A viewer asked three questions at once about a New York Times report on a SEAL Team 6 mission in North Korea: how such a story leaks, whether the exposure is a national security risk, and whether Kiriakou would have approved the operation. He called them three great questions and took them in order.[1][2]
Who leaks, and why
On the first, Kiriakou did not hesitate: “Somebody who opposed it and was overruled leaked that story.”[2] Ted Rall agreed at once — “100%” — and Kiriakou moved to the institutional question of where such a person sits.[2]
The rule
“I can tell you from my own experience at the CIA,” he said, “99 times out of 100, the leak came from the Pentagon.”[2]
He gave two structural reasons. The first is volume — in his phrase, “they leak like sieves over there.” The second is scale and process: the department is “so gigantic” and “they don’t polygraph anybody, [so] it’s just impossible to know where the leaks came from.”[3]
The absence of a polygraph program is the operative detail. Kiriakou’s argument is not that Pentagon officials are less loyal than agency officers but that the two organisations have different exposure to detection — and that a leaker who cannot be identified is a leaker who can afford to act on a disagreement.
The damage
On the second question Kiriakou did not defend the disclosure. Asked whether exposing the mission was a national security risk, he answered: “You bet it is. Of course. It exposes methodology.”[3] When Rall observed that Kim Jong-un now knows something he did not know before, Kiriakou confirmed it: “That’s right.”[3]
The position is worth noting because it is not the one his critics attribute to him. Kiriakou, who went to prison in a leak case and argues the Espionage Act is unconstitutional, nonetheless says without qualification that this particular disclosure damaged security and revealed methods.
The operators
The conversation carried on to the unit itself, which Rall asked about in blunt terms. Kiriakou’s answer was that they do make mistakes, and often — “a lot” — and that “a lot of them get killed in the course of the operation.”[4] Rall’s summary, that you want people who are brave and willing but you also want them to come home and not be exposed, drew Kiriakou’s agreement: “Yep. That is right.”[4]