Title: The CIA's Secrets on Iran, War, and What Happens Next —
Show: Truth Hurts Show
Date: 2025-10-16
URL: https://youtu.be/appqKuSX6SQ
Duration: 53:00

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[00:00] I talked to a lot of very serious Iran experts and universally they believe that Israel will attack Iran again before the 1st of December. I was in the CIA a long time. No matter who was president, literally every single time Netanyahu came to Washington, he'd say, "Please bomb Iran." And every single president said, "We're not going to bomb Iran for you." Until this one. We are in an unusually dangerous period right now. as America or >> the whole world really

[00:30] >> because there was always this line that American presidents wouldn't allow Netanyahu to cross but now we have let him cross it and the genie's out of the bottle. You can't put it back in. This something I learned early on at the agency is there is never ever plan to get out. It's easy to go in and just start people and overthrow a government. It is almost impossible to make a clean escape. Do you feel like we're headed towards like a decline as a country?

[01:00] >> Absolutely. Yes. China has changed its official policy to just sit back and watch the American government collapse on its own. >> I want to know the countries you visited that you should like. >> I've been to 72 countries. 72 countries. >> Yeah. It's the curse of speaking Arabic, my boss said. I'll tell you something. I I was in Yemen once. Yemen's a rough

[01:32] gig, right? Been there five times. It's worse every time I go. Worse than the previous time. So, I come back from Yemen. I land. It was an odd flight. I don't remember where I came from. Maybe it was London or something. And so, I arrived in the morning and I thought, I'm going to go in the office. I'm not going to tell anybody I'm there. just going to do my accounting and I'm going to go home and sleep. So, I go into into my office. I didn't say hi to anybody and my boss sees me and he's like, "Oh, hey. I didn't know you were back." And I

[02:03] said, "No, no, I'm actually not back. I just want to do my accounting and I'm going to go home and go to sleep." He goes, "Okay. Can you go to Sudan?" And I go, "Sudan? When?" 3:00. I said, "Are you kidding me? I just came. I was 1 hour from Sudan. And I go, "Why? What do you want me to do in Sudan now?" He goes, "Well, we have a walk-in and he's too sensitive and and you're the only person who speaks Arabic around here." I was like, "Damn it." I said, "Let me go home and

[02:35] take a shower and do a load of laundry and yes, I'll be on the 3:00 flight." And that was normal. >> So, you'd see your bed, but you wouldn't get to lay in your bed. >> You know what I had to do? I had to actually hire a woman, a cleaning lady, not to clean my my apartment because it was always clean, just to go in and flush my toilet once a week because I was so rarely in my apartment that it would start to smell of sewer gas. And so she would just go once a week and flush my toilet a couple of times just

[03:06] to keep it not disgusting. >> Yeah. Open the shower. >> Yeah. There was one point where where my girlfriend said, "Um, why do you have an apartment? Why don't you just get a post office box and then either stay at my place or stay in a hotel?" I said, "That's actually a good idea. I'm throwing money down the drain because I never ever sleep in my apartment." >> So, out of the 72 countries, have you ever visited Iran? >> I I I have been to Iran, not with the CIA. I left the CIA in 2005. So 2004, my

[03:41] my resignation was effective 2005. I went to one of the big four accounting firms called Deote and Touch. Now it's called Deote. And I went as the deputy director of the competitive intelligence practice, spying on our competitors and trying to steal their secrets, their corporate secrets. Tons of money. Most boring job I ever had in my life. But um I got a call one day from my very first boss at the CIA who by then was a scholar at uh Brookings and he said,

[04:13] "Hey, I got a strange call um from Paramount Studios and they wanted me to do something and I said it wasn't for me, but I've got a friend and it's definitely for him." I said, "Okay, what what do you want me to do?" So he said, "Call this woman over at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles." So I call, she's the VP for uh legal affairs. So she says, "We've gotten ourselves in

[04:43] something of a predicament." She said, "We made this movie called The Kiterunner." And I said, "Oh, I read the book, uh, Khaled Husseini." I said, "It's a masterpiece." and she said, "We made a movie based on the book, and it it aderes very strictly to the book, but there are two scenes in the movie that are objectionable to Muslims. One of them is one of the 12-year-old boys who was a star is raped by an older boy, and

