# CIA cable priority levels

> **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: "CIA cable priority levels," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia-cable-priority-levels/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The five levels of immediacy assigned to U.S. government cable traffic, as described by John Kiriakou. From lowest to highest: Routine, Priority, Immediate, Flash, CRITIC. Most career officers will never see a CRITIC; during the Gulf War, Kiriakou's desk was receiving multiple CRITICs a day, each one announcing a hostile missile launch.*

- **Routine:** "Read it or don't read it. Nobody cares."
- **Priority:** "Some diplomatic business — you should read this sometime today."
- **Immediate:** "This is important. Read it now."
- **Flash:** Emergency
- **CRITIC:** "They're coming over the embassy walls, God save"; "most people could go through a 30-year career and never see a critic"

**CIA cable priority levels** are the tiers of immediacy assigned to U.S. government cable traffic. Per [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) on the Bidoun Waraq Podcast, ascending from lowest to highest:[1][2]

- **Routine** — *"Read it or don't read it. Nobody cares. Maybe it says, you know, Faisal is coming on a visit in three weeks. Okay, thank you. Nobody cares."*
- **Priority** — *"Okay, there's some diplomatic business here, you should read this sometime today."*
- **Immediate** — *"This is important. Read it now."*
- **Flash** — *"Emergency."*
- **CRITIC** — *"They're coming over the embassy walls, God save."*[1][2]

Kiriakou gives a consistent five-level list across other interviews — routine, priority, immediate, flash, and critic, with critic meaning an ongoing crisis — though in at least one telling he inserts a sixth level between immediate and flash: **N-ACT**, or "night action," meaning the cable is important enough to wake someone up.[3][4]

## Frequency in normal life vs. wartime

Per Kiriakou: *"Most people could go through a 30-year career and never see a CRITIC. We were getting multiple CRITICs every day."* During the 1991 Gulf War the NSA was transmitting CRITICs each time it detected an Iraqi missile launch — *"NSA would say 'CRITIC: hostile missile launch,' and then it would have the geo coordinates."* Kiriakou kept a wall-sized map of Iraq over his desk; on each CRITIC he would call out the coordinates, the office would gather around, and they would project — by launch site — whether the target was Israel or Saudi Arabia/Bahrain.[2][5]

## Related classification compartments

Separately from cable priority, Kiriakou describes the classification compartments used to control what allied services see: confidential, secret, top secret, and then "special intelligence" — SI-TK Gamma, for special intelligence, talent, keyhole, and gamma compartments. He says the Five Eyes can be read in all the way to gamma, while France and Germany typically get only 90–95% of material, and Israeli counterparts are unusually direct about pressing for a source's name outright.[6]

Kiriakou also notes some CIA operations abroad are so sensitive or compartmented that even the sitting U.S. ambassador — nominally the chief of mission — is not cleared to know about them; in those cases the station chief reports directly to the CIA director or the National Security Adviser. He argues it is the National Security Adviser, not the Secretary of State, who effectively controls foreign policy, since the Adviser sees the president daily while the Secretary of State typically meets with him only weekly.[7][8]

## See also

- [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 1:18:53. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJq6inqowW4&t=4733s · 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 1:19:23. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJq6inqowW4&t=4763s · 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 20:20. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrAf8gK44S4&t=1220s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2024-11-16-the-team-house/
4. INSIDE THE CIA: What They Aren't Telling You — John Kiri (2024-12-21), at 38:16. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYx6oycyKww&t=2296s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2024-12-21-not-a-grayman/
5. Invasion of Kuwait: The American Intelligence Account | John Kiriakou | Bidoun Waraq Podcast (2026-02-26), at 1:19:55. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJq6inqowW4&t=4795s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-26-bidoun-waraq-kuwait-invasion/
6. John Kiriakou on Israeli Spycraft, False Flags, and the CIA (2026-07-05), at 25:59. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqyYHuJsQgM&t=1559s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-07-05-the-bad-news-program/
7. Ex-CIA Agent: We Enabled Cartels, Lied About Torture & Rigged Elections (2025-04-07), at 08:21. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfT8jrjLNiE&t=501s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-07-ironclad/
8. Ex-CIA Agent: We Enabled Cartels, Lied About Torture & Rigged Elections (2025-04-07), at 09:24. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfT8jrjLNiE&t=564s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-07-ironclad/

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