[00:00] Hi everybody. I'm John Kiriakou. Welcome back to John Kiriakou's briefing room. I have to start off by saying that we've been doing this for 1 week and we have 127,000 subscribers. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We can only do this because of you. And I would ask you humbly if you will please continue to spread the word, to like, to subscribe, to comment, and and we're going to keep growing it from
[00:31] here. So, thank you very much. I also wanted to say that this is the only official John Kiriakou podcast, the only one. Um, there are lots and lots of clips and other sites out there that claim to be I've even see the word official used a couple times. It's not true. This is the only one. So, if you see me elsewhere, please ignore those. And let us know what you are excited to see on the show in the future as we keep growing. We're going to have an email address for you
[01:01] toward the end. I would like to begin today by talking about Iran. This is month five of our supposedly three-week war with Iran. Remember the Iranian government was supposed to collapse like a house of cards. Anybody with any background in the Middle East said at the time that that was absurd. That the Iranians were not going to fold and just fall apart. And of course, they haven't. Well, we've just had
[01:32] potentially our biggest escalation of the war so far, at least in weeks, maybe months after two US servicemen were killed in Iranian air strikes in Jordan. There's a third serviceman who is missing and presumed to be dead. Here we have a cable news host learning in real time that the United States may not have been fully honest with with the American people about Iran's missile capabilities. I want to I want to show you this clip and and then we'll talk about it.
[02:03] >> You know, CENTCOM says that there will be outsized action in retaliation, but I don't understand how it's possible that Iran has the capabilities to fight this way and continue to try to lash out at Gulf countries and US military bases because the US has obliterated Iran's military and the president continues to reiterate that. >> Yes, and that and if you look at the numbers of missiles that they've been able to fire off from the beginning of this uh it were, you know, late February, early March and what they're
[02:34] able to do now, it's it is very seriously degraded. >> So, Maria Bartiromo used the word obliterated. We had obliterated Iranian Iran's military. No, we haven't. We have degraded Iran's military, but obliterated, that's a word that the president used. That's just simply not true. It's not obliterated. I want to I want to say a couple of other things that I've said in the past, but they're important and they bear repeating here. Iran has 93 million people.
[03:05] 93 million people. We couldn't defeat Afghanistan with less than a quarter of that population. We couldn't defeat Iraq with what, less than half that population. Iran has 93 million people and it is the size of the whole of Western Europe. And it's surrounded on three sides by by formidable mountain ranges. If we wanted to really
[03:36] overthrow the Iranian government and replace the Iranian government, we would need a million ground troops. It's not going to happen. So, sure, we've degraded the Iranian military. Yes, the United States and Israel has have have taken out for the most part the Iranian military leadership, but there's always going to be somebody else that pops back up into into a leadership role. And where the Iranians have had their successes has been with the use of of suicide drones.
[04:07] Now, we were using $100,000 [snorts] missiles against five or $10,000 drones. The Iranians can produce tens of thousands of drones, and what they don't produce they just buy from the Chinese and the Russians. And they just send wave after wave after wave of drones. So, listen, if you've got this cheap drone and you just strap some explosives to it, and then you send it to its target, now, what do you care if it's shot down by a $100,000 missile? It doesn't make any difference.
[04:39] In the meantime, the Iranians have been engaged in this in this tit-for-tat where where the Iranians hit a desalination uh plant in in uh Kuwait yesterday. We're going to talk about that in a minute. Why hit a desalination plant? That's technically a war crime. You can't hit infrastructure. So, why would the Iranians be hitting critical infrastructure? It's because the United States and Israel are hitting critical infrastructure in Iran, and
[05:11] just a day earlier, the US blew up an Iranian desalination plant. So, these are tit-for-tat attacks. There's additional breaking news this morning, according to the New York Times, the US has withheld information on dozens of military injuries from the Iran war. Um can we go to that? There it is, right there. In the week leading up to the Iranian attack on Friday that killed two US two US soldiers and left one service member missing in Jordan, Iran carried out three other strikes against US forces in
[05:43] the country. Those attacks injured injured dozens of US service members and damaged several helicopters, but the Pentagon did not disclose the earlier strikes nor the casualties and damage they inflicted. Forgive me if I sound like a broken record. But they are not compelled. The Pentagon is not compelled to report these figures. There's no law that says they have to report these figures. And why isn't there a no law? Or why is there no law? It's because
[06:13] Congress is asleep at the switch. And they never passed any such law. And so the Pentagon says, "Why would we inform Capitol Hill? Why would we inform the media that our helicopters are being destroyed by Iran or we have dozens of people injured when we don't have to?" And that's exactly what's happening. So, anyway, in this episode, I want to answer a simple question. Is the US government giving the public an accurate picture of Iran's military capabilities
[06:44] and what does that mean for where this war goes next? We're going to take a short break and address that question. Look, I spent my career in the CIA. I know exactly how easy it is to find someone when you have their name and a little patience. And here's what should scare you. These days, you don't need to be a spy to do it. Your name, your home address, your phone number, details about your family, it's all sitting right there online compiled by data brokers and sold to anyone with
[07:15] a credit card. I've made my share of enemies over the years and since going public on the CIA's torture program, I've gotten a lot more strangers who know who I am. So, safety and security are not abstractions to me. They're daily concerns. All that personal data floating around the internet has real-world consequences. And honestly, most people have no idea how exposed they are. That's why I personally use DeleteMe. DeleteMe is a subscription service that
[07:46] removes your personal information from hundreds of data broker websites. You sign up, you tell them exactly what information you want taken down, and their experts handle it from there. They send you regular personalized privacy reports showing what they found, where they found it, and what they removed. And it's not a one-time thing, either. DeleteMe is always working in the background, constantly monitoring and removing the information that you don't want to be out there. In plain terms, they do the hard work of
[14:36] provide the electricity to carry out water production. Iran has responded by bombing desalination plants in Kuwait, where US war planes are based. Nations in the Gulf rely almost exclusively on desalination plants to provide fresh water. In Kuwait, about 90% of drinking water comes from desalination, along with roughly 86% in Oman, and about 70% in Saudi Arabia. There are hundreds of desalination plants situated along the
[15:06] Persian Gulf. The water supply for millions of people with is within range of Iranian missiles and drones. Should the targeting of desalination plants continue, it will trigger a humanitarian crisis. Iran has once again closed, for the most part, the Strait of Hormuz to shipping. US bases in the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan have been attacked. Iran has called on their Houthi allies in Yemen to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait should the US attack Iran's Iran's power
[15:39] infrastructure. This would block all shipments out of the Gulf, including oil from Saudi Arabia. Trump's escalation is a huge gamble for the United States, whose strategic petroleum reserve level since 1983. Its stockpiles of missiles and interceptors are also being exhausted. After initially projecting that the war would cost $29 billion, the Pentagon is now saying it needs $80 billion. Once indirect costs, such as increases in food and fuel prices, are
[16:11] added, the cost to consumers and taxpayers is about $132 billion and rising. Where do we go from here? Will the steady escalation ignite a regional war? What will the renewed fighting do to the global economy? And will a negotiated settlement at this point even be possible? >> That is pretty doggone grim. $132 billion in in costs. You know, that's thousands and thousands of dollars for each American taxpayer. Not even a
[16:43] taxpayer, for each American citizen. So, this is this is a bigger problem over a longer term than our government has let us to believe. >> [snorts] >> According to Iranian state media this morning, too, one of the US strikes hit a nuclear power plant that was still under construction. That would be a violation of international law if that turns out to be true. Now, step back and look at the broader trajectory of this war. Politically, the United States has
[17:16] made clear that it does not want a large-scale ground invasion. That would be impossible to achieve. That leaves Washington relying primarily on air and naval power, but air campaigns can only do so much against an enemy whose missiles and drones are dispersed, they're mobile, and they're buried it underground in many cases. That's why despite months of intensive bombing, Iran retains the ability to strike US partners all across the region.
[17:46] It's not just It's not just Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, which are right there a hop, skip, and a jump from Iran. It's Jordan, it's Iraq, and it's in the Red Sea. So, even though the US threatened to go after Iran's civilian infrastructure, like its bridges, its power plants, its desal plants, Iran still retains the ability to go after similar structures in Jordan, in Kuwait, and elsewhere
[18:17] around the Gulf Cooperation Council states. That creates a strategic dilemma for the White House. US allies in the region have little interest in seeing this conflict expand. I'll rephrase, they have zero interest in seeing this conflict expand into attacks on infrastructure, civilian infrastructure inside their own borders. That would have been a disaster. And despite the deaths of another two US service members this week, the administration has so far stopped short of another major escalation against Iranian civilian infrastructure. I'm
[18:47] going to say that the United States probably will not ramp up attacks on civilian infrastructure. So, I want to give a grade of D for how this war is going. If the goal was to murder the the Iranian leadership, all right, they've all been murdered. If the goal was to take out the Iranian military leadership. They're gone. They're all dead. Almost all the nuclear scientists are
[19:18] dead. So, why are we still fighting in Iran? Uh I think that this war is going to go for months. I've been saying from the beginning that we're probably all going to wake up one day and Donald Trump will have posted on Truth Social, "We won. It's all over. Everybody's coming home. It's the greatest victory in the history of victories, etc., etc." And really, in the end, nothing's going to change. What if the way money works is about to change? Not someday, not
[19:50] hypothetically, but right now. China and the United States are both making moves that suggest we could be heading towards something that the world hasn't seen in more than 50 years, a return to gold-backed money or something very close to it. China is shutting down paper gold trading at four of its biggest banks, all on the same day. And they're building a new system that settles in physical gold instead. Physical gold. On our side, the government is sitting on
[20:20] more than 8,000 tons of gold, still valued at $42 an ounce on the books. Legislation to fix that is already in Congress. If both superpowers start anchoring their currencies to gold, what happens to the price? And more importantly, what happens to every dollar in your retirement that isn't backed by anything at all? That's the question a free report from American Alternative Assets answers. It's called The Day Money Changes Forever.
[20:51] And if you have an IRA or a 401k, you need to read it right now. Get your free copy at johnlovesgold.com. That's johnlovesgold.com or call toll-free 1-888-GOLD-053. When I was at the CIA, both as an analyst and as an operations officer, one of the things that I hated the most was the United Nations General Assembly. It takes place every single year in
[21:21] September and it brings the city to a screeching halt. My last tour uh in my CIA career was at the United Nations in New York. It's hard to even get within blocks of the US mission to the United Nations. It's just ridiculous. And world leaders come from all over the planet to give speeches before the General Assembly. Well, the General Assembly, as it happens every year, is going to take place in September. It's
[21:52] also called UNGA, by the way. And these world leaders, like they do every year, are going to descend on New York. It's the Super Bowl for global politics. It's also a big deal in terms of global drama, where international leaders love to get the chance to stage on the world stage. You know, you go back and, you know, in history, we're taught about Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the table at the uh General Assembly. Or Fidel Castro giving a 6-hour speech. Or
[22:23] Muammar Gaddafi coming and sleeping in a tent in Central Park because he wanted to be like one of the common people. Well, there's a major feud this year and that's a feud between Benjamin Netanyahu and the mayor of New York, Zoran Momdani. Momdani has been very public in his statements over the past week or 10 days that he's going to try to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu
[29:10] shut down orders. That is mcgtac.com/johnsting. I'd like to talk also about the World Cup. I have to say I have never liked soccer. I have always found it to be the most profoundly boring sport that has ever been invented and I'll tell you why. It started when I was a little kid. I No, I wasn't even a little kid. I was a teenager. And there was a uh
[29:41] there was a little clip on Saturday Night Live uh Weekend Update. That's the fake newscast in the middle of uh it's usually at midnight uh on Saturday Night Live and they made just one fleeting reference to a soccer match and they said that the that the soccer game between Yemen and Saudi Arabia was decided early when Yemen built an insurmountable one to nothing lead. And I was like, exactly. It's so boring
[30:12] that one to nothing wins the game. And these guys just kick the ball back and forth and back and forth. And then I decided this year, ah maybe I'm wrong. How can How can you know, 7 billion people love soccer and and I don't. I must be missing something and I was. It was actually very exciting. Once you learn the strategy of it, okay, I admit I was wrong. And so I watched the the World Cup and
[30:43] it was a very exciting. I wanted Germany, France, and Brazil to lose because they always win. And then they all lost, so it was kind of cool and fun and I enjoyed it. Well, Spain won last night in something of a dirty game and not dirty on the part of the Spaniards. It was kind of dirty on the part of the the Argentines whom they defeated. And there was even a red card, which is a big deal. I want to show a clip of something that
[31:15] struck me as very funny. Donald Trump, of course, is a soccer fan. And he has exerted a lot of [laughter] influence over FIFA, the governing body of international soccer. So, last night he was present to present the the FIFA Champions Trophy to the Spanish. Can we run that clip? >> [cheering]
[31:55] [laughter] >> It's a little bit awkward for Donald Trump who had to present the World Cup trophy to Spain. After all, the United States is the is the host. This is after weeks of of arguing publicly with Spain's leadership. And [clears throat] Spain had some fun with the Trump administration as well. The Spanish media cropped Trump out of all of the celebration photos, which struck me as funny. And then afterwards, Donald Trump was answering questions posed to him by by journalists. Let's cut to that one.
