# Five and a half years on the table > **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: "Five and a half years on the table," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/five-and-a-half-years-on-the-table/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *John Kiriakou's stated regret about his own whistleblowing — not that he did it, but that he waited: he learned of the torture programme in May 2002, it began on 2 August 2002, and he said nothing until 11 December 2007.* - **Learned of the programme:** May 2002 - **Programme began:** 2 August 2002 - **Spoke publicly:** 11 December 2007 - **His words:** "My only regret was that I left five and a half years on the table" - **What he expected in the meantime:** That somebody else would say something Asked in 2025 why he had blown the whistle when so many colleagues had not, [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) gave the chronology and then the regret. ## The dates "My only regret was that I left five and a half years on the table. I learned about the torture in May of 2002. It started on August the 2nd, 2002, and I didn't say anything until December the 11th, 2007. And I wish I had said something sooner."[1] ## Why he waited The interval is not, in his account, hesitation. It is a series of assumptions that somebody else would act. After declining the [enhanced interrogation](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/enhanced-interrogation) training he was promoted to executive assistant to the [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia)'s deputy director for operations, a post from which he could see, for a year, everything the agency was doing around the world.[2] What he saw was that plenty of people objected. Officers wrote cables back from the secret site saying "this is not what I signed up for. I'm not going to do this. I want to come home" — [curtailments](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/curtailment-cables), which he notes are career-ending. Others resigned from the site. Nurses fainted watching the sessions. Doctors from the Office of Medical Services wrote back refusing to revive a prisoner so he could be tortured further, on the grounds that they had taken an oath to do no harm.[3] "So I thought, well, certainly somebody is going to say something."[4] He finished his tour on the executive floor, went to the United Nations for a final posting, resigned from the CIA and went into the private sector — "still thinking somebody's going to say something." Then in 2007 he said it himself, to ABC News.[4] ## Why he was sure Asked what made him so certain the programme was illegal, Kiriakou describes doing his own research and finding two precedents he found convincing: that in 1945 and 1946 the United States executed Japanese soldiers for waterboarding American prisoners of war, and that when the Washington Post published a photograph on 11 January 1968 of an American soldier waterboarding a North Vietnamese prisoner, Robert McNamara ordered an investigation and the soldier was arrested, convicted of torture and sentenced to twenty years' hard labour at Leavenworth.[5][6] The United States is not merely a signatory to the [Convention Against Torture](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/federal-torture-act), he adds, but its author. "So if waterboarding somebody was a death penalty offense or worthy of 20 years at hard labor … how could it just magically be legal in 2002? Just poof, by magic. Congress never passed any amendment to the law. We changed."[7][8] ## See also - [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) - [Curtailment cables](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/curtailment-cables) - [Enhanced interrogation techniques](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/enhanced-interrogation) - [Federal Torture Act](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/federal-torture-act) - [The 1968 waterboarding conviction](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-1968-waterboarding-conviction) ## Sources 1. John Kiriakou: Exposing CIA Torture & U.S War Crimes / State (2025-04-22), at 04:42. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB81AhUzTo8&t=282s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-22-mintpress-news-john-kiriakou-exposing-cia-torture-u-s-war-cr/ 2. John Kiriakou: Exposing CIA Torture & U.S War Crimes / State (2025-04-22), at 03:08. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB81AhUzTo8&t=188s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-22-mintpress-news-john-kiriakou-exposing-cia-torture-u-s-war-cr/ 3. John Kiriakou: Exposing CIA Torture & U.S War Crimes / State (2025-04-22), at 03:40. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB81AhUzTo8&t=220s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-22-mintpress-news-john-kiriakou-exposing-cia-torture-u-s-war-cr/ 4. John Kiriakou: Exposing CIA Torture & U.S War Crimes / State (2025-04-22), at 04:10. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB81AhUzTo8&t=250s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-22-mintpress-news-john-kiriakou-exposing-cia-torture-u-s-war-cr/ 5. John Kiriakou: Exposing CIA Torture & U.S War Crimes / State (2025-04-22), at 05:44. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB81AhUzTo8&t=344s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-22-mintpress-news-john-kiriakou-exposing-cia-torture-u-s-war-cr/ 6. John Kiriakou: Exposing CIA Torture & U.S War Crimes / State (2025-04-22), at 06:16. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB81AhUzTo8&t=376s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-22-mintpress-news-john-kiriakou-exposing-cia-torture-u-s-war-cr/ 7. John Kiriakou: Exposing CIA Torture & U.S War Crimes / State (2025-04-22), at 06:46. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB81AhUzTo8&t=406s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-22-mintpress-news-john-kiriakou-exposing-cia-torture-u-s-war-cr/ 8. John Kiriakou: Exposing CIA Torture & U.S War Crimes / State (2025-04-22), at 07:18. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB81AhUzTo8&t=438s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-04-22-mintpress-news-john-kiriakou-exposing-cia-torture-u-s-war-cr/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/five-and-a-half-years-on-the-table/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt