# Jim Pavitt > **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: "Jim Pavitt," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jim-pavitt/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *Long-serving CIA Deputy Director for Operations during the early post-9/11 period; characterized by John Kiriakou as "a legendary officer and a really great guy"; mocked John Brennan openly within the agency for Brennan's recurring stated ambition to head his own intelligence agency.* - **Role:** Deputy Director for Operations, [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) - **Kiriakou's framing:** *'Legendary officer and a really great guy. He hated Brennan more than I did.'* **Jim Pavitt** was the [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia)'s Deputy Director for Operations during the early post-September 11 period. [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou), who in his role as executive assistant to the DDO worked directly under Pavitt during the Iraq War and the early counterterrorism campaign, describes him as *"a legendary officer and a really great guy."*[1] Kiriakou credits Pavitt with a line he says he now repeats constantly in interviews of his own: that the job of the CIA, at root, is simply to recruit spies to steal secrets, and to analyze those secrets to give policymakers the best-informed analysis possible.[2] ## Dismissing talk of invading Iran After a pre-invasion [Principals Committee](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/principals-committee-meeting) briefing at which the CENTCOM commander suggested U.S. forces could reach Tehran, Kiriakou returned to the office and told Pavitt what he had heard. Pavitt dismissed the idea outright: *"They're not going to invade Iran — these people don't understand anything about the region."*[3] ## 'Pick any job in the world' At the end of Kiriakou's year as executive assistant to [Bob Grenier](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bob-grenier), he asked Pavitt for a domestic transfer. Pavitt told him, *"pick any job in the world that you want. I'll give it to you,"* then offered him three specific postings — two chief-of-station positions in the Middle East and a deputy chief-of-station slot — warning that the domestic assignment Kiriakou actually wanted was *"really not career enhancing."*[4] Kiriakou recalls running into Pavitt, then nearly 70, at a Starbucks at 6 a.m. wearing the previous day's suit after *"visiting a friend"* — evidence, in Kiriakou's telling, that the DDO's sense of humor and personal habits never changed with rank.[4] ## Hostility toward Brennan Pavitt's personal antipathy toward [John Brennan](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-brennan) — distinct from and in Kiriakou's account stronger than Kiriakou's own dislike of Brennan — was a fixture of agency culture during this period: > Jim Pavitt, the Deputy Director for Operations, legendary officer and a really great guy. He hated Brennan more than I did. And he used to mock Brennan because Brennan at the time was telling everybody, 'I want to head my own agency. I want to head my own agency.'[1] The eventual institutional resolution — placing Brennan in charge of the Transnational Terrorism Information Center (TTIC, later the National Counterterrorism Center) — was, per Kiriakou, a sidelining: *"They sort of shunted him off there and it was a nothing analytic organization, not even in the headquarters building. It was out one of the outlying buildings."*[5] ## Blocking the breakaway Kiriakou worked for Pavitt when Pavitt was deputy director for operations, and describes him in 2002 as the obstacle in [John Brennan](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-brennan)'s way. Brennan, a former deputy executive director, *"was in a feud with Jim Pavitt… and Brennan wanted to be more important than he was."* The Transnational Terrorism Information Center was created and Brennan installed as its first head, but he wanted more than that: to take the new body out of the CIA altogether *"so he could be the first head of this new intelligence agency."* Kiriakou is explicit that no institutional case was made for it — *"not because it would have streamlined the information, not because the analysis would have been any better"* — and that Pavitt simply stopped it.[6][7] ## See also - [John Brennan](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-brennan) - [George Tenet](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/george-tenet) - [Counterterrorism Center](#) ## Sources 1. Joe Rogan Experience #2392 — John Kiriakou (2025-10-10), at 41:12. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZqADzuu73g&t=2472s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-10-joe-rogan-experience-2392/ 2. Why Abolishing The CIA Won't Change Anything (2025-01-25), at 4:10. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_GA5Wj3-94&t=250s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-01-25-kim-iversen-why-abolishing-the-cia-won-t-change-anything/ 3. CIA Spy Breaks Down What's REALLY Happening in Israel (2023-12-11), at 2:22:47. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw_RQc2tpvY&t=8567s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-12-11-danny-jones-whats-really-happening-in-israel/ 4. S1E20 Changes (2026-03-23), at 43:41. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69c0933b1a160b44db6cd910/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-03-23-dead-drop-s1e20-changes/ 5. Joe Rogan Experience #2392 — John Kiriakou (2025-10-10), at 41:42. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZqADzuu73g&t=2502s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-10-joe-rogan-experience-2392/ 6. John Kiriakou on the Government's Dangerous Reaction to the Capitol Storming (2021-02-12), at 29:03. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=audb55d98d8e&t=1743s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2021-02-12-scott-horton-john-kiriakou-on-the-governments-dangerous-re/ 7. John Kiriakou on the Government's Dangerous Reaction to the Capitol Storming (2021-02-12), at 29:35. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=audb55d98d8e&t=1775s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2021-02-12-scott-horton-john-kiriakou-on-the-governments-dangerous-re/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/jim-pavitt/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt