Title: John Kiriakou Fireside Chat
Show: Cyprus Diaspora Forum
Date: 2026-07-23
URL: https://youtu.be/vCB56HbNvOo
Duration: 75:00

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[00:01] [music] Welcome to Cypress Diaspora Uncovered. This episode features an exclusive fireside chat with one of the most controversial [music] and compelling figures in modern intelligence and investigative journalism in conversation with international business strategist Philip Amaman. Former CIA counterterrorism officer and whistleblower John Kuryaku shares extraordinary insights into national [music] security, intelligence, ethics, government accountability, and the personal cost of exposing the truth. This session [music] was recorded live on the 8th of May 2026 at the Cypress

[00:32] Diaspora Forum held at the Amara Hotel in Limmerol, Cypress. >> So ladies and gentlemen, uh good afternoon and thank you for coming to this uh fireside chat with John Kiryaku. [music] One of the uh amazing achievements that uh Paul Lambis and his colleagues at the Viaspora Forum have managed to do is bring together talented people uh from all walks of life, all parts of the world. uh and we're lucky to have access to them here uh over these you know two or three days uh asking questions you

[01:03] know learning there hearing from them firsthand you know without a filter and um as we saw earlier you know part of these uh presentations are about commerce part of them are about technology law with John we have an amazing opportunity to learn about policy about forecasting about intelligence about how decisions are made at the global scale and um what the situation looks like internally versus what it looks like to the rest of us who are getting our news from you know the financial times or BBC or you know other

[01:36] other sources of media. So we're very fortunate that John is here. Thank you very much for coming. >> Thank you. >> We appreciate your time. Um >> happy to do it. >> Uh for those of you who don't know uh John was a uh intelligence uh operative in both covert and overt uh departments. So I should say in both intelligence and uh operations uh for a number of years. Um he experienced both 911 and the uh entire deployment to Afghanistan uh and Iraq

[02:07] part of what is known today I guess as the long war on terror or the global war on terror. Uh after finishing his career in the CIA where by the way he won numerous intelligence awards he joined the Senate. uh he he served as the senior staffer to the Senate of the United States of America. So going from operations to uh the legislative branch, which I think is an absolutely fascinating progression. And um he's also known as the CIA whistleblower

[02:38] because he's one of the people with the courage to publicly expose um some of the events that were happening in the global war on terror which were I would say certainly counter to what we think of as the Geneva Convention, the laws of war and um other laws of operation as as as we would like to to think of them. Um so from being one of the most decorated officers in the government he became prosecuted by the government by the very government that he served for a number

[03:08] of years. Uh he spent 23 months in prison. I think this was also almost a graduate school of sorts or [laughter] school >> kind of was. >> I've seen a number of your of your podcasts on it which are just absolutely fascinating. And uh today he's a very prominent commentator on public affairs, on intelligence, uh on international events. And um like I said, we're just, you know, really really grateful that he's here. And um I'd say that this is a

[03:38] conversation among friends. Um you know, we're not here to put anyone on the spot or to, you know, maintain any kind of political opinions or anything like that, but to learn from each other. And um I hope uh if we have some spare time we'll also open up the questions from the audience towards the end. [snorts] So let's start. Uh John you've had this incredible career both inside and outside of government. And to us on the outside who are you know in a way consumers of government decisions and consumers of public information. It seems like the United States and the CIA

[04:10] are these monolithic forces you know where everything is planned. uh you know everything has a certain scope and a certain budget and a certain outcome. Uh what's it like being on the inside and uh how how difficult is it >> watching a sausage being made? >> Exactly. Yeah. >> One of the things that I think most people don't understand is that these organizations that we're talking about, the State Department, the Defense Department, the CIA are big, slow, lumbering bureaucracies.

[04:43] But think of a bureaucracy that is headed and staffed by people who think they are smarter than everybody else in the world. That they can't make a mistake while everybody's lying to them. And intellectually they should know that everybody's lying to them and they don't. And I want to give you an example. After I left the CIA, I went to uh the private sector to a firm called Deote. one of the big four consulting firms and

[05:15] then from Deote I went to work for myself and Mccclardy who was Bill Clinton's chief of staff took a liking to me and offered me an office and a part-time secretary was very generous. Well, one of the other people who worked in the office was Bill Richardson. Bill had been the governor of New Mexico. He had been a congressman. He was ambassador to the United Nations. He was the secretary of energy. Very serious guy. and he had run for president. I liked him so much I actually voted for

[05:46] him after he dropped out of the race. I just that's how much I liked him and respected him. And he pulled me aside oh the first week of January [sighs] 2007 and he said, "Listen, I need to have a private conversation with you." He said, "I invited Obama to my house to watch the Super Bowl, the big American football, biggest game of the year." And at halftime, they went for a walk on

[06:18] Bill's ranch. Bill had like 1,200 acres of just waste land, like nothing can live there in the in the desert in New Mexico. And he said at one point Obama put his arm around his shoulder and said, "Bill, if you endorse me and you bring the Hispanic vote secretary of state." And I said, "Hey, that's great." And he says to me, "I want you to be my deputy chief of staff." I said, "I'll take it, but I want to be ambassador to

[06:49] Greece or ambassador to Cyprus in the second term." He said, "Done." I said, "Great. Let's do it." A year passes, almost a year, 11 months pass, and Obama wins. And the day after the election, Bill came into the office and I said, "Mr. Secretary, congratulations." He said, "Oh my god, I'm so excited. I can't believe I'm going to be Secretary of State." I said, "We're going to do great things. It's going to be so much fun." Couple days later, I'm in the shower. I

[07:19] have the news on on a radio in my bathroom and I hear this news announcement, Hillary Clinton named Secretary of State. And I thought, oh, oh, this is bad. I go into the office. And uh I said, "What happened?" He said, "I don't know. I think he lied to me." The next day, there's another announcement. Bill Richardson named Secretary of Commerce. I'm going to say a bad word here, so I apologize in

[07:51] advance. I go back into the office and I said, ' Mr. Secretary, congratulations. He says to me, "What the [ __ ] do I know about commerce?" [laughter] Literally nothing. And I said, "No, no." I said, "This is a good thing. There's the Foreign Commercial Service. There's the International Trade Representative. We can make something out of this. And then in the second term, you become Secretary of State." A couple of days later, he quit and just withdrew. But then I get a call from John Kerry. And Kerry says, "I'm going

[08:24] to be the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I want you to come to Capitol Hill and be the chief investigator." I said, "Great. I'll I'll do it, but I really do need the freedom to investigate, you know, anything I want. Anything that I think is wrongdoing, I want to be able to investigate it." He said, "Done." He was a liar. Done. He says, "Done. I investigated almost literally nothing in the two and a half years I was there." So,

