[00:00] First and foremost, first and foremost. My Both of my parents' families came from Rhodes. My father's family from Ialysos in the north and my mother's family from Kattavia in the south. And um And so they they moved into already established Greek-American communities. So, my father's parents came in 1931. My father's father came in 1920, went to Canonsburg, Pennsylvania,
[00:30] outside Pittsburgh. Lived with his two brothers and a group of other Greeks, worked for 10 years and saved $10,000, which in today's money, I calculated it, is $212,000 that he saved. He went back to Rhodes though and he bought property because he intended to stay. He met my Yia Yia and married her. And then his his brother wrote to him and said, "The Americans are going to change the immigration law. So, if you
[01:01] want your wife to be an American, you have to come back now." So, he only stayed in Rhodes for a year. And then the two of them went back in 1931 and then he never returned. My mother's parents came in 1934. Uh the fascists had taken over in Greece, Greek fascists. And my Yia Yia was arrested because she was married to a uh Greek man who had become an American. They just called her "I Amerikanida" and
[01:31] they arrested her. >> On what grounds? >> For espionage. Just because she happened to be married to an She she got married when she was 14 years old. My Pappou was 18 years old. And um my Pappou bribed the prison guard with American magazines and she got out. They snuck onto a ship and they came uh in 1934. So, we were always I mean the the community, the culture, the church was always at the very front
[02:04] of everything we did. When I was a little kid big up Mr. Linus Corleone, right? Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:45 to 7:00. I hated every minute of it. And then of course when I got older, I was so grateful to my parents for forcing me to do it. And um but all of our friends were Greek Americans. My hometown, Newcastle, Pennsylvania, it had a lot of people from Karpathos. A lot. And it had a lot of Syrian Orthodox, Russian Orthodox,
[02:35] Ukrainian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox. And so we would have Panigiria, we would have, you know, the weddings and the baptisms. My father My father actually is in books uh about Greek music in America. He [clears throat] uh My father ended up getting a PhD in in music. And um and he joined a Greek band when he was 16 years old and spent the next 50 years playing Greek music. And so he traveled all over the world
[03:06] playing Greek music. So that was important to us, too. We all learned how to play instruments and we played in his band. That's how I put myself through college was playing weddings and baptisms and Panigiria and you know, whatever. >> What did you play if I may ask? >> Clarino. >> Clarino? >> Mhm. We had a lot of hippies >> Yeah. >> in the town and they loved Tsamiko. They were As soon as we would start a Tsamiko, they would all jump up. Oh, it was I still smile when I think about it. Um
[03:36] so like I say, all of our friends were were Greeks from one part of Greece or another. We had a handful of Cypriots. When I moved to Washington, there's a large Cypriot community in Washington. But I joined the church as soon as I went to college. I joined AHEPA, the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association. We raised money for the church. We raised money for, you know, forest fires in Greece and Cyprus. We built a hospital in in Thessaloniki. Everything always centered around the
[04:07] community. >> So, would you consider Greece as much of a home as you would America? >> You know, I always did, but I do now especially because when I was arrested in 2012, the Greek ambassador called me. And he said, "What can we do to be helpful?" And I said, "You can give me citizenship." And they did. Not just me, but all five of my children. And so, I've made a point to fly back to Greece to vote in every election.
[04:38] I'm so proud to do it in my pappou's middle school. Mhm. In in our village. >> So, going back to the roots. >> Uh-huh. >> If we could wind back the clock a bit for anyone who doesn't know how did you get arrested? What was the reason? What is the CIA? >> Yep. I was a long-time CIA officer. After 9/11, I became the chief of CIA counterterrorism operations in in Pakistan. I I led a series of raids that resulted in the capture of the number three in
[05:08] Al-Qaeda. The first high-value capture since the 9/11 attacks. And um and they made a decision that they were going to begin torturing him. I objected to torture. I said, "It's illegal. It's immoral. It's unethical. And we shouldn't be in the business of doing it." And they ignored me, laughed at me, passed me over for promotion because I refused the torture um training. And then, I left the CIA.
[05:39] I went into the public to the private sector. And uh and in 2007, I went public with the torture program. I said the CIA was torturing its prisoners. I said that the torture was official policy. It was not a rogue uh policy, and I said that it had been personally approved by the president. And so they arrested me. And um they initially charged me with five crimes, including three counts of espionage. In the United States, espionage can be a
[06:11] death penalty case. And so I fought them. I ended up taking a plea. They dismissed all the espionage charges. I ended up taking a plea to a minor charge to make the rest of it go away. And I served 23 months in prison, completely unrepentant. I make no apologies, no excuses, and you know, sometimes interviewers will say This happened to me first on the BBC. Well, you haven't said you're sorry at all. And I said I'm not sorry, and I'll
[06:42] never apologize. I would do it again today if I had the opportunity. >> And it came down to ethics, correct? >> Yeah. It came down to ethics. Here's Here's the point that I always make. We have a law called the Federal Torture Excuse me. We have a law called the Federal Torture Act of 1946 that specifically outlawed exactly the same techniques that we were using. We executed Japanese soldiers who had waterboarded American prisoners of war. In January of 1968
[07:14] the Washington Post ran a front-page photograph of an American soldier waterboarding a North Vietnamese prisoner. The day that that picture was published the soldier was arrested. He was charged with torture. He was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison. The law never changed. We changed. We can't just decide well, we're the good guys, so the law doesn't apply to us. We can torture anybody we want. We can't. If you want to torture people,
[07:45] I'm going to disagree with you. But you have to change the law. So we're either going to be this shining beacon of hope for human rights and civil rights and civil liberties, or we're not. >> What was the triggering event that incentivized the higher-ups in CIA to actually begin the torture program? >> Oh, it was 9/11 itself. This was the the greatest intelligence failure in American history. 3,000 Americans were killed in one day, in one hour,
[08:18] because we didn't do our jobs. And so there was this overwhelming desire for revenge. And that's what it came out of. >> Did anyone suspect 9/11 was going to happen? >> Oh, yeah. Oh, starting in 1996, we knew that al-Qaeda intended to use airplanes as weapons. There was something called the Bojinka operation. Have you ever heard of the Bojinka operation? It was in Manila in 1996. Um
[08:50] we knew that there was this very bad man out there who went by the nom de guerre Mukhtar. So in 1996, Mukhtar was in Manila, Philippines, and he went out to lunch one day. And while he was out at lunch, the cleaning lady came in to clean the apartment. On the dining room table were all these papers, and she looked at these papers, and she said, "This looks like planning for a terrorist attack." So she calls
[09:20] the police. The police come, and they look at it, and they said, "This is the planning for a terrorist attack." And they called the Philippine intelligence service. And they come. In the meantime, Mukhtar has run away. They look at it, they said, "This is definitely the planning for a terrorist attack. They called the CIA. The CIA collected all the information and it was plans to hijack 14 747 jumbo jets coming out of Manila and then flying them into buildings all
[09:52] the way up and down the West Coast of the United States. So we knew that Mukhtar was a very bad guy and that he was somehow associated with with Al-Qaeda. And that Al-Qaeda wanted to use planes as weapons. Okay, so July 6th 2001 I'm hosting a group of Middle Eastern intelligence officers at CIA headquarters. We used to do this literally every day. They come, we give them a day of
[10:22] briefings, we exchange gifts, we take them to meet the director and get a picture, and then we take them out to dinner. And the next day we do it with intelligence officers from a different country. And the next day from a different country. Every day. So I I was entertaining these They they were Arabs and uh and I scheduled a briefing on Al-Qaeda. The analyst on Al-Qaeda was a young man, 25 years old. No big deal. So it comes time for the briefing and
[10:54] there's a knock on the door. I open door and instead of the analyst, the 25-year-old analyst, it's the director of counterterrorism and the director of operations for the Osama bin Laden group. And I said, "Oh." I said, "Gentlemen, this is Ambassador Cofer Black. Ambassador Black is the director of counterterrorism for the CIA for the entire world. He's going to brief you, I guess." I didn't know. I was shocked. He sits down and he says, "Something terrible is going to happen.
[11:27] We don't know when, we don't know where, but we know it's going to be a an attack on an unprecedented scale. He said, "We're picking up chatter. For example, Al-Qaeda camp commanders talking to their students and they're crying and saying, 'I'll see you in paradise.' We're hearing code words for a massive attack. The the honey salesman is coming with vast quantities of honey. There's going to be a huge football game.
[11:57] There's going to be a giant wedding. All code words for an attack. So, he said, 'I'm begging you. If you have any sources inside Al-Qaeda, please help us.' And they just sat there. So, at the end of the day, I sent them back to their hotel and I went to thank him for taking the time and I said, 'Koffer, were you serious or were you just saying that for their benefit?' And he said, 'Oh, I was deadly serious. Something terrible is coming.' And then 2 months later, there it was. >> Quick word before we continue. If you're
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[12:59] for your business, completely free, no strings attached. A clear plan [music] that shows you exactly where AI and automation can save you time and bring in more revenue. To claim it, hit the top link at [music] the description and book a call directly with me, Lazarus, the founder of Blacksmith Industries. Now, back to the podcast. What was the failure point? Obviously, you had the code words, you knew at least in a general direction who you were to target. What slipped through the cracks that allowed this to happen? >> The CIA, through what in American football we call a Hail Mary pass, where you just
[13:30] throw it as hard and as far as you can, and you hope somebody on your team catches it. What I mean is we knew that the hijackers were in the United States. The State Department had given them visas. And we thought we could recruit them. And then use them against Osama bin Laden. The FBI wanted to recruit them, but the FBI didn't know they were in the United States. Cuz we never told them. So the FBI's out looking for them. We know they're in San
