John O’Neill was the FBI’s Special Agent in Charge of the New York field office for counterterrorism in the run-up to September 11, 2001. Per John Kiriakou: “John O’Neill was a very brash, flawed guy at FBI counterterrorism New York. … All his flaws aside, [he was] spot-on about Osama bin Laden — 100 percent correct.”[1][2]
Kiriakou identifies O’Neill as the mentor of Ali Soufan, the FBI Arabic translator who would later become the principal FBI interrogator of Abu Zubaydah. “He came up under John O’Neill, exactly. And listen, if you can work under John O’Neill and thrive, then you’re somebody special.”[3][4]
O’Neill is the principal subject of Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower, which Kiriakou calls “a classic book, excellent book.”[1]