The Prisoner in His Palace

Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid

Will Bardenwerper

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781471153853
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

The Prisoner in His Palace is an evocative and thought-provoking account of how the lives of twelve young American soldiers deployed to Iraq are upended when they're asked to guard the most 'high-value detainee' of all, the notorious dictator Saddam Hussein.
What the self-dubbed 'Super Twelve' experience in the autumn of 2006 is cognitive dissonance at its most extreme. Expecting to engage with the enemy 'outside the wire', they're suddenly tasked with guarding and protecting a notorious dictator until he can be hanged.
Watching over Saddam in a former palace the soldiers dub 'The Rock' and regularly transporting their prisoner to his raucous trial, they gradually begin to question some of their firmest beliefs. Rather than the snarling beast they expect, Saddam proves confoundingly complex – voluble, charming and given to surprising displays of affection. Perhaps most shockingly, in his Spartan stoicism and the courage he shows in facing death he eventually becomes a role model.
Employing a timeline that switches between present and past, The Prisoner in His Palace contrasts the man entrusted to the Super Twelve's care – a grandfatherly figure who proves 'good company' – with a younger version of Saddam who is unspeakably ruthless, views murder and torture as legitimate tools and constantly keeps those around him in a blind panic.
The magic of this book is that Bardenwerper keeps us on edge even though we know how it will end. We immediately sense that the Super Twelve will be forever changed by their experience, and we wonder if we ourselves will. In this artfully constructed narrative, Saddam, the 'man without a conscience', manages to get everyone around him to examine theirs.

PART I

THE SUPER TWELVE

Is evil something you are? Or is it something you do?

—Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho

CHAPTER 1

Ocala, Florida—September 11, 2001

The phone rang, waking Steve Hutchinson from an uncomfortable sleep. His head was pounding, his mouth sandpaper. He was staying at his cousin’s house, and his large frame was draped across the couch. It felt like it had only been a few hours since he’d passed out there after getting home from a long night working security at the Midnight Rodeo, a rough honky-tonk bar in the central Florida town of Ocala. He blamed the nasty headache on the beers he’d torn through after his shift ended around 4:00 a.m. Though he tried to ignore it, his phone kept ringing, each series of tones sending searing pain through his hungover skull. Too sapped of energy to hold the phone to his ear, he put it on speaker and clumsily dropped it to the floor.

“Turn on the TV,” a voice urged. It was his cousin’s wife, calling from work, and she sounded panicked.

“Which channel?” he asked.

“Any of them,” she replied.

It was just after 9:00 a.m. on September 11, 2001. Hutchinson turned on the television just in time to see United Airlines Flight 175 strike the South Tower of the World Trade Center, not quite twenty minutes after American Airlines Flight 11 had slammed into the North Tower.

Until that morning he’d been on an uncertain career path. A muscular former Georgia high school football and baseball standout, he’d been working for the county road department during the day and doing some bouncing at the Rodeo at night, but the images of a smoldering lower Manhattan decided something in him. “I wasn’t getting over there fast enough,” he’d later say, referring to his decision to join the Army and go overseas.

Baghdad, Iraq—August 2006

Five years later, Steve Hutchinson, known as Hutch to his buddies, was doing the “duffel bag drag” across the steamy tarmac of Baghdad International Airport, often referred to as BIAP. He’d arrived as part of the 551st Military Police Company based out of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and he knew the drill. Like many who joined the military in the wake of the September 11 attacks, he’d found himself thrust into an exhausting operational tempo. By 2006, he’d already spent a year deployed to Iraq during the initial invasion in 2003, and another in Afghanistan. He was one of the more tenured members of his squad of eleven other American military policemen, mostly in their twenties, who’d just arrived “downrange.” The youngest, Private Tucker Dawson, wasn’t yet twenty-one; the oldest, Specialist Art Perkins, was in his mid-thirties. With the “War on Terror” already nearly five years old, about half had deployed previously while the other half had spilled from the Air Force C-130 into a combat zone for the first time. The lieutenant to whom they reported, Andre Jackson, was a recent ROTC graduate. The junior enlisted soldiers and noncommissioned officers (NCOs) under his command came from all over the United States, though a disproportionate number hailed from working-class communities scattered across the Rust Belt.