[14:01] Diego and in Florida. We just never said anything to the FBI. And then then they went silent. And we couldn't find them. And by then it was too late. >> So if there was better communication between the FBI and the CIA, 9/11 would have never happened. >> I talk about this all the time. The FBI and the CIA historically have hated each other. Since the time of the creation of the CIA in 1947. In 1947, President Truman sponsored something called um the
[14:33] National Security Act of 1947. It created the CIA and the National Security Council. J. Edgar Hoover was the head of the FBI, notorious figure in American history. He was the head of the FBI for 48 years. And he was actively campaigning against this bill because he wanted to be the head of both the FBI and the CIA. And he said, "We didn't need a CIA. The FBI can do all this." Which was silly. So
[15:05] President Truman called him into the Oval Office and said, "You're not understanding the bill. The bill creates the CIA as a division of the FBI." Which was a lie. No, it didn't. It created an independent CIA. So Hoover backed off. And the CIA was created and it was independent and Hoover ordered in 1947 there will be no cooperation between the FBI and the CIA. And there wasn't. I can't tell you how many times um I
[15:35] would develop some sort of information overseas. And I'd run into my boss's office and say, "You'll never believe what, you know, source AB Grasshopper just told me." And then he'd say, "Oh, write that down. Send it to headquarters. Don't tell the FBI." And I would never tell the FBI. None of us ever told the FBI anything. And the FBI never told us anything. We would We would run into each other in in the embassies that we were working in. And it's funny that all the like in
[16:06] Greece we were all Greek-American. The FBI agents were all Greek-American and we'd say, "You know, hi Xanthi." "Hi John. What are you working on?" "Nothing." "What are you working on?" "Nothing." "Good luck. Have a good day." >> [laughter] >> And that would be it. Yeah, we always hated each other. And then after 9/11 we said we got we have to put this behind us and we have to we have to start cooperating because we're going to have another 9/11. And so it's different now, but it took
[16:36] it took until 2009 for the CIA and the FBI computer systems to be compatible. Even if we wanted to tell the FBI something we couldn't send it electronically because the systems weren't connected. >> And what was the sequence of events that led to Abbottabad's capture? What was your role in that? >> Right, so I was I was the chief of counterterrorism operations in Pakistan. And when I first arrived my very first day I had only I had arrived at 4:00 in the morning. I had an
[17:08] 8:00 meeting with the chief of station. And um I went in and he said I said, "I'm I'm your new uh counterterrorism chief." We shook hands. He said, "Here's what I want you to do. Come up with a standard operating procedure for taking down a terrorist safe house." I said, "Okay." He said, "I want to start hitting these guys hard." I said, "Okay." So, I went back to my office. I got a legal pad, you know, the yellow pad. And I I thought to myself, "Okay, if I'm going to take down take down an al-Qaeda
[17:40] safe house, how would I do that?" So, I I thought, "Well, my first thought was I would want it to be dark. I wouldn't want anybody to see what I was doing. Better yet, I would want everybody to be asleep." So, I wrote 0200 at the top of the paper, 2:00 in the morning. And then I said, "I need guns. I need ammunition. I need bulletproof vests. I need battering rams to break down the door. I need walkie-talkies and and I need a satellite dish and ammunition and night vision goggles."
[18:10] So, I I went onto a website, gall's.com, g a l l s.com. It's a police supply house in Kentucky. And I ordered like $50,000 worth of equipment. I put it on my CIA credit card. And a week later it came in the diplomatic pouch. And so, I got a tip. Here's an address. It's an al-Qaeda safe house. I called the Pakistanis.
[18:40] Called the FBI because we're trying to fix things after 9/11. We were on the top floor, the FBI was on the first floor. So, I went down. I said, "Listen, I have a tip. I I got the location of an al-Qaeda safe house. We're going to we're going to break down the door at 2:00 a.m. You in?" Yes, we're in. So, we went to the Pakistanis. It's their country. You have to make them think that they're in charge, even though they're not. And they said, "Okay, we're in." I said, "Okay, let's go. Uh we meet at 1:45. And we drive together to the target. And
[19:11] then right at 2:00 we break down the door, we grab everybody inside. Okay? So we did, boop, we break down the door. It's two young men. 19 years old, both of them, from Tunisia. And they both just start crying. So we arrest them, put their hands behind their backs. See, that's why the FBI was there. The CIA is not a law enforcement organization, so we can't arrest anybody. The FBI arrests people. And 9/11 was an open criminal investigation, so it's illegal to be a member of Al-Qaeda
[19:42] according to US law. So we they're crying, we arrest them. One of them asked me if he could call his mother. I said, "No, you can't call your mother." And we took them to the Rawalpindi jail. And I thought, "Wow, that that was easy." Easy, easy. Too easy. Yeah, too easy. And I remember saying to one of my colleagues, "That is the fearsome Al-Qaeda?" They're children. This is who we're so afraid of? It's ridiculous. I feel silly.
[20:15] So couple of days later I get a call from a friendly Arab intelligence officer, Brigadier General, and he says, uh, "A little bird told me that you're the man to talk to, uh, on Al-Qaeda safe houses." And I said, "Your bird speaks the truth." I said, "Why don't you come over to the embassy, we'll have lunch." So he comes over to the embassy, we go to the cafeteria, we're having lunch. He slides a little paper over that has an address on it. And he says, "Be careful.
[20:47] I think this is the real deal." I said, "Okay, thank you." So I called the Pakistanis, I went downstairs to the FBI. We went out that night, broke down the door. This one was a big deal. We captured a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. They were the ones who assassinated President Anwar Sadat, the president of Egypt. Um Egyptian Islamic Jihad merged with Al-Qaeda in 1995. So, this was a house full of Egyptians, and these were bad guys with weapons everywhere. We
[21:20] just took them by surprise. >> Yeah. >> And so, we we caught all of them. Rawalpindi jail. And we would do one or two of these at a time, several times a week, and we're having success. And then we hear, "Well, there are There's a house in Peshawar. There's a house in Quetta. There's a house in Multan. There's a house in Lahore, Karachi, or you know, wherever it happened to be." So, we're traveling all over the country just breaking down doors and and grabbing people.
[21:51] And it's going very well, and headquarters is coming back and just saying, "This is really working out." So, I had an idea one day. I said to the station chief, "We have these officers in villages all the way up and down the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Let's pull all of our people off the border. We'll let Al-Qaeda come into Pakistan. You know they're going to make a mistake. And as soon as they make a mistake, we
[22:22] get them. So, instead of catching one or two or three, we catch five or 10 or 20 at a time." He said, "Let's try it." >> Mhm. >> We pulled everybody off the border. And they came in like a flood because we were bombing Tora Bora every night. >> Mhm. >> And then we started catching five and 10 and 20 at a time. >> Mhm. >> So, to make a long story short,
[22:52] we had to work 7 days a week, and it was usually 14, 15, 16 hours a day. It was onerous. It was very, very difficult, and you're You're all the time, and you have to be right on your game because if if you aren't paying attention, you're going to get shot. Right? So, only on the weekend in Pakistan is Friday and Saturday. So, only on Saturday mornings, I allowed myself the luxury of sleeping in until 8:00.
[23:24] And this morning, the phone rings at 6:30, my boss says, "Something important come up. Come in immediately." So, I get up, take a quick shower, rush into the embassy, everybody's there. The station chief and the deputy station chief, the FBI chief and his deputy, the chief of operations and me. And the the station chief says, "Abu Zubaydah is somewhere in Pakistan, and we have to catch him." And everybody turns and looks at me.
[23:56] I said, "Where in Pakistan?" We don't know. I said, "Are you guys kidding?" I said, "This country is the size of Texas. It has 220 million people. What do you mean he's somewhere in Pakistan you have to catch him? That's your job." I said, "Oh my god. Okay. Well, all right." So, we were able to we were able to determine to determine that he was moving constantly, every day moving.
[24:26] Mostly between Lahore and Faisalabad, which narrowed it down a little bit. But Lahore has 12 million people, and Faisalabad has 7 million people. So, it's like he's moving between New York and Chicago. Okay, great, but that still doesn't help me very much. So, I said to the to the chief, "I can't do this on my own. I need a targeting analyst. A targeting analyst is a very specific job at the CIA. I was
[24:58] an analyst the first 7 years of my career before I changed operations. An analyst reads all of the reporting, CIA, NSA, State Department, newspapers, everything, and thinks the big thoughts, and becomes an expert, and writes a paper for the president, and sends it off. A targeting analyst is someone who goes through millions of pieces of metadata in order to geolocate one person so that we can either capture him or
[25:30] kill him. So, I said, I have a friend who's a targeting analyst. He's really good. Can I fly him out? And he said, do it. So, I called the guy and I said, listen, can you fly out to Pakistan? He says, yeah, when? I said, like tonight. And he said, what's up? I said, I can't tell you until you get here, but but we need your expertise and we need it within 24 hours. He went straight to the airport in Washington and flew to Pakistan. I picked him up at 4:00 in the morning, which that damn British Airways flight,
[26:00] there's only one way in at the time, and it was British Airways and it arrived at 4:00 in the morning. So, I pick him up. He gets in the car and he's like, what's up? And I said, we found No, we didn't find. I said, we're on we're on the trail of Abu Zubaydah. He said, you've got to be kidding me. I said, he's a day ahead of us. Sometimes we break into a house and there's food on the table and the cigarette is still lit. Sometimes we're a day or two behind, but
[26:30] there was one event where we missed him by 15 minutes. And he said, we never caught anybody that that senior. And I said, I know, but we're we're close, man. I said, I can't quite pin him down. And he said, okay, I think I can find him. So, we We back to the office. He took a piece of paper a little bit bigger than this table and he wrote Abu Zubaydah in the middle and put a circle around it. I should say Abu Zubaydah's name is Zayn al-Abidin
[27:01] Muhammad Husayn. Abu Zubaydah was his nom de guerre. So, he wrote Abu Zubaydah in the middle, put a circle around it, and then around that circle he put the names and all the identifying information, email address, phone number, physical address, anything we had of the people in touch with Abu Zubaydah. And then around them he put the same information for people in touch with the people in touch with Abu Zubaydah. And then a bigger circle, we called it the tertiary level,
[27:32] >> Yeah. >> the people in touch with the people in touch with the people in touch with Abu Zubaydah. At the end of the week, there were these lines all over and he said to me, "I can't narrow it down to fewer than 14 possible sites." I said, "14?" Well, that's better than 19 million, but I said, "We've never We've never done more than two raids before in a single night. We can't hit 14 places in the same night." I said, "Let's go talk to the chief." So, we went to the chief's office and I
[28:04] said, "We've narrowed it down to 14 sites." He says, "14? What do you need to get this done?" And I said, "We need a team, a big one, 36 people, half CIA, half FBI, but we need pallets of weapons, ammunition, walkie-talkies, bulletproof vests, helmets, night vision goggles, the whole thing again." And he said, "Okay." And I said, "Listen, another thing, all of the targets are in Lahore and Faisalabad.
[28:35] I need to buy two safe houses." He said, "How much money do you want?" I said, "I need 2 million in cash." And he said, "Done." So, I wrote a cable to headquarters, "I need $2 million in cash. I need guns and this and this, and this, and this, and this. Within 4 hours, the money started arriving from other countries, other stations. Oh, we can give you 50,000. We can give you 500,000. We can give you a million. Just flying in from all over the region. So, I had my 2 million at the end of the
[29:06] day. The next day, an unmarked private jet arrived with 36 officers, half FBI, half CIA, and the hold, the cargo hold, was all the weapons and equipment and ammunition we could possibly use. So, the analyst and I drove to Lahore. I met with the director of the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence service, in Lahore. And he said his orders from his headquarters were to do anything I told him to do.
