Title: Part of the Problem — John Kiriakou
Show: Covert Strategies Revealed
Date: 2026-06-02
URL: https://youtu.be/BQ93Fy1jfbA
Duration: 68:00

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[00:00] Up everybody. Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I've been really looking forward to this one. So, I'm glad you guys are tuning in. It's going to be a good one. You know, I had this experience uh recently. Uh I was at an event, a libertarian event, and someone said to me, I remember they just said the the comment offhand, and they they they were right in spirit, but they were wrong technically. So, this is good trivia to have. They said, "You know, the craziest thing is that we every American knows that we erected a torture program and no one ever went to jail for it." And I said, "That's not

[00:31] true. That is not true. Someone did go to jail for the the torture program that the Bush administration um erected." And of course, that is our guess. The person who went to jail for it, of course, is the person who exposed it to the American people. And I think I this is true for you. Um, this is true for uh Bradley Manning, I guess later known as Chelsea Manning. It's true for Julian Assange. I think one of the things that really has characterized where America is at is that for all of the crimes that

[01:02] have been committed just from the government in the 21st century alone, the people who end up get getting punished are the ones who expose the crimes rather than the people who committed them. Of course, my guest for today's show is John Kuryaku, who is a a in my opinion an American hero. the CIA [clears throat] whistleblower um uh who who exposed the torture program during the Bush administration. So, welcome, sir. I'm sorry you have to hold the distinct the distinct title of being the only person to go to jail for the torture program that was erected in this

[01:33] country. Um but you've been well, you've been a really valuable um a really valuable contributor to this this conversation and waking people up to the nature of how government really works. And so I'm I'm grateful for the work that you do and I'm grateful that you took some time to join us today. >> Pleasure is all mine. Thanks for the invitation. >> Absolutely. You know, I was thinking I was I was mentioning uh this to you just before we got started, but there was I I I knew we had booked this uh this interview a few days ago and it was I think the day before the UN Commission

[02:05] on uh torture just came out with this report that there was widespread um torture going on over the I mean for many years, but they say over the last two years widespread torture of Palestinians, many uh tortured to death. Um, of course that did remind me of the the torture programs that the United States of America was involved in in the uh wake in the immediate wake of 911 and the war on terrorism. And then there was this whole conversation that I was just interviewed on Pierce Morgan about where Netanyahu is claiming that um you know he's he's requesting a pardon for his

[02:35] corruption charges and he's claiming that this is the path toward national unity for Israel, right? like it's such a divisive issue that half the country wants me in jail and wouldn't it unify everybody if we were to just give me a pardon? And it just like the parallels were so striking to me between Barack Obama's position on not prosecuting Bush error uh criminals which then of course he ended up becoming one of but anyway so so just curious your take on on all of this the parallels between the American uh dynamic and the Israeli dynamic or what are you thinking this

[03:06] week when you read about this stuff? Oh my god. Where do you even begin with something like that? You know what? Just I'll I'll begin with a little a little nit that has bothered me for a long time. Uh it's when we talk about Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. Why do we use different words to describe people who have been snatched off the street and not charged with a crime? Why do the Israelis get to be hostages and the Palestinians are

[03:37] prisoners? They haven't been convicted of anything. I was talking to a doctor recently, an Israeli doctor, who's a human rights activist, and he told me that in in prison now, Palestinians are not allowed to speak, number one, and they're not allowed to walk. They have to go from place to place like to the, you know, food hall or whatever on all fours. And it's just it's just to cow them. So, you know, that's where do like

[04:07] I say, where do you even begin? You know, there are so many different things we can talk about relative to torture and things that we we know are wrong because we're signitories to these international conventions that ban, you know, degrading and inhum inhumane treatment and then we just pretend it doesn't happen when we know it happens. >> So, I I I don't get the double standard. I've never understood the double standard. This is not a partisan issue because the Democrats and the Republicans are equally guilty of doing

[04:37] exactly this. Uh, you know, I was given an interview earlier today and I said I said that that we're either going to be a country that that is a shining beacon for human rights and civil rights and civil liberties or we're not. But we can't pretend to be this great beacon of hope and yell at other countries and tell them how to conduct their business if we're just going to be hypocrites about it. And I'll give you I'll give you an

[05:08] example. When I was on on assignment to the State Department, I was I was on rotation to the State Department from 1994 to 1996. I served in the American Embassy in Bahrain as the economic um officer, but I was also the human rights officer. And so, you know, every year, every American embassy in every country with which we have diplomatic relations has to do a human rights report and send it back to to Congress. And so, that was part of my job. I go out and interview attorneys

[05:39] and and detainees and government officials and everybody who has anything to do with human rights. So when I go to see the Minister of Interior and I say, "Your Highness, you cannot pick up a 15-year-old boy off the street and beat him to death because he marched in a peaceful pro-democracy demonstration and then call his parents that night, tell him to come and pick up the body. You can't do that. I have to report that to

[06:10] Congress and they may cut off your arm sales." But then an hour later, some CIA guy comes in and says, "Don't pay any attention to the human rights guy. If we give you $10 million, we want you to open up a secret torture chamber and we're going to bring people here, we'll disappear them, and you torture them and then you give us a transcript of what they say." What What are they going to do? They going to listen to John, the human rights guy.

[06:41] >> Right. Right. or they going to listen to the CIA guy with the suitcase full of $10 million in cash. >> So that's what we're up against. >> Yeah. And it seems like there's there's an interesting dynamic there where like you also just in terms of public opinion or something like that, like you just lose the moral leg to stand on. You know, you see, you know, there's uh I I found this to be an interesting I' I've mentioned this before on the show and I'm really not even trying to beat up on uh Joel Barry from the um he's he works over at uh um what's it called? the not the onion but the other one uh the

[07:13] Babylon. >> The Babylon bee. Yeah, there >> Babylon be. >> Yeah. So he So he said and like look I I completely disagree with him on the Israel stuff but like I agreed with them I think on COVID and wokeism and and you know they nothing against those guys exactly but he said this to me at one point is your first point here just reminded me of this that I said when the ceasefire had first uh broke out the the latest ceasefire that is hanging on by a thread over in Israel. >> Yeah. If you could call that a ceasefire, you know, like of course like you know if if um Israel's killed I

[07:43] think like maybe uh hundred or 200 civilians since the ceasefire has you know like if if Palestinians had killed 200 Israeli civilians since then, we wouldn't be considering this a ceasefire. But I said something at the very beginning of the ceasefire. I had a very generic tweet I thought that was just like hey hope this works. I'm not optimistic but let's hope something better comes. And I said at least I said at the very least at least there's prisoner swaps. Uh or I said there's hostage swaps going on and there's more aid getting in right now than there was

[08:13] a few weeks ago. So that's better. And then Joel Barry got very offended. He goes, "How dare you call them hostage swaps? One side is all innocent Israelis and the other side is all a bunch of terrorists." And I just thought this was such an amazing moment because like first of all, look, dude, it it's just the way people conceive of these things. And then it's circular. Yeah. If your starting point is that all the Israelis are angels and all the Palestinians are terrorists, well then sure. But there were IDF soldiers who were amongst the hostages and there were 1,700 people who

[08:44] had never been charged with anything who Israel was holding. So literally one one is a look again all these things are complicated. I don't ever want to see prisoners of war or hostages even when they're soldiers. But like it's a different thing for an IDF soldier to be being held in occupied territory than it is for just some Palestinian boy who was never charged with anything to get tortured. >> I gave an interview I'm going to say four or five weeks ago and I said and and and slap me if this is too

[09:15] controversial but I said I believed that both sides should respect the basic tenants of human rights. Next thing I know, I have a Google alert on myself just to see what people are saying if I need to defend myself or whatever. There's uh there's an article in some obscure uh Middle Eastern journal and it's written by the political director in the Israeli foreign minister's office and he says John Kiryaku, a noted anti-semite, said blah blah blah that we should

[09:47] respect human rights. I'm like what? I said, "Listen, people have called me a lot of things over the years. A noted anti-semite is not one of them because I said that both sides should respect human rights." >> Incredible. >> And I'll tell you the truth, I have a lot of friends who are either Israeli or Israeli American. There's one one friend I'm particularly close to who who's served several years in the IDF. And I said, "Dude," I said, "Check me if I

[10:18] become, you know, if I say things that are a little too too far over in the way of human rights." And he said, "I'd be the first to check you." And no, you haven't said anything. >> Well, it's it's, you know, they they got this Zoran mom, Donnie, who's the the mayor elect of New York City here now, first of all, is I mean, he was like a woke democratic socialist. He he's got like in my opinion some of the like cringiest and most ridiculous opinions ever. But the thing they tried the thing

[10:50] they tried to get him on John was that he said he had this hilarian statement where he said that I think Israel should be a state with equal rights for everybody. Imagine and >> this is and they try imagine trying to turn that statement into some type of like hateful and they actually used it like they played the clip of it and went listen to him when they say does Israel have a right to exist and he goes yeah and he goes Israel have a right to exist as a Jewish state and he goes they have a right to exist as a state with equal rights for everyone and they're like the

[11:21] horror what exactly are you talking about >> exactly and then when they deny when they deny that there are similarities between Israel today and South Africa in the 1980s and then they confuse which one you're talking about. >> Yeah. >> I mean, come on, man. It's an indictment. >> But there are a lot of Let me add one other one other thought. This is something that's really been bothering me a lot lately is here in the United States. Um >> I listen, I have friends completely

[11:51] across the ideological spectrum. I genu genuinely don't care if people are Democrats or Republicans or conservatives or it makes no difference to me. I think we can we can find common ground on everything. But I can't tell you how many friends that I have from both the left and the right who have said after I say something like, you know, there should be an investigation on human rights abuses. And they'll say, I didn't know you were pro- Hamas. It's like, what the [ __ ] are you talking

[12:22] about? Pro- Hamas, are you kidding me? I was on Pierce Morgan one time and um and I like going I actually was on Pierce Morgan, let me look, 15 minutes ago, but I was on several months ago and funny thing to me is he he had me as one of the right-wing guys, uh which it only occurred to me 20 minutes into the show. Uh but, uh he said to me, "Do you believe that Hamas is a terrorist organization?" I said, "Of course." And he said, "Was October 7th a a terrorist

[12:54] attack?" And I said, "Of course it was." And he said, "So what is the point that that you're holding to here?" And I said, "The point I'm holding to is that Israel has to respect human rights. It really is as simple as that." And he says, "Anybody disagree?" And everybody on the panel agreed. And then Pierce says, "I think this is the first time we've ever talked about Israel on this show." And all four panelists agreed. I mean, what's so hard about that? >> All right, guys. Let's take a moment and

[13:24] thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Calshi. We've been telling you about them for a while, and they've been popping up all over the place. As I'm sure you guys know by now, Kelsey is the first ever fully regulated CFTC approved, available in all 50 states prediction market. So, basically, you can bet on anything that's got a clear outcome. You can bet on whether inflation will go up or down next year. where you can bet on who's going to win the midterm elections, who's going to be the next president, but you can also view it as a prediction market and see where people are putting their money.

[13:56] So, it's very interesting. It kind of keeps your finger on the pulse of American culture and also you can throw some money down and win. Cali.com/dave. Go check out Kshi today. Check out the markets. Get in on the betting. Have some fun. Let's get back into the show. Yeah. Well, it's I you know I again like you said before when you're you know when there are these terms that are used like um like hostage verse prisoner >> but really there is no definitional difference between the two things. I mean especially when you're talking

[14:26] about the the only difference really is whether it's state or non-state actors like whether it's a non-state actor taking somebody or it's a state actor taking someone. If you never gave him a trial or anything even resembling a military tribunal, then you're the same. You're a guy with a gun who snatched somebody and is keeping them in captivity. But then here's the same the same thing is that that also applies to this term terrorism. And I know that you know you you are somebody who has a career in counterterrorism and I but

[14:56] like you said before, I'm I'm not a lefty at all. I'm a hardcore libertarian. But [clears throat] Nam Chomsky, man, he really did nail it when he said he goes, "Fundamentally, what is the difference between terrorism and counterterrorism? It's terrorism when they do it and it's counterterrorism when we do it." And that's really the only difference. And so I I mean, I told a spokesman for the IDF on Pierce Morgan the other day, he said something that he didn't respect my line of inquiry. And I said I said, "Sir, you're the spokesman for a terrorist organization."

[15:28] And I think I tried to make it a funny line. And I said, "You're a spokesman for the biggest terror uh terrorist organization in a region known for terrorist organizations." [laughter] And but it really that is it. And I think that this is just it's it's gotten to a point where I think that what's kind of interesting is it seems to me like you were a guy who kind of woke up to the reality of this on the inside >> and then in the in the following two decades it seems like the people have woken up to this reality from the outside. >> Oh, I'll give you I'll give you an example. I'm sorry to interrupt you.

[15:58] >> Oh, no. Go ahead. The >> the night that we captured Abu Zuba and dozens and dozens of other al-Qaeda fighters, um we caught so many people that night that we had to bring them into our safe house for interrogation in shifts. We had to bring them in 10 at a time in a patty wagon. So the first group comes in and there was this idiot working for me. He had flown out to Pakistan just for the operation, but he was a total [ __ ] and thought he was in charge and I had to slap him down a couple of times. So he brings these prisoners in and they all have bags on

[16:30] their heads. And I said, "Why do they have hoods on?" And he said, "We don't want them to see our our faces." And I said, "Are you seriously telling me that you have never read the Geneva Convention? It is a war crime to put hoods on them." I said, "Take the hoods off." And he goes, "Wait." And he says, "Don't take the hoods off." And he says to me, "I'm going to report you to headquarters." And I said, "Oh, I'm already reporting you to headquarters for committing a war crime. Take the hoods off." And they took the

[17:00] hoods off. We reported each other to headquarters. I got reprimanded. Yeah. Well, it really does show you um that which is kind of a a you know, libertarian view of mine that the thing about the law is that there's really no such thing. And it's a nice idea, but they are after all words written down on a piece of paper. And you know, like you you see this all the time like uh there'll be like videos um like police arrest videos and there's always you

[17:31] find that one you know the sovereign citizen or whoever who's like I know my rights and you know then you you watch the cops like mhm get out of the car and they're like I have the right not to get out of the car. Then the cop breaks the windows out of the car. >> I watch those every single night. Well, what's so [laughter] I think what's so fascinating about them, John, is that you actually when you watch it, what you're actually watching is this this confrontation between um abstract conceptions

[18:01] and brutal reality. And in a sense, like you got a man with a gun who's got a walkie-talkie to a bunch of other men with guns. you are outgunned and outmanned by the most powerful gang in the land, which is the local police in any jurisdiction in the United States of America. But then in your mind, you're like, "Yes, but something was written down on a scroll in the late 1700s and I believe that hocus pocus this undo." Like it is almost a belief in magic.

[18:31] What you realize is that the law is at the end of the day whatever is enforced. If you're in a 60 mile per hour speed limit, but they don't pull you over unless you go 75, then the speed limit is 75 miles per hour in reality. And I think what you're what you're describing there is that in reality, war crimes aren't illegal, but reporting on them is. >> That is that is the sad sorry state that we find ourselves in. You're absolutely right. >> Yeah. So So as you now you're So you were at the CIA before 911.

[19:03] >> Oh, yeah. I was at the CIA what 11 years before 911. >> Okay. So you came in 1990. So 1990 to around 2006. >> Uh there 2005. Yeah. >> 2005. Sorry. Uh so now I know you've talked about this before but you that's that to me is a very interesting dynamic because not only obviously um the you know the nature of the CIA has been something different than what the American people have understood of it for a long time but obviously things really changed after 911 and the war on

[19:34] terror launched. I also I also feel like there's I mean like I remember you know like my my parents were interested in politics. um that Crossfire was on my my living room in the 90s or something like that. And I think if you had asked them, they would have said that um you know, yeah, there's a CIA and they do secret spy stuff. Sure, they probably even knew they were toppling some communist governments or something like that around the world, but I don't think when they looked at politics, they ever thought this is a show orchestrated by

[20:07] the deep state that is irrelevant to the real mechanisms of government that the deep state is actually running this thing. Whereas now, I think that's like common knowledge amongst the American people. Yet you're so you I want like from your perspective, you're in the CIA. you go in there believing in the cause, believing you're serving your country. What was like what what were the steps of where you started going like, "Oh man, this might be something really unsavory that I'm a part of." >> You know, the first >> the first time I ever considered the notion of a deep state. I still remember

[20:39] it. I It was an It was one specific meeting. There is uh there's a group at that's housed at the CIA called the National Intelligence Council. So they're supposed to be the topmost analysts from all around the intelligence community. These are the best and the brightest, right? They're all in the senior intelligence service. Almost all of them have PhDs. Sometimes they go back and forth between the CIA and Harvard and Stanford and places like that. And there was one guy who was the

[21:10] NIO, the national intelligence officer for warning. So, he's supposed to be the guy that's looking 5, 10, 20 years down the line saying, you know, I think that Bolivia is going to be a problem for us 20 years from now. Well, I remember going into this meeting with him and I was a young kid. I was in my 20s. He was an old man, but everybody, you know, 50 and older in my mind was an old man at the time. I'm 61 now and I realize how foolish that was.

[21:41] But [laughter] anyway, people were congratulating him and I asked somebody. I said, "Why is everybody congratulating him?" "Oh, he got an age waiver from the director." And I said, "What's that mean?" "Oh, he's allowed to work until he's 70." I was like, "7? How old is he now?" He's 65. He's been in this job for 42 years, and he's going to stay for another five years. And I was like, why would anybody want to want to be in a job for for 47 years, the same job?

[22:15] Well, because that's the power that you've built. That's the authority that you've built. Presidents come and go. How many presidents are going to come and go over the course of this guy's 47year CIA career. So, he knows that if the president calls and says, "Listen, I want you to take a really hard look at, you know, Brazil." He can tell the president go screw himself. Not in so many words, >> right? >> But he can just so so slow roll this response that by the time he feels like

[22:46] getting around to it, the president's long gone. And I realized for the very first time there actually is a deep state. We can call it the state. >> We can call it the federal bureaucracy, but by God it's there. It exists, >> you know. Uh so it reminds me as you say this uh so there's this really great book uh written by Hans Herman Hapa it's called Democracy the God that failed and it's it's essentially a right-wing libertarian critique of democracy and but whether whether you come away like

[23:18] completely agreeing with his thesis or not it's just a it's a worthwhile read. It's a very fascinating like right-wing libertarian critique on democracy. And essentially, if I could boil it down, like his argument is basically that like the having democracy essentially makes the government like it like publicly owned. And the way if we think about the way any piece of property is owned, we all on some level we all know that like um owners take better care of a house than renters. You know, like it's just if you if it's your problem that you're

[23:48] gonna have to deal I know this just from like I own a house now and I used to rent a house now. When I own the house I'm thinking about like oh well what's best for in 20 years? What's when you're renting you're just not you're like what's going to am I going to get my security deposit back is essentially your concern. [laughter] >> And so bas essentially his point was that he was going like well look hey people who believe in free markets people who believe in capitalism we all recognize that everything is better owned privately. And the logical conclusion of that is kind of like if you're going to have a government, you're better off having just a decision maker at the top rather than this thing

[24:19] where essentially you're in for four years, you're you're only incentives are to loot as much out of it as you can before you get out. But then I think another aspect is what you're talking about. In a sense, I'm not just sticking up for the deep state, but in a sense there you're going, well, hey, what are they going to do? They are the permanent part of the government after after all. You know, like after all, the CIA is going to be making decisions. The CIA has been making important decisions since it was created. We've had dozens of presidents since then, but we have not had or I guess do the math,

[24:50] whatever, since the end of World War II. But the point is there's been a whole lot of them coming in and going. And so almost just by the nature of the system, it's almost designed that of course the intelligence agencies would have to think like that, to think like, yeah, whatever. Trump's going to come in and have his whole executive order tariffs. Okay. Then the next guy gets in there and he can undo all of them. So, who cares, >> right? Yeah. That's what it comes down to. >> Yeah. >> So, do you Sorry. Go ahead. >> I was going to say and for a minute we thought that oversight committees might

[25:21] might fix that. And I chuckle about it now. At the time, 1975, 1976, this this seemed like a good idea that the the deep state has become too big, too powerful, too widespread. It kills anybody that gets in their way. They experiment on Americans, you know, dosing people with LSD, forcing people to jump out of windows. We got to put a hold on this. And that lasted for what, six years, until we decided, ah, no, you know what?

[25:51] We're going to sell weapons to the Iranians, which is illegal, and then we're going to have a Saudi middleman do it, and he'll launder the money for us. Then we'll use the money to buy new weapons that we're going to use this guy in Cyprus to send to the rebels in Nicaragua, which is also illegal, and just hope that nobody notices. >> Yeah. And and and also like just to add into that um that the it was already known that the position of the administration was supporting Saddam Hussein in that war. So the

[26:23] administration is supporting the other side of the war. Like I I mean it's just it's un I always find that to be uh I just love that that example in American history, the the Iraq Iran war of 1980 to 1986 just because like it's so indefensible to fund both sides of a war. Like it's almost like it's it's almost even more indefensible than just launching a war of aggression because at least launching a war of aggression, you know, you can claim some preemptive like well we felt that we would we had to do this or something else would happen. But

[26:53] when you're funding both sides of a war, you go, "Oh, you're just a monster." >> Oh my god. And it was even worse than that. As soon as one would get a leg up on the other, we would increase the level of intelligence cooperation. So if the Iranians move into Iraqi territory, then we start giving the Iraqis top secret overhead imagery. And then if the Iraqis push into Iranian territory, then we start giving the Iranians overhead imagery.

[27:24] >> So it was hideous. >> That I didn't know. That's really interesting. So when you say the period where like there were six, you're saying like after the church hearings, but before like the not I don't know what you would call it, but before the the Carter doctrine and then the Reagan doctrine in the Middle East. So like we had a little period there where the CIA wasn't people. >> Yeah. This little period. Exactly. Yeah. And then, you know, there was kind of a golden a golden age very briefly uh under under Bill Clinton where where

[27:54] Clinton came down with this edict that he did not want the CIA to do anything with anybody that had what he called a human rights problem. So, if you were a recruited asset of the CIA and oh, by the way, you happen to run this Honduran death squad, uh you're fired. We use the word terminated at the CIA, but people would take that wrong. So, you're fired. There's no more paycheck. There's no more cooperation. And I remember people laughing when that first came down. And

[28:27] then as it was implemented, people were like, "Oh, oh, he's serious. This is actually working out. Okay. Well, good for us." And then 911 happened. And I said earlier in an interview, the pendulum tends to swing both ways. Well, it went so far after 911 that it's not yet swung back. All right, guys. Let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Brunt Work Wear. These are the most comfortable pair of work boots I have ever put on my delicate feet. I highly recommend them.

[28:57] It is the holiday season. If you're looking for a gift for a hardworking guy or gal in your life, definitely go check out Brunt Workware. Traditionally speaking, we all know if you wanted a good pair of work boots, they were going to be uncomfortable as hell, at least for the first six months that you wear them. You could either have a nice comfortable pair of sneakers or you could have a good pair of work boots. But that dynamic no longer exists thanks to Brunt. They have made the most comfortable pair of work boots that you will ever own. And with temperatures dropping and the holidays coming up,

[29:28] everybody could use a new pair of work boots. This is where you go to get them. And our listeners will get $10 off if they use the promo code problem when they go to bruntwork.com. That's bruntwork.com. Promo code problem for $10 off the most comfortable, durable pair of work boots you will ever own. All right, let's get back into the show. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So, what Yeah. Well, Bill Clinton had some good ideas and then all of a sudden he's in a blue dress on Jeffrey Estein's living room wall or something. Um, so was [laughter]

[30:00] was your because I want to ask a bunch about this because this is like a a topic that I'm I've been very fascinated with and read a lot about, but you were there. So there the the neoconservatives who of course were like whatever. There was like the origins in team B in the their intellectuals. They had positions in the Reagan administration and in the George HW Bush administration, but during those Clinton years that you're talking about, they're essentially out of power. And a lot of them were Democrats,

[30:30] believe it or not. Like Richard Pearl never changed his voter registration from Democrat to Republican. And a lot of them as Yeah. A lot of them as very young men worked for Scoop Jackson >> who was a Democratic senator from Washington State. >> No, that I did know. I mean, they were Troskyites into Democrats then into that's why they were the neo conservatives. Right. Right. So this now these guys while they're out obviously they they have made cozy relationships with the military-industrial complex at this point like in the 90s all those Bill Crystal think tanks are funded by

[31:02] weapons companies and they are advocating um >> both to Benjamin Netanyahu and then later to uh Bill Clinton that we go overthrow Saddam Hussein that we attack Iran attack Syria before 9/11. So there's 10 months before 9/11 where like George W. Bush is in and he's staffed his administration with all these neocons. What was the feeling then? Like cuz weren't weren't they from my understanding is they were kind of viewed as the crazies in the basement. There's this group of war hawks that always wants to blow everything up but

[31:33] like whatever they don't really have any power. There was in even in the George HW Bush, there were Brent Skras and there were people who could like veto them who are like they're not going to get all their craziest views through. But like I'm saying before 911 in the Bush administration, you guys must have noticed like, oh man, Dick Cheney just staffed the entire government with these guys at the most powerful positions >> and as their deputies and deputies deputies. I'll tell you a funny story. When I was in Bahrain from 94 to 96, I

[32:04] had an intern working for me and he was a student at Yale. He was a sophomore at Yale. Really, really smart guy. and we kind of sort of stayed in touch in the years after. He he stayed at Yale and got a masters. Then he got a PhD and then he sent me a note saying, "Hey, um I just got a job at the Pentagon uh working in this new um under secretariat for intelligence." And I said, "Oh,

[32:34] cool." I said, "Why don't you come over to the agency? I'm working for the deputy director and you can brief him on, you know, what the Pentagon's thoughts are on Iraq. He comes over, gives this briefing and I remember being like appalled and my boss kept looking at me like, "What are you doing bringing this guy here?" So I walked him out to his car and I said, "Michael, I have to ask you, when did you become a fascist?" And he turned to me and he says, "We're

[33:04] in charge now. we're in charge and Saddam Hussein's going to die. And I was like, "Oh my god." Well, he's working for he's working for well, I I don't want to name names, but he's working for all those guys at the Pentagon who later became famous and appeared in Vanity Fair and these exposees about, you know, how we ended up at war in Iraq. It turns out that they just they just beded their time knowing that they had a champion in Dick

[33:35] Cheney, that Dick Cheney was the one running the show. You know, it's funny because right before 911 at the CIA, it was China, China, China, China. And I was working in the counterterrorism center at the time and I was like, ah, you know, they really should kind of divert some of their attention away from China and start looking at this this terrorism situation in the Middle East. But it was all about China. And then once we got hit, I mean, listen, there's this famous story that Richard Pearl was at the White House on September 12th,

[34:06] 2001 and said, you know, we have to attack Iraq, right? And then it was just history from there. So now now I know I I've made a lot out of this o over years and I think you've you've given me you know from other interviews of yours that I've I've watched like you've given me some of the information um about this that I've I've had people who have tried to like debunk this but I just find the case to be pretty overwhelming. But if you look at say just just to pick some like public

[34:38] writings, okay, Benjamin Netanyahu writes a book in '95 or '96 called Fighting Terrorism that kind of lays a lot of this stuff out. In 1996, is also when Richard Pearl and David Worms and Douglas fight write the clean break memo to Benjamin Netanyahu. The same year, 1996, David Worms writes a companion piece called Coping with Crumbling States. Now, anybody can go read this stuff. It's all out there uh public. I mean, you might have to buy Benjamin Netanyahu's book, but the rest of them are all up in PDFs for free on the internet. And they're very clear that their plan is to explicitly to get away

[35:11] from the peace process and the promise of Oslo, which is to give the Palestinians their own states. And instead, what the Israelis need to do is reverse the Yeetsak Rabin doctrine, which was we have to make peace with the Palestinians in order to make peace with the broader Arab world. And they go, "No, no, no, no. We're going to do the opposite. we're going to overthrow all the problematic regimes in the broader Arab world or broader Muslim world and that way we never have to make peace with the Palestinian. We never have to do a land for peace deal. Now this this in in um the uh the uh the clean break

[35:44] memo they specifically called for overthrowing Saddam Hussein uh strikes on Iran, strikes on Syria. Then we have um the um obviously the letters to Bill Clinton urging him to overthrow uh Saddam Hussein 98 I believe. Then you have um uh General Wesley Clark's now famous comments about how the plan was to overthrow seven uh countries in the next five years. By the way, those se of those seven countries, >> six of them for sure have been attacked by either Israel, the United States, or both since the seventh one, Sudan. The

[36:15] the king died. There was a civil war. It was broken up. I they believe there's still a horrible conflict going on over there. >> A genuine civil war taking place right now. >> Yes. It's really awful. Um, and so now and and I don't know the exact details, but I know there's all types of George Soros uh like articles about how Sudan needs to be separated and needed to be, you know, uh um southern Sudan needed to be removed. So, I don't know exactly the details of the intervention there, but there's now when people try to argue with this a lot of times they'll say,

[36:45] "Okay, but the clean break memo didn't happen exact like it didn't happen exactly the way it's written because they said they wanted a Hashemite king to come in. Okay, the Hashimite king died. Chalabe was the one who sold him on the whole Hashmite King thing. Anyway, they basically went with the same version of that of Chalabe's group uh supposedly taking over. Now, now again, I guess the point that I've always been making with all this stuff when you put it together is that clearly like for the same reason that people read foreign affairs because they want to get the thinking in Washington. So clearly the thinking in Washington here

[37:16] is that we are going to fight multiple regime change wars of choice and like that this this had been a plan. It really got animated after 911. Now you had some interesting information on this too where you had you had explicitly heard tell me remind me of this. Who did you hear from that we would be in tan by next year and this was in 2001 I think you had heard this? >> Uh it was in two it was in February of 2003. >> Oh okay my mistake. >> So this is this is the night before we attack Iraq. Um, I was the notetaker in

[37:50] a meeting that is called a principal committee meeting. So, it's normally chaired by the president. In this case, for whatever reason, it was chaired by Vice President Cheney. But I'm sitting in the CIA director's conference room with George Tennant. He's the only person sitting at the table. I'm sitting directly behind him to take notes. And the Cheney is on one screen sharing the meeting. Condi Rice is next to him on the next screen. And Colin Pal's on the screen. and um and Secretary um Rumsfeld is on a screen and and there are a

[38:23] couple of NSC senior directors and then the head of um Sentcom, Sincent, commander-in-chief of Central Command, General who is that Tommy Franks. And so I've always hated the Order of Battle Briefings. I've always hated them because I don't understand them and I just don't give a [ __ ] where we have, you know. So anyway, Cheney starts by saying, "General Franks, why don't you start off with the order of battle briefing?" And I was like, "Ugh." So I'm I'm ready to write it down. He's like,

[38:53] "You know, elements of the first army division are at this location and the fifth cavalry brigade is here and they're moving north at 20 kilometers and I don't care where these guys are." So he finishes the briefing and he says, "If all go if all goes as planned, we can be in Tehran by August." And George very discreetly reaches in front of him and and turns off the microphone. And then he turns to me and he says, "Did he

[39:24] say Thran or did he say Baghdad?" And I said, "He said Thran." And George says, "Have they lost their minds?" And then he discreetly turns the microphone back on and just kind of sits there for the rest of the briefing. I go down to um back to my office afterwards, I should say. At the very end of the briefing, this idiot who was a senior director at the NSC um says excitedly as everybody's, you know, getting up and they're logging

[39:55] off, he says, when we cross that border tomorrow morning, they're going to throw flowers at us. And I remember thinking, do they know nothing about history? Like they they they must know nothing about the history of the Middle East. So I go back to the office, my boss says, how was the briefing? And I said, "Did you know we were going to attack Iran?" And he goes, "Are they still talking about that? We're not going to attack Iran." And I said, "These guys know nothing about history." He said, "Of course they don't know anything about

[40:25] history. That's why they think we're going to go to go to Iran. We're not going to go to Iran." And then, you know, we attacked Iraq the next day and everything turned to [ __ ] after that. >> Right. Right. And of course you could see where it at least it seems to me um that amongst that neoconservative group and and of course you never know what's in everybody's hearts and minds and stuff but it does seem like they believed it like that they really did believe that I mean listen I saw I saw an interview with David Worms from a few

[40:56] weeks ago a few weeks ago and the clean break memo gets brought up and he starts defending it how yes if you had put the Hasheite king in Iraq that the Shiites would have had to listen to the Hashemites and therefore they would have told the Lebanese to knock it off and be friendly with Israel. Like it does seem like they and and it's hard I think for younger people to understand I I guess because I was alive in the 80s and 90s I kind like I think there was a feeling particularly after the first Persian Gulf War where it was like in the

[41:28] unipolar moment like this is America. If we want to topple Saddam's regime we'll topple them immediately. we'll we'll move on to Tyrron next year and then like whoopsie, nobody saw like a civil war where a million people get killed breaking out and the whole thing being a catastrophe. But it at least seems to me that like those people were actually that stupid. Yes, they were actually that ignorant of history and thought we were going to be greeted as liberators. >> Willful blindness really is is what it was. Like how could you not think that two million people are going to end up

[41:58] dead by the time you decide to finally leave? >> Yeah. Like how could you conclude anything other than this is going to be a disaster and millions of people are going to die? And on top of it all, Saddam Hussein, like him or hate him, like his politics or hate his politics, was literally the only Sunni bull work against Iran. And if if you're you know the king of Bahrain or the Amir of Kuwait or the

[42:28] king of Saudi Arabia and your population is small and you're petrified of Iranian expansionism, the only thing that's going to protect you is a Sunni leader in Iraq. When I first started as an analyst, um I I was an analyst on Iraq for the whole first, you know, seven or eight years of my career. And our analytic line was that yeah, Iraqis would probably be very happy to see Saddam go, but they would also be very

[43:00] happy to see him pl replaced by a Sunni military huta, right? where there's no clear person in charge, but it's a bunch of Sunni generals who are going to keep the Iranians off everybody's back, but are going to allow some degree of freedom and respect for human rights among the populace. And that never happened, >> right? All right, guys. Let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Hexclad. The holiday season is here, and let's be real, the kitchen is where it all goes down. big

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[44:33] Let's get back into the show. Right. So, do you now what what was your take like in those days about the relationship that Israel had with all of this? Um because obviously I you know I I think sometimes almost like this this debate it like gets into semantics you know people will be like you know was it Israel's war? Was it our war? Like obviously it's much more complicated than that. And I think that the essentially the Israeli government and the US government have so merged especially on like the deep state level

[45:03] that it's almost like hard to tell where one stops and the other one begins. But there's kind of no question here that like okay the neoconservatives obviously like I just said they're writing these letters to Benjamin Netanyahu. They're they're clearly married at the hip with the lood party. Obviously the Israel lobby was very instrumental. the neoonservatives themselves are a part of the Israel lobby. Like obviously this was all very instrumental and the feeling I guess was right like that this will make the region safer for Israel or something

[45:34] like that. Like what was your perspective on the inside of how much of a role that or how much of an influence that was playing? >> Well, the first Gulf War was crystal clear. Uh Iraq invaded Kuwait. Saddam miscalculated. Thought that certainly the United States wouldn't go to Kuwait's aid. We didn't have very good relations with Kuwait at the time. they were members of the non-aligned uh movement and we you know we had an embassy there but we weren't terribly close friends. Um he was wrong. The the Iraq war was an entirely different

[46:04] animal. Uh the Israelis begged us to let them join in the attack on Iraq and everybody they approached whether it was at the Pentagon or the White House or the CIA said absolutely not. Now they tried to get a couple of shots in. I I won't say more than that, but they tried to get a couple of shots in on the day that we crossed the border. Uh but they they were so excited as as to the point

[46:35] of giddiness that they wanted to be involved in this war and and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. You make an important point here that I want to amplify. It's not that our relations coincided. It's that the Israelis along with the neocons had been working on the government so consistently since the middle of the Clinton administration, since the beginning of the Clinton administration that there was just almost no way out of it. Like in

[47:06] retrospect, of course we attacked Iraq. I mean, even if we hadn't made up the whole notion of of weapons of mass destruction, we would have made up something else to justify an attack on Iraq. I mean, look at Dick Cheny's efforts to connect Saddam Hussein with al-Qaeda. For those of us inside the CIA who knew a little bit about Iraq and about al-Qaeda and about Islam, I mean, everybody to a man would have said there's literally nothing Muslim

[47:38] about Saddam Hussein. He famously made the Umra, the minor pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia and it was either 1987 or 1988. He went with the vice president of Iraq, Isat Ibraim. Is that Ibrahim was a pious Sufi Muslim. Saddam didn't even know the prayers. And so when they went to the Cabba to pray, um, is that Ibrahim knelt just behind Saddam to whisper the prayers to him so that he could say them out loud and make

[48:09] it look like he knew what the hell he was doing. So there was no connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Osama bin Laden hated Saddam Hussein at least as much as he hated the United States. There was no connection there. But Dick Cheney counted correctly, as it turned out, on the American people being so stupid and so gullible that they would just go along with it. >> Yeah. Well, I guess I and and I don't have the expertise you have, but I do know enough to know when you see a

[48:39] French beret on someone, that's not a sign of an Islamist. That's usually not the first sign. You don't have to know that much [laughter] to know that that's probably not what you're dealing with. No, I mean it's unbel throughout the whole thing. And I remember um just I I remember watching like Carl Rove on Bill O'Reilly, you know, during those years come in and he would look they they would do this because they were they were good at this because he never explicitly, you know, like lied, >> but he would so play on the ignorance of the Fox News audience that he would say things, you know, in the context of this

[49:11] is 2005 or something like that and he would say Iran is the biggest thunder of terrorism and like in an immediate post 911 world. You know that every Fox News viewer when they hear that is hearing, "Oh, you mean the guys who took down these towers? I know the Durka Derka Muslim terrorists. Those are the guys who took our towers down." Now, he just omits that like, "Oh, actually there are these shirts and skins over there and they're different sides and like they're on the other side. They're actually at

[49:41] war with the terrorists who we have a problem with." And so there was this constant attempt to like play on the ignorance of the American population and then mislead them toward thinking that there, you know, like now again like they they maybe never technically said, you know, Iran was involved in 911 and they really hinted at Saddam Hussein being involved, but they totally just gave that impression to the American people that that's what's going on here. >> 100% right. That's exactly what they did. They tricked the American people into buying into this nonsense. You

[50:12] know, I there's something happening right now, too. And I've noticed this on I've noticed this on Fox News and elsewhere in the in the right-wing print media. Uh it's about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. And in fact, I think I'm not positive. I think the State Department has just declared the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization or elements of it a terrorist organization. The Muslim Brotherhood has never ever carried out an anti-American terrorist uh operation. And in fact, I mean, it's

[50:43] a it's 105 years old and has never ever been called a terrorist organization by any American administration. It's fundamentalist. It doesn't like us, but that doesn't mean it's a terrorist organization, >> right? >> So, what do we do now? It's going to be a terrorist organization. Does that mean we attack it? >> Like, what what's the reason for for making this declaration? >> I don't understand. Well, well, it's another thing that seems to be uh going

[51:13] on with this new term that I It's amazing how these new terms come out and then all of a sudden every like uh pro-war right-winger is repeating them. But narco terrorist is the new term now in Venezuela where like what exactly the hell does narco terrorist even mean? Like do you get the terrorist label like okay so they've they've killed civilians in an attempt to shift politics. No, that's not what we're claiming at all. where there were drugs on a boat. Maybe like we haven't actually demonstrated

[51:44] that or proved it. But it is amazing how essentially terrorists became this label to like shut off your brain and shut off your conception of rights or laws of war or due process or anything like that. And then I literally heard the just the other day where someone uh uh was saying I don't wait this double tap strike on this vote. It's like why' you have to come back and kill the wounded people who were taken out of action already? And then the next response is, "Oh, what are you defending? Narco terrorists." Exactly. Turn your brain off and just

[52:14] don't even think about this. >> Yeah. Just just stunning. You know, it's it's so easy to forget that there are laws of war, right? There are things that we're all signitories to that you can and can't do. Uh this this boat situation is one. If you've launched a strike and there are survivors who are not able to participate in the fight, you cannot kill them. Okay? If you don't like the law, change the law. Don't just

[52:47] pretend that you're the good guy so everything's okay. >> We're supposed to be a nation of laws. I say this all the time. I want to get back to something you said a second ago, too. These terms, these terms are meant to propagandize us. I remember in 200 five, 2004, 2005 um this term was just suddenly introduced in the media. Uh the term was Islamopfascism [laughter] and do you remember this? And then it turned out that it was created

[53:17] by a PR firm for the Republican National Committee and they tried hard to push this term into regular daily usage, Islamop fascism, and it just didn't catch and then they just stopped using it. >> Yeah. >> But it's it's all domestic propaganda. All of it. >> No, you could tell. >> Narot terrorism. >> Yeah. It reads something out of a um uh you know like it's like you focus group tested it like it's like like you were just at a mall and some some mom was like oo like Islamop fascism that sounds

[53:50] scary. I don't want to be around those. I don't you know like just I don't know like just who were the monsters of the 20th century. Let's just let's just call them Stalinist Hitler terrorists and that'll that'll get everyone to shut up and get on board with another >> Oh my god. Yes. Oh yeah. That's it. All right, guys. Let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Moinkbox. I love this company, a longtime sponsor of the Part of the Problem podcast. MoBox are the great defenders of American family farms and

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[55:23] year long. All right, let's get back into the show. Now, I did the the other thing I wanted to make sure and honestly, as I said to you before this, I could I could talk to you for for 72 hours straight, so I but I won't I won't do that. But I did want to ask about um because I know you've you've discussed kind of the um and this is something like for people who read about this stuff, this is very widely known for many years, but this is something that I think the American people really had no idea about. And maybe a little bit over the last two years because Israel's been in the news so much, some people are

[55:53] starting to learn about this. But the the degree the hostility between like Israeli intelligence and US intelligence and the level of like spying that Israel does on the United States of America, you know, there's just I I it's an interesting dynamic to me because there's just like been like one story after another um that over like recently um things what I'm thinking about is like the the Jonathan Pard uh story where Huckabe is meeting with him at the the embassy and like it's just Yeah. I mean like it's just you just can't get

