Title: Ex-CIA Agent Kiriakou: The U.S. Was Waiting for India to Att
Show: ANI News
Date: 2025-10-25
URL: https://youtu.be/7e8WruFn070
Duration: 18:00

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[00:00] India showed restraint after the parliament attacks, right? >> Greatly. Greatly >> showed restraint after the Mumbai attacks of 2008. >> Yes indeed. >> But they didn't show any restraint this time around when operation Synindhur happened in Pelgam where it was a 4-day high intensity sort of war that happened. What what do you think changed over in the course of these two decades >> at the CIA? We called the Indian policy um strategic patience.

[00:33] The the Indian government would have been perfectly within its rights to respond respond by striking Pakistan and they didn't. And I remember at the White House people were saying, "Wow, the Indians are really exhibiting a very mature foreign policy here." We expected the Indians to to strike back and they didn't. And that kept the the world from what might have been a nuclear exchange, >> right? >> But India's gotten to the point where

[01:04] they can't risk strategic patience being misunderstood as weakness. And so they had to respond >> right >> now. The question the question now that CIA analysts are likely asking themselves are did the Pakistanis learn their lesson not to keep poking the hornets's nest and expecting to not be stung. Just a couple of months later in March of 2002 we raided a Lashkar Itaya

[01:36] safe house in Lahore. >> Okay. And and in that house we captured three Lashkarayaba fighters who had with them a copy of the al-Qaeda training manual. And it was the first time analytically that we were able to connect Lashkaraya with al-Qaeda. The very first time. I remember receiving a cable from the from the deputy director of the CIA for intelligence

[02:07] congratulating us on finding this training manual saying it was the very first time that we could attach the Pakistani government to al-Qaeda. >> What stopped you from going after Pakistan? Then you you have the first smoking gun of a inextricably linked ISI because the le or the JM jud the various names that they come up with essentially ISI proxies propped up by the Pakistani

[02:40] government and now they have a direct correct >> yes >> why why didn't you ever bring this up >> that was a decision that was made at the white house >> and the decision was that that the relationship is bigger than India Pakistan at least temporarily the relationship we needed the Pakistanis actually more than they needed us at that point we were happy to throw money at them that's what they responded to >> but we really needed them to let us base

[03:12] our drones in Baluchistan for example um have what's called a picket line CIA officers all the way up and down the border with uh with Afghanistan. >> So So from Wazinistan all the way down to Baluchistan >> to >> Baluchistan. >> We we needed a presence in Pashaw. We needed a presence in Queda. We needed a presence in Karachi and Lahore. And we needed for them to say yes to everything that we wanted to do. And so a decision

[03:43] was made at the White House that if we strategically ignore this terrorism problem visa v India the relationship would be much easier to negotiate and and so that's what we did. I'll tell you one other thing years later in 2008 >> um I had I had left the CIA. I had blown the whistle already and I was working as a as a uh counterterrorism advisor to

[04:15] ABC News, one of the big news networks here in the United States. >> And um and uh I got a call saying, "Are you watching the news?" I said, "No, it was the night before Thanksgiving, so it's a major American holiday. Major holiday." I said, "No, I I'm I'm not watching the news. Uh there's been a an enormous terrorist attack in Mumbai. They're attacking hotels. They're attacking Jewish centers. They're attacking this

[04:46] and attacking that." I said, "Oh my god." They said, "Um, can you come into the studio and talk about this?" I said, "Of course." Everybody else was on vacation because it's the eve of a major holiday. >> Yes. So, I jump in the shower, I shave, and as I'm getting dressed, my wife, who was still in the CIA at the time, she said, "You should watch, while you're getting dressed, you should watch what the other networks are saying about this." So, I I go to CNN, they said, "Alqaeda." I go to Fox, al-Qaeda, MSNBC,

[05:19] it's al-Qaeda. And these are all friends of mine who were saying it. And I said to my wife, I don't think this is al-Qaeda. She said, "Wow, you better really be sure of yourself if you're going to put your reputation on the line and tell the entire country that this is not al-Qaeda." So, I I drove down to ABC News to the studio. >> Mhm. >> And they wired me up and I was talking to the reporter in New York and I said, "Listen, I don't think this is al-Qaeda.