[29:36] I said, "I really appreciate it." He said, "What do you need first?" I said, "Actually, I need a real estate agent." So, he assigns me this real estate agent. And the guy had no idea what I was doing. And I said, "I need the biggest house possible." And he said, "Okay." So, we went and looked at a couple houses. I said, "No, it's not right." Then we looked at one, it was 10 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms. I said, "This is the place." GPSs had just been invented, but they couldn't go, like, directions, like,
[30:08] driving. They weren't used for driving. Um, they were used to you pinpoint a location, right? But they weren't like, "Turn right at the light. Turn left." We didn't have that yet. So, we went to the roof of the house. I turned the GPS on, and it found seven satellites. I said, "This is the place." The 10 bedrooms we could use to interrogate 10 prisoners at a time. And I said, "We'll take it. I'll pay cash." And the guy goes, like that. And he says, "Sir, do you mind if I ask you,
[30:40] what do you do for a living? I was so busy. I was working so hard. We hadn't come up with a cover story, and I looked at my friend and he says, "We're textile barons." "Oh, you own the big textile factory outside the the city?" "Yes, yes." I said, "Yes, we own that big We make shirts and pants and suits and all kinds of wonderful things." He goes, "Thank you, sir, for providing jobs for the Pakistani people." I said, "Of of
[31:11] course. We love Pakistan. We love the Pakistani people." Here's a million dollars. >> Would you say that was the closest you ever came to being made on the field? >> Yes. >> Yeah. There wasn't anything closer? >> And it was only because I was so tired. >> Yeah. >> That was the Well, no, it was one of two times. The second time was completely my fault. >> Yeah. >> Uh and I'll tell you about that in a minute. So, um we got in the car, we drove to Faisalabad. We found a seven-bedroom, seven-bathroom house there. I said, "I'll I'll take it." We paid cash for
[31:43] that. And then we got the team together in a hotel, the only decent hotel in the city, before we physically moved into the safe houses and started sleeping there. But, uh we went to the We went to the safe house the next night at 10:00 at night. Everybody was there, all 36 people that had flown in, the seven or so from Islamabad, and then all
[32:13] the Pakistanis. So, I'm talking about like 60 people. And I stood on the coffee table and I said, "Listen, everybody, I don't mean to sound melodramatic, but we have to synchronize our watches like in the movies." And I said, you know, "And check." And everybody kind of chuckled. I said, "I'm serious." >> Yeah. >> So, we did it. And I I "Here's the plan. For those of you going to Faisalabad, I rented a bus. >> Mhm. >> Everybody going to Faisalabad gets on the bus at 10:30.
[32:45] You arrive at Faisalabad, we have rental cars waiting at the safe house. I said, "At 01:30, be in the car. By 01:45, be in the neighborhood of the target site. By 01:55, be direct line of sight to the target. And exactly as the clock strikes two, break down the door, separate the women and children from the men, and arrest all the men."
[33:15] So, you know, we all told each other good luck, Godspeed, don't get shot. And I said, "Oh, and this was meant mostly for the Pakistanis. Listen." I said, "My orders are crystal clear. We must take them alive. I don't want any shooting unless they shoot at you first." >> Mhm. >> "Okay, everybody understand? Do not shoot them." >> Were the guns loaded with pellets or
[33:46] real real ammunition? >> real ammunition. But only if your life is truly in danger. >> Mhm. >> So, we all get in the bus. We had a small team that stayed back in Lahore. I should add, earlier in the evening, one of my colleagues and I drove to each of the 14 sites. >> Mhm. >> One of them in Lahore, there were three in Lahore, one of them was a payphone at a shish kebab stand. So, we cut it off the list. The the
[34:16] restaurant closes at 11:00. Nobody's going to be there at 2:00 in the morning. We cut it off. Earlier in the day, we were in Faisalabad, and we were going to each one of the of the sites, the the remaining >> [snorts] >> uh 11 sites that were in Faisalabad. And, uh, uh most of them were just concrete block, you know, one-room huts where poor people live. Tin roofs, terrible places. But, we wanted to make sure we weren't being set
[34:46] up. We want wanted to make sure we could get in, we could get out. They're not going to ambush us, kill us as we're driving into the neighborhood. And then, we approached one house. We were we were just driving onto the campus of the University of Faisalabad. And, um, and the analyst called me from Islamabad. And he said, "Listen, a friendly Western intelligence service just called me and said that they had a walk-in. A walk-in is somebody who literally walks
[35:18] into an embassy and says, 'I want to speak to an intelligence officer. I have information.' 95% of the time, they're just crazy people. The CIA put a chip in their head. The CIA is communicating through a filling in their tooth. Crazy people. But, of the remaining 5%, some are what are called probes, intelligence probes, where they've been sent in by the Iranians, the Russians, the Chinese, Hezbollah,
[35:49] Al-Qaeda, to look to see where are the cameras, how thick is the glass, are the doors armored, are you carrying a gun? That kind of thing. So, that if they decide to attack us, they know where the weak point is. Some are some [snorts] really do have information, but they they just want to they have one little bit of information, maybe they heard it in a restaurant or something, and they want $100, and you just give them $100. Some are the real deal.
[36:21] So, he said, "The walk-in says, there's a big yellow house, and it's full of Al-Qaeda. I said, "I want to talk to the walk-in." He said, "I already asked. They said, 'Can't do it. He's not available for recontact.'" That's the terminology that we use, which told me that there was no walk-in, that it was an intercept, and they didn't want to tell us that they were intercepting Al-Qaeda's communications. So, just as we come out of the back of
[36:51] the University of Faisalabad, there's a giant yellow house. I said, "That's it. That's the house." And the Pakistani colonel that I was a major major in in Faisalabad that I was with said, "I can tell you something bad is happening in that house." I said, "How do you figure?" He said, "It has to be 40° and all the shutters are closed. It must be broiling hot in there, but they want us to think that there's nobody inside and the house is closed up." So, I said, "We have to put a big team on that one."
[37:22] And then, we only have one last site to go look at. And the analyst calls me back, and he said, "Are you sitting down?" I said, "Uh-oh, I'm in the car. What's got What's going on?" And he says, "Abu Zubaydah just made a terrible mistake." I said, "What did he do?" He accessed his email account with a landline. I said, "Oh my god, tell me you got the address of the house." He said, "It's site 13."
[37:54] >> The yellow house? >> The one after the yellow house. >> Wow. >> I said, "Oh my god." And I turned to the Pakistanis, I said, "We got him." So, I said, "The address is the last address on the list, and we're going there now." So, we we go. It was like 15 minutes drive away. And when we get there, it's just an empty field. I said, "Th- This can't be possible. We know that the call came from this site." And the Pakistani laughed at me. said, "No, no, you don't understand. This happens all
[38:25] the time in Pakistan." He said, "When a plot of land is legally divided, it's assigned a telephone number. But, poor people will climb the telephone pole, they'll find the wire that is assigned to this land, they'll cut it, and they'll run another wire to their own house, so that they can make phone calls, and the bill goes to the owner of the land." >> Yeah. >> I said, "Oh, that's pretty smart, actually." >> Mhm. >> He calls a young technical officer, 18
[38:56] 19-year-old officer. He climbs the telephone pole. I said in my first book, it was like Medusa's head of wires up there. And he gets the wire, and then he follows it like this down the pole, and then down the alley, and he says, "It's that house right there." And my colleague and I high-fived each other. Like, we got him. >> Yeah. >> So, that night, at 2:00 in the morning, he and I are on the roof of the safe house in Faisalabad.
[39:27] And I said, I looked at my watch, and I said, "200, here we go. Now." And just as I said it, we hear boink boink boink, and I said, "That's not good." Like, a sound of metal on metal. First of all, everybody in Pakistan is asleep at 2:00 in the morning. The whole country is just it's just everybody is is sleeping. So, to hear a sound like that, it's not good. And I said to him, "That's not good." And then we hear
[39:58] >> [snorts] >> And I said, "Oh my god, that's not good." We knew that that site was the closest one to the safe house. So, I got on the walkie-talkie, and I said, "Site 13, Site 13, come in." And then my colleague at the site says, "Shots fired, shots fired." Obviously, that's why I'm calling you. >> Mhm. >> I said, "What's going on over there?" I couldn't even understand him, He was so excited and upset. >> I said, we have to we have to go over there. We run downstairs. We jump in the car. We run to site 13. And I took pictures that night.
[40:30] >> Perfect. Quick intermission. The photos John just showed me on his phone, those were the real deal. And it hit me how true every story he's been telling actually is. I wish I could share them with you, but I can't. They're too graphic. But I'll tell you what I saw. I saw Abu Zubaydah lying there. Blood all over the walls. And it was exactly the way John described it. After the podcast, he showed me another photo of a terrorist who bit down on a live grenade and his body was blown everywhere. Then another where they tried to put him
[41:01] back together like Lego. It looked like a scene from a horror movie. And it changed how I heard everything that came after. Now, back to the podcast. >> And it's chaos. So, as soon as we get there, I said, I said, "What's going on?" And this Pakistani says to me, "We got him. We got your man." We never told the Pakistanis who we were looking for because we were afraid that they had been infiltrated by Al-Qaeda. So, we only called him the big fish. And that became Mr. Fish.
[41:31] So, um So, there's Mr. Fish. And I said, "That doesn't look anything like the picture we have of Abu Zubaydah." >> [clears throat] >> The picture we had of Abu Zubaydah was a 6-year-old passport photo. Very good-looking young man in his early 20s. And a close beard and mustache like yours. Uh very thin.
[42:02] This guy was clean-shaven, fat, hair going all over the place like Albert Einstein. I said, "That doesn't look anything like him." And the Pakistani is saying, "Yes, it's him. It's him." The Americans are like, "I'm We We don't I said, "Who the shot him, first of all?" And this Pakistani is like, "Yeah, I shot him." I said, "Why?" He was jumping from the roof of the safe house to the roof of the next door house to escape, and so I shot him. They shot him. They shot and killed a
[42:34] Syrian bomber bomb maker, and they shot Abu Zubaydah's bodyguard. Also from Syria. >> What changed the plans? You obviously said take everyone alive. Was it the initiation of the shots that triggered >> I'm going to let you decide. Because what the Pakistani said is we didn't want him to escape. What the Americans said was we wonder if al-Qaeda had infiltrated the Pakistani intelligence service, and they didn't want him to talk.
[43:06] Because we were we had him. And they said, "Oh, We should kill him because he's going to rat us out to the Americans that we have, you know, Osama bin Laden at Abbottabad." I don't know. I'm making this up. You decide. Was it this one idiot who just got excited and started shooting, or was it a deeper plan? We'll never know. >> So >> I called the analyst, and he said, "Oh my god, I'm dying for an update. What's
[43:36] going on?" I said, "The The team caught somebody." I'm telling you, it doesn't look anything like the picture. I said, "I don't know what to do." He said, "Give me a picture of his eye. I'll run a retinal scan." So I I shouted I I knelt down on top of him, and I said, "If the hayunak, open your eyes." And uh he was bleeding to death. So I lifted up his eyelid, but I could just see the white. And I said, "He's he's dying.
[44:07] I I can't get a shot of his of his eye." He said, "Take a picture of his ear." I didn't know at the time that no two people on Earth have the same ear. It's like a fingerprint. So, I took a picture of his ear. Phones didn't have cameras in 2002. So, I took a picture with the camera and then I plugged the camera into the cell phone and I sent the picture to uh to Islamabad. He sent the picture to CIA headquarters. They called back. They said, "It's him." So, we picked him up. We put him in the
[44:38] back of a of a filthy There's this poor Pakistani guy that's driving down the street. It's like 3:20 in the morning by now. We stop and we're going like this. We stop and we pull him out of the truck. We throw Abu Zubaydah in the back of the truck. We get in the truck and we drive it to Faisalabad Hospital, the worst place on Earth. So, we get there 3:40 a.m. and uh
[45:11] it's all these Americans dressed as Pakistanis. And there's this Arab dressed as a Pakistani. And then the Pakistanis are with us. And I said to the doctor, I said, "Doc, my orders were to take this guy alive. Make sure he stays alive." And the doctor's like So, they take him into the operating theater, I guess they call it here. And we sat down. Just sat down in the waiting room waiting. It was me, then
[45:42] a very young colleague, a woman who had never been overseas before. She's like traumatized. She resigned at the end of this. She resigned from the CIA. She's like, "I I I I can't I can't do this." >> Did you see the pictures you showed me live? >> She was standing there when I was taking the pictures. >> I can imagine what you felt. >> Oh, yeah. She had had enough. That was it. She just quit. Um and it was another colleague, three of us, and the Pakistani major. So, we're sitting there. Word got around Al-Qaeda that we had gotten him.
[46:12] And so, they started driving by the hospital on motorcycles and just opening fire on the hospital. >> No way. >> And we're diving down onto the ground, you know, you So, I said to the Pakistani, I said, "Major Khalid, can you get a helicopter in here?" And he said, "I think so." I said, "If they realize how lightly armed we are, we're dead. We can't defend ourselves for more than 5 minutes." So, he calls his headquarters. 20 minutes later, a helicopter lands in the parking lot. I walked into the operating
[46:43] theater like this. I said, "Doc, wrap it up. We have to go." So, they sewed him closed. He was gushing blood. It was like a scene from a horror movie. And we loaded him onto the helicopter. We climbed on the helicopter. We took off. We went about, I don't know, 70, 80 km to a a Pakistani military base. And it just so happened to have a hospital. Yeah, you know what? It wasn't
[47:13] really a hospital. It was a clinic. It had eight beds. It was a circle with the the nurse's station in the center and like the spokes of a wheel, eight beds. They were waiting for us. So, they took him directly into surgery. And I sat down. And about 15 minutes later, the doctor came out and he said, "Listen, I feel like I should tell you, I've never seen wounds this severe where the patient lived." I said, "Fuck. Okay."
[47:45] So, I called Islamabad. I said, "Listen, they don't expect him to live. This idiot Pakistani guy shot him three times with an AK-47 in the thigh, the groin, and the stomach." Did it hit an artery? >> No, miraculously. >> Mhm. >> It caused grizzly wounds, the most horrible wounds you've ever seen. >> Yeah. >> And like I say, he wasn't just bleeding. The blood was gushing out of him. I I had never seen this before. You know how they'll have a bag of blood and it's
[48:15] dripping into you? Well, they had the bag of blood, but they had a pump attached to it, so the pump is squirting it into him. It's forcing it at high speed into him. And just as fast as it's going into him, it's dripping out of the the gunshot wounds. So, it was a big puddle of blood on the floor below the bed because the bed was completely soaked with blood and couldn't hold any more blood. >> Yeah. >> So, I sat there. He was in surgery about 6 hours, and then my my chief called and
[48:47] he said, "Listen, George Tenet had called." George Tenet was the CIA director. He said, "George called and said, '24/7 CIA eyes on. Do not leave his bedside.'" I said, "I've been awake for 24 hours now." He said, "Don't leave his bedside." So, what I did is I turned the ceiling fan on full blast so that I was uncomfortably cold, and I thought, "If I'm uncomfortably cold, I won't fall asleep." And um
[49:18] they brought him out of surgery, and I was still afraid I would fall asleep, so I tore up a sheet, and I tied him to the bed from the wrists and the ankles because I thought, "I don't know these people. Maybe the doctor is Al-Qaeda. May I don't know. And maybe I'm going to fall asleep like this in the chair, and the doctor's going to take him and you know, he's going to be >> Gone. >> gone." So, I tied him down. And then I just sat there like this at the foot of the bed. I just sat there and stared at him. He was in a coma
[49:49] for quite some time. And then about 6 hours after this surgery, actually just before the 6 hours after the surgery, just before that, I called one of the FBI agents at the safe house and I said, "Buddy, could you do me a favor?" I said, "I smell so bad that I'm grossing myself out. I can't stand the smell of myself. I have some clean clothes that's at the safe house. Could you bring me my clothes? And and for
[50:21] God's sake, bring me something to eat. I'm starving to death over here." I hadn't eaten in 24 hours. So, he comes an hour later. Um I didn't have any clean pants and I was wearing these Pakistani balloon pants, you know? And he gave me underwear, socks, and I had a red T-shirt that my children had bought me that had SpongeBob SquarePants on on the shirt, which I still have. And um and he brought me some orange juice and some crackers and an apple. >> That was all I could find.
[50:52] >> So, I put on the shirt and the underwear and the pants or sorry, the socks and I'm sitting there at the foot of the bed >> [snorts] >> and uh and he starts to stir, right? Like this. He has an oxygen mask on. He's stirring. So, I stood up and I'm looking at him. And I've said before, you could see the exact instant that he realized, "Oh my God, the Americans have me." Because he opened one eye. He's blind in one eye. One eye
[51:23] is it's very pale blue. During the war against the Russians, he um Actually, it wasn't against the Russians. It was when they were fighting the Russian imposed government, he got shrapnel in his eye and he went blind. So, he opens the one eye and he looks right at SpongeBob. And his pulse went from 120 to 220 like instantly. >> Yeah. >> And the machine that he was hooked up to, it started going beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep beep and then
[51:54] you hear this announcement, code blue, code blue bay one, code blue. And then they rush in and they're going clear. >> Choo choo. >> And they shock him and they give him a shot of adrenaline of Benadryl >> Mhm. >> uh and then he he's out. >> Mhm. >> Not Benadryl. Um I forget what it was. >> Morphine? >> It it not not morphine but in that class. >> A sedative. >> Yeah, a sedative. >> Yeah. >> It not Darvon. I I used to know what it was. It's in my book. >> Yeah. >> Anyway.
[52:24] Um and then he was out. >> Mhm. >> Again. So I sat back down in the chair. And another six hours passed. >> Mhm. >> And uh and he opens his eyes. He's tied to the bed. He's looking at me and I'm looking at him. And he goes like this, you know, like come here. So I go over and I moved his oxygen mask over to the side. >> Mhm. >> And I said uh Shusmic, what is your name? And he goes like this. I said Shusmic. And then he says in perfect English, he
[52:56] says, I will not speak to you in God's language. And I said, that's okay, Abu Sayyaf, we know who you are. And then he started crying. And he said, please brother, kill me. Take the pillow and kill me. And I said, oh no, nobody's going to kill you. We've been looking for you for a long time. You were hard to find. I said. He said, what's going to happen to me? I said, honestly, I have no idea. But I'm going to give you some advice. I am the nicest guy that you're going to meet in this experience.
[53:26] My friends, they're not nice like I am. >> Mhm. >> So if there's one thing that you do, it's that you have to cooperate. And he said, you seem like a nice man, but you're the enemy and I'll never cooperate. I said, "Suit yourself." And I sat back down. I moved his oxygen mask back on. I sat back down. And then later on, you know, he motions again. We had captured his diary
[53:57] as part of this operation. >> [clears throat] >> And I was going through it. It was It was an incredible thing. He was a gifted artist, first of all. Gifted drawer, sketcher. And he was also writing poetry, which was very, very good. But most interestingly, and this led to a split between the FBI and the CIA. The FBI said, "Oh, he's clearly insane." Like, "No, he's clearly a genius, not insane."
[54:29] He was writing letters to himself as a young man. So, the 27-year-old Abu Abu Zubaydah was writing to the 14-year-old Abu Zubaydah. And he was saying, "Treat our mother with respect. Don't whistle at those girls in the village. That was wrong when you whistled at them." You know, things like that. "Respect our father and do what he says. You know, why did you betray him?" And you know, things like that. It was very, very interesting. So, I said, "You're a very good writer."
[55:00] And he said, "Do you read poetry?" And I said, "Yes, and and I read Arabic, and your poetry is beautiful." And he said, "Are you Christian?" And I said, "Yes, I'm Greek Orthodox." And he said, "I'm Muslim." I said, "I know." So, he wanted to debate Islam versus Christianity. And uh he was very, very worried about what was going to happen to him. And I genuinely had no idea what the plans were. Finally, I get a call from Islamabad,
[55:32] and the analyst says, "There's a plane coming in tonight at 2:00, and it's going to take him." And I said, "Where?" He said, "I can't tell you." I said, "Okay." So, I told him, "Listen, there's a plane that's coming in tonight, and it's going to take you to whatever location it is you're going to go." And he said, "Are they going to kill me there?" And I said, "No. I don't know what they're going to do to you there, but I can tell you you're going to get the best medical care that the American government can possibly provide." And he did.
[56:03] They sent out the chief trauma surgeon from Johns Hopkins University Medical Center on this CIA jet, the top trauma care in America. So, at 2:00, the plane landed right outside the window. It just pulled right up to the clinic. And uh three FBI agents and I picked him up on a gurney. He was crying. He asked me to hold his hand, so with one hand I'm holding the gurney, with the other one I'm holding his hand.
[56:34] We had blood all over us, the three FBI guys and I. Blood everywhere. We actually had to throw away our clothes. I I kept the SpongeBob. I put it in a plastic bag, and I took it home because I thought it might be historically significant. >> Does it have blood on it still? >> It does. >> Yeah. >> And so, uh