[08:54] one of the things about Carrie, to answer your question, is like so many of these these highle policy makers, they think they're the smartest people in the room or in the town. And Carrie had this bad habit of going off script every time he was in public. Everything is very tightly scripted. Every single word that he needs to say, it's on the paper which is sitting in front of him. So he asks me to go with him to the Brookings Institution and we go there and he's

[09:24] talking about I don't know what Yemen or something. I don't know. I'm sitting in the first seat and he says he goes off script. I have the script in my hand. I'm I'm reading along with him and he says, "You know, I invited Obama to my house for Christmas two years ago and after Christmas dinner, we were walking around and I'm looking at him like it's not on the script." He says, "We

[09:55] were walking around after dinner and Obama put his arm around my shoulder and he said, "Bill, I mean that John." He says, If you endorse me before the Kennedys do, Secretary of State [laughter] and I I start going like this and he's looking at me and then he just continues with the story that he got he got robbed. And afterwards I said, "Senator, you you can't tell that story in public. Not if

[10:27] you ever hope to become Secretary of State." I said, "Richardson tells exactly the same story." And as it turned out, so did so did uh Eric Holder. Eric Holder was supposed to be the secretary of state. He ended up being the attorney general. He promised it to six people. We were able to figure out he promised secretary of state. If you do this, you do that, you endorse me, you bring this this group of people, you bring that group of people, secretary of state. But the thing is is they all think they're so smart that their conclusion is, of course, he

[10:57] would make me secretary of state. I'm me of any president would make me secretary of state because I'm so smart. Well, the thing is is if you put all these smart people in a room and they're at the policym level, everybody beneath them is going to be too afraid to say anything. If you have all these smart people who are midlevel or lower level, they engage in group think. >> Yeah. and the and with group think they

[11:28] almost always get it wrong. So I learned very quickly that these really smart, really important people really aren't so smart and then after a while they're really not so important either. At the CIA I saw a group think with disastrous consequences. Um, do the Iraqis have weapons of mass destruction? Of course they didn't. We all knew they didn't. There was literally no intelligence, literally zero

[11:59] intelligence that the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction. And Condisa Rice told George Tennant, "You're going to go to the UN and you're going to say that there are weapons of mass destruction." President Bush, God bless President Bush, he was just a stupid person. When he asked George directly, "Are there weapons of mass destruction?" George said, "Mr. President, it's a slam dunk." Yeah, >> he knew that that wasn't true, but he knew that Dick Cheney really, really wanted there to be weapons of mass

[12:31] destruction. So, we wrote this paper for him and we said the Iraqis had a nuclear program that they disbanded in 1985. Right? There were UN weapons inspections. There's no zero evidence of a nuclear weapons program. There is no evidence of an intercontinental ballistic missile program. We found the shells of the of the ICBMs in the desert and they had been buried there since the late 1980s. Biological weapons. [snorts]

[13:03] You can make a biological weapon in your kitchen if you really wanted to. It's impossible to determine if a country has a biological weapons program or not. Chemical weapons. The Iraqis used chemicals on their own people. The Shia Muslims in the south and the Kurds in the north. But they did away with the program in 1991 when the UN weapons inspections uh began taking place. So George knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction. And then he

[13:35] went to the UN with John Negropanti and Colin Powell and they said there are weapons of mass destruction and that's the reason we're going to war. Well then the Washington Post had a front page article saying they're lying. George Tennant lied to the to the face of the president of the United States when he said it was a slam dunk and George complained to Condisa Rice and he said this isn't fair because I told you that there were no weapons and you told me that I had to say there were weapons.

[14:05] I had never seen George this angry ever. Condisa Rice told him her exact words. George, you're just going to have to take one for the team. That's what happens when you engage in this group think in a giant bureaucracy where everybody thinks he's smarter than everybody else. >> So, I'm I'm getting two lessons from this. First of all, that Netflix series seems to be eerily accurate. [laughter] >> Yeah. And and so is the movie Vice. >> Yeah. >> Check it out. >> Yeah. Yeah. But the second thing is it

[14:37] seems, you know, my my next question was going to be about George Tennet and all of the reforms that took place in the wake of 9/11. Um >> Yeah. And yet we find ourselves again today um in a war in the Middle East. Um and it's not clear what the reasons for that are. It's not clear if there was an intelligence case or if there was, you know, how the decision was made. Um >> I can tell you exactly how the decision >> Oh, we'd love to hear, please. [sighs and gasps]

[15:07] Beginning in 1986, when Ronald Reagan was president, Israeli prime ministers began asking on every one of their visits to the White House for the United States to bomb Iran. It didn't matter who the who the president was. It didn't matter who the Israeli prime minister was. Please bomb Iran. Please bomb Iran. Please bomb Iran. Reagan said no. George HW Bush said no. Bill Clinton said no. George W. Bush said no. Obama.

[15:37] >> Barack Obama said no. Donald Trump said no in his first term. We just learned two weeks ago that not only did Joe Biden say no, but when he was vice president under Obama, Netanyahu, Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, said, "If you don't bomb Iran, we're going to use nuclear weapons." And Obama said, "Go ahead. Go ahead. Use them. You feel that threatened, go ahead and use them. We're not gonna stop you. >> He called the blood. >> Basically,

[16:09] >> Netanyahu has made 11 trips to the United States in the last 18 months and he finally convinced Trump to do it. The the word that I've heard from friends at the White House is that he told Trump like he told Obama, "I'm going to use nuclear weapons." And so to save the Iranian people, Trump elected to start bombing Iran. And then we find ourselves in a war with no end. May I draw a parallel, >> please? >> I've told this story before, but it

[16:41] bears repeating. I think it's on point. The night before we invaded Iraq, uh we we had something called a principles committee meeting. The principles committee like it sounds, it's chaired by the president and the attendees are the vice president and his top people and a notetaker. The secretary of state and his noteaker, the secretary of defense and his notetaker, the chairman and joint chairman of the chiefs of staff and their notetaker, the

[17:11] director of the CIA and his notetaker. And so we're going to go in in 12 hours. This is our final meeting. The briefer was the commander of central command, General Tommy Franks. I never liked General Franks. He had a filthy mouth and it was one of these guys who thought he was smarter than everybody else. He four shiny stars on his shoulder, swearing every other word. And um

[17:42] for whatever reason, and I don't remember the reason, the president wasn't there. So the vice president uh chaired the meeting and I was sitting George Tennant is sitting like this at our conference room table and there's a microphone right here. I'm sitting directly behind him taking notes and um Vice President Cheney asks General Franks to give the what's called the order of battle briefing. And I've mentioned before I always hated or order Order of Battle briefings. They're so boring. and they they open a map and

[18:14] they're like elements of the ninth mountain division or 20 kilometers like I don't care where the little men are on the map. It doesn't matter to me at all and they're going to move in 15 minutes anyway. So he finished this briefing and as he's finishing he says if all goes as planned we'll be in Tehran by August. And very discreetly, George turns off his microphone and he says, "Did he say Baghdad or did he say Thran?"