They didn’t know it yet, but in a few months they’d be playing a pivotal role in a historical drama they couldn’t have imagined.

The men—there were no women in the squad—had grown reasonably tight in the months preceding deployment. They’d performed countless training missions back at Fort Campbell to prepare for deployment, which they expected would be spent carrying out assignments common for military policemen—for example, guarding detainees and providing convoy security. And during the training lulls those who were single grabbed some downtime at Kickers bar or the Lodge in nearby Clarksville, Tennessee, while the married among them stuck with more domesticated routines, such as taking turns babysitting each other’s kids so that they could enjoy dinner with their wives at the popular Yamato’s Japanese steakhouse off post.

Those who’d deployed before, like Hutchinson, Art Perkins, Tom Flanagan, and Chris Tasker, were familiar with the routine. Less so Tucker Dawson, Adam Rogerson, and Paul Sphar, for whom this was an altogether new adventure. Sphar had barely been allowed to deploy at all, due to his persistent weight problems. In the months leading up to their leaving for Iraq, Sergeant Chris Battaglia had “run the dogshit” out of Sphar to trim his ample midsection. The young private stood out from the others for reasons other than his weight, though. The fact was, he seemed a better match for a skate park or mosh pit than a military parade ground. He was covered in tattoos, proud to have almost a “full shirt” of them.

The soldiers had arrived in Iraq after a marathon journey that took them from Fort Campbell to Maine to Germany to Kuwait to—at last—BIAP’s floodlit tarmac. The temperatures had continued to linger in the nineties even after the sun had set, and before the men had even finished unloading their bags, their clothes were drenched in sweat. It was a not-so-subtle reminder that they were far from home, and that this was for real.

CHAPTER 2

Baghdad, Iraq—August 2006

Upon arrival at Baghdad International Airport, each soldier in the twelve-man squad was issued an initial magazine containing thirty rounds of 5.56 ammunition. As the men were shuttled by local “hajji buses”—run-down vehicles that wouldn’t be out of place in communist Havana—to Freedom Village, the collection of containerized housing units, or CHUs, that would serve as their new homes, they took notice of the ubiquitous Hesco barriers and concrete walls designed to provide cover from the incoming mortar and rocket fire.

That the fortifications suggested potential danger was both sobering and exciting. Unbeknownst to the new arrivals, they were in fact stepping into a cauldron of violence whose temperature had been steadily rising since the initial invasion had unseated Saddam Hussein in 2003. It was now the summer of 2006, and U.S. commanders were so alarmed by the escalating Sunni versus Shia violence in Baghdad that twelve thousand additional troops were being rushed in. Just days before Hutch and the others had arrived in Iraq, a Sunni suicide bomber had detonated himself outside one of Shia Islam’s holiest places, the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf, killing 35 and injuring 122. Volunteers would scramble for hours afterward to mop up the blood and collect body parts.

Confronting the deteriorating security situation would be the work of another day, though. For now, giddy excitement gripped those who were experiencing a war zone for the first time, and everyone—not just the greenhorns—rushed to lay claim to creature comforts that would have been unimaginable in previous conflicts. In a peculiar way, this ritual of appropriation reminded Specialist Adam Rogerson of scenes from the MTV show The Real World, in which new roommates arrive at their group house and madly scramble to claim the most desirable living spaces. In the case of Rogerson and his squad mates, the hunt was on for fridges and televisions sold cheap by the National Guard unit they’d be replacing. Though the conditions were hardly luxurious by standards back home, those who’d deployed before into more austere circumstances recognized that they now had it pretty good.

