Title: RT Interview with CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou
Show: JayArgonaut
Date: 2013-02-13
URL: https://youtu.be/3FQPANN0LUo
Duration: 13:00

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[00:06] thank you John kiriako well with me today a former CIA official who blew the whistle on the agency's torture practices after 9 11 John kiriako served as the chief of counterterrorist operations in Pakistan Mr kirako was reportedly praised at the agency for his role in the capture of Abu zubaidah who back in 2002 was thought to be Al qaeda's third in commend and now years later John kiriako is heading to prison he was just sentenced to two and a half years in

[00:40] jail Mr kiriaku thank you so much for coming thanks for having me I really appreciate it I know that time is of much value to you and your family now before you find yourself behind bars you were convicted of revealing the identity of an agent to a freelance reporter who by the way never even published it you said you regretted sharing the name of the agent of the officer that you apologized for it but you also said it was not why the government

[01:11] went after you why do you think the government went after you I've I have never believed that my case was about a leak I have always believed that my case is about torture when I went on uh ABC News in December 2007 and I said that not only was the CIA torturing prisoners but that the torture policy was an official U.S government policy that was approved at the very top by the president of the

[01:41] United States himself the CIA filed what's called a crimes report against me the next day with the justice department the justice department never stopped investigating me from December of 2007 until I was finally arrested in January of 2012. so to say that this uh that this case is a result of a name that was found in a in a an attorney's brief at Guantanamo is just simply not true so they were looking for something they were looking

[02:11] for something to pin on me what I find most outrageous about your case is had you been actually accused of torture of human rights violations you wouldn't have gone to jail no they they would dismiss any accusations because the US government has classified everything related to his torture practices but yet you go to prison because you talked about it why do you think this Administration President Obama who signed an executive order to

[02:42] stop torture at the very beginning of his first term why do you think he's protecting folks from the previous administration most people don't realize this but President Obama has surrounded himself with the same intelligence advisors who advised President Bush through most of the first term the CIA had the same deputy director that bush had the same director of operations that bush had John Brennan who's President Obama's new designee to be the CIA

[03:12] director and until what a week ago or so was the deputy National Security adviser was under President Bush the director of the national counterterrorism Center and up to his eyeballs in torture policy so even though we changed presidents there was really no change of intelligence advisors at least not on counterterrorism John Brennan you mentioned John Brennan and I want to ask you about him the future head of the CIA what kind of a CIA Chief is it going to be in your opinion I think he's going to

[03:44] be somebody who will be extremely aggressive and who will probably be comfortable walking on the edge of the law you worked with him I did I worked with John Brennan for many years and I know him pretty well Mr kirako you yourself supported torture before you were against it what happened what changed your position well let me correct you on that and this is something that that I think most Americans missed in my original NBC interview

[04:14] I was trying to draw a distinction between whether torture was right and wrong or whether it worked I believed it was wrong and I called it torture and I said that torture was official policy that's on the one side on the other side the CIA had told us internally at the time that it was working what year was that that was in 2002 2003 they were telling us that it was working we now know from the inspector General's report that was released in the spring of 2009

[04:45] that that was a lie that the CIA was lying even to those of us inside the CIA and I think it was just to protect themselves and to protect the policy but it never worked did you have a personal experience related to torture were you personally involved in torture no thank God I was never personally involved in torture when I returned from Pakistan in the early summer of 2002 where I had been chief of counterterrorism operations I

[05:15] was asked by a senior officer in the cia's counter-terrorist center if I wanted to be trained in in the use of these torture techniques and I said no I had a moral problem with it and I didn't want to be associated with it there were 14 of us at the time who were made the offer two of us said no and then one of us not me the other guy changed his mind so I was the only one who was made the offer who declined because at that time

[05:48] you already believed that it wouldn't work I I just thought I didn't know if it would work I mean they were telling us it would but I just believed it was wrong you know at the CIA part of the cia's culture is to couch all issues in Shades of Gray you have to be very comfortable working in morally nebulous situations or legally nebulous situations but there are some things that really are black and white and I believed that that was a black and white

[06:18] issue there's something that I think you will find interesting and something that I'd like you to comment on polls by the American Red Cross show that the majority of Americans find torture acceptable sixty percent of young people agree whereas four years ago torture was largely condemned in the U.S how did this become The New Normal what happened in those four years I think that many people who told pollsters in the early or middle part of

[06:49] the last decade were reacting to President Bush little by little President Obama adopted most of President Bush's counterterrorism policies and just because he happens to be Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama most Americans haven't paid much attention have just bought it Hussein Obama I think it's a question of Education people need to be informed did Hollywood have a role to play I think Hollywood had a role to play I think that Zero

[07:20] Dark 30 for example did a grave disservice to counterterrorism Zero Dark 30 perpetuates this Grand lie that torture led to the to the uh the killing of Osama bin Laden it's just simply not true myths often become history one comedian here said movies it was about zero dark Theory by the way it's serious movies is where Americans learn their history it's true what myths what other myths do you see being

[07:52] perpetuated now related to the war on terror I think one of the great myths and I I chuckled to myself because it always seemed so ridiculous to me was President Bush's statement that they hate us because we love freedom I know Al Qaeda I've captured Al-Qaeda Fighters I've had conversations sitting across a table like I am with you with Al Qaeda leaders and I can tell you from first-hand personal experience that the

[08:23] reason people take up arms against us is because of a lack of Education yeah that I understand but the United States can't educate the whole world no we can't but but we can we can help other countries develop an infrastructure so that they can educate themselves tell me more more about your encounters with those what other Impressions did you have the first Al-Qaeda fighter I ever caught was a 19 year old boy from Tunisia and the only reason he went to Afghanistan was because he had nothing else to do he had no skills and no way of making a living

[08:55] and he wanted to get married so the local Imam said if you want to make some money you know what you should do you should go to Afghanistan and make Jihad against the Americans if you do that I know somebody who will pay your family 500 and you can use that for a dowry and you can you can get a wife so this kid had nothing against the United States he had never even really thought about the United States so from your experience you saw no ideology I saw very little you see ideology in some of the older Fighters some of the

[09:25] leaders the camp commanders for example sure there's ideology there but in my short time in Pakistan I captured 52 Al Qaeda Fighters I can count on one hand the number of of people who were real ideologues who really were there for Jihad who were really there to kill Americans three out of 52. the perception of Guantanamo II has gone a long way since 2008 when he was a burning and a highly controversial issue

[09:55] most recently you know the state department has shut down the office that was working to shut down the Guantanamo prison is that this administration's way of saying forget about Guantanamo let's move on I think it is I think it is again where's the outrage the American people really don't care if Guantanamo is open or closed this Administration it appears decided not to bother about interrogations Guantanamo and prisoners and all that and just to bomb whoever seems suspicious with

[10:27] drones what do you think about this administration's no prisoners policy we we find ourselves murdering people in many cases children with no evidence whatsoever that they're involved in any criminal or terrorist activity and what this does is it encourages other people to take up arms against us John Brennan the architect of the Drone program basically and it was last year I think when he claimed that U.S drone strikes

[10:59] caused no civilian deaths in Pakistan over the prior year which was an outright Lie by so many accounts do you think we're going to see more transparency with regards to drones with John Brennan at the Helm of the CIA no no I don't um with John Brennan secrecy is the key word unless of course you know he chooses to leak for the benefit of the administration what did you expect

[11:29] decided to go public to come clean on on torture at the CIA I mean your wife worked at the CIA and she was fired because of you you're a father of five and you're going to prison what future did you envision for yourself five years ago I didn't Envision prison in my future five years ago I expected there to be a national debate on whether or not we wanted to use torture as an official U.S

[12:00] policy now I'm very happy proud actually that I played a role in that debate and now the the law of the land is that torture is illegal I'm very proud of that I frankly didn't expect that the government would would go after me so relentlessly I stood in the snow for two hours to vote for president Obama I really believed that this was positive change I believed that he deserved that Nobel Peace Prize only

[12:32] because I expected things to change so dramatically at the beginning of his first term so no I never believed I would be going to prison under a President Obama never that's been I think my biggest disappointment but you haven't seen a dramatic change I haven't seen any change no he stopped torture he stopped torture sure but in terms of counter-terrorism policy I think the Obama Administration is largely an extension of the Bush

[13:04] Administration Mr kiriaku thank you for the interview I wish you all the best thanks very much for having me
