maybe somebody could get him. Host where were you . Y. Rieu in iraq . Guest i was and to create iraq in the spring of 2003. I got there a little later than the division because the original plan was to go through turkey and to attack Republican Guard elements from the north as the 101st airborne in the 173rd airborne did operations around mosul and we would go and hit the objectives and the Republican Guard around to create. That was always the plan but then the Turkish Parliament said you cant come through turkey everything got rerouted. I joined the unit in may of 2003 the 1st battalion 22nd infantry of the first brigade Fourth Infantry Division and we were given orders to occupy the city of tikrit which was saddams hometown. Geography is what put us even in the sphere of being involved with saddam. Host were you in army careerist . Guest i was a Battalion Task force commander at the time id roughly 1000 soldiers under my command. It was a powerful organization with a lot of infantry squads and platoons and formed Rifle Companies and also had a tank Company Engineers artillery. It was a very powerful organization that was initially focused on fighting saddams army and then later we adapted to fighting insurgents in a fairly sizable city that was very much not in favor of us being there. They were very prosaddam, unlike other parts of a country which were thrilled that hed been overthrown. That was not the case in sub by. Host you talked a minute ago about human intelligence. Who were ahmed and rashidi . Guest these were two businessmen they were very savvy im often asked who helped finger saddam and was in the reward given . There was no reward because ultimately the man that fingered saddam was a man named Mohammed Alou said that the two people that put us onto this Family Network like a mafia don with saddam being the dawn and half a dozen families was ahmed and not had. They had suffered greatly under saddam. Their property had been seized. They were instrumental in giving us the information and it was one of those moments where early on and this was in the may june timeframe in 2003 and it was one of those times where god saves you from yourself. I didnt have time to fool with them and i didnt want to talk to them. I was checking on security and outposts. They had some information they said they wanted to give and they said they wouldnt give it to anyone unless it was me and i thought oh great here we go, more histrionics whatever. Im merely nearly dismiss them outright but something in my gut said what if its something important . For the next two and a half hours they laid out in great detail on sheets of butcher paper this elaborate network of families and i thought this is the most elaborate lie ive ever heard or theres got to be something to some of this. They were instrumental to a lot of our intelligence early on so one nearly netted saddam on the farm where we got 10 million ultimately. Saddam, many of his family documents saddam family photo albums, 2 million worth of jewelry that belonged to his wife and a lot of different things. These two iraqi businessmen were instrumental in putting us on that path. Host when was the first time he ever saw Saddam Hussein . Guest we did not see saddam, anyone until the night he was captured. I did not see him the night he was captured. I think one of the things that people dont realize is that saddam, i mean we may have seen him and just didnt realize it. Where he was ultimately caught was not far from this farm but i just mentioned to you on the other bank of the tigris river. You literally could stand on one bank and see the other farm. They were visible to one another and you could even see his mansion from that location so he didnt go very far. He was protected right there, living very humbly so he did not circulate. There were rumors that he was in the area, we got a bunch of that but early on one of the things that he did do was we worked handinhand with a number of organizations, special Operations Forces that were in the area at that time. Initially the first team we worked with was focused on specific prewar targeting of key leaders. They left toward the end of may, the beginning of june timeframe transition and the new team can end by a guy that i will call jack. We worked very closely together on a lot of the raids and a lot of the intel. I basically told him my task force is yours. Anything you need will help because they have limited resources that they had great reach and priority and we knew was going to have to be a cooperative effort. Colonel hickey my command of the same thing in general odierno also during that time he fell saddam is likely in the area just from the flood of reports that we were getting. We knew that if anyone was going to ultimately find him it had to be through collaborative efforts both conventional forces in an unconventional and that was one of the things that i think a lot of people learned from early on in the war, looking at our operations with both conventional and unconventional or says is a model for much of what happened later. Host congressman wrestle you also talk about going down in the spider hole. What was that like . Guest the hole was not very big. It it would be like crawling under under a sixfoot bull paee blended mentioned sitting under it. Im not a big guy. I had to strip off my combat gear to make the clearance of the entrance of it. It was square, had her work. It was very ingenious. Had a styrofoam top that was carved to the shape and it had a recess on the top for soil. It actually gave equal to how the ground would feel when he stepped on it so which is formed like a giant cork on top of the square birkhold and when it was covered up with the earth and the foote laid on top you could walk across it and never know was there. It had a light, a fan for air and it had carpet down there and that was it. He did live there. Was just a place to hide. He lived in a three room hut that was above him. Would the was brought in where was he brought to . Guest the raid that got him started on a series of events, we had gotten very very close but one of the special operations teams that wields really worked with was a Different Team led by a guy i will call john. He was at different unit that had rotated in the october timeframe. We worked very closely with him. We were doing a number of simultaneous raids. One thing that we learned by the Family Network was that because of the intermarriage and the large families, multiple wives culture you might have eight to 10 firstperson blood relatives that would be a possibility for him to hide. For example 10 brothers so there were any number of places for him to hide and much like playing whackamole he would hit one and they would pop up somewhere else so once we learned some of the Family Network we would try to identify as many of these locations at once and then we would do a half a dozen or eight simultaneously. There was a series of raids that we were able to do in the first week of december that were very successful in that regard on the fourth of december we did one with johns team and others and we were able to get on the trail and even closer to this mohammad. The last public appearance of saddam in april 2003 saddam shows up in the town square and stands on top of the car and being the benevolent dictator putting his arm out and everybody cheering. The guy driving him and the guy that gets up on the car as his bodyguard with a pistol in his hand if you look at the iraqi footage, think it was april 9. Thats mohammad. We know he was related to saddams wife