individuals hired assassins to kill him. is that a story? >> it's a story. wilkinson gets accused of a lot of things. burr was in europe. i think it is hard to tar him with that one. and lewis' death was mysterious although there is a lot of evidence that he just killed himself bing despond them. wilkinson was accused of poisoning mad anthony wayne -- matt anthony wayne the great general and has been tarred with the lewis story. i've not seen at the -- any evidence. ..

the american blood that we especially as we hear it again in this space. >> okay. that's a lot. just to deal with that quickly if i can come of the new england session was economically

motivated, and was because of the embargo that was in place in the economy during the war 1812 and they didn't support the war. i still think it was very important that he failed and secession was put in. he was viewed as the worst criminal in history other than mcdonald. of course when the southern slavery issue reached, secession came back but when you look at the previous period once the succession is in the activity as a plan ready to see a difference jefferson's inactivity he never explained it. he may not have believed some of the reports he received about the activity. he may well have thought that he would feel if his own and was ridiculous a plan. and in fact other words he says

in europe they would have sent troops after something like this and in this country it's simply the people rejected it and it failed on its own weight and there was truth to that and to be honest it still more because it just sort of trouble about. but i don't have a definitive answer. jefferson never felt the need to explain why he had done nothing from his point out all although he was extremely angry that he didn't. up next, william doyle tells a story of captain travis roi patriquin gaining support for the 2006 sunni awakening which

greatly reduced the influence of al qaeda in iraq, captain patriquin was killed by a roadside bomb that same year to read this is about an hour. >> thanks for coming. we are going to hear from william leal the author of american insurrection, mississippi 1962 and inside the oval office, the white house tapes from fdr and clinton here talking about his new book the soldiers dream. >> thanks very much. and thanks to the nyu lillian vernon writers house for having me. i'd like to talk about my book a soldiers dream and then ask their in and the audience for any questions about it. this book came about as the result of my reading the newspaper article in the summer of 2007 about a young american

soldier who was being hailed as a martyr by the iraqis. when i read the story i felt that sounds interesting how did that happen who is this man? and he had died in an ied attack. his name was captain patrick speed and in the history of the iraq war i'd never heard such a thing about a soldier being held as a martyr and this happened in a city the was then the epicenter of the iraqi insurgency and in fact at the military memorial service for speed and his father and colleagues army specialist vincent and the marine major mcginn a delegation of iraqi sheiks and army and security officers came in to pay their respects to the fallen americans and offered islamic prayer of mourning for them which was a striking scene in the history of the iraq war. i had to find out more about this story and as i interviewed scores of travis ridership's

american and iraqi colleagues i can to realize his story is critical to understanding america's role on a world stage in the post bin laden post arabs during the era and maybe even to discover more about what it means to be an american. the historical impact on what speed did is rather striking and in fact i came to realize he was a key player in the ki parliament to become a land in the iraq war. in fact the war began to turnaround in may 2006 once before the famous surge started happening as patriquin and his intelligence colleagues helped the iraqi launch something the was called the awakening which was a sunni tribal revolt against al qaeda. al qaeda of course has never really conquered and held large pieces of territory in the world. there's some exceptions, but

what happened in anbar province is al qaeda basically conquered the province and set up a parallel government, sharia law courts, a parallel ministry even of government. and the rule of this version of radical islam or anti-islam i would call it is so offensive that the local iraqi is rebuild against it and we help to them and the awakening was born. the awakening facilitated the surge and both turning points helped save iraq from what was a total collapse and total full-scale civil war in 2006 to a different kind of outcome which is still terribly dangerous but is transformed in the last five years. i first wanted to know who travis patriquin was this man who iraqi said helped shape the course of the iraq war. he was actually born in the midwest and joined the army on the day he finished high school

in 1993. he was a devout catholic and christian who happened to believe that -- he refused to believe that his religion was right and other religions were wrong. in fact, he studied the koran very carefully and concluded that authentic islam was our greatest ally, america's greatest ally and conquering al qaeda and helping to lead and inspire world and i thought was a radical in sight that changed my view on islam and how we behave on the world stage. he was fascinated with arab history and culture, food, arabic poetry. he learned arabic thanks to the military for over year he studied arabic intensively and he traveled to the middle east to kuwait, jordan and plunged into middle eastern culture and he loved it. he became a special force

support soldier and went to afghanistan in 2002 in the first wave of american soldiers to strike back at al qaeda and the taliban after 9/11. and he won a bronze star for leading the troops into combat. in 2005 he was assigned to be the tribal affairs officer for the u.s. military in her ramadi iraq, which was one journalist called it the most fucked up place on earth. reporters would scamper through ruins of ramadi and say this reminds me images of hiroshima and stalin brought. it had collapsed completely. it was the provincial capital of the anbar province and basically the headquarters of the al qaeda caliphate that were attempting to launch in iraq. right away three things were obvious to travis and his colleagues. they had to attack the al qaeda forces would fire power and they also have to rebuild the

shattered local iraqi police force and reach out to the free manning tribal sheiks. a lot of them have fled and there were not many left. and although he was only a junior officer, patriquin became the key liaison between the military and the sunni sheiks in their attempt to launch the movement that helped transform the war. i think patriquin was a symbol of only the americans who served in iraq but the americans who have died there and the many americans who helped the iraqi strive to build a new nation out of the horror of the war. the history of understanding he was to hear what the iraqis said about him, with a told me. in the words of sheik who was the man who created the weakening movement, travis patriquin was an extraordinary man who played a very important role. he was my brother. he spoke arabic and looked like an arab man.

when he can at the start of the weakening we needed someone like him. he was humble and friendly and was always helping me. he helped with weapons and ammunition, he helped deliver food to people who need help who were in trouble and defended women and children against the terrorists between the sheiks the captain patrick was extraordinary. one then the bourn interpreter told me he was in love with iraq. he was addicted to the culture. he was obsessed by it. he loved the food, everything about iraq. and another baghdad board interpreter told me i iraqis can like you but the love him for a lot of reasons. he had a magical personality and a trust will face. his presence was noted immediately. the iraqi slough to talk to men with a mustache. and he had a mustache, suntan, dark skin and muscular body and looks like an arab. beside that, his heart was connecting to these people for

the average american soldier the iraqis can be hard to sit down and talk to but when they sat down to eat with capt patriquin they could tell he enjoyed eating with their hands as he did and he didn't take it. they thought he was telling them i will do whatever i can to assure you that i'm genuine. he gave the iraqi the most honorable and honest picture of the american people in the military in particular. they felt he was the true american heart. and this iraqi bourn enter worker concluded my god, there is no one in the world who could have formed a closer connection with the people than travis did. they adored him. a former iraqi air force general told me americans have not appreciated the lesson of what steve and his colleagues did. it was a miracle, an absolute miracle. america has not learned the lesson should have. we need people like patriquin in the military not just for iraq to all the middle east and afghanistan, pakistan and elsewhere, people who are

principal and people who can win the hearts and minds of the people with their culture and their mind, not their weapons. patriquin thought we had to reach out to the grassroots in iraq and that we couldn't try to do things from the top down because the iraqi government was nonexistent or horribly dysfunctional. and many american policy makers were trying to force things from the top down. it wasn't working. he also felt we should reach out to insurgents. he thought we should identify and surgeons who were reconcilable. and negotiate with them and talk to them and try to flip them over to our site to talk to al qaeda because the insurgency was very fractionalized. patriquin also thought we had to be humble and show respect to iraqis and a deal with iraq on its own terms rather than try to make us more like.

he said it used to stabilize things you have to cut the crap and all this idealism and deal with the sheiks. now his iraqi partner in all of this who launched the awakening and created all of this was some people thought tony sopranos of the western iraq was an alleged gangster, a really rough character but also in an spearing leader it turned out. only in his late thirties who declared the war, al qaeda and close to the american contacting this war was travis speed and he told anybody who would listen he's the key to ramadi. nothing will work without him. maybe he can change everything. this might be the way that is out of iraq for us. it turns out to largely have occurred the way that patriquin wanted to because satar proves

to be effective in fighting al qaeda in this period and then the tribes began to flip from neutral or pro al qaeda to the coalition slight. in my book there are few scenes of patriquin in action. one of them is when he third met satar and he shows up with a mustache. he speaks arabic slang iraqi arabic and he shakes hands and meet him and says what part of iraq are you from? are you from the more for the south and his as he often did when this would happen he would say something like i'm from chicago. i'm an american and many of iraqis were befuddled by that because they thought he might be an iraqi who left iraq as a child done over here and grown up and came back with a funny new western accent. and the met and quickly became very close allies in this

struggle. he was a junior officer only 30 to the time and his commanding officers lieutenant colonel and shawn mcfarland realize that they were becoming brothers in fact he moved into the house basically for three months of the end of all of this that became his headquarters and they let him run with this relationship. this was difficult at the time because their bosses, the u.s. military bosses, some of them were saying don't deal with him, he's a killer, find somebody without a blood on their hands and he and his colleagues would say are you crazy there's nobody without blood on their hands and we have to deal with the people who are here. hundreds of iraqi men started joining the iraqi police force and eventually thousands dead and the order battle in the combat zone turned against al qaeda and al qaeda was largely eliminated in embar province substantially eliminated as of

the beginning of 2007 was a remarkable achievement, a positive achievement in the war. there was another seen in action dealing with islam a fascinating subject. satar introduced patriquin to a moderate authentic sunni cleric in ramadi. they sat down in the compound. they were discussing how they could team up to expels the radical the moms who had hijacked the mosques in the city. the cleric asked patriquin what are you going to do, what are your ideas? you have a plan? you came here in 2003 and you had no plan. you have one now? patriquin was very impressed by the dynamic clergyman a former commander in the iran and iraq war and saw a perfect example of authentic mainstream tolerant islam. he told the clerk yes, we have a plan we are working together to make it happen to free up from al qaeda in the province and to free iraq from terrorism.

the friendly conversation turned to religion and he said i respect islam as a religion to but i respect muslims to get i've worked with many muslims through my life and career. i have no problem with islam whatsoever to the al qaeda is causing great confusion among the people like calling as crusaders and infidels fighting a religious war. we are not fighting for the religion, fighting for islam. we are here to fight people who use islam as a justification to do evil things. as patriquin referred to al qaeda in a meeting with iraqi sheiks, "of these people, al qaeda are not muslims they say they are the are preferring the religion of fecal purposes. personally i think if americans haven't learned that fundamental insight that patriquin realized in the years since 9/11 is a terrible tragedy because i think it is a very important way of looking at all of this. the islamic scholar replied approvingly to patriquin there are many incidents in the

history that christians and muslims and muslims and christians and they discussed the eminent position of jesus christ and the theology, the ascension of jesus into heaven and various other points of description. one of the keys to success in the city is a thick crust control from al qaeda and clerks could issue the religious decrees that could help bring peace to the city and that is exactly what happened in a few months. the last interview i did for this book was on skype with sheik of the tribe in ramadi. this gives you an idea of the impact that he had on the iraqis who knew him. he told me this: i consider the captain, speed's iraqi tribal name to be the martyr of all on

our province. he deserves all of god's mercy because he was working from a pure heart. he felt our agony and wanted to help. he gave his life said the iraqi men and women could live in peace. i still think of him often and it's like he's right in front of me. i remember his laugh and moves and broken arabic. the simple words he used to say. his arabic was really very weak, he said. it was so broken up you have to be a genius to put it together and understand what he was saying but the interest of each other. i could understand what he meant. i consider him my iraqi brother. as tribal chiefs we are the toughest of the toughest man. that's why we fought her wrists. when we lost a brother like him it was like cutting our arm off. when he died the sheik and i should so many tears we don't usually cry for fallen soldiers. i lost 17 of my men in battle and i didn't shed a tear but i cried for him to reconsider and

our brother. i don't consider him american or a u.s. occupying force. he was an iraqi by blood. even the one served only a short time with him was a great time. taking my personal connections with iraqi sit seemed like he was planning to live here forever. i wish i could bring him back again but the spirit lives with us here. he's one of the few americans who knew how to deal with tribal men and tribal chiefs. he was the smart power that helped us win the battle in ramadi. and whenever we have tough times i think i always push thank you with me. he would stick with me and we would find a solution and that gives me peace. what can we learn finally for, travis speed? to listen to occur to me and they are important when it's for americans to consider. first perhaps the most important lesson of his life is that one of the greatest form of patriotism for an american can be the ability to connect to other cultures, to be humble, to learn from them.

and together with them to inspire each other to do great things on the world stage. and to them not just through our words what our actions and character and example. there's one more lesson that occurs to me. maybe, just maybe america should embrace islam on our own terms. what if america embraced islam? what if americans studied the feet carefully to understand the good as well as the evil of those who would prefer to the religion to evil in this? what americans got to the muslims intimately, sat down with their religious leaders, studied the koran maybe even if its original arabic to understand the full true authentic messages of islam. there was an amazing american who did all of this. his name was travis patriquin. he was a u.s. army officer who volunteered to join the first wave of american soldiers to strike back at al qaeda in

afghanistan after 9/11 and in 2006 using only his experience as a warrior with his knowledge of islam, his arabic language skills and his intense love for a arabic culture helped shape the course of the iraq war by helping iraqis crushed al qaeda in the capitol of the iraqi insurgency. and when he died they held him as an american murder. just before he died, he wrote dog's plan is unknown to us that there is a plan. i believe that with all of my being. and we are all a part of it. and sometimes i think to myself, you know, maybe he was right. thank you to the [applause] >> thank you. i have so many questions after hearing that. >> i have so many questions

after hearing all of that. the first on is how does one go about winning hearts and minds? why is it so hard? you kept mentioning the mustache, is the key growing a good mustache? how do you replicate that sort of peacekeeping mentality? because it can't just be this one guy that had a secret. >> there are thousands of u.s. military personnel who believe, well, who did a great things for the country from any measurement, but we've really get to hear the stories. there are 22 year old kids running the cities in iraq until recently, running water distribution, sewage plants, factories, trying to somehow build a society out of the rubble of this nightmare. speed i think is a symbol of a lot of people who did great things for us in iraq and afghanistan in an impossible

conditions. but to answer your question how did he win hearts and minds? the lesson i get is you deal with the world as it is not as america wants it to be. you learn from the rest of the world. you are humble with it. that is the thing iraqi scud telling me. was to devotee. he projected and i think that the humility is a hell of a strong asset to deploy. it's potentially the of the strongest ones that america is a proud country and quite rightly so. for example there's a big conflict in the military. when military officers sit down with people from other countries they often behave like u.s. military officers. they have an agenda, they have bullet points. i was told this by many military officers. let's get things done. the half-hour is over. let's go. in the cultural like a mac is the opposite from being effective. you need to sit down for hours and hours and patriquin was a master of this.

smoke thousands of cigarettes, drink tea, hold hands, kissed, talk about the red sox and your chicago high school and maybe in a couple of weeks people will feel comfortable to can get things done. there was a problem in iraq the military learned it and is adapting to that but i think all comes down to americans protecting themselves properly in the world. that is, steve's great assets. >> he seems like a special case. you mention his love of all things arabic. does that start with 9/11? is that how he saw his mission after that or did he always have interest in the arab world? >> he was kind of an oddball. i mean that in a positive way. he was not high and tight. he was sort of stocky pity he didn't miss many meals.

he was a red blood meat eating republican leading special forces support soldier. this is not a marshmallow by any means. but he saw the arabic culture as a sense of endless fascination and he loved the mythologies since a child he saw the world in very heroic kind of terms, and he's all islam as a sort of endless fascination. he had a koran with the original arabic. there is a picture in my book if you look easily to the cut the work desk and you will see the one he picked up in jordan ten or eight years earlier that his hour original arabic. he insisted of finding one and a provision also you could study it and understand the full and accurate picture of islam and an excerpt from the koran. he hated the radical islamists

who were conspiring to kill you and i in our homes. he understood the threat, but he realized authentic islam was potentially the greatest ally if they took the time to understand it and have the courtesy for example. so many americans have an opinion on islam and i think they should. how about stopping by the local mosque calling ahead of time and saying to you mind if i sit in the back one day during the friday prayer i'm curious. i'm sure they would say come on in most likely and you will hear if they live next door where i've done this a number of times there's any indication he might sit in the basket that moscow occasionally and want to cry because the message is so christian and so jewish and economical about love and compassion and charity it will

blow your mind. my point is that what's develop strong opinions and let's know who the enemy is, let's have the courtesy to get off our butts and distinguish between the true enemy and the 99.9% of islam that is potentially a great ally. if we have the time to understand it. as began to form opinions. he has been called not only by you lawrence of arabia of this war how conscious was that and are there similarities to lawrence and faizal the our original in world war i and. it was inescapable. on the one hand it is potentially cheesy, overreaching and i have no desire for a little thomas or for trustees to be misperceived by history, but it is a way of starting to think about it and inescapably because

patriquin went to the remote desert in jordan to a spot if you remember lawrence of arabia the opening scenes were shot in the most spectacular interplanetary scenery we've ever seen that is where lawrence actually camped out and fought and it's where travis patriquin journey and in 1999 to sleep under the stars and coming in with the spirit of lawrence of arabia, the greatest night of his life. thus far to the co-stars are shining and patriquin thinks, and i got this from people who were with him on the roof at night and at the spot he was made your 90 years before. this is unbelievable and that is one of the many points were ejected with a bustle of bedouin culture and of arabic culture. spread was three years or two years before 9/11. how do these men, satar and patriquin now and on senior officer and a tribal plays a big

role how they do in the geopolitics? >> great question. you read about a quite rightly and the great things he accomplished. but other soldiers to be remembered from iraq and afghanistan maybe pat tallman and a handful of others there's too many names and the fact is patriquin and satar were -- because of the other sheiks had been slaughtered by al qaeda or they ran away. but like i would have done because the was such a hell hole. patriquin was put there it to alexis accident of history and they realize each other we can get things done now i speculate that's what he thought and patriquin is on record as having said where is the key to ramadi and fmr pauldrons and he might be the way to leave iraq with

some semblance of logic to the departure which is happening now in a couple of days in year after a member in 2006 they looked like hell on earth was basically opening up there and there was no chance of anything other than civil war and slaughtered. there's a different environment. the awakening happened, petraeus launched the sons of iraq program would pay former insurgents to patrol on behalf of the coalition, and all gave enough breathing room for things to not fall apart. that is a hell of an achievement it's not the creation by any means, but it's sort of turned the course. >> you are talking about the sunni awakening. what were satar's feelings about the u.s. prior to the awakening prior to meeting patriquin did he have a feeling that the u.s. or was it really patriquin who charmed him into being sort of pro-american?

>> some people was a -- some american military observers would say satar did business with al qaeda, did business with the americans and with anybody with a couple of dollars. he was a gangster, a vagabond, stickup man with a alleged killer perhaps. so, his political the theology was fungible prior to meeting patriquin, but the four members of his family had been killed by al qaeda. a lot of this is intertribal local feuding that americans will never penetrate. i certainly didn't and i don't think any american has or will. the terms we use, al qaeda, a coalition, they are all kind of in precise, but satar had a vendetta to be antial qaeda and he was very skilled in telling americans what they wanted to hear. george bush is the father of the free iraq. i want to meet with george bush and american soldiers would sort of leave the room laughing, fat

chance. he is going to meet george bush and guess what happens in september, 2007, there's a great picture of this, he sits down with george bush has almost an apartment on the conference table in america a few days later satar was killed as was patriquin, but she only achieved that dream that became very, very outspoken in the u.s. and he didn't care who wanted to come after them. come after me i'm ready. i'm a fighter. >> how did they prove to one another. >> i'm giving you observations from people in the room, the translators, such an extent in speculating, but he appeared to be a number of potential allies to patch patriquin. they hit it off in the first few meetings and they were in my

book. they are skeptical of americans coming and making promises. they had done that before and things blow up and the americans rotated out in the six months to get in a cast of characters coming in so it appears satar was skeptical at first and he wanted to test patriquin by saying can you send me a couple hundred gallons of fuel, can you send the small enclave in ramadi a few truckloads of sugar that helps to look good and she would deliver on these promises and he would have fights with his fellow americans saying it promises we have to make it happen. in the bedouin culture if you don't do what you said you were going to do, you are not a man and we can't make any promises we don't keep here said that as part of it, that was the trust that built up over couple of weeks and by november, december of 2006 a critical period of the

weakening, sheik satar and patriquin were brothers and the arbuckle tribe and when the war is over we will set you up with a wife and give you a house and all set up and he said i'm already married, thanks. he very much wanted to come back to iraq after things have stabilized. >> talk about stabilized, but is this any weakening have worked the way the bid to stabilize iraq without the surge, how important are connected with a, the surge and the weakening? >> the big picture here i think, and i don't know this i'm speculating. i think the real history of the iraq war will be written by the iraqis, but what appears to have happened is that the sunnis were so sick of al qaeda's campaign of murder, intimidation, eliminating business, preventing people from smoking and drinking, things a lot of them are delighted to do it if

america looked like, americans looked like fools because we didn't understand the difference between radical perverted islam and authentic islam and he saw the authentic is less tolerant and that is a distinction very visible in anbar province where hardly anybody wanted a radical islamic caliphate not as they define it, so the question is the big picture here was the sunnis were exhausted they were sick of al qaeda and they also had their back to the wall and they're very frightened of the central government for good reasons and iran the coming in the awakening has been betrayed to a large extent today there is a tragedy unfolding because thousands of sunni men who were waiting fighters and the sons of iraq fighters have not been of this organ to the iraqi security forces and they were unemployed

and increasingly resentful and angry and they might flip back to the radical insurgent side just for to avert dollars a month to feed their family if they were doing and the first place and that is a terrible danger we have 15,000 state department people going in iraq now. i think the number one of the should forget about those were living and figured a way of helping the weakening fighters first. it seems hard to extricate from the tribal stuff we are talking about as well how prevalent was al qaeda before the war and how did they then take control and you said they were running the supports, who was running it before the awakening. was there an actual al qaeda% acting as a major and what was wrong with al qaeda before war and after the war. >> we triet al qaeda in iraq.

we certainly didn't put the conditions that flowed out of our invasion did. that's neither here nor there because that's happened. we can't change that. certainly there were sporadic strategically insignificant context perhaps between hussein and a few al qaeda personalities that didn't really amount to much from what i can think of. but who was willing al qaeda, it was being run buy also al-zawahiri into those of six and there was a guy that followed him who was killed in think last year who actually took charge in the battle in my book personally took charge. he moved into the area, and attempted to without the awakening. a very unusual strategy for al qaeda, which was light infantry combat soldiers, dozens of soldiers launching a kind of boots on the ground attack on the tribe that was pivotal to the awakening to the day came when i hear of doing it.

the calculus might have been different if they had succeeded and all comes down to a moment in my book when travis patriquin is looking at the jumbo screen, the tribal fighters are about to get white house. our forces can't figure out who is who when they have the aircraft overhead to kill the terrorists and he says in arabic to the sheik on the ground with a satellite phone take off your shirts and waved them in the air. take off anything you've got a handkerchief, pants, shirts, that we we will be able to know who is who on the battlefield and we can help you sort this of and strike at the bad guy. they did that. the rads pop up on the screen and the battle turns into a sunni tribal joint victory with american forces and that is the high water mark. one of the high water marks of al qaeda in iraq is that they had to withdraw the strategy the field and came within an inch of succeeded by the way, and the momentum in that province in

this moment shifted in favor of the iraqi government. some get a that was patriquin who developed the strategy of having them take the shirts off is fascinating. what was his feeling about the war itself because you mentioned in some ways the american presence in iraq helped create al qaeda so what was his feeling about the war itself and about how the president was waging it. >> patriquin thought we should have gone in much stronger with a lot more special forces. many more special forces. he had a lot of problems with the way the war was prosecuted. i don't think that he saw it as his job to say publicly or even to his friends whether we should have gone into the he believed in the mission as he sought to halt iraqi eliminate terrorism and build a new nation. he very much believe in that and that was the agenda as of 2006 he believed in that. he did -- i think he voted for

bush as his mother told me, but by 2006 he realized and send an e-mail to his brother that said as long as bush is running this war we are never going to get anything accomplished. we'll never going to do anything right. and i think that he saw big mistakes made by bush, rumsfeld, chaney and brummer. of those men according to his e-mail and discussions he had he held personally responsible for mismanagement and even incompetence or flagrant incompetence in the debaathification in creating this condition he had to face in 2006. that's what i know of his review but he thought that the war could be one or at least brought down to much lower levels of violence which is what happened sinks in part to what he and his colleagues did in the iraqis in this moment. stack the awakening to me at

least seems slightly similar to the air and spurring. do you see similarities? >> you can look to the weakening and say this was a moment in the prebirth of the arab spring against the dictatorship and was al qaeda in anbar province. i don't think there's much connection between the two in that symbolism. i don't think anybody industry is looking at what happened in iraq as inspiration. i think that your smoking crack if you think somehow we facilitated the arab spurring to read something is happening in the soul and iraq is a model to no one at this point in time but it could be. i think that it is in a triumph. i think that we are leading. there may be terrible problems but iraq is a brilliant people, and everybody is afraid the wissman to go to hell and it might but i think they are going to surprise us all to this and it's interesting because just today the islamists claim to

mandate in egypt, so it is i guess still up for grabs. is their something we can do, we don't want to heavily influence again i am sure, but is their something that american -- i mean, just to speculate to you think there's something we can do that might help iraq get all the way to where we want it to go? >> i think in most cases we should stay the hell out of the politics number one, there would be a nice start. number two, when we can, for example may be in libya if things went right we could help facilitate things behind the scenes but i think the big answer to your question is a much larger spiritual question that we all should us as americans and that is for goodness sake can we try a little harder to understand the difference between the islamists and muslim brotherhood and al qaeda and can we understand the multifaceted civil war for the