[05:14] there's a scene where he's limping away from the the rape and and he's dripping blood behind him. The other scene is a boy that has been sort of taken by the Taliban and he's forced to do this homoerotic dance which is something it's part of their culture >> called bacha buazi I think. >> Exactly. Right. And so the problem is many Afghans are so um unsophisticated that they don't know the difference between real life and Hollywood make

[05:45] believe. And so they've begun threatening to kill the boys. the actors. I said, "Okay." She said, "We need somebody to go to Afghanistan and rescue these boys and get them out." I said, "Ah, I'm your guy." So, I flew to Los Angeles. They wanted me first to watch the movie. It hadn't been fully edited yet, but I watched the movie, a masterpiece. And then I met with a whole bunch of studio executives. They gave me an Intel

[06:16] SAT u satellite phone just in case, you know, the [ __ ] hit the fan and I needed a helicopter to come in and rescue me. >> And um they said, "Take as long as you need. We got to get these boys out." And I said, "I'm not going to be able just to get the boys. They're like 15 years old now. It's going to have to be families." They said, "Yes, families. Just get them get them to Dubai." I said, 'Ive got a buddy who um works with uh film studios and he does logistics mostly if you want

[06:48] to film a movie in Libya or Cuba or whatever, he'll he'll make it happen. I said, "If you don't mind engaging him, I can meet him in Dubai once I get the the families out." So, I called my boss. I said, "Hey, I want to take some uh vacation time." "Oh, what are you going to do?" I said, "Ah, nothing. I think I'm just going to relax and hang out. Oh, I'm sure I'll find something interesting to do. I fly straight to Afghanistan. And it was hard to get to Afghanistan in 2007, right? It's it's a

[07:19] country at war. So, I had to fly to Delhi and then from Delhi to Islamabad and then Islamabad to Kabell. So, I was there for two weeks. Um, I found the families. First of all, I I hired a security team on my own, which was kind of funny because I hired them from Washington. They said, "Where are you going to stay?" And I said, "I'm not sure. I'm trying to find a little guest house." And they said, "Well, the Intercontinental Hotel is the best hotel in the city. It's not great, but it's the best." And I said, "No, look, if all

[07:50] the Westerners are staying at the Intercontinental Hotel, which hotel they going to blow up?" The Intercontinent Hotel. They blew it up while I was there. Oh my god. I I was on the balcony. I was like, "Good Lord, what was that?" And then the security guy, it was this British security team mercenaries is what they were. He's like, "Stay in inside the hotel room. Close the curtains." I said, "What was that?" He said, "It was the Intercontinental Hotel." I said, "I told you. I told you they were going to blow it up." Same thing happened to me in Islamabad. The first night I was there,

[08:22] they put me in the Marriott. I said, "Are you insane? Not staying in the Marriott." They blew it up, killed 45 people, >> and you were gone. I was in a 16 room guest house called the Jackaronda Blossom where I was perfectly safe. Thank you very much. So anyway, I fly I fly there. I meet up with the security team at the airport and they had a translator. I go to the school where the kids were attending and I talked to the headmaster. Um he introduced me to the kids and then we went to their house and

[08:54] I explained I was here from the studio. They're like, "Oh, thank God." I said, the studio wants you to move to Dubai. They're like, "Okay, well, we need, you know, it's not just us four. It's, you know, grandma and grandpa and Uncle Muhammad and and Uncle Hamza and his wife and his kids." It's like, "Come on, you guys. Come on." So, finally, I called Paramount. I was like, "Look, we're talking about 27 people here. 27 people, not a one of whom had a passport." So,

[09:24] I I make an appointment, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I'm like, "Listen, I'm an American. I used to work at this place in Virginia." And they're like, "Okay, what do you need?" I said, "I need 27 passports and I need them like right now." Oh, I don't think we can do that. And I start, you know, lining up the $100 bills on the desk. And when I got to 10,000, he's like, "Okay, I think we can do it."