[18:46] And I said, "He said Thran." And George says, "Have these people lost their minds?" And then he turns the microphone back on and just finishes, you know, the meeting like that. As we were getting up, one of the National Security Council officials said, "When we cross that border tomorrow morning, they're going to throw flowers at us." And I went back to the I was the executive assistant to the deputy director at the time. I went back to the deputy director's office. He said, "How was the principal committee meeting?" I

[19:16] said, "Did you know we were going to invade Iran?" And he said, "Are they still talking about that we're not going to invade Iran?" And I said, "Do these people know nothing about history?" And he said, 'N no, they know nothing about history, but they're leading our country. And so once the policy is made, the policy is made. When I got back from Pakistan, I had I had been the chief of CIA uh counterterrorism operations in Pakistan from January to May of 2002. So

[19:50] just as 9/11 uh the fallout from 911 was settling and um [sighs] and I went back to headquarters and I got promoted because of my work in Pakistan and the deputy director chose me as his assistant. So I walked in on the first day and I said, "So I said,"What are we doing?" And he said, "Actually, I can't tell you. You have to go to security and sign a bunch of secrecy agreements and then I'll tell

[20:20] you what we're doing." I said, "Okay, well that's weird, but okay." So I went up to security and they had six secrecy agreements sitting out waiting for me to sign them. So I signed each one and I said to the guy, I knew the guy, I said, "So what's up? what's the big secret? And he says, "Well, next year we're going to invade Iraq. We're going to overthrow Saddam Hussein and we're going to open the world's largest air force base. And then we're

[20:52] going to move all of our air assets out of Saudi Arabia so that we can deprive Osama bin Laden of the ability to say that we've polluted the land of the two holy mosques." And I was dumbfounded. I had just gotten back from Pakistan like two days earlier. And I said to him, "But we haven't caught Bin Laden yet." And the whole point of that so-called, and I hate the name, global war on terror. The whole point was to capture or kill Osama bin

[21:24] Laden. And he put up his hands. He says, "Listen, the decision's already been made. There's no more discussion, but the battle lines are drawn." He said the the pro-war forces are the office of the vice president OBVP OSD the office of the secretary of defense and the national security council and the anti-war listen to how crazy this is the anti-war faction was the CIA the state department and the joint chiefs of staff he said the decision's been made

[21:57] we have to do as we're told and so it took us like nine more months 10 more months and then we invaded Iraq and we're bogged down for the next what 17 years. >> Yeah. >> So we've gone from an era where we have you know national technical means we have humans uh sigans all of these you know different formats to today when we're really looking at big data we're looking at artificial intelligence we're looking at a >> a very very different environment. Um

[22:30] uh and yet it seems as if the human in the loop decisionm you know if if that's not fixed at a systemic level >> make the same >> this is a very important point >> you know with with the quickness the rapidity with which technology develops >> there's this almost knee-jerk desire to just rely on the technology after 911 George Tennant got special congressional approval to use taxpayer funds to begin investing

[23:01] in tech startups. Crazy, right? >> That was reported the CIA incubator. >> It's called Inqel. >> Yeah. >> Um they thought they were cute. They took the word Intel and then put the letter Q in the middle as a nod to James Bond to to Q from the James Bond movies. Um Q was always in charge of tech. So the very first uh investment they made and I think it was I think it was a million and a half dollars was to um

[23:33] oh what's his name? Peter Teal. What's was his company? >> Palanteer. Thank you. Palunteer which is now a multi-billion dollar concern >> and a huge public contractor. Right. >> Huge giant public sector contractor. I mean, it it's got it's screaming in neon conflict of interest, you know, but they did it anyway. >> And uh and it's not just Palanteer. It's it's dozens and dozens of very high-tech companies. The CIA was in up to its neck on AI,

[24:03] but you can't have a successful intelligence operation without a human being. You just can't. You need somebody that is inside the room when the plans are being made because Palanteer is not going to collect the information. And it's not like Saddam Hussein's going to be on the phone saying, "Listen, our plans for the uh next attack are, "Do you have a pen?" You know, that just doesn't >> take down these coordinates. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That just doesn't

[24:35] happen. You have to have a human being inside the room. >> Um >> Excuse me. Let me add one more thought. Go ahead. Besides the fact that in this era of AI and um and uh facial recognition software, >> it makes it that much harder for CIA officers to cross borders, right? And so you have to be able to affect an operation that doesn't cross borders.

[25:06] And the only way you can do that is to recruit a human being to give you the information. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, as we look at technology, uh, you know, we're not looking only at intelligence decision-m, but we're looking at, um, electoral decision-m and electoral outcomes. And I, we saw with the Obama election, uh, the whole, um, you know, the Facebook AB testing, >> uh, thing, which was very beneficial for

[25:36] Obama. We saw the Cambridge scandal scandals >> prior to that. This time around we had Elon Musk paying in nearly 300 million to support the election in seven battleground states. As we move forward is universal suffrage and I know this is a controversial question but as we move forward I mean can we have free and fair elections if the technological landscape is so open to manipulation? >> I want so badly to say yes and I'm not

[26:08] sure that I can. Yeah. >> You know, and here's getting back to the so many people are so stupid theme. All anybody wants to talk about in the United States, at least among the Democrats, and I am I am an independent independent. I really am. I I was a I was a third generation Democrat and I left the Democratic party because it moved too far to the right um on foreign policy. So,

[26:39] what they want to talk about in the United States is that the Russians, >> you know, the Russians uh interfered in the election. Well, you know, let's look at that. The Russians spent $50,000 on Facebook ads. They spent half of the 50,000 after the election was over. So, they spent 25,000. Almost every dollar of it was spent in states that were either solidly Hillary Clinton or solidly Donald Trump. So, we're supposed

[27:11] to believe that it was the Russians that threw the election. We're not supposed to believe that it was Elon Musk who put in $300 million of his own money or um uh the the guy from Las Vegas that owns all the casinos. Sheldon Adlesen who spent 150 million of his own money to the Trump super PAC or his wife. Sheldon Adlesen died recently. His wife put in another hundred million of her money. We have this absolutely terrible Supreme Court decision in the

[27:42] United States called Citizens United. Citizens United made a decision during the Obama administration that corporations are people. They literally said that in the decision corporations are people and as people corpor corporations can donate as much money as they want to American elections. Well, we had a $2,000 limit if you're a human being. No limit if you're donating

[28:13] to a political action committee. So, what you do is you just create your own political action committee and put $500 million on it and then spend it all on one candidate and that's democracy. So, I wish I could say yes in answer to your question, but I I genuinely fear for the political future of the United States, which is why I'm buying an apartment in Greece this year. >> Excellent. [laughter] >> Well, if the Greek political system has become superior to the American one, I