mine and that's going on across the arab world today and take them time to understand it because once we start doing that i think we have a whole, we have a chance, a prayer as a nation of understanding what our future is going to be. i see it still is confessional among some politicians to tell stupid jokes about muslims. or am glad i didn't have a muslim doctor, he said last week. this is sort of acceptable to kind of play around or have an honest debate about sharia law which the governor christie said i think they're freezing he basically said its pratt read this whole discussion is crap. don't waste your time worrying that the sharia law has a chance of being imposed anywhere in the united states. in new jersey. not losing sight for a second of the danger of radical terroristic anti-islam on will call it. but the larger question is let's

get to know islam better and then we can understand the politics better and understand in many cases these people are our allies as was the case in libya. >> let's bring the death a little bit and the reaction to it? >> ridership tecum patriquin died in a convoy in 2006. he was and one of the follow-up cars. al qaeda with frequently try to hit a car in the middle a vehicle in the metal to create confusion although this might have been more of the pressure plate. he was killed and mcginn by the way was the highest ranking female marine tanabe and iraq war and the reaction was sheik satar during a few courts of track daniels and got his gun and said i will kill whoever did this and he put the word on the

street get to those who did this and they did. the iraqi said the americans picked up a couple of simple faced 18 to 20-year-old local sunni men who took $200 to plant the bomb because it was a way to get an income and they arrested them and put them in the justice system. i don't know what happened to them but the reaction among their right keys was great morning back because so many of the leaders got to know patriquin. i guess the mayor of ramadi early this year -- i siddhi remember patrick speeding he said the worked closely with him right before i became the mayor and i said well what did you think of him? and he said that man was a hero. and i said why you say that? because he gave us our freedom. i fought a that's a good enough reason. maybe it's true through the

there was mourning backend if you go across the nation of iraq with every town and city there is only one building you'll find that is named after an american and that is the iraqi police station in ramadi. it's a good sized police station with several hundred police officers every day and his name is over the door, that is travis patriquin. that's how they felt about him. >> that's amazing and i guess how you heard about the story. use it useful in article saying the iraqis mourn a mortar american. when you hear that, this is the part that interests me because i'm a fiction writer so i don't know how you go about this without making it up. but when you see that headline how do you take that interest and turn it into a book? >> i read the story about martin

fletcher in august of 07 essentially it said american soldier hills a murder. i thought that sounds spectacularly interesting. i wonder if anybody is doing more about the story. i called his family who was a terrific help with me and his wife and they said no. he loved the idea of being written about probably come and his wife said to me just make sure you get the story right, just get it right. i think what she meant is do your work. it took four years of interviewing people who knew him and sort of came into his life and fragments to try to put together. i was lucky because i found a lot of great documents share with me come his documents, other people's documents, and the only reason this book exists really is his family helping, number one, his colleagues, and number three, was defined for arabic people who work with him every day as close as you and i. and that was the translators because his arabic wasn't

perfect at all. he always need a translator behind him or next to him to catch something that he followed up or to understand a point that somebody else was saying and those men when i found them gave me the heart and soul with patriquin's story because they spend time smoking cigars in their off hours. he spent a lot of time with him and talk to them about how he felt about the air of sold and i think that is the most interesting thing to me because how often do they get to do this, get a sort of try to connect as deeply as they can with a culture like this and it happened for six to eight months with travis speed and it's an interesting snapshot of what americans can do on a world stage if we do it right. >> you in a way did that, too, connected with these people. how do you take the idea and the four years of research and craft into a story that is as readable and enjoyable as your book? >> i believe that we happen to be in an institution but now that's jeered towards great

fiction in the writers' program. and i think that the number one job of a writer of nonfiction in many cases is to kind of put a gun to your head and say meek is like as much like good fiction as you can. study -- basically to push things to the limit of the readability without violating any laws of the fact or so forth. so it's a little tricky. i've tried to do three books like that, the american insurrection the oval office and this one and the only way i can try to do it is a fighter a lot of research and that is interviewing people. and boiling out of their perspective and try to correct its. i like to read books like that, if retrain or speeding bullet. put me on the train on its going 100 miles an hour and just take me through the story through great people and events and some stories on the streets themselves. this is kind of one of them because patriquin just wrote the

story himself and i got the pieces from the people he was with. >> that's an interesting point because when his wife said do it right, tell it right if you are writing a story about someone who is naturally her look like him -- heroic how do you make it something other than the officials or me account? do you get the falls in their too? is he a complicated figure were just this symbol? >> that's an excellent point and it is a risky run in celebrating anybody. let's face it. we've lost 4400 brothers and sisters in iraq so far. there's been 100 thousands of iraqi civilians, toddlers, infants, women and children, old men, civilians standing on a market, 100,000 of them because of this war created. so all of them deserve a book. all of them deserve to be looked upon as human beings.