[16:10] a principal committee meeting. Now the principal committee is chaired by the president and the committee is made up of the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, the national security adviser, the director of the CIA. Um, and then there are a couple of hangers on like the next two people down in the National Security Council, sometimes the head of N of uh NSA and in this case the commander at the time he was called Sincet, the commander-in-chief of Central Command, General Tommy Franks. So I was George

[16:43] Tennant's noteaker. George was the director of the CIA. So the president was I don't know busy or distracted. I don't know. So Vice President Cheney uh chaired the meeting and um so it was Cheney, Connie Rice, Colin Pal, George, Tommy Franks, and then like four other lower level people. And then each of them had their own notetaker. So I was George's noteaker. We're in the DCI conference room, the director of central intelligence

[17:14] conference room. He's at the head of the conference room table. There's a little microphone in front of him and all these TV screens are arrayed in front of him. So, it's Cheny's there, Condi's there, Colin Pow's there, you know, Rumsfeld's there, everybody's in place. So, Cheney begins by asking General Franks to give the order of battle briefing. I've always all my career I've hated order of battle briefings because they are meaningless to me. They have a map and

[17:44] they're like elements of the first army corps are located in this position and that the fourth battalion of the second division are moving east and I don't care. I don't care where your little men happen to be on the map. Just fight your war and let me do the other stuff. So at the very end of it, Cheney says, "General Franks, you feeling confident?" And George is sitting at the table just like this. And Frank says his exact words. He says, "If all goes as planned,

[18:15] we can be in Tehran by August." And George very discreetly turns off his microphone and he turns and he says, "Did he say Thrron or did he say Baghdad?" And I said he said tear up and George says, "Have they lost their minds?" And then he discreetly turns the microphone back on and just does the rest of the meeting. The meeting ends, I go back to the deputy director's office. He said, "How'd the principal's briefing go?" I said, "Did you know we were going

[18:47] to invade Iran?" And he goes, "Uh, are they still talking about that? We're not going to invade Iran." He said, "These guys don't know anything about the Middle East." I said, ' Seriously, they must know nothing about history. I said, this one idiot from the NYSE, I don't want to say his name. He said, as we were closing the meeting, he says, they're going to throw flowers at us when we cross that border tomorrow. And I'm like, no, they're going to shoot us all in the head because we're invading and occupying their country. And he's

[19:18] like, we're not invading Iran. It's a fantasy that these guys have. And sure enough, we got bogged down immediately. As soon as we crossed the border, everybody just opened fire on us. >> Oh, you guys attempted? >> What? The US Army crossed the border at 6:00 a.m. >> in Iran? >> Iraq? >> Oh, Iraq? Yeah. I thought it happened to Iran. I was like, >> "No, no, no, no. We never got anywhere near Iran. No way. No way." But these idiots really believed that. I mean, this is right around the time that uh that General um

[19:51] what was his name? under under Clinton said that there was there were these seven countries. We're going to attack each one and overthrow each government. And he was right. That was the plan. Syria, Libya, Iraq, Iran. >> Egypt. >> Yeah. Not Egypt. No. >> Oh. Well, then the the Muslim Brotherhood get kicked out of >> That was later. Oh, that was eight years later. Yeah. >> Well, what do you think is going to happen with Iran? we the bombing that happened with the US bombing the the nuclear sites and then Israel and Iran

[20:22] going back and forth and there's talks that there's going to be maybe a continuation of that before December of this year >> I talked to a lot of very serious Iran experts scholars in Washington as recently as yesterday I talked to Parsey who's probably the most important Iran scholar in America and universally they believe that that Israel will attack Iran again before the 1st of December. Yes, >> I I mean they kind of have to if you look at the opportunity that they have

[20:53] to do so because you have an administration that will kind of look the other way and has given Israel the opportunity to do so. >> Yes. >> Uh so if the administration changes or the midterm elections change, that window's gone. >> It's got to happen now. >> It's got to happen fast. And also >> which is a shame. It's a shame because I'll tell you the the JCPOA, whether the Republicans liked it or not, was actually working. It was exactly the same inspection regime that we had with the Iraqis from UN Security Council uh

[21:23] resolution 986 and 1060, right? Inspectors were able to go in unannounced. There were lead seals on every site. There were cameras everywhere that were doing live feeds back to the United Nations in uh in Vienna. It was actually working. But Donald Trump pulled us out and then the Iranians started enriching uranium, not to weapons grade, but enriching it to a higher uh level than it had been enriched. And then the Israelis said, "Oh my god, they're going to build a

[21:54] bomb." despite the fact that the CIA had published three separate national intelligence estimates saying that the Iranians are not building a bomb. They're enriching slightly. So, they're keeping their options open, but they're not building a bomb. And then Netanyahu said, and this is another thing Netanyahu, I was in the CIA a long time. No matter who was president, literally every single time Netanyahu came to Washington, he'd say, "Please bomb Iran.

