From Publishers Weekly
This fascinating memoir reports from one of the most crucial and controversial fronts in the war on terror. The pseudonymous Mackey was an interrogator at military prisons in Afghanistan, tasked with sussing out the secrets of suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda members. He and journalist Miller take readers inside the prison cells and interrogation rooms, where interrogators choreograph elaborate mind games and fight epic battles of will with their often formidable captives. Their account's full of the engrossing lore and procedure of interrogation, the thrust and parry of baited queries and cagey half-truths, and the occasional dramatic breakthrough when a prisoner cracks. But it also reveals the squalor and drudgery of the prison camps, the exhaustion, bad temper and frequent ineptitude of the interrogators and the many lapses in the American intelligence effort, especially by the CIA, which Mackey regards as an arrogant, secretive and incompetent organization. Mackey deplores the Abu Ghraib abuses and insists that his unit never violated the Geneva Conventions. They flirted, he acknowledges, with stress positions and sleep deprivation, but this was nothing, he claims, beyond what army recruits and the interrogators themselves routinely endured; their main weapons seem to have been veiled threats to return Arab prisoners to their homelands, where they would face real torture. The book, which was vetted by the Pentagon, will not settle the questions surrounding American treatment of prisoners in Iraq and elsewhere. But it does give a vivid, gritty look at the pressures and compromises attendant on this unconventional war. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


Book Description
An unprecedented look at the front line of the war against terror: the inside story of six American interrogators, thousands of prisoners, and the race for the truth. More than 3,000 prisoners in the war on terrorism have been captured, held, and interrogated in Afghanistan alone. But no one knows what transpired in those interactions between prisoner and interrogator--until now. In THE INTERROGATORS, Chris Mackey, a senior interrogator at Bagram Air Base and in Kandahar, where al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were first detained and questioned, lifts the curtain. Soldiers specially trained in the art of interrogation went face-to-face with the enemy. These mental and psychological battles were as grueling, dramatic, and important as any in the war on terrorism. We learn how this small group of "soldier spies" engineered breakthroughs in interrogation strategy, rewriting techniques and tactics grounded in the Cold War. Mackey reveals the tricks of the trade, and we see how the team--five men and one woman--responded to the pressure and the prisoners. By the time the group was finished, virtually no prisoner went unbroken. Christopher Mackey, after completing his duty in Afghanistan, rejoined his employer in Europe. Greg Miller is a national security correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. He lives in Washington, DC.


Download Description
In a war with no precedent, where the rules are being written even while combat operations unfold, knowing the enemy's secrets is only way to win. You cannot learn enough to root him out by means of satellite imagery alone. No amount of eavesdropping will betray the balance of his treachery. To defeat our new and cunning enemy, he must be outwitted in gruelling, desperate, one-on-one confrontations.

Often times over coffee and a cigarette.

In The Interrogators we see how Chris Mackey and his fellow "soldier-spies" swiftly discovered that the techniques and tactics grounded in the Cold War were of no use against al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners—and how Mackey's group engineered breakthroughs in interrogation strategy, creating highly sophisticated ruses and elaborate trickery to bluff, terrify, and confuse their opponents to yield up precious information. And Mackey's team did so under the most extreme sort of pressure: the fear that one of these prisoners knew the details of a plot that might make 9/11 look like child's play.

From astonishing glimpses into classrooms of the U.S. government's interrogation school, to the battlefields along the Pakistani frontier, to the locked-door rooms where American men and women faced off against the enemy, The Interrogators is both captivating and controversial, forcing readers to confront the gray side of war. A real-life thriller, with the highest of stakes, The Interrogators lifts the curtain on the secret confrontations that will determine our future.


About the Author
Chris Mackey joined the army at seventeen and was assigned to the intelligence corps as an interrogator. After 9/11, he was recalled to the United States, assigned to Task Force 500, and subsequently sent to Kandahar, Afghanistan. He ultimately supervised all military interrogations conducted at the theatre-wide detention facility at Bagram airfield. Greg Miller is a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

An unprecedented look at the front line of the war against terror: the inside story of six American interrogators, thousands of prisoners, and the race for the truth. More than 3,000 prisoners in the war on terrorism have been captured, held, and interrogated in Afghanistan alone. But no one knows what transpired in those interactions between prisoner and interrogator--until now.

In The Interrogators, Chris Mackey, a senior interrogator at Bagram Air Base and in Kandahar, where al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners were first detained and questioned, lifts the curtain. Soldiers specially trained in the art of interrogation went face-to-face with the enemy. These mental and psychological battles were as grueling, dramatic, and important as any in the war on terrorism. We learn how this small group of "soldier spies" engineered breakthroughs in interrogation strategy, rewriting techniques and tactics grounded in the Cold War. Mackey reveals the tricks of the trade, and we see how the team--five men and one woman--responded to the pressure and the prisoners. By the time the group was finished, virtually no prisoner went unbroken.

Christopher Mackey, after completing his duty in Afghanistan, rejoined his employer in Europe. Greg Miller is a national security correspondent for the Los Angeles Times. He lives in Washington, DC.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly