# "You were the first person that ever asked me about my children"

> **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: ""You were the first person that ever asked me about my children"," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/asked-about-my-children/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The answer John Kiriakou says he received when he asked a mid-level al-Qaeda member he had recruited in Pakistan why he had allowed the recruitment to happen: that in five years of detention Kiriakou had been the first person to ask about his children.*

- **The source:** A mid-level member of al-Qaeda
- **Where:** Pakistan
- **When Kiriakou asked:** As he was leaving Pakistan for the United States
- **The question:** Why did you allow me to recruit you?
- **Kiriakou's summary:** "It was that I was kind to him. Nothing more."

**"You were the first person that ever asked me about my children"** is the answer John Kiriakou says he received from a source he recruited in Pakistan, and which he offers as the plainest illustration of his argument about how intelligence is actually obtained.

## The recruitment

Kiriakou has described the recruitment as one he was very proud of: a member of al-Qaeda, whom he places at mid-level. [1]

## The question and the answer

As he was leaving Pakistan to return to the United States, Kiriakou asked the man why he had allowed himself to be recruited. The answer, as Kiriakou reports it, was: *"I've been here for five years and you were the first person that ever asked me about my children."* [2]

Kiriakou's own gloss is that this was the whole of it: *"And that's all it was. It was that I was kind to him. Nothing more."* [2]

## Where it sits in his argument

He offered the story immediately after agreeing with a proposition put to him about rapport: that a subject must believe the interrogator understands why he did what he did, and that until they believe it there is no exchange of information. Kiriakou said he was with that assessment one hundred per cent. [1]

It functions as the recruitment counterpart to the case he makes about interrogation, where he credits the intelligence attributed to enhanced techniques to an FBI agent who built a relationship with Abu Zubaydah instead. [3]

## See also

- [The bowl of dates](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-bowl-of-dates)
- [Ali Soufan](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ali-soufan)
- [Pakistan Station (2002)](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/pakistan-station-2002)
- [College tuition as an inducement](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/college-tuition-as-an-inducement)

## Sources

1. likely = ingested ev1ozulvly8 (2025-04-16), at 1:03:22. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B70zQHKcSxE&t=3802s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-16-the-dr-phil-podcast-likely-ingested-ev1ozulvly8/
2. likely = ingested ev1ozulvly8 (2025-04-16), at 1:03:53. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B70zQHKcSxE&t=3833s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-16-the-dr-phil-podcast-likely-ingested-ev1ozulvly8/
3. likely = ingested ev1ozulvly8 (2025-04-16), at 1:02:20. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B70zQHKcSxE&t=3740s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-16-the-dr-phil-podcast-likely-ingested-ev1ozulvly8/

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