# Sandy Berger

> **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: "Sandy Berger," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/sandy-berger/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*National Security Adviser under President Bill Clinton, and a recurring figure in John Kiriakou's account of the Clinton years from three directions, as the official who shut down CIA case officer Bob Baer's mid-1990s plan to assassinate Saddam Hussein and threatened him with a conspiracy charge; as the customer who commissioned the National Intelligence Estimate entitled *Iraq, Saddam's Next 12 Months*, which Kiriakou wrote; and as the man standing in the corridor in Athens when the president was left alone with his notetaker.*

- **Position:** National Security Adviser to President Bill Clinton
- **Bob Baer intervention (per Kiriakou):** Called the CIA after an NSA intercept of Baer's Iraq-assassination planning; "either you pull him back, or he's under arrest for conspiracy"
- **Commissioned:** The National Intelligence Estimate *Iraq: Saddam's Next 12 Months*, written by [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)
- **Also present at:** [Bill Clinton](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bill-clinton)'s Athens meeting with the Greek prime minister

**Sandy Berger** was the National Security Adviser under President [Bill Clinton](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bill-clinton). He appears in [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s account of the period three times over, as the man who stopped an assassination, as the customer for the Iraq estimate Kiriakou wrote, and as a body in the corridor at the moment of the most awkward encounter of Kiriakou's diplomatic career.

## The recall of Bob Baer

Berger was the official who shut down CIA case officer [Bob Baer](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bob-baer)'s mid-1990s plan to assassinate [Saddam Hussein](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/saddam-hussein) from northern Iraq, an episode Kiriakou offers as evidence that *"during the Clinton years they were really, really serious about nobody doing anything illegal."*[1][2]

*"NSA intercepted one of his communications and sent it to Sandy Berger, who was the National Security Adviser. And Sandy Berger called the CIA and said, 'Your guy is going to do an extra-constitutional assassination. Either you pull him back, or he's under arrest for conspiracy.' So they pulled Bob back out of Iraq."*[2][3] Told again years later, the intercept reaches Berger as a report *"that there was a rogue CIA officer who was looking to kill Saddam Hussein"*, and the threatened charge is named: *"The NSC under Berger ordered the CIA to bring Bob home, and they threatened to charge him with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder."*[4]

Kiriakou's reading of the episode is that the officer was doing exactly what he had been instructed to do, and that *"the White House was looking for a fall guy."*[5]

## The 9/11 documents

Discussing how the federal government continues to conceal major facts from the public, Kiriakou notes that Berger later stole and destroyed classified 9/11 documents and never went to prison for it.[6]

## The National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq

Berger was also the customer for one of the most consequential documents [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) ever wrote. National Intelligence Estimates are almost always requested by the president himself; this one was requested by the national security adviser, *"and it was Sandy Berger at the time."* The community had done one the year before, and Berger wanted another, entitled *Iraq: Saddam's Next 12 Months*.[7]

Kiriakou volunteered, *"okay, I'm your guy, I can do it"*, and produced twenty-four or twenty-five pages in a couple of weeks, which he calls fast. The writing was not the hard part. The hard part was getting seventeen other intelligence agencies to agree on every single word: the draft went to all of them, from NSA and DIA down to the Coast Guard and the intelligence offices of the Departments of Energy and Commerce, and the National Intelligence Officer then convened the whole community around a conference table to read the estimate aloud one sentence at a time and take objections.[7][8][9]

## In the room in Athens

Berger recurs in Kiriakou's account of the presidential visit to Greece, where Kiriakou was the notetaker for [Bill Clinton](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bill-clinton)'s meeting with the Greek prime minister. The meeting was held in the presidential suite at the Intercontinental Hotel, taking almost the entire top floor; on the American side it was Clinton, Secretary of State Albright, National Security Adviser Berger, the ambassador and Kiriakou, facing the prime minister, the foreign and defence ministers and a Greek notetaker.[10][11][12]

