april 26 to may 1 in the north tikrit where the republican guard corp. was. they completely faded away. many of the fights we had at that late stage of the game were spotty meaning that they were in civilian clothes trying to steal armory weaponry and get it out of there and we had a couple of clashes that were related to republican guard soldiers trying to make off with weapons from the area. the army disbanded it so this notion somehow that there was going to be formal surrenders and lines of german troops and the conference and they would have big surrenders that was never even a remote possibility to begin with. >> host: how long were you in iraq's? >> guest: i was in iraq for a

year from 2003 to 2004. >> host: what month of 2003? >> guest: i got there in may and i left in april. >> host: why do you refer to to the special ops guys as -- >> guest: many of these guys are still serving and i don't want to give away their identities. some i was able to on the conventional side. the folks on the unconventional side have been respectful to them and they have been respectful to me. the book really tells that relationship between the conventional and unconventional and how we operate together and it wasn't necessarily by design. like i said it was by geography and we worked very well and closely together. >> host: congressman russell you recount in "we got him" your conversation with paul wolfowitz.

what did you tell him? >> guest: well he came to look at some of the afghan training efforts. secretary rumsfeld have asked that we train the iraqi army. i have had great experience in that area was training the afghan national army and was on the initial mission of that in february 2002 very early on in the afghan war. so i was used to dealing with tribes, dealing with setting when it's hard to vet people and all of those things. i had an adaptation of a national plan put down in a microcosm for our area of operations and became very successful very quick way. we never had any infiltration with our iraqis that we hired because i did it through the tribal chieftains. we just said look you are complaining about not having jobs, we have got jobs and we'll train you.

what ultimately ended up happening is they were clamoring to look for success stories for this iraqi training effort is a part of national policy and tag we were it. we were one of the early success stories so mr. wolfowitz came to our area and he looked at the training and it was was on robo-call james bond island. it was the resort island in the middle of the tigris which is part of our area. it was remote and it was one access point to is perfect for doing training. he came out there and he looked at the training and was impressed with our work and was impressed with the standards and then we got to the big discussion that late summer was troop strength in sending troops eric shinseki early on said we needed hundreds of thousands of troops going in and everybody scoffed at him but he was right.

later was the big argument how many do we send? secretary rumsfeld wanted to do it on the lean side. we didn't agree with that. i certainly didn't in afghanistan and i certainly didn't agree with that in iraq. why? because early on you have to establish not only a military dominance but a moral dominance. the most humane thing you can do in wars to get it done. you can't do that with tying your hands behind your back playing nice overtime thinking that that's somehow going to be a solution. so we needed troops early on to gain control. i was not only the military commander in charge of the city of tikrit but i was everything. i was there law and order and i kept their public works going and kept their police force going, everything. you really had to have more troops. when he asked me, he said you

have enough troops and that was kind of political question. it would be and easy like so many to say well we have enough troops to do the job blob, blob, blob and i said to him literally i said is not a question of do we have not troops to do our mission i said is what mission do you want to get done? i say because we will have to adjust their mission down by lack of troops. i said yes we need more troops. they said we are not doing things because we don't have the troops and i said we definitely need more troops, which at the time a mid-level commander between the tactical and operational level of course the field commanders are going to want more troops and it was kind of dismissed and not necessarily by wolfowitz did senior leaders in washington but he certainly heard it from a ground combat commander who had seen quite a bit of action. that time we were getting a lot of the action in iraq and the

sunni tribal. >> host: you said he heard it. was there a result from that? >> guest: he appreciated my candor and he said thank you for being open and honest with me. he said i don't always get those frank answer so he appreciated that. what became of that i don't know i know general odierno was doing everything he could ask her mission commander at the time to provide us with adequate forces but we had what we had. >> host: after the day that saddam hussein was captured where was he taken? >> guest: that night he was flown by a pilot that i will called bb by a helicopter. he was taken in tikrit in a farouk palace complex that sat on the tigris river. >> host: is this one of his

