Confident in building relationships with the prisoners he was tasked to interrogate, Eric Maddox, current Executive MBA (Class 45) student and decorated veteran, credits innovation in interrogation techniques for the capture of Saddam Hussein. In 2003, while assigned to a Special Operations Task Force in Iraq, Maddox conducted over 300 interrogations and collected the intelligence which directly led to the capture of Saddam Hussein. Maddox shared his experience in Iraq at Olin’s Century Club speaker series on Jan. 28, 2016.
Capturing Saddam is the inside story of Maddox’s role as an interrogator in the intelligence gathering operations that led to the capture of Saddam Hussein.
The first current student to speak at Century Club, Maddox talked about being sent to the Middle East after being trained as a Chinese Mandarin linguist. Assigned as an interrogator, Maddox quickly realized he needed to change his tactics to gather intelligence. The biggest change was becoming an excellent listener, a tool every good negotiator should have according to Maddox.
Maddox told the audience in Emerson Auditorium, that innovation can be applied to any field when you have a passion and confidence in your mission. The challenge is finding out where to change the process, or “find the pain,” the obstacle that is keeping others from changing with you.
Maddox found the obstacle to changing interrogation techniques and gathering intelligence in the Army. He utilized that information and shared it with his team. These tactics not only led to the capture of Saddam Hussein, the “Ace of Spades,” but also changed interrogation tactics used the US military.
Maddox is now integrating knowledge gained from Olin’s EMBA program into his work as a consultant to corporations, organizations, and individuals on interrogation and debriefing techniques.
Learn more about the EMBA program here.
Learn more about Eric Maddox here.