What Berger did after the meeting is what makes the story. The Greeks filed out with handshakes and bear hugs; Albright and the ambassador walked into the hall together to carry on talking; Clinton and Berger walked out together and held their own conversation. When they finished, Berger crossed to join Albright and the ambassador, leaving Kiriakou standing two and a half feet from the president with nobody else, his job being *"to speak when spoken to."* At that moment the elevator at the end of the hall opened and Hillary and Chelsea Clinton stepped off, about a year after the Monica Lewinsky affair. Clinton looked Kiriakou in the eye and said: *"Let's get the hell out of here."* They walked to the elevator together, the Secret Service fell in behind, and Albright, Berger and the ambassador got in after them.[13][14][15][16][17]

## See also

- [Bob Baer](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bob-baer)
- [Saddam Hussein](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/saddam-hussein)
- [Bill Clinton](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/bill-clinton)
- [Hillary Clinton](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/hillary-clinton)

## Sources

1. CIA Terrorist Hunter on Surviving Assassination & Nailing Al-Qaeda's #3 | John Kiriakou • 250 (2024-11-13), at 2:16:39. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HuyORiWoDM&t=8199s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2024-11-13-julian-dorey-250/
2. CIA Terrorist Hunter on Surviving Assassination & Nailing Al-Qaeda's #3 | John Kiriakou • 250 (2024-11-13), at 2:17:42. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HuyORiWoDM&t=8262s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2024-11-13-julian-dorey-250/
3. CIA Terrorist Hunter on Surviving Assassination & Nailing Al-Qaeda's #3 | John Kiriakou • 250 (2024-11-13), at 2:18:12. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HuyORiWoDM&t=8292s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2024-11-13-julian-dorey-250/
4. John Kiriakou  :  How Rogue Is US Intelligence? (2026-02-09), at 07:56. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdfJ51hKM9E&t=476s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-09-judge-napolitano-judging-john-kiriakou-how-rogue-is-us-intelligence/
5. John Kiriakou  :  How Rogue Is US Intelligence? (2026-02-09), at 08:28. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdfJ51hKM9E&t=508s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-09-judge-napolitano-judging-john-kiriakou-how-rogue-is-us-intelligence/
6. John Kiriakou Part III: 9/11, Israeli Spying, CIA Media Manipulation (2025-09-19), at 11:01. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFhhPsbO9GU&t=661s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-19-harrison-berger/
7. S1E6 A Failure Of Analysis (2025-12-08), at 25:44. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/693491aceab4d846e0e4beb4/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-12-08-dead-drop-s1e6-a-failure-of-analysis/
8. S1E6 A Failure Of Analysis (2025-12-08), at 26:15. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/693491aceab4d846e0e4beb4/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-12-08-dead-drop-s1e6-a-failure-of-analysis/
9. S1E6 A Failure Of Analysis (2025-12-08), at 26:48. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/693491aceab4d846e0e4beb4/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-12-08-dead-drop-s1e6-a-failure-of-analysis/
10. John Kiriakou - CIA Spy Recounts Insane Covert Operations and Assassination Attempts (Part 1) (2023-11-12), at 2:03:03. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1kOwRMd3o8&t=7383s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2023-11-12-dalton-fischer-kiriakou-part-1/
11. John Kiriakou — Reasons Trump and Allies Decided to Attack Iran (2026-05-07), at 38:50. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY64HUAMZcI&t=2330s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-07-secret-intelligence-report-attack-iran/
12. S1E10 Blind Spot (2026-01-12), at 09:01. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6953352e09314afbec31bb83/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-12-dead-drop-s1e10-blind-spot/
13. S1E10 Blind Spot (2026-01-12), at 12:08. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6953352e09314afbec31bb83/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-12-dead-drop-s1e10-blind-spot/
14. S1E10 Blind Spot (2026-01-12), at 12:40. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6953352e09314afbec31bb83/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-12-dead-drop-s1e10-blind-spot/
15. S1E10 Blind Spot (2026-01-12), at 13:47. Recording: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68e695c6d798804c9e4bbd13/e/6953352e09314afbec31bb83/media.mp3 · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-01-12-dead-drop-s1e10-blind-spot/
16. Inside the CIA with John Kiriakou (2026-05-26), at 21:30. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXjcBoplc_c&t=1290s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-26-inside-cia-lizzie-israel-deep-state/
17. Inside the CIA with John Kiriakou (2026-05-26), at 22:00. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXjcBoplc_c&t=1320s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-26-inside-cia-lizzie-israel-deep-state/

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