[22:25] Please bomb Iran. Please bomb Iran." And every single president said, "We're not going to bomb Iran for you." Until this one, >> John, what was the what was the idea though? Bomb Iran and then what? Regime change. What was the plan? >> The eventual goal of course is regime change. >> But that's very difficult with that country because it's not >> extraordinarily difficult. >> Yeah. It's not one person. It's it's embedded in the entire >> I mentioned to you offline that as much as I hate and disagree with everything that Hillary Clinton stands for and has

[22:55] said, she did say one thing about Iran that she was exactly right about. She said Iran is actually not a theocracy. Iran is a military dictatorship. It's not run by the Ayatollas. It's run by the IRGC and that makes it more dangerous. >> Doesn't the Ayatollah control the IRGC? technically but on a day-to-day day basis not not really no not anymore 100% absolutely >> nomen died >> under Humeni >> oh yeah

[23:25] >> yes he absolutely did under not really it's really not in his baywick >> Mhm. So if Israel were to attack what do you think their game plan is? Um I mean it would have to be through ground forces mainly because that's what >> which would be impossible. country's too big, too many people, too mountainous. >> Well, no, I didn't mean I didn't mean Yeah, I agree with you. I don't think ground force as in troops going in, but I think indirectly covertly maybe going into the country or they're already MSA's already country. Yeah,

[23:55] >> they're already there picking off nuclear scientists and generals all over the country. And the the Israelis have been very very successful in recruiting Afghan illegal aliens, >> which all the Afghans got deported after this war, right? Did they like with lightning speed too? >> They rounded up all the Afghans in the country and just deported I think it was like one one week. >> Thousands of them. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. In one week everybody's expelled. >> Yeah. Just complete. Whether you're >> because there is no refugee program in Iran. These people are literally

[24:26] starving. They're on the street corners begging for food, begging for clothing. And then the Israelis say, "Hey, you know, we'll give you 50 bucks if you tell us where the general lives." And they're like, "Yeah, he lives right there. Here's $50. Huh. That's That's a good investment if you're Israel. >> Yeah. I mean, that's great intel >> for pennies on the dollar. >> Yeah. >> So, what do you think that's going to what's going to happen there if Israel attacks? I think we are in an unusually dangerous period right now >> as America or >> the whole world really got it

[24:57] >> because you know there was always this line that American presidents wouldn't allow Netanyahu to cross but now we have let him cross it and the genie's out of the bottle. You can't put it back in. And so what does it mean? We bombed Iran on behalf of the Israelis because we had these bunker buster bombs, the 30,000 MOABs, right? Mother of all bombs. And um at least that's what we called them

[25:28] at the agency. And um the Israelis have concluded that no, that's not good enough. We didn't destroy all the underground facilities. They were deeper than we thought they were. And so we have to use more or bigger or nuclear. And we can't just doing keep doing these pin pricks. We have to overthrow the entire government. You can't overthrow the entire government. It's decentralized. It's just simply not possible. And see, this is a beef I had with American war planners, too. This is something I learned early on at the

[25:58] agency is there is never ever a plan to get out. Right? It's easy to go in and just start killing people and overthrow a government. It is almost impossible to make a clean escape. And then what do you do then? and you're in Iraq for 20 years and you're in Afghanistan for 20 years and you have 10,000 people dead and then what do you do? You've killed 2 million people over there. >> Iran's a little different because you got 90 million population. It's huge. >> You have the terrain. The education level is different than Afghanistan.

