# Prison as temporary duty

> **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: "Prison as temporary duty," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/prison-as-temporary-duty/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The frame John Kiriakou and his wife adopted in the weeks between his sentencing and his surrender: that a thirty-month sentence was to be treated as a long overseas posting. He had spent much of his CIA career deployed for months at a time, once for two years, and says the family handled the separation the way it had handled those. The analogy borrowed a specific piece of agency vocabulary, TDY, the assignment nobody asks you about.*

- **Adopted:** Between sentencing and surrender, stated publicly 30 January 2013
- **Notice given:** Four to six weeks, destination unknown
- **Practical preparations:** Power of attorney, child care arrangements
- **The analogy:** Overseas deployments of many months, once as long as two years
- **Rate of travel:** 25 international trips in the year after the September 11 attacks
- **In his words:** 'We''re treating this like temporary duty overseas'

In the interval between sentencing and surrender, [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) and his wife adopted a frame for the coming thirty months drawn from his [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) career: *"we're treating this like temporary duty overseas. It was not unusual for me to go overseas for many months at a time, sometimes as long as two years at a time."*[1][2]

The practical position at the time was uncertain. He knew only that he would have to report *"sometime in the next four to six weeks,"* and not where: *"I'll have to report to a prison somewhere, I don't know where."* The preparations he lists are administrative rather than emotional, a power of attorney, arrangements for child care, and he describes the whole of it as *"just overwhelming,"* crediting his wife, whom he called *"very strong and very tough and very supportive,"* with holding the household together. He was the father of five.[3][1][4]

The remark was made on 30 January 2013, in the same interview in which he called the nomination of John Brennan to run the CIA *"a terrible choice"*, the sentence had been handed down days earlier and the reporting date was still unset.[5][3]

## What temporary duty meant

The comparison was not casual reach for a metaphor. Temporary duty, TDY in agency usage, described the ordinary rhythm of Kiriakou's working life, especially after September 2001: he says he made *"25 international trips in the one year after the 9/11 attacks."*[6] The postings themselves could be long and unglamorous. He went to Pakistan in that period, and describes travelling the Islamabad–Lahore–Faisalabad road with a domestic officer sent out on temporary duty to help, on a run that ended with the road simply stopping.[7]

The word also carried a second meaning inside the building, and it is the one that gives the prison analogy its edge. TDY was the answer given when a colleague disappeared and the answer was not to be pursued: *"more and more of my colleagues are disappearing by the day. Like, oh, what happened to Jim? Jim went TDY, temporary duty. And you know not to ask where."*[8] Kiriakou has described the same convention operating on his own floor, where a friendly colleague would vanish for a week or two at a time and everyone simply assumed he was TDY *"like we all did"*, until Kiriakou finally asked what the man actually did.[6] An absence of known length, to an undisclosed destination, which the household absorbs without discussion, is precisely the shape of the thing he and his wife agreed to treat the sentence as.

## See also

- [Kiriakou's prison designation](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/kiriakou-prison-designation)
- [Heather Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/heather-kiriakou)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- [FCI Loretto](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/fci-loretto)

## Sources

1. John Brennan a "Terrible Choice to Lead the CIA" (2013-01-30), at 14:35. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE1X4X9Eezc&t=875s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2013-01-30-democracy-now-john-brennan-a-terrible-choice-to-lead-the-ci/
2. aggregator channel — likely re-upload (2015-01-09), at 56:50. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8tUetLWC54&t=3410s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-01-09-terrorpedia-video-center-aggregator-channel-likely-re-upload/
3. John Brennan a "Terrible Choice to Lead the CIA" (2013-01-30), at 14:02. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE1X4X9Eezc&t=842s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2013-01-30-democracy-now-john-brennan-a-terrible-choice-to-lead-the-ci/
4. aggregator channel — likely re-upload (2015-01-09), at 56:18. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8tUetLWC54&t=3378s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2015-01-09-terrorpedia-video-center-aggregator-channel-likely-re-upload/
5. John Brennan a "Terrible Choice to Lead the CIA" (2013-01-30), at 13:01. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE1X4X9Eezc&t=781s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2013-01-30-democracy-now-john-brennan-a-terrible-choice-to-lead-the-ci/
6. We don't need the CIA - The Chris Hedges Report (2022-08-12), at 15:44. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhyQRc1vzkg&t=944s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2022-08-12-the-real-news-network-we-don-t-need-the-cia-the-chris-hedges-report/
7. S1E16 Captured (2026-02-23), at 05:57. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/698a608241bb4de4911a8235/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-23-dead-drop-s1e16-captured/
8. S1E14 Game On (2026-02-09), at 26:57. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/69783ecc9bc4db983b369e0c/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-09-dead-drop-s1e14-game-on/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/prison-as-temporary-duty/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt