As he waded through a pile of prisoner interrogations hand-written in Arabic during the Gulf War, Lt. Col. Rick Francona's eye stopped at a startling claim made by one of the captured Iraqi soldiers: he had helped seize a team of American journalists.

     Francona, an Air Force intelligence officer and lead military translator, asked to have the Iraqi sergeant brought in for further questioning. Soon, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf was on the phone with the president of CBS news, informing him that the military had reason to believe correspondent Bob Simon, missing for weeks, was still alive.

     CBS went with a story almost immediately, quoting "Department of Defense sources" as saying that Simon was alive and being held prisoner in Baghdad … putting Iraqi President Saddam Hussein on notice that the United States knew Simon was alive and wanted him to stay that way.

     "We may never know what plans [the Iraqis] had for Simon or what, if any, difference the public announcement had made. He was later released unharmed," Francona writes in his new book, "Ally to Adversary," revealing his own role in the Simon affair.

     Now retired, Francona provides an interesting firsthand account of Operation Desert Storm filled with insights into intelligence operations, the tricky business of Arabic-to-English translation and Schwarzkopf's demanding, out-sized personality.

     Francona's best anecdote, however, involves his role as translator during Schwarzkopf's negotiations with the Iraqis at the end of the war:

     "Good morning, sir," Francona tells an arriving Iraqi general. "I am Major Francona from General Schwarzkopf's staff. If you will step out of the car, I will take you to meet the general, and we can begin."

     The Iraqi just sits there, glowering. So Francona, agitated by his recalcitrance, leans in closer and says, in Arabic slang, "Get out of the car, [expletive]." The negotiations with Schwarzkopf began shortly thereafter.