JAY ELWES
Playing in the shadows: Donald Trump has a strained relationship with the US security agencies
On December 13th 2003, John Nixon was taken out to Baghdad International Airport. It was nighttime. He arrived with a small group and together they passed assorted outbuildings until they came to a location a little way off from the main airport area. Nixon got out of the vehicle. “We were standing there waiting,” he recalls, “and then someone from the military came by and said, ‘OK. It’s your turn.’ So we walked in.” He passed down a long hallway and stopped by a door. Somebody opened it. “And there he was, sitting there,” Nixon told me. “I remember, I just couldn’t believe it was him. I thought it was going to be him, but it still struck me very hard because somehow deep in the back of my mind I thought, ‘we’re never going to find this guy.’”