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The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid
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About The Prisoner In His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His
Product Description In the tradition of In Cold Blood and The Executioner’s Song, this haunting, insightful, and surprisingly intimate portrait of Saddam Hussein provides “a brief, but powerful, meditation on the meaning of evil and power” (USA TODAY). The “captivating” ( Military Times) The Prisoner in His Palace invites us to take a journey with twelve young American soldiers in the summer of 2006. Shortly after being deployed to Iraq, they learn their assignment: guarding Saddam Hussein in the months before his execution. Living alongside, and caring for, their “high value detainee and regularly transporting him to his raucous trial, many of the men begin questioning some of their most basic assumptions—about the judicial process, Saddam’s character, and the morality of modern war. Although the young soldiers’ increasingly intimate conversations with the once-feared dictator never lead them to doubt his responsibility for unspeakable crimes, the men do discover surprising new layers to his psyche that run counter to the media’s portrayal of him. Woven from firsthand accounts provided by many of the American guards, government officials, interrogators, scholars, spies, lawyers, family members, and victims, The Prisoner in His Palace shows two Saddams coexisting in one person: the defiant tyrant who uses torture and murder as tools, and a shrewd but contemplative prisoner who exhibits surprising affection, dignity, and courage in the face of looming death. In this thought-provoking narrative, Saddam, known as the “man without a conscience,” gets many of those around him to examine theirs. “A singular study exhibiting both military duty and human compassion” ( Kirkus Reviews), The Prisoner in His Palace grants us “a behind-the-scenes look at history that’s nearly impossible to put down…a mesmerizing glimpse into the final moments of a brutal tyrant’s life” ( BookPage). Review "Bardenwerper deftly toggles from a nonstop supply of terror to occasional scenes of normal life throughout The Prisoner in His Palace . . . a brief, but powerful, meditation on the meaning of evil and power." — USA Today “Bardenwerper has written an exceptional debut. Coupled with his knowledge of military rules and customs, his storytelling skills—confident but never showy prose, a terrific sense of pacing—make for an enlightening piece of journalism.” —The Minneapolis Star Tribune "What ultimately emerges is how to comport oneself in the world . . . [Saddam] was condemned to hang, a grave and deserved insult in Iraqi eyes. But 'the ugliness of the old man's death'—defiled in his winding sheet, kicked and stabbed after being strangled (the drop was bungled goes the story)—disgusted The Twelve . . . This is no reverse Stockholm syndrome at play, Bardenwerper convincingly suggests, but a bracing affirmation—a great Whitmanesque hug—of human dignity in the face of all that is harrowingly wrong." —Newsday "Compelling." — New York Post "A moving account." — 5280 Magazine "Expertly examines Saddam Hussein." — Vanity Fair "Takes you inside the minds of the prisoner and his protectors, whose sole task it to guard the 'Vic,' or Very Important Criminal . . . The book is captivating . . . a study of how proximity has a propensity to be persuasive, even when the common area is a cell in the basement of a courthouse." — Military Times "A behind-the-scenes look at history that's nearly impossible to put down . . . [Intersperses] tales from Saddam's past with scenes of his final days . . . As he was being led away to his execution, Hussein thanked the twelve Americans guarding him, adding that 'they'd become "more like family to him" than any Iraqis had been.' The Prisoner in His Palace offers a mesmerizing glimpse into the final moments of a brutal tyrant's life." — Bookpage "In skin-crawling detail, Will Bardenwerper effectively captures a unique time and place in an engrossing history. A singular study exhibiting both military duty an