[26:31] >> That's right. It's a sophisticated society. They're highly educated and they're patriotic. Even if they don't like the Ayatollas, they love their country. Nobody wants to be invaded and occupied by a foreign power. >> Iranians are very pro-America. Actual people are very pro-America. >> But yeah, but to your point, if they get attacked, then they have no choice but to >> they have to fight. >> Yeah. >> Plus, you know, one of the things that we as a country seem to not take into consideration is what are the reactions

[27:01] going to be from Russia and China? They're not just going to sit there and twiddle their thumbs and watch us invade, you know, Iran. Well, Russia's kind of bogged down with Ukraine and I think China, >> but they're winning. And the Russians have not gone so far as to say that Iran falls under their nuclear umbrella. They could. >> Yeah, >> they haven't yet, but they're actually winning in Ukraine. If they wanted to divert troops to protect the Iranians, that would only take a week or two. But hasn't history shown that when a country

[27:33] fights at two borders or two different wars, they they fall? >> Yeah. But what I'm saying is if they wanted to just declare victory in Ukraine and go home, just do a blitz. >> They could just do that right now. Yeah. Cuz what do the Russians want in Ukraine? They want Donetskin Luhansk, >> which they have. >> Which they have. They want the Crimea, which they also have. >> Yeah. >> The rest is gravy. I would think if that were to happen, that scenario were to happen, then China would just go after Taiwan and just take Taiwan because they would know. >> See, and and I don't I'm probably in the

[28:07] minority on that, but the Chinese actually don't have a history of imperialism. They they fought a little border skirmish with North Vietnam in the 70s. They've fought two little skirmishes with India over the years, most recently a year ago. just little, you know, shots across the border. Tibet, of course, they invaded and occupied. That's different. The Chinese have one foreign military base and as nuts as it sounds, they share it with us. It's in Djibouti. I've been there.

[28:37] Camp Lemonet. When the >> Where haven't you? >> I know. The when the French pulled out, they just abandoned Camp Lemonet. And the Djiboutians asked us, "You want this?" And we said, "Yeah, it's 16 miles from Yemen. Sure, we'll take it." And then the Chinese is like, "Yeah, we'll take some, too." So there's literally a chainlick fence right down the middle. And on the right side is the Americans and on the left side is the Chinese. That's the only Chinese military base in the world outside of China. So it's not like they're imperialists. And the Chinese, you know, we're really the ones

[29:09] who lead the charge saying that the Chinese are always on the brink of invading Taiwan. Even the Taiwan government doesn't believe that's the case. >> Well, I mean, China doesn't recognize Taiwan. They're all Chinese. >> No, they're all Chinese. All Chinese citizens, they all have Chinese. >> Eventually, they'll be reunited. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. The Chinese have never said reunited by force. We say it. >> I see. >> Yeah. >> That's the big difference. >> Yeah. And then, you know, we send we send the the Seventh Fleet to the South China Sea. They're like, "The Chinese are in the South China Sea." Yeah. >> Cuz we're there.

[29:39] >> Yeah. It's the South China Sea. What What would our reaction be if the Chinese brought an air aircraft carrier to the Caribbean? We'd lose our minds. So, I'm not worried about the Chinese as an offensive force. You know, there was a there was a cartoon in The Onion this week that made me laugh out loud. Um, it was about it was a bunch of Chinese guys and they were sitting like this and it said, "China has changed its official policy to just sit back and watch the American

[30:10] government collapse on its own." >> That's what it feels like. >> Yeah. >> Do you feel like we're headed towards like a decline as a country? >> Absolutely. Yes. >> You know how long? >> Yeah. We've spoken to other CIA officers. They all feel the same way. They feel like they want to move out of the country or live in another country. >> I have a Greek passport in my in my bag right there. >> Ready to go. >> I'm ready to go. And I'm going to buy real estate there early next year. >> Really? >> And all five of my kids got Greek citizenship. >> I know Andrew Bamante is talking.

[30:41] >> Yeah. >> What's his plan? Has he What has he told you? >> His plan was to leave like sooner. >> Yeah. He said by 26, like March of 26, he's planning on >> moving. I think he's going to go to Portugal. Talking about >> That's what he told me. >> Oh, he did? >> Yeah. >> He's not moving to Portugal. He's moving to Brazil. >> Okay. Wake week. >> When do you think it'll start the uptick again here? >> Well, our problem is our defense budget. We spend more than $1 trillion a year on defense and our roads are for [ __ ] and our bridges are falling into the into the rivers below them. And we should be

[31:13] ashamed of the state of our airports. And our hospitals are underfunded and our schools are underfunded. But by God, we spend a trillion plus a year on weapons. And we've so inflated the national debt that we're only a few years away from a tipping point where we're just not going to be able to pay the interest on the debt. >> Well, we can't now. We owe $37 trillion. We bring in $5 trillion into the Treasury. We spend $7 trillion and1

