[00:00] Hi everybody, I'm John Kiriakou, and welcome back to the briefing room. The United States is about to hit the 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. Those attacks represented the single greatest intelligence failure in American history. 25 years later, we are still talking about what went wrong. And now we're learning something extraordinary about the warnings before October 7th, and the shocking similarities that those warnings had with 9/11.
[00:31] If you watched our last show, you'll remember we played a clip of Benjamin Netanyahu pushing a new talking point in interviews. If someone had just awakened him earlier that night before the October 7th attacks, he would have stopped the attacks. He could have called his generals. He could have mobilized the IDF. He could have stopped the attacks. All he needed was for someone to wake him up and warn him. No, that's not true, of course.
[01:04] And apparently, he just started saying that in interviews for a very specific reason. He had a story that he wanted to get in front of. According to a new investigation published by the highly respected Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Netanyahu received a very clear warnings about a potential attack by Hamas. Not from some random intelligence officer, but from the president of the United
[01:34] Arab Emirates. Netanyahu chose to keep this warning secret. He didn't even tell the heads of his own intelligence services. And this is easily the biggest bombshell yet regarding whether Netanyahu let October 7th happen. Netanyahu was so upset about this report that he just announced plans to sue Haaretz for libel and he blasted the investigation as false. But news flash,
[02:05] the Jerusalem Post and the Times of Israel have both confirmed the Haaretz article. And also, unfortunately for Netanyahu, the lawsuit will probably not go very far. It took Haaretz 2 years to put this story together and it's by a very well-respected reporter who is sourced to the teeth. He dotted all the eyes, crossed all the tees. I've said before, I am not a conspiracy theorist. I don't enjoy jumping to
[02:37] radical conclusions. But we are seeing a major similarity between the October 7th attacks and the 9/11 attacks. And that similarity is the warning signs were everywhere. And the latest report raises serious questions about why certain Israeli officials for were left in the dark about a potential attack. We're going to do something of a deep dive into this investigation because it is about to define Israeli politics
[03:10] potentially for years to come. And remember, Israeli elections are taking place in a month. So, this is very timely. First, there are a lot of details in this report that you may or may not be familiar with. For this story, there are four people you need to know. Number one, of course, is Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel. Number two is the President of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, sometimes referred to as MBZ.
[03:44] Three is the Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar. And four is an intermediary whom Haritz investigation identifies only by a pseudonym, Coal Eyes. He was respected by both sides and he came from Fatah, which is the more moderate secular Palestinian political party. In the days leading up to the October 7th attacks, the president of the UAE told Netanyahu directly over the phone that Hamas'
[04:14] leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was planning a major operation against Israel. As he relayed to the CIA director at the time, he warned Netanyahu, quote, "Something was about to explode." To Muhammad bin Zayed's surprise, Netanyahu reacted with calm. Netanyahu said that in his assessment, Hamas just intended to operate in the West Bank area and he was only worried and about about
[04:45] an attack in the West Bank. Now, first of all, there is no Hamas presence in the West Bank. Hamas is specific to Gaza, not to the West Bank, but remember that Israel's national security advisor, Itamar Ben-Gvir, also said at the time, when he was warned that an attack was coming in Gaza, that, "No, the attack was going to be in the West Bank." That's what he said then. Well, what happened next, advisors say,
[05:15] was unimaginable. Netanyahu kept Hamas' threat of an attack on Israel secret from the head of the Shin Bet, from the head of the Mossad, and the IDF chief of staff. The rest, you know from there. Hamas launched an attack undeterred on a music festival killing or kidnapping thousands of Israelis, 1,300 plus dead, and it was hours before Israeli Defense Forces even
[05:47] mobilized. To understand why this was so bizarre, let me take you back to 2023 in the months before the October 7th attacks. Earlier that year, Netanyahu's far-right coalition had just risen to power. And behind the scenes, Israel and Hamas were engaged in secret negotiations. Neither side particularly wanted the world to know that they were talking. There there's a downside for your own constituencies
[06:17] if it were to be public information that you were talking. So, they used intermediaries. The most important intermediary was this person called Coal Eyes. Coal Eyes was reportedly trusted by both Hamas and by Shin Bet. Remember, Shin Bet is the Israeli version of the FBI. Coal Eyes' job was essentially to carry messages back and forth between the two sides, allowing Hamas and Israel to negotiate without officially
[06:48] negotiating. There was major progress on the table. They discussed easing restrictions on Gaza, increasing shipments of food and raw materials, creating trade zones along Gaza's borders that would have provided thousands of jobs and would have essentially opened trade to Egypt. There were proposals involving natural gas and greater freedom of movement. And eventually, they got to one of the hardest issues, prisoners and hostages.
[07:20] Just as an aside, this is a pet peeve of mine. I don't understand why the American media call Israelis being held by the Palestinians hostages and Palestinians being held by the Israelis prisoners, despite the fact that most of them have never been charged with any crime. Anyway, Hamas was holding two Israeli civilians and the bodies of two Israeli soldiers. Sinwar initially demanded the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in
[07:51] return. That's not unusual. The Israelis will trade 500 for one, 1,000 for one. It just depends. According to the investigation, by the summer of 2023, the two sides had dramatically narrowed the gap. They were close to an agreement. But then the process stalled. Netanyahu had approved moving forward with the release of 30 Palestinian prisoners, but he repeatedly delayed meetings for a hostage committee,
[08:22] which is required in Israel to give approval. The The prime minister is not empowered to make the decision on his own. At the same time, Israel was being consumed by another crisis. You might remember them. Massive protests over Netanyahu's judicial overhaul, which had threatened near civil war in Israel. In fact, in the months before October 7th, the protests in Tel Aviv were so enormous
[08:53] that the government had to shut down the airport because the protests had even spilled over that far. The leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, became very upset over these delays, even though the delays were genuinely caused by the protests. When this happened, intermediaries tried to reassure him. Netanyahu was distracted. They said, "Give him time." But Sinwar didn't see it that way. Sinwar thought that Netanyahu wasn't being honest. So,
[09:24] in early September, Sinwar suddenly cut off all contact with the negotiating team. A senior Shin Bet official said, "Sinwar vanished. Sinwar evaporated." Then, 1 month before October 7th, something strange happened. Sinwar arranged a private meeting with Khol Eyes saying, "Quote, tell the Israelis that if they don't make progress, I'm preparing a huge surprise
[09:56] for them, unquote." As the report says, here Sinwar dropped a key word for the first time, one that should have triggered red flags. He said, "Quote, tell them to expect a zilzal." Zilzal means an earthquake. Khol Eyes and the UAE President MBZ had no idea what to do. They worried that if they shared this threat and it was an empty threat, it
[10:26] could prompt Israel to launch preemptive strikes against Hamas for nothing. At the same time, if they didn't tell the Israelis and an attack did occur, blood would be spilled that would be on their hands. The report goes on. UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed decided, "If we are not sure, we will not convey any warning to the Israelis for now. We will investigate the matter thoroughly until we are certain." Number two, Khol Eyes met with Sinwar,
[10:57] the leader of Hamas again. Number three, Sinwar said, "Well, did you convey the message to the Israelis?" Number four, Khol Eyes replied, "No." Number five, Sinwar took a deep breath and in a chillingly quiet voice told him, "Quote, convey a message to them that I am preparing the mother of all surprises, a terrifying operation, something extraordinary, unquote." Again, he rolled the word zilzal
[11:31] earthquake off of his tongue. Quote, "Please convey to the Israelis what I am saying word for word. And finally, Kholani called MBZ's advisor from Gaza to relay Sinwar's words." The advisor said, "Quote, I asked him for all the details. I suggested he leave the Gaza Strip quickly and meet me at my home for a private conversation. By the end of the meeting, I understood that neither Kholani nor I had erred in
[12:02] understanding the message. Sinwar intended to go to war." Unquote. Seeing that Israel was not responding to the clear warning conveyed to the Shin Bet, the president of the UAE, Mohammed bin Zayed, decided to call Netanyahu directly to share the warning himself. And there was another allegation. Egypt, which has one of the best intelligence services in the entire region,
[12:33] shared a similar warning from their intelligence chief, General Abbas Kamel, who warned Netanyahu, "Quote, something unusual is coming. A terrifying operation." Unquote. Netanyahu told each of them he had the situation under control. He was only worried about action in the West Bank. According to senior Shin Bet officials, Netanyahu never shared details of those warnings with his intelligence services.
[13:04] If he had, it could have changed their entire threat assessment picture. So, they could see Gaza as the immediate threat, not the West Bank. In response to that report, the Prime Minister's Bureau blasted the investigation as, quote, "An absolute lie." They said, quote, "Prime Minister Netanyahu did not speak to the president of the UAE during the period in question, and he received no warning from him." Unquote.
