Finding Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, had long been the U.S. military's top prioritytrumping even the search for Osama bin Laden. No brutality was spared in trying to squeeze intelligence from Zarqawi's suspected associates. But these "force on force" techniques yielded exactly nothing, and, in the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the military rushed a new breed of interrogator to Iraq. Matthew Alexander, a former criminal investigator and head of a handpicked interrogation team, gives us the first inside look at the U.S. military's attempt at more civilized interrogation techniquesand their astounding success.Matthew and his team decided to get to know their opponents. Who were these monsters? Who were they working for? Every day the "'gators" matched wits with a rogues' gallery of suspects brought in by Special Forces: egomaniacs, bloodthirsty adolescents, opportunistic stereo repairmen, Sunni clerics horrified by the sectarian bloodbath, al Qaeda fanatics, and good people in the wrong place at the wrong time.This account is an unputdownable thrillermore of a psychological suspense story than a war memoirand a reminder that we don't have to become our enemy to defeat him.

Matthew Alexander has served for more than eighteen years in the U.S. Air Force and Air Force Reserves. He has personally conducted more than three hundred interrogations and supervised more than a thousand. He is the author of Kill or Capture. John R. Bruning is the author or coauthor of eight books, including Mouse to House by David Bellavia.