Jeff Wasn News Today

Critical all the details are that i get from interrogations. but i do remember them all. you never know till much later what details really matter. jeff and i worked for a couple months, and these prisoners start providing this information, and i started to get a feel for tikrit. and i realize, every person has a life, and they have a family, and they live in a neighborhood, and theyre part of a tribe, and they go to a certain mosque. thats like this familys kids go to this elementary school. th...

So yeah, we worked real well together. >> wed interrogate all night and then maybe at 4:00, or 5:00 in the morning wed sit down and we would talk about it, and wed talk about it nonstop. >> and it became our big piece of day to day life of using those interrogations to conduct operations. >> u.s. troops carried out predawn raids in saddam husseins hometown. the army says several suspects were arrested in tikrit. >> by september, jeff and i have gone beyond just determining the guilt or innocence...

And it came to me. august. jeff and i are interrogating saddam husseins cook. >> the individual was picked up on a hit. nobody knew who he was. during the process of the conducting sbargations, it was identified that he was a former chef. and one of the things wed learned in that conversation was every time saddam showed up, he cooked a special meal. and we asked what that special meal was, and it was muscat. its a fish thats raised in fish farms in iraq. the kid said, they had this fish pond bu...

They brought in a guy nasr yasin omar al muslit. nasr yasin breaks and lays out 28 out of the 32 inner circles bodyguards for saddam hussein. halil ibrahim. mupd ibrahim all from this al muslit family. im thinking whos running this insurgency? and i started realize, it was all connected to this family, these al muslids. so now, if we find anybody whos related, named al muslit, thats where we start focusing. so were bringing in all these people and jeff and i figured out a very clear way to get t...

Decisions and to get that information i was learning how to get inside the minds of these prisoners and break them down. when i talk about breaking a prisoner, it has nothing to do with physical contact of any kind. it has to do with breaking their previous decision of not cooperating with me to provide me information, and now they choose to provide me that information. thats a break. >> as questions were being asked and answered, every now and then i might pass him a note to highlight on a topi...

Without a body, people wonder when theyll ever be able to put saddams ghost to rest, and how long will he remain embarrassing, unfinished business for the united states, like many of their other most wanted. >> i remember seeing black and white portraits of saddam hussein in the living rooms of peoples homes, still displaying loyalty. that was an indicator to me that they sensed saddam was still out there. >> every military force on the ground was looking for saddam hussein. but eric and i reali...

Sergeant in the united states army. i was a trained interrogator, but i had never actually conducted a real live interrogation. the wars going on for three months, and i get orders that im going to go join this task force id never heard of. >> to do. >> i didnt know but i packed my bags and they flew me to tikrit. and i am picked up by these soldiers with beards. soldiers dont have beards. we didnt know eric, didnt train with him. hadnt worked with him previously. he didnt really know what was g...

To get interrogated so he and i drove to this u.s. army prison. there were hundreds of prisoners. brought the first prisoner down. we sat him down. and jeff looks at me, and he goes, so how are we going to do this? i was a new interrogator. i did not have a plan. but jeff and i looked at each other, and we started asking questions.