we need to learn, travis patriquin said this once we must learn from the mistakes of those who preceded us from those who paid for their mistakes in blood. now there's a big lesson i think. let's learn from his false. what were they. he was a lousy staff officer who hated being in the office and hated doing reports who loved the powerpoint presentations on the internet will delete could you will see a funny deutsch all but a very shrewd powerpoint with duty figures and so forth and he said i'm going to stick it the powerpoint and there won't be any numbers or pie charts. this is going to be the stick fingers and i will tell the story of a rock war and this point in time and even a general can understand. that's the kind of guy that he was. and iconoclast.

what's he other false. one of their army officer thought he was being too friendly with the iraqis and eager like a puppy dog to get into their world and he fought the context were kind of chaotic and they were over eager and therefore counter-productive and he said keep him out of my area persona non-grata. that's kind of a minority opinion that he what his people off. he got in shouting matches with some marine staff curls and the headquarters he said don't talk to satar and patriquin would say he is all we got comegys going to be the key to all of this and the battles of rage. he's a really important figure for good and the transformation in iraq and america at that point in time there's no question about it for all of his complexity.

>> it seems the committee and interesting place to stop. there is one quick thing you pointed out which is the cia i think earlier that sometimes the cia did some things right and this was a case when the cia came in for some money around and halt the iraqi police sign up thousands of recruits through the deployment of money in the shadows of all of this as a facilitator or midwife to the awakening. estimate is there a history we will remember here but the cia and their involvement in the awakening was their covert stuff that was going on that we will not likely hear about? >> there was the targeted killings night raids and targeted killings of terrorists that occurred with great frequency by the special forces

people and they were pretty effective in this environment. there was -- >> and that helped turn the opinion against al qaeda because they saw that we could be effective and stop people who were maybe making their lives more difficult? >> sure. listen, there was a death squad against al qaeda called revolutionaries of all long bar and they would go out and put masks on and do night raids on terrorists, suspected terrorists and they would kill them and put warnings in the mosques saying we are coming after you. we are going to -- we know who you are and we are coming after you. they would teach the active al qaeda, and they would adopt them against al qaeda and this gang was fought by some americans to be linked into the waiting. and the response among some of the u.s. military officers would basically don't ask to many questions. we don't want to know.

so, that went on and parallel but separately in this whole environment, and i don't know of any major mistakes the death squad made. i'm sure they did, but that helps scare the hell out of al qaeda fighters. according to al qaeda the situation report that al qaeda wrote in this period saying disorganization you could tell that they were starting to feel fear and it was new for al qaeda in 2006. it was something kind of new. they were pretty pumped up on the battlefield but this really started turning the tables and the other cia told their bosses right when this was starting to happen the sent a cable to their bosses in langley and kind of got sideways in the white house saying watch out what's happening here. it's something really important happening in on province, and that helped get washington policy makers to start paying attention to what was happening. the was the cia station chief in ramadi i believe alerting the

chain of command, and that helped focus attention on what was happening. this is before the surge. before george bush paid his allegedly perhaps courageous decisions of the tens of thousands more troops and that happened the following year. satar said why do we need all these extra american troops? god of love them, but we don't need them. they will never figure things out like we can. get us out we will do it ourselves. so he was in a sense almost antior skeptical of it. he didn't think of is the question. the big question was facilitating the sunni arab power against a qaeda and defensively against the central government. >> me be a final question. it seems like we got lucky in a way that satar was not just the 20 soprano of iraq but someone we could trust and i heard he mentioned tactic didn't to the pad to the cocaptain was able to

see that and i wonder can this lead to trouble because we did get lucky but i am thinking of george w. bush saying he could see into his soul or even a chamberlain in world war ii. i mean, you can see good in people that isn't there. so how did he know that, do you think, and this is obviously gross speculation that how do you know? how did he know that satar was trustworthy and how many people did he meet before he decided to trust satar and not maybe someone will squawks >> good question. there was no one but satar in this environment and things were such a hell hole there was no where to go but up in this environment in this time, so it was a very lucky moment for patriquin and the americans that the cards kind of wind up this way and they had in satar a roofless powerful character who could get things done in this