[56:24] into how indefensible and outrageous this stuff is. And then I the other example that comes to mind is like the um the uh when when they the Knesset had that largely symbolic vote but still they had this vote to annex the West Bank which was Donald Trump's only demand of them while JD Vance is in Israel. They and you just had this dynamic where there's a country who we support who's essentially our welfare country who we prop up yet turns around and disrespects the United States of

[56:54] America in this like egregious manner and it's just too much to bear. But tell people a little bit about this like what were the relationships with MSAD in those days and and Israeli >> spying in general? >> Yeah, I'll I'll give you my own little thing on MSAD first then go to spying in general. Um, the CIA has always had just a terrible relationship with Mossad. And it's because Mossad actively spies on the United States. The United States does not spy on Israel. That's written in stone. People poo poo this every time I

[57:27] say it. I'm telling them it's written in stone. The United States does not spy on Israel. But Israel actively, consistently has spied on the United States. And it's not just Jonathan Pard. There are lots of Jonathan Pards out there. Um, in addition to that, and this is just a a little story that I've I've told before, I'll repeat to you. Uh, dear friends of mine from the agency whom I worked with very closely, sat next to the husband, husband and wife team. When I get transferred, well, no,

[58:00] they get transferred to Jerusalem. Okay. And they're declared to the Mossad, meaning the station chief said, "These are my officers. you know that they belong to CIA. They're here to one one is going to work for the uh State Department in the embassy just doing normal political work and the other's going to go take Arabic lessons at the university. Okay. So, no problem. Um they go to a a dinner party at the ambassador's residence one night and they come home and all their living room

[58:31] furniture has been rearranged. Just like, haha, what are you going to do about it? nothing. There's nothing you can do about it. Well, a year later, uh they uh go to the ambassador's Christmas party. This is when the embassy was in Tel Aviv. They were assigned in Jerusalem. They go to the Christmas party. They make the 45minut drive back to Jerusalem. And people had taken shits in all of their toilets and left them unflushed just to show them we can come into your

[59:02] home anytime we want and there's nothing you can do about it. Their tour is up. They're getting ready to leave. The ambassador has a going away party for them, which is completely normal. And they go back home. The dog is under the dining room table whis whimpering. somebody had cut its tail off and wrapped the stump with gauze and medical tape. Like, why? Why [ __ ] with us like that when we're your only lifeline,

[59:34] right? We're your only friend at the United Nations. We're giving you billions of dollars of the Americans taxpayers money so you can have your own welfare state that we don't have here. And then you're going to do that to our officers who are there to help you, you know, who are friendlies and they're there to help you. Now, pard pard is indicative of the broader problem. On my very first day at the CIA as a new hire, I was sitting in the auditorium with 300 other people and we got a briefing from

[1:00:05] the CIA's director of security and he told us that at the Israeli embassy in Washington, there are two declared intelligence officers, one from Mossad and one from Shinbet. But the FBI had identified 187 undeclared Israeli intelligence officers spread all across the United States, mostly trying to infiltrate American defense contractors. Why don't we arrest those 187 Israeli

[1:00:36] spies? Because we have such a close political relationship with Israel and Congress wouldn't stand for it. But then look at Pard. Pard was a Navy intelligence officer who stole thousands and thousands of pages of top secret not not secret top secret documents that he sold to Israel for money not for ideology or because he was Jewish or loved Israel. He did it for money and then the Israelis traded those top

[1:05:20] think I mean your best guess I know I've heard you talk about Epstein and stuff like this before. Is it that like obviously with Pard I I totally take that um that explanation. Yeah, people do things for money especially huge sums of money for sure. Yeah. But like so is that is it just a mix of people being some of them are blackmailed, some of them are bribed, some of them just face the political pressure of the lobby and stuff like that. Some of them have their religious convictions. Is that just what you your assessment of it is? >> No. Counter intelligence officials will tell you that for 85% it's the money.

[1:05:52] This is just a cash deal. It's all about the money. A handful are going to do it for ideological reasons. A handful are going to do it for for revenge. Maybe they've been passed over for promotion. They hate their boss. They're they're angry at the government. Whatever. But for the most part, it's this is a cash transaction. >> Yeah. Well, I think doesn't that kind of describe all of it too though in a way like there are ideologues all around. But what's really going on is it's business. It's all like all the wars. It's big business. And that's really,

[1:06:22] you know, cuz like even and I and I think sometimes maybe I get too caught up in kind of like the ideological worldview of say the neoconservatives where it's like look it is true that they had this ideological worldview but why were all those weapons companies pouring money into their think tanks? Not because they agreed with them, not because they cared about. >> No, not at all. I say all the time, it's not an accident that before 9/11, the highest concentration of millionaires in America per capita was in Silicon Valley and after 9/11, it's in Washington DC.

[1:06:53] >> Yeah. >> It's not an accident. >> Yeah. Where where they produce nothing except weapons of war. [laughter] Nothing is actually built except that. Well, uh sir, I I knew I would really enjoy talking with you and I really did. Uh I would love to do this I would love to do this again sometime soon. Um, please let everybody know where they can find your stuff, where they can learn more about the stuff you're talking about. >> Oh, thank you. Thank you. I'm like all over YouTube now. I actually have two uh I have two podcasts on YouTube. One is called Deep Program. I do it every morning uh from 9 to 10 with Ted R.

[1:07:23] There's a there's a more like intellectual one that I do once a week called Deep Focus, also on YouTube. And then I've got a kind of a fun podcast on Apple podcast called uh uh Deadrop What makes a spy tick and we talk about all these kinds of issues. Uh that's right now it's only on uh Apple podcasts and I'm on X and Insta and Facebook and all the usual places. >> Awesome. Well, yes, you are you are all over Twitter these days. I see what my

[1:07:54] my algorithm I can't go 5 seconds without seeing another one of your videos, but they're always great. So, I'm great. I'm grateful that the algorithm is working on our side. John Kuryaku, thank you so much for taking the time. Uh, thank you everybody for listening. We'll catch you next time.