The squad would spend its first week shadowing the outgoing National Guard unit. These transitions were always a little awkward, because the soon-to-be departing soldiers were fatigued, somewhat jaded, and itching to get home, while the incoming units brimmed with enthusiasm—especially the younger soldiers eager to put their training to use.

The soldiers from Campbell were initially assigned a grab bag of missions, some resembling those they’d trained for, and others falling into their laps by default, since they were a well-trained combat support unit that was part of the Army’s storied 101st Airborne Division. The twenty-first-century American Army was still in many ways a tribal institution, and within its various hierarchies, the 101st was regarded as “squared away”—Army parlance for “competent and professional.”

“Our squad was good at what we did,” Adam Rogerson would later say with pride. “We trained hard, learned how to call in nine-line medevacs, stick IVs in each other, and went on lots of twelve-mile ruck marches.” These things mattered to Rogerson, and indeed to most of the squad, which exhibited a pride bordering on cockiness that is common in hard-charging units.

CHAPTER 3

Baghdad, Iraq—summer of 2006

The twelve MPs were tasked with overseeing security at a hospital staffed by American medical personnel who were responsible for treating both coalition service members and Iraqi insurgents wounded in combat operations. Located just inside Baghdad’s Green Zone, the facility was a grim, nasty place. The doctors were buffeted by relentless waves of trauma injuries, and they labored long hours to save lives in a dilapidated building in which blood would sometimes pool on the floor and flies were a persistent menace. Some of the suspected insurgents had to be handcuffed to their beds as they were treated. Chris Tasker, who, like Hutchinson, had been “hell-bent” on enlisting after the attacks of September 11, once had to pin down a suspected insurgent who’d been shot in the neck and was flailing around on his gurney. Not caring about the man’s allegiances, the doctors struggled intently to peel back his torn flesh and treat his hemorrhaging wound.

Some days the squad never left the hospital. They made themselves useful by helping the nurses replace dressings on the same insurgents they thought they’d come to this country to capture and kill. Many of the squad members were frustrated to be essentially “babysitting bad guys,” some of whom were only in their early teens but already spitting on the Americans who were laboring to take care of them. Looking back later on the experience, Rogerson said, “They didn’t like us, and we didn’t like them, but they had to see us every day, and we had to see them.”

The squad was also assigned periodic convoy escort missions, which at least got them out of the hospital, and more closely resembled what they’d imagined doing in Iraq. Every trip “outside the wire,” as soldiers referred to patrols beyond the secure perimeter of their operating bases, entailed a degree of risk, which was actually welcomed by some of the less experienced and more eager troops. Specialist Art Perkins wasn’t one of them. Already in his mid-thirties, Perkins had left the Army and married a woman he’d met while stationed in Germany. But then he reenlisted years later. Bespectacled and knowledgeable on a diverse array of topics, Perkins reminded Rogerson of the comedic actor–turned–pundit Ben Stein. Perkins exhibited Stein’s dry wit and curmudgeonly manner. Some soldiers took to calling Perkins “Snapple,” after the trivia questions inside the tops of the juice bottles, since he would volunteer so many random facts. To Hutch, “Old Man Perkins” seemed like “an unsuccessful tweedy professor who had all this random knowledge,” and whose attitude was the antithesis of the “hooah” brand of enthusiasm that the Army inculcated in young recruits.