former palaces? >> guest: it was which is kind of ironic. the special ops teams belonged to john and they had their own area sequestered off with barb wire and he was taken and held their that night. some of the other team members also came to that location. they were probably realistic way the maybe 75 of us that might that knew what had happened. saddam was held there in great secrecy. colonel hickey was very busy at notifying on the commander but also breaking it down. he led -- let general odierno know almost immediately that we had gotten him. john's team with the other teams consolidated the water palace and it was really how do you secure to get him from there to baghdad and then how do you keep it all secret? we as the field commanders were

under strict instructions to cut off communications to the extent that we could and wait for further instructions and to keep it secret treaty did want a reporter breaking the news and on the president not even being notified yet so when colonel hickey talk to me the night of the raid he just said this is going to take some time. the president has got to be notified and it's going to take some time and i said i understand the importance. so that's essentially what happened. there was an image 53 a big sigh karski special operations helicopter. during the raid had the field surgeon on board and ultimately that was the vehicle that saddam was looked on but they needed an air force escort as well. he didn't want to take any chances so he was taken to that and he was flown back to baghdad with the flight surgeon for

special ops surgeon who spent the first night with him in the tank and said he was very chatty he actually wrote a short book about his experience talking to saddam hussein that first night. his name is mark and so that was how saddam got to baghdad and the next morning after the president had been officially notified in the chain of command had a chance to react it was broken out on the press conference by bremer. >> host: what is this brick over your shoulder? >> guest: that is a brick from saddam's home. he had palaces everywhere but his actual physical residence where mrs. hussein and he lived within his birth village. we occupied it early on in may of 2003. my soldiers swam in saddam's pool early on and had water in

it. we all brought home some adjusting souvenirs from the home. i have bohemian crystal from mrs. hussein's cupboard. notice and mrs. russell's cupboard. we used it as an observation post. it'd taken two hits from j. and m. missiles, rearrange the furniture in the cabinetry quite a bit but it was overengineered in the structure still stood so we stay there. we did want the building to become a shrine to saddam later. i ordered it be constructed and propose to have salvage crews come in and take it apart by brick and use the material in salvage it out. that's one of the breaks. every brick in the home was a hand cut piece of italian marble the wealth and saddam's personal home was unbelievable and so one

day as i walked by it was getting late at the mission and i knew we were going to be going home before too long. >> host: you talk about the crystal. what are the rules of taking something like that? >> guest: the rules largely where we gave specific instructions to our soldiers that anything that was museum related antiquities anything like that was absolutely hands-off. armed combatants and enemies that you fight are different story. we brought back uniforms. i have a uniform of saddam's one of only two that i'm aware of in the country. on display at the oklahoma history center in a hama city. i think the other one is on display in florida. i'm not aware of any others.

i have a lot of other interesting things but they were all related to the people we were fighting in a wizardly chew that we are fighting saddam and his henchmen during the hunt. >> host: "we got him" is the name of the book a memoir of the hunt and capture of saddam hussein. congressman steve russell republican from oklahoma is the author. what is it like working on the armed services committee working with the military from the side being a congressman? >> guest: i never would have imagined i would be doing this number one. i mean the events surrounding saddam's hunt and capture literally alter the course of my life as it did many others. i did not everything that i i would be sitting here as a congressman on the house armed services committee listening to to the secretary of defense at the chairman of the joint chiefs gives briefings which was interesting but it does give me

great insight. for example in just the last 48 hours we have had very important briefs on strategy in the middle east or threats around the world and it's just so easy for me to relate to these discussions and also provide military questions and insight to the situation having lived it and it also gives me a very sober mind because no one loves peace more than those of us who have provided for our country and you don't want to make bad decisions. you don't want people to misread threats or create new ones that we might have been able to reach out to diplomatic way. i've been on the receiving end of foreign

you can follow us on twitter. thank you for being with us. would you be saying some of the things you had said if you are so on now? pee dee absolutely darlington as our member of the republican leadership what kind of why did you have to walk between partisanship and what you consider to be the correct way to go. >> i have always been one who, if i disagreed with the

leadership, even when i was in the leadership, i did something else. the idea the idea that when you are in the house you must go along is nonsense. all you have to do is be yourself. >> host: one of the things you talk about in your book the party versus the people. >> guest: thank you for holding it up so that they can see it. >> host: the open rule and filibuster in the senate, why is it important and how has it changed? >> guest: the idea originally was the purpose of congress was to be a great deliberating organization. you had complex issues that you would talk about, bring bills to the floor and offer amendments to make them better. the the house where they don't use roberts rules of order, they have their own rules, open rule means, here is the bill, what are your amendments, let's hear them, let's submit them.

closed rule which has become more and more common over the years is that here is the bill. the leadership is bring it forward. take it or leave it. and the result is it shuts down debate, shutdown alternatives and makes people vote for too much or too little and does not allow you to work to legislation. the filibuster serves a useful purpose because if you see that your colleagues are getting ready to do something that is unconstitutional, that you think is bad, you can tie things up and say, don't go there. you can let the american people hear the argument and making contact the senators. what has happened is it has become something of the new all the time. it used to be very rare that you would have a filibuster. now you don't even have to sit or stand on the floor, talk about the issue, you can just send a note to the majority leader and say consider is a filibuster and it brings everything else to a halt.

>> he reports that when you 1st started in congress 70 percent of the legislation was be a open rule down to about 13 percent, particularly for the major built. again, going back, if you were in the republican leadership in the majority, would you have encouraged bringing, let's say, an immigration bill to the floor under an open rule? >> absolutely i would have come although i must say that it is self-serving by telling you what i think because i think because every single they are serving congress i was in the minority. we had no say. i believe in open rules. i believe in allowing people one reason i am so strongly against fast-track trade authority was the president is pushing for, you have trade agreements that affect working conditions for americans or whatever else and you are saying to the congress, this is our

legislative branch, you are not allowed to change it, take it or leave it. i it. i was always for open rules and everything. i'm going to a few of congress and 93 where did you go? >> guest: i went to teach. i taught for 11 years at harvard. i went and taught at princeton. now the vice president of the aspen institute.

they may just taken the the clock is off the left and then there's the big that they can move it around the impound lot they do that you argue it as well as he could. at the end of the process suited a conference committee or some other way and let's get together. we met to keep the bridges from collapsing. that is what is missing today. people unwilling to compromise because of our party primary systems, but it was just different. the problems that existed they were not nearly the same. >> host: ferndale michigan. >> caller: good afternoon, congressman. i just talked about the primary process. would you agree that the primary process is broken because they do not allow equal opportunity for all of the 3rd parties that exist here in the country to

the.that we are living a democracy by not allowing equal voices in the primaries. >> it is worse than that. that. what happens now is in 46 date you have what is called the sore loser law. even if you would have been the person the majority of voters in the state would have preferred, you are not allowed to be on the ballot because several of the nomination and the endorsement gets to be the only person. what i favor his were california digital washington state did, to have open primaries where every candidate for the same office is on the same ballot and every voter regardless of how they are registered or not can vote in every election. >> host: we are talking with former congressman edwards. edwards. how to turn republicans and democrats into americans.

jack in new york city, please go ahead. >> caller: good afternoon. this is jack calling. my question my question is all this talk about limiting money and the people who currently run the system, i think it would be a good idea to limit the number of terms that the congressional representative can have. what are what are your thoughts on that as well, sir? >> guest: well, we actually do that. we make everyone have a charm in the future years and they are out of office and was the voters say we we will send you back. so the voters of the best term limit mechanism. there is a lot of turnover in congress in both parties. some people stay a long time , but there is enough turnover. the turnover is not the problem. what will be worse.

>> host: your assessment of the 1st 50 days of the 114th congress? >> i was helpful that after the election the leaders in both parties were talking about getting together, but nothing is changed. it it is just as party line, both parties equally guilty. why are we allowing this great democracy of ours to function as though is a football league? the nfl, the for the cowboys against the eagles every week instead of let sit down together.

doesn't mean they're not good, well, honest americans who care about the country. they are in a system that pits people against each other for party advantage rather than working as americans in common. >> host: next caller right here in tucson. >> caller: will we here about dark money usually associated with the american public, can you talk about the dark money that is also alive and well in the party? are a lot of words like right wing come up palm, ryan, heritage foundation, but i heard nothing about palm sire and what he is doing in funneling money to democratic party. i wanted the listeners to walk away that this is not just a republican conservative problem but also happening and the democrat problem. >> guest: bless you. before you.

before you use his name i was going to use it. we have all this corporate money that comes into the election. you also have labor union money. the labor union money is even worse because you are spending money from people who don't want to be contributing only members of the union. they are forced to contribute. it is against their we will. there is a serious dark money problem, problem, serious problem with all the wealth that pours into these campaigns, but it is a a problem of the system, not of democrats or republicans. the people on the liberal side like to say if republicans were just saying it would end the problem. you are absolutely right. it comes from both sides. >> caller: from -- >> host: from rhode

island. hello? .-dot think she's here. we will move on. >> guest: probably covered by snow. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. congressman, i am happy to talk to you. a great panel. i just noticed that i have two comments now that i nevertheless, talk about the emphasis on dark money and all of this being referred to as republican which, which, of course, it is not. you are calling from a university. my question has to do with i thought that at some.there was a rule having to do with congress people, either senators or legislators for staff having restrictions placed upon them as to how long they could -- they must

wait before they became a lobbyist. >> guest: that is still the case. i do not remember whether it is one or two years, but you are not allowed to just go immediately from congress into a lobbying job. some people get around it. what they do is go to work for a firmware what they are doing is giving internal advice about how to do something and later they move into lobbying, but that rule is still in effect after one why did you retire? >> guest: i get mad because the voters gave more votes to the other guy. the republican primary. >> host: what was the issue? >> guest: there was an orthodoxy, term limits, line-item veto. i me.

it did not always go over well. i was offered a position as a lobbyist. never made any money my life. i did not want to do it. it. i believe in lobbying. it is constitutionally protected. i did not want to be in a position of calling on people i had just worked with, my colleagues, trying to get them to do something. i thought it was demeaning to me. >> host: as a freshman congressman what kind of pressure did you get to go along, get along, whatever? >> guest: the kind of pressure you beget, when i was in the leadership i was on these committees at the side of what committee assignment you might get. and i would see where

somebody would say we're not going to let you be on this committee unless you promise in advance that you will vote with us all which i never would have done. you know, the most important thing, thing, to words for every member of congress to learn is when the lighters to your leadership either party start leaning on than just say, stick it. you can't take away my seat, my parking place, my salary, my office. stick it. i was elected by the people to do what i thought was right and represent them. that is what i do. >> host: paul and lincoln, michigan. you are on with mickey edwards. >> caller: thank you. two questions actually. why can we not limit the amount of money that is the same for everybody command that way take away all of this i have money like jeb

bush made the remark that he already has enough money to win the election, why wouldn't we want to go out and vote of all it takes is his money? and the other thing is, wouldn't this have to go back to one vote for one person and do away with the electoral college? >> guest: 1st of all, i don't take what jeb says seriously because it having a lot of money is all it took to win an election you would be asking me questions about president romney. he has raised a lot of money. the supreme court in citizens united in other cases has made it impossible to live in for contributions. so it might be that you want the same kind of money going to each

of the candidates but the sprinkler said you can't do that, you can't limit speech. they say that intervening money is the same as speech so one of the people on the panel made the comment in order to write a paragraph. i don't remember enough about mccain-feingold. are you need is a way that have transparency. when i was in office, i cannot take corporate money, i had everything reportable, everything limited, it was a thousand dollars. that is what we need to go back to.