[31:45] trillion a year is just our interest debt. Yeah. On that 37 trillion. >> Exactly. >> I think the president what they're planning on doing, I don't know if you know this or not, but originally they were trying to lower the Treasury rates >> to refinance the loan >> to refinance the debt. Yeah. And then now I think there with the genius act that they passed was to create the stable coins was when someone sells bitcoin they have to transfer to a stable coin before they can transfer to their account. But with the Genius Act, the stable coin is supposed to be backed instead of by the

[32:15] dollar, >> right, >> by the US new cryptocurrency to be able to get a place for the Treasury to sell more of its bonds instead of to the public because they have to they have to auction every single day that new treasury. >> And this is another thing too, speaking of bonds, the Chinese are the third largest holder of US. >> Yeah. Japan's first. >> Uhhuh. And I think it's either the UK or the Netherlands that's that's second. >> Yeah, they own I think 700 billion or close to a close to a trillion dollars.

[32:46] The Chinese, >> we would crash each other's economies if we allowed that balance to tip. So we've got a vested interest in keeping the peace with the Chinese, you know? So why do we need to spend a trillion dollars a year on defense? Why? Where does it go? God knows the the Pentagon can't account for it. Price Waterhouse Coopers was brought in to do um an external audit and they gave up after three years. They were like, "We can't find where this money went. They just gave up."

[33:16] >> I think Doge kind of gave up as well. Yeah. >> They were supposed to find two trillion. I think they did 250 billion over a 10-year period, >> right? Yeah. Which is nothing. It doesn't help at all. Yeah. We're we're in a bad position right now. Can you guess based on the advancement that you saw in the CIA 20 years ago, where are they at today with DARPA, with NSA, >> with all the agencies? >> DARPA is something most Americans have never heard of, >> right? DARPA is the defense department's

[33:48] how do you even describe DARPA? It's the biggest collection of geniuses anywhere in government. These are the guys that are creating not the next generation of technology, but three generations from now kind of technology. If there are flying saucers and they're not little green men from outer space, DARPA made them. Seriously. Um, we really don't know what DARPA is working on because DARPA's work, this is this always struck me as very funny. DARPA's work is so classified

[34:19] that one DARPA scientist sitting next to another DARPA scientist has no idea what the other guy's doing. No idea what the other guy's working on. It's too highly classified. I mean, even at the CIA, we weren't cleared to know what DARPA was doing. >> Not even at your position. Yeah, I had to get a Q clearance once because I had to go to the Department of Energy to talk about a nuclear issue and nobody at DOE liked the fact that I had the clearance and I ended up having the clearance just for one day and then they

[34:52] revoked it. They're like, "It was just for the one meeting. You don't need to know anything else that we're doing." I'm like, "Okay." I signed the thing. It's like, "Okay, I'm not cleared anymore." But that's how DARPA is, too. Like these guys won't even admit that they work at DARPA. There there's a DARPA website. This is another thing that always struck me as funny. There's a DARPA website and they have pictures of scientists like, you know, working together all in bliss. These are just generic pictures of random people that you pull off the internet. These aren't DARPA people that

[35:23] are in the pictures. You can't show the DARPA people. They're too highly cleared. So, going back to Vault 7, besides driving my car off a cliff and killing me, what else can they do? >> Yeah. >> Besides the TVs, we're assuming no cell phone is protected, not even these newer high gadget. >> No, there's no such thing as a safe cell phone. >> Zero. >> I even wrote a book called uh the CIA Insiders Guide to Disappearing and Living Off the Grid. And really, the bottom line of the whole book is zero

[35:54] technology. Literally zero technology. >> Well, it's not just you as zero. It's your friend that's next to you as well. Because if he's next to you, they know your locations. It's like everyone that you talk to or >> No. I mean, you you have to go out into the woods of Utah like the uni bomber and live in a cabin. That kind of life. That's the only way you're going to be >> no car. >> No, no, no, no. Not unless you know, like I say, you you drive a car from the 60s. You know, that's the only way to keep yourself safe. No email, no

[42:38] restaurants. Anyway, so we go to the Sideshow Museum and they've got like this 9- foot tall woman, the Amazon woman, right? It's you could tell it's paperiermâché or whatever. They had a jackaloupe. You know what a jackaloupe is. And uh it's all silly stuff. But then there's this shadow box about that big and it's hanging on the wall and it has a dried out turd in it with like a grain of rice sticking out of it. And it says on the wall this was the last turd that Abraham Lincoln ever pooped. They

[43:10] said that when he arrived at Ford's Theater, he excused himself momentarily to drop a deuce in the chamber pot, which I never remembered reading, but anyway, I'm willing to go with it. And then after he was shot, one of the ushers had the presence of mind to go in and take the turd as a souvenir. And he dried out the turd. And this is the turd, Abraham Lincoln's last turd. So about six months later, I read in the Washington Post, "This little sideshow

[43:42] museum is going out of business, and they're going to sell all their holdings on eBay." And I said to my wife, "I'm buying that turd." She goes, "Oh, no, you're not." I said, "Oh, yes, I am." So, um, I took the day off work so I could be there like live as the as the turd is being auctioned. So it finally comes up and the bidding I bid like 500 or 600 or whatever. It just goes up from that. It went for thousands.

[44:13] More time passes. There's an article in the post saying a few months ago we did this article about this museum and there was this turd that was purported to be Lincoln. The guy went to eBay. He bought the turd. He sent it for a DNA test and they determined that the turd contained bits of necafer. You know what necafer is? It's this awful, awful candy that's made in Pittsburgh, but they didn't start making the necafer until like 1868 or 1872 or whatever. And

[44:44] Lincoln was killed in 1865. So this is just like some guy's turd that's been on display for 150 years. And I'm like, "Oh my god, thank God I didn't buy that turd. She would have never let me live it down." But I have other cool Lincoln stuff. >> That's really cool. >> You know, I'll tell you another one of the the big Lincoln collectors in America is Conan O'Brien. He's at every one of the auctions just out bidding everybody. And I saw him in a

[45:14] documentary the other day, a Lincoln memorabilia documentary, and he said that he the the first big ticket item that he bought was a pardon. Lincoln used to stay awake at night by candlelight pardoning deserters because he said no man should lose his life because he was a coward. So if you just run away because you're afraid of fighting, you got a pardon. And so these pardons are out there and they generally go for like between $12,000 and $20,000.

[45:48] And so he bought a pardon and it's framed and it's in his bedroom. And the interviewer said, "Why do you have it hanging in your bedroom?" And he said, "Because I so love and respect Abraham Lincoln, I want it to be the first thing I see every morning when I wake up." I thought that was pretty cool. >> That is pretty cool. >> Yeah. Which agency has the like what skill set do each agencies have like Mossad or um the CIA like who has the best >> where are their strengths at?

[46:18] >> It really varies. There are a lot of very bad intelligence services out there. The Israel is the best just because they have to be the best, right? Because they have nowhere to go. The Mediterranean, that's it. It's either win or or die. So they they really are the best. The Russians are good. The Chinese are good. The Cubans are amazing. >> Good in what sense? >> Good in that set. >> They're very very accomplished in counterintelligence. I wish there was there's stuff I'd love

[46:50] to tell you that I I am not allowed to, >> but they're very very good at counter intelligence. And um and then there are some like the British. I remember one boss that I had. I was getting ready to go to London because I was doing a joint operation with MI6 and um he said, "Man, I I wish I was young again. I'd love to do what you're doing right now." I said, "I I I love it so much. I love London. I spent the happiest year of my life in London." And I said, "The Brits are just such good guys." And after the OP is over, we

[47:20] always go out and drink until 2:00 in the morning and tell lies to each other and stuff like that. So he said, "You know, the thing I've always admired about the Brits is that if they want to do something, by God, they just go out and do it. For us, we have to write a memo and then it's six layers of bureaucracy. They have to approve the memo and then it goes to the general counsel, then it goes to the oversight committee, and then by the time you get approval, the thing's passed and it's been overtaken by events." He said, "Man, the Brits want to go out and do

[47:50] something." They just say, "I'm gonna go out and do this." And they go out and do it. But I said that to the Brits one time and they said, "Oh, that's funny because we all say we wish we had the CIA's money." I said, "That's true. Nobody can touch the money that we have." Yeah. It's incredible how much money we had. >> The countries that you visited under an alias, if they have your pictures and your thumb fingerprints, you can never go back now. >> No. See, >> a secret identity is going to pop up.