One day the squad was tasked with providing security for a convoy bound for the U.S. Embassy, a mission that most welcomed, since it might provide an opportunity to enjoy the State Department cafeteria. As they snaked their way through Baghdad’s often chaotic streets, Rogerson stood in the Humvee’s turret manning the .240 machine gun, doing the best he could to remain vigilant, scanning for potential roadside bombs, waving Iraqi traffic to the side, and, unavoidably, baking in the overpowering sun. He looked forward to the relief that would come when they finally reached the embassy and he could strip off his body armor. He imagined his inflamed back muscles relaxing after hours of forced tension. Upon arriving at the embassy, shirts soaked in sweat, looking like they’d just dragged themselves from a swimming pool, the soldiers dismounted from their Humvees and quickly stripped off the suffocating protective gear they were required to wear outside the wire. Everyone’s mouth watered as the men envisioned the spread of food and cold Gatorades that awaited. All but one, that is. Perkins refused to leave his vehicle. He was volunteering to stay behind, which was unnecessary, since they were already in the secure Green Zone. The soldiers were confused and asked Perkins why he wasn’t joining them. Then Rogerson noticed that not only was Perkins’s uniform top soaked, as were most of theirs, but so, too, was a large area around his crotch. He’d peed himself.

Accounts differ as to what had triggered the unfortunate release. Some contended that Perkins simply couldn’t hold it anymore, while others suggested that a distant explosion or outbreak of small arms fire had spooked the Old Man, causing him to lose control of his bladder. Whichever theory was correct, Perkins would be mercilessly reminded of it for weeks. Specialist Rogerson and Private Dawson were the chief teasers. They constantly referenced the Will Ferrell comedy Talladega Nights, in which a young boy says, “And I never did change my pee pants all day—I’m still sitting in my dirty pee pants.” Dawson, a fresh-faced twenty-year-old who looked like he’d just stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, reminded the more awkward and less photogenic Paul Sphar of the “new kid in school who’s trying hard to impress the cool people right off the bat.” Rogerson, the popular jock who wasn’t many years removed from roaming the hallways of North Ridgeville High School outside Cleveland clad in his Rangers football jersey, was the perfect ally, and to Perkins’s continuing dismay, he was their perfect foil.

After one especially long and hot patrol, Rogerson began wrestling with his .240 machine gun while the rest of the squad knocked out their usual post-mission tasks. Old Man Perkins happened to be pontificating—or so Rogerson considered it—and the grimy, sweaty Ohioan tackled the smaller, somewhat chubby Perkins. Rogerson pinned Perkins on the ground and wrapped him up in the strap of his machine gun. Later admitting to a tinge of guilt for his overheated outburst, Rogerson explained, “He was my roommate, and I liked him, but I’d just had enough.”

Meanwhile, the rhythm of life in Iraq—the loading up of the gun trucks, going out on convoys, and returning to base to steal some time for relaxation—continued. In this, the squad of MPs was not unique. U.S. soldiers across Iraq were embarking on hundreds of patrols, largely indistinguishable from theirs, every day.

Hutchinson remembers the moment when everything changed.

Their transition from an ordinary squad of military policemen to the Super Twelve, as they’d take to calling themselves, began one night as Hutch returned from a mission and looked forward to some downtime to relax. He was the father of two young daughters and one son, and tried to visit the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation (MWR) tent as often as possible to call home and hear his kids’ “crazy little stories.” It was a routine he’d grown familiar with over the past five years, since he’d spent more of that time deployed than at home. The MWR tents were charmless yet treasured. They included a bank of phones and some Internet terminals, separated by plywood partitions, at which soldiers would queue up to briefly tap into the currents of life back home. On this night, though, Hutch wouldn’t get the opportunity to talk to his wife, as he was summoned to a meeting with his squad leader, Sergeant Luke Quarles.

Quarles, who hoped to qualify for the Army’s Special Forces when he got back to the States and had been spending his downtime in Iraq pursuing an exhausting fitness regimen to improve his chances, told his assembled team, We have a mission change, boys. No more convoy escorts. No more watching low-level hajjis. You may not like it, you may like it, but bottom line is, we’re gonna do it. We’ve been assigned a high-value detainee.

This news, while intriguing, didn’t come as a shock, since “detainee ops” were a common assignment for military policem...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Author’s Note
• Characters
• Timeline
• Introduction
• Part I: The Super Twelve
• Part II: The Ace of Spades
• Part III: Condemned
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Sources
• Notes
• Index
• Copyright