[13:36] But that is even though multiple senior officials confirmed that the call took place. And the moderate newspaper, The Times of Israel, has now confirmed the details of the reporting. Like I said, I am not a conspiracy theorist. I don't like jumping to radical conclusions. It's been my personal experience that the the most obvious answer is usually the correct one.
[14:08] But here's what I can say is highly suspicious. Netanyahu received direct warnings from two foreign governments, Egyptian intelligence and the president of the UAE, about a potential Hamas attack. Number two, senior Israeli military officials asked Netanyahu for permission to launch an operation into Gaza, quote, "But the very government of the person who promised before his election to be strong against Hamas insisted on not escalating and diligently preserving the
[14:41] asset named Hamas." "Calm down," they would tell us. "Let us focus on the north and on Iran." Unquote. Netanyahu was at the time facing a major scandal and a corruption investigation against both himself and his wife. Many people thought his career was finished. But once the attacks happened, his career came back from the ashes like a phoenix rising.
[15:13] The attacks came after Netanyahu spent decades tanking peace deals, undermining a moderate Palestinian government, and working with gutter with gutter to funnel between 1.1 and 1.4 billion dollars to Hamas between 2012 and 2013. That is according to the New York Times. As Netanyahu's far-right finance minister Smotrich said, "The quote Palestinian Authority is a burden. Hamas
[15:47] is an asset." unquote And the evidence has gotten obvious enough even news personalities who have almost never questioned Israel are finally doing so. A couple of weeks ago I said on the show that if Israeli officials were watching, I had a message for them. You are losing the American people. You are losing the American military. Well, it's worse now than it was 2 weeks
[16:18] ago. Listen to this from MS Now's Joe Scarborough on the Morning Joe Show on whether Netanyahu propped up Hamas. >> mean that he said keep funding Hamas through Qatar after he'd gotten the warning from the UAE that hey, a major attack is coming. >> I can't explain Bibi, but I just don't want us to forget as we are close to 3 years to October 7th that Hamas to your point slaughtered, raped, mutilated 1,200 Jews.
[16:48] >> Right. So back to my question Donny. >> But >> It's not like Netanyahu didn't know he was going to do that because Hamas said >> know. I >> We're going to exterminate Jews. >> I can't I'm going to say it again. I can't argue with you about Netanyahu. I can only say that let's not THAT HAMAS >> WHO HAS FORGOTTEN IT? YOU WHAT? LISTEN, WHO DO I WHO DO I LOOK LIKE? DO I LOOK STUPID TO YOU? >> DO I LOOK STUPID? >> LOOK AT ME. LOOK AT ME IN MY EYES, DONNY. >> I'm looking at you in your eyes. >> Look at me in my eyes. >> Do you think that I'm going to be distracted by you saying what I'm saying? >> going to be
[17:19] times. We'll take judicial notice of what I've said a billion times. Hamas are terrorists. Now, can we talk about Netanyahu or do you just not want to talk about that? We don't know what went down and we don't know what concern you?
[17:50] What if it happened in America? Have other >> There's one big difference. You know what? Let me interrupt myself. I used to watch Morning Joe every day. When I had a radio show with Brian Becker, a dear friend. And he always used to say when I would quote Morning
[18:21] Joe, he would say John watches Morning Joe so you don't have to. I quit watching Morning Joe about two years ago. It just became so DNC. I I couldn't do it anymore. Essentially, they just all sit around the table and agree with each other. And that's why this argument was so important. So different. You might have noticed Mika Brzezinski who is Joe Scarborough's wife and the daughter of Zbigniew Brzezinski actually put her
[18:54] hand on his arm to try to get him to calm down. That's how upset people are about this report. And like I said, this report didn't run in the uh you know, what's it called? The National Enquirer. It ran in Haaretz. Literally the most highly respected newspaper in all of Israel. A newspaper that has a gigantic budget for investigative journalism
[19:24] and they investigated the daylights out of this. Well, this isn't the only thing that happened this week, these revelations. Something else is happening. Just this week, France, Canada, and the UK began taking unprecedented action to sanction Israel. Listen to this address from the UK's Foreign Minister. >> Government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of
[19:55] the West Bank perpetrated by settler terrorists. And all too often, the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this and worse, members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians. >> I happened to be in Brussels until like a couple of hours ago. And when I'm overseas, I don't know why I do this, but I always tune into BBC and I never turn the TV off. I always have it on the background. So, I watched that speech
[20:26] live as it was happening. As soon as the the Foreign Minister or the Foreign Secretary finished his speech, BBC interviewed the Chief Rabbi of the UK. And he condemned the British government's move. The sanctions are not even on Israel. They are on Israeli settlements. Right? So, the Brits are not going to allow, for example, the importation of olive oil from olive trees that settlers have
[20:58] stolen from Palestinian families. The The UK is not going to allow the importation of handicrafts from Israeli settlements, etc., etc. The chief rabbi said this decision was going to increase anti-Semitism. That is offensive. I can tell you what will increase anti-Semitism. And it's more and more and more reports
[21:30] that Israeli settlers, whom I've already said are almost entirely American, continue to harass, to evict, in some cases to murder, Palestinians in and from their homes. That is what's causing anti-Semitism. Most of Europe, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland,
[22:00] Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the UK, all of them. All of them have said that they intend to enact restrictions on trade with the settlements in the occupied West Bank. And here's something really interesting with the sanctions news. The White House has not opposed it. The White House has not opposed it. The US ambassador to Israel, he might as well be the US ambassador from Israel, Mike Huckabee, condemned the sanctions.
[22:31] Because of course he would. But then the White House explicitly came out and said, quote, "Mike Huckabee did not coordinate his statement with us." Unquote, according to Axios. President Trump has grown increasingly frustrated with Netanyahu's policy in the region. The United States, on the other hand, enjoyed major support, major support, global support for the invasion of Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks.
[23:03] NATO, you might recall, if you're old enough, invoked Article 5 of the NATO Charter for the very first time. Remember, an attack on one is an attack on all. It had never been invoked before 9/11. Britain, Canada, [clears throat] Germany, France, Australia, Greece, Turkey, dozens of other countries eventually sent their own men and women to Afghanistan to fight alongside American troops. They lost hundreds of
[23:35] troops over the course of that operation. I want to say one more thing, and that is about 9/11 conspiracies. Listen, I'm not an engineer. I can't explain building seven. I'll let the engineers do that. But, I want to I want to say unequivocally, Al-Qaeda did 9/11. It wasn't the Jews. It wasn't the Israeli government. It wasn't the Saudi royal family. It wasn't the Bush family.
[24:05] It wasn't Larry Silverstein. It wasn't the lizard people. And it wasn't the space aliens. And believe me, people have tried to convince me about every single one of those, including the lizard people and the space aliens. Al-Qaeda did 9/11. They warned us in advance that it was coming. They mocked us after it came. And Osama bin Laden said that he was planning another attack that would dwarf 9/11. [snorts]
[24:35] It was Al-Qaeda. Period. Check this clip. I think you're going to like this one. >> here this morning to stand steadfast alongside survivors and their families, and to deliver the a kind of accountability around city government's response to September 11th that New Yorkers have been denied for years. I am proud to announce that our administration has settled two lawsuits between the city and 9/11 Health Watch, ending what has been a multi-year legal battle and restrictions on New Yorkers
[25:06] ability to access information that can shed valuable insight on air quality and health concerns. Administration after administration has ignored those calling for answers and clarity, instead choosing to bury them in legal arguments and in red tape. We will do no such thing. As we mark 25 years, it is time for this painful chapter to end. As part of our commitment to a governmental transparency that has too long been absent, City Hall has made a
[25:38] more than $34 million commitment to create a new public portal providing information about our city's response to the horrific attack. >> This is why I love politics so much. There's so much to unpack there. So, what you just saw was New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani um announcing uh this new portal, announcing that New Yorkers were lied to by Rudy Giuliani and by Mike Bloomberg when they were mayor uh mayor about the
[26:11] air quality in New York. And thousands of people thousands more people got sick than we were led to believe. There was a piece in the New York Times today saying that cancers new cancers are still sprouting from the air in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. And Giuliani and Bloomberg both said, "No, no, the air is fine. It's fine. Everything's settled. The dust settled. We hosed it all down. It's fine." It wasn't fine. It's given everybody
[26:42] cancer. Why did Mamdani make that announcement now? Because Rudy Giuliani said this week that Mondani should not be allowed to attend the commemoration events of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Why? He's the mayor. But he's Muslim. And remember Giuliani's position, all Muslims are bad.
[27:15] So because he is Muslim, that means that he must support terrorism. So he has to be banned. Well, newsflash for Giuliani and for all the other haters, on the day that Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor, he had a 48% approval rating. Today, 69%. New Yorkers love him, including, again according to the New York Times, a
[27:46] majority of Jewish voters. We should do a whole show about Rudy Giuliani. He belongs in prison for the remainder of his natural life, but that's a whole different issue. For background about these documents, the documents include records showing what exactly city officials knew about the toxic air around ground zero and when they knew it. Mamdani said that the release is part of a commitment to
[28:18] transparency for survivors of the 9/11 attacks, for the families, for the first responders who have spent years seeking answers about the health consequences of 9/11. Additional documents will be released over the next 12 months. Every American with an IRA or a 401K should hear this next part. There's a number Wall Street won't talk about and it puts gold at roughly eight times today's price and it's not a guess, it's basic math using China's own published
[28:50] data. Here's why that matters right now. China just hit an all-time record in gold reserves. 21 straight months of buying, each month bigger than the last. At the same time, they're dumping US Treasuries. Run the math. China's trade surplus divided by the gold they're importing, and that number is $38,000. That's what gold would need to be worth if China trade in metal instead of dollars. And everything they're building says that's exactly where this is
[29:21] headed. Meanwhile, the national debt has crossed $40 trillion. Annual interest payments on this debt now exceed the entire annual military budget. If your retirement is sitting entirely in dollars, you need to see this new report. American Alternative Assets put together a free report called The Day Money Changes Forever, the full math, the full picture. And the steps you can take right now to secure your retirement regardless of
[29:51] what the next politician, bureaucrat, or government decides will happen to American dollars. So, don't gamble with your retirement. Put it in something real. Get the free guide now at johnlovesgold.com. That's johnlovesgold.com or call 888-GOLD-053. I am headed to New York on the morning of 9/11 to give a speech to a gathering of um
[30:24] of family members of those killed in in the attacks. I've said this repeatedly. I'm going to say it again. 9/11 was such a trauma, a national trauma, a trauma for me personally, that it is seared into my mind. And in my memory, it hasn't been 25 years. It happened practically, you know, a week or two ago. That's how fresh it still is. I lost friends on 9/11 at the Pentagon,
[30:56] just like so many Americans, especially in New York and Washington, lost friends and relatives. For me, the whole 9/11 period began on July 6th. That summer of 2001, I was in a temporary job. I had to leave Athens very quickly because an attempt was made on my life. And um and so I got stuck in a job that was kind of a waste of time. It was training
[31:27] Middle Eastern intelligence services in counter-terrorist uh raids, how to carry out a counter-terrorist uh operation. And as part of that job, there was a lot of entertainment in that job. So, I would host Middle Eastern intelligence services. And we would do it the same way every day. Uh we would come in, we would introduce them around, take them up to the director's office for a photo op, we would give them a day full of briefings, just a parade of analysts
[31:57] coming in to give them briefings, then we would exchange gifts, then I would send them back to their hotel, pick them up two or three hours later, take them to an expensive, you know, steakhouse, and then do the same thing the next day with a different group from a different country. On that day, July 6th, 2001, I had scheduled the day of briefings. And I had specifically spoken to a a very young 24, 25-year-old junior
[32:27] analyst from the CIA's Counterterrorism Center on Al-Qaeda. And he said, "Yes, of course, I'll brief this group." So, when it came time for the briefing, and I remember very specifically it was at 10:30 in the morning, July 6th, um instead of the junior analyst showing up, the director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, Cofer Black, later Ambassador Cofer Black, showed up with the chief of operations for the Usama bin Laden unit called Alec Station.
[32:59] And I was so surprised, I said, "Oh, gentlemen." And I stood up. And I said, "Gentlemen, this is Cofer Black. He's the director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center for the entire world. And this is so-and-so, the director of operations for the Usama bin Laden unit." Cofer shook their hands, sat down, and then cut right to the chase. And he said, "Something terrible is going to happen.
[33:31] We don't know exactly what. We don't know where. We don't know when. But we know it's going to be an attack on an unprecedented scale." He said, "The chatter that we're picking up from the al-Qaeda training camps is full of code words for a massive attack. The honey salesman is coming with vast quantities of honey. There's going to be an enormous wedding. There's going to be a massive football match."