[32:27] He was asked if there's any tension between him and Spain. >> I did. I spoke to Spain. And I congratulated them on having a great team. I spoke to I really spoke to a lot of people. No, I have no tension. I have no tension with anybody. >> You know, I have to say that I agree with the guy. Um having watched Donald Trump for many
[32:58] years, I had the opportunity to meet him one time very briefly. Um so much of what he does in public is is show. It's it's really it's showmanship. Um when he says that he doesn't have any tension with Spain, I think that he really believes that he has no tension with Spain. The Spanish may disagree. But I think Trump believes that this is all just a part of the game of politics and and there are no hard feelings. I wanted to move on to uh
[33:28] >> [laughter] >> something that we started last time talking about well, not even talking about. I just want to reiterate how grateful I am to to my fans and supporters out there who are doing so many creative things on on Tik Tok and Instagram and Facebook and and elsewhere. Um there's a guy who posted something on Instagram that I thought was was really great. And this is how nuts things have become. Please go right ahead.
[34:02] >> I was in a morning meeting and the secretary came in and she said, "John, General Powell is on the phone for you." Call him Powell. I said, "General Powell, how does he know who I am?" And she said, "I don't know, but he asked for you by name." My My boss is like, "Well, go answer the phone." So I went to my desk and I said, "Good morning, General Powell. This is John Kiriakou." And he said, "John, if the Iraqis were going to kill the president, who would actually be in charge of that operation?" And I said, "Well, if you're talking
[34:33] about the attempt to kill President Bush, George H.W. Bush, he had been visiting Kuwait." I said, "Kuwait operations are run from the Iraqi Intelligence Service's Basra station. But Basra station is headed by >> Uh >> Um Sabri Abdul Aziz al-Douri, the director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service." He says, "Where does he sit?" I said, "Baghdad." "Where exactly in Baghdad?" >> I said >> I said, "If you hold on a second, I'll look up the address." So I looked it up.
[35:03] I gave him the address. He says, "Thank you." And he hangs up the phone. I go back in the meeting. They were like, "What do you want?" I said, "He wanted to know about about Sabri al-Douri and the attempt to kill President Bush." >> Like, okay. 8 hours later >> later, we fired 47 cruise missiles into Iraqi Intelligence Service headquarters. But by then, it was the middle of the night in Baghdad, and we killed the janitor. >> [laughter]
[35:33] >> There is such a thing as having too much time on your hands. But I'm grateful. I really am. Another thing that I didn't realize until I received a Cameo request was that uh I actually have a theme song, I guess. It's from Doja Cat, called Acts of Service. I was vaguely aware of Doja Cat. Um I actually like the song.
[36:05] Uh Acts of Service. But I want to say another thing, too, relative to to these clips and and Doja Cat. Um I lost a lot of weight starting in 2022. I lost 115 lb. I did it for medical reasons. Um I hate when I see videos of myself as the fat John. I hate it. To the point where I won't watch it. But apparently
[36:36] there are people out there who prefer the fat John. I don't understand that at all. But they've set it to Doja Cat. Can we run that clip? Man, I don't understand that at all. I sure sure don't prefer the fat John. But there it is. In all my glory.
[37:07] The fat John in all his glory. I'm never going to be fat like that again. And I feel like a million bucks compared to what I did. So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us for an overview of the news. Means a great deal to all of us. As I said, we're able to build this thing only because of you. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate the fact that so many people have liked the first few episodes of Briefing Room enough to uh
[37:38] to subscribe and follow and share and talk about it and comment and and what have you. And I wanted to also reiterate we will have our very first Q&A episode coming up next month. So, make sure to send your questions to jkbradmn@gmail.com. That's jkbradmn@gmail.com and put Q&A in the subject line. Please send them all in. We'll get to as many as we possibly can. And it'll be a lot of fun. So, thanks again for joining us.
[38:10] This has been the Briefing Room. I'm John Kiryakou and we'll see you next time.