The Global Response Staff (GRS) is the Central Intelligence Agency’s protective-security program for case officers operating in high-threat environments. The program was operated for the CIA by Blackwater under contract during the Iraq War period and its immediate aftermath.[1][2]
Origin and formalization
GRS originated informally — “It was just like, ‘Hey, you doing anything for the next week? We’re going to need for you to do this thing. Don’t tell anybody.’” — before being formalized into a permanent agency program after John Kiriakou’s departure from the CIA in 2004.[3][2]
Baghdad and the Green Zone
The principal early deployment was Baghdad’s Green Zone — the fortified U.S. presence in central Baghdad — where movement between fixed locations was, in practical terms, “taking your life into your hands every time.” GRS personnel were the protective screen that made case officer work in the city possible.[4]
Ethos
Kiriakou describes the role in functional terms: “Your job is literally to throw your body in front of the other guy so the other guy doesn’t get killed and can complete the meeting.”[5]
Before it was an office
Kiriakou was no longer at the agency when GRS was formally stood up, and describes learning of it by accident. He was dating a woman whose soon-to-be ex-husband was a GRS officer; when she used the term he asked what it meant, got a puzzled look and an explanation, and reacted with “Oh — they’ve made it official?”[6]
What it replaced was informal: “It was just like, hey, you doing anything for the next week? We’re going to need for you to do this thing. Don’t tell anybody.” Now, he says, it is an office.[7]
What the job is
On its purpose Kiriakou corrects himself mid-answer — protection of leaders more than case officers, then no, case officers too, particularly as it related to operating in the Green Zone in Baghdad, where most of the work was done because the zone was easily infiltrated and moving from point A to point B meant taking your life in your hands.[7][8]
His assessment of the people who do it is unqualified. Of many agency jobs one can say it is not for everyone; of this one, “you really have to be fearless… your job is literally to throw your body in front of the other guy so the other guy doesn’t get killed and can complete the meeting.”[8]
See also
- Blackwater
- Ground Branch
- Case officer
- Special Activities Division