The SpongeBob shirt
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The SpongeBob shirt is the garment John Kiriakou was wearing at the moment Abu Zubaydah regained consciousness in a Pakistani hospital and understood that he had been captured.

How he came to be wearing it

Kiriakou had been ordered to remain at Abu Zubaydah's bedside. He says the director's office at headquarters had ordered 24/7 CIA eyes on, those, he specifies, were the exact words, which as Abu Zubaydah's handler meant he would not leave the bedside.

His relief came from a colleague he calls Amir, who had travelled from a domestic assignment specifically to help catch Abu Zubaydah. Amir took over for a while so that Kiriakou could sleep in an empty hospital bed, and on another occasion brought him clean clothes from his room at the safe house and watched the prisoner while Kiriakou changed and used the bathroom.

The shirt Amir brought was a Christmas gift from Kiriakou's children: bright red, with a large picture of SpongeBob SquarePants on the front. Kiriakou notes that it might not have been his choice, but it was the only clean shirt he had.

His own clothes were unusable. Kiriakou describes Abu Zubaydah as pumping blood out as quickly as it could be pumped in, and says the blood was on his clothing and on his skin, enough that the mosquitoes drawn through the hospital's open windows were coming for both men's blood.

The moment

What Abu Zubaydah saw on opening his one good eye, in Kiriakou's description, was a horrifying figure in a crimson SpongeBob SquarePants shirt and shower-camouflage trousers, with a look of absolute resolve on his face.

Kiriakou says it was not hard to read his mind, that the exact instant was visible at which he realised the Americans had him. His heart rate went from 120 to 220 and every monitor sounded.

A doctor and a nurse rushed in and told Kiriakou to leave. He told them he was not going anywhere. Abu Zubaydah was in ventricular fibrillation and was shocked with a crash cart; his heart rate settled between 110 and 120, and a nurse pushed Demerol into his intravenous line, putting him out again.

Kiriakou records his own reaction to that: he envied him the sleep.

See also

- Abu Zubaydah
- John Kiriakou
- Two Abu Zubaydahs
- Buzzy Krongard