and he became the most crucial guy to find and the family was one of the key families throughout that was organizing the resistance. I was often not understood as well. The resistance many people misinterpreted. There were reporters and others felt reporters were using heavyhanded tactics and thats just a bucket of nonsense. Saddam knew he couldnt get the u. S. Army to prevent us from getting into iraq. He knew that would happen. He also knew we would ultimately defeat his armed forces and we know now from the f. T. I interviews that his plan all along was once they take it over we will have a key Republican Guard and most trusted special security operators they would form the insurgency and his strategy was if he created enough casualties and they could get it on tv that we would lose will at home politically and like somalia we would leave and he would make a play for power and the baathists would restore him. That was his plan, not unfeasible but he really was the master of miscalculation and he didnt realize how much to the extreme would take to try to find him. So by tracking down these families and going after social networks to put us on this path of rapid succession and ultimately mohammed abu said was found. Eric maddox was key in that. He identified them and a group of captives in baghdad. He was one of the interrogators working with the special Operations Forces, fingered him. We were ecstatic because we found if he was ever captured he had to know saddams location and he did. He was brought up the next morning of december 13 to tikrit iraq and colonel hickey immediately alerted all of us and he said not only do we have bourgeois but we likely will have the location of where saddam is in a matter of hours. He alerted all of us to get everything ready. So the rate ultimately that captured saddam was so sophisticated it was planned on a sheet of butcher paper with magic markers. John and colonel hickey and brian reid jour things on a sheet of butcher paper and that became the element of what the raid was. Two farm hudson orchard on the bank of the tigris river on the east bank across from his birth village. I had troops in osha and occupied sub ivan had responsibility for much of the area but further rate colonel hickey because he was across the river this location was across the river he just had the forces so the plan was that johns team would need reinforced by two other special operations teams and they would hit the specific farms. Daily with his recon troop would meet them on the ground as they came in by little bird helicopters and they would all wake up in the orchard. Prior to that we would court around the orchard says saddam had no place to run and ultimately the hope was that they would stay there as long as we needed to believing the intel was the best that we had and colonel hickey told us plan on staying for three or four days. We need to breathe prepared to do this and we believe hes in the area and where to find him, not knowing what exactly it was. Musa had led out information that he was in an underground something or other. We dont know fellows oconnell. It was a real player what it was but we knew he was underground. That was kind of the sketchy details we got throughout the course of the day. The two farms, john took musa and did a close for cognizance. Iraqis are not good with maps so you had to take them to the locations and say is this it. They finally located the orchard in the farming areas and had a pretty good idea of which one you might be on but it was possible he could be with on one or even another. 8 00 all the forces were set. Both farms were seized. There were three teams that came in from the special ops unit. Little bird helicopters attack aviation from the fourth entrant thing Infantry Division and the cord on that colonel hickey had placed around and he was in overall command of operation red don. Two men tried to flee through the orchard and didnt get very far. A sergeant named john iversen from texas spotted something in the woods and went to intercept him at turned out to be saddams cook and his brother. Part of that inner circle of bodyguards. They didnt come up with any goods. They were reluctant and john got information from them. They were going to get anything. To a case for found by the guards, really not much and a lot of time passed, maybe 20, 25 minutes from this initial action and john went out to the humvee where musa has been brought along and he just said where is he . And he says hes there, trust me keep looking. Instead they grabbed him and brought him to this farm location. Not very big, patio area nondescript home. The bank of the tigris river was maybe not quite 150 feet from where the farm was to the edge of the embankment. And it was all date palms and citrus there were growing their. They pressured him. When musla saw he and his brother there was a little bit of shock that they were there so they pressured musla and he said where is he and he said hes here . Emotions towards a foote that look like something you have on your porch. He was very nervous and wanted to get out of there. When they got musla and the individuals off of the patio area two of johns guys pulled back the footpad and there were bits of rope and dirt and they brushed it away. As they pulled the top off not knowing whats in there they had a flash grenade ready to toss. It turns out that ultimately is where of course saddam was found and im not going to give away all of the details but i think the thing that people misunderstood on the raid that god saddam was while the raid was the trail getting there was not. We lost a lot of good guys and two gals getting to that trail. We had scores wounded and a lot of people, thats the story they dont know which was really my motivation for trying to tell our piece of the story. It is from my view. There there are others have certainly commanded other units and had their view during that time but you gain a real good perspective from a commanders view of the events that unfolded that led to that raid and also the aftermath which very few people are aware of what happened in the aftermath and how deadly it was. Host where it is mohammed almuslit today . I sent a freedom of information act request interestingly enough on the location i was told that he was held in prison until 2006 and then he was released and the last word i had as of 2011 was that he was living in syria. I have no idea where he is today. Host or what side he is on . Guest there are a lot of former aphis fighting under isis banners. We saw that in tikrit. Host is a former and retired colonel was it a t. Pacification of the state . Guest its a cheap shot. I know that general gardner and others, people have said we never should have disbanded the iraqi army but let me clarify that. It disbanded itself. I mean it literally melted away. We made contact with some of the last fighting elements around april 26 to may 1 in the north tikrit where the Republican Guard corp. Was. They completely faded away. Many of the fights we had at that late stage of the game were spotty meaning that they were in civilian clothes trying to steal armory weaponry and get it out of there and we had a couple of clashes that were related to Republican Guard soldiers trying to make off with weapons from the area. The army disbanded it so this notion somehow that there was going to be formal surrenders and lines of german troops and the conference and they would have big surrenders that was never even a remote possibility to begin with. Host how long were you in iraqs . Guest i was in iraq