MI6, formally the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), is the foreign-intelligence service of the United Kingdom. It is the CIA’s closest liaison partner under the Five Eyes framework — the U.S.–U.K.–Canada–Australia–New Zealand intelligence-sharing arrangement in which the five services have, in John Kiriakou’s words, “literally cart blanche to do anything, to see anything, to go anywhere. We don’t spy on each other."[1]
"We created the CIA”
Kiriakou recounted a conversation with a retired MI6 officer during a series of speaking engagements across the United Kingdom. The MI6 officer told him: “You know, we always loved you guys. In fact, we created the CIA.” Kiriakou’s response: “Oh, I know. I’ve written about it. It was you guys, you know, your station in New York um helped us create the OSS.” President Truman, after World War II, specifically asked MI6 to help set up an American equivalent.[2]
The officer continued: “We always saw you as our little brother and then after the empire fell apart, you became our big brother and then after 9/11, you became strangers because your policy was just simply to kill everybody and that can’t be a policy.”[3]
MI5 vs MI6 vs Scotland Yard — Kiriakou’s worldview shift
While working a case in London against the middleman between Carlos the Jackal and the Greek terrorist group 17 November, Kiriakou reached out to MI6 counterparts. They told him: “We’ll find him, but this is an MI5 issue. You’ll work with MI5. Just let us know what what you find.” Working with MI5 over the course of six months, Kiriakou learned that MI5 does not have arrest powers.[4][5]
He asked his British counterpart for clarification: “I always thought MI6 was the British CIA. MI5 was the British FBI.” The reply: “No, Scotland Yard is the British FBI.” When Kiriakou asked what MI5 was, the answer was: “We are domestic intelligence. We spy on Britons.” Kiriakou said: “I don’t think I like that at all” and “this just turns my worldview on its head.” The British officer’s response: “Yeah, we’re even worse than you guys are.”[6][7]
Envy of MI6’s “lean” structure
Kiriakou says CIA officers used to envy how lean MI6 was by comparison: “At the CIA, we used to say how much we wished we could be like MI6, because MI6 is small and it’s lean, and when they decide to do something, by God, they go out and do it.” MI6 reports directly to the prime minister, while the CIA must clear six layers of bureaucracy — plus agency attorneys — before the president finally signs off on an operation.[8]
He gives a concrete illustration from early in his career: a senior CIA colleague explained that if the agency wanted to mount an operation against Hezbollah, it would take roughly six months to clear the CIA’s approval and budget process, including briefings to congressional oversight committees — whereas “the Brits come up with the same idea. They implement it in a week.”[9][10] In a separate account, a former boss told Kiriakou he admired the British for being able to act on a decision immediately rather than working through the CIA’s layered memo-and-approval process — while his British counterparts told him, in turn, that they envied the CIA’s money: “We all say we wish we had the CIA’s money.”[11][12]
Five Eyes — what the relationship actually means
Per Kiriakou, the Five Eyes relationship is operationally unique: officers from MI6 and the other Five Eyes services sit physically next to CIA and NSA officers at headquarters. The five services share everything and do not spy on one another. No other intelligence-sharing relationship in the world approaches this level of access — including with France, which is a NATO ally and EU member but is treated as a foreign service.[1][13]
MI6’s disappointment (The Inquiry)
John Kiriakou says retired MI6 officers have told him independently how disappointed they were in the United States after 9/11, because “the CIA just started killing everybody” — something MI6 was not doing. He suspects Britain has no equivalent assassination program.[14][15]