but i propose in i propose in my book is no batteries know pac money, no political party mode. >> lawrence calling in from millwall, pennsylvania. >> caller: high. i want to refer to last question during the panel, i think that we all should go back and read a great deal of his essays. what a great american. congressman edwards, you were in congress, i believe, congress, i believe, during the insanity of the nixon and reagan drug war, and now we have the biggest mess in our history. what would you suggest on how to get a way out of this just absolutely ridiculous thing that has been going on for 70 years? >> well, i was not there during the nixon years, but i was there during the reagan years. i think that there is a

movement away from having criminal penalties. penalties. it is not just colorado. dc is doing it. there is a movement toward an openness either by making whatever drug use penalties there are less or legalizing it, as colorado. i am kind of libertarian. he had it at the federal government is going to tell us or state government everything that we can cannot do is just appalling to me. and we have really run up the cost of government -- >> host: we often appear chris matthews talk about how to polio and ronald reagan could fight all day and have a drink at 5:00 o'clock.

was that your experience during the reagan years? >> guest: yes. i was close to reagan. someone complement someone complement to me the other day, and i kind of decline the comment. they said, well, you tend to be not very ideological. that is what you are able to work across the aisle, right? aisle, right? i said, well, thank you, but it was not me.

>> host: calling from the central. >> caller: comments, what you said the polarization. this is from my own personal view. you. don't you think that the left is pushed everything, whatever people have said about the right they're been consistent. because back to how he

corresponded with the congressman about 30 years ago or so during the continental illinois scandal. ridding tradition of corruption and crime i was a one-man show lobbying on the hill trying to warn of the banks collapse. i i had the opportunity to meet with members of the banking community, the staff was. was kind. they gave me reports. very kind lipservice. that fell on deaf ears. he continued. ears. he continued. i went to my senators office, dixon. >> host: i apologize. bring this to a conclusion. >> caller: okay. my question here is, this environment we are talking

about, this has been in the making for 30 years. a lot of this involved from the campaign-finance reform post- watergate? >> guest: people they give home loans to come alone money to come i mean, the relationships and banking industry very, very important. it was a terrible mistake. i can deal with everything you asked, but that seemed to be a central part of it. >> host: georgian san francisco, please go ahead.

>> caller: hello, mr. edwards. i have a theory a theory that i have been working on for a long time. it is not a conspiracy theory, and i would like to hear your opinion on it. i i think that all of these problems stem from one single source, and that is that there is a big a big war going on between the ultra rich and everybody else. the very rich have plenty of money to lead the discussion they only allow people in power who will not talk about it, you know, like it is hard to convince a person who is -- who has an income that depends on something to talk against it. do you believe there is any truth to the battle between the ultra rich and everyone else? >> host: thank you, sir. >> guest: i think that oversimplifies it because i have a lot of good friends

who are very wealthy, multimillionaires who are totally against what is happening in politics, reformers, trying to change things. they acted in very bipartisan ways. i think you have oversimplified. after one last call from mickey edwards. >> guest: would you comment on the 47 republican senators 47 republican senators signed and that this will ultimately hurt the republican party? >> host: what do you think, phyllis? >> caller: i think it is treasonous. >> host: thank you, ma'am. >> guest: it is not treasonous. it is completely nonsense. but i think it was stupid if you wanted to send a letter saying what the agreement

sugar should not be, we should do is communicated to the president, the american people, not to the iranians command secondly there was in place an agreement where you had a lot of democrats and republicans coming together to insist that the president submit this to the congress for approval. by having by having a completely partisan letter signed by only members of one party, it appears that. it was not treasonous. it was not was not unconstitutional, but it was just stupid. >> host: here is the book, the parties versus the people.