KiriPedia Kiripedia The Free Encyclopedia of John Kiriakou's World

Defense Intelligence Agency

The Pentagon's intelligence arm, of which John Kiriakou holds a low opinion he states plainly and expects to be criticised for. He attributes the targeting data behind the 2026 Iranian elementary school strike to the agency.

The Defense Intelligence Agency is the Pentagon’s intelligence organisation. Kiriakou’s view of it is unflattering and he has been asked about it more than once; put to him that he had “had dim things to say about the DIA in the past”, and asked whether it was routine for the agency to be this bad, he flagged the criticism before making it: “listen, I know people are going to complain but I’m going to say it anyway.”[1][2][3]

The criticism is about who ends up there rather than about method: “DIA is largely made up of people who just couldn’t make it through the CIA process. Like they really, really, really want to work in Intel. They’re not very bright but by God, they want to work in Intel and they end up at DIA. Yeah, it happens all the time.”[4]

The occasion was the Iranian elementary school strike, whose map information appeared to have come from the agency, and whose underlying error — data listing a school as a Revolutionary Guards facility a decade after the conversion — Kiriakou treats as a failure of the checking discipline rather than of the imagery itself.[2][4] Asked whether it is routine for targeting data to be that old, his answer is unhedged: “Yep. It is. It’s very, very old.”[5]

See also

References

  1. DeProgram Show with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas, 2026-03-1211:32 on YouTube · Transcript
  2. DeProgram Show with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas, 2026-03-1212:03 on YouTube · Transcript
  3. DeProgram Show with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas, 2026-03-1212:34 on YouTube · Transcript
  4. DeProgram Show with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas, 2026-03-1213:04 on YouTube · Transcript
  5. DeProgram Show with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas, 2026-03-1213:35 on YouTube · Transcript

Sourced from John Kiriakou's on-record public statements. See his profile for the full body of his interviews, podcast appearances, and short-form video.