[05:51] I think this is this is the Pakistani uh supported Kashmir groups." I said, 'Ala doesn't care about India. They don't have any problem with the Indians. Their fight is with us. >> Yes. >> And he said, "Oh my god." He said, "You should You're going to need to be 100% sure because everybody is saying it's al-Qaeda." And I said, "I I was in the CIA long enough that I can say that I feel strongly this is not al-Qaeda." And

[06:23] so I went on the air and I was the only person that said I believe that these are Pakistani Kashmir separatist groups supported by the Pakistani ISI. >> Right? >> And that turned out to be exactly the case >> to the point where ABC News made television commercials saying ABC News the Mumbai attacks we were the only ones that got it right. >> Right. But there was a bigger issue here, bigger story here and the story

[06:53] was that Pakistan was committing terrorism in India >> and nobody did anything about it. >> During your time in Pakistan 2002 3, four around that time >> another very dangerous threat to humanity was uh Dr. AQ Khan's >> Oh yes, >> right. >> Yes. Yes. So we we got to know that nuclear material was being smuggled out to the North Koreans. >> Yes. >> There was there was proliferation going

[07:24] on with Libyan nuclear material as well going into Pakistan. All of that started coming out >> when you were there in Pakistan. Yes. When you got this on your desk, what was the first thing you thought? You guys are going after terrorists. Here's Pakistan assembling nuclear bombs and selling it in the gray market or black market. That's an outstanding question and a very important one. It it never crossed my desk. I was specifically counterterrorism, but a colleague of mine, this was his entire life was dealing

[07:56] with AQ Khan. Well, if we had taken, you know, the Israeli approach, we would have just killed him. He was easy enough to find. We knew where he lived. We knew how he spent his day. But he also had the support of the Saudi government. And the Saudis came to us and said, "Please leave him alone. Please, we like Aukan. We're working with Aukan. We're close to the Pakistanis." They even named Fiselabad after King Fisil.

[08:29] Just leave him alone. Um, this was a mistake that the US government made not confronting AQN headon. And and I'll add too, later on when I went to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff as the chief investigator, I worked for a man who was a journalist before going to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Staff. And he and his wife wrote a book that was first titled The Man from

[08:59] Pakistan. And they the title was changed in the paperback version to the nuclear jihadist. It was the most detailed book ever written about AQ Khan. And they asked more than two dozen CIA officers and United Nations IAEA officials exactly the same question that you just asked me. Hm.

[09:30] >> I was surprised that they got so many people to speak with them freely and openly, but they all told the same thing. They said that there were instructions from the White House not to attack Aukan and it had to be because the Saudis were demanding it, insisting on it. We often wondered, and I have no proof,

[10:00] this is just my own speculation. We often wondered if it was because the Saudis were also building a nuclear capability. >> Yeah, I think that's something we should probably be thinking about. >> Well, when you put this into context and you talk about the Saudi Pakistan Mutual Defense Pact that was just signed a few months ago. >> Yes. >> Is Saudi Arabia basically calling in its investment? I think yes. But you know, I have to laugh about this mutual defense pact.

[10:30] >> I don't know if you've ever spent any time in Saudi Arabia, >> but almost the entire Saudi military is Pakistanis. No Saudis going to join the military unless they're going to make him a general. You know, there are a lot of bedawins in the Saudi military, but you go straight in as an officer. If you're a Saudi citizen, you're going to start as an officer. There are no there are no privates or corporals who are Saudi. They're all Pakistani. All of them.

[11:04] >> It's the Pakistanis that protect Saudi Arabia. >> But how realistic is on the ground? >> But how realistic is a nuclear umbrella though? That's what is I mean that at least some of the doomsayers in India think of it like that. >> Yeah. I don't think it is realistic. Yeah. >> No, I don't think it's realistic. >> When this AQ Khan uh thing happened and it was brought up, what was this Saudi Arabia hold on America? Now you have Saudi terrorists taking out the 9/11

[11:36] towers. >> That's right. >> Saudi Arabia actively lobbying to protect one of the most dangerous men at least in the last quarter century at least in this region. and then eventually perve Musharov also pardoning AQ Khan therefore ending all investigations. What is this compulsion that America has with dictators and this love story? >> That is that is one of the most difficult questions that you could ask. You know we we like to we like to try to convince the world that we are a shining

[12:08] beacon of hope for democracy and human rights and equality and it's just simply not true. Um our our foreign relations um our foreign relations are based on on our national needs at any given moment. We don't do things because they're the right thing to do. >> We do them because they happen to be good for us that day.

[12:39] Which is why we get into bed with so many dictators around the world. which is why we get into bed with with so many politicians who are so extreme in their personal politics that it makes no sense to the American people. Why are we in bed with Benjamin Netanyahu right now when we've known Netanyahu since the 1980s as an extremist? >> Yes, >> because it's uh it's it's the easy thing to do and it serves our purposes, you

[13:11] know, today. That may change tomorrow, but but today it's okay. You know, I I worked for an ambassador in Bahrain who was an absolutely lovely man. And he he said one day, I still remember this. I was young and impressionable. And he said, you know, our foreign policy in in Saudi Arabia really is as simple as we buy their oil and they buy our weapons. >> That's it. >> That's it. That's it. That's the basis.

[13:42] He said, "You spend your career in the Middle East. I've spent my entire adult life in the Middle East." He said, "I don't like the Saudis. They don't like us. But we pretend to have this special relationship." Right? Even in the American embassy, I my first overseas tour was in Saudi Arabia and I remember an enormous photograph. It had to be 2 meters across and it was President Franklin Roosevelt and King uh Abdul Aziz Iben Sud, the

[14:14] founder of Saudi Arabia in the back of a car together. >> And this was supposed to be emblematic of our special relationship with the Saudis. But when I first arrived in Saudi Arabia, um I was placed in um embassy housing. So I was living in in an apartment in the diplomatic quarter and I would walk a block or two to the to the embassy and go in the back entrance of the embassy and every day my first 3 days I would

[14:46] say to this Saudi guard national saying Saudi Arabia National Guard uh officer standing there salamukum. The response of course is walaykumalam. >> Yes. >> He would he would ignore me. So the next day I went in and I saidamulaykum >> and he ignored me. The third day I went in and I saidalamu alaykum good morning and peace be upon you. >> He ignored me and I stopped and I said

[15:17] to him what's your problem? And he said to me in English he said you are hired help. we paid for you to come here and defend us. We are not friends. >> And I said, you know what? You're right. We aren't friends. I don't like you and I don't like any of your compatriots. None of them.

[15:48] >> Right. >> And then I never spoke to him again. But that was the US Saudi relationship in a nutshell. >> Do you think Saudi Arabia knows this now? cuz uh with this mutual defense pact again I bring I keep coming back to the nuclear thing and them sort of you know basically seeking nuclear deterrence with the help of Pakistan then it it appears with the new with the with this Trump regime that a certain amount of American retrenchment has happened in the region where it's almost like a hemispheric defense now that

[16:19] America is focusing on >> so Saudi Arabia always had the US for its back now that US is not at least it appears that it's not highly dependent on uh Saudi oil, Saudi energy. Do you think Saudi Arabia is doing this as an insurance pack? >> Absolutely. Yes. And it's not just Saudi Arabia, it's Kuwait as well. Kuwait last year made a purchase of uh not made a purchase made a sale of oil to China and for the very first time ever took payment in yuan.

[16:49] >> Yeah. First time ever that payment was not in dollars. So, I think everybody is coming around to the notion that here in the United States, we're sitting on an ocean of oil. Okay? We have shale oil enough to last us 500 years. We don't need Middle Eastern oil. We buy it because it's good for relations. >> Yes. >> Because we we buy it and then they buy our weapon systems, >> right? >> So, we continue to do that. But but when it when push comes to shove, we don't need the Saudis anymore.

[17:22] >> We don't Mhm. And so they're hedging their bets. They're they're improving their relations with China. They're improving their relations with India, which is a huge market and in need of oil. >> Yes. >> And and you know, if the if the Indians are going to have problems, especially from the United States, buying Russian oil or Russian natural gas, they should just buy it from Saudi Arabia. Makes it even easier, >> right? Yeah. Absolutely. So I think we're we're seeing a a transformation here >> in in the the way the world operates.

[17:52] >> Very dynamic geopolitical shift is being viewed here. That's why conversation with you uh someone in the field and who has historical context. I mean it's it's fantastic.