[28:44] think Houston, we have a problem. >> You know what? The Greeks though, the Greeks do something that I really like and it's very simple. [snorts] >> They don't allow any campaigning. The the elections are always on Sunday. Yeah. They don't allow any campaigning past I think it's Thursday before. >> Yeah. >> And no polls are permitted to be uh reported on or released publicly. >> Yes. >> I like it. It's like a cooling cooling off period. >> Yeah. No, I I I I joke about the Greek political system, but the elections are actually very efficient. Uh they you know, polling opens in the morning, it

[29:14] closes, it's monitored by members of the bar, >> and the result is known. It's a paperbased count, and the result is known that same evening. I voted in my grandfather's secondary school, >> okay, >> in our ancestral village in 2019. I had never voted in Greece before. I flew to Greece just to vote. And um they give you this stack of paper like this big. It was 36 squares of paper and each paper had the name of the party, the

[29:45] logo of the party, and a picture of the leader of the party. So if you're, you know, you can't read, you can still vote. I had no idea that there were six communist parties in Greece. >> Yes. [laughter] And they were unreconstructed communist parties. >> Unreonstructed. And they all hate each other. >> That's right. That's right. >> So I'm leafing through all the communist parties. And then there are four or five fascist parties and neo-Nazi parties. And then you get to the ones in the middle. You just pick the one that you like and you put it in an envelope and

[30:16] seal it. You come out of the booth, the voting booth. You throw away the 35 pages that you didn't use. There's a big barrel of garbage. You throw it in there and then you put your vote in the box. It's perfectly >> Yeah. >> logical and easy. And >> it is. And you show your ID. Everyone has an ID. There's no >> You show your ID. They cross your name off the list. You're good to go. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> You've spent the past week uh here in Cyprus, um including a visit to Nicariah. Mhm. >> How how how do you feel seeing, you

[30:48] know, the divided capital and the the green line and the >> I'll tell you the honest to God's truth. So I got here kind of late in the in the day and I drove up from uh Larnica. So it was dark by the time I got there and I checked into the hotel. I went out onto the balcony. I called my friend to tell her I had arrived in Nicicoia and I look up and I said, "What the [ __ ] is that?" She said, "What?" I said, "There's a giant crescent in lights crescent moon on the side of the mountain." >> Yeah.

[31:19] >> She's like, "Oh, yeah. They've been doing that like in our face for many years now. I do not remember that when I was here in 1992." And she said, "No, they lit it up later on after 1992. On principle, I had never been to the occupied side. I I refused. But then I had a meeting on Monday with the mayor of Nicicoia and he urged me to go. So I went I was there for 45 minutes and I

[31:50] told my friend I feel like I have to take a shower. I can't do this anymore. [applause] So I I walked back. Although I will tell you, I I talked to a lot of people this week, professors and lawyers and activists and political figures, and every single person I talked to had nothing but nice things to say about Turkish criates. It's the Turkish occupiers and the settlers that are the problem. And [applause] yeah,

[32:25] if I don't want to put you on the spot, but if you had to make a forecast of how this situation might be solved, can it be solved? Just, you know, looking at this as an outsider objective opinion, independent opinion, what do you think? >> Three weeks ago, I I had dinner, don't yell at me, I had dinner with the Turkish foreign deputy foreign minister. He was in Washington. He read an article that I wrote about Syria and he invited me to dinner. So I thought, "Ah, what the heck? It'll

[32:57] be my chance to get a couple of points across." So we got to this really nice Italian restaurant and um and he said, "So I wanted to talk about Syria." I said, "Yeah, we can talk about Syria all you want, but you have to get out of Cypress." And he laughs. He says, "No, but seriously, you know this situation in Syria." I said, "I appreciate it, but you have to get out of Cypress." And finally he said, "Okay, noted, [laughter] but I really want to talk about Syria." So we talked about Syria for most of the

[33:27] dinner. And at the end I said, "What are the prospects for getting out of Cyprus?" And he said, "It's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. It's like telling the Israelis to get out of the West Bank. We all know they should. We all want them out, but they're not going anywhere." And especially because, you know, this is what makes foreign affairs so complicated and it's one of the things that I love about it. Um, you've got the Israelis that used to be practically joined at the hip with the Turks, right? When I was younger and I

[33:59] was going to Greece as a tourist or to see family, um, the Greeks were very, very close to the Palestinians and very close really to all the Arab countries. >> Yeah. Um and um and then it flipped when Erdogan decided he didn't like the Israelis anymore. Then the Greeks flipped and the Greeks said, "Well, you know, as they say in the Middle East, the enemy of my enemy is my friend." And all all of a sudden they've got this relationship and then

[34:31] they found natural gas under the water here in Cyprus. And the next thing you know, these very strange alliances are forming. I had a meeting a week ago Tuesday with a senator, a Republican senator. He's a committee chairman. And I said, "Senator, I got to ask you a question." I said, "Friends of mine have been asking me this rhetorical question. The Turks and the Israelis hate each other, and their language has become

[35:02] increasingly belligerent over the last several months. And so the Israeli deputy foreign minister said that Israel's next big fight is going to be against the Turks. Well, if the Turks invoke Article 5 of the NATO charter, the Americans and the rest of NATO are going to have to attack Israel. Can you imagine such a thing? That will never ever happen. Of course, that would

[35:33] be the death of NATO. But on paper, that's the way it's supposed to work out. An attack on one is an attack on all. I said, 'What do you think about that? He said, 'You don't seriously think that it was an accident that the president of Cyprus talked yesterday about a European Union military alliance. And I said, "No, of course not, because NATO is going to going to die and the Europeans have to protect themselves because they can't trust the United States to protect them."

[36:05] I think that's all what it comes down to. I I think the Turks are in the catbird seat. They know that the status quo benefits them. It doesn't cost them anything other than money, you know, for settlers. And the longer they're there, the more de facto becomes, you know, dour. >> Yes. Yeah. Especially with the demographic change and the >> especially with the demographic change which is the most danger dangerous component here.

[36:36] >> Okay. >> These are Anatolians we're talking about. They're not criates. They're not ethnic criates. >> Yeah. And also the original population in 1974 which had to to move is is very old now. So >> the memories of a of a real you know by communal population are are are rapidly disappearing. I said to the mayor the other day, when the Turkish criates or even more precisely when the Turks who are settlers look across the line and see the success, the economic success

[37:07] that is Cyprus, they have to be jealous, right? I mean, they have to be having a conversation like, you know, why can't we have a piece of that? Why do we allow ourselves to be divided? And he said, I don't think they have that conversation. He said that the the Turks give them whatever they need, free land that they stole from the criates, from the Greek criates, and uh you know, why upset the apple cart?

[37:40] Yeah. Moving on to uh Cypress and international events. So Cypress has had very close relations with Russia since uh the USSR fell apart and um we've traditionally had very very close relationships with the Gulf. >> Yeah. >> And we we now see active conflicts in both of these areas um with the 2014 invasion of Crimea. There was the embargo that had a a big domino effect here in Cypress and that a lot of uh Russian bank accounts were closed, Russian companies had to close and so on

[38:12] and so forth. And so there's a good deal of expectation, you know, when we look at the conflict in Ukraine, you know, it's it's not merely an academic concern. How is this going to end? Because uh we have a large Russian population in Cyprus. We have mixed families. We have children. You know, it's it's not just >> something theoretical. It's something actually very very real. >> Your forecast again, you've got 30 plus years of experience with conflicts. How do you see that ending?

[38:42] >> Yeah. The Russia Ukraine one is is tough. Um, three or four years ago, the Russian ambassador invited me to lunch one day with six other independent journalists. We had all written about the conflict and he wanted to dig a little deeper. And one of the questions, the most important question he asked me was how or he said, "Was it possible for the United States and Russia to have some

[39:14] sort of diplomatic cooperation even in a time of war? Was there anything that the two countries could do that we used to call confidence building measures just to try to stop the relationship from going down the drain that it was then circling?" And I said, 'Yes, counterterrorism, counterp proliferation, and counter narcotics, we can always always cooperate on those issues whether there is war or not.

[39:44] And I said, but I will add one thing. I said, 'When when when you arrest a black woman basketball player because she has just the smallest amount of marijuana oil in her, you know, toiletries kit and you give her 10 years at hard labor, you lose the support of the American people. It's a bad look." He was furious and he said, "Do you have any idea how many American how many Russians are in

[40:15] American prisons?" because I do. He said 1,500. What about them? And I said, "By all means, trade them. Certainly, you can agree on that. The the United States doesn't want its prisoners in Russian prisons, and the Russians don't want their prisoners in American prisons. Just trade them." And that would be good because you would be talking, at least talk to one another. Here we are three, four years later and for all intents and purposes, the Ukrainians have lost. Uh

[40:48] it's certainly possible for the Ukrainians to make a couple of inroads in these occupied areas now. Donets, Donetsk, Luhansk, Crimea. Um they likely won't. And to tell you the truth, the United States is not committed to Ukraine anymore. It's just not. that was very much a Democratic Party foreign policy issue. The Republicans are not at all interested. On the other hand, if the Russians suddenly found themselves in trouble on

[41:19] the ground, they can turn to the North Koreans or the Chinese or African mercenaries and just offer up an endless supply of of fighters. The Ukrainians can't do that. And then on the other hand too, the third hand, if there is such a thing, um the Europeans are staunchly in the corner of the Ukrainians, but they can't send troops because they're all NATO members. And if NATO were to be involved officially, that upgrades the level of the conflict.

[41:49] >> Yeah. I want to challenge you a bit on the Ukrainian side because um >> they've done remarkably well in in stabilizing the battle lines um in in forming a a series of defensive positions in drone warfare and you know a number of areas. >> Um I'm sophisticated in drone warfare. >> Yeah. Yeah. And that's in the face of a lot of attacks on civilian infrastructure. >> Absolutely right. >> You know heating infrastructure. So, I mean, it's uh I uh I think the whole world is in a way astounded at how

[42:19] they've they've been able to defend themselves. >> I'm I'm astounded. I think it's very brave what they've done. They've been able to hold off one of the biggest armies in the world, but >> they just don't have enough >> to reclaim >> to break through. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. I I think in the end it's going to be how you define >> win. I think in the end, like many people predicted at the very start of this conflict, the Ukrainians are going to have to give up some territory. They're not going to be able to reclaim some territory.

[42:50] >> But it may also just be a frozen conflict where there's no decision on the termistice, whatever, North Korea, South Korea type thing. >> Absolutely. Yes. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, no prospects of a normalization, I guess. You know, I I hate to say I I've long been accused of being um overly optimistic, and this is one of those rare areas where I'm I'm not optimistic. I'm not optimistic about Palestine is another one. >> Yes. Yeah. >> I'm just not.

[43:21] >> Yeah. The recent events were really shocking. >> It's been so terrible. And you know, we've got these we've got these evangelical Christians in the United States that are irrational. You know, sometimes I do a lot of podcasts, like a lot. And sometimes I'm just in a bad mood, right? And so I'll say things just because I'm in a bad mood and I'll just let out a zinger. And I said recently, and I took all kinds of guff for it. I said, ' Listen, if your religion was founded in 1880 in somebody's basement,

[43:53] it's a cult. [laughter] You can call it evangelical Christianity if you want. It's a cult. [laughter] And I took a lot of [ __ ] for that. >> I can imagine. >> But the truth is, [laughter] the truth is it's the evangelicals that are blindly pro-Israel. And the end result is the decimation of the oldest Christian community in the world. Nobody cares about Palestine's Christians. Why? If you're so Christian that you

[44:27] speak in tongues and God speaks back to you and you have conversations with him, then why are you abetting in the murder of Christians? I just simply don't understand it. >> Yeah. Well, there's a lot of contradictions for sure. [sighs and gasps] And uh looking at Iran, I was tweeting again this morning. I mean, it's a mystery for me that uh President Trump says, "We've defeated the Iranian army." >> He he tweeted it yesterday. It's all over. We won.

[44:57] >> I think that's the fifth or sixth time he tweeted that same thing. >> At the same time, I was reading the FT this morning that Iran actually attacked Dubai again yesterday. They've attacked the ships that tried to get come out. >> Yeah. >> I mean, what's what's going on? There seems a total disconnect between, you know, standard decision-m, rational decision-m >> Benjamin Netanyahu told him that the Iranian government would collapse when the first missile was fired. >> Got it. Got it. A chalabe. That's an Ahmed Chalabi. >> It's an Ahmed Chalabby moment. Yes.

[45:28] >> Um, >> every analyst in Washington knew that wasn't true. We had been saying it for the last 45 years. Yes, the regime is unpopular. Yes, people hate the IRGC, but Hillary Clinton's I I hate Hillary Clinton and I hate quoting her, but she was right about one thing. She said, "Iran is not a theocracy. It's a military dictatorship and it's run by the IRGC." And that's true. And it's heavy and it's ownorous and you'll end up hanging from a a street light if you if you look at

[45:59] them the wrong way. I get it. But it's the same situation with Iraq in 2003. Why did the Iraqis not throw flowers at us? Because we're not seen as liberators. We're seen as invaders and occupiers who will invade and occupy for decades. And they would rather have the devil they know than the devil they don't. Plain and simple. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um maybe moving forward. Maybe

[46:30] [gasps] looking forward say the next 5 years 10 years what do you think are the main um I guess the main trends or the I don't want to say threats because they're also opportunities but you know the people in this room are all businessmen entrepreneurs startupers it's you know we we are and and we're all we're in a tiny economy which is kind of very exposed to these trends >> right >> what what should we what should be on our radar screen like top three top three issues in your opinion >> political division vision. >> Yep.

[47:01] >> Right. In the United States, it started in earnest in uh in 1994 and the pendulum hasn't swung back yet. >> Um we've gotten to the point where well yesterday um yesterday a woman sent me an email saying that we've been Facebook friends. I've never met her. I've never met 90% of my Facebook friends, but she said, "We've been Facebook friends for whatever 18 years or whatever, and she's blocking

[47:32] me." >> She's blocking me because I um I speak to Tucker Carlson. >> Yeah. Bad man. Very bad. >> Yeah. >> Very, very bad. >> And I said, "Okay, I will not engage in political purity tests." >> Yeah. >> Oh, yeah. I'll give you a better a better [laughter] story. So, I'm divorced and um once I finally got over my divorce, I decided I'm going to check out these apps, right? These dating apps. So, uh so I see this woman. I

[48:04] said, "Oh my god, this woman's so beautiful." I swipe right. She swipes right. I said, "Hey, great." We start texting each other. We arranged to go out for a drink. Even more beautiful than the pictures. And I said to her, because I'm totally transparent, I said, "Listen, I'm having fun. I'd love to see you again, but there's something you should know about me, and if you don't like it, you can walk and no hard feelings." She says, "Oh, I know who you are, Mr. Kiryaku." And I hadn't told her my last name. I said, "Oh, okay. So, you're okay

[48:35] with that?" And she said, "Yes, you should know something about me. I'm the deputy assistant secretary of state for human rights." And I said, "We're a match." >> Great. >> Wait, wait. Under whose administration? >> Uh, by >> Okay. >> So, I said, "This is great." More than that, she had a master's degree in archaeology and did a dig in Greece for her for her master's degree. So, we're talking about Greece and she spoke some Greek and it was great. So, we go out

[49:06] for a second date. Had a fantastic time. And I said, "Hey, let me take you to Shepherd'stown, West Virginia on Saturday. I've always wanted to see it. It's an hour and 15 minutes away from from Washington, old Civil War town. They have galleries and boutiques and stuff." She said, "Great." I said, "I'll pick you up at 10:00." So, I go to her house. I pick her up at 10:00. She gets in the car. I said, "Good morning." She goes, "Hello." I was like, "Dog gone it." >> You must have said something. >> I said, "What's wrong?" Nothing.

[49:38] [laughter] It's like every time. And I said, "Obviously something is wrong. What is wrong?" And she says, "I saw a YouTube video last night of you quoting Ronald Reagan." [snorts] And I said, "Oh, I know what you're talking about. I stand by that quote." I said, "Ronald Reagan was right when he said that government is the problem. It's not the solution to the problem." you told that into a Democratic deputy

[50:10] assistant. >> And she goes, I I just need to process this. I have serious doubts about your left-wing credentials, she said. I said, excuse me. I went to prison for my leftwing credentials. So, silence all the way to West Virginia. So, we walk around and I'm telling her, look, you know, it's it's important to be independent. It's important to think for yourself. What's happened to our country since the 1990s, there's no going back from it. We all hate each other. Families are split. Friendships are ending. For what? For politics. Because

[50:42] you don't like my position on abortion. You're never going to speak to me again. It's ridiculous. So, she I got her calm down. 3:00 it starts to rain like really hard. I said, "Why don't we head back to Washington?" So, we get in my car. I don't like sitting on my phone in the car. So, I take my phone out. I put it in the cup holder right here. And just as I start to drive, the phone goes text message. So I look and I thought, [ __ ] [laughter] it's from Tucker Carlson and it says it

[51:12] says, "Hey buddy, haven't heard from you in a while. [laughter] Are you free for a beer?" It's like, "Dang it." So I look like I'm looking at her like this like trying not to. And she's looking right at the phone. [laughter] Dog gone it. And then she says, "Do you know Tucker Carlson?" [laughter] And I said, "Yes, and he's a lovely man. And she said, "Take me home right now and don't ever call me again." >> That's America. That's America today.

[51:44] That is America today. So, number one, we all hate each other for stupid, meaningless reasons. >> Got it. Got it. >> Yeah. >> Number two, since the mid 1990s, there has been no consistency in American foreign policy. We used to have this phrase, I'm sure you remember it, that our differences on foreign policy ended at the shore. >> Yeah. >> And now we got the vice president threatening the pope and we're saying we're going to

[52:15] use nuclear weapons on this guy and we're threatening to invade Greenland and uh everybody's gone insane. Yeah. >> And then the next guy's going to come in and he's going to try to fix things, but he's going to go too far maybe on the other side and then the Republicans are going to come back in and it's a disaster. But it's a disaster that most Americans don't understand the import of travel constantly, right? All around the world, mostly to the Gulf and to Europe.

[52:46] And in Europe, they're genuinely worried like, "We don't want we don't know what to make of you guys anymore." I was I had a meeting with an MI6, a guy at at the British MI6 that I used to work with when I was at the CIA, and we went out for a for a coffee when I was last there. And he said, "It did start in the mid '9s, but it really took off after 9/11." He said, "We always used to have fun with you guys, but then you just started murdering everybody. Everybody whose politics you don't like, you just murder

[53:16] them. Whether it's close in with the little team or you drop a bomb or you fire a missile, you can't kill everybody. I said, "Oh my god, I say that about the Israelis all the time. You can't have a policy to just kill everybody. That's the policy. And then you can develop their land after you've killed them all." But that's the split that we face in the United States right now. And it makes Europe weaker. And it makes the Gulf weaker. I was in Kuwait, I don't know, six or eight weeks ago, and Kuwait is in a state of chaos right

[53:48] now. Nobody's reporting on it because nobody really cares. It's not Dubai or Abu Dhabi or even Qatar. But um but in Kuwait, they're panicked. Look at that neighborhood. They have Iran on the one side, they have Iraq on the north, they have the Saudis whom they hate on the west, and the Americans are preoccupied with, you know, invading Greenland. And so they're panicked about what this means for them. >> But is the next guy going to be any better? >> Who is the next guy? We don't even know.

[54:19] I went on Cali the other day. It's one of these predictive apps. And you can bet on, you know, who's going to be the Democratic nominee for president or the Republican nominee. There are 44 people for the Democrats and 24 people for the Republicans. We don't even know who's going to lead our country in two years. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> Yeah. So, uh, political division, >> lack of consistency, the systems breaking down. >> Yeah. And, and another one is is

[54:51] economic uncertainty. >> Yeah. >> You know, the constitution could not possibly be any clearer. The president cannot put tariffs on a country. Can't. Illegal. Can't do it. And then Trump says 100% tariffs on everybody. And Congress said, "Oh my god, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? You're the only ones who can put tariffs." Say, "No, no tariffs. We have to do the tariffs. You can come to us with your ideas and we'll put the tariffs."

[55:21] Instead, there are tariffs for a year while it worked its way through the courts. And the courts said, you know, in the Constitution, it says the president can't do this. So, it's led to this economic uncertainty. And not just at that basic level of of tariffs, look at energy and renewable energy. We were making great strides in renewable energy. you know, solar panels all over the the California desert, all over Texas to the point

[55:53] where in a handful of states, a majority of our electricity was coming from either wind or solar. And then even on the on the East Coast from tidal power, which is amazing. >> And then Trump said, "No, we're not doing any of that anymore." I I drive through Pennsylvania a lot. It's my home state. And um I I noticed on the Pennsylvania Turnpike now there are big billboards that say the sun sets, winds die, coal is forever. It's like coal.

[56:26] It's not the 19th century anymore. But that's the position of a whole lot of people in the United States. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Why don't we open up to some questions from the audience? I think uh >> that sounds good. I think it would be really really cool to hear some questions. Let's start over here. [laughter]

[57:01] >> Only ju only just recently did I did I come to understand it. I went to Dubai and my niece called me and she says Theo John you're exploding on TikTok. I said why? [laughter] She said I have no idea. And I said okay. And then I went to bed. And the next morning I got a call. I got a call from the biggest talent agency in the world. And this guy says to me, I'm an agent with you know so and so. He says tell me you're not represented.

[57:33] >> [laughter] >> I said no I'm not not represented. He said you are now. >> I said okay the biggest talent agency in the world. >> So they connect me with different partners. One for Hollywood scripted, Hollywood unscripted literary podcasting uh licensing which I didn't even realize was a thing. and uh and speak speaking.

[58:05] So, I thought, "Wow, they're rolling out the red carpet." And then the uh the literary agent, he was he was he's older than I am, and it never smiled. Everybody else was all smiles and laughing and oh, we're going to do this and we're going to do that. And he's just kind of sitting there. And then the lead partner said, "I want to introduce you to your new literary agent. This is Sloan Harris." And I said, "Sloan Harris, I know you." And he said, "Have we met?" And I said, "No, you're Stephen

[58:35] King's literary agent." And he said, "Oh, yeah. Stephen and I go back 35 years." And he says, "And I represent James Patterson and I represent Steven Flynn and I represent Dr. Seuss and James or uh sorry, Jane Mayor." And I said, "My god, they're giants." and he said, "And now you and I'm not taking any more clients." And that's when I started thinking, "Oh, this is for real. It's for real." And then, oh,

[59:06] thank you. You know, when when you're laying in a when Thank you. when when you're laying in a steel bunk in prison surrounded by pedophiles, mafia dons, and half of the Mexican cartels. [laughter] You're laying there. I remember laying there and asking God, "Am I really that bad of of a person, that I deserved this, that the entire government takes a [ __ ] on my head?" Like, really, am I that bad? And then my brother said to me, "I know you can't

[59:37] possibly see this, but this is going to turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you." And my my ex-wife, I'm not supposed to talk about her by court order, but I will say my ne my ex-wife said, um, [snorts] well, at least you don't have to hide your politics anymore. >> I hid my politics at the CIA for 15 years. >> Yeah. >> Second question.

[1:00:13] >> [laughter] [snorts] >> That's a very good question. That's a very good question. Well, I I'll give you several answers. Number one, at the CIA, they they teach us not to trust anybody. The guy that you sit next to for 10 years might be a Russian mole. You just don't know. You hope he's not. He hopes you're not.

[1:00:45] [snorts] But don't trust anybody. I allowed myself to trust one person. And she's the one who betrayed me. One. I'm not making that mistake again. Number one. But what you're referring to is true. I have said that the job of a CIA case officer is to so ingratiate yourself with a target that he comes to like you love you so much he's willing to commit espionage for you in some

[1:01:18] cases treason. I I'll tell you it's going to sound funny but it's not funny. I developed this guy over the course of a year and a half and we really hit it off. In another life, in another world, we really would be friends. And he said to me one day, he said, "You've been so kind to me and you've been such a good friend and you've never asked me for anything. If there's something that I can ever do for you, I want you to tell me." And I

[1:01:48] said, 'Well, you could give me the plans to that new Russian tank. [laughter] I know you have it in your office and I'd really like to see it, [laughter] but that's the job. I I There was one guy that I recruited when when I was leaving Greece. He cried when I left. He cried. So, somebody asked me recently on a podcast if I really was friends with any of the

[1:02:20] people that I recruited. And I said, "Oh, yeah. 90% of them. I love these guys." And there have been a couple, and we're not supposed to do this, but there have been a couple where after I left the CIA and I happened to be in their country, I called them and we went out to dinner. >> Yeah. Not supposed to do that. >> Yeah. That's not help. [sighs and gasps] >> Yeah. >> Okay. question over here. Oh, sorry. Yeah, go ahead. F >> first of all, it's a pleasure. >> Thank you.

[1:02:50] >> Uh, I have certain views on this of my own, but I'd like to to get your perspective. Uh, where do you think the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the US stands today? >> Uh, because there is a lot of uncertainty. >> Yes. >> Uh, and where do you think it's going? >> Oh, that's an important question. So my very first overseas tour was in Saudi Arabia. I started in Daiff with the Kuwaiti ruling family. And then when

[1:03:21] when we went back into Kuwait after Kuwait the next summer I I finished in Riyad. If you go into the American embassy in Riyad in the main entrance, like you're going to a meeting or something, you see a photographic history of the relationship from from Iban Sud all the way to, you know, the current leadership with every American president since the since Franklin Roosevelt. And there are quotes about what is called the special

[1:03:52] relationship, right? We've always had this special relationship with the Saudis. But then it was my experience that you know what I I let me rephrase that. It became my understanding confirmed to me by two former US ambassadors to Saudi Arabia with whom I'm still close that the special relationship is just lip service. We buy Saudi oil, the Saudis buy American weapons and that's it. We like each other because we kind

[1:04:23] of have to. Um, it's a it's a very deep relationship economically, but we don't necessarily like each other. And I I'll tell you just one personal anecdote. I was so excited to go to Saudi Arabia the first time. So, this was in 1990 in like August of 1990. The Iraqis had just invaded Kuwait. The Kuwaitis had run out and uh had relocated to Tif. So there was a um there was a guard at the back of the American

[1:04:54] we we called it we called it a base. It was kind of a consulate and kind of a temporary anyway. And I was so proud that I had learned a little bit of Arabic when I saw him the very first day. I was going in for my very first day of work and I saidam and he ignored me. I thought huh that was kind of rude but all right whatever. So I go in I work my day. The next morning I went in and I saidalamu alaykum and he ignores me again. And I thought I wonder what his problem is. The third dayamkum