[34:02] He said, "We're hearing camp commanders on the phone with their students and they're crying and saying, 'I'll see you in paradise.'" He said, "We just don't know when and where." And his exact words were, "I beg you. If you have any sources inside al-Qaeda, please help us." And they just sat there and stared at him. At the end of the day, I sent them back
[34:34] to their hotel to rest and get ready for dinner later in the evening. And I went back to Cofer's office to thank him. Most everybody in the Counterterrorism Center was gone. So, I went to his office. I knocked on the door and I said, "Cofer, I wanted to thank you for speaking to this group today, but I have to ask you." I said, "I don't work on Al-Qaeda. Were you saying that for their benefit or were you serious?" And he said, "Oh, I was deadly serious."
[35:04] He said, "Something terrible is going to happen." Well, on the morning of 9/11, Cofer and I had a meeting scheduled at the White House with Condoleezza Rice. She was the National Security Advisor at the time under President George W. Bush. And I got a call from the driver saying that he was ready and he was at, you know, the Southwest entrance to pick us up and take us to the White House.
[35:34] So, I walked over to Cofer's office to tell him we were ready to go. And um these were the days, >> [clears throat] >> you know, before you could watch TV on your computer. So, Cofer's secretary had a small portable TV sitting on her desk. And I I noticed that the news is on and one of the towers of the World Trade Center is burning. And I said, "What happened to the World Trade Center?" >> [cough] >> She said, um "A plane flew into it." And I said, "A plane flew into it?" And because I'm such a talented analyst,
[36:06] I said, "You know, that happened once before in the 1930s. A bomber flew into the Empire State Building, but it was really foggy then and it was pouring down rain. It's so crystal clear today. How can you not see that you're flying into the World Trade Center?" And just as I spoke the words, the second plane hit. She turned to me and she said, "Did you see that or did I imagine it?" I ran back to my office and I said, "Guys." There were five guys
[36:37] in my office. I said, "Guys, two planes just hit both towers of the World Trade Center. We're under attack." Everybody ran back up to Cofer's office. Now, above his door, there were TVs hanging from the ceiling. So, we had, you know, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, the BBC, Canal Plus, the Russians, the Chinese, and they were all showing the same thing. And then the Pentagon gets hit. Imagine 200 250 people in this massive bullpen
[37:11] of of cubicles just standing there in silence. And then finally someone behind me shouts, "Will somebody please lead?" It was as though he had smacked Cofer across the face. Cofer says, "Right, you. Go to the director's office and say this. You. Go to security and say that. You. Go to nearest operations and tell them this." And then we all turned again and and started watching the TVs again. Finally, he climbed up onto a desk
[37:43] and he said, "Today, we're at war. All of us are going to have to do our part. Not all of us are going to make it home." He said, "If you don't want to engage in this fight, leave now and no one will think less of you. Nobody budged." Finally, a SPO, a special protective officer, the CIA has its own internal police force, like uniforms, they're dressed like cops. A SPO came in and said, "Everybody
[38:15] evacuate. Director's orders." Nobody budged. He came back about 45 minutes later and said, "If you don't evacuate, I will place you under arrest." We all looked at Cover and he said, "Go. Everybody just go." It took me 2 hours to get out of my parking space. I only lived about uh 6 miles from CIA headquarters. At the
[38:45] time I lived in Rosslyn, Virginia. Rosslyn's a neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia. A stone's throw from the White House. I could only make it halfway to my apartment and I had to abandon my car on the side of the road on the George Washington Memorial Parkway. When I got to the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge, which connects Arlington with Washington, D.C., that's where I turn up the hill into Arlington. I saw the Deputy National Security Advisor
[39:16] with no shoes. And I remember staring at him and thinking, "You're supposed to be protecting us and you ran away without your shoes?" That was when I felt like I was on the brink of panic. And I remember saying over to over to to myself, "How could this happen? We're supposed to be the best intelligence service in the world. How
[39:47] could this happen?" My then girlfriend at the time, she became my wife, met up with me at my place and um she also evacuated from the CIA that that morning. And we went to the roof of my building. We watched the Pentagon burn for an hour or so. And then I said, "Let's try to donate blood." So, there were a couple of bloodmobiles parked, you know, around the area, but the lines were so long. It was like a 24-hour wait to donate blood. And
[40:19] finally, I said, "This is ridiculous. We need to get back to work." So, I walked back to my car and um drove across the median, went back to CIA headquarters, and I didn't leave for the next 4 days. I just slept underneath my desk. I'd ball up my jacket, use it as a pillow, sleep 2 hours, get back up, work a couple hours, sleep another hour, get back up. When when we evacuated headquarters,
[40:49] um you know, the the smart people put a chain and a padlock on the doors of the cafeteria. The cafeteria was serviced by by Saga, which was a division of the Marriott. And so, we got some bolt cutters, and we cut the the lock, and we raided the cafeteria. We turned all the grills on. We cooked all the food, just laid it out on folding tables in the hallway outside the Counterterrorism Center. A week or two later, we had to we had to
[41:21] write a check to the Marriott for $15,000 for all the food that we took. But, we were like that for for weeks. Weeks. I remember finally my boss saying, "Go home, get some real sleep, take a shower, come back after you're rested." And that was the first respite that I had. Like everybody in the building, I volunteered to go to Afghanistan. That's a whole different issue we can talk about at another time.
[41:51] Everybody volunteered to go to Afghanistan. And I just assumed that because I was a a linguist, an Arabic linguist, I would be among the first to go. It turned out they weren't interviewing anybody. They didn't need translators. They needed assassins. And so those were the guys that went first. I can honestly say that was one of the
[42:21] worst days of my life. It was akin to like the day my dad died. And it's still just just seared right here in my memory. You know, I often think, too, where would I be if 9/11 had never happened? If there hadn't been any 9/11, there wouldn't have been a torture program. And if there'd not been a torture program, I wouldn't have blown the whistle. And if I hadn't needed to blow the whistle, I probably would have
[42:51] stayed at the CIA. I would have done my 30 years or 25 years. You get 5 years credit for overseas time. I'd probably be fat, happy, wealthy, and working for some defense contractor, God forbid. Anyway, as we hit this 25-year anniversary of 9/11, I struggle, really, with what lessons we may have learned, what lessons we should have learned, what we
[43:22] ended up doing was launching multiple wars of choice, just like the one that we're fighting now. We invaded Afghanistan and occupied it for 20 years. We invaded Iraq and occupied it for almost 20 years. We overthrew the Libyan government. We overthrew the Syrian government, well, in slow motion. We overthrew the Somali government. We killed 2 million Muslims.
[43:53] And what do we have to show for it? $40 trillion in debt, and half the world hates us. It just wasn't worth it. There is one really important lesson that I learned from my time in counterterrorist operations. And I was the chief of CIA counterterrorist operations in Pakistan after 9/11. And that is that
[44:25] that terrorism is created by poverty by a lack of education and by oppression. Martin Luther King once said, "Never underestimate a man's desire to be free." Truer words were never spoken. One of the things that I learned early on as soon as we started capturing Al-Qaeda fighters was that they had a lot in common.
[44:56] They were young, mostly between like 18 and 25. They were from isolated villages in their countries. They were almost universally illiterate, couldn't read or write. They had no job skills. No futures. And they all wanted to get married. But what man would want his daughter to marry a guy who couldn't read couldn't write had no job skills, no future, nothing.
[45:29] I wouldn't want my daughter to marry somebody like that. And so the local Imam approached them and said "You don't want to stay in this village. You should go to Afghanistan and make jihad against the Americans. We'll give you $500 a month. And if you're martyred we'll give your parents a $500 martyrdom bonus." And so they would fly to Dubai and from Dubai they would go to Karachi or Lahore
[46:00] where they would be met by an Al-Qaeda logistician who would smuggle them into Afghanistan, send them to one of Al-Qaeda's two training camps, and they would make jihad against the Americans. Well, if they could read, could write, had job skills, could work, there wouldn't have been any need to go to Afghanistan and make jihad against the Americans.
[46:31] No need at all. They could have helped to develop the economies of their countries. But, that's not the way it worked out. And the rest is history. And now 2 million people are dead when they otherwise might still be alive. Folks, I'll leave you with that thought. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Briefing Room. I want to thank our producers, John Ball, Markella Kyprios, and Victoria Van
[47:02] Peltz. Please keep your comments coming. We read as many as we can. Heretofore I had said we read them all. We can't now. There aren't enough hours in the day, but we read as many as we can. And please continue to like, share, subscribe, review, and tell your friends and family about the show. We are only able to keep this going because of you, and thank you for that kindness. If you're not completely sick of me, you can find more content on John Kiriakou's Dead Drop on Apple Podcasts
[47:33] and Spotify, and you can find me also on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, Cameo, and soon TikTok. Thanks again. I'm John Kiriakou. We'll see you next time.