[48:21] >> Yeah. I mean, I never had to be fingerprinted or anything, but but yeah, I left in 2004. Today, I don't have any idea how these guys get the job done. I I genuinely don't understand how they're able to cross borders, especially in alias on fake passports because AI is going to detect it. >> That's true. >> So, what do what do they do? How do they work? I have no idea. >> Your makeup artist? >> No, it's still your thumb prints, your eyes, >> right? And in places like, you know,

[48:51] Australia, I mean, we don't spy on the Australians because they're five eyes, but they take they take fingerprints in Australia. >> How are um Australia, New Zealand, >> UK? >> UK five eyes, but like Germany, France, these these allies are not part of the Five Eyes. >> No, I mean, the truth is they're our closest Englishspeaking allies. >> Okay. >> That's really what it comes down to. Yeah. Well, we're not even that close to the Canadians and New Zealanders, but

[49:22] they speak English and they're part of the Commonwealth. So, yeah, that's the I've often wondered that, too, because we're really, really close with some countries like Norway. I remember the deputy director joking that Norway was going to become the 51st state. If there ever was a 51st state, wouldn't be Puerto Rico, it's going to be Norway. Is there any more Pakistan stories that we want to get into? >> The whole Abu Zabeta story is like the biggest story of my career. But he's talked about it before >> millions and millions of times. >> Do you have a different version of it or

[49:53] some other things that you >> No, it's all pretty straightforward. Um, >> do you have a picture of Bin Laden? >> No, I have lots of pictures of Abu Zuba and his buddies after we shot him. >> He's so young. >> He was 27. And I said to him, >> "What is Are you in a car?" >> We threw him in the back of a pickup truck to take him to the hospital. The [ __ ] Pakistanis. I said, "Do not shoot him." >> And the guy's like, >> it's like, "You [ __ ] [ __ ] Did I

[50:23] not say do not shoot him?" >> I think he interpreted as shoot. >> Oh, these guys, these Pakistanis. Oh my god. >> So, the mask comes off and then after Pakistan, where do you end up going? Well, the the biggest the biggest success that I had in Pakistan was the Abuza Beta capture, which I've talked about a million times, but it was so important in my career. I I got a medal. I got a promotion. I got a my own handshake with the director. And so, I

[50:55] went back to headquarters um as the executive assistant to the CIA's deputy director for operations. very big deal because the executive assistants have access to literally everything that the CIA is doing all around the world. You're read into more compartments than you can shake a stick at. And I went back on my first day and I said to the deputy director, I said, "So now what do we do?" And he says, "Uh, actually, I can't tell you. You

[51:27] have to go up to security. They have a bunch of secrecy agreements for you to sign. sign those, come back down and we'll talk. So I said, "Okay." So I went uh I went up to security. They were waiting for me. They had six secrecy documents, secrecy agreements laid out on the table. And uh so I signed each one and I said to the guy who I knew, I had known for a long time. I said, "So what's up?" And he goes like this. "Well, next year we're going to invade Iraq.

[51:59] We're going to overthrow Saddam Hussein. We're going to open the world's largest air force base. And we're going to move all of our air assets out of Saudi Arabia into Iraq to deprive Osama bin Laden of the ability to say that we are polluting the land of the two holy mosques. And I was dumbfounded. And I said, "Are you kidding me? We haven't caught bin Laden yet?" And I just thought, you know, perhaps naively, that post 911, everybody had to drop

[52:31] everything that they were doing and find Osama bin Laden. And he said, "Buddy, the battle lines have already been drawn and the decision has already been made." And he said the pro-invasion side is OVP, the Office of the Vice President, OSD, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the National Security Council. And the anti-war faction is the CIA, the State Department, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He said, "But the decisions been made, and we have to fall into line." I

[53:03] was just flabbergasted. So, I go back downstairs and the director said, "Uh, or the deputy director said, "Uh, so you read in and I said, "Are they out of their minds?" And he said, "Yeah, they're out of their minds, but we have a job to do." And so that day, we began to plan the invasion of Iraq. What year was this? 2002. It was a full year before we invaded Iraq that we we did the planning.

[53:33] >> That's a lot of planning. Yeah, it's a lot of planning, a lot of fingerpointing.