[1:05:25] and he just looked at me and I stopped and I said what's your problem? And he said you are hired help. [laughter] We paid for you to be here. We paid for you to liberate Kuwait. We're not friends. And I thought, wow. Well, thanks for laying it out for me. Um, Joe Biden went too far by calling uh, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman a murderer. Even if he is a murderer, you don't say

[1:05:56] it out loud. I mean, if you're the president, you could have the Washington Post say it in an op-ed, but you can't say something like that. There's a there's a bigger picture here, and the bigger picture is the long-term relationship. Um, Donald Trump, to his credit, appears to have repaired that relationship. But when I was in the Gulf the other day, every country I went to, they they complained about, you know, all these Trump people. They come here and they want to talk about, you know, diplomacy and and economic cooperation for a

[1:06:29] minute and then they try to get you to pay for a hotel, >> like to build the hotel, not to pay for your room, to build the resort and just give it to them. He said they're crooked real estate agents is what they are. And I think the Saudis are tired of that. I think that the Saudis have come to the realization that you know what, it was good while it lasted, but they don't really need the United States so much anymore. I think that's where we are. >> Okay. Question on this side.

[1:06:59] >> Yes, >> please. >> Um, so, uh, two comments. Hi, John. >> Hi, Maria. >> Maria from New York City. I I also left the Democratic party and I feel almost abandoned like a lot of people in America. They went on some policies very far right and on some policies >> very >> way far left like off the cliff. >> Oh, there was this guy in my office who came in address one day and I said, "You look ridiculous." >> Absolutely. It's delusion. It's delusional and I don't have to

[1:07:29] participate with that delusion. So, second comments, John, and I don't want anyone to get tri triggered because I will say the teen name, I pray President Trump pardons you. >> Oh, thanks. So do I. We'll see. >> And [laughter] um >> thank you. >> As a Greek American active in my church, St. Nicholas at World Trade Center, there is >> wonderful >> a Greek American who is very close with President Trump. I won't say his name. >> Oh, we've spoken a number of times.

[1:07:59] >> Okay. He said, he said, "How is it that we don't know each other?" I said, "We've met three times and we've taken pictures together." [laughter] >> I just wanted to talk to you afterwards with your permission to talk to him. >> Thank you. That's a big yes. And I'm going to call him when I get home. >> Okay. So, I will talk to you afterwards as well. >> Thank you. I appreciate >> you. Thank you. >> Thanks very much. We have a uh I think we're all the way back there. Oh, >> thank you very much. Um very delightful

[1:08:31] insights as always. >> I always enjoy your podcasts and uh all the wisdom you share with the world. >> Thank you. >> Um my question has to do with the specific uh strategic mix that has that goes into the the tool case that the intelligence community is using. I know I am aware that you prioritize human human intelligence above uh all of the other aspects of intelligence but I

[1:09:01] wanted to ask you what do you think about the operational role of opensource intelligence oint >> ah yeah >> as as of uh today >> critically important you know it's funny there's like a uh there's a community bias against OSENT in OSENT is open- source intelligence press media. Um there's this bias against it

[1:09:34] that that comes out of the bad old days of you know reading TAS and Pravda or reading every newspaper in India and Pakistan and just getting variations of you know hatred of one another. But for many years, we underestimated the the import of open- source um intelligence. The Soviets didn't. The Soviets always took it very very seriously. And they developed something in the 1960s called the mosaic concept. They said, 'If you

[1:10:05] read every American newspaper and every American scholarly journal, there's going to be enough important information at the unclassified level that will allow you to put together a mosaic of a classified program. And that was true. There was a uh you know the um who's the guy that wrote Jack Ryan? >> Um Tom >> Tom Clancy. Thanks. In 1991 when uh a year and a half after

[1:10:36] I started at the agency, the agency created a Tom Clansancy task force, right? They said Tom Clansancy in his book, The Hunt for Red October, obviously had access to classified information because he accurately described the interior the the the control room of a nuclear submarine. and you have to be cleared at the top secret level to even have access to uh to the bridge in a nuclear

[1:11:08] submarine. No, he just read everything that those guys published and he was able to put it together and so they had to disband the Tom Clansancy task force. But yeah, OSENT is critically important especially if you want to get a a sense of of what the public is thinking about an issue. If you don't want the the government position, you're you're already getting the government position, you know, from the State Department, you have to read the press. >> And I imagine with with social media

[1:11:40] today, your your your OEN source is uh is massive, right? I mean, >> it's it's just exploded exponentially. >> Yeah. Do we have time for one more? Okay. Um perhaps this gentleman. >> Sure. I'm sorry we don't have time for more questions. >> Hi. >> I wanted to ask, is there something that scares you that you believe if it happens is going to be the point of no return with all these job politics going

[1:12:11] around? >> Yeah. I heard I heard two weeks ago from two people speaking independently of one another that Donald Trump is actively considering the use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Iran. not because we need to use a tactical nuclear weapon, but because he believes that nuclear weapons are the final taboo and he wants to break the taboo with a

[1:12:42] small nuke so that future presidents can feel free to use big nukes. And the way I heard it, literally everybody in the cabinet shouted that that was the worst possible thing that any president could do in the history of the republic and he backed off. Now, there was a second report about a week ago that

[1:13:12] he asked General Kaine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, uh, for the nuclear codes. And General Kaine refused to give him the nuclear nuclear codes. General Kaine said that's not true. But there were people who were in the room at the time at a lower level saying no, that was true. So, we keep saying, you know, now I'm not going to say what we keep saying because I've applied for a pardon and I'm hoping for the best, but we're

[1:13:43] in very very dangerous times right now. The most dangerous times in my lifetime. I have I'm I'm just old enough that I I barely have a memory of the summer of 1968. Robert Kennedy was was well, Martin Luther King was killed in April. Robert Kennedy was was killed in uh in June and then gigantic demonstrations began in some cases riots against the Vietnam War. A year later

[1:14:13] was the Kent State shooting. And I remember it. And then we went into this period where we didn't have anything that was so severe. And now we're getting to a point where we're getting ready to explode again. like it's coming. Everybody sees it that it's coming. But we're so divided as a country that nobody feels that they have the power to stop it. It's It's going to get worse before it

[1:14:43] gets any better. And worse is going to mean people are going to die. Yeah. >> On that happy note, >> yes. [laughter] No, I'd really like to thank you on behalf of all of us for >> Thank you >> for really being honest. >> Oh, it's so great to be in Cypus. Thank you so much. Thank you. [applause] [music] >> Appreciate that. >> It's just really really rare to hear an

[1:15:15] honest uh open. >> You know what? I have literally nothing to lose. So I say whatever comes into my mind. [laughter] Thank you for listening [music] to Cypress Diaspora Uncovered. Subscribe to our podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts for more inspiring conversations that are [music] shaping Cypress's global future. You can also explore more episodes on our website and selected video interviews on our YouTube channels. [music]
