Jordan's Ace Of Spies -- David Ignatius, Washington PostWhen the spy movie ends, the suave intelligence chief -- having outsmarted his enemies -- dusts off the lapels of his perfectly tailored suit and disappears into his world of illusion and control.
That's not how it ended in real life, alas, for Gen. Saad Kheir, the brilliant but emotionally wounded spymaster who headed Jordan's General Intelligence Department (GID) from 2000 to 2005. He died in a hotel room in Vienna on Wednesday of a heart attack, the official Jordanian news agency reported. He was just 56.
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My Comment: A fascinating read, but the paragraph that caught my attention was the following ....
Like many Arab intelligence services, the GID has a reputation for using brutal interrogation methods, and I'm sure that it didn't get the nickname "the fingernail factory" for nothing. But Kheir's successes in interrogation often came from a different kind of intimidation. Colleagues recall him standing behind a suspect, his voice deep with menace, as he talked of the suspect's family, friends and contacts. That was much scarier than physical violence would have been. He waited for them to break themselves, and it usually worked.
Wow .... that is so true.