# 1993 Bush Kuwait assassination plot

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "1993 Bush Kuwait assassination plot," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/1993-bush-assassination-plot/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*Iraqi intelligence plot, foiled by Kuwaiti authorities, to assassinate former President George H. W. Bush during his post-liberation "victory lap" visit to Kuwait; the U.S. response, per John Kiriakou's first-person account of his telephone call with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell, was 47 cruise missiles fired into the Iraqi Intelligence Service headquarters in Baghdad eight hours later.*

- **Target:** Former President George H. W. Bush, on a planned post-liberation visit to Kuwait
- **Detection:** Kuwaiti intelligence picked it up; ~20 plotters (Iraqi agents and Bedoun) arrested
- **Iraqi command chain (per Kiriakou):** Iraqi Intelligence Service Basra Station, managed by IIS director Sabir Abd al-Aziz al-Duri in Baghdad
- **U.S. response:** 47 cruise missiles into IIS headquarters in Baghdad, fired eight hours after Colin Powell's phone call to Kiriakou

In **1993** Iraqi intelligence attempted to assassinate former U.S. President George H. W. Bush during his planned post-liberation "victory lap" visit to Kuwait. The plot was detected and foiled by Kuwaiti authorities, who arrested some 20 plotters — Iraqi agents and Bedoun. The U.S. response was a cruise-missile strike on the Iraqi Intelligence Service (IIS) headquarters in Baghdad eight hours later. [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) was the analyst on the other end of the call from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell.[1][2]

## Background: an earlier audience with Bush

Two years earlier, during the Gulf War, a twenty-five-year-old Kiriakou had already briefed President Bush directly in the Oval Office, after writing an analytic paper — published just days before the invasion of Kuwait — naming the Iraqi official Baghdad was reportedly planning to install as governor of occupied Kuwait. Bush read the paper, tossed it onto the coffee table, and asked, *"Great, so now what do we do?"* — with the room turning to Kiriakou for an answer.[3][4]

## The Powell call

Kiriakou was sitting in the morning 9 a.m. meeting at CIA headquarters when the secretary came in: *"John, General Powell's on the phone for you."* Kiriakou: *"For me? How does General Powell know who I am?"*[2][5]

The call: *"John, if the Iraqis were going to assassinate the president, who would be in charge of actually carrying out an operation like that?"* Kiriakou: *"Well, if you're talking about the aborted attempt in Kuwait, Kuwait operations are run from the Iraqi intelligence service, Basra Station, but Basra station in turn is managed by Sabir Abd al-Aziz al-Duri — he's the director of the Iraqi Intelligence Service."* Powell: *"Where does he physically sit?"* Kiriakou: *"In IIS headquarters in Baghdad."* Powell: *"Thank you."*[6][7][8][9]

Kiriakou: *"I go back into the office and everybody was sitting there. 'What did he want?' I said, 'He wanted to know where the director of the Iraqi intelligence service's office was.' 'Okay.' Eight hours later, we fired 47 cruise missiles into the Iraqi Intelligence Service headquarters and we turned it into dust. They didn't want to fool around with these Iraqis."*[10] In a separate telling Kiriakou gives the count as 49 missiles, fired at 2 a.m. so as to flatten the building while minimizing casualties; the only person killed was a janitor, a death Kiriakou says he still feels guilty about.[11] In yet another telling of the same 47-missile strike, Kiriakou attributes the janitor's death specifically to the time-zone gap between Washington and Baghdad — by the time the missiles landed eight hours later it was the middle of the night in Iraq — and recalls telling his boss the next day that he felt personally responsible for the death.[12]

## See also

- [Saddam Hussein](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/saddam-hussein)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. Invasion of Kuwait: The American Intelligence Account | John Kiriakou | Bidoun Waraq Podcast (2026-02-26), at 36:11. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJq6inqowW4&t=2171s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-26-bidoun-waraq-kuwait-invasion/
2. Invasion of Kuwait: The American Intelligence Account | John Kiriakou | Bidoun Waraq Podcast (2026-02-26), at 37:13. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJq6inqowW4&t=2233s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-26-bidoun-waraq-kuwait-invasion/
3. The Only CIA Officer Sent to Jail for the Torture Program (Ep 309) (2024-11-16), at 17:45. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrAf8gK44S4&t=1065s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2024-11-16-the-team-house/
4. The Only CIA Officer Sent to Jail for the Torture Program (Ep 309) (2024-11-16), at 18:17. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrAf8gK44S4&t=1097s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2024-11-16-the-team-house/
5. Ep.083 — Who in the F*ck is John Kiriakou? — Lost Aux Medi (2026-02-18), at 42:47. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao9gaUkuBxc&t=2567s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-18-lost-aux-media/
6. Invasion of Kuwait: The American Intelligence Account | John Kiriakou | Bidoun Waraq Podcast (2026-02-26), at 37:44. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJq6inqowW4&t=2264s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-26-bidoun-waraq-kuwait-invasion/
7. Invasion of Kuwait: The American Intelligence Account | John Kiriakou | Bidoun Waraq Podcast (2026-02-26), at 38:15. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJq6inqowW4&t=2295s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-26-bidoun-waraq-kuwait-invasion/
8. Ep.083 — Who in the F*ck is John Kiriakou? — Lost Aux Medi (2026-02-18), at 43:19. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao9gaUkuBxc&t=2599s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-18-lost-aux-media/
9. Ep.083 — Who in the F*ck is John Kiriakou? — Lost Aux Medi (2026-02-18), at 43:49. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao9gaUkuBxc&t=2629s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-18-lost-aux-media/
10. Invasion of Kuwait: The American Intelligence Account | John Kiriakou | Bidoun Waraq Podcast (2026-02-26), at 38:46. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJq6inqowW4&t=2326s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-26-bidoun-waraq-kuwait-invasion/
11. S1E3 Golden Boy (2025-11-03), at 28:18. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69078c0f47e14fea24c45efe/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-03-dead-drop-s1e3-golden-boy/
12. Ep.083 — Who in the F*ck is John Kiriakou? — Lost Aux Medi (2026-02-18), at 44:20. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ao9gaUkuBxc&t=2660s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-18-lost-aux-media/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/1993-bush-assassination-plot/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt